Page 4 of Icebound

She spent the entire first day in Paris trying to reason with herself, and she couldn’t force herself from her room until early evening. The streets smelled like Paris—gasoline and diesel, fresh bread and flowers, humanity in various stages of cleanliness. She walked along the street, willing herself to look straight ahead as she moved toward the Metro. No one would be following her, no one would be interested in her. She knew what she looked like—a woman in her mid-thirties, neither young nor old, with an extra ten pounds around her hips and nondescript jeans and a sweater. She looked like a tourist, she assumed, moving through the city with a certain air of purpose. Her tawny hair was twisted in a bun at the back of her head, and she was wearing the wire-rimmed glasses she barely needed. Who would be threatened by someone in wire-rimmed glasses?

When she left the Metro, the evening had begun to fill the streets of the Left Bank, and she fought back her nerves. This was for Bastien. He was in trouble and she knew it. This time, it was up to her to rescue him.

She found the bar easily enough, wondering that it still existed. She hadn’t seen it fifteen years ago, but it had taken more than that amount of time to turn it into the wreck it now was. Her heart quickened, and she wondered if she’d find Bastien inside. Not likely, but surely someone would know something. She just had to get them to talk to her.

“Someone’s looking for you.”

The man calling himself Jean-Marc Clement looked up from the gun he was cleaning and squinted at Flambeau. “To be expected,” he said lazily. “I’m surprised it’s only one.”

“She’s trouble.”

“She?” He set down the gun. “Any idea who she is?”

Flambeau shook his head. “She’s been showing a picture of you around the Left Bank, asking if anyone’s seen you. She’s getting too much attention.”

“And it’s definitely a picture of me?”

“Definitely.”

“Kill her,” Jean-Marc said, concentrating on the gun. “We can’t afford distractions.”

“I can do that,” Flambeau said agreeably. “But don’t you want to know who she is first?”

“Not particularly.” He glanced around the damp-stained walls of his subterranean hideout. The catacombs of Paris were so convoluted and far-reaching that this hidden section provided the perfect location for planning. In the month he’d been there, no one had even come close to stumbling upon them. “She’s never going to find me, so why should it matter?”

“What if you go out?”

“That’s what you’re here for, you and Luc. You don’t want me wandering the streets of Paris when we’re so close to the job. Either shut the bitch up or kill her—I don’t care which.”

Flambeau narrowed his eyes through the cigarette smoke of his ever-present Gitanes. Flambeau didn’t like him—Jean-Marc knew that well enough and he didn’t give a fuck. He’d never been in a position to make friends, particularly not when he was on a high-stakes operation. It was Flambeau’s job to keep him safely out of sight until the time came, and the man would do it grudgingly enough. He’d probably try to kill him once the hit was carried out, but Jean-Marc had no intention of letting that happen. He’d kill Flambeau first, once he took care of his professional work.

“I hear she’s pretty,” Flambeau offered. “In an American sort of way.”

“She’s American?” Jean-Marc said. “I don’t know any American women—she must be a freelancer. Get rid of her.”

“Sure thing, boss,” Flambeau said, eyeing him with cold dislike. “Whatever you say.”

“Never seen him before in my life,” the burly Frenchman behind the counter said. “I’m here to sell drinks, not information. Order something or get out.”

Ah, the charming French, Chloe thought with a mixture of fondness and irritation. She turned away, the photo of Bastien still clutched in her hand, when the bartender’s voice followed her.

“And don’t be bothering my patrons with your wild-goose chase. That man hasn’t been anywhere around here.”

Chloe turned back. “But you know him?” she said eagerly.

“Get the fuck out of here.”

Since he looked ready to throw something at her, Chloe left, heading out into the bright midday sun. It was her third day of searching, and so far, she’d found no trace of him. She’d been greeted by blank faces and shaken heads, and she was beginning to think she’d been wrong. Maybe she ought to rent a car and drive to Amsterdam, but there she’d be at an even greater disadvantage. Her Dutch was passable—she’d always had an almost unnatural gift for languages—but her knowledge of the city was sketchy at best. She hadn’t the faintest idea where international spies hung out.

Assuming that’s what Bastien still was. Maybe she’d jumped to the wrong conclusion. Peter Madsen had denied all knowledge of what he might be doing, and Peter knew everything. Maybe the impossible had happened and he’d really left her, and she was chasing after rainbows and a man who didn’t want to be found.

She had one more bar to check in this seedy part of town and then she’d go back to her elegant hotel room and take a long bath while she considered how long she could keep this up.

“Mees,” a voice hissed from behind her, and she turned, a flare of hope inside her. The man was large, unprepossessing with a scraggly red beard decorating his sagging jowls and a hat crammed down on his greasy hair. He had small, black eyes in a suet-pudding of a face, and a cruel mouth, and Chloe’s hope dialed back a notch.

“Can I help you?” she asked in English.

“It’s me who can help you,” he said. “I hear you’re looking for someone.”