by Sara Rosett
“The house and neighborhood don’t exactly scream millionaire, do they?”
“No, but I suppose she could just be smart. You know, waiting it out so she doesn’t raise any suspicions.”
“Except for purchasing art,” Sato said.
“You’ve been in there before,” The Kid said pointing to the house. “Is she into art?”
“Only art I saw in there was mass market stuff, posters you can get at Target or IKEA. And unless she put up a very good front, she’s not any more computer savvy than your average Joe.”
The Kid’s phone beeped. He studied the screen. “This is it?” he read in a puzzled voice. He looked at Sato. “What does that mean, this is it?
“Who’s it from?” Sato asked.
“Sophie. Do you think...? She’s not...?”
“You better go find out.”
The Kid shot him a look of excitement mixed with terror before he shot off around the corner of the house. For a nanosecond, Sato felt a nudge of something almost like longing. He’d never run like that in his life, not even in the last half marathon.
He gave himself a mental shake. What was he, crazy? He didn’t want to be that tied to another individual, to have his hopes and dreams, his whole life, wrapped up in someone else.
The Kid reappeared. “You have the keys,” he called as he sprinted toward Sato.
“I knew there was a reason you got promoted so fast. You’re sharp. Took you less than a minute to figure that out.” Sato tossed the keys to The Kid.
The Kid made a strangled sound. “Come on, we’ve got to go.”
“You take the car. I’ll call a friend to pick me up.” The Kid was gone before Sato finished his sentence.
He walked across the backyard and paused with his hands in his pockets to study the row of hedges against the back fence. Not extravagant, by any means. Extravagant would be a pool or an outdoor kitchen.
He turned away, making a mental note to drop by again tomorrow, then he pulled out his phone and scrolled through the contact list. Ah, yes, Deborah lived a few blocks away. Maybe she was home...
Chapter Eight
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ZOE glanced at her watch as they hurried through Charles de Gaulle Airport. “We’re too late.” Their connecting flight through London had a weather delay, putting them an hour behind their scheduled arrival time. “Her flight probably just landed.” Because their flight was international, they’d arrived into Charles de Gaulle, while Anna’s regional flight from Naples was arriving at Paris’s other major airport, Orly. “Do you think Anna’s flight could be delayed, too?”
“It’s possible, but I don’t think we should count on it,” Jack said, steering their single rolling suitcase through the airport. “I think we better go directly to Gallery Twenty-Seven and hope we can catch her there. Taxi or train?” Jack asked.
Zoe had spent some of the flight skimming the Paris Smart Travel guidebook she’d bought in the DFW airport. She hadn’t copy-edited a Paris or France guidebook, but felt she could find any info they needed. “Train, I think. It’s late in the day and traffic might be bad.”
Jack nodded and they followed the signs to the train, bought their tickets, and squeezed into one of the cars going into the city. “So the hotel is close to the gallery?” Zoe asked as she turned to the Metro map.
“Yes. Right across the street. It’s in the Seventh Arrondissement, near the Eiffel Tower.” While Zoe had been buying the guidebook, Jack had used the time at the airport gate to find and book them a hotel, saying he better make the most of the free Wi-Fi in the airport.
“Okay, Eiffel Tower it is,” Zoe said with a little shiver of excitement. The Eiffel Tower. This wasn’t exactly the way she’d dreamed of touring the City of Light, but she was here, and she was certainly going to take in all of Paris that she could—even a glimpse of Paris was better than no Paris at all. Of course she couldn’t see anything picture-postcard right now—they were whizzing through the suburbs—but they would be in the center of the city soon. “We caught the express, did you notice that?” Zoe said. “That’s good.”
They were wedged into the center of the train compartment, and Jack looked over his shoulder at her as he asked, “Good, because we’ll get to the gallery faster? Or, good, because we’ll get into Paris faster?”
Zoe closed the guidebook. “To the gallery, of course.”
Jack lowered his chin. “I know you better than that. I bet you’ve already mapped out at least three major tourist sites we’ll see on the way to the gallery.”
