by Cara Black
Two new flics joined her and Noémi on the bench.
More questioning? Aimée had already given a statement, and she distrusted the flics. Didn’t the photo prove the Hand was behind this? Anyone in uniform could be involved. Yet how could she not cooperate? Torn, she hesitated. If there was any chance . . . There had to be someone she could trust.
“We’ve got a unit at your husband’s apartment now,” one officer told Noémi. That was quick. With children involved, they responded in record time. “Another one en route to your mother-in-law—”
“Ex-mother-in-law,” Noémi corrected. “She hates me. She’s the one who convinced Marc, my ex, to sue for custody. His girlfriend’s in league with them.”
Noémi had no idea of the danger Elodie was in. Noémi thought it was her ex who was behind the kidnapping, not a hardened criminal who might kill her baby. Guilty and agitated, Aimée had to make her understand.
“Noémi, listen—”
“Try not to worry,” interrupted the older flic, a weary look on his long face. “Your bébé will be back any time now.”
Easy to say, Aimée thought. To recite a platitudinous reassurance to a distraught mother.
A squawk came from the microphone clipped to the older flic’s shirt collar. Before Aimée could explain her suspicions that this wasn’t a custody kidnapping, that Elodie had not even been the target, he’d stood and beckoned a few of his men.
Good news? Had they found Elodie?
The chlorine smell seeped in from the pool as the flics rushed past.
Noémi clutched Aimée’s sleeve. “How low can he stoop? But why am I surprised? Remember when you came yesterday and I was on the phone with him? More threats.” Noémi gulped. “His viper of a mother calls me unfit. But her son was already having an affair when Elodie was born. I told you.”
She had—a sad saga of a cheater. Her ex was a director at the prestigious Mobilier National, the repository of the French state’s historic furniture and tapestries. The office was not far from Noémi’s studio, which made their breakup even more awkward.
But sad as that story was, Aimée didn’t think it had anything to do with Elodie’s disappearance.
“Noémi, I think it’s a mistake.”
“Bien sûr, it’s a mistake.” Noémi’s hands were shaking. “A big mistake when my lawyer gets on this.” She punched a number on her phone, listened for a moment, then hung up angrily. “Marc’s not answering.”
Aimée tried not to think the worst—but the possibilities roiled in her gut. Concentrate. She had to do anything she could to help. But her thoughts kept spinning and circling back.
“Elodie was wearing Chloé’s hoodie,” Aimée said.
Noémi checked her phone. Hit redial. “Et alors?”
“Say the abductor’s target was a bébé in a red hoodie. Chloé.”
Before Aimée could pull out the photo, Noémi’d laid her hand on Aimée’s. “I know you mean well, Aimée. But Marc’s . . . This is just the kind of thing he’d do.”
Aimée wished it were that simple. But it wasn’t. Her hand trembled under Noémi’s.
Officer Perrine had rejoined them and was listening with sharp interest. “What exactly are you trying to say, Mademoiselle”—the flic consulted his notes—“Leduc.” His eyes flickered in recognition. Her name was mud these days with the flics.
“I think Elodie was abducted by accident,” Aimée said. “I think my daughter was the target.”
“Now, why would you say that?” Officer Perrine asked.
Not knowing which side he was on, she’d play this cautiously. “She was wearing my daughter’s red hoodie.” She pulled out the photo of Chloé in the sandbox. “Look. Someone sent me this at my office. This is a threat.”
He looked at it. Turned it over. “Can I see the envelope it came in?”
“None.”
“Who sent it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You obviously didn’t take it seriously.”
She bit back a retort. The flics had man power and resources at their disposal. Unlike her. Finding Elodie was all that mattered right then.
“Look, I’d stuffed the office mail in my bag, had no chance to read it this morning,” Aimée said. “Then I found this photo. Please, I’m cooperating.”
But Perrine had turned his attention to an officer who was beckoning him. He took Noémi’s arm and escorted her to a huddled group of officers. Their voices echoed off the tiles, but Aimée couldn’t catch anything.
