Shocked, she read the message over and over again. It had fifty likes, though the vast majority of the comments expressed absolute outrage.
She looked at the username, didn’t recognize it. Clicked on to the page. It was anonymous—no profile picture, no photos or albums, no status updates, only one like to its credit, Sutton’s fan page. Without a second thought, she deleted the comment and blocked the user. She had absolutely no problem with people not liking her work—she had expressed that on many a panel and blog—but there was something ominous about the comment that made her uneasy.
She shouldn’t have done it. She should have told someone, made a note of the username and the comment itself. Hitting the delete button was a very big mistake. When the police tried to track who she claimed was the real stalker, that was the only clue to their true identity. She couldn’t defend herself.
But that morning, so long ago, after drinking her delicious tea and having mixed feelings toward her slightly estranged husband, Sutton had no idea where it was all going to go.
MURDER, SHE WROTE
Now
That night, the evening of the afternoon Sutton took a stranger home to her bed, there was a murder.
A double murder.
On the steps of Sacré-Coeur.
A young American couple was stabbed to death. They were visiting from Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, both blond as sin and blockily built. College students on a year abroad, they were studying at Oxford, in England, but had come to Paris for a mini break. They were boyfriend and girlfriend.
What no one knew was that in the moments before they died, they’d become more. He had just proposed. He—Rick—had given her—Lily—a ring that he’d brought from home, one he’d bought with tips from his job at Jack Rack’s Pizza, where he’d worked every summer and three school nights a week to save up enough to study abroad for a year, and when he met the new girl in town, Lily—Lily, what a lovely, old-fashioned name—he fell madly in love, and knew he wanted her to be his wife. So he asked her to the movies, added two extra shifts a week, and after two rough years without much sleep, used that money to buy a small blood diamond—the best he could afford; beggars couldn’t be choosy about buying cheap blood diamonds versus the much more expensive conflict-free, ethically mined ones—and had been planning this special moment for two months.
Can you see it? He, homegrown Midwestern goodness, on his knees, pledging his eternal troth. She, a hand clapped over her mouth, face suffused with a pleasant blush, happily having the moment she’d long dreamed of, tearily shouting, “Yes, yes, yes!” Him, sliding the small blood diamond onto her finger, and leaning in to kiss her. Their future, set. A perfect moment, years in the making, but as the tableau unfolds, the camera pans back, and a shadow grows. There is a glint of a blade in the moonlight. You almost want to scream at them to watch out, to run, don’t you?
The killer stabbed the boy once in the kidney, forcing him to stumble forward in shock. The killer then ripped the knife across the neck of the girl, and pulled the ring from her finger as she fell. He waited for them to stop struggling, dispassionately.
Careful not to step in the blood, he swiped the top and edge of the ring box in the deepest spot of wet burgundy, wrapped it in plastic, and stashed it in his pocket, then arranged the students on the steps so Lily was on top, facedown, with her arms around her lover, her fiancée, and the moment that should have been the happiest for them both mingled with their spilled blood on the bone-white marble steps and they died that way, together.
It was quick, don’t worry. They didn’t suffer. They were too shocked by the blitzkrieg, and then too empty of blood to really know what had just happened. And if you think about it, it wasn’t a terrible way to go. At least they had happiness in the end, and each other.
There were no witnesses, rather miraculous, really, when you consider how many people were in the vicinity when it happened. But, conveniently for the killer, the young lovers had wanted a private moment, and so had stepped away from the main thoroughfare, where the view wasn’t quite as good but there was no one else around.
A man walking his dog found them, piled on top of each other. He thought for a moment they were making love, and smiled to himself at the folly of youth, then his flashlight showed the pool of blood, and he knew something was very, very wrong. While the man called emergency, his dog stepped delicately along the edges, sniffing, leaving tiny red paw prints around the scene.
When the Parisian police arrived, they were suitably frantic. A contaminated crime scene, for one, and clearly the arrangement of some deranged killer. But worse, the identification in purse and pocket.
American tourists being murdered is very bad for business.
Very bad indeed.
THOSE SACRED HEARTS
Paris held many secrets. Sutton wanted to discover them all. She rose early, brushed her hair into a thick ponytail, put on a pair of dark New Balance sneakers, threw her laptop in her bag. Today was for exploring. She needed a change of scenery.
She didn’t know where she was headed, just grabbed the first train at the Metro and rode for fifteen minutes. She’d gone north, across the Seine. She didn’t recognize many of the stops, but one name pulled at her consciousness. Montmartre. Constantine had told her the light from Sacré-Coeur was some of the most amazing in all of Paris. He’d suggested they meet there for lunch today. Perfect. She’d visit the cathedral, see the sights, settle in to write at a café nearby (there was always a café nearby, this was Paris), then, if she so desired, would walk down the hill and meet him for lunch.
She gathered her bag and stood. When the train stopped, she waited for the doors to open. Nothing happened. A teenager knocked her in the shoulder as he reached for a small metal latch and opened the door. Oh. Tourist move there, Justine.
