by Cara Black
“What if I did?”
Now she was getting somewhere. Time to use her imagination, as Suzanne had suggested. Come up with a story, then go home.
“It’s personal. He’s more than my friend, if you know what I mean . . .”
“Désolé, but . . .”
“Look, he kicked me out. Changed the locks.”
He shifted on his Converse sneakers. Uncomfortable. “Why ask me?”
She sensed something. Showed him the photo again. “Take another look. I don’t even know where he’s working now. All I want are my things. Please.”
“A domestic quarrel? Désolé, but not my problem.”
She groaned inside. This wasn’t going well. And her ballet shoes were chafing her heels in the humidity.
“So you did see him? Alors, I’m stuck, need my clothes back so I have something to wear to work. Please.”
She sniffled, tried to summon a tear. All she felt was the perspiration on her neck.
The guy looked at the photo. “Can’t say . . . Customers come and go all the time.”
She persisted. “Even the ones who smoke Auras?”
“There’s one I remember, an old mec with a limp. Comes early every morning for a café-clope.”
The Parisian breakfast of an espresso and cigarette.
“He’s got an accent. Émigré.”
She brightened. “Do you think the émigré knows Mirko?”
A shrug. “If anyone does, he would.”
She scribbled the burner phone’s number on a receipt.
“Merci, and in case Mirko comes back, here’s my number.” He took it—not that he wanted to—ground out his cigarette with his toe, and disappeared into the café tabac. The sunset faded into a pale band above the grisaille rooftops.
Bon, she’d pass the émigré’s info on to Suzanne. Let her chase the phantom. Aimée was done.
Yet it niggled at her.
She could relate to Suzanne’s obsession. Thoughts of Morbier haunted her, waking her up in the middle of the night. She would lie awake on the floor by Chloé’s crib, listening to her sleeping breaths, wishing she could fall asleep herself.
Alors, she’d explore every thread, as she’d promised Suzanne. Do a little more legwork.
Back in the café, she sat down at the bar, checked the time. Now she had to hurry. In her red Moleskine, she noted down whom she’d questioned and, on her to-do list, wrote, old émigré—café-clope. As she shoved the Moleskine back into her bag, her hand hit the nanny cam.
Behind the counter, a middle-aged woman bantered with the clientele. The suspicious proprietor Aimée had first questioned was nowhere to be seen. This woman seemed a talkative type, so Aimée decided to try again.
After she’d ordered another espresso, she pulled out the photo and said, “My friend Suzanne said she thought she saw this guy here last night.”
A steady brown drip filled the demitasse.
The woman wiped the counter down as she peered at the photo. “Ah, Suzanne. I remember she was here . . . but I serve so many people, I can’t remember who came and went, and with the tourists . . . Maybe if it were November, when it’s slower . . .” She trailed off and went to serve another customer.
Aimée took her espresso to the window. Blocking her hands from view with her bag, she put René’s new nanny cam in one of the window boxes filled with ferns. She focused the lens on the counter, hit the record button, saw the answering green light. She called Saj and told him what she’d done, whispering under the clamor of the café patrons.
“René’s new nanny cam?” Saj said. “He’ll blow steam out of his ears. You know it’s highly illegal to mount surveillance in a place of business.”
“Even with a nanny cam?”
A sigh over the phone. “Try arguing that to the flics.”
She almost blurted out that she was doing it for a flic. Forget the nanny cam. The light in here was terrible anyway. She shoved it back in her bag.
“I’d recommend you look around for any surveillance cameras at nearby businesses. Like a bank.”
Why hadn’t she thought of that? Why hadn’t Suzanne? Across the street was a branch of her own bank, Paribas, now closed.
“You sure this mec’s a ghost, Aimée?”
“I’m going to find out.”
Tuesday, Late Afternoon
Today, in the middle of summer, the school yard was empty of any sounds but the thrush’s chirping. A sweet fragrance drifted from the ripe tomatoes in the abandoned student garden as Pauline tossed a bottle in the nearly full recycling bin. There were no children’s shouts or laughter; the school bell was silent.
