Free Murder in the Rue De Paradis by Cara Black Page A

sorry to insist, but anything you can tell me may be vital.” She waited.
    “Such a good-looking man.” He sighed.
    So he knew Yves.
    “What time did you last see him?”
    Lolo leaned back against a trellis of ivy. “Your boyfriend?”
    She nodded.
    Lolo expelled a gust of air from his lips. “Love’s a bitch, don’t I know it. Charlotte’s friends stay here all the time. He picked up her keys yesterday.” He rolled his eyes.
    Aimée tried not to think of what he meant by “friends.” She shivered, feeling chilled despite the heat. She had to get inside.
    “I’m late for an appointment,” she said, improvising. “You must have an extra set of keys.”
    He waited.
    She pulled out a hundred francs, slipped it into his palm.
    He looked around, set down his shears, and smoothed back his hair. “Just a minute.”
    SHE STARTED IN the loft’s stainless steel kitchen, determined to view it as if for the first time. She checked the cupboards. A nice set of blue-and-white Dansk dinnerware, the requisite pots and saucepans. A silver Alesio espresso maker, apparently unused. The designer kitchen was sterile and impersonal. She found a plastic bag and emptied the contents of the garbage can into it.
    Last week’s Le Monde , a circular from an electronics shop. It told her nothing. And then, beside the garbage bag she saw a piece of blue paper. She picked it up. A one way London–Paris Eurostar ticket stub, dated yesterday, arrival time 18:35, Gare du Nord.
    Alarms sounded in her head. Yves told her he’d flown in. For the second time she felt stabs of doubt. The Gare du Nord’s men’s room was well known as a male prostitute haunt; René’s words about a secret life came back to her. But a man who made her feel the way Yves had wouldn’t go right to Romeo, a hustler. After the messages he’d left on her cell phone, she couldn’t believe it.
    Romeo might have been his informer. Yet Romeo had stolen Yves’s wallet and cell phone, according to the flics .
    In the sleeping area, she fell to her knees by the duvet. Pain choked her. She couldn’t hold back her sobs. She fell onto the sheets smelling of Yves’s musky scent.
    There was no way she could envision him meeting a junkie male prostitute for sex. She lay there watching dust motes spiral in the sun’s rays glinting through the window, until her tears subsided. Spent, she took a deep breath and opened the closets containing women’s clothes, the linen chest with sheets and towels. No bag, no newspaper, just his black suit and white shirt with empty pockets. And the empty green bottle of Veuve Cliquot.
    She turned over the mattress and a newspaper fell onto the wood floor. Her eye rested on the front page, on the article Yves had circled concerning various groups suspected by the flics of the Metro bombing.
    He’d drawn a box around the phrase “an insidious network.”
    Her hands trembled. What did it mean?
    She shoved it in her bag, put everything back as she’d found it, and closed the loft door.
    Downstairs, near the bamboo, Lolo stood with his arms tucked into the kimono sleeves and folded across his chest. He had to know more than he’d told her, Aimée hoped.
    “Lolo, what time did Yves pick up the keys last night?”
    “I’d just tossed the endive salad.” Lolo thought. “Say nine thirty.”
    The Gare du Nord was fifteen minutes away. What had Yves done, who had he seen before he met her in the Microimages courtyard? Or did this ticket stub belong to someone else? But he’d connected for the champagne from the African coiffeur in the quartier. Did that mean he’d stayed in the neighborhood before?
    “My partner, Philippe, can’t sleep in the heat. He’s restless, but that’s a whole other story. At least we get the breeze from the Canal. This is a ghost compound; everyone has left for vacation,” he said gesturing around the building.
    Her chance of questioning other tenants crumbled. Battling her deepening disappointment, she scanned