Adam's Daughter Part 25

"We could go to my hotel. The Crillon. It's nearby."

For the first time, Kellen felt a small pang of disappointment. She had met his kind before; seduction was a drink or two in an impressive hotel then upstairs for the quick and unimaginative denouement.

"I have a better idea," she said.

They walked toward the river. At the quay, Kellen led Garrett down some stairs to a floating bar anch.o.r.ed near the bridge. It was a simple place, festooned with little white lights. They took a table outdoors.

"This is wonderful," Garret said. "I haven't had dinner. Are you by chance hungry?"

"Yes, a little."

Garrett ordered a bottle of Chablis, bread and oysters, the only food the bar had to offer. The waiter brought a plate of enormous oysters. She tried one. It tasted fresh and salty, like the sea.

"These are fines de claires," Garrett said, smiling. He ate one, closing his eyes in pleasure. "The working man's oyster. Oyster sn.o.bs won't touch them."

Kellen smiled as she watched him devour the food. "You're not a sn.o.b, I take it."

"Absolutely not. I have a real talent for the baser things in life. That's what makes me a good newspaperman." He ate another oyster. "And I have a healthy appet.i.te."

Kellen sipped the Chablis. "Your French is perfect. Where did you learn it?"

"In school and then here. My mother's family had a country place in Normandy. We came here often when I was a boy." He went on to talk sketchily about his family. Kellen had heard of his father, Arthur Richardson. She knew that he had made his large fortune through a chain of tabloid newspapers in Great Britain, the largest being the hugely popular Sun.

"Tell me about yourself," Garrett said as he poured out the last of the wine.

"There's not much to tell," Kellen said cautiously. "I grew up in California. San Francisco."

"I've been there," Garrett said. "A great town."

Kellen told Garrett little, and lied about her father, saying that her parents were dead. She wasn't sure why she did it. She told herself there was no point in complicating what she could see was rapidly moving toward just a brief s.e.xual encounter.

"Why are you in Paris?" he asked.

She laughed. "For excitement. For fun. For romance. All the awful cliches. Isn't that why everyone comes to Paris? I came for..."

Lost words from the past floated to her mind. "'For a life that b.u.ms like a fabulous yellow roman candle exploding like a spider across the stars,'" she said.

Her thoughts drifted to Stephen, then back to the present. The wine was working its way through her body, nicely blurring the edges of reality. On both sides of the river, the city was quiet. The water lapped at the sides of the barge, and every so often the trees on the far bank were illuminated by the lights of pa.s.sing cars.

Garrett's eyes held hers. "This great, burning life, did you find it?" he asked.

"Yes...no. Not yet," she said.

He took her hand and turned it over in his own as if carefully examining each line in her palm. She was aware suddenly of the pressure of his thigh against her own. He slowly brought her palm up to his lips. When he kissed it, she shut her eyes. She knew in that instant that she wanted him more than she had ever wanted any man. It had gone beyond physical attraction into something dark and irresistible.

"It's late," he said. "We'd better go."

"Where?"

"We'll get a taxi. I'll take you home."

She knew he wanted her. She could feel it. She had a sudden feeling that, after tonight, she would never see Garrett Richardson again, and she wanted to prolong the night as long as she could.

"No. Not yet," she said. "Come with me...to a party."

"Where?"

Kellen rose, smiling. "I don't really know. My friend Nathalie only told me to come to the Place Denfert-Rochereau in Montparna.s.se. And to bring champagne and...oh h.e.l.l, a flashlight. Where can we get one?"

"Well, I can take care of the champagne," Garrett said. He had the waiter bring a bottle.

Kellen leaned over and blew out the candle on the table. "Here, hide this in your jacket."

Garrett took the candle and stuck it in his pocket. He was smiling and shaking his head in bewilderment.

Kellen took his hand and pulled him to his feet. "Be brave, Mr. Richardson," she said, smiling. "I promise you that this will be a night you'll never forget."

CHAPTER FORTY.

It was nearly eleven by the time Kellen found Nathalie and her crowd gathered in the dark of the Place Denfert-Rochereau. Garrett watched as Kellen was embraced by the group, a multilingual clique of fas.h.i.+onably dressed young people. The warm night air was filled with wine-fueled laughter and the sweet scent of marijuana.

The troupe followed Nathalie down a dark and deserted side street. Kellen linked her arm through Garrett's and they trailed along. Everyone paused, and two of the men reached down and pried open a manhole cover. There were suppressed giggles as Nathalie admonished everyone to be quiet. Garrett and Kellen watched in astonishment as, one by one, the party members disappeared down the manhole.

Then Nathalie kissed them both on the cheek and descended the iron ladder. Below, in the gloom, Kellen could see the crisscrossing rays of flashlights.

"A party in a b.l.o.o.d.y sewer?" Garrett laughed.

"It's not a sewer," Kellen said. "It's the catacombs. Come on. It'll be fun."

They climbed down the ladder. Below, the air was moist and cool. It was pitch black. Kellen could hear Garrett breathing and reached for him.

"The candle," she said.

He retrieved it and took a match from his jacket. He lit the candle, and his face appeared out of the darkness. They were in a narrow pa.s.sageway. There was an old stone floor and a low, rounded ceiling. Far off, down the pa.s.sageway, Kellen could see the flickering lights and hear the laughter of the others. There was a strange smell in the air, of something timeless and sacred, like the inside of an ancient cathedral.

"Let's find the others," she said.

They went down the pa.s.sageway. Garrett had to bend over slightly to keep from b.u.mping his head. The pa.s.sageway opened into a small, circular room. The other party goers were gathered there, pa.s.sing around bottles of wine. The flashlights made crazy arcs in the dark. Someone lit candles.

