The Paris Caper (35 page)

“Definitely.
Unfortunately, what we don’t have is opportunity. Whatever she’s planning to
steal, it’s got to be in the area around Marseille. But what to look for?”

“What would your profile
say?” Pierre asked.

“Well, statistically,”
Jean-Marc mused, “a person who has been to prison does one of two things. Give
up crime, or escalate.”

“So,” reasoned Pierre,
“since we don’t think she’s given it up, we should assume she’ll go for
something bigger than before.”

“Right. The Picasso being
the biggest. Well, the real Picasso, the one she meant to steal.” He thought
for a moment. “Maybe this goes beyond Beck’s blackmail, after all. Surely, he
can’t be asking that much.”

“Living expenses? Like
before?” Pierre suggested. “Except maybe she wants to get it all done with one
big job?”

Jean-Marc considered the
idea. “The Orphans are all self-sufficient now, except for Davie. So, all
right, maybe this
is
about her giving up crime. Sort of. One big job,
then she quits?”

“Except Beck will never
let that happen,” Pierre pointed out. “Not if she keeps paying his blackmail.”

Their gazes met and
locked.

“
Merde, mec
,”
Jean-Marc murmured, the hairs standing up on his arms. “She’s
not
going
to kill him. She’s a thief, not a murderer. She won’t escalate
that
much.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“It would explain why
CoCo goes pensive on me.”

“She’s
not
going
to kill him,” Jean-Marc repeated vehemently.

“Okay, we’ll assume she’s
not a murderer, she’s out to pay him off. Big. Judging by the Picasso, she’s
comfortable going for over a million. So, what’s worth that much in Marseille?”

“Are you kidding?”
Jean-Marc said, relieved that Pierre had dropped the murder thing. He could
deal—just—with his lover being a thief and his prime suspect. But a
murderer....
Merde
. He got to his feet, unable to sit any longer.

“The docks run by her
in-laws are teeming with import-export stuff,” he suggested, pacing behind his
desk. “And the whole region is dotted with ritzy houses filled to the rafters
with pricy art and antiquities. Hell, the Riviera is just a stone’s throw away,
too.”

“You mean the casinos?”
Pierre looked amused. “You think she’s robbing a
casino
?” A lopsided
grin curved his lips. “Ocean’s Six. I like it.”

“Don’t be an ass,
Rousselot.”

“Well,” Pierre said,
still grinning and watching him pace, “It’s a good bet she isn’t pulling
anything in her own family’s territory, or anywhere she can catch flack from
them. So we should rule out the docks,
non
?”

“Yeah. And unless she’s
been secretly hanging around George Cluny while I wasn’t watching, I think we
can rule out the casinos, too.”

“Cash really isn’t her
style.”

Jean-Marc agreed. “Which
only leaves a couple thousand potential targets.”

“All those ritzy homes,
full of art and jewelry.”

“Not too many pieces can
be worth over a million. Are you sure CoCo hasn’t let slip a hint? We could
really use a clue here.”

Pierre shook his head.
“No, but I’ll put the pressure on when I see her tonight.”

“
Non
. We don’t
want her to tip off Ciara.”

“Then how do we figure
out the target?”

After a moment, he said,
“We search their apartment.”

Pierre’s brows shot up.
“You think we’ll get a warrant based on pure conjecture? You’re dreaming,
mec
.”

Jean-Marc halted his
pacing and looked his partner in the eye. And calmly murmured, “Who said
anything about a warrant?”

No time like the present,
Jean-Marc decided.

He talked Pierre out of
going along on the illegal search of the apartment. “If Belfort finds out, no
sense in both of us losing our jobs.”

Being mid-afternoon, when
Jean-Marc knocked on the Orphans’ door nobody was home. Just as he’d hoped. He
showed the landlord his
carte
and the man let him into the apartment
without a second thought.

Jean-Marc went through
every room thoroughly, inch by inch. To his immense frustration, he found nothing
useful.

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.

“
Va te faire foutre
.”
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.