The Paris Caper (6 page)

Jean-Marc snorted. “The
embassy? You’ve got to be kidding.”

“The law enforcement
liaison posted there—”

“Couldn’t find his ass in
a paper bag. Remember that kidnapping case two years ago? We’d found the girl
and sent her home to mama before they’d even gotten through their red tape to
start an investigation.”

Pierre pursed his lips
expressively. “Yeah. Okay. So try the university.”

“Which one? She only said
she was a student. Not where.”

“Call them all.”

In the end, he threw up
his hands and did just that. As it turned out, it was ridiculously easy to find
her. Thank God for computers. The only American student named Ciara in all of
Paris was conveniently enrolled at the Sorbonne. Ciara Alexander. Born
thirty-one years ago. Sounded about right. He’d figured her to be about ten
years younger than his own forty-three. Pushing it, but... Ah, well. A man was
entitled to a midlife crisis wasn’t he? At least she wasn’t
twenty
-one.

The registrar had no
qualms handing over her current address to a cop.

“Phone number?” he asked.

“Sorry, none listed.”

“Can you fax me over her
application? Including her picture?”

“Certainly,
commissaire
.
What did she do?”

“
Rien
. She’s just
a possible witness to a crime and I’d like to speak to her. Nothing more.”

When the fax machine spit
out her grainy photo, his body gave a leap of excitement. Definitely the same
woman. So much for having something to hide. If that were the case, she’d never
have given him her real name.

Now all he had to do was
go to her place and ask for a repeat performance of their amazing sex.

Beg if he had to.

Pierre poked his head in
the doorway. “Find her?”

“I did.”

Pierre’s eyes went
reverently skyward. “
Merci Dieu
. So I won’t expect you in till late
tomorrow. Hopefully in a better mood.” He ducked out, then right back in. “Oh,
I almost forgot. There’s a nice snap of you two in the evening rag.” He tossed
a rolled-up newspaper onto Jean-Marc’s desk. “Just the right touch for your
already legendary reputation, I thought.”

With that he disappeared
again. Jean-Marc glanced at the clock as he plucked up the newspaper. Past
quitting time. He spread the roll flat, and stared at it in shock.

On the front page was a
photo of himself with his arm around Ciara Alexander as they emerged from
Club
LeCoeur
. He was looking down at her with a secretive little smile, and she
was smiling back, her lips just puffy enough and her hair and dress just
disheveled enough to look as though they’d been doing exactly what they’d been
doing.

Then he read the
headline:
Dutch Princess Robbed!
And the caption under the photo:
Commissaire
Lacroix Too Busy To Foil Le Revenant!

He pinched the bridge of
his nose between his fingers and cursed.

“
Putain de merde
.”
This was just what he fucking needed. More negative publicity. Thank
God
he wasn’t the lead detective on the case. Because if he had been, it would be
like a bad flashback—to the nightmare that had been his life five years ago.
The nightmare that had sent him into the tailspin that lost him his wife and
very nearly his job. And had made him the emotionally mistrustful bastard he
was today.

He straightened, tossed
the newspaper into the trash and took a deep, cleansing breath.

Non
. Thank God for
small favors. He was not in charge, so this thief would not be getting the
better of him. Not this time. That
wasn’t
going to happen again.

But he would not tempt
fate, nor add fuel to the fire, by seeing that woman Ciara again, either. He
had enough to think about, enough to do, without obsessing over getting laid.

He could live without
her. There were other women. Plenty of them. Ones who didn’t disappoint or
betray a man. Ones who only sought to please you...for the right price.

Mind made up, he
determinedly stuck the faxes of her photo and Sorbonne application, along with
the paper he’d written her name and address on, under the heavy leather blotter
on his desk.

And sat back glowering at
the ceiling, trying to come up with a new strategy to catch the troublesome
Ghost. But his imagination had deserted the case for greener pastures.

Resignedly, he leaned over
and fished the newspaper back out of the wastebasket and ripped off the front
page. And for a long time he stared at the photo of himself with Ciara.

