The Paris Caper (15 page)

The young girl shook her
head slowly. “
Non
. You didn’t hear his voice. He loves you. And you love
him. Why didn’t you tell us?”

Good Lord. How could a
child who’d gone through such hell still have such a ridiculously romantic view
of life?

“Honey, there’s nothing
to tell. Yes, I’ll admit, I have a wicked terrible crush on the man. But...it’s
impossible, and we both know why. End of story.”

Sofie shook her head.
“There must be a way.”

“There isn’t.” Ciara
gestured to the painting equipment by the far wall. “I’ll help you clean up. It
looks gorgeous, by the way. Your best one yet.”

Sofie stood mulishly for
a moment, stubborn in her optimism. Then she pushed out a sigh and joined her
in picking up the paint and brushes. “Thanks. I’ll paint another over your new
bed tomorrow. Perhaps it will bring you a miracle, just like Fatima’s. So you
can be with your man.”

She kissed Sofie on the
forehead. A miracle. That’s exactly what it would take for that to happen. And
if there was one thing Ciara had never believed in, it was miracles. The things
she believed in were hard work, determination, and having realistic goals. And
right now, her number one goal was to get enough money to pay off Beck so she
and her kids could get on with their education, and ultimately their lives.
Just a few more years and they’d all be able to support themselves. But until
that happened, it was up to her to keep things afloat.

The only miracle Ciara
needed right now was another job to pull off.

And soon.

♥♥♥

“I’m returning the
Picasso,” Ciara told Sofie as they strolled the half kilometer from the café to
the
métro
. The day was beautiful and they weren’t in any hurry.

Sofie’s eyes widened.
“Return it? Are you serious?”

Ciara shrugged. “It’s a
fake, not worth a fraction of what we need. If I let the cops have it, that
should redirect the investigation back onto the Micheauds and take the heat off
me. Long enough to lift something else, anyway.”

“Give it to the cops?
Sounds dangerous.”

“I just have to be sure
not to leave any traceable—”

Suddenly, an iron grip
latched onto her wrist and her arm was yanked practically from its socket. She
was dragged off the sidewalk through a broken outer doorway and into a
garbage-filled courtyard.

“
Putain
!” the
stocky man attached to the grip spat out. “You think you can protect my whore?”

Beck!

Sofie yelped, looking
wild-eyed, welded to the spot as the heavy wooden door swung back at her. “Stay
there!” she called. She didn’t want her anywhere near Beck or what was about to
happen.

Beck jerked Ciara’s arms
painfully, slamming her back against the filthy alley wall. “The little whore
missed her deadline. She’s mine now,” he hissed. “To do with as I want. Nothing
you can do about it.” He raised his fist.

Ciara forced herself not
to react or resist. Men like Beck got off on a woman’s fear and struggles.
“We’ll get your money. We just need more time.”

A vicious slap stung her
cheek. “How much time? A day? A month? A year?” A backhand to her other cheek
whipped her head back against the hard brick.

She cried out in pain. “A
week! Give us a week.”

“That will cost you five
thousand more,” Beck snarled. His face twisted into an ugly smirk. “Unless...”
He grabbed at her breast, ripping the buttons off the pretty silk blouse that
she’d spent an hour bartering down at the
Puce de Montreuil
flea market.
“You’d rather take it out in trade...eh,
morue
? You and the little whore
together.” The smell of cheap red wine scorched across her nostrils. His
fingers squeezed into her flesh.

Bile filled her throat.
She wanted to knee him in the balls so hard he’d stay doubled over for a year.
But she resisted the urge. That satisfaction wouldn’t be worth what Beck would
do to Sofie in retaliation.

“You’ll get your fucking
money,” she gritted out, twisting her body away from his hands. “Now
let me
go
.”

He narrowed his black
eyes, breathing heavily into her face. She almost gagged.

“Fifteen thousand. One
week,
connasse
. Or—” he jerked a thumb at Sofie, who cowered at the
courtyard entrance, tears streaming down her face “—after I’m done with her
she’ll be back in the loving care of her dear old daddy. And you, little
bitch—” he jabbed his finger into Ciara’s breast “—you’ll be wishing you were
dead.”

The last thing she was
aware of was a sudden horrible, blinding pain in her kidney as she stumbled for
the outer door. Then everything went black.

