Paris to Die For

by Maxine Kenneth

Genres: Spy Thrillers

Synopsis

Inspired by an actual letter in the John F. Kennedy Library written by Jackie and revealing her job offer from the newly formed CIA Young Jacqueline Bouvier's first CIA assignment was supposed to be simple: Meet with a high-ranking Russian while he's in Paris and help him defect. But when the Comrade ends up dead, and Jackie-in her black satin peep-toe stiletto heels-barely escapes his killer, it's time to get some assistance. Enter Jacques Rivage, a French photographer and freelance CIA agent who seems too brash and carefree to grapple with spies, though he's all too able to make Jackie's heart skip a beat. Together the two infiltrate 1951 high society in the City of Lights, rubbing shoulders with the likes of the Duchess of Windsor, Audrey Hepburn, and Evelyn Waugh. Jackie, no longer a pampered debutante, draws on her quick intelligence, equestrian skills, and even her Chanel No. 5 atomizer as a weapon to stay alive in the shadowy world of international intrigue-and to keep her date with a certain up-and-coming, young Congressman from Massachusetts . . .

Release date: July 28, 2011

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 368

Sample

“Great fun! Makes you want to buy big sunglasses and fly to Paris.”

—Rita Mae Brown, New York Times bestsellingauthor of the Mrs. Murphy mysteries


“JFK loved Ian Fleming’s creation of James Bond, so this intriguing novel may not be as far-fetched as you think.”

—Kitty Kelley, New York Times bestsellingauthor of Jackie Oh!

“A bold book that makes you rethink one of our most beloved twentieth-century American icons.”

—Mark Medoff, Tony Award-winningplaywright of Children of a Lesser God

“In her last year as an editor, Jacqueline Onassis was actually working on an espionage story that intersected with her own
life at key points. I can imagine her paging through PARIS TO DIE FOR with a wicked smile.”


—William Kuhn, author of Reading Jackie:Her Autobiography in Books

“PARIS TO DIE FOR is a frothy romp through the City of Love with a determined young Jackie Bouvier. It goes down with a tickle,
like a fine champagne.”


—Rebecca Cantrell, award-winningauthor of A Game of Lies

“Jackie. Oh! Like never before. If you like suspense, romance, Paris, and Dior you’ll love this book.”


—Laurie Graff, author of You Have to Kiss aLot of Frogs and The Shiksa Syndrome

“Having known the real Jackie, I can say that she loved adventure—and had a fantastic sense of curiosity—and our imagined
heroine here is likewise enterprising, brave, and fun to follow.”


—Glenn Plaskin, interviewer and author of Katie Up andDown the Hall: The True Story of How One Dog TurnedFive Neighbors into a Family

“Interesting and insightful… explores the early adventures of our thirty-fifth first lady as Jackie struggles to find herself
pre–John F. Kennedy. Leaving behind the privileged life of her wealthy parents to serve her country in clandestine, death-defying
adventures, Jackie never has a dull moment in PARIS TO DIE FOR.”


—Diane Dimond, journalist, author, and columnist

“A ravishing romp through post-war Paris with our most elegant of icons. C’est un livre extraordinaire!”

—Shari Shattuck, author of theCallaway Wilde mysteries

Republic of Balazistan, November 1939

She heard the pop-pop-pop of small-arms fire coming from beyond the palace walls and knew the revolution had begun.


Alert but strangely calm, the girl sat upright in her canopied bed just as the door to her bedroom opened, and Dexter, her
personal bodyguard, stood framed in the doorway. His massive form almost completely eclipsed the hallway behind him. “The
time has come, your Highness,” he said to his young charge.


“Yes, I know.” The girl slipped out of bed, ducked behind a filigreed screen gilded with silvery moons and stars, and began
to put on her traveling clothes. Dexter didn’t need to be told to turn around and give her privacy. He did it routinely as
part of a well-rehearsed and often-repeated practice.


She dressed quickly, slipping on woolen leggings, a cable-knit turtleneck sweater, and a sherpa-lined hooded jacket in a blur,
not even stopping to run a brush through her thick mass of russet curls, one of her few vanities.