Alors
, He
straightened his spine, stuck the news page under the blotter, too, and slammed
his hands on the desk.

Done.

One all-too-tempting
woman gone from his life. For good.

♥♥♥

As soon as he arrived at
36 Quai des Orfèvres
the next day, Jean-Marc was called into
CD
Belfort’s office.

This couldn’t be good.

He strode down the gray
second-floor hallway wondering what he was going to be chewed out for this
time. Despite having one of the best arrest records in the OCBC, he could never
seem to please his boss. “A loose cannon,” Belfort called him. “Can’t tell the
difference between you and the goddamned bad guys.”

Bon
, whatever
worked.

He ran into Belfort
coming out of an incident room with Michéle Saville, lead detective on
le
Revenant
case. Saville marched after their boss with his hands clasped
behind his back like an idiot, looking smug.

“What the hell is
this
all about?” Belfort demanded when he spotted Jean-Marc. He halted and snapped
open a copy of last evening’s tabloid in front of his chest. The one with the
photo. And the damning headline. “You were there
before
the robbery?”

He could tell it was
going to be one long, fucking day.

“
Oui
, I was there
all evening. On my own time,” he added, matching Belfort stride-for-stride as
he resumed his march down the hall toward his office. Saville was forced to
follow behind. “I believe I told you he’d go after the princess’s diamonds,”
Jean-Marc reminded them pointedly.

Belfort’s jaw worked. “If
you were there watching, why isn’t
le
goddamn
Revenant
behind
bars?”

“I’m only one man, boss,”
Jean-Marc said, striving for equanimity. “You may recall I did ask for a team
to back me up, and my request was denied.”

Belfort whisked over to
the espresso machine behind his secretary’s desk and brewed himself a cup. The
burnt smell of too-strong coffee wafted through the air. “So it was.
Alors
,
from now on I plan to listen to you more carefully.” He pointed a finger at
Saville. “As of now, you are relieved of
le Revenant
case. I’m giving it
to Lacroix.”

Jean-Marc came to full
attention as Saville lodged a loud protest. “Sir, I object! I’ve been working
this case for—”

“Far too long,” Belfort
interrupted, adding hot milk to his coffee. “Time someone else took over.”

“Let Saville keep the
damn case,” Jean-Marc said emphatically. “I don’t want it.”

“I don’t give a shit what
either of you want.
I
want this bastard caught. The
préfet
is
starting to get calls. Which means
I’m
starting to get calls.”

Belfort’s secretary
pretended not to listen to the CD’s rising voice, but several other officers
milling about the common area weren’t so subtle in their observation.

“The
préfet
?”
Jean-Marc asked in surprise. “About a common thief?”

The
préfet
was the
overall head of
la Direction Central
, Belfort’s boss’s boss. He didn’t
normally concern himself with such trivial matters as one lone criminal, unless
it was a serial killer or terrorist.

“There is nothing common
about
le Revenant
,” Belfort refuted, turning on a heel and heading for
the frosted glass of his private office. “He’s thumbing his nose at the
OCBC—hell, the whole DCPJ—and the press is making a mockery of us because of
it. The insurance companies are complaining about the money they’re losing. The
nouveau riche don’t feel safe showing off their expensive baubles in public.
The aristocrats are angry because he’s breaching their security at home so
easily. They are all becoming annoyed.”

They weren’t the only
ones. Ever since the OCBC realized that the escalating wave of high-end jewel
thefts throughout the country could be attributed to one person, Jean-Marc had
tried to convince Saville he was going about the investigation the wrong way.
Traditional methods weren’t going to cut it. The thief was smart. He never
struck in the same place, nor in quite the same way. From the crowds of Le Mans
to isolated castle fortresses, no setting had daunted him, or deterred him from
pulling his clever heists. He never took old or distinctive pieces that could
easily be identified, or new ones that had serial numbers etched into them. He
stuck to expensive, but unremarkable stones. And he was getting ever more
daring. Last night he’d known he was being watched, but hit anyway, against a
highly-guarded public figure. Right under Jean-Marc’s nose.

