Murder on the Champ de Mars (37 page)

“You went along with Dussollier, always have.”

“So did your papa. What does that matter now? Move on.”

“I’ve got the whole list of contacts on Dussollier’s phone. Incriminating voice mails. One from you, too.”

“You’d do that, Leduc?” His voice, tired and flat.

“Dussollier’s out of the picture.”

“What do you mean?” His jowls sagged.

“Veuve Cliquot or no, it came down to him or me, Morbier.”

He stared at her. Her swollen hand. Understanding suddenly shone in his eyes.

“I never thought I’d do this.” Morbier reached for the thick bulge under his jacket. Where he kept his shoulder holster.

“Nor did I, Morbier.” She flashed her penlight twice, three times. Almost at once on her signal, the bushes rustled. Three gendarmerie officers from l’École Militaire emerged in blue uniforms, their Uzis leveled.

“Hands up! Nice and slow,” barked the lead officer.

Morbier had reached in his pocket. The shot slammed his shoulder. Seconds later they’d grappled him to the ground. Cuffed him, bleeding and facedown on the gravel. Pulled a shaking Aimée aside.

“What’s that in his hand?”

She kneeled down. Shone her penlight. His nicotine-stained
fingers clutched the photo of her holding Chloé, smiling at the baptism. His grip slackened, his hand went limp and the photo fell on a trampled hydrangea leaf.

T
HE SEINE FLOWED
slick and black under the night sky. The clusters of globed lights strung from the Left Bank to the Right over Pont Alexandre III made her think of a sparkling necklace. Her head leaned against the cold glass of the ambulance’s window, which was streaked with her tears.

Loud beeping came from the cardiac monitor. “Step on it,” said the medic to the driver.

“Will he make it?”

“That’s for the ER to say,” said the medic.

T
HEY WOULDN’T LET
her beyond the swing doors to the operating room. Her last view of him—tubes in his arm, blood-soaked chest, crumpled Gauloise packet, and the basset-hound eyes she loved—was unfocused and brimming with tears.

René met her in the waiting room at l’Hôpital de l’Hôtel-Dieu.

“Let’s go, Aimée,” he said. “You can’t do anything here. They’ll call.”

She shook her head. How could she live with herself after this?

A surgical nurse in green scrubs came through the swing doors.

Her heart clenched.

“Before we wheeled him into surgery,” the nurse said, “he insisted I find you and say, ‘You’d be late to your own funeral. Go home to Chloé.’ ”

WIN A KILLER TRIP TO
PARIS
WITH
CARA BLACK
SWEEPSTAKES

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