News?
If this baby snatch was intended to get Aimée to cough up an old notebook she didn’t have, how long until the abductor realized they’d bungled the job? Left little Elodie on a bench, tossed her into a dumpster . . . or worse?
The flics were already canvassing the area. Aimée tried to think objectively. Most Parisians regarded the thirteenth, with its rougher parts, as the end of the world. The new library was part of a plan for a revitalized Left Bank, a reclaiming of the rail yards, warehouses, silos, abandoned train tunnels, and hovels. Not that long ago, the arrondissement had been dotted by bidonvilles—shantytowns built from corrugated metal siding, bidon, and old pieces of the defensive wall.
As a little girl, Aimée had seen the smoke spiraling in winter from the hovels. She’d been surprised that people lived in them. She remembered the pounding machinery of the air compressor factory, a dull brick behemoth surrounded by dirty, crumbling stucco. A monster bellowing smoke in the night.
She drummed her damp stockinged feet on the tiles.
Every minute counted. Every second. Bébés attracted attention, non? They cried; they wet their diapers. A liability for a kidnapper. Anyone who kidnapped a baby wouldn’t plan to keep it for long.
But a baby couldn’t identify its abductor. Harming her would be more trouble than it was worth. Wouldn’t it?
Why hadn’t they found Elodie by now?
Noémi, now on the phone, paced back and forth, gesturing and shaking her head. The pool’s chlorine smell was getting to Aimée. In a cubicle, she took off her stockings, dried her damp feet, and slipped on her ballet flats.
Emerging, she noticed another flic, in his late twenties and dressed in plain clothes. The new breed. She approached him.
“Have you worked in this quartier long?” she asked.
“You could say that,” he said. “I’ve patrolled here for eight years.”
He had to be good if he’d graduated that quick to undercover work.
“Does that include Chinatown?” she asked.
“Le Quartier Asiatique,” he corrected. “That’s only a slice of this arrondissement. Roughly thirty percent of the population.”
Thirty percent legally registered. No statistics on the undocumented.
“Why do you ask?”
“What if it’s a hired kidnapping?”
“We’re investigating all possibilities, mademoiselle.”
Translation: keep your mouth shut, and let us do our work. “Look, I’m not sure everyone’s seen this . . .” she said.
The flic took the photo she handed him. Turned it over. “What does this mean?”
“It’s a threat. I think my baby was the target. The kidnapper made a mistake.”
Interested, he pulled out his police notebook—the kind her father had used.
“Who do you think would send you this?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Catch me up here, okay? I presume you showed this to the other officers.”
She nodded. “They weren’t interested.”
“S’il vous plaît.” He gestured for her to sit on the locker room bench. Steam fogged the mirrors and turquoise tiles. “Did you receive this at home?”
“At my office. But this park’s across the river from my apartment. My Chloé goes there al
most every day.”
“Did she go today, this morning?”
“After breakfast, Babette, her nanny, took her. See, she wore the same hoodie that Elodie was wearing when she was kidnapped.”
“About what time?”
She told him. Gave him more details. He took notes and asked questions, taking her seriously.
“And where’s her father?”
“Melac’s ex–brigade criminelle. He’s watching her now. He’s in private security, lives in Brittany but works in Paris once a month.”
“Why would someone threaten you? Can you think of any reason?”
Should she tell him? She hesitated.
“Can you think of a former caregiver, someone in your building with a grudge?” he tried. “Distant family?”
“I’m thinking,” she said, buying time to decide if she trusted him.
“If you’re saying your child was targeted—that this wasn’t a random abduction—did you or your nanny notice anyone watching your baby?”
Hadn’t Morbier warned her? Why hadn’t she paid attention? Could she trust this flic?
Several flics had gathered. Perrine waved the young plainclothes officer over to join him. “Excusez-moi,” the officer said, standing. “We’re doing all we can.”
