Murder on the Left Bank

by Cara Black

  “You’re smart, Aimée.” He didn’t deny it. “That’s why it’s hard for me—”

  “Hard for you?” She knew what he was about to say but feigned ignorance. “You won. The Hand keeps control again.”

  He hefted the file box. All her proof snatched out of her grasp. He brushed the dirt off his hands.

  “That old Léo,” he said. “He really stymied me; I admit it. Couldn’t figure him out.”

  “He had what’s called loyalty. Old fashioned, misguided, but he kept his word.”

  “But you, Aimée, you’re good. Really smart. I ignored the spoons, thought they were a box of garbage. But clever you put it together and knew what they were for.”

  Keep him talking. Keep him engaged. Think of something.

  “You know, Xavier, I have the worst taste in men. Stupid as usual, but I like . . . liked you. Did you feel something? Was I wrong?”

  He stared. A laser focus that unnerved her even more than her knife in his hands. “Non, you’re right. We connected. Nothing like that since . . . But you and me, that wasn’t in the plan.”

  So she should feel good?

  “Plan?” she said. “You, bound by a plan? Never read you like that.”

  She’d sparked his interest. He was a narcissist at heart.

  “How did you read me?” he asked.

  “Brilliant. Wounded. Thirsty for something real. Like me.”

  How long could she keep this up? When would a security guard come?

  But why would anyone come down here and check?

  “I don’t know why, Xavier, but something about you made me feel that no one had listened to you before. You’d struggled. Still struggle.”

  Xavier glanced at his watch. Merde.

  “But I don’t get why Éric would want me to find Léo’s notebook if he was involved in the first place. Why did he get Marcus killed?”

  “Doesn’t matter now.”

  “He’s dead?” She swallowed, trying to buy time. Took a stab in the dark, hearing the urgency in her own voice. “Éric worked for the Hand and got in over his head?”

  “You could say that.” Xavier shrugged. “Divorces are expensive.”

  She grabbed at a straw, remembering Dandin’s dying words: Son . . . fixer. “Was it your father?”

  “My father? What do you know about that?”

  “That’s right,” she said frantically, remembering what he’d told her about his childhood over lunch. “I mean your stepfather.”

  Something in his eyes changed. “You met him. So you’d know.”

  She felt sick with the realization: Xavier must have been the one coming into Chopard’s room as she left.

  “Chopard was your stepfather, c’est ça? The notebook incriminated him, the organization he’d built, you, everything. He grew obsessed with finding it.”

  Xavier didn’t disagree. She thought back to Marcus’s cell phone log. The two unanswered calls from his uncle.

  “Did Éric want to pull out after realizing the notebook’s importance. Did he try calling Marcus to tell him to bring it back but—”

  “Éric had the notebook right there in his hands. All he had to do was be a little tougher with the old man. Instead he made a charade out of sending it to la Proc, created a huge mess. The kid hid it, refused to give it up. Comme d’habitude, I had to fix things myself.”

  The fixer.

  “You didn’t have to kill him,” she said. “Or Karine.”

  The flex-cuffs stung, cutting into her wrists. Her fingertips scrabbled in the dirt—trying to find a nail, something.

  Damn manicure. Ruined.

  “In business one always ties up loose ends,” he said. His tone made her shiver.

  “Was the homeless woman a loose end, too? And Dandin?”

  “Sloppy job. I contracted out to an ex-flic, a friend of yours. My mistake.”

  Cyril. It made her sick. “No friend of mine.”

  He checked his watch again. What was he waiting for? Was someone coming to join him?

  She had to make something happen. Open a nerve.

  “How did your face really get that way?” she asked. “What happened?”

  His expression changed. He hadn’t expected that. Good. Keep him off kilter.

  “It wasn’t an accident, was it? I bet one of your victims fought back.”

  His eyes hardened. “No accident. My stepfather taught me a lesson. He’d learned from the best—the Nazis who tortured him in the stalag.”

  She sucked in her breath. Horrific. The war was a gift that kept on giving.

  “But he’s gone now, Xavier,” she pleaded. “You don’t have to keep his secrets anymore. You don’t have to do his dirty work. Break away.”

  “He always said I wasn’t good enough,” said Xavier. “Never good enough. Neither was my mother. Chopard treated her like a whore. He never stopped saying, if you want this business, you do it yourself. You work harder than everyone else. Do things no one else would do; instill fear. That’s the only way to power.”

  His voice had changed. Grown softer, sadder.

  “I understand,” she said.

  “Do you?” he said, sarcastic. He’d come closer, squatted by her in the dirt, playing with her knife. Her pulse raced. “I think you’d say anything right now.”

  “I would. But I met your vampire of a stepfather and wouldn’t wish him on anyone.”

  Xavier laughed. “Then you do understand. Forgive me.”

  That was when she knew she’d die. There on a dirt floor under a seventeenth-century tapestry factory, her baby far away, in a futile attempt to take down the Hand, which had murdered her father. She’d done what she’d promised she’d never do, leave her baby, like her mother.

