The Paris Caper (14 page)

Jean-Marc didn’t give a
damn how many refugees the old man had saved during World War II; if Valois was
helping
le Revenant
, or had anything to do with the Picasso’s disappearance,
he was going to jail. Period.

“Ah,
Monsieur le
Commissaire
!” Valois greeted him as he came into the cave-like shop,
removing his dark shades. “
enfin de retour
! I understand congratulations
are in order.”

Which only confirmed his
involvement in illegal activity, in Jean-Marc’s mind. Why else would a civilian
know or care about his promotion to lead detective?

“Thank you,” he said,
folding his sunglasses into his breast pocket. “I need your help, Valois. There
seems to be a Picasso missing. And you know where it is.”

Naturally, the old man
denied all knowledge. With a smile, of course. They had a very civilized
conversation. Unproductive. But the old geezer knew something. In fact, at one
point Jean-Marc was certain he was about to give him a morsel of information,
but at the last moment he clammed up. Interesting.

This was as close to a
lead as Jean-Marc had gotten in weeks. The man bore watching. He’d assign one
of his officers to sit in the small café across the street and snap photographs
of everyone who went in and out of
Valois Vielli
.

That should send a
message. And with any luck might even yield something useful.

He left his card with a
cordial request to be notified if anyone turned up at the shop trying to sell a
Picasso. Valois smiled and bowed and said he most certainly would.

Right.

The bell above the door
tinkled as it shut behind Jean-Marc. The warm afternoon air was redolent with
the scent of strong, sweet coffee. His stomach growled in response. Slipping on
his shades, he glanced across the street at the Café Constantinople. Its
specialty was Turkish coffee. Perhaps they also had sandwiches.

He strolled over and took
a seat at one of the white iron bistro tables on the sidewalk outside. After
placing his order with the owner who came around to greet him, he sat back to
think about his next move.

But before he could, his
attention was caught by a slim, dark-haired girl inside the café. She was on a
ladder, painting the wall. Or rather, she was painting a large design onto the
wall. It was ornately beautiful, and blue.

A Hand of Fatima.

Exactly like the one
above Ciara Alexander’s bed.

Before he was aware of
what he was doing, he found himself inside the café, standing below the ladder,
hands on hips.

“Where is she?” he
demanded.

“What?” Surprised, the
girl quickly turned, grabbing the ladder to keep herself from falling. Taking
him in at a glance, for a split second she looked terrified.

“Ciara Alexander,” he
said, pressing his advantage. “I want to know where she is. And you are going
to tell me.”

♥♥♥

The girl’s eyes
shuttered. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, and turned her
back to Jean-Marc. She continued to paint, but the brush strokes came out wavy.
Her hand was shaking.

She knew exactly what he
was talking about.

She appeared to be very
young. Middle Eastern by the look of her olive skin and long brown-black hair.
Algerian, probably. And by her reaction, well used to male intimidation.
Strong-arming her wouldn’t work, Jean-Marc realized. But the opposite might.

He sat down at a table
below the ladder and let out a sigh, chin in hand. “Sorry,” he said. “Ciara had
a design like that over her bed when we... Anyway, I miss her and just
thought...” He sighed again.

“This guy bothering you,
Sofie?” the owner said, frowning as he came over.

She didn’t look around,
but shook her head. “No,” she said softly.

“Just admiring the
painting,” Jean-Marc said. “She has a very unique style. Thought I recognized
it. Guess I was mistaken.”

The owner grunted, and
went back for Jean-Marc’s coffee, bringing it to him with a suspicious glare.
“He bothers you,
habibi
, let me know.”

“I will, Ghalil.”

Jean-Marc took a sip of
the thick, aromatic liquid and smiled. “Damn, that’s good.” He looked up. The
girl—Sofie—had turned on the ladder and was watching him.

“You’re the cop, aren’t
you?” she said.

He tipped his head,
mildly surprised. “Ciara, she talked about me?”

The girl gnawed her
bottom lip and studied her paint brush silently for a moment. Finally, she
said, “She liked you. A lot. She’s been sad since...” Her words trailed off
into more silence.

