A waitress greets us inside the cozy building, almost the same as I remember it from the movie. In place of the cigarette counter seen in the film lie extra tables and banquettes, with a dozen more tables squeezed throughout the room. We follow her jeans and crew-neck T-shirt to a corner booth beside the window. Sunlight filters through the burgundy curtains, casting a seductive ambience. Angela must have loved this.

“Something to drink?” Jean-Luc opens the wine menu.

“A coffee. Please.”

Our waitress brings a tiny espresso I manage to down in one gulp.

“You all right?” Jean-Luc’s mouth freezes in a taut smile. His eyes dart to my hands, picking at a sugar packet. “Do you need me to interpret the menu for you? Or is this a trick to get me to recite lines from Amélie Poulain?”

When I don’t answer, he says, “Shayna, you don’t have to tell me specifics.” Jean-Luc plucks the sugar packet from my fingers. “I understand you’re being guarded. I just want to help. To make this easier on you.”

Red wallpaper and framed lime-green posters from the movie cover the walls. Movie poster, movie poster, framed set of gnomes, movie poster. What is it that I’m supposed to find here? I finally figure out my sister’s second clue after days of wasting time in locations that don’t matter, and the words divine and research aren’t suggested anywhere. There are no posters of gods or Sherlock Holmes—not even a cross or a pair of glasses. Why lead me here?

“Honestly, I’m not sure what I need,” I say, finally. “The food is supposed to be good.”

A thoughtful line marks the space between his eyes. “Maybe we should ask someone if they know Angela. She could have been a regular since we only live a few blocks away.”

His choice of words—we—causes me to suck in a breath. I keep forgetting he used to be Angela’s neighbor versus simply my embassy liaison.

He waves over the waitress, then asks if she’s seen my twin sister before. She peers at me like she’s trying to memorize my pores but doesn’t recall. Our meal arrives, putting the mini interrogation to an end. We consume our lunch with pensive chewing. My summer vegetable galette—essentially a buckwheat crêpe with vegetables, Jean-Luc tells me—forms a bridge of stringy cheese to my plate, its steam rising then bursting against my lips with each bite. A lot has been accomplished in the past few days. But not enough. Never enough to find her.

Jean-Luc sets down his burger. “This is a nice change for me from the office,” he muses. “I wasn’t sure you’d be into me helping, at first. You couldn’t have known how knowledgeable I might be about the city, whether I was a psycho or sociopath. I mean, I’m not—”