The Collector of Dying Breaths Read Free Page A

called his “cabinet of curiosities,” still seemed a magical Ali Baba’s cave of delights, full of collected treasures from his extensive travels. On the bed stand was a miniature jade laughing Buddha, an amethyst geode, Tibetan prayer beads and three antique perfume bottles—two glass with silver overlay, one gold with porcelain inlays. Books were stacked in piles on the floor. African sculptures, snow globes, vintage telescopes and kaleidoscopes, Victorian flower arrangements under glass domes and framed butterflies filled shelves. Prints and photographs covered the walls. Robbie was a dreamer and a scientist. An artist and an explorer. And all those aspects of his life were on display here.
    “Every L’Etoile perfumer since the mid-1700s has died in this house,” he said with great effort. “I like keeping tradition.”
    “Robbie, the doctors are going to figure out what’s wrong and cure it.”
    “Hope so . . . but it doesn’t seem likely . . .” The effort to communicate was draining him, and he paused. “Need to prepare you.”
    She shook her head, all ability to speak suddenly deserting her.
    “Listen.” He reached for her and took her hand. But the effort exhausted him, and for the next few moments they sat in silence. His fingers resting on hers. Hers on his. How cold his skin was!
    Finally he spoke: “You have to go to Melinoe Cypros . . . in Barbizon.”
    Did he know he was repeating himself ?
    “She’s extravagant . . . sad and extreme.” Pause. “All she has, Jac, are her collections. Rooms and rooms of antiques and artifacts she’s spent a lifetime amassing.”
    He stopped again. Took several more of those arduous breaths. Robbie’s heart was so weak that he couldn’t walk across the room anymore. Most of the time he even needed help to sit up. He slept twenty hours a day. Ate nothing. His liver had stopped functioning. His skin was a pale yellow. Once the doctors at the hospital had told him they had run every test there was and still didn’t know what was causing his illness or what to do for him anymore, he’d asked if he could go home. Nurses were hired, and he’d returned to Rue des Saints-Pères.
    Only then had he called Jac. She was on location, filming an episode of her cable TV show, Mythfinders , in Greece. He’d been in the hospital, he said, and missed her. She was instantly on alert and worried, but he lied, assuring her that he was all right. Just wanted to know when she’d be coming. Jac had a little less than three days of shooting left, but she offered to shut down production. No, he’d insisted, she should finish up.
    He sounded tired, but otherwise she had no reason to suspect it was any more serious than he’d explained. It made sense that he’d be anxious for her to come back. They were both unmarried and both currently unattached. Their mother had died years before. Their father had Alzheimer’s and was lost to them. Of course if Robbie was ill, he’d want her there while he recuperated. They were each other’s closest family, each other’s best friend.
    Even with her overactive imagination and tendency to worry, Jac hadn’t guessed that at thirty years of age, her brother, Robbie, had returned home to die.
    “Do you want some ice chips?” she asked. It was what he was living on now—ice and the IV drip that forced nutrients and glucose into his frail body.
    “I need to tell you about Melinoe and the job I started . . .” Robbie began to cough again. It was a long and ruthless bout. When he put a tissue to his mouth, Jac saw a red stain blossom on it like a rose.
    She stood up. “I’m going to get the nurse.”
    He shook his head. Fought the cough to try and speak, but lost.
    Jac stepped next door. Once a guest room in the family mansion, it was now the nurses’ station.
    “He can’t stop coughing,” Jac said in an alarmed voice.
    The nurse went to attend to Robbie.
    Jac didn’t follow. Not yet. She leaned against the wall in the hallway of