Murder Below Montparnasse

Monday Early Evening, Silicon Valley


RENÉ GRIPPED THE leather armrest as Bob backed the Cadillac into a narrow-looking spot in the gravel parking lot. “Can’t beat this place. Best burgers in the Valley, René.”

A weathered neon sign read GROVER’S above a diner off the Avenue of the Fleas.

“Millionaires eat here?”

“They weren’t always millionaires.” Bob grinned. “You wanted Americana—where real people and geeks eat. Doesn’t get greasier or more authentic than this.”

René noticed the meal portions as they walked by the booths. Gigantic. A single plate looked like it could feed a whole table.

On the wall of their plastic-upholstered booth was a jukebox. Bob slotted in quarters and hit some keys. “Green River” by Creedence Clearwater blasted from speakers overhead.

“The usual, Bob?” asked the waitress, an older woman.

Bob nodded. “And two Buds. For my friend here.…”

“What’ll it be, hon?” she said, slapping down a menu.

René’s chest hit the edge of the Formica table. “What he’s having, Madame. But a smaller portion.”

“Kid’s cheeseburger, all right?”

René nodded.

She winked a blue-shadowed eyelid. Scribbled on her order pad. “Got it. My cousin’s married to a man of your stature, they own a ranch in Morgan Hill.” She gave an approving cluck. “Prize dairy cows.”

He swallowed his embarrassment. “I suppose you have phone books?”

“What you waiting for, Bob? Your friend needs some vertical assistance. Phone booth’s in back.”

Bob stood, all six feet of him, a sheepish look on his face. “Sorry, René, I didn’t think.”

“Just don’t come back with one of those children’s booster seats.”

René finished half of the child’s plate. How did people eat such great quantities, and all in one sitting? And no cheese course to follow. But he kept that to himself.

“How’s it feel after your first day as CTO?” Bob grinned, wiping ketchup off his chin. “Spot any blondes yet?”

René leaned back on the phone books. “I met a programmer who makes a perfect café au lait. Two in one, Bob. Legs to forever. I’m in love.”

“Three in one, René. Love, lust, no difference, eh?”

Bob, twice divorced, complained of child support and alimony.

“But tell me,” René said, leaning forward. “I train at dojos, but I’m not into team sports. Am I expected to do le jogging with my boss?”

“What?” Bob said. “I don’t follow. Start-ups are all hustle. No one’s got time for team sports.”

“But this front running, it means faire du sport, non?”

Bob dropped his fork. “Front running? Explain.”

René told him the little he’d overheard.

“Hard to say, but front running involves a kind of insider trading,” Bob said. “There’s different ways to spin it, but say a financial search engine provides trading services. Somehow, for example, they set up access on the mainframe to stall data transmission by a few seconds—that’s a big no-no.”

“I don’t understand, Bob.” René’s cheeks flushed. The beer and Bob’s reaction got to him.

“Did you program a relay and delay code?”

René nodded, worried. “I need to for security and maintenance.”

“But for a financial search engine that uses portfolio tracking and a stock screener, this kind of front run could provide a few seconds’ advantage in online stock trading,” Bob said, playing with his napkin. “So you can manage to get a lower day-trading guarantee. Millions of dollars’ advantage in trading, René. What the hell did they tell you?”

“That’s just it, nothing. I patched and vented the mainframe back door, the usual. Secured the system.”

“Maybe you heard wrong,” Bob said. “Tradelert’s got top investors. Generating a lot of buzz. I don’t know.”

Had he done their dirty work?

Bob paid the check.

“Nothing jumped out at me after I double-checked all systems,” René said.

Or had jetlag clouded his brain?

“It’s your ass, René.”

AFTER BOB DROPPED him off at the motel, René hung up his suit jacket and trousers on the plastic hanger and stepped into the pink Jacuzzi. He needed to ease the ache in his hip joints after the plane ride. He allowed himself to float in the water, feel the massaging jets, empty his mind.

His head cleared, he played back the algorithms. After he dried off with the largest and thirstiest pink towel he’d ever used, he unpacked his handmade Charvet shirts and hung tomorrow’s suit up in the closet.

At the laminate wood motel desk, complete with Gideon Bible in the drawer, his gaze fell on the empty, dimly lit parking lot outside the window. His thoughts drifted—had Saj garaged and waxed his car? Did Aimée remember the client meeting he’d scheduled, or Miles Davis’s grooming appointment? For a moment he felt alone. So alone in this room with the king-size bed, so oversize he needed a chair to reach it.