Saville hadn’t listened
to him. However, the last thing Jean-Marc wanted was to head up the case.

“Truly, sir—”

“And if that weren’t bad
enough,” Belfort continued as though he hadn’t spoken, sailing through the door
to his office, “the bastard is building up a legend around himself, thanks to
the media. Becoming a fucking folk hero to the working classes. A goddamned
Robin Hood. We’re losing our credibility out there, Lacroix. I don’t like it.”

They’d all been chagrined
when tabloids had dubbed the thief
le Revenant
, a play on words
referring back to the famous Belgian cat burgler from the fifties—
le Fantome
.
Le Revenant
also meant phantom, or ghost, but one that walked the earth
again, for the second time. It sounded almost romantic. But there was nothing
romantic about crime.

Jean-Marc followed
Belfort in. The office smelled like red ink and new carpet. “Still, I’d rather
not—”

Belfort rounded his desk
and sat down with a decisive surge backward in his fancy suede-covered office
chair. “This case could make...or break...a man’s career,” Belfort said,
effectively putting an end to the argument.

Because Jean-Marc knew
exactly whose career he was talking about.

Belfort disapproved of
him. He knew that. Because of his background. Jean-Marc had grown up in
les
banlieues
—the projects—the only French kid in his high-rise tenement,
sucked into the fringes of crime at an early age. He’d only managed to extract
himself from the quicksand of his surroundings because he’d excelled at math at
school and attracted the attention of a nurturing teacher. That teacher had
probably saved his life. Definitely changed it.

However, his early years
did give him an insider’s perspective on crime and criminals—one reason he now
excelled at his job. Many of his peers frowned on his unorthodox
methods—especially
CD
Belfort. But you couldn’t argue with numbers, and
Jean-Marc’s closed-case record spoke for itself.

“A win on this one could
make that mess five years ago go away. Permanently,” Belfort said, giving him a
level look.

And a loss could make
him
go away permanently, he thought. Which was what Belfort was hoping for, no
doubt. Record or no, the man did not like him.

“Get out of here,
Saville,” Belfort told the other
commissaire
with a dismissive wave. “Go
and show me I made a mistake by relieving you.”

One of the things
Jean-Marc liked least about Belfort was his tendency to encourage rivalries
between his officers.

“Am I in charge, or is
he?” Jean-Marc demanded softly. “Because if I am, nobody will do anything on
this case without my say-so.
Nothing
.”

Above the hum of the
secretary’s copier, silence hung thickly for a moment between the three of
them. Then Belfort puffed out his cheeks angrily. “
Bon
. Wait for his
orders.” He jerked his head at Saville to leave. When he’d gone, Belfort said,
“Better get yourself a plan, Lacroix. Fast. I’m through—”

“As a matter of fact, I
already have one. Is that all, sir?”

Belfort’s mouth thinned.
“Yes, that’s all. Don’t screw up, Lacroix. It’s both our heads if you do. But
yours will fall first and farthest.”

♥♥♥

On the way back to his
own office, Jean-Marc found Pierre and brought him along.

“Better sit down,
mec
,”
Jean-Marc said, taking a seat and motioning to the visitor’s chair, which
Pierre spun backwards and slid onto. “We are now officially in charge of
le
Revenant
case.”

Shock flashed across
Pierre’s face. “
We?
You’re joking.”

“Well, me. But you’re my
second-in-command, so that puts you in the hot seat, too.”

“
Merde
! How the
hell did that happen?”

“Belfort’s getting
pressured. He wants a fall-guy for when things go bad.”

Pierre made a noise of
disgust. “
Poulet
.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t plan
on going down for anyone, so we better get busy.”

“Any ideas?”

Jean-Marc leaned back and
swung his feet up onto the edge of his desk. His chair squeaked in protest.

“Near as I recall,
we
began getting reports on this guy about two years ago. But he
must have been doing jobs before that,
non
? Lesser stuff, maybe, that
the local
préfectures
would have taken care of. Not big enough to
involve us here at headquarters. Especially when he was just starting out.”