Then the railing opened onto a broader lane with more street traffic. Maybe he’d get aboard a boat. He’d be hemmed in then. Instead he ducked between two vans parked side by side across the street. She and Parker hurried to the front of the vehicles.
No one there.
She looked up and saw him disappearing under a bridge with elegant figures carved along its side.
Damn, he was slippery.
She took off again, forcing her legs to move fast.
Her blood pounded in her ears so hard she thought her brains would explode. She needed an aspirin. Or a good stiff drink. But all she could think about was Becker in some lonely room somewhere in this city with that surly bitch Odette. And poor Fanuzzi trying to bake her troubles away and keep up a good front.
They weren’t any closer when Beaknose swung down a street to the right.
Her heart breaking Miranda raced to the corner, made the turn, kept running.
The pavement swept downhill, which made the effort a little easier, though she wasn’t gaining on the bastard a bit. They raced through a long underpass with a narrow walkway, up another hill, and finally into a big, brightly light square dotted with tall statues of big men beside huge horses.
Before them stretched the intricate scaffolding of the most famous Paris landmark of all.
The Eiffel Tower.
Dear Lord, how’d they get here?
Too winded to speak, she stood there and throbbed. She felt as if her arteries were about to burst, her ears about to bleed, her heart about to shoot through her chest and flounder bloodily in the middle of the square while cursing drivers did their best to dodge it.
She hadn’t run this hard since the sadistic Detective Tan used to drive the trainees in the gym back at the Agency.
Beside her Parker looked as bad as she felt. He had his coat slung over his shoulder. Sweat stained his business shirt. His hair was disheveled. She’d never seen him so spent. Not even after a night of heavy sex.
His hard gaze scanned the line of tourists crowded around the ticket booth under the tower.
He had to give his muscular shoulders a few heaves to take in air before he could talk. And then he only nodded and said, “There.”
She shaded her eyes with her hand and saw the tall, skinny sonofabitch near the front of the line. Must have butted in.
Summoning all the remaining strength she had, she crossed the street with Parker right beside her.
Before they reached the booth, Beaknose had disappeared into one of the elevators.
Parker pushed his way through the crowd. “Détective privé,” he said to the angry ticket clerk.
They had a short, heated exchange, but after a moment or two, Parker pushed some bills across the counter and the surly woman handed him two tickets with a snipping gesture to move along.
“C’mon,” he said, turning back to Miranda.
But she was already heading for the lift.
Chapter Twenty-One
Once again they were too far behind.
Beaknose’s car had already left. The one they caught was crowded, hot, and smelled of the cheese one of the passengers must have had for breakfast. But there was no tall thin man in a dark jacket with long dirty blond hair here.
Gritting her teeth in frustration Miranda ignored the gorgeous scenery below them and glared up at a sign in several languages warning the passengers to beware of pickpockets.
And kidnappers, she thought grimly.
After an eternity the elevator came to a halt. “Everyone out,” someone called.
Miranda looked up at the maze of crisscrossing girders stretching far into the sky overhead. “We’re not at the top yet.”
“We have to change lifts,” Parker told her.
Great. With a huff she stepped out of the car.
The platform was crowded with folks from all over the world. Everyone was snapping photos or pointing out the sights to their fellow gawkers. All were enjoying the view and having a wonderful time.
Scanning the faces as the wind whipped at her hair, Miranda strolled across to a circle of shops and restaurants. Was Beaknose buying a souvenir? Stopping in somewhere for lunch? Or was he on the other lift heading to the top?
He could be anywhere.
“How do we find him, Parker?”
Staring out at the sprawling city below Parker paused a moment then turned to her. His salt-and-pepper hair was sexily windblown, his face grave.
“What do your instincts say?”
She knew what he was asking her. About that strange sensation she often felt when she was closing in on a criminal. It had told her things she couldn’t guess or know by mere observation.
The only problem was she wasn’t getting a vibe right now.
She lifted her hands in a shrug.
“Then we guess,” he said.
She pulled her hair away from her face. “If he went inside a store or a restaurant and we happened to locate him, he’d be trapped. So that’s too risky for him.”
Parker nodded his agreement. “And if he stayed on this floor with the sightseers…”
“We’d find him sooner or later.”
His gaze moved to the signs for the elevators. “So do we go up or back down?”
She chewed on her lip as she considered what Beaknose would do.
If they went down, they could wait for him to get to the ground again and nab him. But he was good at losing himself in the crowd and they might not see him at all. He might have gone up to fool them into following him, then come straight back down. Or he might be up there, hiding, waiting for them to give up and go home.
The observation deck was smaller up there. They had a better chance of spotting him. In any case standing here with their thumbs up their butts wasn’t going to get the bastard.
“I vote for up,” she blurted out at last and headed for the lift to the top.
###
As the car pulled away from the platform and began its ascent to the lofty heights above, Miranda felt a little dizzy. That was unusual for her. She’d been rattled a little on their last case, but she wasn’t afraid of heights.
