“Help me and I’ll help you,” she said. “Look, Prevost, you need my information to look good with the RG, don’t you?”
He cleared his throat. “More like I owed your father. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Owed Papa? “What do you mean?”
But he’d hung up.
Taken up with Prevost’s call, she’d forgotten the footsteps behind her. Stupid not to pay attention. To have her arm weighted down with the heavy Vuitton.
Up ahead, light spilled out of massive portals into the street. Chamber music drifted from a courtyard. A man in a tuxedo escorted a laughing woman, a fox-fur wrap draped over her shoulders, to an approaching taxi. Not far now.
And then she was grabbed from behind. Pulled into a walkway between the buildings. Shoved face-first against the pitted wall. Her gasping scream broken by the force of a body pinning her to the dripping stone. Someone had followed her to finish the job, just as they’d finished Samour. One of the huddled knot of Chinese men she’d run into earlier?
Terror filled her. Broken glass crackled underfoot and a rat scurried away by the garbage bin. Hands clasped her wrists in an iron grip. Big hands. A man’s hands. Her bruised wrist flashed with pain as her arms were bound together with tape.
Then her head was pulled back. Smooth sheet plastic was wrapped over her mouth, her eyes, her face. Pulled tight, smothering her. She couldn’t scream, couldn’t breathe. Frantic, she elbowed back with all her might. Again, into his chest as hard as she could, struggling to suck air. Nothing but her tongue on plastic. Panicked, she bit down hard. Only felt smooth plastic.
She kicked back with her heeled boot. Tightness in her chest, her lungs. Voices, laughter, and she didn’t feel the man anymore. Footsteps … fading away. Groggy, she sank down on jagged glass. Her mind fogged.
She pressed her face on the glass shards, rubbing against a jagged tip, frantic to poke a hole and get air. She felt the sharp point near her nostril. Rubbed harder, the glass cutting her face. A trickle of air. She fought to breathe, her mind slipping away.
MORBIER WIPED THE perspiration from his forehead with a handkerchief in his chief’s overheated office in the
Morbier shifted his legs, wishing the meeting had ended thirty minutes ago. Irritation shone in Loisel’s small, ferret-like eyes. The mole on his left cheek reminded Morbier of a chocolate smudge. For the umpteenth time, he battled the urge to use his handkerchief and wipe the man’s cheek.
“So how do I substantiate allegations of police corruption, Commissaire?” Loisel asked. “Anything old- fashioned, like attending meetings with documentation? Or evidence? Remember those?”
Morbier had obtained illegal phone taps, and telephoto surveillance of the suspect’s contacts. Incriminating, but nothing Loisel could use. Still, it was leverage for Morbier.
“My neck’s on the block and I don’t like it,” Loisel said. “You’ve had free reign until now, but the stratosphere’s changed.”
His predecessor, Langouile, tasked Morbier with investigating rife police department corruption. It touched the top toes, demanding tact. Morbier met resistance and evasion, hit each bend on thin ice. And with nothing he could use legally.
“What about your
Morbier’s top informer had been found in the Seine, in the salvage net at Evry. A good man. On the force for ten years and with access to high-level reports. But Morbier had arrived too late. It sickened him. The man left a wife and two young children.
“They got to him before I did.”
“So you have nothing besides a dead
“Don’t forget I spent time downstairs in Le Depot. A little hard to work when I was a suspect in jail.” Due to circumstantial evidence, there had been accusations that he’d murdered the woman he loved. All engineered at the hands of the top brass he wanted to topple. But he had no concrete proof of that either.
“This would go quicker and without the mess,” Morbier said, shooting Loisel a look, “if you ordered a legal wiretap.”
“I didn’t hear that, Morbier.
Telling him to deal with his issues? That his informer had died for nothing?
Anger rippled inside his chest. That man had dedicated his life to the law, but had it protected him? No, only the big men at the top. Like always.
But Morbier wouldn’t let this go. He had to pierce this cloud of grief, stop drinking every night, move on. His job depended on it. And so did Aimee’s life.
“Give me two men I can trust, Loisel.”
“I need results, Commissaire. Or this investigation shuts down due to lack of evidence.”
Repeating himself, too. Covering his ass. Sweat popped on Morbier’s brow.
Loisel sighed. Sniffed. “Drinking, too. Your memory holding up these days?”
Morbier bunched his fist to knock the smug look off Loisel’s face until he noticed Loisel writing on a scrap of paper. Loisel shoved it across his magistrate’s teak-wood desk.
One name.
Loisel tore it up. A sweep of his ferret-like eyes to the tall window and a quick flick of his pointed finger told Morbier the office was bugged. Ears listened from the
“A full report with developments and proof,” Loisel said, “by this time tomorrow night or your investigation goes away.”
Morbier nodded, trying to get a read on Loisel. But he’d already picked up the phone and gave a dismissive wave.
The name that Loisel had written down had shocked him. But if this man cooperated … No time to delay.
On his way down the worn stairs, Morbier tried Aimee’s number. No answer. Typical.
AIMEE RUBBED HER face against the glass, gnawing to make the tiny slit in the plastic bigger, sucking for air. Air, she needed more air. With her throat dry and her wrists bound, she sawed harder against a sharp sliver of glass, like a knife to her nose. More and more, until the plastic tore open from her nose to her mouth. Gasping for air, she lay facedown in the walkway. Fetid air reeking of garbage, but never so sweet. Her chest heaved. Twisting around, she leaned against the stone wall in the frigid cold. Three minutes later, she had sawed her wrists free and pulled the torn plastic from her face.
Sticky with her own blood, she crawled over the uneven cobbles. Somehow her Vuitton was still there. Her suede leggings were shredded, her coat stained with dirt. She struggled to pull herself up and staggered to the street, looking for help. But the loitering taxi’s door slammed and it pulled away, tires hissing on the wet cobbles.
At least the taxi had scared him away. A minute later and she would’ve been a goner. But she had to get out of here.
Two long blocks away on rue de Turenne, there was still no taxi in sight. She heard the low whoosh of brakes, water splashing from a puddle at the bus stop. But the lighted Number 96 bus took off. She waved and made herself run after it, pounded on the door. By a miracle the driver stopped.
