The French Detective's Woman (34 page)

No notes, no plans, no maps, no drawings. Nothing.

Just Sofie’s paintings, which were hanging everywhere, along with a collection of black and white photos he assumed had been taken by Davie for his photography course. Thinking of Sofie’s Picasso, he examined all of the artwork carefully, including the large Hand of Fatima she’d painted on a bedroom wall over the bed—that one gave him a bad moment or two—and the incredible flower mural covering the ancient bathroom, floor to ceiling. He started to write down descriptions of everything in his notebook, but changed his mind. Going back to Davie’s bedroom, he grabbed a small digital camera he’d spotted there earlier, and proceeded to fill the empty memory stick with pictures of Sofie’s paintings and Davie’s photos. Then he replaced the camera, pocketing the memory stick. He’d return that later, after copying the images to his computer. You just never knew what might turn out to be important.

He wasn’t sure why Ciara hadn’t gotten her own apartment yet, but she was still occupying a corner of Coco and Sofie’s room. Expecting to go back to jail soon, maybe? A mattress lay on the floor, surrounded by a pair of cardboard boxes, a few plastic grocery bags, and a soft-sided suitcase, filled with the sum total of her belongings. Jesus, how depressing.

Guilt stabbed him in the gut. Though why he should feel so, he couldn’t decipher. She’d chosen her own fate.

Sitting down on the mattress, he lingered for a long time over her things. Checking pockets. Leafing through her few books. Putting a scarf to his nose...

She had so damned few possessions. Why should it be that he had so much, while she had so little? They’d started out practically the same in life. At the bottom of the dung heap. But he’d been the lucky one.

He owed that math teacher more than he’d ever realized....

Perhaps she’d never really had the opportunity to choose anything....

It could so easily have been him in this position. Just out of prison, broke, continuing the downward spiral of a damnable childhood. Feeling the net close in.

At heart, Ciara was such a good person. Look what she’d done for five street kids who wouldn’t have stood a chance without her help. He wasn’t sure he’d have been as noble or generous with the fruits of his ill-gotten gain, had their places been reversed.

Hell, he knew he wouldn’t have. His whole life, he had never thought of anyone but himself. Not before Ciara Alexander came along and made him see he didn’t want to live as an island, a solitary fortress against the world, viewing life in black and white for fear he would slide back into the quagmire of his early years. Terrified to feel real emotions lest he be hurt again. When the truth was, the only real hurt he’d ever felt was to his pride.

Why the hell hadn’t she accepted his offer to get out
? To come and live with him and leave her unhappy, unsettled past behind?

He just didn’t get it.

The tinkling chime of a mantle clock brought him back to the present. Time to go. Filled with frustration on too many levels to count, he stood and took one last look around.

He hadn’t found anything. Not a single thing that implicated Ciara in any kind of illegal activity.

Could he be chasing something that just plain wasn’t there?

Could
she have changed?

Was it possible he was wrong about her?

Again?

♥♥♥

“You look like hell,” Pierre remarked, sweeping into Jean-Marc’s office and flopping into his usual chair.

“
Merci de merde
.” Another night spent tossing and turning had not left Jean-Marc in a particularly good mood.

“What’s that?”

He looked up from his computer screen. “Photos I took yesterday at the apartment. Of Sofie and Davie’s pictures.”

Pierre got the connection immediately. “Anything?”

Jean-Marc flung his arms in the air. “How the hell should I know? I’m practically illiterate when it comes to art. If it’s not the Mona Lisa, I’m lost. What about you?”

“Not much better, I’m afraid. Have you sent the images to an expert?”

“Sure. She’ll get back to me. In a week.”

Pierre puffed out his cheeks. “Very useful. What about Davie’s photos? Anything look familiar?”

“Pretty much everything. All the typical tourist hangouts. Artsy shots of the Eiffel Tower. The Arc de Triumph at night. Le pyramid.”

Pierre chuckled. “I doubt she’s planning to rob the Louvre.”

“I’m beginning to doubt she’s planning to rob anything,” Jean-Marc grumbled.

At that his partner froze. “
Pardon
? Do I detect a change of heart?”

“Maybe,” Jean-Marc said more than reluctantly. “Face it. We’ve got nothing. Zip. Nada. I may be forced to admit Belfort could be right about Ciara.”

