Dancing with Paris (A Paris Time Travel Romance)

by Juliette Sobanet

  It was the photo of me and François Lefevre outside the club, my back against the stone wall, François leaning over me, slipping a wad of cash into my hand. It was the same photograph the detective had shown me yesterday, and as my eyes darted over the rows of Le Monde and Le Figaro newspapers lining the stand, I found the incriminating image splattered across every single front page.

  With a shaky hand, I reached for one of the papers, nervously skimming the headline that read: Le Scandale Lefevre.

  “C’est vous sur cette photo, Mademoiselle?” It was the old man behind the kiosk counter. He’d recognized me from the photo.

  I shook my head at him. “Non, c’est pas moi, Monsieur,” I snapped as I threw a few francs on the counter and took off toward my apartment, tucking the newspaper and its announcement that I’d sold my body to a married politician tightly under my arm.

  Back in my apartment, I read the newspaper article, only to find my worst fears confirmed.

  Not only did the article expose François Lefevre’s extracurricular activities and my full name, it also named François, député of France’s Assemblée Nationale, as one of the club’s primary investors. The article went on to state that an investigation was under way to find out if the well-known politician had been stealing government money to fund his exploits.

  Despite France’s stereotypical blasé attitude toward infidelity, I doubted even the most liberal of its people would be too excited to learn that one of their top officials—whose father was an advisor to the president, no less—was being accused of smuggling government funds to invest in a scandalous nightclub.

  And as if that wasn’t enough, the writer of the article went so far as to connect both me and François to Gisèle’s death as potential murder suspects.

  Examining the photo once more, I noticed that the picture had been cropped to only include me and François. That female silhouette with the dangly diamond earrings had been cut out of the image. When I closed my eyes, I could still only conjure up a flash of that long string of diamonds but no face to go with it. The club would’ve been packed that night. She could’ve been anyone. And since my broken memory still refused to serve up a perfect timeline of the way things had gone down that night, speculating about who this woman was or what she may have had to do with the murder wouldn’t do me any good now.

  I tossed the newspaper onto the desk and reached for Ruby’s telephone. My new set of hands effortlessly turned the dial on the black rotary phone, to reach a number I hadn’t been able to remember for the life of me yesterday—but that suddenly flowed from Ruby’s memory and straight to the dial without a second thought.

  “Allô?”

  “François, c’est moi, Ruby.”

  His sigh came hard and defeated over the line. He’d seen the headlines too.

  “Putain. What a désastre. Whoever took that photograph and turned it in to les journaux wanted to ruin my life, and they have succeeded.”

  “Does your wife—”

  “Elle est déjà partie.” She already left. “Et elle a pris les enfants.” And she took the kids.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “There is no time for sorry,” he snapped. “The police will want to speak to us both again today, no? We must have our story straight.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “My lawyer is on his way over as we speak. If you want any chance at not being arrested for this murder and spending the rest of your days in a French prison, you must come over right away. My lawyer will advise us both on how to proceed with the police…and with the press. And if you see Jean-Pierre, tell him he is on his own now. All of my money will be going to legal fees.”

  A harsh dial tone rang in my ears as I closed my eyes and called to memory a picture of François’s apartment building. I didn’t need him to tell me the address. Thanks to Ruby’s strengthened memory, I knew exactly where he lived.

  As I tucked the newspaper into my purse, I spotted Antoine’s business card on the desk. A flush of heat crept up my cheeks as I thought of his gaze, of his electric touch the night before. Surely he would see the headlines today. And the photo. He would know now what I’d really been doing the night Gisèle was killed.

  And he would realize that I’d lied to him…or at least that I’d omitted the truth.

  And even though I knew that his offer to call him if I needed anything would probably be revoked after he caught wind of today’s news, I tucked his card into my purse anyway. If I had the opportunity to see him again, I would tell him the truth this time. At least what I remembered of it.

  On my way out the door, I remembered one last thing. I rushed back into Ruby’s bedroom and pulled the black box out from under a pile of lingerie in the dresser. After lifting up the silver clasp, I ran my hand over the smooth black pistol.

  I didn’t want to bring the gun with me. I didn’t want to hold one in my hands ever again.

  Especially a gun that may have taken the life of Antoine’s only sister, and of my friend.

  But when I thought about the eerie whisper I’d heard so clearly on the bridge the night before, the torn photo I’d found of Thomas, the red scars lining my lower back and abdomen, and my memory of the night he’d given them to me, I lifted the gun from its resting place and tucked it into my purse.

  I would do whatever I had to if it meant a chance at making it back to my life as Claudia, a chance at saving my baby.

  FOURTEEN

  Heavy gray clouds swirled over the city, hurling fat drops of freezing rain onto the sidewalks as I took off down rue de l’Ancienne Comédie toward François’s apartment. Rehearsal back at the club was set to begin any minute, and I knew that Jean-Pierre would be livid when I didn’t show up, but I couldn’t worry about him right now. Making sure I didn’t go to prison before my five days were up clearly took precedence over the demands of that sleazy, ruthless club owner.