Of course they were. Maybe they’d find Elodie. And maybe it would be too late.
Guilt and terror clawed at Aimée. Why hadn’t she watched closer? Why hadn’t she been more alert?
She watched as Noémi was led away by the police family liaison. She was useless here. She had to get out there and try to help.
Thursday Afternoon
Vaddey Mang swept the cobblestone cracks in front of her aunt’s handbag shop, dislodging the candy wrappers, damp leaves, and cigarette butts.
Filthy barang, as her auntie would have said, spitting behind the French colonials’ backs. In the old days, her aunt had been a servant in Phnom Penh, until Pol Pot sent them both to the countryside and hunger. But life means change. Now Vaddey helped her aunt sell designer handbag copies, well-made imitations in soft pleather, to students and budget-conscious matrons.
As Vaddey was bending over to pick up a particularly stubborn cigarette butt, a blood-curdling scream came from the narrow passage beside their shop. Then a baby’s cry.
That wife-beater again? Vaddey gripped her broom, her knuckles white with anger. Everyone turned a blind eye. No one wanted the Loo Frères gang on their back.
The screams kept on coming. Passersby with full shopping bags hurried by, eyes down. The mah-jongg players on the café terrace nearby melted away; people disappeared into their buildings. No one wanted to be witnessed witnessing.
Vaddey had come here to escape the violence—the Khmer Rouge soldiers raiding the village stores, stealing all the rice, bayoneting whole families and leaving them in the fields for the flies. But today the shrieking cries brought back the nightmare she had fled.
Her hands trembled on the broom. If she waited, it would be taken care of. There were people who dealt with problems.
The baby’s cries escalated.
The last scream faded into an eerie quiet.
Vaddey couldn’t stop herself. She peeked around the wall in time to see a car peeling away. A young woman was sprawled on the cobbles. Unmoving.
There was a baby in a pool of blood. Its mother’s blood or its own?
Vaddey couldn’t just leave a baby. She couldn’t pretend she hadn’t seen it.
A horn honked. It was Alain with their delivery—he was trying to turn his truck into the alley.
A young man with short-cropped hair and gang tattoos on his neck had appeared at the alley mouth. He waved Alain away, motioned for him to park down the rue Nationale. Vaddey’s insides churned. How could they hide this? But they would.
Back in the shop, her auntie barked, “Keep your eyes to yourself.” She handed Vaddey a tray of Gucci-like wallets. “Special order.”
Vaddey nodded. Another day, she would have obeyed her auntie. But today she stepped behind the stack of packing boxes, pulled out her cell phone, dialed seventeen, and whispered.
Thursday, Early Evening
“Where are you, René?” said Aimée.
“Going over details at the meeting with Xavier and Demy at la Maison des Cinq Sens,” he said. “We signed up for the campaign, remember?”
She’d forgotten with everything that had happened. But at least he was close by. “Stay there. Turn on your police scanner. Elodie’s been kidnapped.”
“What?” She heard something drop in the background.
“They were trying to kidnap Chloé.”
She hung up and took off, running through the narrow streets of Butte-aux-Cailles.
Crunk . . . Static erupted, punctuated by voices, as René fiddled with the police scanner knobs under his Citroën’s dashboard. In the falling dusk, she listened to the scanner from the car at the garden’s edge. Twilight fell on la Maison des Cinq Sens and the wall sundial composed of different plants. She kept glancing at her phone.
She’d given René a quick rundown, shown him the photo.
“Mon Dieu,” he said, frantic, “Chloé’s in danger. You’ve got to send her away. Why not ask Melac to take her to Brittany? Forget your pride.”
She hesitated. “Chloé’s safe at home with Melac. I have to help with the search.”
The last thing the flics wanted her to do.
“When the abductor realizes he’s got the wrong bébé, you think Chloé will be safe?” René’s voice rose. “Look at the photo; they’ve been watching her, won’t stop at anything now.”
