by Cara Black
Melac set down the diaper. “How’s little Elodie?”
Aimée’s shoulders drooped with fatigue. “She’s home. Safe.”
“Nine times out of ten, it’s the family, but . . .”
“I know, and you know, that’s not the case. Chloé’s in danger. I’m making a plan—”
“I’ve got a plan, Aimée.” He sat down and leaned close. Took her hand. His musky lime vetiver scent clung to her skin. “She’s my daughter, too.”
Tired, so tired. Dandin had been a dead end. Like the man himself. And she’d put herself in danger.
“You look worn out,” Melac said.
What did Melac have up his sleeve? He’d joined a private security firm. His year off after the death of his older daughter hadn’t diminished the demand for his skills.
Maybe it would be safest to go into full flight mode. Bundle up Chloé and walk out the door with what was on their backs. Escape like Besson. Work remotely. René would help; she’d manage her business. Somehow.
Her eye went to her coatrack, the secondhand Hermès carryall, Chloé’s pile of diapers. She’d only have to slip the passports and laptop into her bag, grab Chloé, leave Miles Davis with her concierge, and call a taxi. Decide the destination en route.
Melac followed her gaze and read her thoughts. “Get real, Aimée,” he said. “You’re not thinking of trying to run, are you?”
“It crossed my mind.”
“Listen to me. Let me take Chloé to Brittany. Donatine’s working in Lille this month, but I’ll manage.”
Melac lived in Brittany on a farm with his wife. Wife—why did Aimée always have a hard time saying that in her mind? His wife lived completely organically, spun wool from their own sheep, and couldn’t conceive. She was desperate to have a baby—or custody of Chloé.
“Well, wherever your wife is working, it feels awkward.”
“Why?” Melac took her arm. “You’re in danger. I know you’ll do anything to keep Chloé safe.”
True. Suddenly, Miles Davis growled. His tail stuck up straight as an arrow, and he ran barking to the door.
The hair rose on the back of her neck.
“Melac, open the spoon drawer.”
“Spoon drawer?”
“My Beretta’s in there.”
“You won’t need your Beretta,” Melac said. “It’s not what you think.”
“And what would I think? Alors, I’ve had enough surprises tonight.”
The door swung open, and a woman appeared, swathed in black and slender, with shoulder-grazing white-blonde hair, designer tortoiseshell glasses. A sophisticated Parisian grandmother wearing a hint of muguet scent.
And carmine-red lipstick.
For a moment, the salon faded and Aimée was a little girl at the mansard window, staring down at the quai, hoping to see her—just once. The hurt had never gone away.
Light-headed, Aimée couldn’t believe the woman who’d abandoned her when she was eight years old stood in her apartment. Her American mother, Sydney Leduc. Clutching a roller bag and Chloé’s baby bag.
“What are you doing here?” It had been two months since the woman had last tried to intrude on Aimée’s life. Their one attempt at lunch had been a disaster.
“Morbier called me,” her mother said. “Evidently you agreed.”
She had?
“You want Chloé safe,” said her mother. That accent, that achingly familiar tone. “She’s my granddaughter. Please let me help.”
“I should trust you?”
“Right now, I’m your best option. I do what I do very well, Amy.”
That American way she said Aimée’s name brought back memories. Lonely ones.
“Disappear?” Aimée said.
“That’s the only way with the Hand,” her mother said.
“You’re the last person I’d trust.”
“If you could hear how naïve you sound. Forget thinking you can control the situation. It’s about playing the right hand and figuring out what to do if you don’t have the right hand.”
Pragmatic, as before. All the things Aimée had wanted to ask stuck in her throat. The craving for connection that battled with her anger.
Anger she couldn’t harness. When they had tried to have a late-summer lunch together, Sydney had criticized Aimée’s wardrobe, causing Aimée to stomp out of the resto. Stupid. Embarrassing. And Sydney’s parting shot: You’re acting childish . . . When Chloé’s your age, do you want her to act this way?