Then she realized she hadn’t eaten since early this morning. And she’d burned a ton of calories racing around the streets after this creep. Her stomach tensed at the time he’d made them waste.
She felt Parker’s hand at her back and relished the comfort of his touch as she watched the muddy green river with its decorative bridges grow to a narrow strip below, while lovely tree-lined streets cut wedges into masses of quaint French buildings that stretched as far as the eye could see.
Somewhere down there Chef Emile’s niece had Becker. If only they could figure out where before it was too late.
“Millions of tourists have visited this monument,” Parker murmured in her ear, pretending to be one of them. “It’s over a thousand feet high and particularly spectacular at night with the light show.”
She smiled sadly. Too bad they didn’t have time to see it.
“It was built well over a hundred years ago to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the French Revolution. Bastille Day, which by the way, is tomorrow.”
She sucked in a breath. “Tomorrow?”
He nodded in his nonchalant way in contrast to the ominous words that dug deep into her heart. If they didn’t find Becker by then…She had a feeling it wouldn’t be good.
Parker gestured toward the east. “There’s the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs Élysées where we were last night. Over there is the Louvre and the Notre Dame.”
Nice. But why the geography lesson? Was he trying to distract her? Calm her nerves?
Parker pointed in the opposite direction to a tall, modern looking high rise. “Over there is Montparnasse.”
She stiffened as Parker’s meaning grew clearer. “Where Fanuzzi’s hotel is.”
“Yes. And over there, the Latin Quarter.” He gestured again.
She peered hard at the streets extending in that direction, then focus
ed on one of them.
A tiny dot she could barely make out inched slowly alongside a large park like a figure in an old video game. Something on the dot seemed to emit a small flash every so often, reflecting the sunlight as the dot moved along. An optical illusion? No. Her gut told her it was real. And then she realized what it was.
Beaknose’s long blond hair flapping behind him.
“Is that him?” she whispered to Parker.
“I believe it is.”
She felt her heart slide down a girder all the way to the pavement below. She had guessed wrong. “Damn.”
Parker was silent.
And then his words sank in. The Latin Quarter. Where Henri said that bar was where he last saw Odette. What was its name again? Then she remembered.
“We should go to Joyeux.”
“My thought exactly. Let’s get back down and find Nadeau.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chop-chop-chop. Chop-chop-chop. Chop-chop-chop.
Dave Becker opened his eyes and scowled at the blurry vision of the black haired woman cutting up carrots at the little wooden table across the room. A steady snore came from somewhere. Stiffly Dave turned his neck and saw the big tattooed man asleep on a torn and stained couch in the corner. He blinked hard and strained to look around the room but didn’t see the second man anywhere.
His head throbbed and his shoulders ached from his arms being tied behind him. He was still in the chair. How long had he been out? Hours?
And then he remembered the phone call.
Joanie’s voice. She’d called him snookums. She’d sounded so angry. Then so scared. If only he could hear her voice again. If only they’d let him talk to her. He’d tell her how much he loved her. That she had always been the only one for him. That he couldn’t live without her. If he was going to live…
His eyes grew wet and his mind began to race as he played the black haired woman’s words over in his head. “You will get your husband back when Chef Emile gives me what I want.”
Chef Emile?
That was Joanie’s teacher at Le Gastronomique Divine. She loved him. She thought he was great and knew so much about the secrets of dessert baking. She’d been so excited about all she’d been learning from him. And she’d said he liked her, too. He gave her compliments that made the other student jealous.
That was his Joanie. Nobody could cook and bake like her.
But what did the black haired woman want from the chef? What the hell was he into? Was this some sort of drug ring? And what did he have to do with it? Maybe they’d mistaken him for someone else.
The woman’s chopping stopped. She scooped up the carrots with her knife and put them into a pan. She marched to the small kitchen and set the pan on the tiny stove. Steam sizzled from its contents, filling the room with a delicious aroma.
Dave’s mouth watered. Mirepoix, he thought. Carrots, onion, and celery. He’d learned that from Joanie. Was this woman a chef, too? Another one of Chef Emile’s students? A rival?
The big guy on the sofa let out a snort and rolled over. The smell would wake him soon. Maybe Dave could get some information out of the woman before it did.
He managed to grin at her. “Gee, that smells good.”
Her head snapped up and she glared at him. But she didn’t speak.
“You must be a great cook.”
She ignored him, turned to the sink and cleaned her knife. Then she drew out a big pot from below, tossed some butter with it and returned to the table with a large chicken. She began to cut up the bird with a large meat cleaver, keeping a wary eye on Dave.
Thawp, thawp.
“Chicken fricassee?” he guessed. “Did you learn that from Chef Emile?”
Her red lip curled. “Shut up, American.”
That went well. He tried again. “My wife makes that dish. It’s one of my favorites.”
Now her eyes flashed. “How dare you insult my cooking by comparing it to your wife’s?”
Uh oh. Touchy subject. But it told him she thought highly of her skills. Maybe she was a rival restaurateur?
