She nodded and was quiet for a moment. Then she quickly wiped her tears from her eyes.

“Okay, so I’ll hear from Anna Kiel. Is that what you’re saying? She has the rest of the story?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Heloise got up and started for the door.

“Wait!” His voice choked up with desperation.

Heloise turned around and looked at him.

His eyes were big and wet.

“I love you.”

The words fell, not like a statement of fact, but as a plea.

She smiled sadly at him.

“Good-bye, Dad.”

CHAPTER

41

THERE WAS A thud as the landing gear was released and the woman in the seat next to Schäfer grabbed the armrest so hard that her knuckles turned white.

He looked at her for a moment. The wrinkles in her age-spotted forehead and the lines around her green eyes made him guess she was in her early seventies. She was pretty, feminine, and elegant, with graceful features in a face that made her look like she had lived a rich, peaceful life. But right now, she looked tense. She rested her head against the seat’s royal-blue upholstery with her eyes closed, taking short, panting breaths.

“I’m assuming you don’t fly very often?” Schäfer said, leaning over to her.

The woman opened her eyes to see who was talking to her. Her eyes roved from side to side until she identified Schäfer as the source of the voice. She looked briefly embarrassed. Then she shook her head.

“No, I don’t like to fly.”

“But you know what the statistics say, don’t you?” He smiled soothingly. “It’s the safest form of transportation there is.”

The plane tilted sharply to the right, and the sky vanished from the little oval window by the woman’s shoulder. A low moan slipped from her lips, and she squeezed her eyes shut again.

Schäfer looked past her out the window, down at the ground, where he could see the highway beneath them. The cars looked like little ants dashing along the asphalt in a long column, and he followed the traffic’s gradual rhythm with his eyes.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll be landing in a minute.”

The pilot straightened out again. The miniature buildings below them grew into high-rises, and a few minutes later the wheels touched down on the runway with a hissing rumble. The brake flaps on the wings flew up, and the plane screeched to a halt.

He patted the woman briefly on the shoulder with one hand as he pulled his phone out of his pocket with the other. “See! It all worked out.”

The woman smiled in relief. “Yes, thank goodness. Thank you.”

Schäfer turned on his phone, called Lisa Augustin, and waited for the call to go through.

“Hello?” she answered.

“It’s me.”

“Hey, are you in Paris?”