Stop it, he told himself. He booted up his laptop, stuck in the second prototype thumb-drive he’d neglected to tell Saj he’d borrowed, got ready to work. But that phrase niggled in his mind: The dwarf’s got no idea.

Had he heard wrong?

He’d call the Nordic blonde. Test his suspicions.

“Susie, it’s René, sorry to call so late.”

“What happened to you after work?” She almost purred. “I failed in my mission to serve you.”

“But you can redeem yourself, Susie,” he said, envisioning her long legs. “I planned on checking the mainframe again,” he said, “but without remote access I’ll need to take care of that tomorrow.”

“Didn’t you get your token?” A little gasp. “My fault. I forgot.”

The token allowing him remote access to the mainframe. Tokens were guarded like the Holy Grail. Had she really forgotten?

“Security would allow that? I mean, in France we work on-site only.”

“This is the Valley, René,” Susie said, a smile in her voice.

Something bothered him. And he wished he knew what.

“I’m so sorry I forgot, René. You needed it tonight? I’m still here working, and I just ran the systems. We’re all good for tomorrow. Drop by my cubicle before the investor meeting,” she said. “I’ll set you up. Café au lait included.”

René imagined her tan legs, long blonde hair, and hazel eyes. Big eyes like Aimée’s. A pang went through him. All these miles away and her scent lingered on his jacket. Chanel No. 5. But he was nothing to her but a friend.

“Don’t worry, René, someone’s here twenty-four, seven if you have questions,” Susie said.

After hanging up, he worked off the backup he’d put on Saj’s thumb-drive. It was smaller and more efficient than floppies or CDs. He hadn’t tested Tradelert’s hardware security—not a priority with the meeting looming tomorrow—but he’d noticed plastic pillars like the ones they have at department stores to stop theft. Saj’s thumb-drive hadn’t set off the alarm.

First rule, as always, he’d backed up all his work. He examined the firewall hole he’d patched—necessary security for the investors Rob stressed would join in the next round of financing, and for the product launch, even a possible IPO.

Secure. Then he examined the back door he’d engineered. Tested the code. All good. He clicked into the safety net backup. And then his fingers froze on the keyboard.





Tuesday Afternoon, Paris


AIMÉE GRASPED THE truck door handle and spit at Florent. A sharp slap stung her face.

“You know you want it,” Florent grunted.

“Not what you’ve got.” She twisted her body, wriggled, trying to push him off her. His dirty fingernails clawed her thighs. Raked her skin. Her heart pounded in her ears.

With all her might she shoved him against the window. Kneed him in the groin as hard as she could.

Florent fell back with a loud groan. She scrambled out the driver’s door. Slammed it. Ran.

Two blocks away, beyond Alésia, she stepped into a corner café. Shaking and berating herself, she hurried down the dark wooden stairs to the WC. In front of the soap-splattered mirror, she ran hot water—washed her legs, arms, and face with shaking hands, intent on scrubbing off Florent’s smell, his filth clinging to her skin. She put her head down, took deep breaths until she stopped trembling.

Feeling cleaner, she brushed mascara through her eyelashes. A swipe of Chanel Red over her lips and a spritz of Chanel No. 5 from her bag to complete the repairs. Next time she wouldn’t be so stupid.

Not far from the Montsouris reservoir she found rue Marie Rose, a short-sloped block of six-story stone apartment buildings across from the red-brick church. Quiet after the bustling roundabout of Alésia. But even if she knew what to look for—a cellar where a Modigliani had been hidden—the idea of entering each building and questioning dwellers was daunting.

Scouting midblock, she found a plaque at Number 34 attesting that Lenin had lived there, and that his apartment was now a museum. From Piotr’s letter she knew Lenin had lived upstairs from him. She’d struck gold.

This route to the painting led her backward, but in some cases, she remembered her father saying, going to the beginning helps you find the end. Feeling more hopeful that she was close to finding another piece of this jigsaw, she entered the light-filled foyer.

Scents of pine cleaner lingered on the brown encaustic-tile walls and the staircase banister’s burnished mahogany. Clean, utilitarian, no frills. The working-class aura remained. For a moment she imagined the Russian émigrés here at the turn of the century.

No answer to her knock on the concierge’s door or any of the ground-floor apartments. Voices came from above. She hoped for better luck there.