“Only two,” Zoe admitted. “If we get off at the Alma Marceau stop, we’ll be able to see the Eiffel Tower and cross the Pont de l’Alma bridge over the Seine.”
“That’s my girl.”
Zoe tried to tell herself she didn’t feel a warm glow at those words. “It’s only a few blocks from the gallery. Really.”
“Fine by me. Might as well see what we can while we’re here.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
After changing to another line, they emerged from the Metro and didn’t have to look hard to find the tallest structure in Paris. The graceful lines of the tower stood out sharply against the tangerine sky of sunset. Zoe came to a stop. “Wow. Can you believe people hated it when it first went up?”
“Really? Let’s move over here out of the way.” Jack took her elbow, and they shifted to the side, out of the middle of the busy sidewalk.
“Yep. They thought it was ugly, a monstrosity.” Zoe snapped a few pictures with her phone.
“You better let me navigate.” Jack took the guidebook from her hand. “You’re in full-on tourist daze.”
“Yes, I am,” Zoe said happily. “It was built for a World Exhibition, and some people wanted it torn down immediately. Can you imagine?” Zoe put her phone away, leaned over Jack’s shoulder to see the map. “We take a left. The gallery is a couple of blocks away.” She hooked her arm through his elbow and pointed at the gold dome on the skyline. “We head that way, toward Napoleon’s tomb. Slightly strange that he’s buried here, isn’t it?” Zoe said.
“Considering that they exiled him? I’ll say. Although, he is one of the most famous Frenchmen in history.” As they strolled along streets with five-and six-story buildings with cream-colored stone facades that contrasted with the distinctively French-style sloping dark mansard roofs, Jack commented, “Swanky.” At street level, they passed shop windows displaying spring fashions, small hotels with shiny name plaques, and cafés with awnings stretching over tables on the sidewalk. Above, through the tracery of tree branches scattered with buds of green, dark shutters bracketed iron balconies.
“Speaking of swanky.” Zoe tilted her head, “There’s Gallery Twenty-Seven.” They came even with a shop with an arched doorway. The window display was an Impressionist seascape, an intricately patterned Turkish rug, and a pair of silver candlesticks.
“Then this is our hotel.” Jack crossed to a pair of wooden doors inset with glass on the other side of the street. The doors swished open as they approached.
The desk clerk at the Hotel Madeleine welcomed them, took down their passport information, swiped Jack’s credit card, and then directed them up two flights of curving stairs, pointing out the minuscule elevator. Zoe thought their suitcase might possibly fit inside, but there was no way a person and a suitcase would fit inside.
Jack swung open the door of Room Seven and went straight to the window while Zoe looked around. The walls were white and covered with loads of molding and trim. A small crystal chandelier glittered overhead. Jack pulled back the sheer curtains, revealing two floor-to-ceiling windows.
“Excellent,” he said. “We can see the gallery, and it looks like there are living quarters directly above it.” He squinted. “Yes, there’s a spiral staircase on the second floor that must go down to the shop. I bet the owner lives above.”
Zoe wasn’t worried about the view. “Ah—Jack, the room is kind of small.” The room itself was narrow
, only a few feet wider than the bed, which was a confection of pale pink pillows and ruffles. It was designed for one person, and a small one, at that. Someone who could fit into that elevator.
“Because it’s a single room.” Jack walked toward her.
“Oh, don’t tell me it was the last room they had, and we have to share. That’s just too, too—”
“Trite? I agree.” He stopped a few inches from her and reached for her hand. “That’s why I’m next door.” He put the old fashioned, oversized bronze key in her palm and curled her fingers over it.
Zoe cleared her throat. “Right.” She inched backward because the small room now seemed even more minuscule with Jack so close to her. Her calves bumped into the bed.
“I’m courting you, remember? Taking things slowly.”
“Wooing. Right.”
He leaned forward and brushed a kiss along her cheekbone, and all sorts of tingly sensations fired through her. “Get some rest, if you want. I’ll be next door, watching the gallery.” He left through an adjoining door, pulling it closed behind him. Zoe collapsed onto the narrow bed, her heart skittering. There was something to be said for this going slow. It was kind of delicious.
