Даниэла Стил: All That Glitters

“Yes, this is she,” she said, holding her breath as Sam stared at her, willing it to be good news. It had to be. They couldn’t have been victims of a terrorist attack in France. It just wasn’t possible and didn’t make sense.

The man identified himself as a captain of the gendarmerie in Cannes. He explained that there had been a terrorist attack.

“Yes, I know,” she said, wanting to scream. “Are my parents all right?” It suddenly occurred to her that they could be injured and in a hospital there. All night she had been terrified that they were dead. There was a brief pause before he responded, sounding grave.

“I regret very much to inform you, madame, they were among the victims of last night’s attack. They were on the Croisette when the first bomb detonated.”

“Are they injured? How bad is it?” she asked in a whisper, as Sam squeezed her hand and she closed her eyes while everything swirled around her and she waited to hear what the captain would say.

“They did not survive,” he said somberly. Her eyes flew open and she looked at Sam in disbelief.

“Both of them?”

“Yes, madame. Both Monsieur and Madame Martin were killed. There will be formalities. If you will contact the American embassy in Paris, they will assist you. We are very, very sorry for this terrible act. It is a great tragedy. So many victims. Our sincere sympathy,” he said. “The people of France cry with you.” She nodded and couldn’t speak for a moment, as he gave her a number to call, to make arrangements for the victims. The captain sounded choked himself. He had been working all through the night, and now had the grim task of notifying relatives and loved ones. Many of the victims couldn’t be identified. There were human fragments all over the Croisette.

She ended the call and stared at Sam, unable to believe what the captain had told her. From the look on her face, Sam didn’t dare ask her what had happened. He could see it. He put his arms around her, and she shuddered against his chest, with deep wracking sobs. This couldn’t have happened, but it had. She tried to catch her breath to tell him.

“Both of them,” she said with gulping sobs. He had already guessed that when she asked the captain, and then had no further questions. “What do I do now? How do I live without them?” Sam didn’t know what to do for her, other than hold her.

“Do you have to go and get them?” he asked gently, and she looked totally lost. Her green eyes were emerald pools of pain.

“I don’t know. He said the embassy would help me.” Sam wondered if his father would lend him the money to go with her if she had to go to France. He couldn’t let her face it alone. They walked into the kitchen, and he handed her a glass of water, which seemed like such a useless gesture, but he didn’t know what else to do. He felt helpless and heartbroken for her. Her parents were such great people. She took a sip and set it down. She couldn’t focus on anything except what she had just heard. Both her parents had been killed. It was what she had been so desperately afraid of all night.

She sent an email to her boss at Time, explaining what had happened and that she could not come in and would contact them when she knew more.

She and Sam spent the next two hours sitting at the kitchen table, talking, and then Sam called the embassy in Paris for her, and they gave him a number to call in Cannes. It was an emergency number that had been set up for the families of the victims, for information, and directions about where the bodies were being taken. Not all of them had been removed yet. He handed Coco the phone when he got through. The woman who answered consulted a list and told Coco that her parents were at a military base, and the American embassy in Paris would be able to give her the correct forms for their release, in order to transport them to the United States. It sounded like there was going to be considerable red tape, but they were well organized. They had had too much practice with events like this in recent years.

Coco called the American embassy in Paris again after that. They extended their condolences immediately, and said they would email the forms she would have to fill out and have notarized to give her clearance to transport her parents back to the States. They warned her that it could take several days or even a week. They said they would call the victims’ survivor number and see if they could expedite it. She felt lost again as she listened. It was a maze of words and formalities that meant nothing now without her parents. She couldn’t imagine anything that would matter to her again, or her life without them.

Sam called the hotel for her, and spoke to the manager to explain what had happened, and asked them to safeguard the Martins’ belongings until someone could claim them.

“Of course. Please extend our deepest sympathy to Miss Martin and the family,” the manager said. But there was no family now. Only Coco.

Sam then called his father from the den, and explained the situation in hushed tones. He said he might want to borrow the money for a ticket to France. They had never fully approved of their friendship, although they’d gotten used to it in twelve years, but this was a special case that transcended all else and his father said he’d give him whatever he needed to help Coco. He felt terrible for her when Sam told him the news. Sam thanked him and hung up, and went back to Coco in the kitchen. They sat quietly together then, as though waiting for something to happen, but it already had. The rest was all irrelevant details. She would have to arrange a funeral for her parents, but she didn’t want to do that until they sent their bodies back from France, and she didn’t know what would happen, or even how to bring them back.

At ten o’clock, her father’s somewhat flamboyant, very social partner, Edward Easton, called her. She knew from her father that Ed was her trustee in the event of his death, which always seemed unlikely. Ed explained in a serious voice that he was also the executor of her father’s estate. She wasn’t sure what that would be like, but it didn’t matter. Ed told her how desperately shocked and sorry he was, and what a loss it was for him as well.

As quiet and discreet as her father was, Ed was the exact opposite, always center stage and very much in evidence. He was handsome, successful, social, one of the stars of Wall Street, as her father was, but the two men were completely different, and were business partners and friends. Ed was married to an important heiress, who was a billionaire in her own right, and together they made a big splash wherever they went. He was constantly on Page Six, the gossip column of the New York Post, and sometimes spotted with other women. Tom hadn’t liked the flashy way Ed lived, but he had great respect for him in business, and always said he was an honest man. He trusted him implicitly. They had made a fortune together and Tom had wanted him to handle his estate for Coco and Bethanie. He knew Ed would be responsible doing so. It had never occurred to him that his wife would die with him, at the same time. He’d always assumed she would outlive him.

“I can’t tell you how devastated I am,” Ed said to Coco on the phone, and he sounded it. It was a shock for everyone who knew them. Tom and Bethanie were forty-six years old, much too young to die. “I’ll do whatever needs to be done to get them home,” he reassured her. “I have a call in to the American ambassador. We both belong to the Racquet Club and I’ve met him a few times. I’m sure he’ll do everything he can to help us.” Tom Martin had been a very important man in the world of high finance and was greatly respected by all.

Eleven Americans had been killed in the attack, and several others injured. It was high season, July, when the South of France was full of tourists from every country. The victims had mostly been French, but many weren’t. According to CNN, the casualties included a Saudi prince and both his wives, twenty members of the Qatari royal family, several Scandinavians, the Spanish Minister of the Interior, numerous Germans and British subjects, and a tour group of Japanese schoolchildren. Dozens of French citizens were dead and hundreds injured. The death toll had risen to a hundred and sixty-four, and two hundred and eighty-seven people injured.