A quick shrug. “No idea. They threw her out.” Engulfed in the mec’s smoke and red-wine fumes, René wished for a big gust of wind. A tornado. “That’s what happened to the sister. Never mentioned. She’s dead to them. Her kid, too.”
Not according to what Aimée had seen. René tried to digest this.
And then, without warning, the mec strode away. René ran up the street as fast as his throbbing hip let him.
“Wait, Monsieur …?”
The mec kept going.
“Monsieur? Monsieur?”
Before he hit the corner of Passage de Clichy, the mec turned.
“They’re cursed.”
Monday, Early Evening
“WHERE ARE YOU, Aimée? I need to load the equipment,” Maxence said on the phone. “The reception starts in half an hour, it’s an early one tonight. I need more setup time for surveillance.”
Merde! She might have ruined the surveillance job because of her chat with goddamn Donatine. No time even to open Dussolier’s gift for Chloé.
“In a taxi, I’ve got my laptop now.” The rain had stopped, thank God. “My scooter’s parked by the office. Meet me downstairs at the curb.”
“Quoi?” he said. “Do you still have to change? It’s a diplomatic event this evening. Proper attire and all.”
“Bring me what’s hanging in front of the back office armoire,” she said. “Make sure it goes with the pearls in my desk drawer.”
Ten minutes later, down on rue du Louvre, Maxence stuffed his surveillance equipment in the Vespa’s rear storage unit. He unscrewed the baby seat, clipped and bungee-corded it to the back, climbed on and held the clothes hanger with one hand while Aimée roared off.
Aimée changed while Maxence set up. After an hour at the party, she and Maxence had what they needed: recordings of the comte’s sister-in-law’s conversations and photos of the guests she’d hobnobbed with—a Spanish attaché (her current lover) and the Belgian CEO of a rival to the comte’s family firm. Aimée could only speculate at this point on whether the comte’s sister-in-law or any other family members were passing on insider knowledge of his engineering firm. The comte feared plans for a hostile takeover of the family business. Their surveillance work entailed furnishing documentation to the comte and letting him decipher their evidence. Things were looking up—if “up” meant finding out your sister-in-law might be scheming against you.
The fading apricot twilight glowed over the Pont Neuf. Aimée could just make out a pale quarter moon, like a fingernail, half obscured by a nest of low clouds hanging above rue du Louvre’s jagged rooftops.
Maxence hefted his equipment from the scooter’s case onto the pavement.
“The sister-in-law looks good for the saboteur,” he said. “But I wouldn’t rule out the vicomte from yesterday afternoon. His nastiness quotient matches hers.”
She nodded, her mind elsewhere. Throughout the surveillance she’d struggled to focus on the job. Tried not to think about Nicu’s half-open eyes, his mumbled last words as the Métro rumbled overhead. Her hands covered in his blood.
“Tomorrow night we can look forward to the comte’s cousin, more seamy goings-on,” said Maxence.
She shouldered the rest of the equipment. “I’ll take this upstairs.” Time to check Leduc Detective’s virus scans. And to change her clothes.
Ten minutes later, after checking the virus scans and setting the system to run the next cycle, she changed out of her Chanel. Back into her black leather pants, high tops, and, from the armoire, a ribbed, metallic, Lurex Gaultier tee Shouldn’t René have checked in with a progress report on la Bouteille by now? She switched her phone back on and noticed the message from Madame Uzes. Hit callback. Busy. She tried René. Busy.
Didn’t either of them respect call-waiting?
Almost twenty-two hours since Drina’s abduction. Delirium would be developing.
Madame Uzes had left her address on the message. Should Aimée just hop on the scooter and talk to her in person? Checking, rechecking and following up—no matter how small the detail—was what investigating was all about, as her father had drilled into her. Les petites choses—the little things that added up. But she’d promised Morbier to stay out of it.
Morbier’s phone went to voice mail.
She couldn’t twiddle her thumbs waiting while the woman’s life ebbed away. She knew the odds were against her, but if any chance existed of saving this woman after she caused the death of her son—or nephew—and finding out who killed her father at the same time, she had to pursue it. There was more at stake than Aimée understood.
She grabbed her vintage beaded clutch—faster than reloading her big bag—keys and leather jacket before she changed her mind.
LEAFY BRANCHES HUNG below the lights on the boulevard, sending speckled shadows over the cobbles. Lush foliage smells filled the 7th, the greenest arrondissement in Paris with its squares, parks and gardens, public and private.
She parked her scooter at Madame Uzes’s address, a stone Haussmann building the color of butterscotch with several stories of identical wrought-iron balconies on Avenue Constant Coquelin, a misnomer for the one-block dead-end street.
Aimée pressed the buzzer. No answer. She pressed it again.
“Oui?” A young girl’s voice.
“Madame Uzes, s’il te pla?t,” she said.
“Who’s this?” the girl said.
Aimée leaned closer to the speaker and took out her Moleskine. “Aimée Leduc. She left me a message. The priest at Saint-Fran?ois-Xavier referred me—”
The door buzzed open. “Fourth floor, left.”