“I’ll make your excuses upstairs.” He knelt on her chest, his knife glinting in the dim light.
“Knifing me at your daughter’s engagement reception? How the hell will you hush that up?”
“Easy. The knife shows up in the guard’s hands. He was supposed to duct tape you. Hired help, I should have known.” His stale breath in her face. “Everyone upstairs is in my pocket, Aimée. They always have been. If they want to hush things up, roadblock or stall an investigation, they come to me.”
Sickening.
“You planned this all out, didn’t you? Never really meant to give me a choice.”
“Details, Aimée—don’t they say the devil’s in the details?”
Her working finger found the metal of the handle, her fingers inched to the trigger. Breathe, she had to breathe. Get air.
His left hand circled her neck. Squeezed.
She tried to whisper, but no sound came out.
“What’s that, Aimée?” he leaned forward, his breath in her face. “You play, you pay, like your papa. But I need to get back to my guests.”
“I don’t think so, Fifi.” She leveled the Glock. Fought through the pain and squeezed.
The crack of her shots reverberated off the stone. Two. Three. The stink of cordite filled the air. Her ears rang with the explosions. She shoved a wide-eyed Dussollier off her, surprise still on his face.
She had minutes to get out of here. On her hands and knees, she gasped for breath. She checked the security guard and found no pulse.
Awkwardly using her left hand, she wiped her prints off the pistol with her shawl. Put the pistol in the guard’s hand and fired again twice into Dussollier. She grabbed her clutch from behind the broken chair. Pulled herself up the wall and slipped her wobbling foot into the Louboutin.
She couldn’t count on the thick stone walls or the music to have muffled the shots—not with the caterers so nearby, or the waiters sneaking a smoke. Again with her shawl, she turned the handle, opened the door. Looked both ways. Clear.
A phone was ringing behind her. Dussollier’s. His partner Tesla checking to see how things had gone? She backed up, hating to do it, to touch him, but she reached into his tuxedo pocket, nonetheless. It was silent now—the call had gone to voice mail.
She stuck the phone in her clutch. Remembered, luckily, to pick up the smashed carcass of her own and stick it besides Dussollier’s. She scanned the stone hallway—still clear—then hurried up the ramp into the brisk evening air. She heard a catering truck’s engine starting up. The shaking had subsided, but her hand was throbbing. Focus, she had to focus and get the hell out of here.
She rounded the corner to see the catering truck’s red brake lights: it had paused by the cypress trees while a security guard moved the barricades for it to pull out. She leaped toward it, opened the back door, pulled herself in and crouched down among giant salad bowls and trays. Forced herself to breathe evenly. Keep focused. And prayed the truck would move.
Moments later it did, rumbling forward with the radio turned up high and the driver talking on his cell phone. Then she noticed blood on Martine’s dress—Dussollier’s blood. Merde.
She spit on the bloodstain, then again and again, remembering from an old forensic manual that saliva enzymes and rubbing took care of the worst. Then she draped her shawl over the damp spot.
She counted to one hundred as the truck turned right onto rue de Varenne, then to two hundred as the driver argued on his cell phone. When the truck stopped at a traffic light, she gritted her teeth at the pain, turned the rear door’s handle and slid out. Back on rue du Bac where she’d started. A green neon cross shone at her from across the street: a pharmacie.
She stopped for painkillers. Asked the pharmacist to open the pill bottle for her and downed them dry. Anything to stop the pain in her now swelling fingers.
She checked Dussollier’s phone with her good hand and guessed his password on the second try—his daughter’s name. His contacts were impressive. She hit his voice-mail button. His earlier messages came up and she listened to them one by one. More than impressive—incriminating.
The last one she listened to made her stomach churn.
“I’m waiting. Champ de Mars. Usual place.”
She hailed a taxi. En route, she made a call.
THE FIGURE SAT on the bench in the darkness, smoking. The cigarette tip glowed gold-orange and the acrid tang of unfiltered Gauloise hovered in the air. Startled pigeons fluttered from the hydrangea bushes as she approached.
“Dussollier couldn’t make it,” she said, sitting down.
Morbier turned to look at her. Those basset-hound eyes, the bags under them more pronounced. The thick dark brows.
“I hope he served decent champagne at the reception, Leduc.”
“Veuve Clicquot.”
“Your favorite.” Morbier tossed the cigarette and ground it into the gravel path with his toe. “He told you, didn’t he? Cleared the past up.”
She waited, her heart thumping, while Morbier took another cigarette from the wrinkled pack in his pocket. Scratched a wooden match against the bench. It lit with a thupt and a yellow flare.
“Now everyone involved in what happened to your father is gone,” said Morbier. “It’s over, Leduc.”
“You’ve lied to me for years, Morbier.” She shook her head, saddened. “Why not just tell me the truth?”
“I think I just did.” He glanced at his watch. “Go home and take care of what’s important. Chloé.”
Zinc rooftops glowed in the light reflected from the Tour Eiffel, just visible through the trees. From the next tree-lined allée came the crunch of gravel, the swish of bicycle tires.
“I found proof, Morbier.”
“Proof, Leduc? Not this again. Give it up.”
“Ten years ago, you met Papa before the explosion.”
A snort. “This comes from the Gypsy, non? They lie for a living.”
“Drina was Papa’s lookout under the colonnade at Place Vend?me.” Her words caught in her throat. The emotions fought in her chest. “You and Dussollier set Papa up.”