The Paris Caper (32 page)

Pierre glanced up,
lifting a shoulder. “I suppose, though I didn’t think they were all related.
Why?”

Slowly, a grin spread
across Jean-Marc’s face. He tipped his head back and laughed. “Pierre,
mec
,
you are a fucking genius.”

♥♥♥

Thursday night Jean-Marc
let one of his off-duty buddies watch the Orphans’ apartment. The next day
would be a long one, and he needed sleep. In a real bed, for a change.

Unfortunately, he was too
wound up to get more than fits and starts, and when he did actually fall asleep
he was besieged by dreams. Of Ciara,
naturellement
. Hot, erotic, naked
dreams, which always ended up with him behind bars, and her walking away
scot-free laughing at him.

It did not make for a
good mood when he awoke at dawn on Friday morning and relieved his buddy.

Driving straight to rue
Daguerre, Jean-Marc’s nerves hummed with adrenaline. He felt cramped in the
Saab, itching to spring into action. But two hours of pacing and swearing later
he was rewarded when Ciara, Sofie, Ricardo, CoCo and Hugo all clattered out
through the front entry door. He gritted his teeth when they cheerfully waved
to him and started walking toward the
métro
. Davie was nowhere to be
seen. Jean-Marc figured he’d be along later. So he followed the others. On rue
Froidevaux, the quartet split up. Sofie and Hugo went right toward their usual
métro
stop, Denfort-Rochereau, the others turned left to Gaîté.

Jean-Marc gave a
humorless chuckle. Nice try, kids. Both lines me up at Montparnasse.

He stuck with Ciara, even
when CoCo and Ricardo branched off a block later. He figured they’d head for
the
métro
, and Ciara for the car.

He kept a tight leash on
her, curious to find out where she would pick up the Jag. After the Michaud
robbery, he’d tried every which way to track down the mysterious old lady with
the flat tire, but—not surprisingly—had found neither her nor her Jaguar. Now,
of course, he knew she was Ciara. But the Jag was not hers. It would give him a
certain amount of gratification to get closure on that bit of frustration, even
if it was too late. You never knew. Maybe the little shit who did own it had a
stack of parking tickets he could put a warrant out on.

Which was why it really
pissed him off when she managed to give him the slip.

When he realized she was
gone, he ran straight to the
métro
and barreled down the steps,
shouldering his way through the thick morning throng of commuters crowding the
platform.

She wasn’t among them.

He wanted to hit
somebody.

How the hell did she
do
that? One minute she was there, the next she’d vanished into thin air. She may
be good with disguises, but disguises took time. She had simply disappeared.

Fuck it; it didn’t
matter. He knew where they were headed.

He pulled out his cell
phone and punched in Pierre’s speed dial. Pierre was waiting at the
Gare de
Lyon
, to visually confirm that the Orphans took the express to Marseille.

“They there yet?”
Jean-Marc asked.

“Yep. All four present
and accounted for. Traveling first class all the way.”

“Four? Ciara didn’t show
up?”

“No. Why?”

He grimaced. “I lost her.
What about Davie?”

“No sign of him, either.”

Jean-Marc grunted, and
hung up.
Damn
. He made his way back to the Saab, trying to decide what
to do next. Catch a flight and intercept the quartet at the Marseille train
station was probably his best option. They’d no doubt meet up with Ciara there.
But it really burned him about the Jag.

Or maybe...maybe she was
going by air, and would pick up the car down south. It was, after all, at least
a nine hour drive by auto to Marseille.

Then he remembered. At
the Michaud job, when the old lady was leaving...a man dressed as a chauffeur
had picked her up. A young, sandy-haired man.

Davie
.

Damn, damn,
damn
.

On his way to the airport
Jean-Marc called Pierre back.

“Get over to the office
right away. Find out who Davie’s known associates are. And family. The others,
too, just in case. See if any of them own a Jaguar.”

There was a pause, then
Pierre swore softly. “Sure, boss. I’ll search all the little blighters’
backgrounds and let you know if anything pops.”

