Cara Black - AL07 - Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis

Fear coursed through her veins. Stella’s cries escalated into screams. Why had she listened to Caplan? She’d been set up and she’d put Stella in danger.

“I’m tired of wasting time and manpower,” said a man in a tone of mild disgust. He filled the doorway. Medium height, he had a broad, smooth forehead on a big bull of a head that joined his almost nonexistent neck. Taut muscles strained his blue work pants and jacket. A professional with dead, killer eyes.

“What do you mean? Who are you?” she blurted out.

But she knew. A Halkyut hired gun and she’d walked right into his hands. She ordered herself to play dumb and pretend, to buy time to figure something out. He wouldn’t shoot Stella, wouldn’t kill an innocent baby, she told herself. Then the realization sank in. He could shoot her, then take Stella. She tried to read something in his expressionless eyes. What if Caplan hadn’t set her up? Maybe she had stumbled into something else. Maybe she could still get out of this.

“Shut her up,” he ordered.

She stuck her finger in Stella’s mouth as she rocked her. Frantic, she looked around for any way to escape, for some weapon.

One flickering fluorescent panel overhead revealed marble busts standing at haphazard angles on grimy shelves, shards of glass from cracked picture frames stacked against the wall gathering dust. Stella fussed, gumming her finger.

“She’s got colic, I have to take her to the doctor. Let us go,” Aimée begged.

The man patted his work-pants pocket, saying nothing. Was he waiting for reinforcements? He hadn’t spoken again. What if he didn’t know who she was? She had to take the chance. Get him talking, figure out some lie, try to make a deal. Concoct a story, a way to get out.

“We live in the building. Monsieur Caplan’s been ill,” she said, words coming fast and furious. “Monsieur, I’ve seen nothing. I don’t know you. We will leave the way we came, of course, and say nothing. The baby’s sick. We just came to—”

“Bringing him some flowers?” he said. “Nice.”

“I swear,” she said, shielding her eyes, at the same time scanning the black lacquered table, the pile of dusty carpets behind it, the ocher wall in back of it. She caught sight of the tarnished silver candlesticks on the table and a dust-covered sword collection lying near the carpets. She smelled something coppery. Like blood. “I haven’t seen anything. If you let us go, I won’t say anything.”

“But that wouldn’t be sociable,” he said.

She heard a loud groan over the sound of Stella’s cries. She looked closer and recognized that what she’d taken for a pile of carpets was a body. Jean Caplan sat slumped in a chair with his hands tied. She made out his black-and-purple swollen eyes, caked blood on his nostrils, and his sagging jaw. The coppery smell of blood mingled with that of mildew. His worn brown shoes dangled over the cracked linoleum floor.

“What’s going on? He’s an old man. What have you done to him?”

Think. Think. Sweat sheened her upper lip. She felt lightheaded in the dust and blood-tinged air, with Stella on her chest radiating heat, shrieking now, as she looked at the old man who seemed half dead.

Caplan’s feet twisted and he whimpered in pain, then groaned louder.

“Haven’t had enough, mon vieux? ” The man turned, edging closer to Caplan, and kicked him.

“Why don’t you give him the flowers?” the man asked Aimée.

“What?”

“You heard me. And I’ll hold the baby.”

“ Non , that’s all right, I’ll just—”

“Do it now! Did you hear me?”

Her hands trembled as she reached for the flowers. Caplan blinked at her.

“No more playing mommy,” the man sneered.

“What do you mean?”

“Give her to me or I’ll start with your knees,” he said. “Then work my way up.”

She stepped back, toward Caplan, and felt the table edge with her hip.

“But you’re not listening; perhaps you don’t think I mean it. So maybe I’ll start with him,” he said, his eyes never leaving her face, as he moved closer to her and to Caplan. So close she smelled his acrid, damp sweat. “I will shoot his hands off unless you hand the baby over and tell me where she is.”

He glanced at his watch. What was he waiting for? He was stalling.

“You’re waiting for someone, aren’t you? So you can kill Nelie, like you did Orla.”

Her chest was wet with perspiration from fear and Stella’s heat. Stupid, so stupid. She couldn’t even reach her cell phone to summon backup.

He gave a little smile. “Not my job. Sorry.”

“Halkyut hired you,” she asserted.

He didn’t deny it.

“Nelie took the Alstrom file, found the proof they needed in it.”

“Who?”

“But the writing’s gone, the marks have rubbed off the baby,” she said. Her eyes locked with his. “I’ll show you. The baby’s not important any longer.”

“Salaud,” Caplan shouted hoarsely.

Moaning in pain, he kicked out with his foot, connecting with the man’s knee, throwing him off balance. And then Caplan kicked the table, sending it and everything on it crashing.

Aimée ducked behind the overturned table. She heard the thud of a shot, the tinkle of crashing glass. She saw the flash. She pulled the baby out of the carrier and shoved her between the table and the wall.

She had to move fast. She crawled forward, using the table as a shield. The reek of cordite filled the air. More shots were fired over her head. She heard the man cursing somewhere behind her. Her fingers scrabbled across the gritty floorboards as she groped for the antique sword blade. After she grabbed it, they moved to the cuplike handle.

The man sat on the floor, Beretta pointed at the table. She saw bright streaks of blood on Caplan’s shoulder.

Now! She had to do it now. She crouched and rammed the table with her shoulder, toppling Caplan against the man. Struggling to raise the heavy sword with her shaking hands, she stood and swung it with all her might at the man’s shin. His mouth opened in dumb surprise, and he screamed in pain.

She pulled the sword back. As he reached for his leg, he dropped the Beretta. His hand was covered with blood.

Before he could recover and pick up the gun from the linoleum where it had fallen, she kicked it away.

“What kind of hit man goes after old men and babies?”

“These days, everyone specializes,” he said. Then he bar-reled into her, knocking her against the wall. His fists hammered at her chest. She yelped with pain. He grabbed her by the neck, yanking her closer. She twisted her body, tasted blood, felt a searing pain in her ribs and fell to the floor.

Her hip landed on the Beretta’s grip. By the time she’d gotten her fingers around the trigger, he’d pulled her up by her hair, slamming her head against the wall. Through the waves of pain she heard Stella’s cries. The light was fading. Sparks danced in the corners of her eyes.

“Amateur,” he hissed.

You used what you had.

He didn’t let go until she’d fired the Beretta three times at point-blank range into his chest. She could hear the hiss of air as it left his lungs in a burst of blood.

Lights danced before her eyes. Whirling spirals and flashes, Stella’s cries . . . she had to reach Stella. The light faded and then she knew no more.

SHE WALKED ON a broad band of moonlight, Stella holding her hand. Stella was a toddler now, yet with the same baby face. Someone else was there. An old woman all in white. Then Stella was skipping away from her and she was reaching out for her, calling over and over, “Come back, Stella.”

Pain throbbed in her chest; cold linoleum numbed her cheek. The smell of blood and dust filled her nostrils. She heard moaning and blinked. Her eyes opened.