different from everything around it.…”
“Striking, that sparkle. So different, like you say. Not like any other glass I’ve seen. Yet you’re asking the wrong person. Who would know now?”
“Have you heard any legends or stories about this window?”
She paused in thought. “Funny, someone else asked me that.”
Had Pascal been searching for the window’s secret? Rene turned and looked down at her. “Reddish hair, glasses?”
“Your associate?”
Saddened, Rene gave a brief nod. “But what did you tell him?”
“The same as you.” Her expression became bashful. “It’s nothing, but after vespers at night, when I change the altar linens, well …”
“Go on, Evangeline,” he said.
“The light streaming from the star,” she said. “It’s almost as if the star grabs the streetlight from outside. Somehow transfuses, brightens, or magnifies it, sending a sheer white light beam. That’s not explaining it well. But there’s a radiance, a clearness. Power.” She gave another lopsided smile. “Silly, eh?”
Rene stepped down from the chair. Sat and tied his shoes, his mind working. “I think I know what you mean.
THE WORDS PLAYED in Rene’s mind: grabs, transfuses, magnifies. Power. Pascal had found part of the formula for this special glass hidden in the museum’s archives and … what? Tried to replicate it? And couldn’t?
The question rearing up in his mind was why a fourteenth-century document had been hidden in a museum devoted to the pre- and post-industrial revolution. Pascal must have stumbled across the stained-glass window formula either miscataloged or hidden centuries ago in the Archives Nationales, stored during the war. And as Aimee had intimated, found its relevance today.
Rene gunned down rue Saint-Martin heading toward the Archives Nationales. The archives held a place to work in peace and find answers.
AIMEE PARKED HER scooter at the museum’s entrance. Her mind spun. They still hadn’t found Pascal’s laptop or figured out what the diagram meant, or heard what Clodo had witnessed. Let alone identified the murderer.
But the DST was on her tail. She’d promised Meizi protection before she could guarantee it. She hadn’t discovered the time of the raid or any other information Meizi could feed Tso. She shuddered. If Meizi got caught, Rene would never forgive her.
She left another message for Prevost. Why had she ignored his comment that he owed her father and not questioned him? Chinatown had never been her father’s beat.
Yet she’d set wheels in motion—herself connecting with Jean-Luc, Saj working on the encryption, Rene at church. But the DST expected information and she needed to give them something.
AIMEE WORKED OFF two laptops in the vaulted Gothic nave, wishing the faded tapestries didn’t smell their age. She’d spent hours alone in the dark alcove transferring the Musee des Arts et Metiers’ archaic database to the new digital operating system. On the other laptop, she ran a concurrent search for a fourteenth-century document. Fruitlessly.
She backed up a 1695 water pump invention to the digital archive. Hit SAVE. Done.
She pulled her silk scarf tighter against the chill and sighed. Only three more centuries to go. Her boots rested on a smooth paver engraved with Latin, a remnant of the original tenth-century abbey. Norman columns blended into the Gothic priory, evidence of the Parisian habit of building on centuries of history. She was surrounded by history.
And by ghosts.
The creakings and shiftings in the building unnerved her. What sounded like whispers came from the adjoining chapel. The wind? She stifled her unease and focused on her screen. But after several hours, her stiff neck decided for her that the rest would have to wait. Time to go.
Her cell phone vibrated in her pocket.
“Still working, Aimee?” asked Rene.
“Just backed up the seventeenth century,” she said.
“Any luck finding Pascal’s file?”
“Not yet,
“I spent the afternoon at the Archives,” he said, excitement in his voice. “Get this, Aimee. Pascal’s diagram is a map.”
“A map?” Why had Pascal made this so difficult?
Gargoyle-like stone carvings stared down at her, their disembodied faces like masks in the stonework. She rubbed the goosebumps on her arms.
“Long story,” he said. “The map leads through the medieval sewers.”
“They didn’t have sewers then, Rene.”
“Zut, I know. Now it’s the sewer, going right to rue Charlot, rue Meslay, and along rue Beranger, where he lived.”
“No sewers for me.”
Or army of rodents wintering underground. She’d faced enough of those already.
“There’s more,” Rene said. “There is one remaining Templar tower Napolean forgot to destroy. The church’s stained-glass window lies in a direct line from the south end of its old wall.
The wind rattled the scaffolding bars lining the nave. Her mind went back to her conversation with Jean-Luc at the piano bar: Samour’s message to Jean-Luc mentioning an atelier. Another piece fitting in Samour’s damned puzzle.
“Of course, that’s it,” she said. “His work studio, Rene. Where is it?”
“73 rue Charlot. Bring his keys.”
He clicked off before she could ask him if he’d reached Meizi.
All of a sudden there was a high-pitched whine from a distant fuse box. Then the building plunged into darkness. A power outage.
She froze, rigid with fear. She was wrapped in darkness, alone, just as she’d been last night. She recalled the sensation of those huge hands around her neck, the plastic bag over her face, straining to breathe. Had he come back to finish the job? Move, she had to move. Quickly she closed the programs on her laptop, not wanting to linger under the groaning scaffolding lacing the nave. It seemed as if it could topple any minute in this blackness.
Or did she imagine it?
She shuddered. The only light came from the stained-glass window in the chapel. Beautiful and unnerving.
“Monsieur Vardet?” she called out to the security guard. Her voice echoed in the nave. She didn’t like this.
The soft flutter of snow settled like a sigh on the protective plastic sheeting, and again she saw Pascal’s eyes under the snow-dusted plastic. “
“
Thank God.
TEN MINUTES LATER, Aimee stood in the
