Free Black Ice by Anne Stuart Page A

car. The temperature had dropped, and the wind was picking up, sending leaves scudding across the narrow roadway. “Two hours?” she asked, looking at her watch.
    “Probably.” And he pulled away the moment she’d closed the door, disappearing down the narrow road as fast as he could.
    It was after one—given the speed he was driving they could be halfway to Marseilles by now. She should have brought an umbrella—the weather was looking more threatening by the moment.
    It was just as well that he’d left. He made her unaccountably nervous, and she wasn’t used to that. Men were basically predictable creatures—what you saw was what you got. But Bastien was a different matter altogether. She wasn’t sure of one thing about him—his nationality, his business, even his on-again, off-again interest in her. The only thing she was sure of was that he drove too fast. And smelled too good.
    She headed for the bookstore first. Among other things, she certainly couldn’t count on Hakim’s errand being spurious, and she was a conscientious employee, no matter what the circumstances. The place was hard to find—she had to ask directions from a sour-faced old woman who probably wouldn’t have answered her in English even if she understood it. Fortunately Chloe knew her accent was very good, the result of starting French in kindergarten at the private girls’ school her parents had sent her to. She sounded more like a Belgian than a Frenchwoman, but that was much more acceptable than a lowly American.
    The bookstore was just the disaster she’d expected. It was filled with the discards from some professor’s old library, and some of the titles were so esoteric even she couldn’t translate them. All in French, of course, and not a dust jacket in sight. They’d probably all been published before the war.
    She found a couple of novels and bought them anyway. If they wouldn’t do for Hakim’s French-speaking guests then she’d read them herself. And then she headed back toward the café. Maybe there’d be a newsstand around—glossy magazines would probably serve just as well for bored grocers in their off-hours.
    But there was no newsstand, not even a newspaperto be had at the dingy little café. But at least there was food, and by that point Chloe was ravenous.
    She had a baguette and brie for lunch, washed down with strong coffee instead of the wine she usually would have ordered. At that point she didn’t plan to go anywhere near alcohol for the duration of this peculiar little job Sylvia had conned her into. And the sooner she was done, and back in her tiny apartment with a fistful of euros, the happier she’d be.
    She lingered as long as she could over her meal, checking her watch every now and then. It was almost two hours—surely Bastien would appear at any moment. Hopefully before the rain.
    She paid her bill and went outside, peering down the street for some sign of the Porsche. The streets were empty, the wind was whipping her skirts against her legs, and when she turned back to the café the door was firmly closed, with Fermé displayed on a sign in the window.
    At that moment the first fat raindrop hit her, followed by another. She considered going back to the café, banging on the door, but they’d probably ignore her. They hadn’t seemed too happy to have a customer in the first place, and they were probably long out of hearing range by now. Or they’d pretend to be.
    She headed back toward the bookstore as quickly as she could, but that, too, was closed and locked. She ducked under the portico, shivering slightly, pullingher coat around her as the drops of rain began to turn into a light mist. The town was so small there were no other public buildings that she could see. The post office would close midday as well, and if there were other shops they were nowhere in sight.
    What was in sight was the old church. Chloe stifled a pang of guilt—getting in out of the icy rain was a poor reason for