across the bed, fumbling for her cell.
She froze.
At the far end of the bedroom, sitting on the chaise lounge, a little girl with white hair was watching her.
Her eyes were two red embers burning in the night.
“Oh fuck. Get lost, will you?” Eva whispered to the apparition.
It had been awhile since she had last experienced that kind of hallucination. She thought, quite naively, that she had rid herself of them.
She never told the shrink about it. The shrink would not have understood, and it most surely would have jeopardized her job in Homicide.
But there she was. It was happening. Again. The goddamned apparitions would leave her alone for a few months, and then they would return, each time with more clarity.
The little girl with red eyes and white hair broke into a shrieking-screeching even-laugh.
Eva found her phone on the floor, just as it stopped ringing. She picked it up and checked it. Unknown number.
Then she looked at the impossible child again.
“Of course I exist. And you know it very well,” the girl said in a very serious tone.
Then she slid off the seat, took two steps a few inches above the floor, as though gravity was a nonissue, and, for a moment, she was nowhere to be seen. The next moment, she was lying in bed beside Eva, her lips stretched in a mocking grin.
Eva turned her back on her, the phone clenched in her hand.
“You’ve got to admit, the darkness has found you. Everything will start again.”
The phone lit up and started to vibrate in her hand.
“You know very well that everything is about to start again.”
“Fuck you,” Eva grumbled, as she answered her cell. “Hello?”
“Eva? It’s Rudy. An emergency.”
Well, it had to be. If the unit chief himself was calling at six in the morning, two months after their knockdown, drag-out row, something really serious had to be happening.
“I’m listening.”
“We’ve got a homicide. Erwan and Jean-Luc are already on their way.”
Eva lifted herself onto an elbow. Looking around, she found that the ghostly little girl was gone. For now.
“Jean-Luc Deveraux? You expect me to work with that sexist pig again? But anyway, why are you even calling me, Rudy? I’m not on active duty anymore. I’m on… What did you call it? On administrative leave. Remember? You kicked me out of the unit yourself.”
“I never kicked you out, you know that.”
“Not officially,” Eva corrected.
At the other end, Chief Rudy O let out a sigh.
“Falgarde’s death will have no consequences. Internal Affairs closed their investigation just yesterday. An accident, that’s the conclusion. You’re back in the field. I thought you’d be happy.”
“Why me?”
“The victim. You’ve got to see her. I want to know what you think.”
“What happened, Rudy? Who’s the victim?”
“It’s not who she is. It’s what was done to her. Her face was skinned.”
Eva processed the news.
“Okay. What’s the address?”
“22 Rue de Sofia, Nineteenth Arrondissement.”
“I can make it there in less than fifteen minutes.”
“I’m glad we talked again, you know.”
Eva ended the call.
She scanned the room by reflex. The imaginary girl had not come back.
Sometimes Eva wondered what her life would be like without the girl. Or rather, what her life would be like with her. If her sister had not been murdered when she was six.
If she had not had to grow up alone.
That was the past. That was so far away.
She sat on the edge of the bed. In the full-length mirror, she looked at her reflection, the figure of a slender woman, a mane of white hair cascading down her pale shoulders. And the two red flames of her eyes, which pierced the darkness.
So far. And yet so close. Deep in her flesh. Deep in her heart.
She rummaged through the drawer in her nightstand, looking for her pills.
17
The streets of Paris were mostly deserted. Even so, a market was being set up on Avenue de Flandre, and traffic was stuck under the rain in both directions.
Faced with the problem, Eva Svarta chose a simple solution. She swerved into the lane for oncoming cars and drove to the first intersection, getting honks and flashing lights from other drivers all the way. Then she turned left, once-again speeding the wrong way, and took the narrow side street to the police security perimeter.
She brought her Audi to a screeching halt just before hitting the barricade.
As she opened her car door and unfolded her umbrella, an officer ran toward her. Looking furious, he ordered her to move her car right away. She waved her badge.
“Homicide. Inspector Svarta.”
“Oh, sorry, inspector,” the policeman apologized, moving the barrier aside so she could get through.
From behind, she heard a voice calling out, “Wait!” As she spun around, she saw Erwan Leroy, wrapped in a knee-length beige leather coat, stepping out of a Peugeot cruiser parked across the street. He ran toward her, head bowed in the downpour. Moments later, it was Jean-Luc Deveraux’s turn to get out of the passenger seat. He slammed the door moodily.
“Erwan! Glad to see you again,” Eva said.
“I knew you were nostalgic.”
He gave her a big, ambiguous smile. Detective Leroy was barely thirty, a robust man with an angular face and golden slicked-back hair. He was well aware of his good looks and never hesitated to take advantage of them.
“In your dreams, pretty boy,” Eva replied.
She had made the mistake of sleeping with him once, and Leroy took wicked pleasure in reminding her on every possible occasion. To be perfectly honest, Eva had good memories of their lovemaking, of Leroy’s large and muscular body, his gestures both gentle and not-so-gentle just when it was necessary. But that, of course, the young man would never know. She did not want to spoil their working relationship, because on the job she liked Leroy a lot. He was one of the few colleagues who did not make her feel different.
Unlike Deveraux.
He crossed the barrier now, shooting her a half smile. He was slim, with sunken cheeks and, as usual, dressed to the nines.
“Eva, what a surprise. They finally let you out of your coffin?”
“Screw you, Jean-Luc,” she said, with no trace of a smile.
Working with Deveraux was a pain in the ass, plain and simple, and everybody knew it. The last time they’d