But Pauline was not alone.
There were the ones who had stayed behind, who couldn’t leave on their journeys. Forever doomed to inhabit this world. Pauline’s world.
Fabienne, ten years old, a TB victim, skipped rope in her long white pinafore. Louis, the old caretaker who had suffered a heart attack in the loge, stopped pushing his broom long enough to wave. Pauline waved back.
“Not again,” said Pauline’s mother.
“Don’t get jealous, Maman. If I couldn’t see them, I couldn’t see you.”
Her mother, apron tied around her waist, tsked. She’d been the school’s gardienne until 1989, when she stepped in the crosswalk and a bus squashed her flat as a crêpe. Right here in front of Jardin du Luxembourg. Pauline had taken over as gardienne then and had been here ever since.
Here with her mother and the other ghosts.
Pauline never spoke about it, but people in the quarter knew she had the sight. She called her visits manifestations.
Now and then a parent would beg her to read the tarot. To help them communicate with a lost loved one. The butcher had sought her out, and the old general’s daughter.
Sometimes the loved one spoke. Even when they didn’t, Pauline felt them. In their room, on the street—wherever they had died.
Pauline refused payment or gifts—that would be wrong; she’d never asked for this sight. She asked only to stay here at the school. With them. To keep them company.
Now the new headmistress, a no-nonsense type in her forties, was approaching at a brisk stride. She wore low heels and a determined smile. A few days earlier, she had sent Pauline her retirement papers, and a notice to vacate.
Pauline, at sixty-five years old, proudly held the position her mother had held before her and couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.
“Ignore her, Pauline,” said her mother.
“How?”
“She’s got no right to force you to move. Speak to your union, like I said.”
The too-blonde headmistress had arrived. “Talking to yourself again, Pauline?”
Her mother evaporated.
“I’ll pick the tomatoes, madame,” said Pauline. “Give you some for the teacher meeting.”
“We can’t avoid the inevitable. Pauline, try to understand. The union’s offered you an apartment. They will relocate you to a new development.”
In the suburbs? A place where she’d never stepped foot in her life? Although the young woman who’d been stung to death by the bees had told her the suburbs had gardens, too. She’d said they were pretty nice.
“I was born two streets away,” said Pauline. “I’ve lived here all my life.”
“Take it up with your union. They’ll find a place closer. Look, Pauline, we need to fix up the gardien loge for the new family coming in.”
The souls needed her here.
“Read your tea leaves. It’s time for you to move on. There’s a new generation. I have to enforce the current ministry guidelines.”
Move on? She’d seen it all. They wouldn’t let her.
Tuesday Evening
“Madame Cachou?” Aimée peered in the open door of her concierge’s loge in her
Ile Saint-Louis building’s courtyard.
Miles Davis, her bichon frise, ran out and licked her ankles. Sniffed the wig peeking from her bag.
“We took a walk, and he got a burr in his paw, pauvre petit,” said Madame Cachou, bending down and showing Aimée. “Came out with tweezers.”
Her ramrod stiff concierge had mellowed these days; she positively doted on Aimée’s fluff ball and her bébé. Madame Cachou loved walking Miles Davis.
“Madame Cachou, I just wanted to confirm that when Babette’s on vacation—”
“That’s what I have to tell you. Mon Dieu, I can’t watch Chloé anymore—there’s been an emergency . . .”
“What?” Aimée had been counting on Madame Cachou covering for Babette so Aimée could make her appointments at École des Beaux-Arts.
“My sister’s back in the hospital. No one plans to get sick, do they? I’m leaving for Strasbourg on the night train.”
Now Aimée noticed the train tickets sitting on Madame Cachou’s desk. A roller bag by the door.
All Aimée’s careful planning, and now she was up the creek. She ransacked her brain for options.
