Breathe, Justine. Be calm. They won’t make you wait forever. They have to tell you why they’ve brought you in. Wait and see what they’re up to first.

She was right. She sat for two hours before a female officer came into the room, with the young flic behind her. She spoke excellent, though heavily accented, English.

“Bonsoir, mademoiselle. I am Inspector Amelie Badeau. I apologize for the delay in coming to visit with you. I am afraid I was home, getting some rest. It has been a very difficult twenty-four hours for us.”

“Well, I’m sorry for you, but I’d like to know why I’m here. No one has bothered to tell me.” She looked pointedly at the young flic, who stared back impassively.

“Non?” Badeau glanced over her shoulder at her young colleague. “I am sorry about this confusion. If I have been told correctly, you were found on the Pont d’Iéna with a knife, about to throw it into the Seine. A knife that we believe was used in a double murder last evening. While I was being summoned, our laboratory ran an analysis on the knife and found it had blood on it. Further analysis showed two blood types, both of which match the blood types of the victims at Sacré-Coeur last evening. We will have to wait a few days for the DNA testing to be complete, but it seems to me you were caught disposing of a murder weapon.”

This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t know about any murder.”

But of course she did. It had been all the talk, all day, while she was enjoying herself strolling through Paris. All the disparate threads of conversation she’d overheard throughout the day ran through her head:

Two Americans died on the hill, did you hear...

This makes us look so bad, and after all the negative press this year...

They nearly cut the girl’s head clean off...

They were posed, as if they were having sex...

Can you believe these stupid tourists...?

At the base of the church steps, such sacrilege...

I am scared, I hope they find who did this...

“You have not heard? It is such a shame. Two young lives cut short. With your knife, mademoiselle.”

“I didn’t do this. I found the knife...”

“Oui? D’accord, that may be. We have all night for you to tell me about the knife. But why don’t we get comfortable and discuss what brought you to Paris? I understand you have recently arrived and rented a flat. You applied for a work visa. You plan to stay for a year?”