“Where are my parents?” she asked as she finished preparing for her journey.

“They are already on their way to the airport. We will meet them in Paris.”

The princess’s mother was of French origin so the royal family would be granted sanctuary there. The girl took one last look
around her room, fixing it in her memory and summoning all the warm emotions this beloved sanctuary encompassed. Then she
composed herself and turned to Dexter.


“I’m ready,” she said. Dexter took note of the moisture glistening in the little princess’s eyes and remarked to himself on
what a brave soul she was at such a tender age.


Dexter led her down the grand staircase and out through the hammered-brass main doors of the palace into the biting cold of
the early-morning air. An old Bugatti touring car, its top up for concealment of its royal passenger and protection against
incoming fire, waited in front of the entrance. Its motor was running, and a khaki-uniformed soldier—not the usual royal chauffeur—sat
behind the wheel. Dexter opened the car door and ushered the princess into the backseat. She was just about to sit down when
she suddenly bolted out of the touring car and headed back up the steps to the main doors.


“Where are you going?” Dexter wanted to know.

“I forgot something,” the princess called back to him.

“There is no time, your Highness.”

“I’ll be right back.” The haughty tone the princess had learned from her mother was very effective, he had to admit.

Dexter watched with a feverish sensation churning in the pit of his stomach as the princess disappeared back into the palace.
The Palace of Shadows, it was called. And with good reason. Even now, with the morning sun glimmering behind the foothills
of the Trans-Asian mountain chain, he had a difficult time seeing across the shadows still blanketing the courtyard. Beyond
the gate, the military revolution was just now getting under way, and he could hear the stutter of machine-gun fire as a counterpoint
to the percussive pop of small arms. It wouldn’t be long before the violence would erupt in full fury, dragging them into a maelstrom from which any escape would be impossible.


He stared at his watch, each second that ticked by sending a fresh twinge of anxiety rippling through him. A distant rumble
that grew into a loud drone drew his eyes skyward, and he watched in alarm as the low-hanging gray clouds parted to reveal
the nose of a plane. A wing emerged next, and the noise steadily mounted to a low roar as the plane drew nearer to the palace.


Dexter was assailed by an ominous feeling. Why was a military plane circling overhead? Had it been hijacked by the rebels?
Was it up to some harm? He glanced again at his watch and shook his head impatiently. What was keeping the princess? They
needed to leave now. Silently, he implored her to hasten back to him like a precious turtledove completing its flight and landing safely at home.


And then, almost as though responding to his prayers, the princess reappeared, clutching to her side the one belonging he
realized that she could not leave behind and had gone back in the palace to get. He could only hope it was worth it as he
urged the driver to head for the airport without a moment to waste.


No sooner had the Bugatti sped through the palace gate than the deafening sound of a volcanic explosion rocketed through the
air and reverberated in their ears. The plane had indeed been hijacked by the rebels, just as Dexter suspected. The palace
symbolized all that the revolutionaries both envied and despised, and they had come on a mission to obliterate it, bombing
it into a wild fountain of fire shooting flames into the sky.


Dexter pasted his hands over the back window, attempting to shut out the hideous sight from the princess’s eyes, but he was too late. The cry she let out expressed a jumble of raw emotions—shock, terror, grief, rage, and the horrified relief
of a survivor who narrowly missed being incinerated alive. Dexter put his arm around her to comfort her, but her sobs soon
subsided and she grew quiet, falling into a reverie that lasted for the remainder of the ride.


The airport was located on the opposite side of the capital from the palace. Dexter told the driver to detour around the town
and take the Ring, the elevated mountain road, instead. Going through town, a maze of narrow streets heavily trafficked even
at this hour, was an obstacle course, at best. But today, there was always the chance that they might encounter an impromptu
barricade thrown up by the rebels to snare some fleeing member of the royal family.


The Bugatti safely entered the gates of the airport and approached the one-story brick building that served as both arrival
and departure terminal. Next to it, a raised wooden platform on stilts acted as the control tower. It looked abandoned, a
lonely wind sock fluttering from its roof.


