Chapter 34

Chapter 34

Jean-Luc found me within minutes. The time that elapsed between Angela escaping above and Jean-Luc climbing into the tunnels below was barely enough time to say Amélie. I listened in a daze as he explained he was never actually employed by the American embassy; to the contrary, he was an officer with the United Nations unit investigating international trafficking.

I didn’t understand at first—blamed my disorientation on dehydration, trauma, shock—but he kept going in slow, measured tones until I had no choice but to believe him. My team suspected the catacombs were a possible point of transit for traffickers. When Sebastien Bronn was spotted exiting the catacombs from an unusual point of entry, we became interested in him; when he began spending time with Angela, a young woman, we added him to our watch list. I have stuck with you, Shayna, in the hopes of learning more about him and his ties to Paris’s black market.

My fingers were numb from the cold, but my heart surged with this knowledge. The newspaper headline in the lobby of Angela’s building, the brothel madam believing I was police and almost kicking me out, the ticker along the cab’s television screen. Jean-Luc wasn’t stalking Angela or me to abduct us; he was working to stop human trafficking.

While Jean-Luc wasn’t able to prevent Angela from being abducted, he had been following me all week, certain that Seb would try something. He lost me after the club Friday night, and it took him a few hours before he realized I went underground.

Babbling with relief at this point, I told him everything—Seb kidnapping us, his plans to find a cure for chemical attacks, his emulation of the human traffickers’ mode of operation, Angela being alive—then stopped short. He asked where Angela was now.

Shadows surrounded us then but none as thick as the partition that dropped between us. With two hours left before ensuring Angela had a shot out of here, I only had half-truths to offer. Whatever we shared during the week together, it was as different people. Even as the memory of his arms around me, and the soft fabric of his shirt against my cheek, pulsed behind my eyelids.

I spoke to the void over his shoulder. “I’m not sure where she is.”

Jean-Luc didn’t blink. “Is that true?”

“Between the two of us, I think I have a better record of telling the truth. You’ve been lying to me this whole week.”

He licked his lips. “Not the whole week, Shayna. I shared things with you I haven’t shared with anyone else.”

A depressed silence filled the already dank space. “Something still doesn’t add up,” I began. “Seb wasn’t a trafficker. He was a sick man who thought he could find a cure for mustard gas. Why did he write a fake email pointing to you as Angela’s attacker?”