By the time Jean-Marc’s
flight was taxiing in at Marseille, Pierre had called back. Davie’s father
turned out to be a certain Comte de Figeac, who owned no less than two
different models of Jaguar. Jean-Marc jotted down the particulars and plate
numbers. Then he called Cheveau in Marseille.

“I just landed at the
airport. How about picking me up?”

“Oh, la la,
mec
,”
Cheveau said with a hearty chuckle. “Another brothel visit so soon?”

Jean-Marc bit his tongue
and took the good-natured ribbing, then explained what he needed.

“No problem. I’ll put out
a description of the two Jags and have anyone who spots either of them radio in
their position.”

“Thanks,
mon ami
.
Now, any chance I can borrow one of your radio cars for the day?”

♥♥♥

When the express train
pulled into Marseille, Jean-Marc was there. But the Orphans weren’t.

“I cannot believe this,”
Jean-Marc growled after searching the train from one end to the other. He then
questioned the conductor and porters. Four people matching the Orphans’ descriptions
had gotten off at Aix-en-Provence, one stop before Marseille.

He slammed his eyes shut
and took a long, deep breath.

He would
not
explode.

He would go about this
calmly and rationally, as befitted a
commissaire
of the DCPJ conducting
a routine investigation.

He would not think about
throttling Ciara.

He would not think about
shaking her until her teeth rattled.

He would
definitely
not think about spanking her until she begged for mercy.

He dug his fingernails
into his itchy palms and let his breath out slowly.

There. Better.

Which was good. Because
he needed every ounce of patience he could get for the next eight long,
frustrating hours, while he and the every law enforcement officer within a
hundred square miles searched for any trace of the Jag.

When word finally came,
it was from the Aix-en-Provence train station. At 11:13 pm, le Compte de
Figeac’s Jaguar was spotted in the parking lot.

And the slow overnight
train to Paris had just pulled out of the station.

♥♥♥

“Stop that train!”
Jean-Marc barked at the officer who had called it in.

“I’m afraid it’s too
late, sir. It’s well past the yard limits. Can’t be stopped until the next
station, unless there’s a side-track somewhere along the line where it can be
detoured.”

“Find one,” he ordered.
“I’m on my way. I want to be
on that train
. Am I understood?”

“Yes, sir!”

It took him twenty
minutes at breakneck speeds with lights flashing and sirens screaming to reach
the train, which had been diverted to an old, abandoned depot to await his
arrival. He jumped up into the caboose and shook hands with the two onboard
rail security agents who were there to meet him. This was not one of the
ultra-modern bullet trains, but an old-fashioned slow-moving local.

“What’s going on?” they
asked with obvious concern after they’d exchanged credentials.

“I’m chasing a thief,” he
explained, knowing he had to tread carefully. His boss had out-and-out
forbidden him from pursuing Ciara, and he had no real evidence that she had
even committed a crime. Other than his roiling gut.

“A thief? Not a
terrorist?” The two agents looked relieved.

“A woman. Not dangerous.
And I’m not even certain she’s on the train,” he hedged. “But she probably has
stolen valuables with her if she is. I’d like permission to search for her, and
if I find her to search any compartment where she’s been.”

The two agents glanced at
each other and shrugged. “Sure, why not. Will you need our help?”

He shook his head. “
Non,
merci
. But I’ll need a porter’s key.”

Further relieved that a
key was all that would be required of them, the agents quickly produced one of
the long, silver hex tools that opened all doors and sleeping bunks on the
train. “Good luck,” they said as they handed it over.

But Jean-Marc was pretty
sure his luck had deserted him nearly two years earlier, on the day he’d met
Ciara Alexander.

He didn’t find her on the
train. Nor did he find the Orphans.

He’d stalked slowly
forward through all twenty-three cars, and now he turned around and searched
them all again, twice as carefully. He checked every bathroom, every luggage
rack, every connecting area between cars, the dining car and every damn
sleeping compartment in the wagons-lit—much to the resentment of several
sleeping passengers—and studied the face of every female in every seat.

No Ciara.

