Suspects Read online

  Suspects is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2022 by Danielle Steel

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Delacorte Press and the House colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Hardback ISBN 9781984821676

  Ebook ISBN 9781984821683

  randomhousebooks.com

  Cover design: Derek Walls

  Cover images: © Christie Goodwin/Arcangel (street scene), © Westend61/Getty Images (couple)

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Dedication

  By Danielle Steel

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Pierre de Vaumont looked serious and elegant as he left his Left Bank Parisian apartment on the rue Jacob in the fashionable sixth arrondisement. He hated early morning flights, but took them whenever he had meetings in New York. He would reach New York before noon, which gave him time for a lunch meeting and appointments in the afternoon. He was always booked in the evenings for major social events, important dinner parties, or discreet meetings that sometimes slid into unsavory activities, if dictated by the people he was with. Pierre was versatile, and open to almost anything. Tall, slim, handsome with graying blond hair, he was forty-six years old, and a matchmaker of sorts. He brought people together in order to facilitate unusual deals on a variety of matters. Sometimes even very unlikely endeavors. He knew everyone worth knowing all over Europe and in the Middle East, and his connections now extended into Asia, with Chinese businessmen who had a great deal of money. Almost all his connections were with billionaires. De Vaumont made his living, a very handsome one, on commissions. What he did wasn’t illegal, although he brushed along the edge of the respectable at times. The higher the risk, the more money involved, and the greater the profit. He was planning to meet with several different groups of people in New York. He only intended to stay there for a few days, depending on how successful his meetings were.

  He was involved in fashion on a massive scale, as well as luxury goods, real estate, technology, and oil. He had worked for years meticulously placing himself in crucial positions so he would be able to introduce the right people to each other. And he took a handsome commission for doing so. People sought him out for his connections. He didn’t need to chase them. Not anymore. He had built up his business and his skills over the past twenty years. He was adaptable to all manner of situations and amenable to almost every kind of deal.

  He had started working in Europe and expanded to Asia, since he had grown up in Hong Kong when his father was in the diplomatic corps. He returned to France in his early twenties, after his father’s death. His mother had died when he was in boarding school in England. He had no family or attachments, and no children. His father had left him some money, but not enough to live the way he wanted to, so he existed by his wits. He had always wanted to live well, envied people with a great deal of money, and had expensive taste.

  He spoke fluent Mandarin and Cantonese. Over the past two years he had concluded several very lucrative deals in Russia and spoke Russian as well. His sexual preference was somewhat fluid, and difficult to discern. He was often seen with well-known, very beautiful women, many of them married, and now and then he was in the company of very attractive young men. Whatever the pleasure of his clients was, he was happy to provide it, and had excellent connections for that too. He was a chameleon when he had to be. His reliable sources for difficult-to-obtain information served his clients well. His handsome features and innate elegance contributed to his image, and he didn’t look his age. He liked the title of matchmaker, although he was neither sentimental nor interested in romance in the classic sense. In many ways, he was a most unusual man, and a power broker among the ultrarich. He was indiscriminate and open-minded about who his clients were and how they had made their money.

  Everyone wanted to know Pierre de Vaumont. Anyone who mattered already did, or they at least knew of him. He had the elegance of the French, the unfussy masculinity of the British, and a hint of Italian sex appeal. He would have made a perfect courtier in the court of Louis XVI—he thrived on intrigue.

  He was wearing an impeccably cut dark blue suit made by his tailor in London, as he rode in the back of his Bentley on the way to the airport, driven by the chauffeur he used whenever he needed a driver. When he wished to be more discreet or incognito, he drove himself. He thoroughly enjoyed all the finer things in life.

  When he arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport, two members of the VIP staff were waiting at the curb to spot his Bentley, then two more ground crew rushed out to greet him when his arrival was confirmed. He was well known to the airline of his choice. His luggage was whisked away and checked in immediately. He was then escorted to a private room in the first-class lounge, where a lavish buffet of what he liked to eat was set out just for him. He helped himself to a cup of strong coffee and some fruit, opened his computer, and, after thanking the assembled crew waiting to serve him, disappeared into what he saw on the screen. He would be boarded last, as he preferred, and would settle into his first-class seat, where he would stay for the flight and retreat behind the curtains that gave him privacy. He had flown over a million miles, and his every preference was noted in the airline’s VIP file and communicated to the crew aboard any flight he took.

  He had several meetings scheduled in New York, and would be returning to Paris in a few days or a week at most. It was a long stay for him. Sometimes he flew in and out the same day for one important meeting. He liked closing most of his deals face-to-face, not by email, text, or phone. He was a compelling person, and took full advantage of it to get the results he wanted.

