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Bastien named a street in the opposite direction. “And I’d better get my tail over there before she decides to come looking for me.”
“Then we’ll be seeing more of you? With your girlfriend in the area?” Fernand persisted.
“This will be my home away from home,” Bastien said grandly, portraying the slightly inebriated cock of the walk known as Étienne. “’Soir!”
He was well-hidden in the shadows by the time Fernand followed him out of the bar. The little man peered through the lightly falling snow in search of him, never realizing he was only a few feet away, hidden. Fernand swore, then moved to a corner of the building, away from the light, and pulled out a cell phone.
He was too far away for Bastien to hear more than a few words, but he heard enough to know that his death wish was drawing closer. One more mistake like this one and that would be the end of it. Too bad he couldn’t bring himself to care. It didn’t matter who Fernand was working for, or why. He’d have connections to half a dozen people who wanted him dead.
Fernand closed the phone, looked around one last time and spat before heading back into the bar. Bastien wondered how long it would be before reinforcements showed up.
It wasn’t important—he would be long gone by the time Fernand’s mysterious compatriots got there. It wouldn’t take more than a moment to check the apartment. And then, unless he were completely suicidal, he would go to his house in St-Germain-des-Prés and become Bastien Toussaint again. And Little Miss Chloe would have to fend for herself.
Sylvia and Chloe shared a typically small apartment on the top floor of an old house in a poorer section of the Marais. The ground floor was let to a tobacconist, the first was occupied by an elderly couple who spent most of their time traveling and the top floor held storage rooms and the cramped little flat. The entire house was dark when Chloe finally turned the corner. Her hair was wet with snow, and the burnt edges smelled horrible. The first thing she was going to do was take a bath and to scrub her entire body, even the waxed-over wheals. It had been a lot longer than four hours since he’d spread the stuff on her. A lot longer than four hours since she’d managed to leave the hotel without anyone looking twice. She’d been so muffled in his black coat that they might have thought she was Bastien. Except that duplicating his walk would be just about impossible, for her or anyone else.
Maybe, twenty years from now, she’d remember him, and wonder what fit of insanity had come over her. She’d like to think she’d been drugged, anything to take the responsibility off her shoulders, but she couldn’t. She had been in an altered state of consciousness, all right, but it had nothing to do with drugs and everything to do with…God, she couldn’t even begin to understand what had prompted her to act that way. She’d been bored, longing for romance and adventure. No, actually, she’d been longing for sex and violence, and that was exactly what she’d gotten. Be careful what you wish for—hadn’t the Chinese said that? Or was it, “May you live in interesting times”? Whatever—right now all she wanted was a long bath and a warm bed, and tomorrow she’d fly home to the loving, protective arms of her family and all the boredom anyone could ask for.
It was at that moment that she realized she didn’t have a key. Not to the house, not to the apartment, and she almost let out a wail of despair. Her feet hurt, her hair smelled like wet dog, her entire body ached, and even though her stomach was empty she wanted to throw up. And she was cold, even in the soft cashmere embrace.
She could go to the police, but there would be questions she didn’t want to answer. She could go to the embassy, but it was probably a mile in the other direction, and she didn’t think she could walk another foot, much less retrace her steps along the snow-drifted streets.
But luck was finally with her. The door leading to the upper floors was unlocked, as it often was. Sylvia usually couldn’t be bothered with locking it, and no one else had been around for the past few days. She closed the door behind her, shutting herself into the dark, cold hall, and reached for the light switch to guide her way up the two flights of stairs.
And then pulled back. It was very dark, but she knew her way by heart, and there was no need to draw attention to her presence. It was highly unlikely anyone would know where she lived, but Bastien had made her nervous. If she moved through the place in the dark, like some silent wraith, she could be reasonably sure that no one would come to investigate.
The door to the flat was locked, but Sylvia always left a key on the wind
owsill in the hall, just in case she lost hers, which she managed to do on a regular basis. She pushed open the door, and cold air surrounded her. Sylvia must be off having a riotous time in the arms of her elderly lover.