  Bundling my red peacoat and wispy white scarf tighter around my neck, I turned the corner onto the confined sidewalks of rue Saint-André des Arts, Ruby’s memory telling me exactly where to go. The rain pelted down even harder as I took another left toward the river, the long, winding stretch ahead of me now completely deserted. I broke into a run, praying my tall heels wouldn’t slip on the icy rain that now poured over me in sheets, soaking my hair and clumping up my long eyelashes, making it nearly impossible to see more than a few steps ahead.

  I lowered my face and focused on the ground, knowing that in only a few more blocks, I would find François’s apartment building overlooking the Seine. Suddenly the rain let up, leaving only a chilly mist filtering through the winter air. And in the quiet of this miniscule Parisian side street, an earsplitting footstep clumped behind me.

  I told myself there was no need for my heart to begin racing as it had at the sound of a simple footstep. The rain had stopped, so people would be making their way back outside now. But when I heard another pounding step, followed by another and another, the clicking of heavy shoes against pavement, coming closer and still closer, I couldn’t help but whip my face around to see who was behind me.

  There, less than a block away, stood a tall man cloaked in a stiff black trench coat, his slick, black hair blowing in the wind, his haunting black eyes staring straight at me. The blood drained from my face as the corners of his mouth turned upward into a crooked smile and his pace quickened.

  Thomas.

  I took off down the sidewalk, running faster than I ever had in my entire life. I couldn’t tell if I was still hearing his footsteps against the concrete or if it was the pounding of my own heart drumming inside my ears. I wasn’t going to stop to find out, though.

  I reached the Quai des Grands Augustins, the Seine River just across the street, and knew that François’s apartment building was only a couple of buildings down on the right. I flew around the corner, my heart pumping so hard I thought my chest would burst. As I reached the massive navy-blue door I distinctly remembered walking through before, I lunged for
the buzzer.

  I shot a harried glance to my right to see if the man in the black trench coat was still following me. But when I scanned the crowded sidewalks lining the Seine, a sea of long black trench coats and large umbrellas mocked me. The air in my lungs constricted as I buzzed François’s apartment once more, praying for him to open the damn door.

  The door finally clicked open, so with one last look over my shoulder, I ran inside, slammed the door behind me, then took off down the hallway toward the staircase. Beads of water flung off the ends of my hair as I took the stairs two at a time all the way up to the top floor and François’s penthouse apartment.

  Lifting a hand to bang on the door, I realized it was already ajar. With one final breath, I slipped inside, then closed and bolted the door behind me.

  Thank God.

  The chill from the freezing rainstorm settled into my bones as I leaned against the wall to catch my breath. A dimly lit foyer with shiny hardwood floors opened up to a large salon with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the choppy waters of the Seine, but François was nowhere to be seen.

  “François?” I called, walking slowly through the silent apartment, my voice echoing off the tall ceilings. “François, it’s Ruby. Are you here?”

  A door creaked shut at the end of the hallway, closely followed by the sound of running water. Ah, he must be in the bathroom, I told myself as I continued my private tour of his home.

  I walked past the perfectly set dining room table and headed down a long hallway, the walls to either side of me lined with photographs of François with his wife and kids. A pang of guilt hit me as I gazed into his children’s eyes. A cute little boy with a dark mop of hair and a playful grin. A dainty little girl with bouncy curls and a round face. Had I taken this away from them? Their family? Their father?

  I startled to attention at the sound of the shower turning on at the end of the darkened hallway. Hopefully François wasn’t expecting me to come in there after him—surely not under these grim circumstances, with his lawyer set to arrive here any minute no less.

  I continued slowly down the corridor until I reached the last door on the left, which I knew was his bedroom. And as I glimpsed the grand antique bed filling up the center of the beautiful master bedroom, I remembered being in that bed with François. I could see our two sweaty bodies intertwined on top of the sheets, his quivering fingers undressing me, the forbidden act in his own marital bed making him moan with pure excitement.

  But the bed was empty now. The soft white pillows fluffed, the forbidden lust washed from the sheets. His wife knew. She knew he’d been paying me for sex.

  What kind of a person had I been?

  Someone who would break up families to earn a living?

  Someone who would murder a friend in cold blood to steal her starring role?

  I sank onto the edge of the bed and buried my face in my hands, my stomach curling at the guilty memories that plagued me, my heart still pounding from the fear of the man who could be waiting for me down on those damp Parisian streets.

  This was all too much. François needed to get out of the shower and tell his lawyer to hurry up. I didn’t have any more time to waste.

  I shifted off the bed to get up, but something sharp poked me in the thigh. When I raised my leg up, the sparkle almost blinded me.

  It was an earring.

  A dangly diamond earring.

  I snatched the silky string of diamonds off the bed and examined them in the light streaming through the window. Without the photograph in front of me, I couldn’t be 100 percent certain, but my gut told me that this was the same earring I’d seen on that female silhouette outside the club the night of Gisèle’s murder. The same one in the picture the detective had shown me of François paying me in the alley.

  This earring must belong to François’s wife. Which means she was there the night Gisèle was killed, watching her husband pay me for sex.