Sad.

A ripple of disbelief, or
maybe renewed anger, sifted through his chest.

Sad
?

He wanted to challenge
the girl. Make her tell the truth. But he knew that would only shut her up
again. So he said, “I’ve been sad, too.” And waited.

His sandwich came, and
she went back to painting. Her strokes were flowing and sure now, skimming over
the white wall, turning the blank space into a delightful work of art.
Curlicues and intricate designs surrounded the elegant blue fingers of Fatima’s
hand.

Suddenly, she turned and
said, “She trusted you, you know. That’s not why she left.”

He bit back the urge to
ask the obvious, and asked instead, “Why
wouldn’t
she trust me?”

The girl snorted
delicately and went back to her painting.

“Because I’m a cop?”

“What do you think?” she
said, a wealth of information contained in her soft drawl. More curlicues
appeared.

All at once it hit him.
Maybe Ciara had not been afraid of him being a cop because of something
she’d
done. Maybe she was afraid because of what some other cop had done
to
her.

Outraged at the thought,
he tore a bite from his sandwich to keep from demanding to know what had
happened.

“People like us,” the
girl said, glancing over her shoulder at him, like she could sense his turmoil,
“we have little reason to trust
le flic
.”

“Sofie,” he said, meeting
her gaze head-on, “I’m not so unlike you. I grew up in
les banlieues
. I
know all about bad cops. And I’m not one of them.”

She gnawed on her lip
again, and a bleak smile broke through. “Yes. She said you were different.”

He couldn’t read the
girl. Couldn’t figure out if she thought that was a good thing or a bad thing.
He was more confused than ever.

“Sofie, please. Where is
she?”

She turned back to her
wall. “I can’t tell you.”

His blood bloomed with
impatience. Fine. He’d have her followed. Eventually she’d lead him right to
Ciara.

Though why he wanted to
know was beyond him. He had no desire to renew their affair. She’d made it
clear where he stood with her. Why push it?

But he couldn’t let it
go. He had to know where she was. Had to see her again. To find out why she
didn’t want him. It was like an obsession, his need to find her. A sick
obsession.

What was wrong with him?

“She takes care of us,
you know,” the girl said solemnly. “All of us. I don’t know what we’d do
without her.”

The quiet statement
brought him back to reality. “How?” he asked, interest piquing. He felt
instinctively that in the answer lay a key to the puzzle that was Ciara
Alexander.

Sofie’s lips parted, as though
he’d caught her off guard. She shook her head, dipping her brush into the
Aegean blue.

“I want to understand,”
he said. He also wanted to know who “all of us” were, but one thing at a time.

The design on the wall
was nearly complete. He followed her graceful movements as she filled in the
thumb and put finishing touches on the curls and flourishes surrounding it.
When she was done, she climbed down from the ladder.

“Aren’t you going to sign
it?”

She looked at him,
startled, then back at the wall. “That is my signature,” she said.

He frowned, not
understanding. But before he could question her meaning, she slid into the
chair opposite him. Wiping her fingers on a bright orange cloth, she studied
them like she had something to say.

Her hair fell over her
eyes, making her look extremely young. How old was she? Fifteen, sixteen, max.
He thought about what she’d said and wondered why Ciara was taking care of her,
and not her parents.

“Ciara has very little
money,” Sofie said, barely above a whisper. “But what she has she shares with
us. Without her help, we would all be living on the streets instead of having a
decent place to sleep and food in our stomachs. She keeps us on a good path.”

After a pause to digest
that unexpected information, he gently asked, “We?”

“The Orphans. There are
five of us.”

What the hell? “Street
kids?”

She nodded at her hands.

He leaned back in his
chair, slightly taken aback. His vivacious, sexy Ciara was caring for five
young runaways? Of all the things for her to be doing, of all the reasons for
her to avoid him, that was one he’d never seen coming.

“She’s afraid to get
involved with me,” he deduced aloud, “because she thinks I’ll contact social
services. Take you all away from her.”

Sofie swallowed but
didn’t look up. “Something like that.”

Was she right? Would he?

