He thought that was an odd comment for her to make, but after what she’d gone through he was just happy that she was upright and speaking mostly coherently. So he let it go, but he found that he was angry at her, too. While Barrow and Gaston were convinced she’d been abducted by an otherworldly circus, he wasn’t sure he agreed. Her strange behavior, however, was only making him more suspicious.

“What do you want to do?” Ben wasn’t quite sure about the purpose of this adventure, but Lara seemed mesmerized by a typical Parisian street.

“I just wanted to see the place again.” Lara was turning on the street, looking around in amazement. He stopped her from rotating, because she was attracting attention. This got him wondering when she’d eaten last; maybe a meal might restore her. He’d managed to leave a note with the front desk telling Audrey where they’d gone. He figured they’d get settled in a restaurant and then he’d duck out to the bathroom and call her to reassure her mother that Lara was fine. “Why don’t we eat something?”

Lara turned to him, delighted. “Oh yes, I would love that.”

“Okay,” said Ben, taking her hand. She curled her fingers in his as they crossed the street, finding an Italian restaurant on Boulevard Raspail that had outdoor seating. A fan sent a cool breeze past them on a rather stuffy night with the air like a bath.

“Picasso had a studio right there.” Lara pointed to the right. Ben turned to see where she was pointing, thinking it was odd that Lara would know about Picasso’s studio. In Montparnasse, she now seemed animated and alive, moving the saltshaker around the table, as if the act of touching things was new to her. She seemed to marvel at sports cars and clothes, craning her neck to follow a man with a mohawk and piercings as he walked by.

Ben ordered a glass of wine, refusing to let Lara have any. She frowned and took a sip of his before he’d even had a chance to taste it. He was grateful as the spicy drink hit the back of his throat. God, he’d needed a drink. Hesitating, he swirled his glass. “You want to tell me what happened?”

“You know what happened. I went to the circus.” She leaned back in her seat, focusing on the traffic and not meeting his eyes. There was a childish smile on her face.

“Really?”

“What do you mean, really?”

“I thought you might have been abducted.”

Lara made a face that said she disagreed. “At the gala, after I thought I’d seen Todd, there was a strange man.”

“Jesus,” said Ben, sitting back in his seat. “First Todd, now a strange man. That fucking gala was sure crowded.”