Pierre blinked. “Jeezus, Marc. Are you feeling okay? You look a little flushed.”

“Fuck, Pierre. We’ve tried everything to figure her out. I don’t know what else to do.” He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall.

His friend’s chair creaked and Jean-Marc could feel himself being studied and evaluated. “Perhaps you should give it a rest for a while. Work on other stuff. If it happens, it happens. Otherwise...” Jean-Marc opened his eyes to see Pierre shrug expansively.

“Yeah. I guess.”

For several minutes they watched his monitor scroll slowly through yesterday’s photos, each deep in thought.

“Sure there was nothing on their computer?” Pierre asked idly. “Sometimes files can be well-hidden.”

“They don’t have a computer. You know that from the last search.”

“A printer?”

“Nope.”

“Hmm. Then how does Davie process his photos? Didn’t you say he uses digital cameras?”

Digital
. Jean-Marc couldn’t think for a full ten seconds of kicking himself mentally. “
Putain
,” he finally said.

“I’ll look for it,” Pierre said, rising. “Somehow I don’t think you’re in the right frame of mind.”

“Thanks,” he said, wondering how he could have missed something so basic. Just proved how far off his game Ciara had driven him. Jesus, he was so screwed up.

“Oh,” Pierre said, stopping in the doorway. “I’m taking Friday off, okay? CoCo asked me to Cannes with her for the weekend.”

Jean-Marc glanced up in surprise. “Cannes? Didn’t the film festival start today? Where on earth are you going to stay?”

“Apparently Ricardo got a job cooking at one of the big casinos for the duration. They arranged a room for him. He’s letting us use it Friday and Saturday nights since he’ll be working round the clock those days.”

Cannes
... Wasn’t that only a stone’s throw from Marseille?

A tingle of excitement shivered over Jean-Marc’s scalp. “Are all the others going, too?” he asked quickly.

“Nope.”

The spark of hope quickly faded.
Damn
.

“No problem, take Friday,” he said, realizing Pierre was still waiting for an answer. “Let me know about the computer, eh?”

Not that he thought there’d be any more clues in it than they’d found elsewhere.

Pierre left, and Jean-Marc sighed, reaching for one of the files Belfort had given him yesterday. Maybe solving a few more cases would put him in a better mood.

And let him think about something else—anything else—than the problematic Ciara Alexander.

♥♥♥

“You did
what
?” Ciara couldn’t believe her ears.

CoCo was uncontrite. “I invited Pierre to Cannes. Now, before you blow up, listen to me. We all know Jean-Marc has stopped his surveillance of you. We need a backup, in case he doesn’t show. He might not put it together in time.”

“He’ll put it together. The man’s as smart as they come.”

“But what if he doesn’t?” CoCo insisted.

Ciara ground her jaw. “The place will be crawling with cops. We just use one of them instead.”

“Too risky. Trust me, Pierre will never know what’s going on,” CoCo said confidently. “My only role in the job is creating a distraction. He can help with that, even unaware.”

Ciara drove her fingers into her hair and tugged. “Jeezus, CoCo. I wish you’d consulted me first.”

“And what would you have said?”

“No, of course!”

“I rest my case.”

Ciara did her best to remain calm. Well, as calm as possible, considering her whole future was on the line here. And Sofie’s.

“Okay. Obviously you can’t tell him to get lost now or he’ll get suspicious. I guess he could be useful. Just please, for godssakes, keep his attention firmly below his neck. If he starts seeing things, or heaven forbid, thinking, we’re done for.”

A furtive smile creased CoCo’s face. “He won’t. That’s a guarantee. He’ll do exactly as I say.”

For some inexplicable reason, that didn’t comfort Ciara as it should have.

“Sofie’s counting on you, CoCo,” she said softly. “She’s counting on all of us. We can’t let her down.”

“I understand that,” CoCo said, and without looking at her, turning away to go to her room. “We won’t let her down.”

Ciara refused to let the thought form in her mind that was threatening to break through.

No, CoCo was fine. Everything would be just fine. There were only two days to go and everyone was nervous. Most of all Ciara. But there was no reason the plan shouldn’t work perfectly.

CoCo was probably right. Pierre need never know what was going on. And he’d help to establish their alibis. That was critical. The only thing better than one cop to establish an alibi was two cops.