How she’d deserved that but would die before she’d admit it.
“My driver’s waiting on the backstreet,” her mother said. “We’ll make Brittany in under four hours.”
Disbelief rippled her insides. “You think . . . mon Dieu, that I’ll let you walk out of here with my child?”
“Aimée, I can’t change what I did in the past.”
And then she couldn’t help herself. The feelings welled up, and she was eight years old. “Why did you leave?”
Melac averted his eyes. She’d rarely seen him look uncomfortable. But he looked that way right then.
“Why wouldn’t Papa ever talk about you?” Aimée asked.
Sydney’s lipsticked mouth quivered. “I hurt him. You. But it’s now that’s important, Amy. Chloé’s in danger. You think they’ll stop with one kidnapping?”
Melac met her gaze. “I could have taken Chloé and left,” he said. “She’s my daughter, too, and her safety is everything. But I wanted you to understand and agree.”
Should she?
A sudden strident ringing came from a phone on the dining table. Melac pointed to it. “It’s a burner phone I found on your doorstep an hour ago.”
“You’re being watched,” Sydney said.
Aimée’s heart jumped. “Have you answered it?”
“Think I’m stupid?” He handed her a digital recorder. “Put it on speaker. Record it.”
The burner phone almost slipped out of her sweaty hands.
“Oui?” she said.
Canned music—a children’s nursery song—played in the background. “Next time there won’t be a mistake,” said a robotic voice. “We don’t want to hurt your little girl. We only want one thing.”
The notebook.
“It’s gone, destroyed,” she said.
“Not at all. We’re counting on you to find it.”
The call went dead.
Shaking, Aimée clicked the recorder off. Looked up to see Melac holding a sleeping Chloé, bundled in a blanket.
She couldn’t leave Chloé, abandon her like—
“I know it’s hard for you to trust us, but this will be keeping her safe,” said Melac.
“We’ve only been apart once . . .” Aimée’s throat caught.
“Come with us,” said Sydney.
And lead the Hand to her bébé? Did she have a choice? “Non, I’ve got to take care of the problem. This won’t be over until I find the notebook.”
Shaking, Aimée took a sleepy Chloé in her arms, kissed her, inhaling that sweet baby smell. Chloé’s tiny, warm fingers clasped Aimée’s thumb. “I love you, ma puce.”
And then she was following them down the worn marble steps to the courtyard, behind the carriage house, to the narrow walkway to the next street.
“All contact goes through Morbier,” said Melac.
Had she really agreed to do this?
She put Chloé in his arms.
Her mother put out her warm hand, caressing Aimée’s cheek and making her stomach churn. “You might hear lies about me. Stories. Only half are true.”
A green plumber’s van had pulled up.
A minute later they’d piled in, and Aimée watched the van go down narrow rue Saint-Louis en l’Ile. Her heart went with it. She felt as if she’d made a deal with the devil.
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Within eight minutes, she’d bundled up her life essentials—lipstick, Chanel No. 5, a wig, her laptop—and was speeding in a taxi across the Left Bank with Miles Davis in her lap. She was still wearing the same silk blouse she’d had on all day.
Three taxi changes later she sat sipping espresso in l’Institut Culturel Italien’s garden, swathed in the shushing sounds of the linden tree branches. The night clung, dark and damp; tiny white lights winked in a ring around the old garden walls. Miles Davis chased a moth. Next to her, Martine scanned Marcus’s homicide report and the copy of his autopsy report that she’d printed and laid out on her Italian grammar textbook.
“I delivered, Martine,” Aimée said. “Your turn.”
“They tortured this poor boy? We’re not in Angola.”
“Things can turn dicey anywhere, especially in the center of Paris.”
Martine blew a puff of smoke. “The people you know, Aimée.”
“Know? He’s your relative. That’s how I got pulled into this.”
“A distant relation and only by marriage.”
“Écoutes.” She brought Martine up to date.
