The girl reading Dostoyevsky was laughing quietly to herself as she marked a passage in the book. Only a student could find humor in the horrors of those pages.
The trees moved slightly in the breeze, small leaves waving. A feather floated down from the sky. A mottled white pigeon flew away over her seat, and the man to her right played an Enya CD, and the smart girl with the short hair turned a page and sighed. The French around her sat at the edge of the green expanse, staring longingly at the grass as if they wanted to frolic but were held back by an invisible barrier. The girl sighed again, and Sutton thought, This is Paris.
WE MEET A FRIEND
Eventually, her legs fell asleep against the hard green chair, so she rose, stretched, rewound her scarf, and headed toward her flat.
The story, her dying Queen, reasserted itself as she walked past the école Militaire Metro. She was thirsty and hungry and needed the loo, so she stopped at the café down the street from her flat. Once she’d eaten, she ordered a coffee, brought out the notebook, and began to work again, amazed at how quickly she was able to slip into the scene she’d been working on.
So lost she was in this new world that the sirens didn’t penetrate her fugue until they were directly outside the bar, screaming.
Her back stiffened; she dropped the pen. Her mouth was suddenly dry, her heart pounding. The coffee at her elbow was cold, with a rime of brownish scum around the edge of the cup.
The flics, as she knew the Paris police were called, barreled down the street toward her, the alien sound of their sirens making chills run down her back. Her breath came short.
No, no, no, no, no.
She put her head down, let her hair hide her face. She felt the muse slinking away, drawing back into her corner, away from the biting, gnashing teeth of Sutton’s memory.
The cars rushed past; the sirens bled away. The vise in her chest loosened. She took a breath, then another.
“Are you on the run?”
The voice startled her; she jumped, knocked her cup with the back of her hand. The remnants of the espresso spilled across the table, onto the open page of her notebook. Words began to swim in a lake of black and blue. She patted at them frantically, knowing it was for naught. They were lost.
The man sitting next to her had jumped to his feet to avoid the splash. “Alors,” he said, “you are quite jumpy. Let me guess. You murdered someone and rushed off to Paris under a false name to stay out of prison.”
She forced herself not to stare. What sort of stranger says such a thing?
He wasn’t French, rather, he was, but she could hear an accent underlying his words. British, maybe?
“You frightened me,” she said casually in French, giving up on the notebook. There was no help for it; the words were well and truly gone. Three of the twenty handwritten pages were utterly ruined. She could only pray her imagination would keep the images on file until she could set up shop again.
She sat back in the chair. The waiter brought her a fresh cup, talking under his breath about clumsy customers. “And no, I am not a murderer. I’m on vacation. It’s my first time in Europe. I’ve never heard those sirens in person before, only in the movies.”
She was amazed at how easily the lies slid from her tongue. Then again, they weren’t really lies. She was trying on another persona, that was all. She wasn’t here to make friends.
“You speak excellent French for someone who has never been to Paris. And what a shame. Every woman should spend time in Paris. It is a prerequisite for a well-lived life, mais non?”
“I agree. That’s why I took several years of French in school.” She met the man’s eyes at last, found him smiling quizzically at her. He was handsome—of course he was, this was Paris, after all—with dark hair cropped close to his head, an imperious, hawkish nose, blue eyes. Very blue eyes, deep, the color of dark denim. He was young, in his late twenties, dressed in jeans and a gray T-shirt. A striking man, and she looked back at her ruined notebook quickly.
He stuck out a hand. “Raffalo. Constantine Raffalo.”
“Enchantée,” she said, shaking his hand. It was cool and rough, and held on to hers a moment too long. She stood and threw two euros onto the table. “Au revoir, monsieur.”
She stepped out of the tangle of chairs and small tables. The French had such an ability to sit on top of one another and never notice what the people next to them were saying or doing; their discretion amazed her. She started off down the street, in the opposite direction of her flat.
Her hands were shaking. How he’d come so close to the truth was beyond frightening. Had he known? Worse, had Ethan sent him? Even worse, could he be some sort of private investigator? How had they found her so quickly?
She forced herself not to run.
“Hey, wait up.” Constantine Raffalo was suddenly striding next to her.
“I’m not interested,” she said. “Please leave me alone.”
“Not interested in your notebook? I know it was ruined, the pages you were working on, but the whole thing isn’t a loss.”
She stopped. Damn. He was grinning, charmingly so. “You ran off so fast, you left it behind.”
She held out her hand and he started to pass her the notebook. When it was in both her hand and his, he said, “I have a price.”
“I said—”
“Come on, I’m not hitting on you. Well, maybe I am, a bit. I’ll stop. Promise. But let me buy you a coffee. I’m here on an extended vacation, and I don’t know anyone. You’re the first one like me I’ve met.”
“Like you?”
“A writer. You are a writer, aren’t you?”
She’d forgotten herself. She was supposed to be... Well, it didn’t matter.
“I appreciate you returning the notebook, but I’m afraid I do have to go. Enjoy your vacation.”
He respected the rejection this time, and she was surprised to feel the tiniest bit of disappointment. It was nice to be pursued, even if that meant absolute danger.
She felt his eyes on her back.
Murderer. It was such a horrible word. And it described her so very well.
A murderer would run, Sutton. You’re acting suspicious. Now he’ll remember you. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
She turned back. He was still watching her.
“One coffee, Constantine Raffalo. Then I have to go back to work.”
AND SO IT BEGINS
Sutton felt the attraction begin between them almost immediately. She was no stranger to this emotion. As a girl, she’d been perpetually half in love with every boy she laid her eyes on. Tall, skinny, short, fat, straight, gay, brunette, blond—she had no type, only a need to be near them, to touch them, to talk to them. She was very tactile; it got her into trouble.
Constantine held out her chair. His hand brushed hers as she sat down, and she had to fight the urge to take it and examine it closely for signs of kindness or hatred. It was a good hand, the fingers long and elegant, like those of a pianist. She tried not to think about the length of them, the feeling they’d create inside her, how deep he could go.