Free Eight Days to Live by Iris Johansen

can’t get hold of Yvette. Now, dammit, tell me why you’re worried about her.”
    “It appears that you’ve become a special case to the Sang Noir. Let me call Venable back and have him check on the logical route she would take and the car she should be driving. Jock and I will start looking for her.”
    “What do you mean ‘special’—” She stopped. “Another one? You’re saying that Yvette may be another victim?”
    “I don’t know. I just don’t think we can take the chance. I don’t have time to go into it now with you. I’ve got to call Venable. I may be wrong. She may walk in the door of the gallery in the next five minutes.”
    “If she doesn’t, I’m going with you.” She hung up. Dear God, it was too horrible to be true.
    Let it not be true.
    Please walk in that door, Yvette.
    FORTY MINUTES LATER JOCK , MacDuff, and Jane were on the A6 leaving Paris.
    “It’s a black 2005 Volvo,” Jock said as he hung up the phone from talking to Venable. “And Yvette Denarve stopped at a gas station on A6 and used her credit card over three hours ago.”
    “I’m going to call her again,” Jane said. “Maybe she just had a flat tire. It’s possible.”
    “Yes, it’s possible,” MacDuff said. “Look sharp, Jock. See if you see any sign of the car in trees or at the side of the road.”
    “We don’t have any cliffs or sharp inclines around here,” Jock said. “Even if she had brake trouble, there wouldn’t be too much danger.”
    He’s right, Jane thought. Level ground and plateaus. But it wasn’t the terrain they were concerned about.
    A black Volvo.
    MacDuff was driving slowly so that they could keep an eye out for the car.
    Two miles.
    Five.
    Seven.
    “There it is!” Jock pointed to a stand of trees up ahead. “But I don’t see anyone in the car.”
    The black Volvo was a good hundred yards off the highway, Jane noticed. Not good. How could Yvette have driven that far into the woods if she’d had car trouble?
    “I don’t like this.” MacDuff parked by the side of the highway. “Jock and I will scope it out. You stay here.”
    But Jane was already out of the car and heading for the Volvo.
    “Or not,” MacDuff said as he got out of the driver’s seat. “Have it your own way.”
    “I will. It’s broad daylight and those pines are too thin for anyone to be hiding behind. I just hope that Yvette is in—” She had reached the car and saw that the entire driver’s side was smashed as if sideswiped. She felt a rush of panic. Her gaze flew to the interior of the Volvo. “No one’s in the car.”
    “Then we’d better fan out and see if we can find any trace.” Jock glanced inside the car. “No blood. That’s good.”
    “Yes.” She glanced around the area. Tall scraggy pines were scattered over the entire plateau. It was broad daylight but the trees were casting dark shadows. It was terrible to have to think that an absence of blood was a good thing. “I hope.”
    “But the car wouldn’t have been pushed this far by a glancing hit.” Jock was heading toward the deeper woods. “It would have had to be driven.”
    Jane didn’t want to hear her own thoughts put into words. She moved toward the trees to the left of the car, her gaze raking the shrubs, then the ground.
    “Jock!”
    It was MacDuff calling from the other side of the stand of trees.
    She stopped. “MacDuff?”
    “Stay where you are, Jane,” MacDuff said. “You don’t want to see this.”
    She closed her eyes for an instant. No, she didn’t want to see it. She didn’t want it to be true. Her lids flicked open. Face it. She started in the direction from where she’d heard MacDuff’s voice.
    MacDuff’s and Jock’s backs were to her as she pushed through the shrubbery. They were looking down at a woman in black slacks and a green-striped blouse.
    Dear God.
    It was true and there was no running away from it.
    “She’s dead?” Jane whispered.
    Jock looked over his shoulder. “Oh, yes. It’s not