The walls of the room were constructed entirely of human skulls and bones. The bones were worn to a finely polished ochre patina and were carefully arranged in precise rows, like some bizarre, artful mosaic.

"What is this place?" Garrett whispered, unable to take his eyes off the walls.

"The catacombs," Kellen said. "In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Paris was being rebuilt, and the cemeteries were in the way. The skeletons were brought here. It's a tourist place now during the day."

"Charming," Garrett said. "And now that we're here what are we supposed to do?"

There was a shriek of laughter.

"Cache-cache!" Nathalie called out, and everyone ran, whooping gleefully down the pa.s.sageways that led off from the room like spokes of a wheel. The sound of laughter and retreating footsteps echoed in the empty room.

Garrett turned to Kellen. "Hide and seek?" he asked.

She nodded. "Would you like some champagne?" she asked, holding up the sweating bottle.

He eased out the cork and took a long drink. "But no games," he said, holding out the bottle to her.

She took a drink. "Then let's take a tour."

They chose a pa.s.sageway. It was another dark and twisting tunnel. Kellen held the candle as they walked.

"You have some strange friends," he said.

"I suppose. But at least they're not boring." She stopped and turned to look at him. "I like exciting people."

"And what, in your mind, makes a person exciting?"

"Oh, I don't know. You just feel it when you're around them. They have a madness to them. A sense of danger and of possibilities. They're willing to go farther and do more. They're open to more experiences. They're fearless."

Garrett stared at her.

"They're filled with life," she said.

"Because they party in cemeteries?"

"No, because they have lives of pa.s.sion."

"It's easy to say that," Garrett said. "And quite another to have the guts to really do it."

It was her turn to stare at him. She turned and walked on slowly. Garrett followed. They came to another room, smaller than the first, with only one wall of bones. It was marked with a stone inscription that noted the year 1804 and the name of the now lost cemetery.

Kellen turned away from the wall and set the candle on a ledge. She stared down one of the three pa.s.sageways that led away toward darkness.

"They say these tunnels run for miles under most of Montparna.s.se," she said softly. "You could get lost in here forever."

Garrett took her by the shoulders, turning her toward him. His face was dim gold in the candlelight. He leaned forward and kissed her. Her arms went up to his neck and, instantly, his kiss became harder. His arms encircled her, and his hands pressed the small of her back, pulling her toward him.

Kellen moved her hands up under his jacket and over his chest and back. She lost all reference to time or place, sensing only being in a floating cool dark void with his body pressed tight against her own and his lips hot and moist on her face and throat.

They stumbled backward and she felt a wall, sharp and cold, against her back. The dark void began to swirl.

He was whispering something, but she couldn't understand. His fingers pulled at the top of her dress and when he kissed her breast, she moaned and wound her fingers through his hair.

There was no thought to what they did. Everything was reduced to an instinctive urgent need.

Suddenly, he pushed her dress up on her thighs. Before she could help him, she heard and felt the ripping of her silk panties giving way. Her fingers fumbled at his belt.

"Oh, G.o.d, hurry," she whispered.

The wall ground into her back as he lifted her onto his hips and entered her brusquely, his lips buried in the hollow of her neck. She felt nothing but him, filling her, and then finally, a release so sweet and complete that she cried out, and tears fell down her face.

The cavern flickered back into her consciousness. The air swirled around them, cool and moist. She opened her eyes to see a shadow of their joined bodies on a far wall. Somewhere far off, like a faint echo, she could hear someone calling her name. Different voices, calling for her, over and over.

Kellen...Kellen. Where are you? Kellen...are you lost?

She felt Garrett's lips soft on her neck, and she clung to him.

For the next week, they didn't leave each other's side. Garrett postponed his return to London, and Kellen called in to work to say she was ill. She stayed with Garrett in his hotel room. Neither of them understood completely what was happening, and they didn't talk about it.

For seven days and nights, they were lost in each other's bodies. They discovered they had an intuitive knowledge of each other's needs and how to fulfill them. They were both aware of a force at work out of their control, that their being together had a strange inevitability.

"I feel like I have known you all my life," Garrett said, "and that I will never, ever really know you at all."

"I know," Kellen said.

On the eighth day, Garrett told her he had to leave, that he had pressing business in London with his father demanded his attention. They had a quiet dinner in a restaurant on the Left Bank.

"I don't know when I can get back to Paris," he said. "As soon as I can."

She didn't say anything. She knew in that moment that she had fallen in love with him. It was crazy. She knew so little about him. And he knew even less about her. She had never told him the truth about her background.

"I'll be here," she said.

The next morning, she saw him off at the airport then returned to her own apartment to change her clothes. She went to the Trib office.

The editor greeted her with a concerned look. "Kellen, where have you been?"

"At home. I told you I was very ill."

"We've been calling for three days, and there's been no answer."

"I'm sorry, I took the phone off the hook." Kellen sat down at her desk and started to go through some papers.

"There's an important message for you," the editor said. "That's why we've been trying to get you." He held out a slip of paper. "This man has been calling every day. He says he has to talk to you. It's an emergency."

Kellen took the note. On it was scribbled Josh's name and office number. She knew he wouldn't call her unless it was truly important. She glanced at the clock. It was midnight in San Francisco. She quickly dialed Josh's home, and he answered immediately.

"Kellen, thank G.o.d," he said. "You got my message."

"Only that it was an emergency. What's wrong, Josh?"

"It's your father." There was a long pause, and the line jumped with static. "He's dying. Kellen, are you still there?"