Mona Lisa's Room

by Vonnie Davis

  She tried jerking her arm free of his ironclad grasp. “So help me, God, if that terrorist doesn’t kill you, I will.”

  He pulled her around two uniformed nannies pushing toddlers in strollers. “Promises. Promises.”

  “Yeah, well look how nice my hips sway now, nutso, running in these damned heels.”

  Niko quickly glanced up and down the wide tree-lined street and evidently seeing a slight break in traffic, ordered, “To the other side. Now.”

  They bolted across the four-lane boulevard and its well-manicured median. Two motorbikes rumbled past, nearly hitting them. Horns blared as several Renaults and Smart Cars barreled down the street. Niko shoved her out of the way and she fell, her hands and knees scraping on the asphalt. Brakes screeched and there was a dull thud behind her. She glanced back over her shoulder just as Niko rolled across the hood of a silver car. He never broke stride. “Run, dammit!”

  She struggled to get up, her heel caught in the hem of her skirt. Niko set her on her feet again. A delivery truck swerved toward them as if to run them down. In a blur of movement, Niko drew his weapon. He dove and rolled clear of the truck’s path, shooting the driver between the eyes. Glass shattered. Passersby screamed. The truck jumped the curb, striking a tree. Sounds of metal crunching and a tree branch cracking obliterated, for a few horrible seconds, the pedestrians’ reactions.

  Still on the move, Niko barked orders at the observers. A man nodded and reached for his cell phone. “Quick. In here. While we’re hidden by the truck.” Niko wrapped his hand around her arm and tugged.

  Alyson trembled, the back of her hand covering her mouth and her eyes glued to the man slumped over the steering wheel of the truck not five feet away. Blood flowed from his forehead. Her stomach twisted. She was going to be sick. Niko’s grip on her arm tightened. “Move it, Aly. We’re still being followed.”

  “But…but…” She looked over her shoulder at the steam rising from the damaged radiator as she ran. Dear God, she was running with a murderer. He killed some poor nameless truck driver with one well-aimed shot. Who were the bad guys here? The handsome man who had her in his iron-like grasp or the phantom terrorists he kept ranting about?

  Niko pulled her into a small shop crammed with framed art prints and old books. The bell over the door jingled. “Trust me, I know what I’m doing. He was one of the terrorists. Mohammed Bazel. Same organization as Dembri. Hide in here. I’ll be back.”

  Alyson’s stomach clenched, her heart in her throat, as she tried to catch her breath. Would this nightmare ever end? “Wha…what will you do?” Would he kill again? He made an instantaneous identification and in a split-second killed a man. What if he was wrong? What if…

  “Monsieur, me dire pourquoi?” They both spun to find a diminutive woman with a horrified expression on her face. She gestured at Niko’s gun.

  Niko flashed his badge and evidently asked the lady if she had another exit. She pointed to a faded red curtain hanging over a doorway. “Aly, stay here until I call you. I have to get the other guy.” He ran out of the back of the shop.

  Police sirens pierced the air. Screams and loud comments added to the commotion outside. Suddenly, Paris didn’t seem so charming. Suddenly, Paris seemed very cold and full of evil menacing shadows. She wrapped her arms around her waist willing herself not to be sick.

  “Vous avet un problem, jeune dame?” The silver-haired lady fingered a strand of pearls at the neckline of her navy and white suit. In the midst of this hellish situation, Alyson felt a moment of shoe-sisterhood when she noticed the woman wore navy stilettos on her tiny feet. The elderly woman’s smile was tremulous, wary. Poor thing, we charge into her quiet shop like Bonnie and Clyde with a gun drawn. She probably thinks we’re going to rob her.

  “A problem? Yes! A man, a terrorist is after me! Ah…French…I must speak French. I’m sorry. Excusez moi.” She put her fingertips to her temples willing her mind to work. At this moment, she could barely think in English, much less pull her limited French from her scrambled, terror-filled mind. She gave a quick glance outside the shop window as blue police vans and an ambulance parked around the delivery truck. A man had been killed because of her. “Ah…the Mona Lisa…”

  The woman grabbed Alyson’s hand. “You are her? The American who saved the Mona Lisa? The woman talked about in the news? You saved our tresor, our treasure? Oui?” She breezed kisses on both of Alyson’s cheeks and smiled. “Come. I hide you. Marie-Clare will keep you safe.”

