She continued, “Peaceful Transitions is obtaining narcotics via standardized and routine medical-supply sharing routes, and it’s far in excess of what three patients would need.”
“How would you know how much narcotics a patient needs?” the guy asked.
Maxence did not like this at all.
Dree kept talking right over the guy. Max approved. She said, “They are saying that they need, like, a hundred times as much as three patients would need. At the very least, they are massively over-prescribing, but I think they are handing these drugs off for street sales. There’s just too much of them.”
“And who would you say is responsible for procuring the narcotics?”
“Their purchasing director, Francis Senft, he is responsible for obtaining the narcotics from Good Sam for Peaceful Transitions.”
“How do you spell that?” the officer asked yet again.
Dree spelled Francis’s name for him, and Max considered pushing the phone’s screen to end the call. There was something wrong with the officer’s monotone requests for spelling and his lack of curiosity about a significant crime.
The officer asked, “Do you know where Francis Senft is now?”
“I—No, I don’t know where he is. I can give you his address, but I’m not around there.”
“Do you know of anyone who would know where he is?”
“I don’t know. I suppose you could try his friends?”
“I need the names and locations of any of his friends who might know where he is.”
Something was very wrong here. Maxence had a lot of experience with law enforcement officers, and this was not going right. The officer should have been asking about types and quantities of the narcotics, how to track them, Francis Senft’s contacts, and other information to trace the criminal activity.
Dree said to the officer, “Maybe you should just start an investigation and look into where the narcotics are going?”
“I don’t care where the narcotics are going. I need to know where Francis Senft is right now.”
Maxence began to consider how much longer he was going to let this go on.
Dree said, “Why would you not want to know where the narcotics are going?”
Because this police officer didn’t want to solve the crime. He wanted to find Francis Senft.
Maxence began reaching for her phone.
“Do you know where Senft is or not?” the officer asked.
Dree told him, “No, I’m not even in the US right now.”
“Do you know where the money is?”
“His bank accounts are all at Valley National Savings and Loan. If you’re going after the money, he stole forty thousand dollars, give or take, in cash and property from me, and he even stole money from the checking account that is set aside for my nephew’s autism therapy. I mean, I’ve deposited more money in there since then, so it’s not overdrawn. I don’t want you to think my sister is passing bad checks because she’s not. But Francis stole ten thousand dollars from money set aside for therapy for a disabled little boy. If you’re going to go after the money, go after that.”
“Say, is this his girlfriend, Dree Clark? Why the hell don’t you know where he is?”
Dree looked up at Max, her eyes wide and frightened. She muted the phone’s mic and said to Max, “I think this is the same cop who was waiting outside my apartment and picked me up.”
Maxence tapped the red spot on her phone screen and ended the call. He should have done it earlier. “Tell me what happened.”
Dree flipped her hands around and sighed. “There was just so much happening right before I left Phoenix. When I couldn’t get any money out of the ATM and went back to my apartment, there was a police car waiting outside. They said they needed to talk to me about Francis and told me that I wasn’t in any trouble, so I got in.”
Maxence gripped her hand more tightly even though he knew that her story must not end horribly because she was sitting right there with him. He did not like that she entered the car, though.
“It was weird. They didn’t take me to the police station. The guy just drove around, and then he parked in the back of an abandoned mini-mall, and another police car was already waiting there. They kept asking me questions about where Francis was and whether he’d bought a new car or anything expensive lately, and they kept at it until I got upset and walked away from them. They wouldn’t listen to what had happened to me and how Francis had stolen all my stuff and money. When I got out to the corner, I called a rideshare and went to the hospital to get my gym bag. I guess that should have tipped me off that Francis was dealing drugs.”
Maxence squeezed her hand, trying to show his support.
She looked at their joined hands on Maxence’s leg, and her eyebrows twitched together.
Maxence said, “It’s not your fault.”
Her voice was lower. “I should’ve known Francis was dealing drugs.”
Maxence summoned up words that he did not dare to speak aloud on very many occasions. “When someone you love or someone in your family does despicable things, it’s easier not to let yourself think about why.”
Dree said, “I think that police officer I just talked to was the same guy who picked me up. I didn’t recognize his voice at first.”
Maxence shook his head. “I don’t think you can trust that police officer.”
She said, “I don’t think I can, either. I think he has something to do with it, and I don’t think it’s safe for me to talk to him anymore.”
He nodded. “I’m glad you’re not in Arizona right now. It might not be safe for you to go back. Do you have someplace else you can go? Maybe your parents in New Mexico?”
Dree shook her head. “If someone were looking for me, first they’d talk to Mandi, and then my parents in New Mexico. If they find Francis, he’ll tell them that. If I were to go there, I think it would put them in danger.”
Maxence said, “I don’t think you should try to contact the police in Phoenix again.”
