The Da Vinci Code

CHAPTER 16
Sophie wondered how long it would take Fache to figure out she had not left the building. Seeing 
that Langdon was clearly overwhelmed, Sophie questioned whether she had done the right thing by 
cornering him here in the men's room.
What else was I supposed to do?
She pictured her grandfather's body, naked and spread-eagle on the floor. There was a time when 
he had meant the world to her, yet tonight, Sophie was surprised to feel almost no sadness for the 

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man. Jacques Saunière was a stranger to her now. Their relationship had evaporated in a single 
instant one March night when she was twenty-two. Ten years ago. Sophie had come home a few 
days early from graduate university in England and mistakenly witnessed her grandfather engaged 
in something Sophie was obviously not supposed to see. It was an image she barely could believe 
to this day.
If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes...
Too ashamed and stunned to endure her grandfather's pained attempts to explain, Sophie 
immediately moved out on her own, taking money she had saved, and getting a small flat with 
some roommates. She vowed never to speak to anyone about what she had seen. Her grandfather 
tried desperately to reach her, sending cards and letters, begging Sophie to meet him so he could 
explain. Explain how!? Sophie never responded except once—to forbid him ever to call her or try 
to meet her in public. She was afraid his explanation would be more terrifying than the incident 
itself.
Incredibly, Saunière had never given up on her, and Sophie now possessed a decade's worth of 
correspondence unopened in a dresser drawer. To her grandfather's credit, he had never once 
disobeyed her request and phoned her.
Until this afternoon.
"Sophie?" His voice had sounded startlingly old on her answering machine. "I have abided by your 
wishes for so long... and it pains me to call, but I must speak to you. Something terrible has 
happened."
Standing in the kitchen of her Paris flat, Sophie felt a chill to hear him again after all these years. 
His gentle voice brought back a flood of fond childhood memories.
"Sophie, please listen." He was speaking English to her, as he always did when she was a little girl. 
Practice French at school. Practice English at home. "You cannot be mad forever. Have you not 
read the letters that I've sent all these years? Do you not yet understand?" He paused. "We must 
speak at once. Please grant your grandfather this one wish. Call me at the Louvre. Right away. I 
believe you and I are in grave danger." Sophie stared at the answering machine. Danger? What 
was he talking about?
"Princess..." Her grandfather's voice cracked with an emotion Sophie could not place. "I know I've 
kept things from you, and I know it has cost me your love. But it was for your own safety. Now 
you must know the truth. Please, I must tell you the truth about your family."
Sophie suddenly could hear her own heart. My family? Sophie's parents had died when she was 
only four. Their car went off a bridge into fast-moving water. Her grandmother and younger 
brother had also been in the car, and Sophie's entire family had been erased in an instant. She had a 

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box of newspaper clippings to confirm it.
His words had sent an unexpected surge of longing through her bones. My family! In that fleeting 
instant, Sophie saw images from the dream that had awoken her countless times when she was a 
little girl: My family is alive! They are coming home! But, as in her dream, the pictures evaporated 
into oblivion.
Your family is dead, Sophie. They are not coming home.
"Sophie..." her grandfather said on the machine. "I have been waiting for years to tell you. Waiting 
for the right moment, but now time has run out. Call me at the Louvre. As soon as you get this. I'll 
wait here all night. I fear we both may be in danger. There's so much you need to know."
The message ended.
In the silence, Sophie stood trembling for what felt like minutes. As she considered her 
grandfather's message, only one possibility made sense, and his true intent dawned.
It was bait.
Obviously, her grandfather wanted desperately to see her. He was trying anything. Her disgust for 
the man deepened. Sophie wondered if maybe he had fallen terminally ill and had decided to 
attempt any ploy he could think of to get Sophie to visit him one last time. If so, he had chosen 
wisely.