The Bugatti pulled up in front of the terminal. Dexter noticed that the airfield was bathed in an unnatural orange light.
He looked out and saw a DC-3 engulfed in flames on runway 101. A sudden awareness surfaced inside him with a sick thrust as
he realized who the passengers on that plane had to be. His first instinct was to shield the princess from the sight of the
fiery remains of the plane, obviously the victim of a precision mortar attack, but he did not.


A soldier approached the Bugatti. He saluted and said, “The perimeter’s been re-established. The mortar’s been silenced.”

Dexter nodded in response. He told the princess to duck down, then ordered the driver to make for runway 102, where a second
DC-3 configured for passenger transport was waiting. Miraculously, it was in one piece. The perimeter guard, Dexter surmised, had taken out the rebel mortar squad before it could
destroy the second plane.


Dexter hustled the princess from the touring car to the plane, shielding her body with his and whisking her past the shot-down
DC-3 too quickly for her to wonder who might have been in it.


Once on board the plane, he belted the princess in place, then did the same for himself. He looked down at her to make sure
she was all right. Dexter had been a soldier and a mercenary before joining the royal family’s personal guard and ultimately
becoming the princess’s private bodyguard. He had fought bravely and well in many wars and border skirmishes. But he knew
that what he had to do tonight—the tragic news he had to break to the princess once they arrived in Paris, the terrible truth
he would not be able to hide from her any longer—called for a different type of bravery entirely.


There was no one else on board the plane. The princess was tired and slept for most of the flight. The DC-3, a real workhorse
of the air, put down only twice to refuel. Both times, Dexter unbuckled his seat belt and sat there, hand never straying far
from the .45 he carried in a holster at his waist.


Finally, the plane touched down at its ultimate destination, Le Bourget. Dexter looked out of the window and saw, to his dismay,
that a press contingent was waiting for them on the tarmac, notepads and Speed Graphics at the ready. At first, he thought
he would wait for them to get tired and leave. But he saw that the princess, who had just awakened, was restless. It was probably
best—and safest—to get her to the royal residence outside Paris as soon as possible.


Dexter stepped down from the door of the DC-3, then took hold of the princess and lowered her carefully to the tarmac. The herd of reporters rushed forward. At first the princess cowered in front of them. But then she looked up at Dexter and
grabbed his meaty hand with her tiny one.


“Don’t worry,” he said, “everything is going to be all right.” And the amazing thing was, he believed it, every word.

One photographer on the tarmac that day won the Pulitzer Prize for his picture of the princess. It ran on the cover of Life magazine later in that fateful year of 1939. It shows Her Royal Highness, the eight-year-old Princess Nureen, last surviving
member of the House of Mansour, clutching Dexter with her right hand and in her left holding the possession she went back
into the palace to get—her teddy bear. It is the teddy bear that makes her look so young and vulnerable. But her eyes are
implacable and fierce. And in the aching chasm between these two emotional states, the photographer froze the moment, and
Princess Nureen Mansour entered immortality.


Paris, May 8, 1951

Jacqueline Lee Bouvier wasn’t exactly dressed for discovering a corpse. A black Givenchy evening ensemble was no substitute
for a white lab coat or whatever those people who examined dead bodies were supposed to wear. Nor was she dressed appropriately
for this place—a cramped garret in a rundown apartment building in one of Paris’s less fashionable arrondissements.


Jackie found to her surprise that she could handle stumbling over the dead man on the floor of the garret, even though this
was the very first corpse she had ever encountered.


She could handle it when she saw the obscenely gaping wound in his chest with the blood still dripping down, although the
sight of blood, even in films, usually made her sick.


She could even handle it when she watched as a scrawny rat scurried across the scarred wooden floor and tentatively began
to taste the blood that had pooled beside the corpse’s torso.


What she couldn’t handle was the “dead” man reaching out with his hand to grab her by the ankle.

Jackie jerked her knee up—a knee-jerk reaction if ever there was one—to get away from the apparently not-so-lifeless hand,
trying to stifle the scream that was fast rising up in her throat, and asked herself what she, une fille américaine, was doing here. Born to wealth and privilege, crowned Queen Deb of the Year when she was presented to society at eighteen, schooled at Vassar
and the Sorbonne, and recently graduated from George Washington University with a degree in French literature, how on earth
had she wound up in this improbable apartment, babysitting a corpse?