She climbed the stairs to the surface, a periwinkle emerging from the sand. She’d never need to exercise at this rate. Paris was nothing if not filled with stairs. The street appeared before her. It had a different feel than her neighborhood, immediately more cramped and artsy. She thought of Constantine then, the thick arms that had held her—well, no, not really held, more pinned her down. He’d been rough, and she’d enjoyed it, though now, looking back, she felt like things weren’t as blissful as she’d made them out to be. Revisionist history, tainted by alcohol. Her specialty.
Instinct told her meeting him, continuing this dalliance, was a bad idea. She knew better. She knew she should be more careful. She’d just been feeling so reckless, and the alcohol had gone to her head. She still felt ill. Regret and a two-day hangover, the breakfast of champion writers everywhere. Great.
So why was she even considering meeting him? She should blow him off, let him disappear into the fabric of the city, like she was trying to do. Connections were the last things she wanted.
He wouldn’t like it. She could tell he’d been very interested in her. A strong miasma of desire and dread filled her. You are a stupid fool, Justine. To risk all you’ve overcome to please yet another man. She wanted to see him badly; she didn’t ever want to see him again.
She took the funicular to the top, surprised to find it empty. The path was also quiet in the early morning. She walked in silence for a few moments, her sole companion a small black cat with white socks who mewed happily in a friendly French manner when she stopped to scratch his ears.
Constantine was right. As she emerged from the winding, leafy path from the funicular and made her way to the church grounds, the city unfolded before her. Rooftops and cathedrals, the lone skyscraper in Montparnasse straight ahead, the aggressive, thrusting buildings of La Défense to her right. Greens and golds and white, painfully beautiful to behold. It was as if she were the only person standing on the top of the world. The white marble of the cathedral so perfectly lit in the sun, the brightness nearly burned her eyes.
She s
hut them, took a breath. This was something she’d wanted for so long, and here she was, feeling more alone than she’d ever been.
Ethan.
The name came like a whisper on the breeze.
What was he doing? Did he miss her? Was he so thrilled to have her out of his house, his life, that he was planning a huge party?
She shouldn’t have done it this way. But she knew if she’d told him she wanted out, really out, divorce and separate lives out, he would talk her down from the ledge and she’d be stuck. He was so good with his words when he wanted to be. A clean break, disappearing from her life, it was the only way. She wasn’t strong enough to do it otherwise. She was so broken lately. The past year had been hell incarnate.
People arrived, flowing around her. The spell quickly broke in the face of their intrusion. So many languages. So many colors. She wanted to be alone again. She walked to the western edge of the courtyard. There she saw two flics, and it seemed like they were guarding something. She walked closer, but one held up a hand and barked, “Arrête.” Stop.
She froze. She could see now there were many people beyond the perimeter. He approached, speaking rapid French. “What are you doing here? You need to leave, right away. This area is closed.”
She smiled and nodded. “I’m so sorry. Is it construction?”
“No. Move along, now.”
He went back to his partner and took up his station again, hands on hips, legs spread, frowning at her. With a last glance at the knot of people down the hill, she walked back the way she’d come, through the leafy green canopy to a small square. There was no way to be alone now, which was a shame. She’d felt something deep connecting her to the city atop the hill. Something strong and good. A beginning, maybe. Or an end.
Winding down the hill, past the artists who’d been painting the sunrise over the city, she took a seat at the first café she saw, asked for coffee and a croissant, opened her laptop. As she was putting in her earbuds, two women took the table next to her. She couldn’t help but tune in when she heard the tone of their voices, so unlike the usual happy babble of the Parisian café. This was filled with dread and wonder and excitement.
“Did you hear? About the murder? A young American couple. Pierre said their bodies are still up there.”
“I heard they were gutted.”
“I heard she was beheaded.”
“These terrorists are ruining our city.”
“Pierre spoke to the flics. It was not terror. They were targeted. It was cold-blooded murder. In our backyard, no less.”
Sutton felt a small frisson. It was rude, frowned upon, to eavesdrop, but Sutton couldn’t help herself. She needed to know more.
“Excusez-moi. Le meurtre des Américains, c’était où?” Where?
The women turned. They were so classically French, at once painfully plain and yet ethereally beautiful, one brunette, one blonde, both perfect, elegant, lines on their foreheads, no makeup outside of a swipe of red lipstick, their hair in identical styles, shoulder-length, straight, flipped up on the ends.
In English, the brunette replied, gesturing over Sutton’s shoulder, “Sacré-Coeur. You’re American?”
“I am.”
“You should go home, and you need to be careful. If there are murderers about, Paris is dangerous for a young woman such as yourself.”
Their breakfast interrupted, the two women stood and left.
Normally Sutton would be hurt by the brusque exchange, but she ignored their slight. The two flics, on the back side of Sacré-Coeur. Had they been guarding the bodies of the two young Americans who’d been murdered?
She tied in to the café’s Wi-Fi, pulled up the website of French24, the English language website and news station she’d been watching online for the few weeks prior to leaving. The murder was the lede, the details thin.
