Free Murder in the Latin Quarter by Cara Black

of light. Too high to reach, unless. . . .
    She stepped on the chair next to the lockers, hitched up her dress, reached her arms and elbows over the locker’s top edge, and hoisted herself up. Her knee banged against it as she struggled to lift her body. Once on top, she half-crouched, lifted the old brass latch, and edged through the cobwebbed window opening. Her second window egress in two days.
    “Pardonnez-moi, ” Huby said. “I heard something fall in the back room. Let me check.”
    Aimée dove through the window, praying no rocks were below. Airborne, she stuck out her hands and let herself fall. She toppled onto thorny branches and came up with a mouthful of dirt, cobwebs streaking her hair. Her bag strap was skewed around her shoulders. Birds scattered, fluttering in alarm.
    A shout came from the window.
    She staggered to her feet and ran like hell.

Tuesday Noon

    LÉONIE OBIN STRUGGLED against her dream, fighting the rhythm of beating drums despite the sticky spilled cane-sugar liquor coating her hands. She tried to turn away from the beads hanging from the skeletal neck of Baron Samedi, his black top hat bobbing in the dance of death. Inviting her, non, insisting that she join him. So easy, yes, now to follow him. Succumb, and take the black-beaded necklace he offered her. Like wisps of smoke, the dream faded. A white light spread inside her throbbing head. Léonie shuddered. Bone-numbing tiredness weighed her down.
    She opened her eyes and found her feet tucked under a blanket as she lay on the brocaded divan. She’d collapsed again. Someone had taken pity on her and. . . . Then last night came back to her.
    Edouard, those men, and then it all grew dim. The weakness took over. Her thoughts clouded . . . the image she sought kept slipping away.
    Each day, her illness worsened. The clinic doctor said her memory would be the last to go, once her brain was involved. Agitated, she stared at the painting. The frame was askew. The safe . . . more came back to her . . . she remembered. Fear clutched her as she recalled those black-hooded men and Edouard ransacking the safe. Stealing the bank account records.
    Maria Madonna and Ogoun help me.
    She must have spoken aloud. Someone stood by her side; a vague outline of a head came into view. She tried to focus.
    “Madame Léonie, you work too much.”
    A clucking sound. “Second morning this week I find you sleeping here. Are you all right?” Now there was concern in the voice. Marie’s voice. Marie was the cleaning lady. Her short brown hair and wrinkled face became clear as well as the scarred furrows of flesh that descended from under her ear down her neck. She was a burn victim. Marie’s scars put others off. But Léonie had felt the energy, the purity in her heart. Ogoun felt it too.
    A wave of lucidity washed over her. Familiar things appeared; her desk, her jacket draped over a chair. It was as if she’d returned to the land of the living. And for a purpose.
    By the time Marie brought a tray with lemon tea, the haziness in her brain had subsided. Léonie held the Sèvres cup handle, and not a drop spilled into the saucer.
    “Madame Léonie, I came early to clean up from last night,” said Marie. “But you’re so pale, let me help you.”
    The Madonna, St. George on his rearing horse, spear in hand, and Ogoun, the warrior, had let her come back. The warrior. Let her come back for a reason. Now it grew clear. Even if Edouard knew the system, legal roadblocks would stall his bank ac-count search. She’d make sure of that.
    But in her clumsiness she’d alerted Edouard to the existence of Benoît’s research file. Her fault. She had to reach Benoît before Edouard did.
    “Marie, my medicaments, in the drawer, please.”
    Her strength ebbed and flowed like a sluggish river. She’d take her time . . . time she didn’t have, as her body rebelled. She injected the anti-viral cocktail, swallowed the black paste pellets from the healer, leaned back and tried