Zazie’s goal all along, she realized. But she recognized herself in Zazie—that striving to be taken seriously. Her father had always taken time with her, his patience insurmountable. But right now Aimée didn’t feel that she could live up to his example and take on Zazie’s little investigation. She had to pee every half hour, her ankles swelled, there was the nausea in the morning. She’d like to smack the next person who told her morning sickness ended with the first trimester. Then this damned tax … This was a job for the flics, who, it seemed, were already working on it—although privately Aimée shared Zazie’s doubts. She knew how good the flics were at listening to witnesses, and if this FotoFit was all they had to go on, they really didn’t have much.
Not that Zazie had any more than they did, whatever she thought.
Aimée heard the hum of a cell phone on vibrate. Zazie pulled a purple phone from her jeans pocket. Just turned thirteen and she had a cell phone?
“When did you get a phone?”
“My uncle’s letting me use his,” she said, pride creeping into her voice. She glanced at the display and put the unanswered phone back in her pocket. “I’m late, got to study, finish my class project,” she said. “Can you help, Aimée?”
Help her? What could Aimée do, other than tell Zazie’s parents to ground her after school and make some calls to a flic she once knew in Vice?
“Just look over my notes, please?”
“On one condition, Zazie,” she said, taking the binder. “Study for your exams, and leave this alone while I get up to speed on your …” Aimée searched for the right word. “Report.”
Zazie’s eyes widened in thanks. She jotted her cell-phone number on the binder. “Then we’ll compare notes tonight, d’accord? Later, Aimée.” With a wave, Zazie had gone out the door.
Deep in thought, Aimée ground the last of René’s beans and powered up their espresso machine, watched the chocolate brown drip into the demi-tasse cup. A little girl hunting the rapist of her schoolmate—compelled to help her friend since the flics were making no progress. What was the world coming to?
Zazie wore lip gloss and a touch of mascara these days, but Aimée remembered the young Zazie, sitting behind the café counter and coloring with crayons. Aimée had watched her grow up over the years. Telling Zazie flat-out to stop this would get her nowhere. She’d deflected her for the present, but Aimée knew it was only temporary.
No ice in the suitcase-sized fridge. With a sigh Aimée plopped two brown sugar cubes in the demi-tasse, stirred.
Even now, years later, she vibrated with fear remembering how the man had continued following her, standing and waiting on the quai outside their apartment. She remembered the hot wind blowing the curtain as she’d stood in the window and pointed him out to her father when he got home, then a flic at the Commissariat.
“That one? Good girl, Aimée,” he’d said. “Go finish your homework.”
She’d never seen the man again. And her father had upped her allowance. “In case you want ice cream.”
Now Aimée punched in the café number. She needed to speak with Virginie, Zazie’s mother, and warn her about Zazie’s project. Busy. She was about to slip back into her heels and go down to the corner café in person when Leduc Detective’s phone lines lit up. Clients needed attention, networks needed security, virus scans needed running. Crunch time, like every year in June—impossible to avoid since, as contractors, they were always the last to be paid. René always had only a short window to add the last-moment revenue and compute their estimated taxes.
By the time she looked up again, the shadows on rue du Louvre had lengthened. Almost 7 P.M. and still no René. The butterscotch glow of the evening sun reflected on the mansard windows opposite—the sun set late in the summer, and there were at least another two and a half hours of daylight.
Aimée satisfied her latest craving from the stash in the small fridge in back: cornichons, capers and kiwis. Didn’t that cover at least three food groups?
Still more scans to monitor, but she’d run out of décaféiné espresso beans, and she needed to speak to Virginie tonight before Zazie took things too far.
But when Aimée entered the bustling café she didn’t see Zazie where she would normally be on busy evenings, helping at the counter. The télé, a new addition for the World Cup, showed a play-off game, and the café was filled with shouts and the smell of spilled beer.
“How you feeling, Aimée?” said Virginie, making change for customers at a window table. “Got over the morning sickness?”
She wished. “Not yet.” The malted beer odor filled her nose, but her stomach stayed in place. For once.
“Don’t I remember,” said Virginie.
Warm air rippled in from the street, and a dog barked outside the open door. Aimée caught Virginie’s eye. “Can we talk before Zazie gets back? It’s important.”
“Zazie’s late.”
Aimée felt a prickling up her spine.
One of the flushed-faced World Cup fans walked up to pay.
“Verez,” Virginie said. “Do me a favor and make two cafés crèmes for those ladies down the counter? And help yourself to an express.”
“Pas de problème,” she said. Not the first time she’d barista’d. She whacked the grinds out from the stainless steel, frothed the milk with a whoosh and dolloped foam. The steaming brown–black liquid dripped serré, double strength, for her.
Sipping her express décaféiné, she followed Virginie behind the zinc counter to the unventilated back kitchen. Steaming heat came from the stove. “You’re working by yourself tonight?” Aimée asked.
“Pierre’s gone for more wine, the baby’s with my niece.” Virginie wiped her face with a towel, reached for a tray. “This World Cup makes for booming business. We’re run off our feet. Pierre’s brother’s supposed to help.” Virginie sighed. “Don’t know why I gave in and let Zazie use his phone when she won’t answer it.”
Zazie wasn’t answering her phone? Aimée made herself take a deep breath. There could be a reasonable explanation. Not the horrific one her mind jumped to. “Dites-moi, how late is she?”
“An hour.” Virginie glanced at the wall clock. “More. Not like her with exams coming up. She’ll have to answer to her father now.”
All Aimée could think was that Zazie had gone to surveil the bar again. She was underage, but she would somehow talk her way in. Or watch this “rapist” she thought she’d tracked down from the street.
Aimée pulled out her phone, scrolled to the number she’d entered for Zazie. “Let me try her.”