“I won’t. I’m deleting that phone-call app right now.” She was tapping quickly on the phone with both her thumbs. “I should probably just turn off my phone.”
“Your phone number isn’t working because you don’t have cellular service in France. If you don’t have that app, I don’t think he can call you. Don’t answer any incoming calls if you don’t know who they’re from.”
This also made Maxence uneasy, but a few things calmed his mind.
Dree was not registered under her name at the Four Seasons hotel. No one would be able to find her name registered anywhere, except perhaps at that FlyBNB, but she’d checked out of that and gotten a partial refund for the days she hadn’t used. She hadn’t left a forwarding address with the woman.
She was probably safe with Max at the Four Seasons for now.
He asked her, “Are you planning to go back to Phoenix on Thursday?”
Dree was scowling at her phone. “I don’t know.”
Max opened his arms. “Come here.”
Dree stood and hesitated in front of him, frowning and looking at his arms and knees like she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do.
He touched her hips and turned her, pulling her backward to sit on his leg. He folded her in his arms. “Come here, ma petite chérie.”
“Why do you keep calling me little and petite and stuff. I’m five feet six.”
“You’re little to me.”
She rolled are eyes. “That’s because you’re a giant. What are you?”
“One hundred ninety-three centimeters,” he said, aware it was a ridiculous number.
“Uh.” Dree pulled out her phone and tapped it. “Six feet four. Nice.”
“But, this problem of yours. We’re okay here for now. I don’t know what you’re going to want to do after Thursday, but you’ll have enough money to start over someplace else, if you want to.”
“I need to think about what I’m going to do.”
“Do you want to talk it ou
t?”
“Not really. Not yet, anyway.”
“I’ve made arrangements for us to be let into the Louvre at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. We’ll spend the day there, where no one else can get in, anyway. Even if there is something wrong with the police officer, and even if he does know that you’re in France, though I don’t think you said France, I don’t see how he could be able to find you in the next few days.”
Dree nodded. “That’s a good point. France isn’t in the Phoenix PD’s jurisdiction. I’m not even on the same continent.”
“We’re safe here,” he said, praying that it was true. “We’re safe here.”
Chapter Thirteen
The Louvre
Dree
Dree did not get sex last night.
What the hell? Augustine riled her up all day and all evening, bringing her so close to orgasm without going over the edge that her head had been spinning all the time—a thing he called “edging” and that she called “not freaking fair what the hell are you doing.” After she’d called the police, there had been champagne and an amazing, delicious thing called a Merveilleux de Fred that she would have signed away her firstborn to eat more of, and then Augustine had simply said, “Time for bed.”
What?
She couldn’t even freaking think today.
Augustine had insisted she wear a body-hugging sheath dress she’d found at one of the shops on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées and one of the pairs of sexy red-soled shoes they’d bought at a small shop that sold only those shoes. The crowds had been especially thick while they’d shopped, as the crowds also were where the car let them out near the entrance to the Louvre.
The vast courtyard looked like a football field of concrete and fountains with a glass pyramid sticking up out of the center. Antique-looking buildings enclosed three sides of the center space. The building looked like it had been a palace, which Dree knew that it had been, and a fortress before that. She liked to read, so she had learned about it at some point.
Fountains gushed water into the air, which fell into large rectangular pools. “Oh, the fountains are on.”
Augustine said, “It’s been a mild winter.”
The chill in the air scratched Dree’s cheeks. “You call this mild? It’s, like, fifty-five degrees or something!”
Augustine laughed at her. “Yes, all of thirteen, centigrade. We shall all freeze to death. You haven’t traveled anywhere actually cold like the Andes or Nepal, have you?”
“No, but Nepal is on the napkin, so I have to, someday.”
“Excellent. The crowds aren’t too bad today. Usually, the admission lines for the Louvre fill this courtyard from the entrance back to the street. Luckily, since this is the day the Louvre is closed for cleaning, it’s quiet.”
If this was a quiet day, Dree would have gone out of her mind on a typical day. She didn’t mind chaos. Chaos was the natural environment of the ER where she worked, especially since it was primarily a pediatric ER. She thrived on bringing order to crazy situations.
But an enormous crowd all huffing and breathing each other’s air and pushing each other with their bodies was an entirely different situation that she was glad she was not in.
The thunder of the fountain’s falling water and chatter of their voices and laughter echoed on the high walls.
Augustine was holding her hand and kind of leading the way to the crystal pyramid embedded in the courtyard. She wasn’t struggling to keep up, but she was teetering and bobbling along on her high heels. She might have been chilly, except that Augustine had made sure that she had worn the thick coat that he had bought for her.
As they were hurrying across the cement landscape, a child’s urgent shriek pierced the air from one of the fountains.
Dree’s head popped up. That was not an angry kid being repressed by their parents. That piercing wail meant extreme distress. She’d worked in the peds ER for long enough to instantly know the difference.
