Murder in the Rue De Paradis Read Online Free PDF Page B

smelled again the trace of makeup that had been washed off by the rain. Doubt crept into her mind. But the way Yves had acted last night. . . .
    “In respect to your father, well, I told you myself. The Brigade’s handling it. I’m sorry,” he said. His voice softened for a moment. “I appreciate your making the identification. But now I’ve got a meeting,” he said, his voice again businesslike, and hung up.
    She leaned forward, cradling her dripping head in her hands.
    René sat, not saying a word.
    “None of this makes sense, René.”
    Yves appearing, disappearing, and now in the morgue.
    “Yves showed up last night. . . .” She couldn’t finish.
    “What happened, Aimée?”
    “That’s just it,” she said. “I don’t know.”
    “It might help if you start at the beginning,” he said.
    She took a deep breath and told him what she knew.
    René listened, then set her phone in her lap. “I charged your phone battery. Maybe you should listen to your messages.”
    The red light blinked. Two messages. With trembling hands, she hit her voicemail button.
    A low cough, muffled, as if a hand was being held over the receiver. “Aimée.” Yves’s voice, deep and modulated. “Pick up . . . please.” A little breathless, a catch at the end. She wanted to bang her head on the windshield. Stupid, not recharging her phone. More coughing, waiting for her to answer and she hadn’t. “If you don’t know by now how I feel . . .” She heard a low, rich chuckle. He’d certainly shown her last night. These were not the words of a man en route to a sexual assignation. Then there was a pause and the sound of footsteps echoing, coming closer. “Call me back . . . salaam aliekoum . . . what the—?”
    Then the buzz of a broken connection.
    Salaam aliekoum , the Arab greeting. She hit the voicemail again. One more message. Static, no words . . . clanging, and what sounded like the phone dropping. No more messages.
    If only . . . if only he hadn’t left her, if only. . . .
    She replayed it. Straining to hear more, another sound, another nuance, another detail.
    What she heard in his voice was his caring, and his need for her to respond. She wanted to yell “Say what you mean, Yves, say it . . . who’s there?”
    “It’s my fault, René,” she said, rubbing her wet eyes. “I didn’t—”
    “Save him?” René shook his head. “Check the time.”
    “What?”
    René hit the voicemail function. “Notice the time, 6:47 A.M. The next message is at 6:52 A.M.”
    She tried to pull herself together in the fog of pain. “What do you mean? He tried to call again?”
    She stared at René.
    “Or his killer did, Aimée, and hit the redial button,” he said, his brows furrowed with worry.
    A shiver of fear shot up her spine.
    She thought of Yves’s underlying tension despite his tendresse, and his wish to spend his life with her. Nothing indicated that he had gone out to seek a rendezvous with a male hustler in a doorway. Her gut feeling said he had been working undercover.
    “The street cleaner found him at 7 A.M., according to Maillol,” she told René.
    “Instead of blaming yourself, Aimée, share your information with the authorities.”
    Right, of course, René was right. More important than wallowing in pain, she had to piece this together. “True. René, Yves was telling me something. His last words before. . . .” She gripped the door handle. Squeezed it until her fingers hurt. Couldn’t say it.
    A man knocked on the steamed-up car windows. “Monsieur Friant?”
    “What bad timing . . . the realtor!” René said and rolled the window down.
    A middle-aged man’s smiling expectant face leaned in. He had a receding hairline and carried his suit jacket over his arm in the damp heat. “Quick. Both of you, please, not a moment to spare.”
    “I’m not sure this is a good time—” René said. But the realtor had already opened the car door.
    “There’s another offer coming in this afternoon. You must