She turned away from him and placed the chicken pieces into the pan. The delicious odor of searing meat reached his nose. He thought he was about to drool when a key rattled in the door knob and the tall thin man stepped through an entryway and appeared in the room.
He was wearing the same clothes he’d had on before. Dark slacks and T-shirt, thin dark jacket, very nondescript. He wore a gold watch on his wrist and a gold chain around his neck with a cross at the end of it. His narrow face was drawn and his dirty blond hair looked even oilier than before. Dave knew his own nose wasn’t small but this guy’s had a nasty curve that gave him an air of meanness. As he wrinkled it in disgust he looked tired and in a really bad mood.
Taking off his jacket, he tossed it on the foot of the couch, then gave the big man a nudge. “Get up.”
The woman put a lid on her pot and hurried across the floor. She picked up the jacket and hung it on a hook on the wall. “Did you see her? Did she tell him what I want?”
Dave’s heart jumped. Were they talking about Joanie? That phone call?
“Oh, I saw her all right. She went straight to him, just as we planned.” The man sauntered over to the stove and lifted the lid of the pot. Pulling back his long dirty blond hair, he took a whiff of its contents through his large nostrils. “What are you making?”
“Never mind,” the woman snapped, picking up a wooden spoon. “What did he say?”
His eyes narrowing the man set the lid back on the pot. “She has friends.”
The woman blinked with a little jolt. “What do you mean?”
“Friends,” he repeated as if she wasn’t very bright. “A man and a woman.”
Dave’s head jerked up. He knew it. Steele and Mr. Parker were here.
“They are good. The woman made me right away in the marketplace.”
“No,” she whispered.
“I recognized the woman. She has been on the television, the news. She is a private investigator. So is the man with her. He is her husband.”
Dave’s heart jumped for joy. He knew it. He knew it.
The big man stomped over to the stove where the other two were standing. “Are we safe here?” His accent sounded Eastern European. Russian, Becker thought.
“We are safe for a while,” the tall man said.
The woman poked the tall man in the chest with her spoon. “You told me we would not be discovered here.”
His thin lip curling over too white teeth, he snatched the spoon away and set it on the table with a sharp rap. “That was before someone was stupid enough to make a phone call last night with a known phone number.”
The woman stared at him, the message sinking in. “We can toss the phone then.”
“Idiot. They will trace it to the nearest cell tower.”
“So?”
“So it is only a matter of time before they find us. The two detectives, they went to your apartment. Once again the female saw me. They both chased me.”
The cook sucked in a breath. “What happened?”
“I led them on a chase after the moon to the Eiffel Tower. I was heading south when I finally lost them. They will be following their own tails for a while.”
What did he say? He’d led them in the wrong direction? That meant they weren’t south of the Eiffel Tower. That didn’t tell him much.
The big man plodded back to the couch in his heavy work boots, sank down. “How long do we have?”
The black haired woman’s hands shot up in the air. “Never mind that. What about my uncle? Is he going to do as I say? Is he going to make me head of the restaurant?”
Uncle? Chef Emile was this woman’s uncle? Good Lord.
Through narrow eyes the tall man gave her an icy look as he stepped toward her. “I left out the best part. The two friends, the man and the woman, they visited someone in French Intelligence.”
French Intelligence? Steele and Parker were getting Fr
ench Intelligence involved? Dave’s heart glowed with a burst of hope.
The big man let out a laugh that wasn’t a laugh. “Your old stomping grounds.”
“Oui,” he said without looking behind him.
Then the big man frowned. “Why did they go there?”
“I do not know. But it means our time is short.”
The woman put her hands on her hips. “What do you mean it is short?”
“I know how they work. We have enough time for our purpose.” The thin man took another ominous step toward her.
The woman backed up, her big eyes growing round. For the first time, Dave saw fear in them. “Old stomping grounds? Purpose? What in the hell are you talking about?”
“The game has changed.”
She shook her head. “Non, non, non. The game is just the same as it always was. When my uncle makes me head of Chez Amando, I will pay you each a thousand Euros. And this will all be over. It is what we agreed on. It is what you promised.”
Dave calculated in his head. A thousand Euros times two was a little more than a twenty-one hundred dollars.
The tall man pushed the woman against the wall, put a hand on either side of her. “Odette, what a foolish girl you are. Did you think we would risk going to prison for a mere thousand Euros?”
Odette. The woman’s name was Odette. And instead of her usual livid response, right now she looked very frightened.
“You want more money? How much?”
He laughed. A deep, throaty laugh that made the hair on the back of Dave’s neck stand up. “You had no idea who you were dealing with when you asked for me at Joyeux, did you?”
“I wanted a job done. I asked for someone who could do it.”
With a thin-lipped smile as scary as his laugh, the tall man gestured behind him. “Do you realize who Grigori is? What he does for a living? Where he acquired his skills?”
Stubbornly Odette folded her arms. “I do not care.”
“Oh, but you should.” He picked up a lock of long black hair from her ponytail, twisted it around his forefinger. “Russian mafia. He is a torpedo.”
“I do not know what that means.” She was trying to sound flippant but her voice was shaking.
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