Burned (Vanessa Pierson series Book 2) (17 page)

Evening hours in the middle of a voluntary curfew and Café de Flore, glowing with golden hues, bustled with diners refusing to be scared off their routines. Perhaps history added extra inspiration and courage: Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir had claimed the café as an office of sorts, to write and keep warm during the Nazi occupation.

Waiting as a busboy cleared a back corner booth, Vanessa watched Khoury slip the maître d’ a token of their appreciation; the restaurant was full and they had been moved to the head of the line. Because it wasn’t far from the safe house, Café de Flore had become a regular spot for Team Viper, and while its members were not typical of the neighborhood denizens, it was obvious that they weren’t tourists, either. While the café staff had no knowledge of the team, they seemed to sense that its members were somehow tasked in part with safeguarding the city.

As the maître d’ led them to their booth, past tables whose dishes were laden with roasted meats, smoked salmon, and blinis, Vanessa’s stomach woke up and growled. She was famished. On the
three-and-a-half-hour return from Amsterdam with Aisha, she’d eaten some chips and a small bag of pretzels in the train’s lounge car. Not nearly enough and there was plenty of day still to go.

She and Aisha had arrived back in Paris in time to catch the very end of the Team Viper debrief. Dutch authorities had already provided DCRI with a videotape of the interview with Bogdan, as well as some security footage of the chase. No doubt enjoying the chance to pick the best edit, AIVD had included a security shot of Vanessa, Aisha, and their cuffed and cursing captive, Bogdan—the trio limping, scowling, and looking as bedraggled as wet cats as they emerged from the bike parking structure.

But the team quickly set aside all teasing—AIVD had sent over the drawing by the forensic sketch artist of Bogdan’s buyer, whom they were now calling Scarface. Hays already had Zoe on the case, comparing the sketch with the footage retrieved from the SARIT robbery.

Vanessa had been ready to let Aisha present the shorthand version of events. But Aisha had refused curtly:
“Tu racontes toi!”
Her behavior continued to be erratic, and now that she’d come down from the energy of the chase, she seemed to take no satisfaction whatsoever in their apprehension of Bogdan. Vanessa was concerned, but she had other problems to occupy her thoughts.

On the train, she had written up and filed her official summary, all the while dreading her next meeting with Chris. She didn’t regret telling him the truth about her relationship with Khoury. Chris deserved nothing but the truth. With that morning’s confession, a dark burden had lifted off her shoulders. But the truth also complicated everything, so she was relieved to delay their inevitable confrontation. Chris, she learned, was at Paris Station sorting out coordination issues with the French and the COS.

As the team packed up for the night and Aisha huddled with Canard in the conference room over a laptop running footage from
AIVD, Khoury had cornered Vanessa to talk her into dinner. It hadn’t taken much convincing. As soon as she’d set eyes on him again at the safe house, emotions raced through her, the strongest being joy and desire, and the ache of reuniting with the person who had become a vital part of her life. The last feeling was both wonderful and terrifying.

“Mademoiselle?” The maître d’ held out her chair, relaying several of the day’s specials in nasal Parisian French.

Vanessa smiled, grateful to sit, relax, and listen.

“Shall I order a bottle of wine?” Khoury asked, his French and his accent perfect. Vanessa envied his facility for languages. For her, learning a foreign language was nothing but blood, sweat, and tears.

“Oui!”
she said softly. She felt like a worker who had clocked out after triple shifts.
“Je meurs de faim!”

The maître d’ nodded, somehow conveying simultaneously the deepest understanding with complete dispassion.
“Je vais chercher votre serveur.”
And then he disappeared, promising to return with their wine.

Vanessa let out a deep sigh at her first taste of the Rauzan-Ségla. The rich, complex flavors of the wine seemed to melt on her tongue.

Khoury smiled at her, his hazel eyes flickering with gold fire from the ambient lighting. “Hit the spot?” he said, his voice low.

A flush crept up her cheeks. It was all hitting several spots.