She knew that and knew she had to stop them. Melac, ex–brigade criminelle and elite anti-terrorist squad. Right then he was, as Chloé’s father, the only one she trusted.
Melac answered on the first ring.
“Chloé’s fine, eating yogurt, though most of it’s on her face,” he said. “Don’t worry.”
Easy to say. “It’s hard not to,” she said.
“In these situations, you need to wait, Aimée. Not gut-react,” he said in a calm voice. “From experience, believe me, it’s better to give the flics room so when they catch him . . . Alors, it’s a done deal—behind bars for life.”
Finding Elodie right now—that was all that mattered.
“Take a deep breath,” he said. “Keep calm for your friend’s sake, okay? Update me when you know something.”
She hung up, strained to listen to the police frequency.
“René, if I’d opened the mail this morning, we wouldn’t be here.”
“You don’t know that,” said René. “Why would they even think you had the notebook?”
“Someone must have reported that I was asking questions at the morgue; that’s all I can think.”
“Could Éric Besson have mentioned that you were involved in the search?”
“To whom?” She shook her head. “Not to the flics.” Éric knew what was in the notebook—knew not to trust the flics farther than he could spit.
“Besson’s not even paying you. Now he’s fled the country, leaving you with the mess.”
René fiddled with the dials, searching the frequencies.
“We gave statements—an endless waste of time. Babette missed her class.” Aimée’s throat tightened. “I can’t believe I dragged my friend Noémi’s baby into this.”
Static and voices came from the police scanner. So far just back-and-forth as the flics widened the net over the quartier. Her sore ankle didn’t help matters.
And then sirens whined, getting closer.
“They’re crossing Pont de Tolbiac,” said Aimée. “I can tell.” The wind, cutting through the four towers of the bibliothèque, carried sound in a strange way.
René leaned toward the scanner. “Major incident reported off rue Nationale near
Les Olympiades,” he said.
“Who’s responding, René?”
“At this point, who’s not?” he said, a pained look on his face. “Brigade des mineurs reports they’re stuck in traffic . . .”
Her heart jumped. “That’s it.”
Just a kilometer away René pulled into the shadows of Les Olympiades, the seventies-era residential high-rises overlooking the Pagode shopping area on the esplanade between them. Karine had lived in one of these eyesores. The Asian shop fronts and noodle restaurants stood empty; the streets were quiet apart from arriving police cars and emergency vehicles. Deserted. Such a to-do and not a single gawking onlooker.
Aimée looked around for Noémi. Farther down, a knot of first responders and police photographers stood where the small passage, Impasse Bourgoin, hit rue Nationale. Aimée recognized the coroner’s vehicle, the “dead van,” in front of her.
Her pulse skittered.
“What’s happened?” René caught her arm. He recognized the dead van, too, and she felt his grip on her arm tighten. “We’re in the way, Aimée. Leave this to the professionals.” René pulled her arm harder. “Don’t look. Please don’t.”
“Not until I see if the baby’s . . .” Non, non . . .
On rue Nationale, a car pulled up. She saw Noémi getting out. She had to support Noémi, whatever scene awaited her. She was ridden with guilt. How could she ever make this right?
Aimée shook René off and ran, ignoring the driver’s shouts, her throbbing ankle. Her steps halted as she saw the scene in the passage. A maroon web of blood veined the cobble cracks. Dear God. She turned away . . . couldn’t look. Her eyes caught on a face in a window overlooking the narrow impasse. A young Asian woman. She was gone in a flash.
“The public’s not allowed here, mademoiselle.”
“Did . . . did you find a baby?” she gasped.
“Please step back. This is a crime scene.”
A piercing scream echoed off the walls. The flics turned to look, and Aimée stepped between them. “Noémi . . . Noémi . . .”
She saw a woman’s blood-covered body lying on a stretcher. Crime scene techs in white paper suits moved around her. Noémi huddled in the back of an ambulance, clutching a bundle wrapped in a foil shock blanket.