***
THE sound of a door closing woke Zoe out of a deep sleep. It took a second for the narrow bed, white woodwork, and gauzy curtains framing the windows to make sense. Paris. She was in Paris. It was dark now, and windows glowed in the building directly across from the hotel. She rubbed her hand across her forehead, remembering that very chaste kiss on the cheek Jack had given her before she left and the warm, fuzzy glow it had set off inside her.
She sat up abruptly. Jet lag. That had to be why she’d gone all mushy. She unzipped the suitcase with a vicious tug. She’d thought Jack’s attentions might taper off, but it was clear she’d have to do something. She couldn’t let it go on. It wasn’t fair to Jack. There was no way she wanted to replay the disaster of their divorce. And dating Jack again or...anything else...would have the same outcome. It would, no matter what Jack or Helen thought.
Out of the corner of her eye, a flash of light caught her attention. She could see just the top of the Eiffel Tower, glowing golden in the dark. Twin beacons of light at the top of the tower swept across the black sky. She sighed. Okay, so maybe she wouldn’t say anything just yet. They were in Paris, after all.
She took a quick shower in the tiny en suite bathroom wedged into the corner of her room, then eyed the clothes she’d hurriedly tossed in the suitcase. Her packing had been slightly haphazard because her laundry hamper at home was overflowing, so her choices had been limited. She hadn’t had time to check the weather so she’d tried to cover all the bases. She’d thrown in a couple of long-sleeved shirts, jeans, a few tanks for layering, a simple wrap dress that didn’t wrinkle, a sweater, and a pair of capris, along with some sandals. She picked a long-sleeved pink shirt and jeans. She eased her shirt over her head, careful to avoid the tender lump at the base of her skull. It was still sore, but the swelling had gone down. She gingerly combed her hair then slipped on a navy sweater because the temperature had dropped with the sunset.
She tapped on the adjoining door, and Jack called out for her to come in.
His room was identical to hers. The lights were off, and he stood at the windows, a pair of binoculars at his face. He was wearing fresh clothes as well—a lightweight gray sweater with the sleeves pushed up. “Feel better?”
“Yes. Did you get some sleep?”
“Nah, I got enough on the plane.”
“That’s an understatement,” Zoe said. Unlike Zoe, who was an insomniac on an airplane, Jack could sleep soundly from takeoff to landing.
“It’s a gift,” Jack said. “I picked up some sandwiches from the café around the corner if you’re hungry.” Crinkled white paper covered the mirrored desktop.
Zoe took a sandwich with thin slices of ham, cheese, and buttered bread then joined Jack at the window. “You pack binoculars when you travel?”
“Always.”
“Hmm. I’ll have to put that on my essentials list.” She finished off the sandwich and reached for a small cup of chocolate and a plastic spoon. “What’s this? Pudding?”
“The woman at the café said it’s a custard. Petit-pots, she called them.”
“It’s delicious,” Zoe said after a bite of the creamy chocolate. She pointed at the window with her spoon. “Anything?”
“Not really. I’ve seen a man—kind of heavy with slicked back hair—Masard, the owner. I found an article on-line about the gallery with his picture. There’s a younger blond woman—his assistant, I think—who has been moving around, closing up. The woman just left, and Masard locked up.” Jack handed over the binoculars and went to the bed where her laptop was open. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“No, of course not. Mi laptop is su laptop.”
“I used the log-in and password that Carla gave us to check Anna’s email, but nothing new.”
Zoe put the binoculars to her face and adjusted them. The gallery windows jumped into focus. She shifted her gaze higher and saw the heavy-set man moving around the second floor, which had a kitchenette with a sink and hotplate on the countertop along one wall. The rest of the room was set up like an office with heavy furniture, file cabinets, and a couple of armchairs positioned in front of a fireplace. “He’s making a cup of tea, it looks like.”
“Yeah, exciting stuff. I watched him file papers.”