At the Lenin-apartment-museum entrance, several people listened to a serious-faced young woman. She wore her brown hair in a bun and wore no makeup. “The father of the Revolution lived here from 1909 to 1912 with Comrade Krupskaya, his wife, and her mother,” the guide explained. “As you will see, every effort’s been made to document his life here and provide as many furnishings of that period as possible. Austere, by our standards today. The Revolution’s architect lived simply, focusing on formulating Revolutionary theory.”

Before Aimée could duck out, she felt a pamphlet pressed in her hand. An image of Lenin shrouded in a greatcoat, saluting Revolutionaries from a train. A heroic man-of-the-people pose.

“Welcome, Comrade, the tour’s just beginning.”

What planet did this woman live on? The Wall came down in 1989, almost ten years ago. “Sorry, but I didn’t reserve for the tour,” Aimée said. “I wouldn’t want to take another’s place.”

That sounded weak.

“Join us, s’il vous plaît.”

Reluctant, Aimée smiled. The guide was no doubt a red-diaper baby from one of the few surviving red suburbs. Once, Paris had been enclosed by the “red belt” hotbed of unions and Communists.

“The new socialist Russia,” she said in a reverential tone, “and the movement that changed the world, were born here.”

A hush descended.

So out of touch, this young comrade. And passé. But the possibility of hearing more about Lenin—the man who’d bounced Piotr on his knee—held Aimée’s interest.

“Comrade Krupskaya wrote in her journals of their life in these two rooms. They held meetings and discussions right here, forging the doctrine.”

The guide gestured to notebooks piled along the burnished orange walls under portraits of Marx and Lenin’s mother. Her voice droned on. Aimée stared at the French translation above Krupskaya’s journal.

To get the gas connected I had to go up to town three times before I received the necessary written order. The amount of red tape in France is unbelievable. To get books from the lending library you must have a householder to stand surety for you, and our landlord, seeing our miserable furniture, hesitated to do so.

AIMÉE IDENTIFIED WITH Krupskaya’s frustration at French bureaucracy—some things never changed. She scanned more of the translations. Krupskaya wrote about Lenin’s daily routine of bicycling to the Archives to do research. How on the weekends they joined other émigrés at Parc Montsouris—”a little Russia,” she wrote, her tone wistful. How she and Lenin kept their bicycles in the cellar, her struggles with the steep cellar steps and the keys.

An article published in 1960 detailed Khrushchev’s visit to Lenin’s museum, or “shrine.” A local seventy-three-year-old resident interviewed for the piece spoke of his childhood:

Lenin? Mais oui, I knew him. His cleaner, Louise, was my neighbor. I saw him cut his hand two or three times on his bike lock, he always seemed preoccupied. The police watched him and his friends, les émigrés, constantly. On Sundays when I rode my bicyclette I’d see him on his. Ah, but in those days I was young.

And it hit her. The cellar the comrade kept her bike in—the old-fashioned key Natasha mentioned—could it be the key to a cellar storage space? The cellar Madame Figuer lent her wheelbarrow to Yuri to empty out? Aimée needed to get down there.

She passed the visitor log with the signatures of Khrushchev and Brezhnev and tiptoed out before the tour guide noticed.

At the concierge’s loge she didn’t have long to wait. A young man wearing jeans set down a Darty shopping bag.

“You’re early,” he said. “My mother’s showing the apartment in twenty minutes.”

“No problem,” she said, improvising. “I want to rent space for my bike. Can you show me?”

“The cellar space goes with the apartment. Desolé.”

She sighed. “I’m tired of having bikes stolen. The third one in two months. I need it for work. Really, it doesn’t take much room. I’d share.”

“Talk to my mother.”

She was desperate to get down there. “But I heard an old man’s storage got emptied. My friend helped clean it out, a real mess he said.”

The young man took out his door key. “That’s the truth. Like a dump. Left for years.”

Her ears perked up.

“Gave my mother a real headache, trying to get his son, the old man, to empty it.”

“But I don’t care. Can’t I just see it? You’d really help me out.”

“She’s in charge, desolé, not up to me.” He opened the door.

She couldn’t let him go.

“Could I measure it? We’d go for the apartment if I knew I could fit the bikes and an old chest down there.” She smiled. “I love this street. Had my eye on the building. I know I could convince my boyfriend, but …”

“The soccer match on the télé starts in three minutes.” He picked up his bag.