  Maybe she’d hired an investigator to photograph us…and maybe she’d been the one to release it to the press.

  Or, was it possible that François’s wife had had something to do with Gisèle’s death? Could she have found out about my relationship with François and tried to frame me for the murder?

  My stomach clenched as I wondered how much deeper Ruby’s mess could possibly go, and how I would ever solve this mystery. Clasping the diamond earring in my hand, I made a split-second decision and tucked it into my purse. I stood on shaky legs, prepared to knock on the bathroom door and tell François to hurry up, but my heel slid on the hardwood floors, nearly causing me to fall.

  A stream of silky red liquid trickled down the shiny wooden panels, straight into my red heels.

  Oh, God.

  The running water in the bathroom suddenly sounded like a roaring steam engine, barreling straight at me as I stepped around the blood and peered toward the other side of the bed.

  There, between the flowing blue curtains and the antique bed, lay François Lefevre, his eyes frozen open, his own scarlet blood flowing from a deep slit in his neck.

  “François!”

  I lunged to his side, my adrenaline kicking in and overpowering my gag reflex. Tossing my purse to the ground, I yanked off my white scarf and pressed it against the open wound in his neck, the endless flow of blood immediately soaking through the thin, silky material and onto my hands.

  “François, wake up. Please, François. Wake up. Wake up!” I pleaded as I pushed the blood-soaked scarf into his neck and folded over his body, knowing it was too late.

  He was already dead.

  I searched the floor around his body, looking for the knife he’d used to end his own life, but I found nothing. His hands lay completely still by his sides, and the entire space around him was clear except for the blood, which continued to flow like a river from his open neck.

  The sound of running water coupled with the eerie stillness in the apartment made me realize what was going on.

  Someone had buzzed me into this apartment, only moments ago…the same someone who’d turned on the shower. And by the gruesome scene before me, it clearly had not been François.

  I dropped the bloody scarf from my hands and searched the room for something to defend myself with, my grandmother’s words returning to my memory with a vengeance.

  Gisèle and Ruby died shortly after that photo was taken.

  Was this it? Had I been sent back to this life just to die here in this foreign apartment, at the hands of an unknown killer?

  I thought of my baby and of Édouard. Engaged or not, I couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing him again. I needed to find a way back to both of them. Was Ruby’s death my way back?

  But when my eyes landed on my purse, lying right next to François’s gray, lifeless face, my gut told me this was not Ruby’s time.

  Lunging for the purse, I wrapped my trembling hands around the cool black pistol inside. I pressed the gun up against my chest, then backed against the wall and inched my way over to the door.

  Hot steam squeezed through the crack in the bathroom door, billowing out into the damp hallway, when suddenly the floorboards creaked in the other direction, near the salon.

  Whoever had killed François was still here. They’d buzzed me up. They’d left the door open for me.

  They wanted me too.

  As my hand closed in around the trigger, I told myself I could do this. I had to do this. I knew I couldn’t let Ruby’s life—my life—end like this, in the middle of this senseless scandal. Madame Bouchard had told me I had something important to accomplish here, in this life, and I couldn’t let it all end like this.

  And so as I readied myself to turn the corner into the hallway, I promised myself that this time, I wouldn’t hesitate.

  I would pull the trigger.

  Taking a deep breath, I pointed the gun out in front of me and crept around the corner. But there was no one waiting for me in the hallway.

  A loud click toward the front of the apartment made my
insides jump, but I kept the gun steady, facing forward, as I crept back down the long hallway. My ankles shook and my stomach threatened to hurl my chocolate croissant from this morning all over the shiny hardwood floors.

  But I didn’t cave. I kept going. I had no other choice.

  As soon as I reached the foyer, something jumped out at me. I screamed and watched helplessly as the gun flew from my hands and a wiry black cat skittered across the floor.

  I lunged toward the gun, which had flown into the front door, but stopped when I realized the door was now unlocked and sitting ajar.

  I’d closed and locked that door behind me when I’d first entered the apartment.

  Whoever had been here had just walked right out the front door and had left me alone in this apartment with a startled cat and François’s dead body.

  FIFTEEN

  Shivering in a stiff blue chair in the fancy living room, I pulled the wool blanket that smelled of François’s cologne tighter around my shoulders. Police milled around the apartment, speaking in hushed tones whenever they walked past me, until finally, one I recognized took a seat in the chair opposite me.

  It was Detective Duval.

  “You are making a habit of showing up at crime scenes, no?”

  I responded with a shiver, my pants and hair still soaking wet from the rain, the shock of finding François’s dead body and my own close call with the murderer still chilling me to the bone.

  Detective Duval pulled a pad of paper and a pen from his front coat pocket and scooted his chair a few inches closer to mine. “Tell me, Mademoiselle Kerrigan, what were you doing at Monsieur Lefevre’s apartment, alone?”

  “I am assuming you saw the photo on the front page of the newspaper this morning?” I asked him, trying to control the trembling in my voice, the incessant spinning in my head.

  He nodded.

  “Can you tell me who leaked it to the press?”