Page 96

Armand managed not to be drawn in. “I just want to catch up. We don’t get to do that often.”

Ever.

“I’m a little busy right now,” said Daniel. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“Daniel—”

“See you later, Dad.”

He gave Zora another push, turning his back on his father.

Across the park, Reine-Marie was watching, and caught Armand’s eye.

“You okay?” Reine-Marie asked when he joined her. “That looked tense.”

“He’s angry about the interview. About my questioning him.”

“He’ll settle down. Realize you did it to help him.”

“I don’t think he will. I tried to talk to him, but …” He raised his hands.

She saw in that gesture all the pain and futility of the last twenty-five years. The frustration and sadness of trying to connect with a child who’d one day vanished. His sweet boy. Gone. Replaced by a grim, angry child.

And they didn’t know why.

She looked at her husband and thought, not for the first time, that here was a man who spent his life working out what had happened to others, but who couldn’t figure out what had happened to his own child.

“I’ve invited the Dussaults for dinner tonight,” she said.

“I’m sorry? You what?”

“Claude and Monique are coming for dinner.”

He stared at her. Of course, she couldn’t have known the awkwardness of the conversation at the 36 just an hour or so earlier. But she did know that the cologne they’d smelled in Stephen’s apartment, while standing over the body, was the same as Claude Dussault wore. That there was a suspicion that the Prefect was somehow involved.

“Why?”

“I think I’ve found the cologne,” she said. “The one we smelled. But I want to be sure. I thought if we had them over …”

“We could just ask him? Claude, were you in the apartment with us? Did you kill Alexander Plessner? Cheese?”

She laughed. “No. Of course not. But it might come up.”

“Cologne?”

“He doesn’t know we smelled it in the apartment, does he?”

“No.”

“Then there’s no harm in asking.”

“There’s a great deal of harm,” said Armand, turning to her. “Reine-Marie, please. Promise me you won’t ask him. Please. These are dangerous times. He might be a friend, but if he isn’t, if he feels threatened, cornered—”

“So you do suspect him.”

“I’m afraid at this stage I suspect everyone. Except our own family. Please, promise me you won’t ask him about his cologne.”

“I promise. Did I make a mistake in inviting them over? I can cancel.”