Murder at the Lanterne Rouge Read Online Free PDF Page A

with her father, the long years he was a policeman, and even after he left the force to be a private investigator—all the nights he never came home, the stakeouts, the toll showing on his face. The terrible not knowing if he’d turn the key in the front door again. Then the bomb explosion in Place Vendôme. His charred body parts …
    “Trust you?” The words caught in her throat. She’d goneagainst her code to never get involved with a
flic
. It never worked out. “Two minutes ago my partner called for help, but that didn’t matter. Now your job rang and you’re leaving.
Phfft
, like that. At least I know where I stand.”
    “
Zut!
It’s an opportunity I can’t pass up, Aimée. Takes care of my alimony. We’ll carve out next weekend.”
    She looked away.
    “Didn’t we agree,” he said, cupping her chin in his hand, “at your suggestion—
non
, at your insistence—that our work took priority? No recriminations if work called. I respect that.” His eyes clouded. “Of all people, I thought you understood the demands of my job.”
    His ex, Nathalie, hadn’t.
    Part of her wanted to lock the door, barricade him in. Tell him she wouldn’t live like this. Break it off. The other part itched to help René.
    “Nice to use my own words against me, Melac.” She reached for her cell phone.
    Melac sat back down on the bed. “I’m not your father.” He took her face in his warm hands again. “I always come back. You won’t be able to get rid of me.”
    Melac put on his down jacket in the hallway. She hesitated. But Melac knew everyone.
    “Ever had dealings with Prévost?” she asked. “A
flic
in the
troisième
arrondissement?”
    Melac’s grip tightened on his scarf, emblazoned with hearts—his daughter Sandrine had knitted it. “Middle-aged, thin lips, married to a Chinese woman?”
    She nodded, shivering. She turned the sputtering radiator’s knob to high.
    “Why?”
    “He questioned us last night.”
    Melac shrugged. “A fixture in that area. Speaks some dialect. A plodder. I worked with him once. There were rumors.”
    She was instantly alert. “Rumors like what?”
    “That he’s a frustrated Ming dynasty classical scholar, a disillusioned Orientalist.” Melac shrugged. “He liked the horses. And cards.”
    That gave her food for thought. “Liked? Past tense?”
    Melac shrugged again. “Disciplinary action years ago.”
    “So you’re saying he’s bent, on the take?”
    “I’m saying that’s old news. Ancient history.”
    “Any idea who’s assigned to this case at
la Crim?
”
    “Not me.” He buttoned his leather jacket.
    “Smelled like the RG’s involved.”
    “A task force?” He shook his head.
    She’d have to ask Morbier, her godfather, a
commissaire
. But he was in Lyon, and hadn’t returned her calls.
    The taxi’s horn sounded from below.
    “Go.”
    He gave her a long, searching kiss. A moment later the hall door slammed shut behind him.
    At the window, she watched him leave, but he never looked up. A pang hit her. Like her father. Her mind went back to her last day of
école primaire
. The playground, the swings, landing on concrete. Her skull fracture.
    So vivid in her mind, like yesterday.
    Her father’s worried face drifting in and out. Overhearing the doctor—“The operation’s touch and go.”
    Beside her father at the hospital bed was white-faced Morbier, a man who didn’t pray, with a priest. The smell of incense, the cold holy water, administering the last sacrament. The huddling nurse. “The operating room’s ready,
mon curé
.”
    Then the sun-filled room, her stuffed bear on the pillow, the tubes in her arm.
    She remembered her father’s smile: “
Ma princesse
, you’ll need to quit the acrobatics for a while.” The nurse saying, “She needs to take lessons and learn to fall correctly.”
    Aimée shook her head. She’d made it.
    She said a silent prayer Melac would too.
    R ENÉ’S HORN TOOTED from the quai below her kitchen window. She opened