“You and Aisha did well today,” he said. “You got the goods from Kovalenko.” He lifted his glass.

She raised hers, grinning for a moment like a kid. “Holy smokes, right?” She drank and then she set down her glass, shrugging off the praise. “Listen, Khoury, this morning before boarding the train I did what you suggested, I told Chris about us. I told him I was with you last night.”

He placed his glass on the table, a new intensity in his eyes. A steady hum of conversation and laughter and background music
flowed around them. Even so, it seemed to Vanessa that she and her lover were occupying their own private world in the midst of all the activity.

“You okay?” Her voice caught and she swallowed, realizing her throat had suddenly gone dry. She drank more of her wine.

“Just trying to take it in,” he said. His eyes narrowed and perhaps the possible ramifications of outing their relationship were registering in a way they hadn’t before. “See how I feel about my own idea.”

“And?”
she asked.

Before he answered, the waiter appeared to take their food orders: two steak frites and two salads. And then they were alone again, relatively speaking.

Khoury shook his head and the corners of his mouth pulled back and up. Not exactly a full smile, more like a wry smile. “It’s good you told him. But I’m going to drink a lot of this wine.”

Feeling surprisingly shy, Vanessa let out a deep breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, and she reached for his hand.

“Am I interrupting something?”

Both Khoury and Vanessa looked up, startled to see Aisha already sliding an empty chair from a nearby table that had just emptied out. She picked up a clean water glass as well and sat down between them.

Vanessa shot Khoury a look:
What do we do?

His look in return:
Not sure, but I’m on it.

“Mind if I help myself?” Aisha asked, already filling her glass to the halfway mark with their wine. Her skin glowed with the slight sheen of sweat, and when she turned to Vanessa, her pupils were dilated. “I wanted to say you did a good job today. You got what we needed from Bogdan and you stopped me from murdering the SOB.” She turned to Khoury, her smile too bright. “Did she tell you the details?”

“No, Aisha.”

“Don’t look so worried,
Dawood
, I can’t stay long.” She raised her
glass to Vanessa. “Here’s to your athleticism and your restraint under stress.” She drank, tipping her glass abruptly so a few drops of wine splashed her chin. “I only wish you let me kill the asshole after we got the information.”

Vanessa sat back, crossing her arms. She could almost see the air sizzling around Aisha; the woman was nothing but a bundle of dark energy. But even so, her haunting, feral beauty shone through the cracks.

Vanessa’s curiosity about Aisha and her strange behavior intensified with each interaction. What the hell was driving these mood swings? she wondered.

She reached out, touching Aisha lightly on the arm. “Are you okay?”

As if spooked by the scrutiny, Aisha rose almost unsteadily. “Excuse me,
je dois aller aux toilettes
. You can talk about me while I’m gone.” Aisha raised an eyebrow at Khoury. “What have you told her about us, anyway?”

As soon as Aisha was out of range, Vanessa leaned toward Khoury. “What was
that
about? Is she bipolar? On drugs?”

“Look, she’s high-strung and sometimes a little over-the-top, but she’s a respected DCRI officer,” Khoury said, shaking his head.

“So she’s not always like this?” Vanessa’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve worked with her. It would appear that you know her far better than I do.”

“This is different, she’s different, and I’m worried about her. Don’t judge her too harshly. With everything that happened to her . . .”

“Then she needs to get help.”

Khoury half nodded, but he said nothing.

“Are you going to defend her no matter what she does?”

“No, of course not,” Khoury said, and scowled. “Listen, I’m concerned, but maybe you’re being harsh.”

He stopped speaking suddenly as their waiter appeared with a tray,
setting down their salads and entrées, and then leaving them alone again.

Khoury took a bite of his steak before he continued. “Aisha seems tough on the outside, but underneath . . .” He met Vanessa’s eyes. “What I know about her life—it wasn’t easy. Her mother died in an Israeli shelling attack when Aisha was twelve and her only sister was seven. Aisha took over as mom. They lived in one of the worst neighborhoods for snipers and fighting during the civil war. Her dad was a real piece of work. He beat both girls, but especially Aisha’s sister, who has some kind of special needs. Aisha doesn’t talk about her but they’re very close.”