Poor mec, she hated to push but couldn’t lose this opportunity. “Would you mind giving me the cellar key?” She gave another smile. “Won’t take me but ten minutes. Then I’ll tour the apartment with your mother.”

A sigh, then he reached for something inside the closet. Handed her an old-fashioned, rusted key. “Number C-twenty-four. Watch out for rat droppings. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He wanted to get rid of her and watch the game. Fine by her.

Her penlight beam wavered over the dirt floor in the cellar tunnel. A row of water-stained coved doors with numbers stretched along the cellar tunnel. Only a single naked bulb illuminated the space.

C24 opened with the key and a wave of musty air hit her. What was she looking for? A sign that Yuri had found a Modigliani that had been left here for more than seventy years? All she discovered in the shadows were rat turds and a broken chair on the hard earth floor.

“Mademoiselle?”

A plump black-haired woman shone a flashlight.

“I’ve already rented the apartment.” Her words rolled with an Italian accent. “The storage goes with it. You’ll need to find another place for your bicycle.”

“A shame, but merci, Madame,” Aimée said, racking her mind for a way to prolong the conversation. This woman might offer some insight. “Nice cleanup for a space full of seventy-something years’ worth of garbage. Least that’s what your son—”

“Porca miseria, don’t get me started,” the woman said. “A health hazard. I could do nothing until that old buzzard’s son finally came. He should thank me, he should. Found a masterpiece, or so he claimed.”

The woman liked to talk. And used her hands, evidenced by the flashlight’s yellow beam waving over the damp stone walls.

“By masterpiece you mean a painting?” Aimée shook her head. “Like a Rembrandt?”

The woman shrugged. “I don’t know. He seemed excited enough. These things happen, sì? People find treasures at flea markets, in attics. Down here all that time, wrapped up. Wouldn’t surprise me if it’s worth a fortune, that’s how it always happens. But you only know for sure if you get it appraised.”

Aimée followed the flashlight beam back up the steps, glad to leave the whiffs of decay and humidity behind her. Mortar crumbled under her feet.

“That’s what I told him,” the woman continued. “Let an expert examine it. Take it to an auction house, or an art gallery, a museum—I don’t know.” She laughed, a deep laugh from her stomach. “He says to me, Madame Belluci, you’re right. I promise to buy you a nice dinner.”

“He took your advice! Did he buy you that dinner?”

“That’s the funny thing,” Madame Belluci said. “We have reservations tonight at La Tour d’Argent. He told me we’d have champagne with the art dealer.”

Reservations Yuri couldn’t keep. “Lucky you. A prominent, well-known art expert, I assume?”

“I don’t know.”

Aimée paused. “Then I won’t keep you, you’re busy.” She glanced at her Tintin watch. “Eight o’clock comes early, I know. Keep me in mind if a space opens up for bikes, okay?”

Madame Belluci ran her hand through her curly hair, blew a gust of air out of her mouth. “But I didn’t say eight. Dinner’s at nine.”

Now Aimée knew what to do. She forgot the unpleasantness of Florent’s groping—finding the parking ticket had led to the cellar and the concierge. Now the art dealer.

No one got reservations at La Tour d’Argent at such short notice unless they were connected. Yuri wasn’t, so she figured the art dealer must be.

Ten minutes later, she entered La Tour d’Argent on Quai de la Tournelle. Afternoon light spilled over the gold sconces, red carpet so thick it muffled her footsteps, the red-velvet-flocked wallpaper soaked up conversation. The place exuded privilege.

An entrée cost the price of a pair of gently worn Louboutins. Even if she won the lottery, not her type of place. A tuxedoed maître d’ took one look at her outfit. “Mademoiselle, our last seating for luncheon’s full.”

She pulled out her father’s police ID doctored with her photo. Shot him a measured smile and gestured to the tall reception podium.

“No fuss no muss, Monsieur. Please cooperate and show me the dinner reservations for this evening.”

He hesitated. Adjusted his tie. “Anything I should know?”

“Pre-security detail,” she said. “I’m sure you know what that means.”

President Chirac, while notorious for being a palace homebody, had a proclivity for spontaneous visits to restos of this caliber with his daughter. It drove his bodyguards and security detail nuts, but, according to one she knew, it was the best possible security—if no one at the restaurant knew he was coming, no assassin would either. Reservations would be made under a false name, but contingent on a green light from security, who’d make a quick sweep a few hours prior.