“So what do we do if we’ve completely missed Anna?” Zoe asked, voicing her worst fear.
“I don’t know. It was a gamble, coming here. I guess we keep monitoring her email, see if she gives something else away.”
Zoe left the windows and swiveled the laptop toward her, hitting the refresh button. “I wish we at least knew where she was staying.”
“She probably didn’t have her hotel reservation sent to her email. Or, she used another email address.”
“We don’t even know for sure that she’s in Paris. This whole thing could be an enormous waste of time.” Zoe thought of those photos of Helen. What if they were on the wrong track? If something didn’t turn up soon, she’d have to call Helen and warn her, no matter how restrained Jack thought Oscar would be.
“Not a complete waste. You’ve checked the Eiffel Tower off your bucket list.”
Zoe sent him a crooked smile. “True, but that won’t be much of a comfort when I’m in prison.” Or if Helen gets hurt, she silently added, but kept that thought to herself, not wanting to rehash the argument with Jack.
Jack reached for a sandwich. “Let’s not start measuring you for an orange jumpsuit just yet. I do think Anna is here. If she’d changed or cancelled her reservation, there would most likely be an email since she had her flight details sent to her via email.”
“Okay, I agree with you there. But it doesn’t do us much good if we can’t find her.” Zoe hit refresh on the web page and tensed. “Oh, it’s just junk mail,” she said, her shoulders sagging. “Twenty percent off shipping at Macy’s this weekend.”
They ate their sandwiches and watched Masard eat a dinner of crusty bread and soup while he did paperwork. Zoe brushed the crumbs from her fingers and opened a bottle of fizzy water, then paced around the room, her mind skipping from one problem to the next. Every step in their precarious Rube Goldberg-like plan was riddled with potential problems. They weren’t even sure Anna was in Paris, or if she had the painting, or how they’d get it from her.
If all that happened to work out, then there was a whole new set of problems, including how to use the painting. She agreed with Jack that it was leverage, but for it to help them, they needed the right people on their side, and how were they going to accomplish that? She supposed she could call Agent Sato. She demoted that idea to the “last resort” category as she crossed the room. The idea of going to a U.S. Embassy or Consulate flitted through her mind, but she thought that route would be fraught with red tape.
Jack didn’t move the binoculars
from his face as he spoke. “What’s wrong?”
“Hmm? Oh, nothing,” Zoe murmured, deep in thought. There was really only one person she trusted to help them out of this situation.
Jack removed the binoculars and looked at her. “You only pace like that when you’re upset. Come on, tell me what’s wrong.”
Zoe twisted the bottle cap open and closed as she walked. “You know long-range planning isn’t my thing, but I can’t help thinking about what we’ll do, if we get the painting. If we’re going to use it to our advantage, not just hand it over to Mr. Gray, we’ve got to contact someone in...law enforcement. I think we’d better figure out who that is and how we’re going to do it.”
Jack ran his hand through his hair. “The logical place to go is the FBI’s art crime unit.”
“The one with the website that lists Marine as missing.” Zoe went to the laptop and brought up the website. “Well, they have a legal attaché at the embassy here in Paris. Or, we can call or email the main office in Washington D.C.”
“Neither way seems ideal.”
“I know. It could take weeks for us to get through to the right people. What about you? Surely there’s someone you can call from your time at the consulate?” Zoe asked.
“That’s been years. I didn’t stay in touch with anyone, well, except a few and they’re not exactly in good standing now.”
“There’s no one else?”
“No, we may have to call Sato.”
“I’d feel better if we had a few other options.” Zoe stood and walked again. She’d made two circuits of the room when she stopped. “Kathy,” she said and hurried to the computer.
“What?”
Zoe spoke as she typed. “Kathy. Why didn’t I think of this before? I should have checked this back in Dallas.”
“I’m lost.”
“The house sitter said Mort and Kathy were on a cruise. Kathy Vazarri,” she murmured as she scrolled down a webpage. “I was on Facebook a few weeks ago and got a friend suggestion.”
“Still lost.”