  “Do you have any Band-Aids?” Alyson lifted her skirt to expose her scraped and bleeding knees.

  “Oh, my dear. You need first aid. Come.” Marie-Clare clucked her tongue like a mother hen as she led her to the back room of her little shop.

  ****

  When Niko rushed out the back door of the antique print and book shop, he noticed steps leading to the next floor. Pots of flowers graced the petite concrete terrace behind the shop. So did a small table and chair. The old woman probably enjoyed her lunches out here. He hurried along the narrow walkway that led toward the street.

  Peeking around the corner, he saw emergency personnel attempting to reach the dead man in the truck. Aly went stark white when he shot Bazel. And why not? One minute they were laughing over Simone and the next minute they were sprinting up the street with a terrorist trying to run them down.

  He read the expression in her eyes after the shooting. She looked at him as if he were the bad guy. It cut him to the core. He was getting too attached to her, responding to her in a very male manner. This would weaken him and prevent him from doing his job. He had to emotionally distance himself from this soft, beguiling woman; a woman who had no clue about her own sensuality.

  How did Bazel know where they were? From his hidden vantage point in Simone’s boutique, Niko watched their pursuer use his cell. Evidently he contacted his comrade, Bazel. How had the pursuer located them in the first place?

  When he saw a large group of students, no doubt from the Sorbonne, ambling past arguing music, Niko removed his tie, slipped off his coat and draped it over his arm to appear more casual, thus hiding his weapon. One student carried a guitar case; another had a tuba slung on his shoulder.

  A quick glance told him their pursuer was trying desperately to navigate the speed-happy Parisian drivers as he crossed the wide boulevard. Traffic was always heavy on this street. The man was talking on his phone, gesturing wildly with his other hand and craning his neck to see the truck driver’s condition. Seeing the unknown assailant reached this side of the street, Niko walked along with the group of students ahead of the man, smiling and nodding as if he were part of the group.

  In a few seconds, the man scurried by, his eyes scanning the crowded sidewalk. When the frenzied man in khaki pants and a T-shirt forged ahead of the large group of students, Niko picked up his pace, too. A brief smile played at his lips. He liked being the hunter much better than being the hunted—and he had a reputation for bagging his prey.

  At the next narrow street, Niko wrapped his hand around the man’s arm and pressed the barrel of his service revolver into the back of his neck, forcing him into the narrow street. He shoved his captive into a small space created by a double doorway. “Who are you? Why are you following me?” After asking in French, Niko repeated the questions in English and Arabic, slamming the stranger’s face against the building harder with each language change.

  When he got no answers, Niko used the heel of his palm to swiftly execute a Karate Shotokan bunkai strike against the gall bladder pressure point at the bottom hollow part of the man’s skull. The stranger crumpled to the ground. Niko handcuffed him and called for backup.

  Just as the white departmental van with its familiar black stripes screeched to a stop, his phone chirped. “Niko here.”

  “Did the lowlife have any I.D.? Don’t forget you owe me a written report on the dead guy.” News traveled fast in Henri’s world.

  Niko flipped open the unconscious man’s wallet. “Driver’s licens
e and work badge. You won’t believe this. I think I may have found the missing janitor from the Louvre. Names on both match. Latif Qimat.”

  “Sérieusement? I will be damned. I have questions for him, and he better have many answers for me. Looks like I’ll be here well into the night. My wife won’t be happy about this.” A weary sigh came across the phone.

  The fitting of the pieces into the puzzle was what he loved about his job. He itched to return to work. Or was it he wanted to get away from the woman with the soft voice and the blue eyes; eyes the color of a Parisian sky. There was danger in being with her, too.

  “You want me to come in to help? I’d be more than willing to interrogate the bastard. Be glad to put an extra pair of eyes on things. Get in touch with some of my old contacts at Interpol. Analyze some data.” He searched through Qimat’s pockets, his cell phone squeezed between his shoulder and ear.

