There was almost nothing I wanted to avoid more than discussing military life with the police director of Alencourt. But he drew me out of the billiard room, which was open to another large room, deeper into the house. Several younger people stood around a marble chimney mantlepiece. They were laughing and animated, except for one.

Officer Nazari stood looking at me as if she’d seen a ghost. Rigalle saw her and was confused for a moment, before realizing. “Of course, you two have already met.”

Chapter Fourteen

I felt my face become hot. Nazari was blushing. She was wearing tight new denim pants and a frilled white cotton blouse that hugged her form and came up high at the neck. It had the effect of perfectly accentuating her most important lines. Her hair was up in a side bun with most of it popping out carelessly.

She was very good-looking.

Rigalle was talking my ear off about his military service, which had apparently been spent in various air conditioned venues across the diminishing sphere of French influence. I had worked with the French. There were good ones and there were bad ones. Rigalle struck me as one of those networker types who land the top jobs, but not altogether a bad guy. More like a guy with his nose to the wind, which is to say, a guy without strong opinions one way or the other.

Nazari broke from the group as we approached. Flashed me a look. She wore eye make-up, blue lines and dark shades. She went quickly out of the room. Rigalle noticed. I said, “Excuse me,” and followed her. I didn’t pay much attention to the director of municipal police just then, but I did see a flash of anger as I left him standing.

Nazari was at the bottom of the big stairwell. She was all red. “You came back for me.”

“I did?” I was unsure on that account, but it might have been true.

“You did.”

She grabbed me by the hand and pulled me past the stairwell towards the back of the house. The corridor darkened as we moved away from the festivities. There was a turn and then a door off to the right. Nazari opened it. A dark room. She pulled me in and shut the door.

Pitch black. Couldn’t see a thing. She reached up and put her arms around my neck. I could smell her fragrance and I felt her breath and strands of her wild hair on my face just moments before her lips made contact with mine. We came together. Every part of us searching out the parts of the other one and getting rid of any distance between them. Our fingers probed and caressed. We stayed like that for a long time. Until she pulled her lips away from mine and said, “Do you hear that?”

I said, “Hear what?”