SOMETHING CHIRPED NEAR AIMEE’S ear. Groggy, she reached out. Warm skin. Crisp sheets. She blinked in the darkness. Now she remembered where she was. And the glow she’d felt afterward. Still felt.
She reached for her cell phone and Etienne’s citrus scent rose from the skin of her hand. Too late. She’d missed the call but there was a voice message. Her Tintin watch said ten o’clock.
She rolled from the bed and tiptoed over the sisal rug, down the long hall, toward the kitchen. They’d never made it in here for dinner.
She was starving and thirsty. Where were her clothes? She found the cat suit in a heap on the floor, her bag and shoes under a chair. She’d check her messages, drink some water. Then get some for Etienne and crawl back in with him.
She couldn’t find a glass in the dim kitchen or drinking water, but did find a bottle of champagne. A nice, frosty Veuve Cliquot. Leaving it on the counter, she searched for glasses. She stumbled through cafe -style louvered swinging doors into a pantry.
The pantry counter was loaded with stacks of dishes, a polished silver coffee set, and an answering machine. She found glasses in a cupboard. Beside her, the machine clicked on without ringing. Odd. But she knew you could bypass ringing if you just wanted to leave a message.
“You’re late, Jules!” said a raspy voice.
She froze.
Jules? Jules Bourdon?
“The cafe off Place Ste-Foy. Bring Figeac’s son. And hurry …Nessim’s with me.”
Click.
Footsteps came from the kitchen. Was Christian here?
“
She was about to answer.
And she went rigid with fear. With a sickening certainty she realized who Etienne’s
She crouched down in the dark pantry and put her finger on the erase button. A quick
She saw Etienne’s rumpled hair silhouetted against the backlit stove, the gleaming of the champagne bottle in his hand.
Had she misunderstood. Was she wrong—all wrong?
Ready to rush into his arms, she saw the barrel of a .357 reflected in the silver surface of the coffee pot.
Through the slats in the shutters, she saw him staring at her bare feet, the gun aimed right at her as he shoved the door open.
She slammed the door closed on his hand. He yelped, the gun flew away, and the champagne bottle clattered to the floor.
She rushed out.
She clubbed him with the champagne. A loud crack and he slid to the floor. She heard a yelp, then he grabbed her ankle. Twisted it. Pulling her off balance and slamming her into the cabinet.
She righted herself and kicked him hard in the head.
Panting, and terrified that Jules would return before she could find Christian, she grabbed dish towels and bound Etienne’s wrists and ankles with them. Then she stood back, wondering how she could have slept with him. But she had.
Another smart relationship choice! She pulled him to the laundry porch by the ankles, shoved him out there, and locked the door.
As she picked up the .357 she wondered if it had killed Jutta and Romain Figeac. She struggled into her PVC cat suit, and in the hallway found a red leather zip-up jacket. She pulled on the jacket, stuck the gun inside her leather backpack, and slipped into her shoes.
Then she went to look for Christian.
The long hallway led to a series of old offices, closed off by glass partitions.
A low moaning came from the fourth one.
She saw a needle in an aluminum kidney-shaped tray and Christian standing beside it. His eyes rolled up in his head and she was just in time to catch him before he fell to the floor.
Just her luck! They’d been giving him dope. Etienne had probably kept Christian here since she’d last seen him, the liar.
Christian was tall and heavy-boned for such a thin person.
“Don’t check out on me, Christian. Move. You have to walk.”
She hooked her arm under his and tried to help him. At the same time, she pulled out her cell phone and dialed 18 for the paramedic-trained
“Keep him walking until we get there.”
She gave them the address.
“We’ll meet you on Boulevard de Sebastopol.”
She prayed Christian could hold out and that they’d make it to the street before Jules came looking for him. She made him walk.
He kept nodding out, his breathing stopping then slowly starting.
On the landing she paused and listened. She took the back stairs just in case. Narrow winding rusty ones. And all the while she kept talking to Christian, making him move his feet, and slapping him awake.
By the time the
“Where am I?” he asked.
“Christian, you’re safe,” she said.
“We’ll stabilize him at the
IN THE cafe’s tarnished wall mirrors, Aimee watched the two men, huddled in conversation. She didn’t know which was Nessim,
Michel’s uncle. She remembered what she and Rene had found out about his laundering of profits and false bankruptcies.
Where was Jules?
Too bad she couldn’t see their mouths well enough to read their lips. The heavyset one, wearing wire-framed glasses and with a tonsure of graying frizzy hair, drew with his finger on the table. The man across from him, completely bald, nodded his head from time to time.
A certain urgency permeated the late evening crowd, mostly
A harried waiter leaned across her table. He whisked aside crumbs, wiped the marble top with a blue cloth.
He cocked his head and disappeared.
Outside, in the narrow street, Aimee saw droplets of water fall on carts parked on the broken pavement. A fitful July rain danced and skirted the facades, teasing Parisians anxious for the arrival of a tepid August that still seemed too far off. Trucks blocked access to the small square.
She surveyed the small Bar Tabac. An Asian man, his cell phone on the table, took orders from a fabric catalog; two shop girls picked at an Auvergnat salad; an older blond hooker she’d seen on Saint Denis ate