“Extra measures, Monsieur. I’m sure you understand, n’est-ce pas?”

The maître d’ gave a knowing look, inclined his distinguished white head. So Chirac had dined here before.

“Bien sûr.” He turned the thick vellum pages toward her.

“We’re wondering about an old friend, an art dealer.”

“Monsieur Luebet, party of three, at nine P.M.”

“And his gallery, Monsieur?”

“Laforet on Montparnasse.”

Maître d’s knew everyone. That was their job. Only three people—Yuri, the art dealer Luebet, and the concierge. Yuri hadn’t invited his stepson.

“Most helpful. Merci, Monsieur.”

He smiled and executed a little bow. “I’ll drop a word to the chef to have aiguillette de canard et foie gras, gelée de porto on the menu. His favorite.”

“You do that.”

A WORLD-CLASS FOUR-STAR dinner tallied for an art dealer expecting a fat commission on a Modigliani. Several scenarios spun in her head: Yuri, following the concierge’s suggestion, takes the painting to Luebet, with Damien driving the camionnette. Luebet, recognizing a true Modigliani, this unique lost treasure, strikes a deal with Yuri to handle the sale and perform a professional appraisal for authentication the next morning. Meanwhile Luebet, counting his poulets before they hatched, lines up potential buyers, interested museums, and makes a reservation to celebrate.

But if that had been the case, wouldn’t Yuri have lodged the painting with Luebet for safekeeping? She remembered his stricken look when he opened the pantry to discover it empty. And the fact that he was tortured—none of it made sense. But Luebet would know something.

Gunning her scooter, she reached the Boulevard du Montparnasse and found Luebet’s gallery closed. She tried the gallery number. Only voice mail. She left a message.

Who stole the painting? Who tortured Yuri? Not her job to find out, but she couldn’t put it out of her mind. Nor could she forget the Serb who’d found Saj’s name. But she had a business to run. She called to check in at the office.

“Any Indian attacks, Maxence?”

“Only a few sales calls, if you call those—”

“Attends, Maxence.” She didn’t feel good about a kid assuming René’s position and making sales pitches for their security. “I’ll handle those.”

“Bon. Iridium and Netex faxed the proposals back and accepted,” he said. “I was about to fax them contracts, but I’ll leave it for you.”

Two new contracts? He’d just faxed the proposals out this morning. The kid impressed her.

“All right, go ahead and prepare contracts. Use the template in my file and just fill in the parameters from the proposals. Anything else?”

“Virus scans have been run. I’m digging more in Xincus on Yuri Volodya. All quiet on the western front.”

“Good job. See you later.” She hung up.

Maxence had it under control. She tried to ignore her feeling of superfluousness and concentrate on the problems at hand—Yuri’s murder, this painting, and Saj.

She was still holding her phone when it rang again.

“Oui?”

“Mademoiselle Leduc, I’m Monsieur Luebet’s assistant,” said a smooth voice. “He’s unavailable today but I can schedule an appraisal tomorrow.”

Didn’t the inherited Matisse she’d lied about on her message merit more consideration? The longer she waited, the worse her chances of ever finding this painting. And then another scenario hit her—what if Luebet had arranged the robbery? Contracted it out to the Serb to steal the Modigliani so he could show up pink and innocent for the appraisal? But the Serb was dead, the painting gone. She could only spin theories until she spoke to Luebet.

“I’m afraid that’s too late,” she said. “Two dealers have already expressed interest in the Matisse.”

This should put fire under the receptionist to contact Luebet.

“Alors, Mademoiselle,” the receptionist said, her voice now rushed. “Let me see what I can do.”

“But if he’s not in Paris, I can’t wait,” she said. “A shame, I heard he’s the best.”

“As soon as his curating meeting finishes at the Musée Bourdelle …”

Aimée clicked off. Now she knew where to find Luebet. It was vital that she glean more about the Modigliani from him. She might even show him Piotr’s letters in exchange for information.

AIMÉE POCKETED HER scooter key, smoothed down her cashmere cardigan, and took a deep breath. That hint of spring hovered in the pocket of warm air engulfing the Musée Bourdelle’s open garden. Passing the garden’s massive, ample-figured female sculptures made her think of the kilo she’d gained lately. She wondered if she would have completely let herself go by the time Melac came back from his new assignment—one so hush-hush he couldn’t reveal its nature—if he ever came back. Her life was such a mess lately. She needed to figure out how to cope better with the constant worry over Melac’s safety, the danger he faced every day on the job. Not to mention she’d been neglecting poor Miles Davis. She made a mental note to straighten out her priorities. Later.

