Seen and Not Heard (Maggie Bennett 4)

Rocco looked down at his black-rimmed fingernails and smirked. “Who do you want me to kill?”

“So blunt, my boy.” Hubert sighed. “This is not just any friend. This is the woman I almost married. I would do anything for her, no matter how distasteful. For her sake I come to you.”

“She has a husband? Is that what you want?”

“She’s a widow.”

“It’s too early for guessing games, Hubert,” Rocco snapped. “What is it you want from me?”

“I want you to assist my friend in her plan. I do not know the particulars, nor do I care to. I leave it up to you.”

“Who’s your friend, Hubert? What does she want from me?”

Hubert sighed again. “Her name is Madame Harriette Langlois. I’ll give you her address. You are to go to her apartment this afternoon at five-thirty and there she will tell you what she requires of you.”

“And you have no idea what that is?” Rocco persisted.

Hubert’s eyes were very small, very flat, very black. “She wishes you to kill her. You should be able to do that, shouldn’t you, Rocco? Kill an old lady?”

He knows, Rocco thought. Why should he be surprised? There was very little that Hubert didn’t know. But that changed matters. When he took care of Madame Harriette Langlois he would have to take care of Hubert. The old man might know, but he didn’t understand. No one could know, and live. It was part of their pact, and Rocco’s honor, nonexistent in every other matter, was ironclad in this one.

“I should be able to manage, Hubert,” Rocco said gently. And he watched Hubert shiver in the overwarm apartment.

The day was cool and overcast as Claire moved down the sidewalk. She had to force herself to move at a leisurely pace, when all her instincts told her to hurry, hurry. Nerves, she told herself. She still couldn’t rid herself of the feeling of being watched. It was bad enough in the apartment—she constantly found herself looking over her shoulder, peering into the dimly lit corners of the rambling old place.

But outside it was even worse. She couldn’t walk down a street, go to the market, even buy a newspaper without having the awful sense of being spied upon.

It was all in her imagination, it had to be. No one would care what an American expatriate was doing wandering the streets of Paris. She wasn’t pretty enough to attract the attention of the roaming males, she wasn’t being furtive enough to interest the police. No, it had to be her paranoia, coupled with a guilty conscience.

Guilt was becoming second nature to her. Guilt over Brian, guilt at the thought of abandoning Nicole, guilt over leaving Marc without a word.

That was exactly what she intended. While she could summon up enough courage to leave, that bravery vanished when she contemplated a confrontation with Marc. Not that she expected unpleasantness. He wouldn’t try to force her, he wouldn’t beg or plead.

No, he would do far worse. He would mesmerize her, as he always had, he would put his hands on her and swiftly, efficiently drive all rational thought out of her brain. She’d always hated it when she’d read that in books—where normally intelligent women turned into mindless idiots when the swaggering heroes took them to bed. Now she knew it could happen. She just couldn’t rid herself of the suspicion that in this case Marc wasn’t the hero.

Claire wasn’t quite sure where she was, but it didn’t matter. All she wanted was some fresh air, some way to pass the time until she confronted Harriette Langlois in her den. She had a little-used French phrasebook in her back pocket. It had never done much good before, it would probably be useless today, but she had to use every weapon available to her. If she had to she could have Nicole translate for her, but that might get a little touchy. It would be better if Nicole didn’t know she was leaving until the last possible moment.

She bought a newspaper and a cup of coffee at a sidewalk café, then wished she hadn’t. The chair was too hard, the day too cool to sit outside, the waiter too inclined to hover. And the newspaper was too horrific.

She should have known better than to have bought it. She favored one of the splashier rags, one with screaming headlines and lots of pictures. Their choice had been particularly gory, but for once Claire had no difficulty deciphering the lead story. There was a nasty photograph of an old lady, butchered in her apartment near the Pompidou Centre. Another photograph showed a man lying in a littered street, and she didn’t need to look at the bloodstained torso to know that he was dead. The somber police behind the corpse suggested they had been responsible for the man’s demise, and Claire breathed a small, cautious sigh of relief. Maybe they’d finally caught the man, then, the one who’d been slaughtering the old women.

The waiter appeared at her elbow, looking over her shoulder at the grisly newspaper account. He started talking, so quickly she doubted she would have understood him even in English, and Claire looked around in sudden desperation, that panicked, closed-in feeling washing over her once more. Why did she stop, why did she even attempt something as normal as a midmorning cup of coffee?

“I’m sorry, I don’t speak French,” she said haltingly.

The waiter looked at her with expected contempt, then jabbed a grimy figure at the grainy photographs in front of her, continuing to jabber at her.

“He’s trying to tell you his theory about the murders.” The slow, wonderful voice to her left caught her attention, and she turned and flashed a smile of relief and sheer pleasure at Thomas Jefferson Parkhurst. Now she knew why she was in this part of town, why she had chosen this café. She knew nothing of Paris save her own small neighborhood and certain landmarks. She knew Tom lived near this small, tidy café, and she’d headed there, mindlessly, unerringly, hoping to find him.

Find him she had. When she smiled up at him he looked startled, taken aback. And then he’d smiled back, that slow, sexy crinkling around his eyes and mouth, and taken the chair beside her, dismissing the waiter with a few fluent French phrases.

“What was his theory?” Claire tried to wipe what she knew was an idiotic grin off her face. Was it relief that made her overjoyed to see him? Was it coincidence that so soon after meeting him she’d decided to leave Marc? Or was she making another foolish mistake?

Tom reached out and put a hand on hers. The warmth of his flesh was soothing, comforting, and s

he wanted to turn her palm over and grasp his. She didn’t.

Tom shrugged, but he didn’t remove his hand. “He thinks the man the police shot was just a scapegoat. That the police are useless fools and can’t find the criminal, so they killed an innocent passerby to make themselves look better.”