AIMEE’S HEART POUNDED. STILL shaken, she stood at the eye clinic reception desk in Guy’s private consulting office on rue de Chazelles. The freshly painted, high-ceilinged suite overlooked the old metal foundry in whose courtyard the Statue of Liberty had been forged. Now, the courtyard stood deserted, gray and beaded with rain.
The last evening patient had passed her as she came in. Guy smiled, pushed his glasses onto his forehead and set his stethoscope on the reception counter.
“Doctor Lambert,” his receptionist said as she put on her coat, “I’m sorry but I’m late picking up my daughter from daycare. Do you mind . . . ?”
“Go ahead, Marie,” he said. “I’ll close up.”
Marie smiled at Aimee and left.
“Lock the door,” Aimee told him, “I may have been followed.”
“Kind of jumpy, aren’t you?” Guy said, coming forward and kissing her on both cheeks. Lingering kisses. “I’ve missed you. Geneva was boring without you.” He ruffled her hair.
“Sorry,” she said, inhaling his Vetiver scent. “Perhaps it’s force of habit.”
“But you’ve given all that up, haven’t you?” he said. He put his hands inside her coat, ran his warm fingers down her spine.
“You think I’m overreacting?” she asked. “Just before I came here . . . there was an incident.”
“
She didn’t need him to tell her this again. She hadn’t seen him since he returned from the medical convention in Switzerland and already they were off to a bad start. Maybe she should leave.
He looked at her coat. “What’s this? Blood?”
“I think I need stitches.”
“What’s going on, Aimee?” he asked in alarm. He pulled her into an examining room. “You’re paler than usual.” He took her coat off, rolled up her sweater sleeve. “I’m so stupid . . . tell me about this incident . . . what happened?”
“I thought it was a graze but. . . .”
“Looks deep.”
A black-red slit, the length of a toothpick, oozed below her elbow.
He lifted her onto the cold examining table. The white paper crinkled. “What happened?” Antiseptic smells of alcohol and pine soap wafted over her.
“A man died in my arms. Shot.”
He stared at her, then pulled out disinfectant, surgical tweezers, needle, and thread.
“I should report this,” he said, swabbing her arm with topical anesthetic. “What about your promise to stay out of trouble?”
She gritted her teeth.
With deft movements, he probed, pulled out a sliver of gray metal, and cleaned the wound. “Your leather sleeve protected you, it could have been much worse. What do the police say?”
She tried to ignore the stinging and his question as he sewed her up.
Outside the window, the half-moon hung over the foundry, bathing it in a pearlescent sheen. The glowing orb reflected on the glass roof.
“Guy, you make it sound as if I invited a bullet,” she finally said, pulling back after his last stitch. She shivered, feeling cold.
“Four stitches. I suppose, for you, it’s all in a day’s work,” he said.
“But it’s not like that, Guy,” she said as he taped a bandage to her arm.
“Take this for the pain,” he said, handing her a glass of water and a pill. “Tell me what happened, Aimee. You trust me enough to come here to get stitched up, tell me the rest.”
“I didn’t want to get involved in anything. The Cao Dai say giving back is as good as receiving. I just wanted to help.” She downed the pill with water, took a deep breath and told him how she had tried to “give back” by doing Linh’s errand.
“Then when you deliver this backpack to the nun, you’re finished?” Guy asked.
“I better be,” she said.
His gray eyes softened. She felt his tapered fingers on her neck, his wonderful long fingers.
“If I promise to be good . . .” she said.
“
“Guy . . . no lectures, promise?”
“Lectures? That’s all I’ve had for two weeks,” he said. “I have other ideas in mind.”
“Now that,” she said, pulling him close, “won’t be a problem.”
“You know I missed you. Couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
“You told me. You’re not on call
“At least not for another two hours,” he said. “Even if there were a nuclear attack.”
At least that’s what she thought he said before his lips found hers. And then his fingers were massaging her spine, his breath in her ear. His scent in her hair.
“Now that we’re together,” he said, “I don’t want to let go.”
The paper crinkled under her. She ran her hands through his hair.
The phone rang and Guy kicked the examining room door shut with his left foot.
“Shouldn’t you get that?”
“That’s why I have an answering service.”
“You do this often, doctor?”
“You’re the first,” he said, nibbling her ear.
Her skin tingled and warmth spread all over. She didn’t want his hands to stop exploring.
“I’ve always loved your tattoo,” he said, his breath on her back.
“The Marquesan lizard, the symbol of change, with the sacred tortoise inside?”
He grinned. “Why haven’t we ever done it like this before?”
“Your old office was too small,” she said and she nibbled at the nape of his neck.
He took off his white coat. “Is this better?”
“We’ll have to find out, doctor,” she said, pulling him on top of her.
GUY’S WATCH beeped in her ear. Her eyes opened to the examining room, bathed in the moon’s dim reflection on the stainless steel. His arm shifted under her head and she remembered what they’d been doing. And how wonderful it had been.
“I have to hurry. I have hospital rounds in thirty minutes,” he said, kissing her, then dressing hastily. “Sorry, I hate to leave you. Let me find you more medication before I go.”
She sat up, found her shirt, and stretched.
Her cell phone rang.
“
She heard a crackle and then Linh’s voice. “Aimee, don’t you have something for me?”
The nun’s words brought it all back. The bullets ricocheting, Baret’s lifeless body.
“
She heard Linh gasp. “I can’t talk now. There are men outside. Watching me.”
“You mean . . . Linh, I’m surprised you entrusted me with . . .”
“Keep it safe,” Linh said, her voice agitated. “I can’t come now. We’ll meet tomorrow.”
“Wait a minute—”
But she’d hung up. Aimee hit the call back number. Only a buzz. Probably Linh had called from a public phone.
If people were watching Linh, and they had shot Baret . . . soon they’d be after her. If they weren’t
