We were late getting back to Caudebec.
“I wasn’t anywhere near her when she fell.” Jackie drained her second discounted cocktail in the ship’s lounge. “But I’m getting the willies just thinking about it. I mean, it could have been me.”
Since the commune of Étretat supported no police or emergency medical services of its own, assistance had to be summoned from a town ten miles away. Once the authorities arrived, they swarmed over the cliff, reconstructing the scene and taking statements from witnesses who spoke no French and needed the help of a translator. The more grisly work was left to a handful of medics who braved the hazardous terrain at the foot of the precipice to remove Krystal’s body before the incoming tide washed it away.
“I’m thankful it wasn’t you. When I close my eyes, I can still see her body falling through the air.” I folded my arms close to my body to ward off a chill. “You’re lucky you didn’t see it. I wish I hadn’t. It was horrible.”
She clutched my forearm and drilled me with a terrified look. “You’re not catching my drift, Emily. It really could have been me. It probably would have been if the three of them had been able to keep up with me.”
I paused. “Please tell me you’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting.”
“They want to kill me, Emily. I know they do.”
I hung my head, eyes shut, shoulders slumped. I’d vowed this trip would be different from all the others. No dead bodies. No sleuthing. No lame-brained accusations. Unfortunately, two days into the trip, we were already dealing with a dead body. But there was no evidence suggesting anything suspicious about the death. According to what the gendarmes had told Rob, Krystal had ventured too close to the edge of the cliff, lost her footing, and fallen off—a tragedy they attributed to lack of guard rails on the part of the French and inappropriate footwear on the part of the victim.
Fortifying myself with a deep breath, I looked up. “Okay, Jack, why do the girls want to kill you?”
“Well, duh? I already told you. They don’t like me.”
“No one likes Bernice either, but they’re not lining up to kill her.”
“Yet. You’ve gotta believe me, Em. The minute I saw that cliff, I knew I was a goner.”
I checked both ways to see who was within earshot and lowered my voice to a whisper. “If the girls wanted to kill you, how come Krystal ended up dead?”
“That was an accident. You heard the police report. She wandered too close to the edge in the wrong shoes. You can’t hike in five-inch platform slides. Even I know that. Three-inch maybe. But with five-inch you’re just asking for trouble.”
“So if you suspected they wanted to kill you, why did you go hiking with them? You couldn’t have declined the invitation?”
She shifted her gaze self-consciously. “Uh—It was my suggestion.”
“Your suggestion?”
“Actually, it was Victor’s suggestion. Look, he had a ‘Come to Jesus’ meeting with us this morning before we boarded the bus, and he threatened to fire all four of us if our demeanors didn’t become more reflective of the Mona Michelle corporate image. Translation: get along or else. I guess Virginia had some pretty harsh things to say about the tenor of our conversation last night. She thought the girls were extremely unkind ganging up on me the way they did, so she forced Victor’s hand. I wish you could have seen the look in their eyes when they were being dressed down, Emily.” She looked off into space, cringing with the memory. “It was bone chilling. That’s when I knew I was in trouble. The three of them are so gorgeous, they’ve probably never felt the sting of a rebuke before.”