The red light shone on her laptop’s reserve battery, one bar of power remaining. She grabbed her cell phone. Shook it, and lifted it as high as she could for reception. Pecked Saj’s number. Fuzz. Her vision fading, she hit René’s speed dial. It rang and rang. Finally, she heard a buzzing. “Refectory,” was all she could manage.
Light-headedness filled her, the bookcases spun. Her fingers came back sticky, and she saw the keyboard was smeared red with blood. Her blood. Jean-Luc had sliced his knife through the coat into her side. And her dress. Her vintage Chanel.
How would she get the blood out? Her thoughts drifted, swirled with bits of code, Latin, the picture of the woman on the Pont Marie. Then the rushing cold, such bone-chilling cold in her legs, her arms. The howling wind in the nave filled her ears until blackness took over.
“YOU LIKE US, do you? Second time tonight,” the white-uniformed nurse consulted her chart. “As if we needed another emergency intake, with the ward this full.”
The gold glow of dawn crept in from under the hospital window shade. “Technically, it’s morning, nurse.” Aimée groaned at the smarting stitches. “But you should have seen the other mec.”
“I’d call you trouble, Mademoiselle.” The nurse gave her a little smile. “And that’s the morphine talking.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” said Saj, “after all our meditation work. Drugs.”
“Mademoiselle, you’re lucky no vital organs were punctured.”
Aimée felt like she’d been run over by a truck.
“The X-rays indicate the knife hit your vertebra,” the nurse continued, reading her chart. “Bone and muscle tissue protected your spinal column. A nice umph but no lasting damage.”
She became aware of Sacault, all in brown, standing next to Saj. “As long as you’re talking, let’s continue the conversation. We’re ambulancing you to Val de Grâce.”
“The military hospital?” she said, wincing in pain. “No way.”
René was holding her hand, his green eyes wide. “You called me?”
“Sorry for the bad reception, René,” she said. “But I took care of him. Sorry it was too late.”
René looked down. “Morbier’s out in the waiting room.”
Hurt pinched her heart. She couldn’t deal with Morbier now. If ever.
“Mademoiselle Leduc, you’ll debrief with our team,” Sacault said. “Go over the files recovered from Jean-Luc Narzac’s office at Bouygues. Furnish us with Samour’s work.”
She shook her head, and everything swam.
“Tell him, René,” she said. “Fill it in for the DST. Then consider me done. All done.”
Saj nodded, pulled his madras scarf around his shoulders. “First I suggest we center …”
Sacault blinked.
“Pascal Samour applied lost medieval stained-glassmaking principles to fiber optics,” René said. “But you know that.” René handed Sacault a disc. “It’s all here. But he wanted to give the fiber-optic formula away free. A gift from the fourteenth century. And we have.” René smiled. “However, since only seventy-eight scientific engineers in the world will understand it, no great alarm.” He smiled again. “Saj designed an obscure website. Not even the Chinese will find it for six months, Monsieur.”
Three Days Later
RENÉ TRIED AIMÉE’S number again. Busy. No doubt conferring with Melac on their Martinique trip. Dejected, he buttoned his Burberry raincoat in the dusk outside the shuttered luggage shop on rue au Maire. Next door, red banners proclaiming the Year of the Tiger ruffled in the wind outside the tofu shop. He remembered Meizi speaking of the festivities and how they would—
A loud pop startled him, made him jump and duck for cover by the bin of husked lychees. Sharp pain shot up his hip.
A shot? But he smelled the acrid smoke, heard a continuous pop and crackle, then laughing children. Fireworks.
The thumping of a drum. Dum … da da dum … dum … da da dum. Crashing cymbals, growing louder and echoing in the narrow street. Then the bright head of the lion, his twisting silk body supported by a trail of people. The New Year parade.
René straightened up, feeling foolish and more alone than ever. He limped over the glistening cobbles, inhaling the cooking smells from Chez Chun. Past excited children running toward the parade to catch the candy thrown from the lion’s mouth, the red lanterns shaking in the wind. At the corner, the stained-glass windows glinted from the walls of the museum.
He turned left on rue Beaubourg toward his Citroën. Crowds, shadows, charcoal clouds promising more rain. Where had he parked his car?
His eye caught on the travel agency window: a poster with a blazing sun, palm trees, and a white beach advertising specials to California. He stood for a long time in the cold February evening, staring at the poster. He recalled the latest e-mail from the start-up in Silicon Valley offering him a job. And then he opened the travel agency door.
THE LAST RAYS of winter light shone on rue du Louvre as Aimée left the office. She passed the arcaded rue de Rivoli, took her time over the Pont Marie, thinking. Along the Quai d’Anjou, she felt that familiar frisson. As if someone were watching her. She turned around. Only a hovering mist.
Miles Davis scampered out of Madame Cachou’s loge in the courtyard and barked a greeting. She walked upstairs and, after turning her key, paused in the doorway. Her heart hesitated, wondering if Melac would understand.
She couldn’t leave René like this. Martine would call her crazy, giving up Martinique, the sun and Melac. She unsnapped Miles Davis’s tartan sweater, wiped his paws clean, and took courage from his wagging tail. “You and me, furball, no matter what.”
Miles Davis licked her face.
She took off her wet heels, pulled on wool socks, and set her shoulders. Time to return Melac’s message and cancel Martinique. And if this meant he’d end up finding someone else … maybe that was the way it was meant to be.
But first she needed a drink.
Something sweet drifted from the salon. Frangipani?
She parted the half-open door. A large tropical beach umbrella opened over the Aubusson carpet, which sat on a straw beach mat, surrounded by mini potted palm trees. Beside it sat a wine decanter filled with something pink and floating lemon rounds, along with two tall glasses and paper drink umbrellas. Sounds of breaking waves and surf came from the CD player.
“This is what you meant by Martinique, Melac?”
Melac shrugged, gave a little grin. “No boarding pass needed.” He lifted up her YSL beaded turquoise bikini from the sales. “Why don’t you put this on?”
“Matches my socks, eh?”
“Island rum, hibiscus, our own umbrella, even tropical fish.” He gestured to a fish tank, beside which she noticed Miles Davis’s bowl appeared to be filled with filet mignon strips. He’d gone all out.
“So you’re on a case.” She shook her head, hands on her hips.
He ducked his head. “It’s not always going to be like this. Desolé, I had to cancel the tickets.” When he looked up, there was sadness in his gray eyes. “Can you understand?”
She wanted to tell him. Maybe she would. Someday.
Instead she unbuttoned her black cashmere sweater, unzipped her pencil skirt, and stepped out of it. “I knew I needed that bikini.”
Melac stared at her. Blinked. “Are those stitches?”
“Two rules en vacances. I don’t talk about work,” she said. “And I get a pink umbrella in my drink.” She grinned. “Later you can rub oil on my back.”