Aimée paid her fifteen-franc admission. A yawning member of the museum staff tore her ticket in half at the door. She hurried by the wall history explaining Bourdelle’s apprenticeship under Rodin and his mentoring of Giacometti, continued out through the rose-pink portico and turned left. A brown wooden door labeled ATELIER, then an arrow to LES BUREAUX ADMINISTRATIFS.

Inside she found not an airy, light-filled studio but damp, peeling walls, a rusted charcoal stove, aged wooden beams, and old metal sculpture tools, illuminated only by gray slants of daylight. She shivered, missing the sun-drenched garden she’d just come from. The cross-hatched wood-slatted floor creaked under her heels. Each step echoed, filling her with the sense of having stepped into another time.

“Takes you somewhere else, non?” A man spoke from the shadows. “As if the sculptor will walk in and take up from where he left off on that arm.” The stranger pointed to the half-finished marble figure. “Just as Bourdelle left it in 1929.”

True. She wondered if the dank cold had given the artist chilblains. Not her idea of prime working conditions.

She walked toward the shadow. A guide. “I’m looking for the administrative offices, the director.”

“Keep going.”

Aimée followed the directions, taking her through an ivy-walled walkway leading to a warren of offices. As archaic as the rest of the museum.

“Monsieur Luebet?” said the young secretary. “But you just missed him, Mademoiselle.”

Again, too late.

An older man in a suit emerged from a back office waving a folder. “Luebet rushed off and forgot this. Stick it in the mail for him, s’il vous plaît.”

Aimée sensed an opportunity.

“Monsieur Luebet’s gone?” Aimée said. “But he said to meet here.”

“And you are?”

Prepared, Aimée pulled out a card with a generic company name. “Lisette. We specialize in packing artwork. Custom crating, shipments.”

The man shrugged. “Something urgent came up at his gallery.”

“Vraiment? That’s a problem, since he’s not answering his mobile.”

“Try the gallery.”

She shrugged. “If he took his car, I’ll never make it in time.”

“You’re in luck, Mademoiselle. Luebet took the Métro today,” the man said. “He complained he couldn’t drive in because of all the street demonstrations.”

“Merci, Monsieur.”

The older man returned to the office, the secretary to the fax machine grinding out papers. Aimée slipped the file under her jacket. She’d hand it to him in person. Forget negotiating the Vespa through a demonstration and the underpass; faster to go on foot.

Minutes later she approached the side entrance of Montparnasse, the octopus-tentacled station with multilevel rail lines—the TGV, the suburban RER, and the deep Métro. Luebet might get off at Edgar Quinet station and walk up to his gallery on Boulevard du Montparnasse, or direct to Vavin. Either route offered a stop with a short walk to his gallery.

Two different lines and tunnels. Which one to take?

Hell, she didn’t even know what he looked like.

Or whether he’d told the truth about an urgent summons to his gallery. But she had to start somewhere. She took the closest tunnel, jumped on the first train—the Number 6 line toward Place d’Italie.

On the softly rocking train, she opened the file. Read the contents; scribbled lines from a curatorial committee on a grid-lined pad. Notes to himself about a Bourdelle sculpture exhibition at his gallery. Behind it a small, metal-clasped manila envelope labeled M—Find it this time.

What did that mean? Curious, she wedged her fingernail under the clasp, opening the envelope to find a wallet-sized Polaroid photo, overexposed and stained by emulsion. In it she could just make out Yuri standing before a small canvas spread on a worktable, and a tall man in a pinstripe suit holding the canvas’s corner—she took the man for Luebet. Both men were half turned toward a painting. Yuri’s atelier window framed them in the background.

The painting leapt out of the blurry detail of the photo. A younger Lenin with more hair—a bicycle in the background—holding a book, a paper? Its vibrancy shone through.

Luebet had been in a hurry all right if he’d forgotten this. Rattled—by what? But this was proof Yuri had shown Luebet the painting. She wondered who had taken the photo.

M—Find it this time. More pieces clicked together in her mind. Uneasiness ground in her stomach. If her hunch about this note was right, Luebet, a respected art dealer, was after this Modigliani, too. Could he have hired a thief himself?