She closed the door, leaning against it, and slowly let out her breath. In fact, she hadn’t been away that long. Two nights, coming onto the third one, and Sylvia had gone off for a long weekend. It wasn’t surprising that she hadn’t yet returned, and probably just as well.
The moon shone in the dormer windows, illuminating the cluttered rooms enough for Chloe to make her way through them. She started the gas fire, shivering in Bastien’s coat, then drew her bath. It had never been the best of arrangements. The flat consisted of one bedroom—Sylvia’s—a tiny kitchen and even smaller bathroom, and a jumbled living room. Chloe slept on a mattress on the floor, stalwartly refusing to consider the possibility of insects or rodents in the ancient building.
She opened the door to Sylvia’s room and peeked in, but even in the filtered moonlight she could see it looked as if it had been hit by a bomb. Sylvia must have thrown everything here and there as she packed for Chloe’s magical weekend in the country. She wasn’t going to be very happy at the disappearance of some of her best clothes.
It was nothing compared to Chloe’s state of mind. Knowing Sylvia, she might not be back for a week or more, and by then Chloe would be long gone. Once she got back to the States she’d wire her some money to cover her share of the rent until Sylvia found someone to replace her, and an extra bit to help replace the designer clothes. While Chloe had very little money, the rest of her family had more than they knew what to do with, and they’d be so deliriously grateful that she’d decided to return home they’d probably send Sylvia enough to support herself for months.
She didn’t look in the mirror as she stripped off Bastien’s clothes and kicked them away. She slid into the old-fashioned tub, bracing for searing pain, but instead the hot water enveloped her like a loving embrace. She sank into it with a moan of pure pleasure and closed her eyes, at peace for the first time in what seemed like an endless nightmare.
But eventually the water grew cold, and life had to be faced. She climbed out of the tub, catching a glimpse of her body in the mirror. She froze, staring in shock at the reflection.
The noxious, searing green gunk had done its job. The marks were still there, stripes of pain caused by fire and blade, but they looked months old, a distant memory. There were dark marks on her hips, and she peered closer, until she could make out the faint imprint of his hands on her hips where he’d held her. Bastien. It was only fitting that those marks would remain when the rest was healing.
She wrapped herself in a towel. Her wet hair was a disaster and wouldn’t wait for Sylvia’s leisurely return. She had no choice but to attack it herself. She found some scissors and started hacking away at it, letting the various lengths fall into the sink.
She’d been hoping for one of those movie makeover—the dull, bespectacled secretary takes nail scissors to her mop and becomes a gamine worthy of Audrey Hepburn. Not quite. She put the scissors down before she went too far—maybe it would look better once it dried. Her mother’s hairdresser would cluck in horror and then dive in, and in a few days she’d be chic and adorable. Right now she felt like a drowned cat.
The heat had managed to fill the main room, but the air was still stuffy, so she opened one of the windows a crack, searching through her clothes for her warmest nightgown, a flannel granny gown that always had Sylvia in stitches. There’d be no one around to laugh at her tonight, and she needed the warmth and comfort of the soft, enveloping fabric.
There was nothing to eat but cereal and cheese. She ate two bowls of Weetabix in the darkness, washed it down with a glass of wine and crawled beneath the duvet on her thin mattress. Tonight she could be overrun with rats and she wouldn’t move. All she wanted to do was sleep.
She did, dreaming terrible dreams. The nightmares should have been the worst—Hakim’s face looming over her, his soft, insinuating voice more horrifying than anger, as he lovingly drew the knife over her flesh and dared her not to cry out.
In her dreams he didn’t stop. In her dreams she bled to death, with Hakim smiling down at her with gentle approval, and Bastien sitting in a thronelike chair, women draped around him as he sipped a glass of whiskey and watched.
And yet that was bearable. She knew she dreamed, and no matter how real it felt, a tiny part of her brain was aware enough to convince her it wasn’t real.
But her dreams didn’t give up easily. She was no longer dying, bleeding. She was lying in a white bed, covered in lace, and Bastien was on top of her, inside her, making love to her with slow, wicked intensity, and the pleasure was so exquisite she felt her body spasm in her sleep.