“Tell her to get better soon, so you can come back home to us,” she said.
“Chloé’s papa’s here,” said the busybody, pointing up the stairs. “Time he pitched in, non?”
Melac?
Unannounced and without even telling her?
Two months ago, he and his wife had come to a custody arrangement with Aimée, but then they had just disappeared. Not even a call—fell off the face of the earth. Now he’d just shown up out of the blue? Why hadn’t Babette warned her? Why had Babette let him in?
She ran up the stairs, perspiring in the heat, with Miles Davis at her heels. Her key jammed in the door, wouldn’t turn. What in the world was going on? Locked out of her own flat?
She knocked, then pounded on the door, panicking.
“Alors, such a racket. Hold on, where’s the fire?” said an oddly accented voice. Where’s the fire—that old-fashioned expression Morbier used. She pushed Morbier from her mind. Who the hell was in her house?
Her front door was opened by an older woman with flushed cheeks, tinted glasses, and a sleek grey bob. A lot of makeup.
“Who are you?” Aimée snapped, stepping inside her foyer as the woman made way.
“I’m visiting my granddaughter,” the woman said in a taut voice.
A sick feeling hit her as Melac appeared in the hallway with Chloé on his hip. No sign of his do-gooder wife, Donatine, with her organic, homespun everything. He gave her a rueful smile. “Désolé, Aimée. I called, but you didn’t answer. I know it’s not our arrangement, but my mother’s passing through . . .”
His mother? That was why the woman looked familiar. Awkward.
“Excusez-moi,” Aimée said, embarrassed. At a loss for words, she edged past the woman and took her gurgling baby from Melac. Chloé squealed in delight and burped. Something orange and warm splattered over Aimée’s trench coat.
“So ma puce has a special treat for Maman.” Aimée shook her head and glanced at Melac. He and Chloé looked so much alike.
In the kitchen Aimée found Babette cleaning up the floor. Her normal calm manner had evaporated. “I’m sorry, Aimée. Gabrielle’s mother picked her up early, Chloé had just woken up, and then my aunt”—she meant Madame Cachou—“was all worked up over my other aunt, who’s hospitalized in Strasbourg. Then Melac showed up at the door, and . . . I didn’t even have time to say no.”
Melac and his mother had steamrollered their way in.
Babette hissed, “She’s telling me how to prepare the carrots!” She blew out an exasperated breath.
Miles Davis mewled, his paws covering his face. Even he was upset.
Aimée recognized an emergency—time to prevent her babysitter’s meltdown, restore calm, and get Melac and his mother out. As if on cue, Chloé burped up another orange projectile arc.
“Mon Dieu, she’s so warm.” Aimée felt Chloé’s forehead. Hot. “A fever.”
Could things get worse?
“. . . didn’t even have the courtesy to introduce herself!” came from the hallway. “I’m waiting downstairs.” The front door slammed.
Merde! She’d put her foot in it again. But how was she supposed to have known Melac’s mother was going to answer her door?
It was time for all the uninvited to leave.
She took Babette’s hand. “Get the baby acetaminophen and start Chloé’s bath. I’ll take care of everything else.”
In the hallway, as she wiped off her trench coat, she cornered Melac. “If you ever barge in here again—”
“Zut! Morbier’s dying, Aimée.” Melac raised a hand in a defensive gesture. “I came to Paris to say goodbye. My mother wanted to see her granddaughter.”
He crossed his arms and stared her in the eyes. Defensive.
“So this is all my fault?” she said.
“Considering you had Morbier shot, I’d say yes.”
Dumb. Why hadn’t she bitten her tongue?
Melac expelled air, ran his hand through his thick hair. “Alors, maybe I’d have done the same. Maybe not. But I understand now why it happened, with all the corruption scandals they’re blowing smoke over.” His shoulders slumped in defeat. “It’s gutted me, too. The man mentored me. Like you, I trusted him.”