All right. So Pierre was in.

And everything was good. She wouldn’t panic.

At least not yet.

♥♥♥

By Wednesday morning Jean-Marc had solved the two cases Belfort had given him on Monday. This was way too easy.

And not nearly distracting enough.

Luckily, Pierre walked in with a thick file of computer printouts right before Jean-Marc did something drastic, like ask Belfort for more cases. Or drive the Saab to the rue Daguerre.

“Whatcha got?”

“I found the computer.”

Jean-Marc sat straight up. “Yeah? Where?”

“The school where Davie takes his photography courses.”

Within him, elation warred with despair. Jean-Marc’s professional side was certain he was right about Ciara, and this could prove it...and yet, for the past day or two, the thought that his suspicions about her might actually be wrong had felt strangely...compelling.

“Any hidden files or secret photos?” he asked.

Pierre blew out a breath. “Well. Yes and no.” He dropped the heavy file onto Jean-Marc’s desk. “No hidden files, but lots of photos.
Tons
of photos.”

“And?”

“And...they all look like student stuff to me. Portraits, close-ups of birds and flowers, every monument in Paris.” His nose wrinkled. “A whole folder of naked guys. Yuck.”

Jean-Marc laughed. “Well, he is gay.”

“Just my luck,” Pierre muttered. “Anyway, the only picture of anything that looked remotely like a possibility was some weird, fancy egg-shaped thing. Porcelain, maybe? Covered in jewels and gold embellishments.”

“Egg-shaped?”

Pierre made a face. “Antique Easter ornament?”

Something in the back of Jean-Marc’s mind triggered. He’d seen an object like that recently. But where? The image in his memory was black and white, but not sharp like Davie’s photos. More grainy, like...newsprint.

That must be it. He’d bought
Le Monde
on the way home from work Sunday. Jumping up, he strode quickly down to the squad room.

“Anybody still have a copy of Sunday’s paper?” he asked loudly, poking his head in.

Belfort’s secretary motioned him over. He took the paper impatiently and swiftly checked the front page. Nothing. He whipped it open and went page by page, until he found what he was looking for.

“Here it is.” The cover of the pull-out supplement for the Film Festival schedule had an article featuring non-film-related exhibits. He held up one of the pictures for Pierre to see. “Was it something like this?”

Pierre’s mouth dropped open. “
Dieu
, that’s it! That’s exactly the piece in Davie’s photos!” he said. “What the heck is it?”

Belfort’s secretary piped up with a slight tone of superiority, “Why, it’s a Faberge Egg, of course. The Anastasia Egg. Very beautiful, and extremely valuable.”

“How valuable?” he and Pierre asked simultaneously.

“
Very
,” she pronounced with a nod of her steel-gray head.

Jean-Marc met Pierre’s gaze, then snapped it back to the article, skimming for an exact figure. “
Sacre
— It says here it’s insured for twelve million.”

“An egg?” Pierre said in pure disbelief.

The secretary just rolled her eyes. Jean-Marc could swear he heard a muttered, “Barbarian,” under her breath, but her lips stayed tactfully immobile.

“May I take this?” he asked, dropping everything but the supplement back on her desk. She nodded. He jerked his head to Pierre and strode back out into the hall. When they were alone, he stopped and scanned the rest of the article. “Says here the egg will be on display for two weeks at the
Casino Palais d’Or
in Cannes.”

Pierre frowned. “
Palais d’Or
?”

Jean-Marc glanced up. “What?”

“That’s the casino where Ricardo is working.”

This time the tingle in his scalp was stronger. “Yeah?”

They both let that digest for a minute. Could this really be it?

“But twelve million,” Pierre said finally, shaking his head. “
Non
. I don’t believe it. That’s too far out of her range.”

Jean-Marc was inclined to agree. “Still, it’s quite a coincidence. And you know how I feel about coincidences.”

“Same as I do. But get out.
Twelve million
?”

They stood there mired in indecision, letting the unreality and unlikelihood of the proposition versus the coincidence factor filter through their cop radars.

“
Non
,” Jean-Marc said, reluctantly embracing the unlikelihood. “You’re right.” He gave the article one final glance, letting the newspaper fall to his side in one hand. The page fluttered and flipped over. And there, in full, living color, was a different photo.