Private Paris (Private 10)

What about that locked door to that other bedroom? I ran to it, tried the knob

, but found it still locked and no sign that the lock had been picked.

Then I noticed the chair in the closet. It faced shelves and drawers and, high on the closet wall, an air duct, which was missing its grate. The hole would have been impossible for me or Louis to squeeze through. But Kim Kopchinski was certainly small enough.

But could she get out? Or was she still in the ductwork somewhere?

Jumping up on the chair, I peered into the duct and saw, ten or twelve feet away, a thick beam of light shining in where another grate had been.

“Damn it,” I snapped, and jumped off the chair, finding Louis searching the bedroom. “She used the air system to get next door. But I heard her turn on the shower right before you knocked. She can’t be ten minutes ahead of us.”

Louis yanked out his phone again, punched in a number, and began barking questions in French. I went out into the living area, grabbed my shoes, and laced them quickly.

Louis stuck his phone in his pocket and started moving fast toward the suite door, saying, “My man outside, Farad, saw a woman matching Kim’s description leave the hotel ten minutes ago and head north. If she has not taken a taxi, we can catch her.”

We bolted from the suite, ran to the stairs, and took them two at a time, emerging in the wide hallway between the hotel lobby and the dining room. A maître d’ holding breakfast menus smiled and then frowned when we sprinted by him toward the lobby.

But an absolutely huge man in a $5,000 blue suit got in our way. He was at least six foot five and 230 pounds of solid muscle, with a thin beard and mustache, and there was a twisting coil of tubing running up his neck to the back of his ear.

“I’m sorry. You can’t enter the lobby just yet,” he said in a Texas twang.

“We have to get outside!” Louis cried. “What is this?”

“We have members of the Saudi royal family checking in. I’m sorry, sir. As I understand it, you may exit through the Dior spa downstairs.”

Rather than argue, we turned and bolted, with Louis telling our ride where to meet us. We emerged from the spa a few moments later, and a BMW sedan skidded up in front of the hotel. We jumped in.

Louis yelled, “Go. Head for George V Métro.”

The driver, whom I’d met only the day before, was Ali Farad, a former investigator with the French National Police based in Marseille. In addition to speaking six languages, Farad had been trained in anti-terror and drove like it. He wove us through the streets toward the George V Métro station, which Louis said lay in the direction Kim Kopchinski had gone in.

We almost caught her.

Her hair and clothes were still dusty from the ductwork when I spotted her crossing the Avenue George V toward the Champs-Élysées and the Métro entrance. Jumping from the moving car, I raced after her.

Cars skidded and horns blared at me as I dodged out into heavy morning traffic. Kim heard the commotion, looked over her shoulder, saw me, and started running as well, but in the other direction.

Crossing the southbound lane on the Avenue George V, a work truck appeared out of nowhere and damn near clipped me. I was forced to halt, gasping and angry. “Kim!” I shouted.

She never broke stride and disappeared into the Métro station. I got there less than thirty seconds later, vaulted the turnstiles, and sprinted toward the sounds of screeching metal and pneumatic doors whooshing open.

I hit an intersection in the tunnel where I had to decide on northbound or southbound platforms.

I chose south.

It was the correct platform.

But by the time I pounded down the stairs and reached it, the train doors were shutting on Kim who waved at me sadly and mouthed the words, “Good-bye, Jack.”

“C’mon!” I shouted. “Really?”

When I ran back out the exit, breathing hard, I found Louis standing there, his cell phone pressed to his ear. He looked pale when he spotted me, held up a finger, and said, “Yes, of course, Evangeline. I’ll go there right now.”

He hung up. “You catch her?”

Pissed off, I said, “She went southbound. Maybe we can still find her.”

Louis shook his head. “We don’t know where she is going. And Private Paris has just been called in on a delicate case.”