  “No, you’ve got babysitting detail. You’ll be spending the next three or four days with the American. I’m sure the office will get along quite well without you.”

  Oh yeah, Henri did not want him helping. Somehow he’d earned a spot on his supervisor’s shit list.

  “Tell me, why didn’t you know you were being followed? Don’t tell me you’re paying more attention to the blonde American than your job.”

  “I resent the hell out of that question.” Niko, feeling properly chastised, ended the call and made sure the official detail had his prisoner ready for transport.

  Qimat moaned, regaining consciousness. After the police van pulled away, he removed the item he took off Qimat from his coat pocket where he’d hidden it after inserting it into an evidence bag.

  A sick feeling shot through his stomach like a chrome ball in an old pinball machine. Qimat, the man who was chasing them, had a picture of Aly and him taken in the garage back at headquarters a couple hours earlier. Someone lurked in the shadows when they walked to his car. He flipped the picture over and read the neatly printed notation on the back: Blonde female—one point six meters. Black-haired male—one point eight three meters and then in parenthesis five foot, eleven and a half inches. A prickling sensation swept up his spine. The hairs on the back of his neck rose.

  Niko tapped the evidence bag containing the picture against his palm. Something was not right. Damn. What was it?

  He needed to be more vigilant. More than likely, the terrorists would back off for a few hours or a day and regroup. They had to do more planning after this failure. He slipped the picture into the inside pocket of his jacket. Later he’d have it analyzed, but for now he wanted to keep it. No concrete reason why, just his intuition telling him to hang onto it.

  Was Henri right? Had he been derelict in protecting Aly? Been distracted by her softness? Too intent on getting to know her better? Too determined to tease her until her anger surfaced again? He was most definitely attracted to her. Something about her—that softness over steel—appealed to him.

  Odd that this woman, whom he just met, was distracting him from his job; while Hae-Won, whom he loved, accused him of putting his job before her. He turned and hurried toward the little shop where he left Aly. No doubt there would be more attempts to kill her. Terrorists lived and acted by their own set of demented rules.

  Hadn’t his Hae-Won endured much too much before she died? His jaw clenched at the memory of her torture. Had she stayed with him so he could keep her safe, she’d still be alive. His gaze scanned the sidewalk and the stream of humanity.

  If Hae-Won hadn’t found information regarding the locations of Red Hand’s hideouts, she’d still be with him. Then perhaps his heart, weighed down with guilt, would be free enough to move on. Let it go, man. Keep your mind focused on the job. The job…not Hae-Won…not Aly…but The Red Hand.

  These terrorists didn’t care who suffered. Nor did they care that this American woman they wanted to kill hadn’t, by his estimation, really lived. Aly had so much left to experience. Too bad he wouldn’t be around to see her bloom. Still, his job was to give her that chance by keeping her safe until he put her on a plane home. He vowed he would.

  The bell over the door jingled when he opened it. Although the tiny shop was empty, he heard feminine chatter from behind the faded red curtain. He pulled the curtain aside and found the two women sharing a pot of tea at a small wooden table.

  “When your young man returns, tell him to take you for something to eat. Some delightful onion soup. Oui?”

  He forgot to feed her. Damn. He was so intent on buying her shoes so she’d blend in with native Parisians, he forgot about her stomach growling when they left the station earlier. How long ago was that? Some protector he was.

  Just then Aly glanced up and smiled. Niko smiled in return. “Thank God, you’re back.” She set her china cup on the saucer and stood. “I was worried.” Her hands rose as if to touch him. Her cheeks blushed and she clasped her hands at her waist instead. “You’re not hurt, are you? I was worried. Afraid you’d…” She cleared her throat. “Sorry I’m emotional. I’m not accustomed to all this. Violence. Being in danger. Seeing someone killed.”

  “I’m fine.” Touched, he ran his knuckles down her soft cheek. She shivered. The woman was so responsive to his touch, he found it enticing. “The man who was chasing us is in custody now. He was the janitor from the Louvre, the one who switched bags with Dembri.”

  She breathed a ragged sigh. “You didn’t have to kill anyone else?”

