Chasing Tomorrow

Henri Marceau looked at his friend long and hard. “What’s this really about, Jean? This case is colder than a ten-day-old corpse in the permafrost and you know it. You won’t solve it. And even if you did, no one would care. It’s not exactly a brilliant career move.”

Jean shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I want a challenge. I need something that will take up all my time. Distract me.”

“From Sylvie, you mean?”

Jean nodded. His French wife, Sylvie, had divorced him a year ago, quietly and without acrimony, after ten years of marriage. They had two children together and still loved each other, but Jean worked ceaselessly, seven days a week, and in the end the loneliness proved too much for Sylvie.

Jean hated being divorced. He missed Sylvie and his children dreadfully, although he couldn’t deny that he hardly saw them, even when he was married. As Sylvie pointed out to him when he complained of loneliness after dropping the kids back to her one weekend, “But, Jean, darling, it took you four months to realize we were divorced. The decree absolute came through in January, and you called me in May to ask me what it meant.”

Jean shrugged. “It was a busy spring. I had a lot going on at work.”

Sylvie kissed him on the cheek. “I know, chéri.”

“Can’t we just get remarried? You’ll hardly know I’m there.”

“Good night, Jean.”

The Bible Killer case was Jean Rizzo’s therapy and punishment and atonement, all in one. If he could catch this bastard; if he could find justice for those poor girls; if he could stop another life being taken; somehow he believed it would make everything right. His divorce, Helene’s death . . . it would all mean something. It would all be for something.

Ugh. He opened his eyes and leaned back in his chair, exhausted.

The problem is, I haven’t caught him.

I didn’t save Alissa.

Just like I didn’t save Helene.

Outside, the rain had stopped and Paris was once again beautiful, glistening like a wet jewel in the spring sunshine.

Jean Rizzo vowed, I can’t leave here until I’ve got something. I can’t go back to Lyon empty-handed.

FOUR DAYS LATER, HE broke his vow.

His daughter, Clémence, had been rushed to the hospital with stomach cramps and given an emergency appendectomy.

“She’s fine,” Sylvie assured him. “But she’s been asking for you.”

Jean drove like the wind and was at Lyon’s Clinique Jeanne d’Arc in three hours flat. Sylvie was at their daughter’s bedside looking tired. “She just woke up,” she whispered to Jean.

“Daddy!”

At six years old, Clémence was a carbon copy of her mother, all soft golden curls and saucerlike blue eyes. Clémence’s younger brother, Luc, also took after Sylvie’s family, much to Jean’s annoyance. “It’s totally unfair. I’m a genetic zero!” he would complain to Sylvie, who would laugh and ask him what he expected her to do about it.

“Maman said you were in Paris.”

“That’s right, chéri.”

“Did you catch the bad guy?” his daughter asked.

Jean avoided Sylvie’s eye.

“Not yet.”

“But you came back to see me?”

“Of course I did. Well, more to see your appendix really,” Jean joked. “Did they give it to you in a jar?”

“Eeeew. No!” Clémence giggled, then winced.