“Your mother is back?” Martine’s demitasse clattered to the saucer. “Even after your ‘anger management issues’?”
“And disappeared again, Martine, but this time with Chloé.”
“I need to interview your mother.”
Aimée’s jaw dropped. “That’s all you can say?”
“She’s fascinating. On the World Watch List, hunted, labeled a terrorist. She is the modern femme d’espionnage.”
“She’s got my daughter, Martine.”
“A masterstroke. Who else could handle this? A spook.”
“A spook?”
“She’s a CIA spy. And she’s got an agenda.”
“Agenda to abandon my daughter like she abandoned me?”
“Get over it. She didn’t abandon you. She left to keep you safe.” Martine took a drag, deep in thought. “It only makes sense, Aimée.”
“What?”
“She must be a spy. Think about it,” said Martine. “Forget your emotions a minute—easy for me to say—but . . . what if her terrorist persona’s a cover? Parfait for a double agent.”
“That’s sick, Martine.”
“Sick? C’est brilliant, Aimée.” She stabbed out her cigarette. Gave Aimée a knowing look. “You two need a tête-à-tête.”
Their last had ended in a fiasco.
“Alors, now focus on your strategy. Find this notebook, and blow the Hand sky-high.” Martine lit another cigarette. “Or did you plan to sit here twiddling your thumbs and pining for a cigarette?”
Aimée was stung. “I never expected that from you.”
“Did you expect your friend’s baby would be kidnapped? That two more people would be murdered? The Hand’s all business, Aimée. Get on your scooter, and ride it to the end.”
Marcus’s and Karine’s murders, the autopsy cover-up, the dodgy police investigation, Elodie’s kidnapping, that poor homeless woman, Dandin, the call on the burner phone . . .
“If I don’t find the notebook—” Aimée began.
“You better,” Martine interrupted, “before they do. Get it into the right hands. I’ve got a story here.”
Aimée’s phone vibrated. René. She ignored it for now. “You’ll write it?”
“I’ll skip Italian conversation class tomorrow, make some visits. You know what we say in my business—climb the stairs. I’ll shoot for the weekend supplement, an exposé. And you’ll let me interview your mother.” Martine pulled a biscotti from her bag, waved it at Miles Davis. “Oh, and I get to dog-sit.”
Aimée leaned down and tried to pet Miles Davis, but he was more interested in the biscotti. Her hands were shaking. This was all going too fast.
“I’m on the run, Martine. Scared.”
“Scared of not finding this notebook? Or of finding it and learning what your father did?”
She bit her lip. “Both. And losing Chloé.”
Martine stubbed out her cigarette on the Ricard ashtray. “Remember what you told me once? Scared keeps you alert, on your toes. Less prone to mistakes.”
“My father used to say that,” she said.
Martine was right. Time Aimée got on her toes. Then worried about keeping on them.
She took the Métro a few stops, then a taxi, then another before she’d hit the bright lights of the Champs-Élysées. Her phone vibrated. René. He related how he had tracked down the woman in the window.
“Brilliant. Did she intimate it was a gang murder?” Aimée asked, expelling a plume of smoke in the night air. “A hired hit by the Loo Frères gang?”
“Pas de tout,” said René.
She’d cadged a Gauloise from an orderly outside the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital ambulance bay. Right now she willed the nicotine jolt to calm her nerves. Guiltily, she savored what she’d been missing for eighteen months, three days, four hours.
Counting, who was counting?
“What’s that sound?” René said. “Don’t tell me you’re smoking again.”
Suddenly she wanted to throw up. Tossed the cigarette into the nearby geranium pot.
“No way,” she said. “Tell me more about this young Cambodian woman and why she thinks it’s a gang thing.”
“Did I say that?” said René. “Now, if you just listen . . .” Horns honked. “Alors, I’m driving. Let me put you on speakerphone.”
Aimée paced back and forth, oblivious to the wind shimmying the plane-tree leaves and the lights shimmering on the rain-spattered pavement. “So does this woman know anything? Did she witness what happened . . . the murder?”
