Then, swiftly, she crushed herself to my chest, gripping me with all her strength. Pulling my shirt towards her hard. She let out a suppressed scream. It was rage, more than fear. I felt her hot breath against my chest, pulled her tight, looking over her head through the living room window. The moon was down, just above the valley.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

We hit the road and got out of town. I drove. South, away from Alencourt. I didn’t have enough information yet, only disconnected fragments. Which meant that I didn’t know who was what or where they were coming from. So we needed operational distance. A chance to get oriented and make decisions.

Nazari sat in the passenger seat, staring out the side window. I couldn’t see her face. I rolled down my window and tossed the burner phone into a field. Those things can be tracked, which is why you burn them. We drove for an hour without saying a word. Then she started talking as if nothing had happened. Whatever it was she was processing, she’d worked some of it through her system and was dealing with the rest.

We found a motel with a twenty-four-hour desk. I stayed in the car while she registered. We showered and that took some time. There were more distractions. It ended up being a slow shower. So it was close to dawn by the time I crawled under the covers. I was tired, but not that tired. She got into bed after me and smelled good. Clean, like soap and musk. The sheets felt light and cottony. Her body was real and firm and soft and warm and above all alive. She was insistent and strong. We made love fiercely, with intent.

And slept for exactly two hours and ten minutes.

Then we got up. Fully alert, no fuss. She had to go to work. She’d wanted to call in sick but I vetoed that. We had to act like we weren’t concerned. Had to push back by being reactive and capable.

There was a French version of a diner attached to the motel. They agreed to do eggs. I figured they’d seen tourists before, so were open to negotiation. No bacon, just ham, which wasn’t a problem. No hash browns, so we had toast, which was fine since they had coffee. We sat in a booth and the waiter brought two cups of it.

Nazari said, “Let’s run through it out loud.”

“Is that what they teach in the BRI investigator course?”

“Yes. You talk it out, like a narrative. You have to tell the story, see how it fits together. Eventually it makes sense. They call it a fact-pattern.”

“Where do you want to start?”

“We start with the headline.”

“Rigalle’s murder.”

“I found Alain’s note after he was murdered, but he wrote it before, obviously.”