Heaven. She pulled out her water and prenatal vitamin packets and popped a mouthful.
The bus ground upward in the dark, passing limestone buildings whose pale blue shutters and iron-grille balconies glowed from the lights within. Past the evening crowds under the marquee of the bright Casino de Paris, behind which once extended the Duc de Richelieu’s pleasure gardens of Tivoli, home to the long-gone pavilion where Louis XV supped with Madame de Pompadour.
She got off by a weathered building—a nineteenth-century debtor’s prison, now apartments with a fruit shop and tailor on the ground floor. Aimée reached her destination, the shadowed rue Ballu, where an almost palpable hush descended. It was a world apart from rue de Clichy, the bustling thoroughfare that had once been the Roman road to Rouen. Rue Ballu was upscale, she noted, and exclusive, gardens and cobbled entry passages leading to lanes with h?tels particuliers behind grilled gates.
She’d forgotten to ask Pierre for the building code. Stupid! But she didn’t have to wait long before a dog barked. “Done your business? Bon.” Footsteps and little sniffs sounded behind her. A figure punched numbers in the digicode.
She pretended to root in her Birkin. “Sorry to disturb you …”
A click and the foyer lights flashed on, illuminating a grey-haired woman with a Westie on a leash.
“Forgot the new code again?” she said, irritation in her voice. “Should write it down. It’s been three days now.”
So right after Mélanie’s attack they’d changed the code. Smacked of locking the barn door after the horse bolted. But if everyone was as trusting as this woman, Aimée wasn’t surprised the rapist had gained entry.
The woman held the blue metal-grille gate open, and Aimée slipped inside. “Merci, Madame.” Aimée paused, still rummaging in her bag, until the woman entered a building on the right.
A quick scan of the mailboxes revealed Vasseur at Number 7. Scents of jasmine drifted in the darkness ahead, accompanied by the chirp of crickets. She hadn’t heard crickets since last summer in the Jardin du Luxembourg.
Off a cobbled lane to the right stood Number 7, an eighteenth-century townhouse, its garden sloping up from the two Mercedes parked in front. Some remnant of the Tivoli, she figured. A welcome mist splashed her from the fountain, which was backed by trellised ivy and surrounded by bulbous orange and pink roses, reminding her of the countryside. Not bad for the center of Paris. A cause for envy for the other few million Parisians who slogged up narrow stairs to a closet-sized apartment with a window overlooking a wall.
A lighted window on the upper floor faced the side garden. About to knock on the carved wooden door, Aimée heard a woman shouting. “I couldn’t leave the merger negotiations again!”
A man’s raised voice. “That’s your answer for everything. She’s your daughter, too. But shipping her off to a Swiss clinic?”
A door slammed shut.
So this jewel of an eighteenth-century townhouse didn’t bring with it happiness for these high-roller parents and their suffering daughter. The front door opened before she could knock. Streams of light blinded her as a man rushed out. Stepping back, she lost her balance. Felt an arm grab hers.
“Who are you?”
“Monsieur Vasseur?” she said, pulling her heel out of the gravel. Her eyes adjusted to the light, and she kept talking. Bad mood or not, she needed his information. “I’m Aimée Leduc. Excusez-moi, but …”
“What are you doing here?” The man scowled. Tall, with thinning, blond, side-combed hair and narrow eyes, he wore a rumpled suit.
“Zazie’s parents, the Duclos, gave me your address,” she said. “Forgive me for showing up like this, but Zazie’s disappeared.”
“Who?”
“Your daughter Mélanie’s friend.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know all of Mélanie’s friends. Afraid I can’t help you.” His voice assumed a gloss. He jingled the car keys in his palm, impatient to leave.
“I wouldn’t trouble you, but it’s crucial,” she said. “I need to speak to Mélanie. Zazie might have called her.”
“Impossible.” A brittle finality sounded in his voice.
“Another girl was raped tonight. She died en route to the hospital. And Zazie’s missing …”
“Claude … Claude, who’s that?” came a woman’s voice from the foyer.
“Talk to my wife.”
With that, he got into a Mercedes, started the ignition. The window rolled down. “I’m sorry, truly sorry, but …” he said. Then pulled out, spitting gravel.
Great.
The tall woman in a designer suit stood silhouetted against the lit doorframe. Mascara streaks trailed down her cheeks.
“Madame Vasseur, I know it’s a bad time, but please, we need to talk.”
“I’m not in a sociable mood right now,” she said, about to close the door.
“I wouldn’t describe this as a social call. Mélanie’s friend Zazie is missing. Please let me speak with Mélanie. Just five minutes.”
“We can’t help you,” she said. “Mélanie’s not here.”
Sent to the Swiss clinic already?
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“Like I want to go over the whole thing again? My daughter is traumatized.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But Zazie decided to trail the rapist after what happened to Mélanie. He attacked again tonight, and now Zazie is missing. There’s a connection. If Mélanie’s rapist took Zazie …”
“How do you know it’s the same man?” Madame Vasseur interrupted.
“That’s what I need to find out. Any information, anything Mélanie told you or anything you saw will help.”
Madame Vasseur shook her head. “He violated my daughter, our home … I won’t relive that.”
“But he has raped another girl, and this one didn’t make it. She died in the ambulance several hours ago.”
Madame Vasseur gasped. She grabbed the doorframe. “You mean …?”