“Vous êtes triste, mademoiselle?” a modulated masculine voice said and she turned and saw him standing there. He was tall and dark, with soft brown eyes in a handsome triangular face. He was wearing an expensive blue suit, obviously cut by a London tailor who knew what he was doing. His dark curly hair was cut short and neat and she felt her heart flutter like a bird ruffling its feathers.

“What was that?” she stammered in English and her glance involuntarily shot over at Jean-Paul and Angela.

“He is handsome, yes, but he is also a fool,” he said with a wry smile, following her glance.

“What makes you say that?” she asked.

“Mon chèr papa used to say that the true fool smiles even as he exchanges gold for brass,” he replied in a musically accented English. He told her his name was Gerard. They stood at the rail, chatting about nothing and watching the city lights as the barge slid silently down the river.

It wasn’t until later, after he had brought her the champagne, that she had begun to feel sick. She had thrown up twice in the toilette by the time the barge tied up near the Pont Neuf. Suddenly she straightened, as the realization hit her. He had drugged her! It was the champagne! He had planned it all along, she realized miserably. At the time she thought he was being generous, offering to drive her back to the hotel in his gleaming white Mercedes. Lori had offered to come back with her, but she hadn’t wanted to spoil it for Lori, who was clearly taken with Randy and it seemed silly not to go with Gerard. Besides, she was too miserable to argue. She had felt so awful that she hadn’t really paid attention to where they were going until, instead of turning up the rue de Chateaubriand to the hotel, he entered the whirl of lights around the Etoile. When they recrossed the Seine to the Left Bank, she knew something was terribly wrong.

The first time she told Gerard he was going the wrong way, he simply ignored her. His profile stared fixedly at the windshield. She repeated herself, raising her voice and he viciously slapped her face with the back of his hand. Something exploded inside her and she clawed at him, yelling for him to let her out. He hit her again and showed her the gun and her world blew apart like a house of feathers in a strong breeze, just like that.