She read rapidly. The Americans were young but unidentified, only named as exchange students. The cause of death was not listed.
She gulped down her coffee, wrapped the croissant in the paper napkin, packed away her laptop. There was no peace in the day for her anymore.
She starting winding her way down the hill. Half a block later she came across a flower stand. So many gorgeous blooms, all the colors of the rainbow. Those children—it was hard to think of anyone in school still as an adult—dead by a stranger’s hand in the most beautiful city in the world. It broke her heart.
She plucked a bunch from the water, paid for it, then trudged back up the hill. She didn’t know why she felt the need to mark their deaths—these two were nothing to her—and yet she was compelled. Maybe the fact that they were Americans, maybe that she’d come close again to death and the flowers were a sort of protection against it following her home. She didn’t know, and she didn’t care.
She walked directly to the white steps of the cathedral, set the flowers there, whispered a short prayer, and hurried away.
AN APPOINTMENT MISSED, A DISASTER AVOIDED
Back in the 7th, the murders were the talk of the whole neighborhood. Amazing how quickly news spread, amazing how many strangers were fascinated with the story. Sutton walked to the café on the corner, her place, as she’d come to think of it over the past few days. She set up shop with her laptop and delayed breakfast, but everyone was buzzing, and she finally closed the lid of the computer and listened to the chatter.
How odd, Sutton thought. The rumors all agreed on one thing. The victims had not been robbed. The girl’s purse was there, zipped, intact; the boy’s wallet and phone and money clip were still in his pockets. They both wore watches. Passports left behind, too.
It felt weird to everyone.
“If it wasn’t random...” they whispered.
Americans being targeted in Paris was cause for alarm for everyone, especially expats on the run from their lives, who couldn’t completely pass as Parisians. And to think, she’d been right there, had practically walked into the crime scene. The thought chilled to the bone.
She wondered briefly about Constantine, whether he’d be disappointed when she didn’t show for their lunch date. She’d decided on the Metro home, it was for the best that she didn’t see him again. He’d filled his purpose, helped her make the break with her past. That’s what she needed. A break from her past.
There was nothing more to learn this morning. She slipped in her earbuds and started to write.
* * *
A tap on her shoulder yanked her back. She pulled out the left earbud, only half processing who’d interrupted her. Startled at the familiar voice.
“Hello there.”
Constantine.
“Oh. Hi.”
“You don’t look happy to see me,” Constantine said, leaning in to kiss her on the forehead. She forced herself not to draw away, though she wanted to. “I thought we were meeting for lunch. You weren’t there.” His hand lingered on her shoulder, squeezing gently, possessive and familiar.
She rolled her neck to knock his hand away unobtrusively, feigned looking at her watch. “Oh, my goodness. I lost track of time.” All the while thinking, You tracked me down? Uh-oh.
It was nearly three in the afternoon. She was cramped from crouching over the computer on the tiny table, but she had ten new pages on the book. She was just about to cut out for the afternoon, drop off the laptop, and go for a walk.
Sitting, he leaned close and whispered, “Why don’t we go back to your place? I’ve been dying to see you.”
She could smell him, a combination of man and subtle cologne and sex. He smells of sex. Who had he been with? Was it just left over from her? She tried not to notice he was still handsome, still had that animal magnetism. Tried not to listen when a nasty little voice inside her said, Why not?
Don’t be an idiot. Don’t be an idiot.
“I can’t, Const
antine. I’m afraid I must work.” She heard the ice in her tone. The old Sutton was back, empty, devoid. No more mistakes, no more dalliances. It was how she’d been talking to Ethan for the past month, since she found the allergy medicine in the closet and started planning her escape. Cold and remote.
That tone cut like a knife. She’d honed it well. There was hurt on Constantine’s face, and she felt terrible. Why must women worry about hurting feelings?
Don’t give in, don’t be stupid. Stay emotionless.
“Did I do something wrong?” he asked, sitting back in the chair.
“No. Not at all. I had fun. It was fun. But I came here to be alone. I wasn’t planning to get involved with anyone.”
He ran a finger along her arm, like she had to him when they first met. She swallowed. What could it hurt, once more?
“It’s all good fun. No involvement necessary. I’m not asking for anything.”
“I know you’re not. I acted impetuously. But it can’t happen again.”
Constantine’s eyes walked over her body, and she could swear she saw the barest predatory gleam in them when he licked his lips and shrugged, then stood. His voice was no longer warm and cajoling. It was cold, the perfect match to hers, but there was genuine hurt and confusion, and she felt the pull, the need, the desire to be loved and to love, to connect.
“Suit yourself. It was nice knowing you, Justine Holliday.”
He started to walk away and she felt the shroud lift. What a dumb mistake she’d made, allowing her baser instincts to take over. Maybe when you’re settled here, maybe when you’ve made up your mind that this is permanent, then you can think about moving on for real.
She saw him disappear around the corner and squared her shoulders.
Stick to the plan. Stick to the plan.
And then she was up, on her feet, tossing bills on the table, running after him.
Lie to Me Page 24