Whom had he rushed off to meet? A buyer? Her thoughts spiraled. M—the thief he’d hired? The one who’d tangled with the Serb, caused his death somehow? She didn’t know how Feliks had died, but she was certain now that his death was directly linked to the painting’s theft. Two people, Feliks and Yuri, had been murdered over this painting. She remembered that white van that had pulled in front of them moments before the Serb fell on René’s windshield—was it connected? She was guessing the Serb had been interrupted in an attempted robbery by whoever had succeeded in stealing the painting, then killed him; but that person would have had no reason to come back and torture Yuri. That meant there were at least two ruthless parties involved in this mess, and still no painting. A web growing more complicated and dangerous—and somehow Luebet was involved.

René, always cautious, would have told her to pull out before getting too involved. Forget this while she could.

By now Luebet might have discovered he’d left this envelope behind. She imagined him irate on the phone with the helpful curator at Musée Bourdelle. Guilt invaded her for a moment.

But she had Yuri’s cash in her bag. And no other way to find her mother. She needed to reach Luebet. Talk to him.

The train jerked. Brakes squealed. A moment later it shuddered to a halt in the tunnel, throwing Aimée and her fellow passengers against the seats. Lights flickered. Her arm cracked against a bar before she grabbed it. Bags skittered across the floor; an old woman cried out.

The train car plunged into darkness—like night. The air filled suddenly with the smell of burning rubber. A loudspeaker crackled and buzzed. “Mesdames, Messieurs, due to an accident grave de voyageur, there’s an interruption on the line. Service is at a standstill. We ask for your patience.”

A murmur rumbled through the passengers in the darkness. Aimée imagined the knowing looks they would share if they could see each other. “Accident grave de voyageur” was the standard euphemism for a track jumper. A suicide.

Notorious on the Number 6 line, which served three hospitals, one of them Saint Anne’s, the psychiatric facility.

This could take God-knows-how-long, she thought, rubbing her bruised arm and imagining the grim scene ahead. With her feet she felt for her bag, which had lodged under the next seat, then recovered her penlight. She shone it toward the old woman huddled on the floor, whimpering and gasping for breath. With another passenger, she helped the old woman to a seat and tried to calm her.

After what felt like a long time, the lights flickered. The doors cranked open to another wave of burning rubber odor. Passengers were instructed to step down in the pitch-black tunnel to the narrow service walkway hugging the wall above the track. Taking the old woman’s arm, she eased her down onto the dark ledge and guided her along the blackened tunnel walls. Ahead Aimée could see lights reflecting on the gleaming white tiles on the wall of the platform at station Edgar Quinet.

“Not far, Madame,” she said.

It looked like a messy accident, requiring a scooper train especially elevated to clean the electric rail lines. With sad incidents like this, it took forever to reestablish service and reroute the disrupted network. Usually they herded passengers back along the track walkway to the previous station to give room to the emergency crew. But Montparnasse, webbed by four lines, was a vast maze.

Enveloped in the close, stifling air shared by too many people, she wanted to get out. She had almost pushed ahead in line behind a mother helping her toddler when she froze at a shriek. To the side of the iron steps leading to the platform on the tracks lay a severed arm still in its pinstriped suit jacket.

Aimée gasped. The arm ended in a bloody clump where the shoulder had been. She averted her eyes too late. Bile rose in her stomach at the metallic scent of blood. Her gaze crept back to the hand, fixated on the pinkie ring. That large stone-like class ring in an engraved mount.

The driver and scurrying staff attempted to block the track view, to shield passengers from the scene and move them along. Mutters of “heart attack … slipped … quel dommage.” A frisson of fear prickled her neck.

By the time she mounted the Métro steps to the boulevard, she knew where she’d seen it before. She grasped the pole of an awninged market stall and gulped lungfuls of late afternoon air, hoping she was wrong. Feeling cold and alone in the middle of the bustle of merchants setting up for the evening market, she reopened the envelope. In the photo, Luebet’s hand was clearly visible on the canvas, complete with that distinctive, large-stoned class ring on his pinkie. He wouldn’t be dining at La Tour d’Argent tonight. Nor would Yuri.

She doubted he’d suffered a heart attack. More like been pushed. Again, she’d been too late.

Her gaze darted among the shoppers threading the stalls. Whoever had pushed Luebet could be watching her. Whoever had killed Yuri was clearly willing to kill again, and she’d retraced too many of his steps. Head down, she dove into the crowd.