The Paris Caper (20 page)

“
D’accord
. I’ll
leave a message at Café Constantinople for you when it’s done.”

She sat down on the
bench. “Beck is getting nasty about his money, Valois. Have you come up with
anything yet?”

“I think so. How do you
feel about Italy?”

“Good food and
disorganized cops,” she said wryly. “Works for me. Tell me about it.”

He sat next to her and
talked in a low voice as she closed her eyes and tipped her face into the
fading sunlight. It was still warm, a perfect late summer day in Paris. The job
sounded good. A small but outstanding collection of silver items, collected for
a nouveau riche novelist by her greedy, but discerning, interior designer.

Valois handed Ciara a
slip of paper with an address written on it. “I’ve arranged for shipment to
Paris by a colleague in Milan.”

“Excellent.” That would
make the train ride home much less stressful. She took a moment to memorize the
address, then tore up the paper and tossed it into the silver metal basket next
to the bench.

She rose. “Thanks,
Valois. You’re the best.”

He shook his head. “You
be very careful,
ma petite
.
Commissaire
Lacroix could be a big
problem.”

He had no idea
.

She said more firmly than
she felt, “Don’t worry. I can handle Lacroix.”

She just wished she truly
believed that. But the truth was, she was starting to feel the walls close in
on her. Jean-Marc was smart. He was persistent. And he had a bug up his butt
about her. Not a good combination.

She couldn’t go to jail.
If she did, what would happen to the Orphans? Somehow she had to think of a way
to knock Jean-Marc off his game. Mislead him. Or distract him.

Maybe she should
reconsider enlisting his help in dealing with Beck. If Beck went away, maybe,
just maybe, she could quit while she was still ahead, and officially retire
le
Revenant
.

Life wouldn’t be easy if
she stopped stealing. Nor would she be able to finish her own education. She
could forget about her dream of being a translator. Unskilled with no degree,
she’d have to take what she could get. But at least she wouldn’t be in jail.

And since when had life
ever been easy?

Suddenly, she wondered
how she’d ever gotten sucked into this loser lifestyle... Why had she never
questioned it before? While Etienne was alive, it had all seemed natural and
inevitable—after all his whole family was involved in criminal activity. But
after he was gone, why had she taken the easy way out instead of doing what she
knew in her heart to be the right thing? Sure, her motives were pure—keeping
the Orphans on the straight and narrow. Without stealing, there would have been
no way to help them as she had. But was that really an excuse?

She walked home deep in
thought. And came to a decision.

At their inevitable
confrontation tonight, she’d bring it up with Jean-Marc. See what he had to
say. Ask if he could help her deal with Beck. Help her find a better solution.

It was with a much
lighter step that she skipped up the steps from the
métro
and walked the
few blocks to her apartment.

He would help her. She
knew he would.

As she approached her
building, she spotted a police car parked at the curb; a lone figure sat behind
the wheel. Her heart leapt. She ran the last few steps and thrust her head down
to the open window.

“Jean-Marc! I’m so glad
you’re here. I need to—” He turned toward her and her words choked off with a
gasp.

The man was not
Jean-Marc.

“There’s a call for you,
Commissaire
.”
The bored voice of the dispatcher crackled across the police radio in
Jean-Marc’s Saab. “A woman. She sounds a bit hysterical if you ask me.”

Irritated, Jean-Marc
stretched his back, wincing at the sharp bite of muscles popping. Hell.
Whatever this was, he did not want to deal with it right now. It had been a
long, frustrating day and it didn’t appear to be ending anytime soon. “Isn’t
there anyone else who can take it?” he asked. “What about Pierre?”

“She asked for you by
name, sir.”

He sighed in resignation.
“Fine. Patch it through.”

“Jean-Marc? Are you
there?”

He ground his jaw at the
sound of Ciara’s voice. But his initial anger was stalled by the fact that
something was obviously wrong. She
did
sound hysterical.

“Are you all right?” he
demanded. And immediately regretted it. Her welfare was of no concern to him.
Especially after what she’d put him through today.

“You’ve got to get over
here! Please, Jean-Marc, right now!”