She let her fingers slip out of Augustine’s hand as she found herself instinctively sprinting toward the child’s cries.
Heavy footsteps pounded behind her. Augustine had made the same turn, albeit a moment later.
As a nurse, Dree’s instincts to take care of an emergency were faster than most people’s.
Augustine asked, “Where is she? I can hear her, but where is she?”
Dree didn’t waste time debating as she sprinted by running on her toes over toward the fountains.
She saw the tiny hand dart above the side of the fountain and then disappear as she approached.
Dree dodged through people who were turning and surveying the area for the source of the wails, but they couldn’t pinpoint the scream like she had.
She leaped at the low concrete wall surrounding the fountain with her arms stretched in front of her and scooped the tiny child just as she was falling back into the water again.
Augustine was right behind her. He grabbed Dree’s waist and hips before she toppled into the water head-first, potentially hurting the child more.
Instead, she managed to hold the baby under the child’s armpits, keeping the child’s head above the water where they could scream their lungs out.
The loud crying was just fine with Dree. She said to Augustine, “Haul me back. I’ve got them.”
Augustine wrapped one arm around Dree’s waist and hoisted her into the air, grabbing her and the baby together in his arms to keep them both safe. He set her on her feet, holding them together but not squishing the baby.
When Dree’s knees buckled underneath her, Augustine went down with her and controlled their fall so that they all settled safely to the cement.
Dree was concentrating on the child, listening to the baby’s distressed cries and trying to determine whether the baby was injured or merely terrified. She gently palpated the baby’s head and neck first, feeling for gross injuries, but couldn’t find anything. A faint sheen of blood on her fingers was most likely due to a scrape on the baby’s hand, probably from the sharp edge of the fountain’s concrete wall.
Augustine had withdrawn his arm from around the baby, though he kept it around Dree’s shoulders. He was murmuring to the baby in what Dree thought she recognized as French, but she was busy assessing the child’s injuries.
The baby looked up at Augustine, their dark eyes still swimming in tears, but they were listening to him. The child’s dark hair formed spirals that streamed water from the ends.
With the child no longer shrieking, Dree made a thorough physical assessment of the baby, checking their pulse, respiration rate, color, and other indicators of general health. The toddler had a few scrapes and reddened areas that would probably become bruises. The diaper was soaked through and holding a lot of water from the fountain, which was probably why the baby had been unable to stand and kept falling back under the water.
Dree updated Augustine with the baby’s vitals and general condition of health. He nodded and kept murmuring in French to the child.
When she examined the child’s limbs, Augustine held the child at their joints so Dree could stretch and evaluate the child’s chubby arms and legs.
General good condition, well-nourished, no signs of ongoing trauma or abuse other than the recent accident.
Augustine turned away from the two of them and shouted something in French to the crowd. Dree recognized the word “Maman,” which is pretty universal in most languages.
Weirdly, no one came forward to claim the baby.
She said, “We should dial 911, right? You should probably do that. I still don’t have cellular service, and I can’t remember how to speak French right now,” Dree said to Augustine.
He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. “In France, the emergency number is 112,” he said as he dialed.
He spoke rapid French to whoever was answering the phone.
Dree got the baby’s attention and carefully pressed on the child’s chin to take a look inside their mouth. Nothing remarkable. The child
seemed to be in good health. She wished she had her medical bag, though.
She concentrated her efforts on keeping the child calm while Augustine gave instructions to whomever was on the other end of the phone.
Within minutes, an ambulance screeched to a stop directly beside them. A paramedic emerged and said something in rapid French that Dree had no chance of understanding. “I’m sorry, I don’t speak French very well. Le bébé est bon, mais tu should examiner elle,” Dree tried, even though she knew she was messing it up horribly.
Augustine said, “Just talk. I’ll translate.”
The paramedics knelt beside Dree, Augustine, and the baby. She repeated the results of her brief examination and recommendations. Augustine was watching her, translating rapidly for the paramedics.
One of the paramedics said something, and Augustine asked Dree, “How long was she underwater?”
The baby must be presenting as a girl, so Dree started using feminine pronouns. She said, “I don’t know. I heard her scream, and when I looked over, I saw the water close over her head. At that point, I was just running and trying to get her above water. It probably wasn’t more than five or ten seconds before I managed to scoop her out of the water.”
Augustine rattled all that off in French.
The EMTs were examining the baby and working on her. Another one said something to Augustine, who said something back, several times.
Dree asked him, “What was that?”
“They were asking if this was our child, or if we knew who the parents were. I also gave them our names and my phone number in case they have any more questions about the incident.”
A woman’s scream echoed around the courtyard, and a young woman wearing fashionable leggings and a bright dress raced toward them, yelling in some other language, maybe an East Asian language from the clipped syllables. Her long black ponytail flowed behind her as she ran, one arm outstretched, and the other towing two more toddlers.
“Oh, bless her heart,” Dree said.
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