Murder at the Lanterne Rouge

No luck.

Standing in the street, she guided Rene centimeter by centimeter as he edged forward, then reversed.

This would take hours. Cold, her legs numb, she spied a jogger coming down the pavement, his breath puffing.

In this weather?

“Monsieur, mind helping a moment?”

Together, they shoved the camionette’s bumper back a tad. Then again. Every shove gave a centimeter. Aimee caught her breath, perspiring under her coat. She noticed two figures huddled on the corner. She was about to enlist their aid when she did a double take. She recognized that pink wool cap. Her cap. The one Rene borrowed for Meizi last week.

The darkness shrouded the pair of faces, but she could see the man shove the woman and then shake her. Clinking metal echoed off the stone. He’d thrust a bag into her arms.

Meizi?

Aimee’s heart thumped.

Had Rene noticed?

But now they’d gone. Aimee took off, wishing to God her heeled boots would gain traction on the ice. Snow fell faster now, little flurries whipping off the stone walls. She skidded, threw out her arms to break her fall. A sickening feeling seized her in the long moment before she hit the wall.

Jolted, she took a moment to stand up. At the corner she looked both ways. No one. Had she imagined it? But in the yellow streetlight she made out mashed footprints in the piling snow.

It had all happened so fast, she thought, hurrying back to Rene’s car. Did Meizi have another boyfriend? Or was she in trouble?

“Running off, Aimee? But you need to push again,” Rene said, twisting the wheels. Ice chunks spit and frosted her calves.

Two more shoves of the camionette’s bumper and Rene’s Citroen broke free of the logjam.

“Merci, monsieur,” she called after the jogger, who had already headed off into the shadows.

In the passenger seat, Aimee pushed a wet blonde lock from her mouth and hit the heater. She longed for the leather seats to warm up. “Take a right at the corner.”

He paused mid-shift, stepped on the clutch. “Did you see something?”

She hesitated. Should she tell Rene? Reveal that Meizi had been two-timing him and stringing him along? But she didn’t know that. Didn’t even know if that was Meizi. Yet.

“My wool hat you lent Meizi—I think I saw a woman wearing it. Up there.”

Rene ground into first and shot down the street.

For forty minutes they cruised the narrow, winding streets, back and forth, up one end of the quartier, down the other. No woman with Aimee’s cap, no answer from Meizi’s phone.

Rene pulled up on Quai d’Anjou in front of Aimee’s seventeenth-century apartment on Ile Saint-Louis.

Before she opened her door, she asked, “Why would she lie to you about where she lives?”

“I know what you’re thinking, Aimee,” Rene said, his voice tight. “You’re thinking she’s involved. But she’s not. She’s a country girl, innocent. I need to find and protect her.”

Not before Aimee found her. She wondered who needed to be protected from whom.

“But we don’t know what happened, Rene.”

“Caring for a person means trusting her.” Rene turned on the ignition. “You should try it sometime.”

Saturday, 6 A.M.

DAWN, LIKE A silver pencil, outlined Aimee’s mansard bedroom window frame. Light slanted over Melac’s crumpled jeans on the wood floor and glittered off the Manurhin revolver poking from his back pocket.

Aimee felt his warm breath in her ear. His tongue on her neck. His musk scent on her skin.

Delicious. The white feather duvet bunched around her shoulders as she ran her toe along his warm ankle. She grinned to see his eyes were half hooded with sleep.

Trilling came from the phone console on her escritoire. “Room service?” She nibbled his ear. “How thoughtful.”

He shook his head and flicked his tongue over her neck. “Remind me to dump that in the river.”

The phone clicked and went to the answering machine.

“Aimee?” Rene’s voice, as tense as a taut bowstring. “Meizi’s phone’s disconnected. I’ve been out looking for her all night.” Pause. “Call me.”

The red light blinked on her answering machine. Her throat caught. She imagined Rene driving in the ice, the cold. Alone. While here she lay, entwined with Melac in her warm bed.

She reached for Melac’s cell phone on the Louis Quinze bedstand. Melac’s hand shot out to stop her. “Let Rene handle this. It’s our weekend, remember?”

As a Brigade Criminelle inspector in the elite homicide squad, his hours varied according to his cases. He’d come over after his shift the previous night. Tired, she’d hesitated before giving him a brief account over a glass of wine. She figured le Proc would have referred the investigation to the Brigade Criminelle. When she’d asked him why he hadn’t been assigned the case, he shook his head. “Work’s over, we’ll talk later.” He’d pulled her sleeve and they’d ended up under the duvet.

“Rene’s upset, I’m calling him,” she said, sitting up in bed.

“You agreed with me, remember?” He traced his finger over her lips. “Our first weekend in a month.”

“But Rene’s important. And it’s still our weekend,” she said, rolling over.

Melac messaged her neck. “Leave it, Aimee.”

She hesitated, pulled in two directions. But leave Rene stranded? “He sounds frantic.” The cell phone ringing in her hand interrupted her. A number she didn’t know. She showed him the screen.

Melac bolted upright and took his phone from her hand.

“Zut! Some double standard going on here, Melac?”

“Oui?” he said into the phone.

His soon-to-be-ex, Nathalie? She stifled a groan. Or his eleven-year-old daughter, Sandrine? Melac, a devoted part-time father, spent every other weekend in Brittany. This could take forever.

Melac leaned forward, his warm arm slipping away. A chill settled on her skin where it had been. He cleared his throat. “A car in ten minutes?”

Aimee felt a sinking in her stomach. Unfair.

Springing into action, he rose from the bed, grabbed his jeans, and disappeared into her bathroom, all in one motion. She heard running water, his voice on the phone with the taxi company.

Running out. Just like her papa used to do whenever he was called.

He returned a moment later, dressed, looking for his shoes. “Let me guess, you’re going to the boulangerie.” She kept her voice even.

“Sorry.” He sat down on the bed, stroked her cheek with his damp, warm hand.

“No croissants?” Her glow gone, she fluffed the feather pillow.

“I’d like to crawl under the duvet and continue where we left off, but I’m reassigned. I meant to tell you.” His gray-blue eyes were full of his urgency to leave and worry about other things. Things she didn’t know about.

She pulled the sheets around her shoulders. “Don’t tell me. A new posting?”

“A promotion, a new six-month assignment,” he said. “One I can’t talk about.”

“Or you’d have to kill me?”

He smiled. “I signed a confidentiality agreement. Took an oath.” He stood. “Desole. Don’t count on me this weekend.”

The call, his sudden departure … it all happened too fast. She put on her father’s old wool robe, tied the belt. Fear clutched her stomach.

“Were you going to tell me, or just wait until—?”

“Tonight, over dinner and that bottle of Veuve Clicquot in your fridge,” he interrupted. “It’s a step up for me. Think of the bright side.”