something I’ll never know. By now I’m sure she’s married and has several children,” Tris muttered, wanting to change the subject.
Alain’s comment shouldn’t have bothered him, but the fact remained that even though it had been twelve years, those six blank weeks of his life still haunted him.
He heard the horn honking, bringing him back to the present with a jolt. His housekeeper poked her head in the door.
“Do you wish me to tell your father to come in the house to wait?”
“Non merci, Simone. We’ll be right down.”
“Tres bien.”
One last pair of heavy tube socks stuffed into the top pocket of his military pack and he was ready.
“Sounds like your grandfather’s getting impatient. Let’s go.”
“Okay.” Alain put everything back in the pack he’d adopted. The two of them left the bedroom and went down the stairs to the front hall. Alain grabbed his suitcase and went out the front door to put his things in the trunk. Tris followed.
“Enfin!” his father said when he joined them with his pack.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Papa, but Alain and I had some man-to-man business to discuss.”
His father’s blue eyes twinkled as he looked at his grandson. “In that case, I understand.” He shut the lid of the trunk and they all got in the car.
The senior Monbrisson revved the engine before negotiating the steep, winding road that led down to Montreux. In the distance, the shimmering waters of Lac Leman reflected a pale blue. It was a sight Tris loved and never grew tired of.
Too soon they arrived in front of the gare. Tris levered himself from the back seat, then retrieved his pack from the trunk. He leaned inside the passenger window to kiss his nephew. “I’ll phone you every night to see how you’re doing.”
With tear-filled eyes, Alain caught him around the neck. The boy was suffering. Tris could relate.
One minute his brother and sister-in-law had been alive. In the next, they were gone. He still had a hard time believing it, so he could just imagine Alain’s pain knowing he’d never see his parents again.
But Tris recognized that right now his nephew’s greatest problem was the fear his uncle wouldn’t come back again, either.
“When I return, we’ll go camping. How’s that?”
Alain simply nodded.
While they hugged, Tris’s father sent him a silent message that said he would do everything possible to lift Alain’s spirits.
Raising him had become a family affair, yet everyone was aware the boy clung to Tris.
He walked around the other side of the car and kissed his father on the cheek. “Call me if things get bad,” he whispered.
After turning away, he strode swiftly toward the entrance to the train station. Besides his heart being torn having to leave his nephew, old demons had been resurrected by the note Alain had found in the backpack.
Over the years Tris had pretty well learned to control the panicky sensation of not being able to remember that period of his life.
But for no accountable reason, this new evidence of past events with a girl—apparently intimate events which had transpired without his having any knowledge of them—made him uneasy. He could feel one of those damn headaches coming on.
“Alain?”
“Oui, Grand-mere?”
“I’m going out in the garden to finish some weeding. I’d like to get it done before we leave for Lake Como in the morning. Do you want to help me?”
“I’ll be down in a few minutes,” he called to her from the top of the stairs.
“Tres bien.”
The moment his grandmother’s footsteps faded, he rushed into the bedroom which had been his father’s growing up. He always stayed in there on overnight visits.
There was a phone on the bedside table. Alain hurried over to it and picked up the receiver to call Guy, his uncle’s assistant, on his cell phone.
“Bon apres-midi, Alain. What can I do for you?”
“I need your help, but you can’t tell Uncle Tris about it.”
“It will be our secret as long as it’s not illegal, immoral or dangerous.”
“Guy—”
“I’m teasing you. Go on.”
“Okay. I’m trying to help my uncle remember the memories he lost because of his accident. He worries about it sometimes.”
“I know,” Guy murmured. “I can’t say I blame him. It must have been very frightening to wake up in a strange hospital, not recalling anything that happened, and be forced to accept it. I admire him very much for his courage.”
“So do I. That’s why I’ve called you. I found out the name of a person who’d been with him right before he got hit with that hockey stick.”
“Tu blagues?”
“No, I’m not kidding.” He filled Guy in on what he’d discovered in the backpack. “I’d like to talk to her, but I need you to get some information for me first.”
“A shipboard romance, eh? This sounds intriguing. I’ll do what I can.”
“Good. Her name is Rachel Marsden.” He spelled it for him. “I think she’s Canadian or American. Anyway, she must have been a student. The address here says Le Pensionnat du Grand-Chene, Geneve. Do you think you could call the school and find out where she came from?”
“I’m afraid they won’t give me that information without a good reason.”
“You could tell them the truth, that you’re trying to help Uncle Tris recover his memory.”
“That just might work. You know something, Alain? You have your uncle’s shrewd instincts. Hold on while I see what I can find out.”
“Okay.”
Alain sat on the side of the bed and waited. It seemed to take forever until Guy came on the line again. “The secretary said that the student in question was from Concord, New Hampshire, in the U.S.
“I called the information operator and was given her family’s phone number. It’s different from the one on her original application to the school. Do you have a pen?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to give you the country and city codes, too.”
Alain wrote everything down. “Merci, Guy!”
“You’re
