No answer.
“She could be in the Métro and have no service. Stuck in a—” She caught herself before she said dead zone.
Virginie blinked. A momentary stillness settled over her and then she grabbed Aimée’s arms. Irritation mixed with fear in her eyes. “She’s told you about Mélanie’s assault, hasn’t she? Her silly plan. I forbade her to get involved.”
“That’s why I wanted to talk.”
“She said she was going to study with Sylvaine tonight.” Virginie emanated an almost palpable tension. “It sounded perfectly safe, but now she’s so late and not answering her phone …”
This feeling piercing Aimée’s gut told her Zazie had another agenda. Calm, she had to stay calm for Virginie. “Do you know Sylvaine’s number?”
Footsteps and someone entered the café. Hope and anger fluttered in Virginie’s eyes. “There she is. About time.”
But it was Pierre, her husband, wiping his forehead with a bandana and pushing a dolly loaded with wine cases. “Zazie’s still not here? Tables five and six want to order. Number seven needs their bill.”
On the board above the sink Virginie took down the business card of a cheese shop on rue de Rochechouart. “Sylvaine’s family run this shop and live above it. I’ll call them.”
“Does Sylvaine have a cell phone, like Zazie?”
“Impossible. Georges, her father, is old-fashioned.” Pierre winked.
“And très religeux—the whole family is,” Virginie said. “That’s why Pierre thinks Sylvaine’s a good influence on Zazie.”
Aimée wiped her perspiring brow, wishing for a whisper of air in the hot kitchen. Standing next to Virginie, she listened to the ringing and ringing. “Zut, they won’t answer this late …”
But Aimée heard a click. Muffled sounds. “All?, Georges, it’s Virginie,” she said. “What? Say that again.” A whisper of fear went up Aimée’s neck. “An ambulance?”
Virginie dropped the receiver into the sink. Time slowed for Aimée as an explosion of Persil soap suds and brown-stained espresso cups burst from the sink, the foamy spray arcing as if in a freeze-frame—and she knew this moment would be imprinted on her consciousness forever.
Aimée recovered the phone, shook it hard, and wiped it off with her scarf. The line was still live. “All?, we’re looking for Zazie. Isn’t she studying with Sylvaine?”
In the background she heard crying.
“Monsieur, what’s going on?” The phone clicked off. Her heart thudded. Non, non, she screamed inside. “What did he say, Virginie?”
Virginie’s shoulders were shaking. “An ambulance, but I didn’t understand.”
Aimée fought her terrible feeling. “Neither do I, but I’m going to find out if Zazie’s there.”
“I’m going with you …”
Aimée hugged Virginie. Held her tight. Let go and forced a smile. “And leave a café full of patrons to serve? What if Zazie comes walking through the door?” She hitched her bag on her shoulder. “Do you trust me?” Virginie nodded. “Good. Your place is here. Let me see what’s going on, okay?”
She was out the door before Pierre looked up, hurrying as fast as she could, feeling awkward clutching her bowling ball of a belly. Her damn kitten heels kept catching in the pavement cracks. A taxi passed. Full. Then another. Panting for breath, she tried to wave it down. No luck. No bus in sight. At the corner she saw a taxi parked near the crosswalk. Her shoulders heaving, she leaned through the window.
“I’m off the meter,” said the driver, lighting a cigarette. “Already did my last run.”
“Then how about fifty francs in your pocket?”
“Against regulations.”
Perspiring, she grabbed her wallet. There were damp rings under her arms. “Overlook the regulations. I’ve got to get to a crime scene.” She pulled out her father’s police ID, which she had doctored with a less-than-flattering photo of herself. “Now.”
Inside the taxi she read him the address from the card of Sylvaine’s parents’ cheese shop on rue de Rochechouart. “Extra if we get there in ten minutes.”
He hit the meter. “I’ll cut over to rue Lafitte. Faster.”
Zazie’s face flashed in front of her. Those freckles, the red curls escaping from her clip, those determined eyes.
“Still on the job, eh? When’s the baby due?”
October. “Not soon enough.”
“Wait till the contractions start,” he said, “then you’ll sing another tune. My wife did.”
It never ceased to amaze her how strangers commented on intimate details of her pregnancy, even touched her stomach in the boulangerie without so much as a s’il vous pla?t.
Traffic slowed to a crawl on rue Lafitte. She tried to calm her nerves. Maybe she’d jumped to conclusions, overreacted. Think, think where Zazie might have gone on her way home from Sylvaine’s. Maybe she’d visited her friend Mélanie in the clinic? Zazie could be stuck on the bus in traffic. But who had called an ambulance to Sylvaine’s house, and why?
She needed to slow her jumping heart for the baby. Good God, hadn’t the doctor instructed against stress?
And René’s cell phone was going to voice mail. Of all times! But she left him a message to call her.
Seven minutes later the taxi turned onto rue de Rochechouart—a sloping street of Haussmann buildings with uniform limestone facades, grilled balconies potted with geraniums and street-level storefronts. The Sacré-C?ur’s alabaster dome poked up from behind the rooftops. Behind the taxi on the narrow street a block away, an ambulance negotiated its way uphill. She heard the squealing brakes from the arriving blue-and-white police car ahead. Fear flooded through her.