  Pierre de Vaumont had been sitting in his private room in the first-class lounge, drinking his second cup of coffee, when a chauffeur-driven Mercedes had pulled up to the first-class area at the curb. A man got out of the front seat, obviously a bodyguard, and a slim woman in a black hat with a wide brim and dark glasses waited in the back seat. The bodyguard took her passport to the first-class desk and checked her in. The staff at the desk nodded when they saw her name and allowed him to check her in without further questioning. They knew the procedures and had been warned of her arrival ahead of time so there would be no mistakes. She was one of their most valuable clients, even more so than de Vaumont.

  It was the first trip Theodora Morgan had taken in over a year. She was the founder and very successful owner of Theo.com, a well-established internet shopping service that had broken all records of success worldwide. A year before, at thirty-seven, she was one of the most successful businesswomen in the world, and a fashion icon herself, always photographed when she appeared in public, although she kept an intentionally low profile, particularly in the last year. She was also the recent widow of Matthieu Pasquier, who owned more than a dozen of the biggest fashion brands in the world and was the acknowledged multibillionaire mogul of luxury fashion. She and Matthieu had met when she started her fledgling business at twenty-two, fresh out of Harvard. She had started it on a shoestring and rapidly proved the business model’s success. Financial journals and the business press began writing about her. Pasquier had made a point of meeting her. He was twenty-five years older than she, and a ruthless businessman. He had fallen in love with her bold, adventuresome, innovative business plan, and her gentle, determined nature behind it, as well as her youth and beauty. After a rapid courtship, they were married a year later, and remained married for fourteen years. She was his third wife and he had no children, and she had enchanted him even further by giving birth to a son, Axel, ten months after their wedding.

  Her own family history had prepared her for marriage to an older man. Her father was almost twenty years older than her mother, and they had had a stable, loving home, where she had thrived as her parents’ only child. She had often preferred the company of adults while growing up.

  Her parents included her whenever possible. She had a quiet nature and was an outstanding student. Her parents expected academic excellence from her, and encouraged it. Her father greatly admired success in business. He had done all he could to assist her entrepreneurial dreams and help her to make them a reality.

  She had spent more time in college working on her business plans for the future than making friends. Her relationship with a much older man who was considered a genius in luxury retail seemed tailor-made for her. Her parents were reserved and only mildly concerned by her relationship with Matthieu initially, but they were supportive over time.
br />   Theo spoke adequate French when she and Matthieu met. She studied diligently to improve it, until she was fully fluent within a year, for both business and social purposes, which made for a smooth transition when she moved to Paris for him. She had missed New York at first, but Paris rapidly became home and now she preferred it.

  She was a devoted mother, often working from home, brilliant at her own business, which she never merged with her husband’s empire, despite his entreaties. She remained independent professionally, while still being a loving wife to him and mother to their only child. She adored their son Axel, who was the joy of her life. And her business was her passion. Her husband Matthieu had been her mentor and best friend, and the marriage solid. Although strikingly beautiful, she had never looked at another man.

  It had all ended brutally a year earlier when Matthieu was kidnapped with their son at their country château, while Theo was in the city working.

  Both Matthieu and Theo occasionally worked later than planned on Friday nights, in which case whichever parent was free would drive Axel to their château near Paris, and the other would arrive later. Matthieu preferred having just the three of them on the weekends, without staff underfoot. Theo liked that too. They were both surrounded by employees all week and it was a relief to lead a simple life on Friday nights and Saturdays and Sundays, and to fend for themselves. Sometimes Axel brought a friend, but he hadn’t then. They valued their privacy and family time, in contrast to the business pressures they dealt with during the week.

  Theo had had a late meeting she couldn’t escape on that fateful Friday, and Matthieu had driven to the château with Axel toward the end of the afternoon. By the time Theo arrived shortly after eight that night, they were both gone. She found one of Axel’s running shoes on the front steps. The front door had been open. There were signs of a struggle, and with her heart pounding in terror, she called the police. Once they surveyed the scene they in turn called the DGSI, the Direction générale de la sécurité intérieure, the French equivalent of the FBI. After further investigation, when an empty pack of Russian cigarettes was found on the grounds, the case was then turned over to the DGSE, the French CIA, the Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure. The strong suspicion then was that the kidnappers were foreign.

  * * *

  —

  The empty pack of Russian cigarettes had been found in a secluded area where the kidnappers had presumably lain in wait for Axel and Matthieu. Once negotiations began, a translator had to be brought in to facilitate communications with the kidnappers, who proved to be Russian. The DGSE had remained on the case, since the criminals involved came from another country and foreign informants had been used to try to discover who they were. The informants had not been able to provide conclusive information as to who had ordered the abduction, the DGSE had strong suspicions but no solid evidence, and the Russian authorities could supply no factual corroboration of their theories. Not enough to make an arrest. The thugs who had kidnapped Axel and Matthieu had vanished afterwards.