Vanessa absorbed what Khoury was telling her about Aisha’s personal history; he seemed to know a lot. And the more she learned about her, the more concern she felt. Vanessa knew what it was like to come close to cracking, something she rarely admitted to herself and never to anyone else. She made a point of ignoring her own history of panic attacks. They weren’t something the Agency could ever know about. She took a sip of water. “What’s wrong with her sister?”

Khoury shrugged. “Emotionally unstable? Maybe Asperger’s? I don’t really know. Like I said, she doesn’t talk about it much.”

“Okay . . . just so you know I’m going to ask you about her last question.” Vanessa pushed back from the table, dropping her napkin on the chair with her purse. She saw Khoury’s reaction, his sudden and apparent dismay. Had he thought she’d ignore Aisha’s provocation? When he began to rise, she said, “No, stay put, I need to go check on Aisha.”

The restroom was located in the back of the café near the kitchen. As she entered, she found a woman standing at one of two sinks, applying bright pink color to her lips. One of the two stall doors was locked.

“You okay in there?” Vanessa asked from outside the stall.

The woman at the mirror capped her lipstick and left.

“Aisha?”

The toilet flushed, the stall door opened, and Aisha stepped out. She brushed past Vanessa to the sink, where she splashed water on her face.

“Merde.”
She ran her fingers through her tangled hair.
“J’ai une mine d’enfer.”
She pivoted and walked out, and the door smacked shut behind her back. Staring after her, Vanessa exhaled so loudly she startled herself. Then she ducked into the stall.

As she returned to the table she saw Aisha was still there, and she noticed the way she had settled back into her body—no longer so manic she might go airborne, but weighed down by something invisible. Had she taken something?

Vanessa sat just as Aisha took another drink of her wine and then planted her elbows on the table. “I’ve been thinking about Bogdan’s boast, ‘Everyone know go-to-guy Bogie can get them what they need for right price.’”

Aisha reached delicately to take a French fry off Khoury’s plate.

Vanessa frowned, trying to catch Khoury’s evasive eye.
What the—?

Looking worried, he raised his eyebrows.

“But think about it,” Aisha said, chewing the fry slowly. “How
did
they know? He’s a small-time nobody, so unless you knew the guys he worked for, then you wouldn’t know to go to him.” She swallowed the last of her wine. “So that’s been nagging at me . . .”

While Aisha talked, Khoury kept eating, his head nearly buried in his plate. At the same time, Vanessa nibbled on her steak without gusto. She kept turning Aisha’s words in her thoughts, especially one phrase:
so unless you knew the guys he worked for . . .

Aisha had gone silent, and now she looked between Vanessa and Khoury. “Don’t worry, I’m going,” she said, standing with an extra bit of effort.

Now Khoury looked up at Aisha—
really
looked at her. “Will you be okay?”

“Me?” Aisha gave a grim laugh. Vanessa saw the quick, sorrowful smile fade to nothing. Aisha seemed to be about to speak, but instead she shook her head, blew them both a kiss, and walked away among the crowded tables.

Khoury finished his wine. Vanessa stared at her half-eaten steak and then she pushed it away. She had no appetite. “Wow, that was weird.”

“Should I get the check?” Khoury asked, already with his wallet in hand. Before she had a chance to answer he was gone, heading toward their waiter.

And that’s weird, too.
Khoury had heard her, but instead of responding he’d opted for evasion and action. Vanessa knew that tactic because she used it, too. She gathered her Burberry and her purse just as Khoury returned to the table.

“We’re all squared up,” he said, slipping into his jacket. “Let’s go back to my place.”

Vanessa stayed seated. “What did Aisha mean when she asked what you’d told me about the two of you?”

He sighed. “We worked together on an op in December . . . and we connected.”