Delphine nods. “As I told the police, Angela first came to me a year ago. She read an article I wrote on the Roman catacombs and their significance to the urban development of the gladiator culture. She wanted to do the same research for Paris, from an outsider’s perspective.” A Parisian accent barely rounds her r’s, and instead she sounds borderline English, her t’s pronounced with clarity. “Angela’s vanishing is a tragedy.”

I suppress a shiver. Vanishing—as in gone completely. Forever? “Can you tell me where she was in her research when she disappeared?” Jean-Luc is motionless in the corner of my eye.

“I’m not entirely sure,” Delphine begins. “But I do think there is a correlation between her studies and . . . Perhaps if she were less ambitious in her work, Angela would still be here.”

Her words fall heavy in the otherwise silent room. When I inhale it feels unpracticed, unusual, like I haven’t taken a full breath since entering the building. “What do you mean?”

Delphine rounds the desk to sit on its edge. Her arms hug her small frame while long legs extend for balance. “Let me preface this by saying my words are rank speculation. And I hope what I am about to say is not too disturbing.”

The hair on my neck bristles. “Please.”

Delphine clasps her hands together. “We still do not know who is responsible for Angela’s disappearance, nor how the shooting is related, if at all, yes? We only know that the shooter was a young man. Disgruntled and dissatisfied with the world. He was a student here, so he knew summer school classes would be in session that day. He targeted anyone associated with the departments where he felt mistreated. He did not plan this with anyone who was a student or a member of our faculty and said so in the note he left in his apartment. Shame that he killed himself when the police arrived.”

“It is.”

“I’ve been teaching doctoral students for a while. Twenty years at the Sorbonne’s division of Urban Planning and Social Sciences. I have never seen a student come to this program and excel so quickly as Angela did. Her work was excellent, and her French was okay, but she was—what’s the word?—eye-catching from the start.

“As a foreign student, it was even more impressive.” She shakes her head. “It’s very American to come in and dominate a room—you all are quite loud, you know—and I think that earned Angela a few enemies. She didn’t simply dominate with the volume of her voice but also the content of her work.”

Every muscle in my body stiffens in anticipation of Delphine’s next words. I hesitate to interrupt, but I have to know. “Would someone want to harm her? A classmate?”