And yet, he couldn’t help
himself. “Where are you? What’s going on, Ciara?”

“He’s after me. I’m
afraid—” There was a loud pounding in the background, and a man yelling. “I’m
hiding in my landlady’s apartment. He’s trying to break down the door!”

Jean-Marc was already
turning the Saab in the direction of her apartment. Not exactly the way he’d
envisioned picking up her trail again after she’d ditched him that morning. “Is
it the guy who beat you up?”

“Yes,” she said. “Hurry!”
Then the line went dead.

Putain
. He grabbed
a portable cherry and reached up through the window, smacking it onto his car
roof at the same time he hit the siren. With the crazy Paris rush hour traffic
it would take forever to get to her place. He hailed the dispatcher again and
yelled at her to divert any nearby police units to rue Germain Pilan. Hopefully
someone would get there in time to catch the bastard before he did any harm.

Fifteen harrowing,
stress-filled minutes later Jean-Marc roared up to her building. Three police
cars were already pulled up front, yellow and blue lights flashing off the
smooth sand-colored stone. He sprinted out, seeking Ciara’s blond hair among
the knot of policemen. He finally spotted her standing to one side, ramrod
straight, lips pressed together and arms tightly banded across her midriff.

“Let me through,” he
commanded, pushing his way past the curious neighbors and passersby. He flashed
his carte at the officers. “Did you get him?” he asked without taking his
sights off Ciara.

At his voice, her head
jerked around. Relief flew across her face for a brief second, then her eyes
filled with uncertainty. She didn’t move.

“No one to get,” one of
the cops replied in answer to his question. “Whoever it was, he was gone before
the first car arrived. The old lady—” he pointed at the plump landlady with
salt and pepper hair who was talking a mile a minute, gesturing animatedly to
another officer “—she doesn’t know who it was. The young one—” he pointed to
Ciara “—isn’t talking. Says she’ll only speak to you.”

For a moment Jean-Marc
let the war rage freely within him. He wanted to shake her and shout at her at
the top of his lungs, he wanted to slap her in handcuffs and throw her in jail
for a hundred years. He wanted to murder the man who was doing this to her.

He wanted to take her
home and fuck her.

He never wanted to see
her again.

“All right,” he said to
the first cop. “You guys write it up and do your thing.” He bobbed his head at
Ciara— “I’ll take her statement and—”

“But she’s
our
witness,” a third officer, a swarthy, plug-shaped man, protested.

“She’s not much of a
witness if she’s not talking,” Jean-Marc shot back, not in the mood for
interdepartmental bickering. “I’ll forward her statement to you.” He handed the
first cop a business card and took one of his. “Get in the car,” he ordered
Ciara.

She obeyed without saying
a word, keeping her eyes to the sidewalk. The swarthy officer made a move to
follow, then halted with fists clenched when the other man put a restraining
hand on his shoulder.

Jean-Marc pulled the Saab
out with a squeal of tires and blasted his siren to stop traffic so he could
get away from there.

She winced, but still
didn’t say anything. Not until a good five minutes later when they were stuck
in the choke of rush hour traffic on boulevard de Clichy and he did nothing to
extract them from it. He had no idea where to take her, so he was just driving,
letting the flow of traffic carry them along as he tried to compose himself and
quell the voices in his head.

“You’re angry with me,”
she murmured.

He glared at her but
didn’t reply. Angry didn’t come close.

“I’m sorry about this
morning,” she murmured.

He bit his tongue. How
many years would he get for strangling her? Hell, a judge would probably go
easy on him. Catching
le Revenant
had to count for something. Did the
courts do dead or alive any more?

“Thank you for coming for
me,” she murmured.

Coming for her...

Fuck
.

He knew
that
wasn’t remotely what she meant, but already he could feel his traitorous cock
lengthen and harden. His capricious member could care less that she was a
notorious felon wanted by every law enforcement agency in France. It still
wanted to ram itself into her wet heat and take its pleasure between her silken
thighs. Come for her. Fuck.

He swallowed, gripping
the steering wheel tighter.