  Father and son had been kidnapped by six men who were seen wearing face masks and hoods driving away from the scene in a truck with a chase car, as observed by a neighboring farmer. There was no sign of Matthieu and Axel in either vehicle. Both the truck and car were found abandoned in a nearby village. They were stolen vehicles.

  Negotiations for ransom of a hundred million euros began the next day. It was clumsily handled by police who were trying to stall the kidnappers so the various authorities could discover their identities, but they failed to do so. The authorities delayed payment while frantically trying to find where father and son were being held. Theo begged the police to allow her to pay the ransom, which she could have done through her own business and Matthieu’s, and they finally allowed her to make a half payment of fifty million, hoping to buy time to find Matthieu, Axel, and the kidnappers in the area. The half payment enraged the kidnappers and caused them to panic. During the negotiations, they proved to be nervous, erratic, and unprofessional, arguing among themselves and with the police. The negotiations went on for seventeen agonizing days, the longest in Theo’s life.

  The police informed her that most kidnappings were handled in a businesslike way and were all about obtaining money for some political or personal motive, and the victims were rapidly returned when the ransom was delivered. But given the kidnappers’ lack of professionalism, the police convinced Theo that she would jeopardize Matthieu’s and Axel’s lives if she stepped in with the full ransom. She trusted the authorities and later wished she hadn’t. There were too many agencies involved and too many opinions. The police delivered half the ransom money, fifty million euro, to the kidnappers in a remote location, as a further stalling tactic, while gathering more information. The kidnappers panicked, killed the two policemen who delivered it, took the money and ran. Before they left the area, they killed Matthieu and Axel, and buried them in a mound of fresh dirt in a wooded area a few miles from the château, to be sure that they’d be found. The police were able to deduce from the bullet wounds, the threads of Axel’s clothing on his father’s, time of death, that Axel had been shot and killed in his father’s arms, Matthieu a short time later. After they were killed, they were found fairly quickly, as were the two dead policemen at the location of the drop. Theo remembered the days afterwards as a blur of grief and despair. She had gone into seclusion for a year, running her business from home, seeing no one except the CEOs of both companies, hers and Matthieu’s. She was trying to decide whether or not to sell everything. Nothing had any meaning for her after she lost her husband and son.

  The ransom money had turned up nowhere in Europe for the past year. The DGSE had no more evidence than they did the day that Matthieu and Axel died. They had suspicions but no hard facts, and the marked bills of the ransom money had disappeared. Despite appearing to behave like amateurs, the kidnappers had gotten away with committing a seemingly perfect crime. And Theo was left to live with the heartbreaking results.

  She hadn’t left her Paris home in months, and her CEO, Jacques Ferrier, had finally convinced her to come back to work to solve some problems that no one else could handle as effectively. She had reluctantly agreed, and was surprised that working grounded her. It was something she knew and was good at—problem solving at Theo.com and at Matthieu’s company came naturally to her. It distracted her from thinking about her devastating losses, at least for the hours she was in the office. After that she had to go home to her empty apartment and face the ghosts there.

  Her CEO’s intention in bringing her back to work was his way of getting her back in the human race. He directed her attention to the pop-up stores they were setting up in Dallas, L.A., and New York. Organizing the installations was a lot of work, but they had proved to be a highly efficient tool to attract new customers and increase sales and brand recognition globally. Theo had a magic touch with them. Even not at her best, her creative ideas were infallible, and a year after the tragedy, she was slowly returning to herself and hard at work setting up the opening of the three upcoming concept stores in the States. She was going to travel herself to oversee the openings and execution of her designs for the three temporary stores. They were expensive to create, but it was always worth it.

  Although she was American, and had grown up in New York, she had lived in France for almost half her life now, and she combined both a European and an American perspective. She had shifted her thriving operation from New York to Paris when she married Matthieu. This also gave her access to his much bigger organization, and it had worked well. Matthieu had given her office space in a building he owned, and warehouse facilities, but she had never given him a share in her business, which amused him. He had liked to brag about how tough she was in business, and how smart. Her father had been an investment banker who had advised her well about the principles of good business and entrepreneurship. She’d been an economics major at Harvard, and graduated magna cum laude. She had planned to go on to business school, but had started her business first and it took off at an astounding rate. She had a natural head for business, despite a gentle demeanor and feminine style that fooled people, particularly European men, into thinking they could take advantage of her. Matthieu knew better and had enjoyed watching her operate with an iron hand. He had often asked her advice about his major luxury fashion brands, and the counsel she gave him was always excellent. She had exquisite taste and a definite style, and their marriage had been based on mutual admiration and respect.