by Cindy Dees
Appropriate for an art thief, I supposed. We must have spent the next hour moving from chamber to chamber, asking around about the Mouse. A few people seemed to recognize the name, but no one had seen him. The act of asking after someone we knew down here seemed to make us okay, however. The bizarre collection of people were generally friendly and helpful to us, which was odd, given the general unfriendliness and formality of Parisians topside, as the city above was referred to down here.
Eventually, Robert stopped in a makeshift pub and had a seat. The place had little bistro tables and chairs, and a fully stocked bar complete with a bartender behind it. The guy’s hair stood straight up in four-inch long spikes all over his head and his eyebrows were pierced, but he had a tip jar and a towel at his waist, by golly.
“Now what?” I asked.
“Now, we wait. This is a public place and the guys who were following us won’t do anything in here even if they find us. And, if René gets wind of the fact that we’ve been asking around about him, he’ll send someone here to give us a message.”
We sipped at a couple beers in longneck bottles. They were cool but not refrigerated.
“About what happened back at that intersection,” I started.
Robert propped his elbows on the table. “Did you really see a ghost? You called it a she. Was it a woman?”
“You don’t think I’m crazy for saying that I saw one?”
“Of course not. It’s no secret that such things exist. I just wish I could’ve seen her.”
I peered at him closely, but he didn’t seem to be teasing me. He really accepted that I’d seen a ghost. I wasn’t sure I accepted it, however. I mean, I know what I saw. But maybe it was a hallucination or a trick of our flashlights on the walls.
And maybe it wasn’t. What if that ghost had been real? My world tilted on its axis at the thought. It challenged everything I believed about logic and reason and reality.
“What did she look like?”
I recalled the vague features and suddenly I knew where I’d seen them before. In my bathroom mirror, the morning after my first dream about Queen Elizabeth. I frowned, trying to picture my vivid mental images of the queen from my dreams. Nope, the ghost wasn’t her. Thank God. It was bad enough to see ghosts, but to see the ghost of a dead queen? Nobody would ever believe that. I almost laughed aloud. It wasn’t as if they’d believe me if I told them I’d seen some commoner ghost, either.
“You really believe in ghosts?” I asked Robert.
“Sure. There are all kinds of things in this world that no one can explain. Why not ghosts? I don’t know about you, but when I walked past the spot she was standing—” He broke off.
I so shared his loss for words. What did a person say about that incredible moment of connection we’d shared? Cautiously, I commented, “Maybe it was just the ghost messing with our minds.”
Robert shook his head immediately in the negative. “No, I was having those sorts of feelings already. The ghost just…amplified them. I apologize.”
Ohmigosh. That desire burning the two of us alive was real? My brain froze up. Completely. I stared at him open-mouthed and couldn’t for the life of me summon up a thing to say in response. It was almost more incredible to me than the idea of seeing a ghost!
“Yo, dude. Are you Chop?”
I started. It was the bartender, standing beside our table. When had he walked up?
“Yeah,” Robert answered. “Who wants to know?”
“There’s a guy over there, says he knows the gent you’re looking for. Might have an inkling where to find ’im. Says your pal might be in a spot of trouble. He wasn’t real clear on it. Maybe the Mouse is hurt. I dunno.” The bartender rubbed his fingers and thumb together in the universal gesture for cash. “Just needs his memory jogged. Bit of a looney tunes, that one. But his information is usually good.”
René was hurt? After seeing the state of the guy in René’s clothes, I was highly alarmed at this bit of news.
Robert and I both jumped to our feet. I pulled a ten-euro bill out of my rucksack to cover our drinks and shoved it into the bartender’s hand.
The messenger turned out to be a drunk old reprobate like René himself. But, after Robert forked over an obscene number of euros to the wizened little man with unnaturally pale skin, he was abruptly sober enough to lead us through a maze of passageways with unerring confidence. Each chamber we passed through became rougher, with fewer signs of human habitation. If I were the suspicious sort—and at the moment I was—I’d wonder if I were being led into a trap of some kind.