“Thank God the other cops
got there quickly,” she said. “I don’t know what he might have done—”

Jean-Marc made a
concerted effort to focus. “I want his name,” he interrupted. His voice came
out as a harsh, low growl.

She blanched. He watched
her pretty lips part a fraction, then close again.

The same lips he’d laved
with his. Lips that had kissed him back with such ardor. Lips that had glided
slowly up his cock and taken him between them, and—

“Beck,” she said
reluctantly. “Louis Beck.”

He shifted in his seat in
frustration. Scowled. “What does he want?” he gritted out. Praying it wasn’t
her. Because then he really would have to strangle them both.

“He wants money.”

That finally pried his
attention off his dick. He turned to her. “Explain.”

She fiddled with her
purse strap for a moment, as though deciding what or how much to tell him.

“Damn it, Ciara. Tell me
everything
right now or I swear I’ll tie you to a stake and let him—”

“Jesus, Jean-Marc. Don’t
even joke about that.”

“Who’s joking?”

His expression must have
convinced her just how close to the edge he was. “All right,” she said. “All
right. He wants Sofie. He didn’t appreciate it when I took her off the
streets.”

“Where does the money
come in?”

“He’s threatened to tell
her father where she lives if she doesn’t spread her legs for him. Either that,
or pay him an outrageous blackmail. Fifteen thousand. The first is not an
option. And the second...” Her words trailed off.

“Have you reported this
to the cops?” was his first reaction.

Again she hesitated.

He hit the steering wheel
with his fist and swerved the Saab out of traffic and to the curb. “Fuck it,
Ciara! You’re the one who called me. Spill it—all of it—or get out!”

His anger echoed through
the small confines of the vehicle and she seemed to sink deeper into the
leather of her seat, looking unhappily down at her fingers.

“I can’t,” she said
quietly. “He
is
a cop.”

♥♥♥

Outside the car, horns
blared, delivery vans rumbled, pedestrians clattered along the sidewalks
speaking loudly to each other to be heard above the din of traffic. Inside, the
silence was absolute. At least for the handful of seconds it took for Jean-Marc
to respond to Ciara’s obviously unexpected confession.

She flinched when his snort
of disbelief finally came. “You’re telling me a
cop
beat you up? That a
cop
is blackmailing a sixteen year-old girl for sex or money?”

She should have known he
wouldn’t believe her. Hell, who could blame him? It wasn’t like she had the
highest credibility on the planet. Especially with him. Still, he might at
least listen to her story.

“Yes,” she said. “That’s
exactly what I’m telling you.”

He stared at her, his
eyes narrowing slightly in blatant skepticism.

He really
didn’t
believe her.

How would he react if she
told him Beck had been there, pretending to be one of the responding officers,
and had even spoken to him? He’d probably turn the car around and confront him.
And believe Beck’s lies when the bastard claimed complete innocence. And if she
thought Beck was angry now, that would really set him off. But not until later,
when Jean-Marc couldn’t help her. Or Sofie.

Lord, how could she
ever
have thought Jean-Marc would help her expose a fellow cop’s corruption? Cops
were cops, and they stuck together. She must be completely delusional. With a
sigh, she reached for the car door handle.

“
Don’t
,” he said,
the single barked word making her jump. She jerked her hand back.

He studied her cheeks,
his gaze penetrating below the layer of makeup that covered her bruises. His
hand snaked over and lightly drew the hem of her skirt up over her knees. His
fingers hovered above the scabs there. Her body shivered, knowing his touch
wasn’t sexual but wishing to God it were. She squeezed her eyes shut.
Insanity
.

“What
préfecture
is he in?” he asked.

Damn, she regretted
calling him. Why hadn’t she listened to Hugo and Valois? No good would come of
pulling Jean-Marc into this. He’d admitted he hated her for what she did, for
who she was. God...maybe he’d even join up with Beck, in order to force her to
turn herself in! He knew how she felt about Sofie, and could easily use that
knowledge against her.

Because of her misguided
feelings for this man, she’d left herself totally vulnerable to him, in nearly
every way.