Why, just twenty-four hours ago, she had been dining with this same dead man, the Russian, Petrov, at Maxim’s. Of course,
he hadn’t been dead at the time.


And just twelve hours before that, she had been cocooned in the plush belly of a four-propeller Lockheed Constellation, curled
up with a good book while flying across the Atlantic from National Airport to Le Bourget in Paris on her way to meet the Russian.


And just twelve hours before that, she had been at a party at her parents’ estate in a suburb of Washington, D.C., where a
chance encounter with a family friend, Allen Dulles, had set these events in motion like a rogue gene or a wayward train barreling
toward an unforeseeable destination. But Jackie was forced to put all thoughts of this surreal chain of circumstances out
of her head as she jumped back several steps to avoid the dead man’s hand.


The Russian convulsed on the floor, and his hand opened spasmodically. Something fell out and floated across the floor to
her. She leaned down to pick it up, mindful to keep a safe distance.


She looked fleetingly at what she had retrieved. It was a single ticket for the opera. She stuffed the ticket in her evening
bag, then looked once more at the Russian. This time, he appeared to be well and truly dead, lifeless as the end of time.
The convulsions had stopped, and he lay still. She could detect no rising and falling of his chest. She knew that she should
do something. Listen for a pulse. Hold a mirror over his mouth and check it for condensation. But somehow, she couldn’t bring
herself to do any of those things. The fey thought nibbled at the edges of her mind that Death might be something contagious,
and if she weren’t careful, she could catch it too.


Incongruously, an old line from Oscar Wilde came to her: “Dying in Paris is a terribly expensive business for a foreigner.”

For the first time, Jackie became aware of her surroundings. She had discovered the corpse almost as soon as she entered the
garret. Now, looking around, she took in the room’s few furnishings. A bed with an iron bedstead and a sagging mattress. A
threadbare Algerian rug on the floor, its rucked-up condition showing that a struggle had definitely taken place here. A wooden
chair and desk, both heavily pockmarked and worn with age. In the two open windows overlooking a cityscape of low rooftops,
twin moth-eaten curtains fluttered in the breeze. From outside, a recording of Edith Piaf singing “La Vie en Rose” wafted
through the steamy air of a Parisian summer night. The poignant music and the sultry night air created an alluring mood. And
if it hadn’t been for the corpse on the floor, Jackie could have seen the romantic possibilities of even such an impoverished
garret. She could imagine Rodolfo and Mimi and their bohemian friends feeling right at home in this seedily seductive attic
setting.


The room was illuminated by a single bare lightbulb set in an uncovered fixture in the low-hanging ceiling. The light from
the lone bulb was dim, but not so dim that she couldn’t see it shining off the tips of a pair of men’s shoes peeking out from
the bottom of the hanging sheet that served as a closet. And when one of those shoes moved ever so slightly, she knew, with
a chill that froze her breath, that she was not alone in the garret.


Suddenly, the shock-induced aplomb that had carried her along like a robot until now shattered, and her numbed senses jangled
alive. Every nerve in Jackie’s body screamed for her feet to make for the exit. But that closet stood between Jackie and the
door leading to the hallway. She was afraid of being seized as soon as she attempted to move past it. There was no other way
out of the garret except through the window. But she was saving that as a last resort.


The only thing left was to stay and defend herself against an almost certain assault. But she wasn’t armed. Dulles hadn’t
allowed for that eventuality. So Jackie looked around the room and inventoried it as quickly as possible. She saw nothing
obvious that she could use as a weapon. No lamp. No heavy ashtray. Even the modest kitchenette looked bare of utensils. Where
was a steak knife or a meat cleaver when you really needed one? Not that she had any expectation she could ever use one to
defend herself. That kind of self-defense had not been part of her finishing-school education.


And then a lightning flash of inspiration struck, divinely, and she realized there was something in her evening bag that she
could use as a weapon. Not for killing certainly, but for causing a distraction. She flicked open the clip on her beaded evening
bag with her French-manicured thumbnail and fumbled around until she found what she was searching for.