I held my hands away from my body at the ready, and my muscles hovered on high alert. I noticed that Robert was twitching at the slightest sound, too. Our guide stopped in a small chamber, little more than a widening of the tunnel. The rock walls were jagged and shined black with moisture. Of everywhere we’d been so far, this place smelled the most like a cave, with a pungent, earthy odor.
“Wait here,” our guide mumbled.
And then the little jerk disappeared!
Robert and I both jumped toward the wall into which he’d melted. We took a few steps down the concealed tunnel he’d entered, but it forked immediately, and there was no sign of which passage he’d taken. The guy was gone.
And so, we waited.
And waited.
We finally scoped out a dry spot in one corner and sat down.
“Lean against me,” Robert offered, holding out an arm and offering me his right side.
I certainly wasn’t dumb enough to turn down that offer! We turned off the flashlights to preserve the batteries and sat there in the dark. With a certain amount of trepidation, I waited for a repeat of that time-stoppage moment of total sexual awareness. It didn’t happen. But something else did. I got comfortable snuggled up against Robert. I began to register little details, like how muscular the arm draped across my shoulders was. And how little fat lay over the slabs of ribs and muscle beneath my arm. And how nice he smelled. I can’t say that I was usually attracted to the sweat and body odor that marked most European men. But he smelled like the outdoors. And it was nice.
I was such a goner if I even lusted after the scent of this guy’s perspiration.
“What time is it?” I finally murmured.
Robert removed his arm from around my shoulders and flashed his light at his left wrist. “A little after eight.”
“Eight p.m.?” I echoed, shocked. We’d been down here nearly six hours? I’d had no sense whatsoever of time passing in this perpetual night.
“I’m hungry,” he announced. “What have you got in that rucksack of yours?”
I laid out a picnic of the snacks I’d grabbed earlier, while Robert broke out a bottle of water for us. I lit one of the candles, and we ate in its flickering glow.
“Nothing like a vampire picnic to whet the appetite,” he murmured, grinning.
“How long do you want to sit here and wait for René to show up?”
He shrugged. “Could you get us out of here if you had to?”
I shook my head. Crud. I thought he knew where we were going!
“Well, that answers that, then. We wait until René shows up.”
I leaned back against the rocks, which were dry in this corner. “Where did you come by the name Chop? Is it because of your motorcycle?”
“No. I have a collection of knives and swords.”
“What do you do with them?”
I suppose I expected him to say he looked at them or maybe collected them as an investment.
“I fight with them.”
I reared back in alarm. “Who do you get into knife fights with?”
He laughed. “I train at a martial arts studio with them. I don’t run around getting into brawls. Well, not often, at any rate.”
We talked about our various interests and hobbies for a long time. We even ventured into discussions of politics and religion. I was surprised to discover how much I actually had in common with this leather-clad rebel. Eithe
r he wasn’t nearly as wild a child as he appeared, or maybe I wasn’t quite as straitlaced at heart as I thought I was. It was an encouraging realization. Maybe I wasn’t sinking fast into old fogeydom after all.
“Why don’t you take a nap?” Robert suggested awhile later. “I’ll keep an eye out for René.”
“You’ll be all right?” I asked.
He smiled down at me. “You’ve done a remarkable job distracting me from my fear of enclosed spaces. I’ve actually been relaxed for the past hour or so. Now get a spot of rest. We still have to walk out of here.”
The prospect was daunting. Enough so that I grasped the chance to close my eyes and escape our predicament, if only for a little while.
I awoke some time later in the dark to a hand pressing over my mouth. Panic lurched me to full consciousness and sent my hands up to the wrist in front of my face. But then my brain caught up with my fear and I recognized the strong, lean bones of Robert’s wrist.
I felt him lean close and his lips grazed my ear. My usual response to him stirred in my belly until his whispered words chilled my blood.
“Someone’s coming.”
