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both fairly recent. Shoplifting from a boutique on the Left Bank, and last year, theft and vandalism from the catacombs.”
    “The Catacombs of Paris?” I looked at the discoloration of the stack of bones in the crate at Luc’s feet. The idea that they might have been hundreds of years old, stolen from the underground ossuary created in miles of caverns and tunnels that once housed the stone quarries beneath the city’s streets, made more sense than that they were a recent find. “Why would anyone want to steal bones of the dead?”
    “Not to worry, Alexandra,” Luc said, shaking his head. “It’s only the French who would make a tourist attraction of our mass burial practices for the poor. Don’t try to put a good reason to it.”
    “But someone is connecting them to you,” I said. “From the remains of—what?—six million humans on public display?”
    “Minus these three or four gentlemen,” Jacques said, pokingthe wine crate with the toe of his tall black boot. “A token from the ‘empire of death,’ as the ossuary was so aptly named. What is it, Luc? What message was Lisette sent to deliver?”
    Luc squeezed my hand, urging me to exit Belgarde’s office. “When you figure it out, Jacques, I’m sure you’ll let me know.”
    “I’m glad, Alexandra, that you asked Luc to call these bones to my attention.”
    “He would have done it anyway,” I said, thinking to myself that it was later rather than sooner as I’d asked him to.
    But the captain couldn’t let us go without a parting shot. “So at three this morning, Luc, when you didn’t pay any attention to what Alexandra asked you to do, where did you go instead?”

FIVE
    My head rested against Luc’s back and my arms encircled his waist. I wore a helmet as I always did when riding behind him on his Ducati.
    “Are you okay?” he asked, starting the engine. Like so many Europeans, Luc favored his motorcycle for trips to Cannes, allowing him to weave between cars stuck in heavy seasonal traffic and park almost anywhere in town.
    “I’m fine.” Luc knew me well enough to call my bluff. When we’d said good-bye to Jacques Belgarde, he had left me outside the police station to go to the restaurant to make sure everything was in order for the luncheon service. I returned to the house and tried to work Lisette Honfleur out of my thoughts by swimming laps in the pool. The temperature was brisk enough to refresh me after the turn of events during the night.
    “You don’t sound fine. Did Jacques get to you?”
    “No, Luc. It’s not about him. I’m ready to go, really. We can talk later.”
    It was noon on a spectacular day as we started out from the old village. I remember how tightly I clutched Luc the first few trips down from Mougins’s crest several visits earlier, as he navigated thesteep roads on his powerful bike. The twenty-minute ride to Cannes was all downhill, past farmhouses built centuries ago, bordered by tall cypress and olive trees that lined the route to the highway.
    “It’s the girl, then.” He was speeding up now, leaning left into the first curve of the descent.
    “Of course it’s Lisette,” I said, picking up my head though my words got lost in the wind. I wanted to know as much as Luc did—whether she had a family and who would deliver this devastating news to them; what her background had been that led her to the lifestyle of petty thievery when she’d been offered the possibility of a good job at a chic three-star restaurant; who had brought her to Mougins last night, dressed as though she planned to attend our party.
    Now I trusted Luc on the Ducati Multistrada, no longer clinging to him as at first, but taking my cues from his body that I had also come to know so well over time. We shifted from side to side as though one rider guided the powerful machine. There was no opportunity for conversation as we raced onto the highway and sped south, reaching the crowded streets of Cannes, where Luc worked his way