I have to stop chasing this Paris Angela and reexamine everything I’ve already looked at and ruled out because I haven’t been honest with myself. My review of her apartment has been through a filter of distance—the Angela I assumed she was in Paris, the one who ran half marathons and charmed everyone. Other than that brief conversation with Jean-Luc—and let’s admit it, even then—I’ve resisted probing the ugly memories from our past, the darkness of certain deeds that shaped us as much as the moments when we bonded over an invented language. Any clues Angela would have left would be meant only for me, and our ghosts.

“Mademoiselle, excusez-moi,” a man calls from behind. An officer in a dark uniform with POLICE stitched across his baseball-style cap waves me forward. Large yellow teeth contrast prim pink lips. I glance around me, but the crowd continues without pause. They are already certain he’s speaking to me.

“Oui?”

He replies in French, too formal and complex for me to grasp. He beckons me again. “You must be coming,” he adds in a thick accent.

“I’m sorry?”

“You must coming,” he repeats, his voice dropping. He looks beyond me, lifting his head so that I can see his nose appears once broken, off balance in an unnatural way. A stiff patch reads POLICE NATIONALE and cups his right shoulder. “Now. I am police—we go now.”

Fear spikes my heart rate. Did something happen? Was there a break in Angela’s case? Why would the police dispatch someone to pick me up at the Champs-Élysées (has he been driving around looking for me?) if there wasn’t something important? The man’s poker face should be on an ESPN live feed.

“What happened? Did Valentin send you?” I cross the three feet that separates us just as the breeze picks up, carrying with it the rank smell of body odor. It is deep, stifling, like the man hasn’t bathed in days. Instinct clenches my belly and freezes my steps. The smell from the stairwell. I lift my eyes to his face, still partially covered by the wide brim of his policeman’s cap. This man was in the stairwell of Manu’s building.

His lips twitch. “Yes. Valentin have message for you. Come.” A black car with tinted windows stops at the curb. Tourists crowding the sidewalk scatter before it, their selfies ruined. He clutches my elbow, directing me toward the open door. My mind races. I haven’t seen Valentin with this man, and I don’t recognize him from the station. Valentin has no way of contacting me without my phone, and I left too early this morning to buy one. Sending another officer is not such a stretch. But why would that officer take me away in an unmarked car with tinted windows?