Chapter 10
W e climbed to our feet as quietly as we could, and Robert pinched out the candle with a tiny sizzle that sounded like fireworks going off to my hypersensitive ears. I listened closely to the darkness and heard only the faintest scuffle before a figure suddenly loomed in front of us, pointing a flashlight into our eyes. I squinted painfully, blinded by the brilliant glare of light.
“Chop?”
I sagged in relief. Thank God. René.
“How are you, old man?” Robert asked warmly.
The two men embraced. Then René looked over at me in surprise and chided, “What are you doing tangled up with a rascal like this, Anabelle? He’ll ruin your reputation.”
How exactly did he mean? Professionally? Personally? Both? I opened my mouth to ask when Robert interrupted. Somewhat hastily, in fact.
“I have something for you, Mouse.” Robert held out René’s billfold.
René stared at his wallet in consternation. “Where did you get that?”
Robert answered grimly. “At the morgue. Ives Fouchard turned up there last night as a guest—wearing your clothes.”
René’s eyes were huge with fear, but not surprise. And then it hit me. Robert had known the guy in the morgue. He’d never let on for a second to the coroner or to me that he knew the dead man’s identity. The idea of him keeping secrets like that suddenly made me more than a little uncomfortable.
“Who killed him?” I asked.
René shrugged. “Two men were chasing Ives. He came to me for help. We traded clothes and he ran. The men tried to strangle me but realized I was the wrong man before they killed me. They thought I was unconscious, but I was faking it. I heard them talk. They were under orders to kill Ives. They decided they’d better get him first and leave me. When they left, I crawled down here.”
“Why did they want to kill this Ives guy?” I asked, aghast.
René set down the rucksack he was carrying and perched on an outcropping of stone that was about chair height. “I’ve been asking around about your theft like I said I would, Anabelle. Turns out Ives pulled your job. He told me it was a statue of a lady. Not all that valuable, but the client who paid him to acquire the piece was nuts to have it. Was willing to pay millions for it. Ives decided to squeeze the client for a little extra, apparently, and the man was not amused. Sent thugs after Ives to take the statue back.”
Robert leaned forward, his forehead creased in alarm. “Did Ives tell you anything about the client?”
“Said he was some rich Italian guy.”
Robert swore quietly under his breath. What was that all about? I turned my attention back to René. “Did you get a look at the men who jumped you?”
“Yeah. Two big, beefy, Italian guys. Middle-aged. Wearing black leather jackets. Dark hair and dark eyes, but then that describes a lot of Italian men.”
I glanced at Robert, and he nodded back at me. Sounded like the same guys. That description might, indeed, fit lots of Italians, but what were the odds that two unrelated pairs of Italian thugs were attacking everyone who’d come into contact with Elise’s stolen statue? My hunch had been right. The attacks on René and me—and the murder of Ives—were all linked.
Lovely.
René was talking again. “I think the same guys are down here. A couple of my contacts spotted them earlier tonight. Why in the world they came underground to poke around, I have no idea. There’s no way they should know my hidey-hole is down here.”
“They didn’t,” Robert replied. “We must’ve led them down here. Straight to you, dammit. I’m sorry, Mouse. I thought we were clean when we came down.”
So did I. We’d zigzagged all over Paris before we’d ventured below. How had those men found us? Did they know where I lived? It made sense. After they’d run away from us in the park, they must have gone to my place and picked us up from there. Were they responsible for ransacking my apartment, too? It made sense.
René shrugged. “What is done is done.”
“Although it probably goes without saying,” I piped up, “you’re in danger, my friend. If they were after me, they’d have jumped me in my apartment. It’s you they want. Come up top with us and let me put you in custody of Interpol. They’ll take you away from here and tuck you someplace safe until this all blows over.”
René snorted. “No place is safe from the likes of those men. Their employer is grotesquely powerful.”
“More so than Interpol?” I scoffed.
René nodded solemnly. “Much more.”
A chill clattered down my spine. “And who might such a person be?”