“She heard screams, saw a green Twingo drive off. Then found the woman. One of Loo Frères gang appeared, covered the scene in minutes. She’s more afraid of them than anything else.”
“So the Loo Frères got involved?”
“She didn’t say that.”
“Maybe they were contracted by the Hand. Or . . . René, there’s a fixer.”
“Fixer?”
Her nerves jittered. “Listen, Chloé’s gone to Brittany with Melac.” She left out her mother.
“I know. Thank God for that.”
“How do you know?”
“Melac called and filled me in about the burner phone,” he said. “Maxence and I are working on the spirit catcher.”
“Spirit catcher? It’s me who should be drinking, René, not you.”
“Just hear me out. It’s a device to trace the burner phone. We retrieved it from your place half an hour ago. Lots of watchers out front.”
Her heart skipped. “You left out the back?”
“Bien sûr. We’ve taken over an office at the bibliothèque. No one cares at night. We’ll camp out here.”
“Did something happen at the office?”
Pause. “An envelope came with a photo of Babette unlocking your apartment door with Chloé in her arms.”
Another one.
Hating to admit it, she felt relieved that Chloé had been spirited out of town.
She recounted how Maxence had led her to Dandin. His dying words.
“The Hand’s getting close, Aimée.”
“Tell me about it.”
The blue-coated doorman tipped his hat to her and swept Le Drugstore’s double door open.
“Got to go,” she said.
Madame Pelletier’s words rang in her head—the ongoing investigation into a kidnapping ring, a baby market. But it didn’t make sense for a gang running a baby ring to send threatening photographs. What was the Chinatown connection? Maybe the gang was working on contract.
And what about les Gobelins? Why had Cyril been sniffing around? Dandin had worked there, too. What role had he played?
Martin should
have answers.
He sat in his “office,” the last banquette in the back dining room. He was conferring with a “client” wearing a pinstripe suit, blue shirt, and red tie—the man looked ministry all over. He rose, shook Martin’s hand. Was gone out the back door.
“Ah, Mademoiselle Aimée,” said Martin, beckoning her over. He kissed her on both cheeks, summoned the waiter. “Her usual.” He lit a cigarette. “You quit?”
“I’m always quitting,” she said, longing for a drag. Even thinking of the last one made her sick. “Alors, any info on the babynapping and murder in—”
“You’re stealing my thunder, little that I’ve got,” interrupted Martin.
The black-haired waiter brought her chocolat chaud. Sometimes she thought he was mute. The windows overlooking the side street were speckled with raindrops.
Martin waited until she’d taken a sip.
“I heard Loo Frères were on the scene,” she prompted him.
“Mais non, this is how rumors start.” He tsked, exhaling a plume of smoke. “Loo Frères issued a total denial. Expressed horror that their patch was used as a dumping site. This brought unwanted attention to the quartier. They don’t tolerate outsiders on their turf. They’d be the first to turn the culprits over.”
“You believe them, Martin?”
A nod. She hated when his large glasses reflected the light and she couldn’t see his eyes.
“I know someone from the Hand’s calling the shots. My friend’s baby was abducted when she was wearing the wonderful hoodie you gave Chloé.”
Expressionless, Martin took a drag. “You think it’s to do with l’hoodie?”
“They knew Chloé had one, Martin,” she said. She waited, but he didn’t respond. “You live by a code, honor your word; that’s what Papa said. But there must be something you can tell me.”
His voice low, Martin said, “There’s a whisper in the wind about a contract out on you, Mademoiselle Aimée.”
Her heart jumped. “Does it have anything to do with a former flic, Dandin? Or the fixer?”
With a quick sleight of hand, he’d slipped his Gauloise packet into her bag, which was sitting on the banquette.
“Ah, my next appointment’s here, Mademoiselle Aimée.”
The signal to leave.
Martin nodded goodbye. “Go outside with my friend the taxi driver.”
