Murder in Belleville Read Free Page B

kickplate. Her fear propelled her to action.
    “Let’s go,” Aimee said, pulling out her penlight.
    “My legs … don’t work well,” Anais panted.
    Aimee helped her stand up.
    “Put your weight on me,” Aimee said. Together they hobbled down the drafty passage leading toward the back.
    Her thin beam flickered off the dripping stone wall; moss furred in green patches. The walls reeked of mildew and urine.
    April in Paris wasn’t like the song, Aimee thought, and couldn’t remember when it had been.
    Something glinted in the cracks, where stone joined the gutter. She bent down, shined her penlight. In the yawning crevice, an indecently large pearl shimmered.
    She pried it out and rubbed the slime off with her sleeve.
    “Anais, did you drop this?”
    “Not my style,” she said, breathing hard.
    Aimee slipped the pearl into her back pocket. As she edged past the rotted wooden door, she was glad she’d worn leather boots. Too bad they had two-inch heels.
    “Who are they, Anais?”
    “Just keep going, Aimee,” Anais said, panting.
    She headed for an old metal fonderie workshop in the courtyard. The fluttering of disturbed pigeons greeted them.
    The building smelled of garbage. Her small penlight beam revealed several blue plastic sacks of trash. Unusual, she thought. The building appeared deserted. Not only that, but the garbage in Paris was collected every day.
    Slants of moonlight illuminated part of the rain-slicked cobbles and wet walls inside. Empty green Ricard bottles lay strewn in what appeared to be the main part of the old workshop.
    She helped Anais sit down.
    “Let me check for a back exit,” Aimee said. “Take a rest.”
    On Aimee’s left, twisted pipes and a network of frayed electric lines trailed up the building interior to the remaining bit of black roof.
    Through the hole above loomed the dark dome of the sky, and a yellow glow outlined the rooftops of Belleville. Aimee stumbled on the slippery concrete, caught her heel and lurched outside. She grabbed hold of something rusty that flaked in her hands. Straightening up, she took another step. She skidded and lost her balance but held on to her penlight, shining the beam ahead.
    A stone wall five or six feet high stood in front of her. Jagged glass, like a string of grinning teeth, lined the top.
    No exit.
    Aimee tried not to panic.
    Returning to Ana’fs, she noticed the buttery leather Dior bag strap tangled around Anais’s shoulder. The last time Aimee had seen Anais she’d also been in Dior, radiant and walking down the steps of St-Severin on the arm of her new husband, Philippe, as the cathedral bells chimed over the square on the rive gauche. Aimee remembered dancing with Martine and her father at the candlelit reception at the Crillon, and Ana’fs giggling while Philippe drank champagne from her silk shoe.
    She shook Anais’s shoulder. “Please, Anais, tell me what’s going on,” Aimee said. “Were these men trying to kill you?”
    Anais gagged, turned, and threw up all over the empty Ricard bottles in the fonderie. The delayed reaction worried Aimee—had the realization just hit Anais, or did she have internal injuries?
    Anais wiped her jaw with her sleeve and nodded. Then she burst into tears, sobbing.
    “I wish to God I knew,” she said.
    Aimee pulled out her phone to get help, but her battery was dead. They were stuck.
    “Nom de Dieu!” Anais said. “That pute Sylvie, she’s the cause—” Anais choked.
    “How—who is she?”
    “The sow my husband slept with,” Anais said, catching air. She straightened up, then took deep breaths through her nose. “On a regular basis. Sylvie Coudray. It was over. But I think she blackmailed him.” Anais began sobbing again. “Philippe, he’s such a weakling.”
    Aimee wiped Anais’s mouth clean and smoothed her hair back. She knelt closer, trying to ignore the stench.
    “What did Sylvie give you?”
    “Who knows?” she pleaded, her eyes wide in terror. She reached inside