“Ciara?
Ciara!
”

The frantic sound of
Sofie’s weeping finally penetrated the excruciating, twisting void Ciara was
being sucked into. She groaned and tried to move, gasping at the sharp pain in
her side that resulted.

“Please, Ciara. Wake up!”

“
Mademoiselle
, are
you all right?” A concerned male voice mingled with Sofie’s soft sobs.

“I’m fine,” she
whispered, her voice cracking. She opened her eyes and immediately wished she
hadn’t. The man bending over her was dressed in civvies, but his haircut and
official demeanor immediately identified him as some kind of law enforcement.
Great
.

“Really, I’m okay,” she
said, ignoring her pain and sitting up. She had nearly made it back to the
sidewalk before collapsing.

“What happened here?” the
cop asked, lifting a cell phone from his jacket pocket.

Quickly, she put her hand
on his. “No need to call
le flic
,” she said, smiling past her stinging
cheeks. “It was just a misunderstanding. My fault. Honest.”

The cop scowled down the
street in the direction Beck had disappeared. “Was that guy a police officer?”

Beck had covered his
uniform shirt with a light nylon windbreaker, so Ciara feigned surprise, waving
off Sofie’s alarmed mewl behind her back. “No, of course not. Just my
neighbor.” She did her best to look embarrassed. “I, um... My dog messed on his
doorstep. Again. It was the third time, and he stepped in it. I don’t blame him
for being angry.”

The cop didn’t look the
least bit convinced. “What about her?” he asked, indicating Sofie. A thin trail
of blood trickled from her nose.

Ciara sent him a
beseeching look. “He was really mad. My friend accidentally got in the way.
Please, we’re all right. Honestly.” To illustrate her point, Ciara climbed to
her feet, hiding a wince and swallowing a groan. Straightening her skirt, she
surreptitiously smoothed a hand over her wig to make sure it was still in
place. Sofie took her arm.

He looked dubious, but
relented at their united front. “Where do you live? I’ll walk you there.”

“That’s very sweet, but
we’re on our way to my friend’s place. It’s some distance.”

“I’ll hail you a taxi
then,” he insisted.

“You’re very kind,” she
relented, just to be rid of him.

In less than a minute
he’d flagged down an empty cab and helped them inside. With a grateful wave at
the cop, she gave the driver the Orphans’ address on rue Daguerre and leaned
back against the seat with a groan.

Once the car rounded the
corner she turned to Sofie. Her heart sank. Along with the bloody nose, the
girl’s left eye was swelling black and blue.

“The fucking bastard,”
Ciara gritted out.

She’d never been a
violent person, but right now she truly wanted to kill Beck. With her bare
hands. Right after she’d castrated him with a pair of pliers.

“Are you okay, sweetie?”

Sofie nodded, eyes
swimming with tears, which she dashed at ineffectually. She wasn’t okay. That
was obvious.

Ciara could almost hear
the cogs turning, circling some terrible idea in her desperate mind.

“Don’t even think about
it, Sofie,” she said, pulling her into a hug, ignoring the rip of pain in her
side. “Whatever it is you’re contemplating, don’t. We’ll take care of Beck. I
swear to you.”

“I’d rather die than go
back to my father,” Sofie whispered. “I couldn’t.”

“That’s not happening. I
promise.”

“But Beck—”

“Beck is a horny, greedy
animal. He wants you out here on your own, where he can use you and manipulate
you with fear. Not hidden away behind your father’s eight foot walls. Trust me,
he’s not going to your father.”

Sofie swallowed, more
tears cresting. “Oh, Ciara, what are we to do?”

“We’re going home and
washing our faces,” she said, somehow mustering up a firm voice from behind the
lump lodged in her throat. “And then we’ll figure out who I have to rob to get
this scumbag off our backs. Until we can take care of him once and for all.”

♥♥♥

Damn, he needed a
drink.

Already. And it was
barely lunchtime.

Jean-Marc hadn’t been
able to shake the weird feeling he’d had in the pit of his stomach since
leaving the café yesterday. The unbidden reminder of Ciara Alexander had not
been a welcome addition to his week. He’d dreamt about her last night again.
For the hundredth time.

