Out of all the text, there is only one sentence I understand completely:

Ce cadavre est celui de MADEMOISELLE ANGELA DARBY.

This is Miss Angela Darby’s body.

Silence reverberates in the small space of Park’s office. The magnitude of what I’m about to do weighs on me like a sweaty woolen blanket. My signature will essentially close the book on my sister’s disappearance. Why would she want me to sign away her investigation? What could make her so scared or feel this trapped that she wants to remain “dead”? Her two notes to me boomerang in my head:

Alive. Trust no one.

Divine Research.

This moment may come back to haunt me, yet I can’t escape the conviction that I’m doing what Angela needs me to do. “Yes. I sign now. Pen, please.” I reach across Park’s desk and pluck one from a plain ceramic coffee mug. He implores me again in French to reconsider—he’s given up persuading me in English—but I tune him out. I can still go to Valentin and try to extract information from him, to make sense of this, without admitting what I know.

With a flourish, I sign my name below Seb’s, then place Angela’s file on the desk. For whatever reason, my sister doesn’t want to be found by just anybody, and especially not by the police.

She’s waiting for me.

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

from: Angela Darby <[email protected]>

to: “Darby, Shayna” <[email protected]>

date: May 3, 2015, 3:37 p.m.

subject: Outstanding news

Dear sister—

I hope this finds you well and enjoying the consistent vitamin D (sunrays) I traded in for fresh pastries. Skies are on the cloudy side here today, but you know what?

I’m walkin’ on sunshine! Whooooaa!

Such is the constant ballad of joy ricocheting in my head, as I type this from a café on the Champs-Élysées—no big deal (*hair flip*)—because I just confirmed: I’m staying! The Sorbonne dubbed me a real-life graduate student, and I’ll be able to enjoy the summer before school starts in September, tracking down spots where famous authors died while enjoying cheap wine, pinkie finger poised in the air. The Sorbonne has an amazing doctoral history program that can be completed in four years, and it provides research internships for hands-on experience. How crazy would it be to study European history in Europe? It would be so nuts it’s ALMONDS, and exactly in line with my theme of choosing more.