The wizened little man shrugged. “There are people in this world greater than the police, greater than any law. Greater than any government.”
Robert added grimly, “And they wear Armani suits and refuse to give their names and carry fat bank books.”
The roll of a pebble off to our right was my only warning before a man burst into sight, startling me violently. A nasty surge of adrenaline made my heart hurt, it pounded so hard. The drunk from the bar who’d led us here.
“They’re coming!” he gasped.
No need to ask who he meant.
René snatched the rucksack off the floor and tossed it over his shoulder. He pointed at a tunnel to Robert and blurted, “Take the fourth right and run! And for God’s sake, be quiet. I’ll draw them after me.”
“No—” Robert and I both blurted. But then he was gone, darting down another tunnel. Loudly. The sound of running footsteps echoed around us, those of René and his lookout retreating…and those of someone else approaching. Fast.
I snatched up my rucksack and threw it over my shoulder as Robert grabbed my hand and we took off, running pell-mell on our toes into the black void. Again.
I don’t know how long we ran. But I was completely winded and had a ferocious stitch in my side before Robert finally slowed to a walk. Whether or not we had blasted past the fourth tunnel to the right, I had no idea. And frankly, I didn’t care. I was good and ready to get out of this endless warren of tunnels. Clearly, I was not cut out to be a rat.
We walked until I was beyond fatigue. Beyond sore. Beyond exhausted. And then we walked some more. But finally, Robert shined his flashlight on a set of runes marking a passage and gave a satisfied little, “Ah.”
“This way, Ana,” he murmured.
He led me down a side tunnel. Past a stack of bones. And I was too tired to be grossed out. The old catacombs. We’d made it back to the mapped portion of the tunnels. And then there were more bones. And more bones still. We walked past floor-to-ceiling stacks of skeletal remains, most of them arranged into clever and even artful geometric layouts. The workers who’d deposited these remains must have either been complete sickos, or resorted to humor to save their sanity while they performed their gruesome job.
I have to
say, I’ve never seen anything quite as macabre as a heart made of grinning skulls in the middle of a six-foot tall pile of femurs.
“Here we are,” Robert murmured. He made an abrupt turn, and for the first time in forever, I saw a sign of topside civilization. A door.
“What if it’s padlocked from the outside?” I asked.
“It won’t be.” The runes on this door indicate it’s locked from this side. He tested the knob, and it was locked, however. My stomach fell. I so didn’t need to get trapped down here indefinitely.
Robert pulled something out of an interior pocket of his jacket. A thin leather pouch, which he unzipped quickly. “Hold the flashlight for me.” He thrust the black metal cylinder into my hands.
I watched as he expertly picked the lock. “An Art Theft 101 skill, I gather?” I asked dryly.
He grinned up at me. “Nah. Bored kid with the wrong friends skill. Art thefts these days involve defeating far more sophisticated electronic and computer systems than any simple lock.”
I watched his clever fingers work at the lock, and it happened again. That slow, sensual burn low in my gut began to build as I imagined his fingers playing upon my flesh in that way. This man made an absolute panting fool out of me, even if he was in the middle of breaking and entering—or exiting, as the case might be.
It took him several minutes, but eventually, the lock turned beneath his hands. He pushed the door open and we stepped into a dim basement. He wound across it to another door, unlocked this time. Bright light seeped underneath it. Turned out it led to a hallway in what looked like a hospital—tiled walls, fluorescent lighting and a couple spare gurneys parked along the walls. We found an elevator and pushed the up button.
In a few seconds the heavy door slid open and we stepped inside. I frowned. Looked around. I knew this elevator! We were in Val de Grace Hospital! For a moment I was tempted to go up to the third floor and peek in on Elise. But then I remembered it was after midnight. No way would we get past the nurses and the armed guard outside her door at this hour, Interpol badge or not.
“At least we won’t have any trouble getting out of this building,” I murmured. “This is a hospital. It’ll be open all night.”