What was it about the
fucking woman that had her embedded so firmly under his skin? He’d never
reacted this way to a one night—okay three night—stand before. It was making
him nuts! Why couldn’t he just forget about her? His male pride had been
wounded before—hell, his ex-wife had practically put it through the
shredder—and he’d emerged unscathed. Well, relatively unscathed.

He didn’t need this
strange obsession. He had enough to worry about.

Another day, and no
closer to catching either
le Revenant
or the Picasso thief. Belfort was
getting impatient. So was Jean-Marc. He needed a break.

And then there was that
weird incident reported by Gerard, the undercover guy he’d had follow Sofie
home yesterday. Gerard said she’d been attacked. By a neighbor of some friend
she’d been walking with. Actually, the friend had borne the brunt of it, but
both women had been bloodied. Jean-Marc had been furious when Gerard admitted
he hadn’t done anything about it.

“They refused to let me
call for help,” he’d contended. “Insisted they were fine. Besides,
Commissaire
,
I found out where the girl lives, which is what you wanted,
non
?”

True. But the incident
still bothered him. Men beating up women made him furious. And Sofie had seemed
so fragile.

Pierre popped his head
into his office. “Delivery for you.”

Jean-Marc shook off his
residual distaste, and asked, “What is it?”

“Not a bomb. They checked
it.” Pierre grinned and handed him a long cardboard tube.

He glanced over it. No
markings or delivery stickers. “Came by messenger?”

Pierre nodded. “No return
address, and the kid had no idea where it came from.”

Curious, Jean-Marc used a
pen to pop off the plastic end cap.

“What—you think it’s some
kind of evidence?” Pierre asked with hiked brows, indicating the precautions
Jean-Marc was using not to mar any possible finger prints.

“Never know.” He gingerly
slid the contents onto his desk. It was a rolled up piece of cloth. A...canvas?

“Jesus!” Pierre exclaimed
as Jean-Marc unrolled it. “It’s the fucking Picasso!”

Shock stuttered through
him. It
was
the Picasso. Along with a note, which said, in all its
simplicity, in block letters, “IT’S A FAKE.”

He stared for a long
moment before tipping the note to Pierre. A laugh escaped him. Then another.
And another.
Oh, God, the irony
. He tipped his head to the ceiling as
laughter rolled out of him. This was just too fucking weird.

Pierre gaped. “
Tu est
fou
?”

Was he crazy? Maybe.
Getting there, certainly.

“
Alors
. Guess we’d
better let CD Belfort know the case has taken a bit of a bizarre twist,” he
finally managed.

“Ho-kay,” Pierre said
carefully. “Meanwhile, what should we do with that?” He jerked his thumb at the
Picasso.

“Evidence bag. The
insurance company will want a good look.”

“
Putain
. This
leaves our investigation kinda up in the air.”

Jean-Marc hitched out a
breath. “No shit. God knows what the boss will want to do.”

“Drop the case, I’d
guess. Looks better for the OCBC to stamp the file, ‘Closed. Goods Recovered
and Returned.’”

The phone rang and
Jean-Marc snatched it up. “Lacroix.”

“This is Terrance over in
Forensics. I found something you’ll want to see.”

It took a moment for him
to switch gears. Terrance was the chief of the Forensics Lab, and had spent the
past week analyzing everything possible about the forged Picasso. Hell. The
other
forged Picasso.

“You got something on the
painting?” he asked Terrance.

“Yep.”

“We’ll be right there.”

His face must have given
him away because Pierre looked at him and hopped to his feet. “What?”

“Not sure. Forensics
found something.”

“
Merci, Dieu
.”
Pierre lifted the two sealed bags containing the cardboard tube and the
painting. “What do we do with those?”

“We’ll log them into
evidence on the way,” Jean-Marc said, grabbing his jacket off the back of his
chair. “And deal with it later.”

Which they did, then made
tracks for the forensics lab. An assistant led them into an ultra-modern
glass-enclosed cubicle where Dr. Terrance greeted them and offered them seats.
Precisely mounted in a clear frame, the forged Picasso sat in the middle of his
desk.

“As you know,” he said
matter-of-factly, “we haven’t found anything about the painting that can be
used to pinpoint either the specific sources of the materials or the actual
artist.”