He was a sworn officer of
the
police judicaire
, bound to uphold the law. If the kids were
underage, he’d have no choice but to report the situation, regardless of his
personal feelings on the matter.

He blew out a breath.
Merde
.
Had Ciara pegged him so accurately after three nights in bed? He didn’t know
whether to be flattered or insulted.

Across the street, the
bell above
Valois Vielli’s
door tinkled and he realized he’d completely
forgotten about calling for an officer to keep watch over the place. A
sophisticated woman with short black hair and large sunglasses emerged from the
shop, looked both ways down the sidewalk, then over toward the café. High heels
clicking smartly, she crossed the street and came in, seating herself at a
table on the other side of the room.

Jean-Marc turned back to
Sofie. It was time for him to go. Before he overstayed his welcome and she got
suspicious.

“Thank you for
explaining,” he said, and rose. “Next time you see Ciara, would you tell her—”

Tell her what
?
That she’d been right in her assessment of him? That he was a heartless bastard
who saw life in black and white, with no room for extenuating circumstances?
That it was better she had made the choice than he? Because although in his
heart he admired what she was doing more than he could say, he’d always be a
cop first.

“Tell her I still want
her,” he murmured. Because that much was also true.

Ignoring Sofie’s blush,
he tossed a ten on the table and started to walk away. But before taking two
steps, he went back and handed her a hundred euro note. “Buy her something
pretty,” he said, “Something she’d like.” Then he turned and strode out of the
café.

As soon as he’d rounded
the corner, he pulled out his cell phone.

“Pierre?” he said when
his partner picked up. “Send me an officer. I need someone watched.”

Ciara averted her face
and held her breath as Jean-Marc’s tall frame disappeared through the café
door. Her heart beat like thunder. She couldn’t believe he was here! Talking
with Sofie! But how?

He’d walked right past
her table, close enough to reach over and touch. She hadn’t done it, but she’d
been tempted. Oh, so tempted.

The faint smell of his
cologne lingered in his path, triggering a deep yearning, way down inside her. Sometimes
when she thought about Jean-Marc, the physical craving was almost unbearable,
God help her. She took a deep breath and shuddered it out. She was so messed
up.

Lowering her sunglasses,
she met Sofie’s large, luminous brown eyes. They were filled with sympathy.

“What did he want?” Ciara
asked, blocking out the insane feelings assaulting her insides.

Sofie came over to the
table. “To find you.”

Ciara’s pulse sped.
“But...how? How did he know?”

Sofie glanced toward her
painting, then back. “Fatima’s Hand. He recognized it. From over your bed.”

“Oh, sweet Jesus.”
Ciara’s mind scrambled. She’d never thought of that. What other details had she
not thought about that could give her away? “You didn’t tell him where I moved,
did you?”

“Never,” Sofie assured.
“Never, ever.”

“Thank God,” Ciara
whispered, relief pouring through her. For as much as she longed to be with
Jean-Marc, it would be pure disaster if he found her again. That kind of
complication she did not need.

“He seemed nice,” Sofie
said. “I liked him.”

“Yes. I liked him, too,”
Ciara murmured.
Unfortunately
.

“Too bad he’s a cop, and
not a gangster, eh? Like Etienne.”

She smiled wearily. “Too
bad I didn’t meet him before I met Etienne. Our lives might have been very
different.”

Sofie’s dark brows tilted.
“If you’d met him first, you’d never have bothered with us Orphans.”

“Don’t be silly.” Ciara
stood and gave her a heartfelt hug. “I’d be the same person inside. And I’d
love you just as much as I do now. How could I not? You’re my family.”

Sofie’s smile glowed. “I
love you, too.” She reached up to touch Ciara’s short black wig. “I can’t
believe he didn’t recognize you when you came in.”

“I’m not. He didn’t at
the Michaud’s either. Nobody sees through my disguises.”

“A lover should.”

“I guess that tells you
something, then.”

“You’re wrong. He loves
you, Ciara.”

She let out a weary
laugh. “Sweetie, we’ve only seen each other three times. He couldn’t possibly
love me.”