With one hand in her bag and the other left free, palms sweating and her heart thumping insanely in her chest, Jackie approached
the sheet-covered closet. It was only a few steps, but it felt like the longest journey of her life. With the warped floorboards
creaking shrilly with each movement of her feet, there was no chance of her sneaking up on whoever was hiding in the closet.
But Jackie came from a long line of storied military heroes—it was well-known among her relatives that twenty-four of her ancestors came over to America from France to fight in the Revolutionary War. As a young girl growing up
in a household with a proud history, she listened in on many fascinating accounts of relatives’ exploits on the battlefield.
And she knew that a good general didn’t wait to be attacked, but always took the attack to the enemy.


Arriving at the closet, Jackie took a deep, deep breath and flung back the sheet. A beefy, sinister-looking man was standing
there inside the empty closet, and it was difficult to judge which of them was more surprised. The man recovered first and
abruptly brought up a wicked-looking knife. It gave off a deadly gleam, even in this dim light.


As the knife began its swift downward plunge toward Jackie’s chest, she grasped the object of her search in her handbag and
held it up in front of him. She dropped her purse so she could squeeze the bulb, and the atomizer jetted a pungent spray of
Chanel No. 5 smack into his face. The man screamed, pawing at his burning eyeballs, and was forced to drop the knife.


Jackie kicked the weapon across the room—it skidded under the bed—and tried to make it to the door. But the man reached out
blindly, caught her by the arm, and flung her back across the cramped room. Fortunately, Jackie landed on the sagging mattress,
and it broke her fall. With no other way out, she knew she had no choice but to go with the dead Russian’s original plan.


She levered herself off the bed, then quick-stepped over to the nearest window and went through it, first one leg over the
sill, then the other, cursing Givenchy for making this season’s skirts so tight. Holding on to the windowsill with both hands,
she felt around below until her feet came in contact with the narrow ledge that, according to the Russian, would be there.
Jackie looked down and saw that it was six dizzying stories to the courtyard below. The Russian said to follow the ledge around the building and escape to the roof of a neighboring building
in the next rue. As forbidding as it looked, she would take this dangerous route to avoid the killer, who looked much too big to follow her
onto the ledge. Before moving any farther, she kicked off her shoes—there was no way she could negotiate this narrow ledge
in black satin peep-toe stiletto heels—and heard them land with a clatter in the courtyard below.


Just then, the ledge beneath her feet crumbled away, and she lost her grip on the windowsill. So much for the Russian’s plan.
Jackie could feel herself falling and closed her eyes, her panic mercifully turning into stoicism. She braced herself, hoping
that the impact wouldn’t hurt too much or make a grisly mess in the courtyard.


Something unexpectedly arrested her fall. She opened her eyes, looked up, and saw that the man, blinking rapidly from the
sting of the perfume spray, was gripping her by her right hand. He had the iron clasp of a catcher in a trapeze act, and it
was this steadfast grip that had saved her life. Jackie’s body swung like a pendulum from her one outstretched arm. But she
was wearing silk evening gloves. Her hand began to slip ever so slowly but inexorably out of its glove, and she knew that
her salvation was only temporary. This is what happens when you’re a slave to fashion, she told herself as she felt her hand
slip even farther.


As she dangled six stories above the courtyard, alone except for a dead body in the room above her and a killer providing
a lifeline just so he could do her in himself, Jacqueline Lee Bouvier asked herself, for God’s sake, how did I get into this mess?

McLean, Virginia, forty eight hours earlier

Jackie came down the elegantly winding staircase, one white-gloved hand on the curved balustrade, to a familiar scene of tasteful
festivity. Her mother and stepfather were having a party at Merrywood, their magnificent forty-six acre estate, to celebrate
her graduation from college. Their baronial mansion was ensconced like a giant mythical bird atop a high, luxuriant bluff
overlooking the Potomac. The entire first floor was crammed with the usual crowd of friends, neighbors, and relatives, all
of whom had known Jackie since her childhood. Everyone greeted her with affection and good wishes for what they were sure
would be a brilliant future, meaning a successful marriage to one of their own.