  But Aimée hadn’t been able to help it. She’d been wired this way, and her wiring was off. Maybe René would explain it to Chloé someday.

  “Your child, I’ll take care of her.”

  A ripple of fear ran up Aimée’s spine—and then fury. “The hell you will.”

  Xavier moved closer. “Someday I’ll take your advice and break away.”

  “Prove it now, Xavier. You don’t need . . .” She lowered her voice so he leaned closer. It was all or nothing.

  With every bit of strength she had, she propelled herself off the wall behind her and head-butted him. A crack so hard her head felt as if it had split open. Lights danced in her eyes. She panicked, screamed in pain.

  He’d been caught off-balance. She heard an ouf, flailing in the dirt. Blindly, she kicked out her legs, tried to stomp whatever body part she could reach. Grunts, crunching.

  The haze in her vision cleared.

  Xavier sprawled next to her. Blood dripped from his gaping neck and into the dirt. Her head throbbed; her eyes spun. She had to be seeing things.

  Sydney had wiped off the Swiss Army knife, was cutting the flex-cuffs from Aimée’s wrists.

  “So handy, these knives,” Sydney was saying. “Can use them for everything.”

  Her mother was helping her up.

  “So you finally ditched the trench coat,” Sydney said.

  “What . . . ? How can you still . . . ?” The lights faded.

  “Stay awake. Don’t sleep.”

  So hazy. Aimée’s eyes couldn’t focus.

  “You’re concussed. You have to stay awake . . . Amy, you can do it . . .”

  That was the last thing she remembered as the lights faded.

  You can do it.

  Saturday Morning

  A sepia autumn light fell across the starched hospital sheets. Aimée’s head ached; her vision clouded and cleared. The needle drip in her arm stung. Her dry throat was scratchy.

  Water. If only she could drink water without throwing up.

  Were those brown things outside the win
dow falling leaves or birds?

  “Can’t keep out of trouble, eh, Leduc?” Morbier sat in his wheelchair by the hospital bed. Put down his Cuisine Actuelle magazine. “If it’s not one thing, it’s something else.”

  “Did you”—her parched throat made it hard to raise her voice beyond a whisper—“get it to la Proc? All of it?”

  Morbier nodded. “We kept the fanfare to a minimum, but oui, la Proc’s doing her job. Heads are rolling, as they say.”

  He was implicated, too. “So proud of you, Morbier.”

  “Moi?” He shrugged. “Small fry. The big fish interest them more.”

  The doctor came in, consulted a chart. Made tsk sounds. “Nasty concussion, mademoiselle. A bit of a scare with your optic nerve, which was damaged before, according to the X-rays . . . But with complete rest and quiet, you’ll recover.”

  “Rest?” she said. “I’ve got a business to run. It’s the Y2K millennium countdown.”

  “Look at the bright side,” the doctor said. “Camus said autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”

  She tried propping herself up on her elbow. Slipped. “Where’s Chloé? Where’s my baby?”

  The doctor checked her IV. Glanced at Morbier.

  “Why, she’s outside waiting with your mother to see you,” said the doctor. “Now, remember, you need complete rest. Your family has informed me they have it all covered.”

  “My family? I don’t understand.”

  “Her grandmother, her father, her godfather, your business partner.” He checked his watch. “They assured me your care would be under control.”

  Her head spun, and it wasn’t from the concussion.

  “Keep up the recovery, and I’ll discharge you tomorrow.” He smiled. “Up to seeing your family? Ready?”

  Was she?

  “Oh, she’s ready, Doctor,” said Morbier.

  The hospital room door opened.

  Acknowledgments

  I have so many people to thank for their kindness, amazing generosity, and incredible help: Dr. Terri Haddix, a font of medical knowledge; the talented weavers; Tricia Goldberg; Micala, Chris and Jean Pierre Larochette; Jean Satzer, cat maman and reader extraordinaire; my accomplice in crime, Libby Fischer Hellmann; and Robin Stuart for the spirit catcher.

  In Paris: dear Ingrid et les filles, who helped me avoid fausses pistes; the brothers Arakel and Haïgo of Chez Trassoudine; haute-lissier Olivia for sharing her time and expertise. Helpful beyond measure were Blandine de Brier Manoncourt and Dr. Christian de Brier; those walks with Huguette Allard and Julie McDonald. Above and beyond thanks to Arnaud Baleste, the sweetest l’horloger on Boulevard Auguste Blanqui; toujours Benoît Pastisson and Gilles Thomas, Heather Stimmler-Hall, Elke, Cathy Nolan, Carla Chemouni-Bach, always Anne-Françoise and Cathy Etile, policier Dede13. To Léo Malet and Tardi for inspiration; les Temps des Cerises in Butte-aux-Cailles; ancien résistant Naftali Skrobek and Lidia, plotmeister James N. Frey; the wonderful Soho family: Bronwen, Paul, Rudy, Abby, Rachel, Janine, Amara, Monica et toutes; dear Katherine Fausset; and my editor extraordinaire, for her insight and putting up with me, Juliet Grames. But nothing would happen without Tate and Jun.