There’s a tiny phone retailer next to Angela’s apartment and I’m sure a few on the Champs-Élysées. I’ll have to buy one. Shit. Valentin mentioned some disturbing new details to be aware of; this is not the time to lose lines of communication. A serial killer may or may not think I’m my sister, and I can’t look up any new information or destinations until I reach Montmartre and my laptop tonight. At least I managed to text Jean-Luc Manu’s address beforehand. Staying too long in one spot when I might have an unknown pursuer is frivolous and/or lazy. He or she could be watching me right now.

“Hey, are you okay?” The woman stands beside me, metallic lenses reflecting my anxiety. She looks toward the restaurant’s interior and asks someone for a glass of water. My breath snaps in and out of my lungs, a rubber band sound. In out in out in out. Faster and harder. Inoutinoutinout. A mother with a baby stroller walks by, stares straight ahead, pretending I’m not hyperventilating, not having a panic attack, not imploding into a snotty mess.

“Tiens.” Someone hands me a glass, and I drink it back in three gulps.

“What’s your name, honey?”

I look up. Farther on, behind the woman, a policeman with a cap pulled low and CHiPS-style sunglasses betraying nothing stares at me. He approaches from down the block, and I suddenly realize I’m making a great big scene in public. People across the street in line stop to point at me, remarking on the spectacle.

“Astrid.” I reply with my middle name, loudly. I slap a few euros on the table, thank the woman, and hail a cab.

The driver looks wary of my red eyes and blotchy cheeks, but I clear my throat. I give him Manu’s address instead of Angela’s. The first thing that comes to mind.

We head to the southwest part of Paris, cutting through long side streets and busy boulevards to the Moulin de la Vierge quarter. The blocks here are seedier than those of the housing projects I encountered at Nour’s. No empty lots, just abandoned buildings. An affront to the beauty Paris is known for, and confirmation there’s a backside to those picturesque postcards. A stooped woman pushes a shopping cart while a child stands alone in a full diaper, surrounded by weeds, watching me pass; cardboard boxes form water-stained forts in front yards beside disabled men in berets who reflect my own leering back at me from folding chairs on the sidewalk.

Here are the forgotten Parisians, immigrants and fringe members of society. As the car circles the block back up toward the main boulevard and the flickering streetlamps fade into the darkness behind me, I can only hope my phone buys a few weeks of groceries for those kids’ families. Even as I cannot believe my fucking luck.

Chapter 16