  “No.” He took no delight in killing. As usual, he’d probably have nightmares tonight. Still, his job was to protect her at all costs.

  “Then it’s over. I’m safe. I can go back to my hotel now.”

  “No. No, you can’t go back.” Suddenly, the thought of her walking out of his life bothered him. “You no longer have a room at the Madison. Arrangements have been made. We’ll stay together as planned.”

  “Don’t you have someplace better to go? Someone special to spend the evening with? Girlfriend? Family?”

  Hae-Won’s image flashed in front of his eyes for a second, and he winced. Hae-Won with the long, flowing ebony hair. “What I have is a woman who needs a good meal.” He turned to the shop owner. “Madam, merci beaucoup. My friend and I are in your debt.”

  “Niko, this marvelous woman is Marie-Clare Aukland. She kept me safe and served me tea. A most gracious lady.”

  Marie-Clare stood, a gentle blush on her wrinkled face. “It is I who am in your debt, young man. To have the American who saved our Mona Lisa here in my shop. I can’t wait to tell everyone. One moment, Alyson, I have something for you. A keepsake to remember our delightful time together. Do you have a moment?”

  Aly looked up at him with that questioning expression she so often had. He could have denied her nothing at that moment. He turned to Marie-Clare. “Oui, Madame. We have the time.”

  Marie-Claire bustled to the front of the shop and retrieved a framed print of the Mona Lisa from the wall behind the counter. “She has hung here for thirty-two years, ever since my Pierre and I bought this little place. We have an apartment above we shared until he died last year. I want you to have the painting. It is quite good. Oui? My Pierre painted her when he was a young man.” Pride radiated from her eyes and in the loving way she ran her hand over the glass. “The frame is antique, older than moi.” She smiled as she wrapped it in brown paper, securing it with heavy twine.

  “You shouldn’t part with your husband’s painting. Your company was pleasure enough. I’ll tell everyone back home about the delightful French woman who protected me. My new Parisian friend. I mean it, Marie-Clare, you shouldn’t give away something that belonged to your Pierre.”

  “My Pierre would want you to have this, my dear. Oh, how he loved the Mona Lisa and her smile.” She extended the package to Aly, and they embraced.

  “Thank you. Thank you for everything. I will always remember your sweet soul.”

  “And I yours, Alyson from America. Wait, I will give you my card with my e-mail address on it. We shall kee
p in touch. Oui?” She pressed an ivory business card in Aly’s hand, then turned her smile on Niko. “Young man, take good care of her. She is a treasure.”

  His gaze swept to Aly. “Yes, Madame, she is.”

  Aly removed her camera from a pocket of her yellow shoulder bag and extended it to him. “Would you take some pictures of my new friend and me? I’ll want to show them to my dad and sister.”

  After Niko snapped a couple pictures of the two ladies, he took the wrapped picture and shopping bags to his car a few blocks away. When he returned, he was amused to find Aly and Marie-Clare deep in conversation again. After more hugs and good-byes, Niko and Aly exited the shop onto Boulevard Saint Michel. He took her elbow. “How are you feeling? You were very upset earlier.”

  “I’m calmed down now, thanks to Marie-Clare and to your safe return. Why?”

  “I can either take you to the safe house and cook for you or take you to a brasserie or a café. In my opinion, you’ll be safe for awhile until the terrorists regroup after their failed attempt.” He brushed a strand of hair from her face. “Which would you rather do?”

  She glanced around her, wariness in her eyes. “If I were your mother would you keep me out in the open?”

  “You’re not my mother, but to answer your question, yes. I would because I’d give my life to keep her safe. The choice is yours. However, if you decide to stay out in the open, you have to promise to relax and leave the worrying to me.”

  “I’m not sure I can do that. I’m not used to someone else taking care of me. Still…” She looked around. “I’ve only been in Paris for two days. There’s so much more I wanted to see. You’ll keep me safe?”

  “Or die trying.”

  “Somehow that doesn’t reassure me.” She beamed a smile. “Even so, I long to see more of the city, to feel her energy and drool over the architecture.”

  “Do you feel like walking a few blocks for some of the best onion soup in Paris?” She nodded and they headed down the street.