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Helen raised her brows. “So?”
“So that’s a TGV station, high-speed, state-of-the-art. It’s going to be crawling with CCTV cameras.”
Helen was skeptical. “You really think Carapaz has had somebody hack into public security cameras for him?”
“He doesn’t have to,” Mary Alice said. She was reviewing the Google Earth tour and stopped, pointing to a tiny black spot above his front door. “He’s got cameras of his own.” Shewhizzed us around his house, looking from every angle, then popped across the street to look at the neighbor’s house. “Seventeen cameras. At least seventeen I can see. Now, some may be dummies and put there just for show, but at least a handful of them are going to be live and monitored, especially now that Günther is dead.”
Natalie had been quiet, surveying an old map of Paris she had unearthed from Constance Halliday’s study. “What are you doing with that?” I asked. “It’s not up-to-date. It doesn’t have any Starbucks on it.”
She grinned. “Nope, but it has exactly what I needed. I know how to get in.”
Mary Alice gave her a look. “Sprout wings and fly?”
“No, smartass,” Natalie said smugly. “Exactly the opposite. We’re going underground.”
The reactions were not positive.
“What do you mean we’re going underground?” Helen asked.
Natalie pushed her map over and traced a route with her finger. “The house is here, on Rue d’Archambeau just off of Avenue du Maine. The Avenue du Maine intersects with the Rue Froidevaux. And look where the Rue Froidevaux ends up.”
She tapped the map triumphantly. Mary Alice twisted her neck, reading upside down. “Les Catacombes de Paris. Oh,hellno.”
She folded her arms over her chest, but Natalie was undeterred. “It’s a brilliant idea.”
“It’s a grotesque idea. Have you ever been in that place?” Mary Alice demanded. “It’s just miles of tunnels full of bones.Bones, stacked upon bones, piled on top of—guess what? More bones.”
“The operative phrase being ‘miles of tunnels,’ ” Natalie replied. “Besides, how can you be squeamish about bones?”
“I just don’t like them,” Mary Alice said stubbornly. “The skulls freak me out. They seem like they’re looking at you but they don’t have eyes. It’s not natural.”
“It’s completely natural,” Natalie argued. “It’s actually the definition of natural. It’s what happens when we die.”
“Not me,” Mary Alice said. “I’m being cremated and letting Akiko put my ashes in a nice urn. Maybe something from Pottery Barn. I can sit on the mantel and she can decorate me for holidays.”
I studied the map. “It’s not a terrible idea,” I said slowly.
Natalie preened. “Thank you.”
“What made you think of it?” I asked.
“The last time I was in Paris I went on a date with a cataphile.”
“A what now?” Mary Alice asked. “I thought that was a mountain lion.”
Natalie rolled her eyes. “A cataphile is a Parisian urban explorer.”
Mary Alice blinked. “Then what am I thinking of?”
“You’re thinking of a catamount,” Helen said helpfully.
“Not to be confused with a catamite,” Natalie added. She turned back to the map. “There are more than a hundred kilometers of tunnels under the city. Some folks go on tours, but the guy I went out with was one of the outlaw types,dropping down into the tunnels to explore on his own. He found us a very nice manhole cover in the Marais.”
“Sounds romantic,” I said.
She nodded, her expression suddenly dreamy. “It really was. We climbed around for a few hours, then had a lovely picnic supper and had some naked time together. I didn’t go out with him again. Uncut,” she said, making a sad face and pulling her sleeve over her fist to demonstrate.
“Too much information,” Mary Alice told her sternly.
