This Saturday was the fourth day that Monsieur Stephane Beaulieu had not returned to the boardinghouse. He had not appeared since he left the house for his engineering firm the morning of Wednesday, June 7. She’d been looking for him that afternoon because she had a treat for him—an apple, one of several kindly shared by a widower friend who had a romantic interest in her. Her instincts told her that Stephane had been arrested; otherwise, he’d have let her know that he would be away, as his work sometimes called him to be. Apparently he had not talked, or at least not involved her and the boardinghouse, but Gabrielle was prepared in case they came for her. She had nothing to live for and nothing to fear from dying. She believed in a merciful God. She had no surviving child, and no family, not even a pet, no close friends to speak of, and she had finally given up the attempt to get over her husband’s death.

Some pains, time did not heal. Time only made them worse. Her husband could have risen above his grief, comforted by and grateful for her memory, but she was a cynic at heart and for Gabrielle, memory was only a mocking reminder of what she had lost. She missed Stephane Beaulieu, the only person who’d warmed a spot in her heart since her husband and son were killed, and now he was gone, too. She would pray and light a candle in Saint Mary’s to give him an early release from his agony.

*  *  *

Madame Jeanne Boucher listened halfheartedly as one of her designers whined about the lack of cooperation from one of the runway models. “She’s taking advantage of the pinch we’re in and threatening to leave the show if we don’t let her wear the shoes she prefers, madame. You must say something to the little witch. Those shoes will ruin the look!”

“Let her wear the shoes,” Jeanne said, wearily waving her away. As of only yesterday, she would never have bowed to a model’s demands, scarce though fashion mannequins were in Paris since the war. Jeanne would have stormed out of her office with guns blazing, fired the impertinent little parvenu on the spot, and dressed Isolde from the accounting department in her place. Isolde was of the perfect weight and height for the runway, and with a little coaching she would be ready for her debut by the evening of the showing on the seventeenth. The couturier of La Maison de Boucher had worked such miracles before. But today, Saturday, June 10, she could think of nothing but her premonition that she would never see Mademoiselle Dufor again. Madame Richter had not returned Bernadette for her fitting yesterday as threatened. Jeanne had heard nothing from the woman since, and the hellcat had not responded to messages the couturier had left with her maid.