Jackie thanked them as graciously as possible, wending her way politely but purposefully through the crowd of guests and black-uniformed
butlers weaving in and out like shadows across the deep burgundy carpets. Her goal was the French doors that led to the terrace.
She had some serious thinking to do, and this vantage point over an endless sea of emerald trees was the only place that afforded
the peace and quiet she needed.


Outside, the air was thickly perfumed with the sweet scent coming off the lilac and honeysuckle bushes bordering the terrace.
It was a typical summer night here in Virginia, hot as a furnace, and the air was leaden with humidity. Ordinarily, Jackie loved being home at Merrywood—riding her favorite jumper
horse, Sagebrush, over the sprawling grounds, reading a book by the sun-dappled river, swimming in the pool, playing tennis
or badminton in the enclosed courts, and in the winter, watching the snow fall like a benediction on those great steep hills.
But tonight, she desperately wanted to be somewhere else—far away from the inescapable sound of her mother’s angry voice still
reverberating in her brain after the fight they’d had while getting dressed for the party.


An hour ago, her mother had been sitting at her dressing table applying her makeup when Jackie knocked on the door. “Mummy,
can I come in?”


“Certainly, Jacks, what is it?” her mother asked, peering at her face in the lighted cosmetics mirror as she brushed mascara
onto her eyelashes with brisk upward strokes.


Trying to control the fluttering in her gut, Jackie padded into the room in her slippers and sat down on the bed. “There’s
something I have to tell you. Mummy, I… I…” She faltered, her last ounce of courage leaching out of her just when she needed
it most. God, why was this so hard?

“Come on, Jacks, what is it? We haven’t got all night,” her mother prompted, without turning her head. “You know how long
it takes you to get dressed.”


Ah, good, that verbal nettle was all she needed to get her nerve back up again. “Mummy, I can’t go through with my engagement
to John. I can’t marry him. We have to break up.”


Jackie said it in a rush, and when the words were out, she felt as if a wrecking ball had been lifted off her.

Her mother dropped her mascara brush, leaving a dark brown smear on the glass tabletop, and whirled around, glaring at Jackie
with eyes as menacing as storm clouds. “What do you mean you can’t go through with it? John’s parents are friends of ours. His family is in the Social Register. They’re the Husteds; they’re Old Guard. John is a Yale graduate, and he’s already a stockbroker on Wall Street.” She took
a breath and conceded, “I’m not happy that he’s making only seventeen thousand dollars a year, but he has his whole life ahead
of him. Is that what’s bothering you?”


Jackie shook her head in frustration. Now it was her turn to get angry. “No, that’s not what’s bothering me,” she said through
clenched teeth. “You’re the one who’s obsessed with wealth… the Social Register… the Old Guard. I’m not concerned about what he does for a living or how much money he’s making.” She knew this would get
her mother, so she tossed it at her like a quick javelin thrust. “After all, Daddy is a stockbroker too.”


She watched her mother wince, resentful of how much Jackie idolized her father, drawing the purse strings of her mouth into
a pinched O. “All right then, what is it? What’s so wrong with John Husted that you can’t marry him?”


Jackie thought of what her life would be like if she became Mrs. John G. W. Husted Jr., another name on the society page,
whose days and nights would be bound up in a relentless round of parties, teas, dances, charity balls, and banquets. She would
be walking into a one-way entrance to a lobster trap, lured into a tunnel of netting by a piece of bait—in this case, social
status. She wanted no part of it.


She tried to make her mother understand. “Look, there’s nothing wrong with John. It’s the kind of life I would have as a society
matron. It’s not what I want.”


“What do you want? Do you have any idea?” her mother shouted at her, stung by this repudiation of her highest ambition for herself
and for her daughters.


“I want to become my own person, do something on my own, not just be somebody’s wife. Can’t you understand that?”


A fleeting look of sympathy crossed her mother’s face before it hardened again. “What I understand is that this is a phase
you’re going through. We’ve all gone through it, dreaming big dreams of fame and success, but as women, we have to be realistic,
know our place. And believe me, marriage to a wealthy man who loves you and will take care of you and provide the best for
you and your children is no small accomplishment.”


“But things are changing for women—”

Her mother cut her off impatiently. “