“You think I wanted to believe he killed my father? But when I found the truth . . .” She swallowed.
“Aimée, he’s got something to tell you.”
Not this again. And from Melac? Just what she needed.
Melac leaned against the hallway wall, as he had so often in the past, his jeans slung low on his hips, those grey-blue eyes searching hers.
“I just can’t, so please don’t start, Melac. Why are you really here?”
Pause. “I think you know.”
“Care to clue me in?”
A warm rush of something drifted between them. He’d gripped her shoulder. Those long fingers drew her close, traced her cheek. That vetiver lime cologne he wore filled her senses.
Chloé’s cries reached them in the hallway.
Aimée broke away. He’d left and married someone else. Someone so not like Aimée. What was she thinking? She wished his touch didn’t pull her like gravity.
That he didn’t still wear that serpent-shaped rose gold wedding ring.
“Look, I’ve got an evening of work—”
Melac snorted. “Still the same. My daughter’s got a fever, and you’re—”
“Working? Correct. I run a business,” she said, hardening her tone. “By the way, fevers spike in the evening. Did you know that? Chloé didn’t have one this afternoon. So don’t you dare accuse me of neglecting her. Chloé’s my daughter, and if you’re here to make trouble about that custody business again, that will ruin any goodwill we established.” She caught her breath, so angry she wanted to spit. “Is Donatine going to pop in next?”
Melac met her gaze. “She just got a job offer from the clinique in Lille, where she applied last year. It’s in her specialty.”
Did that translate to the marriage boat hitting rough water? Not her problem. “Sounds like you’ve got time on your hands.”
“You just don’t get it, do you, Aimée?”
“Get what?”
“I want to be in Chloé’s life. And yours.”
He took her hands in his. His eyes bored into hers.
Aimée lifted his left hand in front of his face to show him his wedding ring. To remind him of the woman between them.
She dropped his hand and turned away. Walked toward the kitchen. “See yourself out, Melac.”
She wouldn’t let this man, the father of her child, disappear and reappear whenever it suited him.
From the open kitchen window, she watc
hed Melac and his mother standing on the bank of the Seine, silhouetted by the silvering surface. Melac’s voice drifted. Aimée couldn’t catch what he was saying. She couldn’t tell if they were arguing or consoling each other. Something struck her as off. Was it the body language?
This was Chloé’s grandmother—a woman who would surely be coming back into their lives. Aimée was irritated she’d paid so little attention to the woman when she’d been in her home. But now her curiosity spiked.
Tuesday Evening
“I’ve done what you wanted,” said Melac. “Now—”
“Keep walking until we round the bend of the quai,” said the woman. “She’s watching.”
Their footsteps crackled in the fallen plane tree twigs. A fat sea gull waddled on the stone wall. Oyster-grey pigeons pecked the pavement. Melac shooed them out of their path.
Past the bend fronting Pont de Sully, Melac stopped. “I need to hear your answer.”
He wished he didn’t feel like crap, a traitor. He wasn’t.
“It’s all taken care of, as I promised.” The woman opened the back door of the waiting Peugeot, its engine purring. She got in, shut the door. A minute later the window rolled down. She’d taken off her wig, was shaking out her hair. She’d donned sunglasses. “Just see this through the next few days. That’s all.”
“You mean until Morbier—”
“That’s my business,” she interrupted, as the window rolled up and the car drove off.
Tuesday Evening
Aimée took over bath time, letting Babette off for the night. She cleaned between Chloé’s pink-jewel toes until the baby squealed in delight. “What do you think of papa, ma puce?”
Chloé popped bubbles with her fist.
“My sentiments exactly.”
Chloé’s brow felt cool to the touch now, thank God. Aimée cuddled next to her on the linen duvet in her bedroom. Chloé instinctively reached for Aimée’s breast, her little mouth sucking and getting nothing.
“Désolée, ma puce, you’re on the bottle now. Remember?”
