Lost City (NUMA Files 5)

"Monsieur Renaud was a controversial figure in the department," she said after a moment. "Many people didn't like the way he ran things."

"And you, mademoiselle? Did you like the way he ran things?"

"I was among a number of people on the faculty who thought he was not the person for his post."

The lieutenant smiled for the first time. "A most diplomatic response, mademoiselle. May I ask where exactly you have been before coming here?"

Skye gave him Darnay's name and the address of the antique shop, and her home address, which he duly noted, reassuring her that it was routine procedure. Then he got out of the car, opened the door and handed her his business card.

"Thank you, Mademoiselle Labelle. Please call me if you can think of anything else regarding this matter."

"Yes, of course. I have a favor to ask, Lieutenant. May I go to my office on the second floor?"

He thought about it for a moment. "Yes, but you must be accompanied by one of my men."

They got out of the car and Inspector Dubois called over the police officer Skye had first spoken to and instructed him to escort her through the police cordon. Every policeman in Paris seemed to have

converged on the crime scene. Renaud was a scoundrel, but he was a prominent figure at the university and his murder would cause a sensation.

More police officers and technicians were working inside the building. Forensics people were dusting for fingerprints and photographers scurried around snapping pictures. Skye led the way to her second-floor office with the policeman close behind, stepped inside and looked around. Although all her furnishings and papers appeared to be in place, she had the strange feeling that something was amiss.

Skye's eyes scanned the room, and then she went to her desk. She was compulsively neat when it came to her paperwork. Before leaving her office, she had stacked her reference books, papers and files with micrometer precision. Now the edges were ragged, as if they had been hurriedly re-stacked. Someone had been at her deskl "Mademoiselle?"

The police officer was giving her an odd look and she realized that she had been staring blankly into space. She nodded, opened a desk drawer and extracted a file. She tucked the file under her arm without bothering to see what it contained.

"I'm through here," she said with a forced smile. Skye resisted the impulse to bolt from the office and tried to walk at her usual pace, but her legs seemed made of wood. Her calm facade gave no hint of her racing pulse and her heartbeat seemed to thunder in her ears. She was thinking that the same hand that had disturbed her papers could have held the gun that killed Renaud. /

The policeman escorted her from the building and past the barricade. She thanked him and walked home in a daze, crossing streets without looking either way, a near-suicidal move in Paris. She paid no attention to the screech of brakes, the cacophony of blaring horns and the shouted curses.

Her full-blown panic attack had subsided by the time she turned the corner of the narrow street to where her apartment was located. She wondered if she had done the right thing not telling Inspector Dubois that her office had been searched. In her mind she could see the inspector thinking that this crazy paranoid woman must go on the list of suspects.

Skye lived in a nineteenth-century, mansard-roofed house in Mouffetard, on the fringes of the Quartier Latin. She enjoyed the busy neighborhood, with its shops and restaurants and street jazz musicians. The old town house had been turned into three apartments. Skye's was on the third floor and her wrought-iron balcony gave her a view of the street life and the ubiquitous Parisian chimney pots. She sprinted up the stairs. Relief washed over her as she opened the door. She felt safe back in her apartment, but the feeling of security lasted only until she walked into the living room. She couldn't believe the sight that greeted her.

The room looked as if a bomb had gone off. Chair and sofa cushions were strewn about the floor. Her coffee table was swept clear of magazines. Books had been pulled from their shelves and thrown about haphazardly. The kitchen was even worse. Cabinets were wide open and the floor was covered with broken glass and dishes. Moving like a sleepwalker, she went into the bedroom. Drawers had been yanked from their dressers and their contents dumped everywhere. The bed covers and sheets had been yanked off the bed and the mattress sliced open, spilling out the stuffing.

She went back into the living room and gazed at the mess. She was shivering with anger at the violation of her privacy. She felt as if she had been raped. The anger gave way to fear as she realized that the person who wrecked her apartment might still be in there. She hadn't checked the bathroom. She grabbed a poker from the fireplace, and with her eyes glued to the bathroom door, she began to back out of the apartment.

The floor creaked behind her.

She whirled and raised the poker over her head.

"Hul-lo," Kurt Austin said, his coral-colored eyes wide in surprise.

Skye almost fainted. She dropped the poker by her side. "I'm sorry," she said.

"I should apologize for creeping up on you. The door was open, so I stepped inside." He noticed Skye's ashen face. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine now that you're here."

Austin surveyed the living room. "I didn't know you had tornadoes in Paris."

"I think the person who killed Renaud did this."

"Renaud? Not the man who was trapped under the glacier with you?"

"Yes. He was shot to death in his office."

Austin's jaw hardened. "Have you checked the other rooms?"