“I can’t.”
“Or won’t? Got a better idea?” She shook her head. The man had told her nothing, expected her to just go along with him. “I don’t care what the hell you’ve done. But quit keeping me in the dark. Tell me what else he’s holding over you.”
“That’s unimportant. Just say he knows too much.”
“I’m guessing you do, too,” she said, putting it together. “He, whoever he is, hired you.”
He blinked, clutched her arm. “Shut up.”
But she wouldn’t. She’d hit a nerve.
“He kidnapped your daughter to keep you on task. But Zazie got involved. So give me the information.”
Zacharié nodded. Hung his head. “He killed my partners. I was next. But I escaped.”
Shivers went up her arms. And that was the man who had Zazie?
“We can’t trust him. He’s desperate,” said Zacharié. His jaw quivered. “He’s killed already to keep people silent. The girls’ lives are at stake.”
Zazie held by a sadistic criminal—a man who kills to make sure no witnesses survive? Fear clamped her stomach. Breathe, she had to breathe in this hot, dense air and figure this out.
“What do you have that’s so important? State secrets, blackmail?”
“Something like that.” He jangled the key rings. “But he won’t get what he wants until I find Marie-Jo.”
“What does that mean?”
But he’d turned to go back through the crawl. “Coming?”
Instinct told her not to leave yet. Something spoke to her here, and she didn’t know what. Her father always said to listen to the crime scene. Let it speak to you. Didn’t old Second Empire buildings feature concealed alcoves, secret built-ins? Nooks to hide trysts from the inconvenient arrival of les domestiques or the spouse? She remembered that from some de Maupassant story.
The carpet’s dust was most displaced in front of a bookcase full of worn leather volumes. She ran her hands over the bookcase’s period molding and came back with sooty fingers. Nothing. Her fingers traced the ridges and burls in the bookcase’s wooden interior. She rose on her tiptoes to reach the high shelf, her bump pressing on the volumes below.
Something shifted. She felt a book give way against her stomach—the dark maroon leather Bible. The bookcase moved, sliding back to reveal a chamber. She gasped and took a step inside.
Perspiration-laced used air and darkness greeted her. “Hand me the flashlight!” she called.
No answer. No Zacharié. Impatient, he’d gone.
She pulled out her mini-flashlight from her bag. The beam wasn’t as strong as the other would have been, but it illuminated a round, vault-like room with peeling wallpaper. She saw pink toenails peeking out from behind a box—a bare foot with a chain around its ankle. She leaned down. A girl, her mouth duct-taped, squinted into the glare. Matted black hair plastered with sweat to her forehead. She wore a tank top and jeans.
“Marie-Jo?”
She nodded. Her chained feet thumped the floor.
Aimée took out her Swiss Army knife. “I’ll get you out of here. Where’s Zazie?”
Her feet thumped again. Moaning came from next to Marie-Jo. Aimée followed the sound with the beam, catching on curly red hair and Zazie’s flushed face.
“Zazie!” Her pulse raced. Good God, she was alive. “Hold on, this will sting.” She ripped the tape off Marie-Jo’s mouth, then Zazie’s. “Thank God … please tell me you’re okay,” she said, working to free their bound wrists from the duct tape.
Marie-Jo spit. “Thirsty.”
“I knew you’d … you’d find me.” Zazie’s lips quivered. She reached up and hugged Aimée tight the moment her wrists were free. Her shoulders shook.
“Good job on the chalk mark, Zazie,” she said. She pulled a bottle of water out of her bag for them to share. Her shirt, soaked in perspiration, clung to her back. “Now to get you two out.”
“That man checks us every three hours,” said Zazie. “We timed him. He drinks, but—”
“What’s with the bad hair, a wig?” Marie-Jo interrupted.
“Her disguise,” said Zazie, admiration in her puffy eyes. “She’s got tons of them. Nice pants. Your tummy’s bigger, Aimée.”
So much for designer maternity clothes. She felt like a whale, swimming in her own sweat.
“We have to hurry.” Aimée went to work with her lock-pick set on the padlock chaining them. Two minutes later they were free and struggling to stand. “Can you walk?”
“Of course we can,” Zazie said, but she hobbled and gripped the wall.
“Lean on me,” Aimée said.
She tried not to wince as Zazie grabbed her wounded shoulder. Dense, engulfing heat made her knees wobble. The damn wig was sticking to her scalp.
“What is this place, besides a time capsule?” Aimée said.
“Some old lady escaped to Nice during the war, that man said.” Zazie pointed to an oil portrait covered with dust. “This was her great-aunt’s place. She was some kind of lorette.”
Courtesans who lived around Notre-Dame de Lorette Church at the turn of the century—nicknamed lorettes—were often installed in flats by wealthy lovers.
“The old lady never came back, so no one knows this place, that man kept saying on his phone,” said Zazie. “They’d never find us. The front door’s bolted.”
Her stitches smarted. They had to get out. Quick.
“He’s due anytime,” said Zazie. Her voice quivered. “He comes in through that crawlspace. Drunk.”
Great. If he was armed she couldn’t risk a confrontation with the girls.
“Then we’ll find another way out.”
Places like this always had servants’ back stairs. “Let’s try the back.” With one of Aimée’s arms around each of the girls, they made halting progress to the kitchen. The back-stair door held a rusted padlock. Her lock picks worked no magic on rust.
“Where’s my papa?” Marie-Jo said suddenly.