Stuck in Brittany? Think again. Maybe if she cared enough, but inside she didn’t know if she did. He had left her to go back to his first family, just put her to the side, and he would do that with their child. She’d always play second fiddle. No, she needed something more. Time to turn the page on the kind of freewheeling relationships she’d had before, the kind she just let happen to her.
He was pulling on his jeans, in the middle of an argument with his ex. Miles Davis, at the foot of the bed, cocked his head.
On the bedside table, she removed her key from his key ring.
“Désolé, I have to catch the train at Montparnasse.” He pulled on his jacket. “There’s a problem with the nurse.”
And you just had great goodbye sex.
He noticed her look.
“Aimée, we’ll make it work. I want to do the right thing.”
Do the right thing like in an old Balzac novel, make an honest woman of her? Or more of a duty, like flossing every night? “Marriage?”
Melac averted his gaze. And when those blue-grey eyes looked up, he shrugged. “I meant give the baby my name.”
Stupid. Yet she wished her heart would stop shuddering, that she’d caught herself before blurting that out. “Marriage wouldn’t change anything, not that I would marry you,” she said, recovering. “As for wanting to be the father, give the baby your name—get in line.”
“What?”
“René’s already offered,” she shot back.
“René?” Melac shook his head. “Can you be that blind? Open your eyes, he’s—”
His phone beeped.
“My best friend and Lamaze coach,” she shot back. So involved she could swear she’d noticed him suffering sympathy back pain when she complained the other day.
“I can’t miss this train,” he said.
Duty called.
“I’ve never asked you for help,” she said, “and I’ve no intention of starting now.”
He checked his phone again. “Try to understand. I’ve got to deal with the hospital, rehab, getting the house adapted to move Sandrine in.”
“You’re spread thin,” she said. “I do understand. But it’s not for me.”
“You’re having my baby, who needs a father.”
A father who’d love it, be there for it—and for her. This would never work. But she’d felt that from the get-go.
“We’ll invite you to the christening.”
“Stubborn like always. But I’ll—”
“Miss the train if you don’t hurry, Melac.”
She shut the door behind him, locked it.
She felt a kick. “You want me to kick him down the stairs?” she asked the Bump. “Be nice.” She rubbed her stomach.
AIMéE WATCHED MELAC walk along the tree-lined quai until he disappeared under the green leaves. Left alone, sadness overwhelmed her about what had happened last night, poor Mélanie who’d lost her mother, the desperate dead woman who’d prioritized her work to hide her shame. Guilt layered on top of guilt—Aimée’d judged this woman who was now on a slab in the morgue.
And now Zazie. She said a little prayer that the flics would rescue Zazie alive. Right now all Aimée could do was wash down her prenatal vitamins and the mild analgesic the doctor had given her and sip her espresso décaféiné.
Her eye caught on a man on the quai. Something about him was familiar. He saw her at the window and waved, then pointed to the green bench. A taxi, red brake lights on, idled at the curb.
Yes, she recognized him. The man on the bench was Marie-Jo’s father. Morbier had warned her to stay inside, the shooter still at large. But were the shooter and rapist one and the same? And could they be this man, this ex-con?
Right now the flics were going after Zazie at the warehouse. But if Marie-Jo’s father was connected to the man who abducted the girls, no way could she ignore his involvement. Or his possible ploy to pull her in.
Reason told her to stay inside, let the flics do their job. Yet her gut told her to trust him. She lumped a second mound of horsemeat into Miles Davis’s bowl. Took her Beretta from the spoon drawer, checked the clip. Full.
From the bag of Martine’s sisters’ pregnancy clothes, all of them splattered with high-end labels, she picked out a pair of black leather pants, buttery-soft pigskin, stylish and with an expandable waist. Paired them with a silk Dior tunic that hid her bandage. A minute later, mauve metallic ballet flats on, scarf trailing, she locked her door.
COOL BREEZES RUFFLED the Seine below into frothed white caps. The leaves shhhoo’d and trembled in the wind. A dry heat hung in the air this morning, the humidity gone.
“I need your help,” said Zacharié, Marie-Jo’s father and the former husband of Béatrice de Mombert.
“To catch the nice man who took the girls from your ex-wife’s apartment yesterday?” She felt for her Beretta in her secondhand Birkin bag. “The man you’re in league with?”
Surprise crinkled his brow. His fingers worried the buttons on his shirt.
“I’ll bet he’s into music. Marie-Jo plays violin, doesn’t she?”
“Piano. I don’t know what you’re getting at, but I know where Zazie and my daughter Marie-Jo are being held.”
Old news. “They’ve been sighted at a warehouse in Ivry,” she said. “Two units were dispatched.”
She noted the grim set to his mouth. He shook his head. “That’s a diversion,” he said. “They’re in Paris.”
The hairs on her arm rippled. “I don’t understand. They’ve tracked the rapist—”
He raised his hand. “Forget him. He has nothing to do with this.”
Neither girl was the rapist’s type. But then how did the attacks connect to Zazie’s circle of friends? Could it be just a coincidence? “The rapist’s not involved in the girls’ disappearance?”
He shook his head. “And I can’t tell you any more.”
“Fine.” She made as if to stand. “I’m leaving.”
He grabbed her wrist. “To keep them alive we need to move now.”
Her fingers trembled. “You expect me to trust you? Just like that? Tell me why I should.”
“It’s complicated.” His voice cracked. Serious. He was serious. But he was holding back.
“You’re on parole, your ex-wife’s in rehab, you know this man.”
He averted his eyes.
“Why should I believe you?”
“My daughter’s …” he took a breath. Looked toward the taxi. “They’re both pawns.”
“Pawns in what?”