“My mother is in the hospital. She’s dying.” His lip quivered. “Her spirit’s agitated. She can’t go beyond without talking to you.”
The damp quai-side pavers shone a dull graphite. She shifted on her heels. “I don’t understand.”
“Maman needs to let go and depart on her journey,” he said. “She kept in contact with your father.”
“My father?” Aimée’s arms tingled.
“Her name is Drina. Don’t you remember her? Don’t you remember bringing us Christmas gifts?”
Then memories flooded back—chill Christmas Eves with her father, skidding on ice-kissed cobbles, her scratchy wool scarf, fingers sticky from the gift-wrapping tape. They played Papa No?l, then stopped for a chocolat chaud at a café with fogged-up windows. Selfish and self-absorbed, her young self thought only of the chocolat chaud she would get at the end of those visits.
René was walking back toward them. “Any problem here, Aimée?”
The Romany boy’s face closed down, completely blank.
“Non, c’est bon. Mind taking Chloé upstairs?” she said. “I’ll join you in a minute.”
With Chloé in his arms, René headed into the courtyard.
Aimée glanced at Morbier, still in her doorway with his phone to his ear. “Look, let’s talk later.”
Nicu pulled out a dog-eared business card—her late father’s, with the old Leduc Detective logo. Aimée still had some of those left in her desk. On the back, in her father’s writing, were the words, Always come to us for help. Anytime. Anyplace.
“You believe me now, don’t you?”
Unsettled, she nodded. She felt overwhelmed thinking of the obligations she could face thanks to her father’s old promises. But if her father had given his word, Aimée was honor-bound to see it through.
“Nicu, I’ll visit her tomorrow in the hospital. Promise.”
A seagull cried over the river, and the sound echoed off the stone walls and cobbles.
“Can’t you come with me now to H?pital Laennec, in the seventh?” Nicu’s mouth trembled. “She doesn’t have much time left. Wouldn’t your father want you to do the right thing?”
Do the right thing? Chilly gusts of wind, algae-scented from the Seine, whipped her shoulders.
“S’il vous pla?t.”
Over on the Left Bank, in the 7th arrondissement? “I can’t just leave my baby.”
Nicu’s shoulders slumped as if the fight had gone out of him. His gaze rested somewhere in the land of grief and fear.
“Maman’s suffering. She can’t let go until …” Nicu paused. “In our culture we repair disagreements before someone passes or it will haunt us. She’s insisting she must see you.”
She glanced at the spot where Morbier had stood speaking into his cell phone. She didn’t see him.
Torn, she clenched her fists. Decided.
“Let me take care of things upstairs,” she said. “See what I can do.”
She ran inside her courtyard to find Madame Cachou’s concierge loge darkened. No chance of wangling her to babysit again. She’d see if Morbier and Jeanne would stay with Chloé for a little while.
But upstairs she found her salon deserted. All but one of the champagne flutes stood unused on the table, like a row of soldiers. Silver bowls of dragées—those pastel-colored sugared almonds, de rigueur for a baptism, as René had insisted—sat untouched between bouquets of white roses.
She dropped her bag on the escritoire. “Where is everyone?”
“They weren’t going to wait for you forever,” René said. “Morbier and Jeanne begged off, and Chloé fell asleep.” He loosened his cravat, put his silk-stockinged feet up on her recamier and sipped a fizzing flute of champagne. “Shame to let the Dom Pérignon go to waste.” René sipped again. “Why the hell did you invite Melac?”
“How could I have known that his daughter died, or that he’d have a new woman? He would have surfaced eventually anyway. But he scared me, René. Talking about custody …”
“Don’t you always say the best defense is a good offense?” said René. “Strike first. Hire the best lawyer.”
She kicked off her heels in the sparkly-clean hallway. Her apartment was spotless for the christening party that had never happened.
Alors, she couldn’t go to the hospital in Courrèges. From the armoire in her room, she picked out her black stovepipe denims, which she could finally fit into again, and an oversized cashmere sweater, and pulled them on.
Rushing back to the salon to grab her leather jacket, she said to René, “Mind babysitting for an hour? The champagne will keep you company.”
“Wait a minute—you’re going out?” René’s eyes landed on the card in her hand. “Does this involve that Gypsy waiting out front?” Before she could reply, he’d reached for the card and read her father’s message on the back. “Et alors? This card proves what? Don’t be a sucker, Aimée. This is a trick to reel you in—they want something, and you’ll end up getting ripped off. Cons like this are their stockin-trade.”
“His mother’s dying. She knew my father, and she has something to tell me.”
“They always do. Then they read your palm and charge for it.”
René was so riled he dropped his glass. He caught it, but not before pale yellow drops sprinkled on the marble-topped table, glimmering in the light from the chandelier.
“This Gypsy kid pops up outside the door, and you believe him, just like that?” René shook his head. “I call it na?ve. Do you really know these people?”
“I’m trying to remember. It’s hazy, years ago. But we’d bring them presents at Christmas.”
“Mon Dieu, Aimée! It’s a scam.”
Aimée couldn’t help wondering whether he was right.
“Scam or not, I have to hear this woman out, René. Papa promised.” She snapped her jacket closed, wrapped her scarf around her neck and knotted it.