He thought of her
disguise at the Michaud’s, as an old lady, and despaired. Short of yanking on
every head of gray hair, there was no way to tell if she was lurking somewhere
under a wig and a pound of theatrical make-up. And if she could do an old lady,
why not a man? She could be disguised as a fat guy with a bad rug.

Merde
.

He needed a drink.

Since he was already at
the rear of the train, he made his way to the bar behind the closed restaurant
car and ordered a bourbon. A double.

And brooded about how she
had outsmarted him. Again. It was really starting to irritate him.

This had never happened
before. He’d always been completely in control of his investigations. Always
smart enough to track the bad guy one way or another, and bring him down. Every
time save one—when he’d been personally betrayed.

And now.

Ciara was messing with
his head. Making him crazy. She was as unpredictable as he was. She played
dirty, like he did. Always found a way to outwit her opponent, as he always
had. Until now.

But he
would
catch
her. If he had to sell his soul to the devil, he would. And he was going to
make her pay dearly.

He slammed back his
double and raised his hand to the barman to order another. His fingers grazed
the arm of a woman walking by.

“
Ah, pardon
,” he
mumbled.

“
Ce n’est rien
,”
she politely returned in a silky, smoky voice. She had the pampered, smooth
accents of a woman who’d been to a Swiss finishing school, and shared her bed
with barons and princes.

Mildly intrigued,
Jean-Marc spun his stool and watched her walk past. Model tall and thin, she
had henna-red hair cut in a sleek style straight out of the pages of some fancy
fashion magazine. She wore a dove gray couture suit—a short jacket and shorter
skirt—with black silk stockings and breathtakingly high heels. Red high heels.

Every eye at the all-male
occupied bar followed her sultry stroll between empty restaurant tables toward
the exit. When she reached the middle of the deserted dining area she paused,
and took a last, lingering glance over her shoulder.

Right at Jean-Marc.

Unexpected arousal bolted
through his body. The woman was unbelievably sexy, and for a second—okay, two
or three seconds—he actually thought about accepting her fairly blatant offer.
He was definitely in the mood for some hot, mind-numbing sex. A quick,
anonymous fuck with a princess appealed to his bad-ass street side. Two years
ago he wouldn’t have hesitated. What the hell was wrong with him now? Not that
he really had to ask... Despite the acute differences, she only reminded him of
Ciara.

He sighed with regret as
she continued to walk away, her long, long legs and shapely hips swaying like a
samba.

Non
, he couldn’t.
Not in this foul mood. Even an anonymous princess deserved to be fucked for
herself, not because she reminded him of someone else. Hell, the woman even
walked
like Ciara....

Suddenly, he frowned. And
launched to his feet.

His heartbeat stopped
dead, then went into hyperdrive.

Non. Impossible
.

Could she...?

With a virulent oath, he
tossed a ten on the bar and went after her.

He tore through the first
car, scanning the heads of the passengers for the woman. She wasn’t there. He
ran through the second car, and the next, and the one after that. Finally he
saw her, just a glimpse, disappearing through the connecting door to the car just
ahead.

A large lady suddenly
stood up in the center aisle and blocked his path as he rushed to catch up.
Impatiently, he squeezed past her. The next car was a wagon-lit, consisting of
a claustrophobic passageway in aging wood veneer and several closed doors to
sleeping compartments. She was already at the other end. Just before vanishing
around the corner, she glanced over her shoulder again. Their eyes met.

He started to run.

When he got to the next
car, also a wagon-lit, she was gone.

He stood for a moment to
regroup, breathing hard and leaning back against the cool glass and metal of
the outer connecting door.
She was here
. He could feel her presence,
like...a ghost, haunting him. Calling to him.

The sideways motion of
the train rocked him side to side, side to side, his knees bending in rhythm to
the kachunk-kachunk-kachunk of steel wheels passing over rail joints. The
shadow of a scent, exotic and alluring,
unfamiliar
, teased his nostrils.

Was his own mind playing
tricks on him? Did he want it to be her so badly he was letting his imagination
run rampant? Or was the woman really Ciara, cleverly disguised...