Sidney Sheldon's Angel of the Dark by Sidney Sheldon, Tilly Bagshawe Page A

neither do you, Mr. Daley. Blog gossip does not a homicide case make. Plus, even if you’re right, and the three killings are all connected…”
    â€œâ€¦which they are. You know they are.”
    â€œâ€¦local French police don’t take kindly to outsiders trampling all over their turf and meddling in their investigations. Especially Americans.”
    Matt threw his arms out wide in a gesture of innocence. “Don’t worry about me.” He grinned. “I’ll charm them into submission.”
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    L ATER THAT AFTERNOON, IN THE DEPARTURES lounge at the Lyon airport, Matt Daley tried out his charm on his wife.
    â€œI’ll be here another week, honey, ten days at most. I’ll bring you back some goodies from Chanel, how about that?’”
    â€œI don’t want goodies !” Raquel snarled. “I want our share of that money! Don’t you realize that every day you’re gone, those fucking charities are spending our cash? I can’t fight this alone, Matt, and I can’t fight it with no money. There’s a lawyers’ meeting on Tuesday in Beverly Hills. I expect you there.”
    â€œBut, honey, this Anjou murder—”
    â€œIs not gonna pay our bills,” snapped Raquel. “I mean it, Matt. Either get home by Tuesday or don’t bother getting home at all.”
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    A CROSS TOWN, AT HOME WITH C ÉLINE, Danny McGuire lay sprawled out on the bed in postcoital bliss.
    â€œHow did it go today?” his wife asked him. “Your meeting, with that American. Your stalker! What did he want in the end?”
    â€œHmm? Oh, nothing.” Reaching out, Danny caressed her breast. “He’s some TV guy, making a documentary about the LAPD. It wasn’t important.”
    It was the first time Danny could ever remember lying to her. The guilt of it lay heavy in his stomach, like lead.
    That night, while Céline McGuire slept, Danny lay awake, thinking of Angela Jakes’s perfect face.

C HAPTER E LEVEN
    M ATT D ALEY STARED OUT OF THE window of Hélène Marceau’s medieval château feeling like he’d strayed into the pages of a fairy tale. It wasn’t just the house. It was the entire town of Eze, a ludicrously picturesque hilltop village less than twenty miles outside Monte Carlo. Walt Disney couldn’t have drawn the place better, with its turrets and steeples, its winding cobblestone streets, its gas lamps and flower boxes and quaint, higgledy-piggledy artisans’ cottages. Matt thought: It’s perfect. A ready-made movie set for Beauty and the Beast.
    Twenty years ago, Hélène Marceau would have made a wonderful Belle. Even now, in her fifties, Didier Anjou’s ex-wife number two was an attractive woman. With her slender figure, fine bone structure and sparkling emerald eyes, Hélène could still turn heads. Of course, everybody in Eze knew the rumors: that Hélène was déformée, down there. But it didn’t seem to have prevented her from landing two more husbands after Didier, both of them wealthy. The furniture in this room alone must be worth six figures.
    â€œI’m sorry I can’t be of more help, Mr. Daley.” Hélène’s English was perfect. “But Didier and I hadn’t had any contact for many years. I read of his death in the newspaper, like everybody else.”
    Matt sighed. Much to Raquel’s fury, he had been in the South of France for nine days now and badly needed a lead. Any lead. He took a sip of his thé au citron. “Did you part on bad terms?”
    â€œDidier left me, Mr. Daley. Just as soon as he’d spent every centime I had to my name.”
    â€œI see. So you did part on bad terms.”
    Hélène smiled. “We divorced, Mr. Daley. It’s fair to say that, at the time, Didier was not at the top of my Christmas-card list. But I’m not a great bearer of grudges. Time passed. I remarried. I was sorry when I