Spectacle(19)

Nathalie thumbed the sofa fabric. “In summary, then, I had perseverance, I’m confused, and I’ll have to sacrifice something at some point. Or I already did, if missing out on a summer on the coast counts. It sounds like most everyone’s life at one time or another.”

Her voice was much shakier than she’d intended it to be.

Simone got up and came over to Nathalie, giving her shoulders a squeeze. “It’s just a game,” she said. Nathalie knew Simone was just trying to make her feel better.

She appreciated it all the same. With a peck on the cheek she left Simone and trotted down the stairwell. The outside door opened as she reached the landing, and an auburn-haired young man with a paisley frockcoat entered carrying a book. A generous waft of his lavender cologne filled the space between them.

His green eyes sparkled with recognition when he saw her. “I suspect by Simone’s eloquent description that you are Mademoiselle Nathalie Baudin,” he said, with a regal bearing. He held his hand to his cheek, as if taking her into his confidence. “And if you aren’t … my apologies.”

She laughed. “I am indeed.”

He extended his hand and she met it with her own. “Enchanté,” he said, raising her hand to his lips and brushing it with a kiss. “Louis Carre.”

Nathalie blushed. No one had ever kissed her hand before, except for men Papa’s age striving to be overly proper, and they didn’t count.

Louis turned her hand over and inspected her palm. “Ah, an Air Hand. Restless if that mind of yours isn’t kept active, eh? Simone has a Water Hand, full of passion about life.”

“Both are true,” she said as he let go of her hand.

“My mother is, among other things, a palm reader,” he said with pride. “She learned it from her mother and passed it on to me.”

She smiled. “My mother is a seamstress, and she tried passing it on to me, but I’m not very good.” They chuckled.

“Don’t think me rude for asking, but I have an appreciation for fashion: Did she happen to make the skirt you have on? Magnificent craftsmanship.”

Nathalie glanced at her beige-and-white skirt with intricate lacing. An old skirt but well-preserved and one of her favorites. “Yes, in fact, she did.”

“Your mother knows her way around a sewing needle. I admire such skill.”

Nathalie thanked him. Such compliments delighted her, not out of vanity but pride in her mother’s talent. A talent that had been halted by severe burns.

Louis bid her farewell and told her to be safe.

“Interesting you should say that,” she responded. “You’re not the only one to tell me that in recent days. These murders have everyone on edge.”

“You know what I think?” he whispered, again with that conspiratorial gesture. “Devil worshippers.”

Her stomach wriggled like a serpent. “What?”

“Simone told me the two of you were talking through the possibilities. I think there’s a Satanic cult behind the killings. The police don’t think like that.” He tapped his temple. “You have to explore even the most dimly lit paths.”

Nathalie had never thought of anything along those lines, either. Louis had a most interesting way of thinking. That’s what poets do, she supposed. See things differently than everyone else. “Anything is possible.”

“Isn’t it, though?” Louis bowed. “Enjoy your evening, Mademoiselle Baudin.”

She left the building, particularly mindful of her surroundings as she walked to the steam tram stop. The tram arrived after a brief wait; she boarded and then got off at the Place de la République, as always.

Almost immediately she had the unmistakable sense that she was being followed.





9


Nathalie got off the steam tram, passed a man on a bench reading Le Petit Journal, and stopped to tie her shoe.

The man, who wore a British-style bowler hat, stood up when she bent over. He put his hands in his pockets and turned his back to her. When she resumed walking, she noticed—just barely, out of the corner of her eye—that he followed her.

He’d hesitated. Almost as if he were waiting for her to finish tying her laces.

She shook her head. There were other people on the sidewalk. Although it was smart to be alert, she could make herself crazy wondering if everyone whose path matched hers was a threat.

But at first he’d faced the opposite direction. Hadn’t he?

She wheeled around to see the man face-to-face. He wasn’t there. Two other men passed her, and the sidewalk was otherwise empty. She glanced across the street and saw the hat. The man, wiry and on the shorter side, was leaning against a gas lamppost beside the Place de la République monument. His clothes were dark, nondescript. All she saw was the back of him, again.

Nathalie put her hand in her pocket, squeezed her catacomb talisman, and continued on her way. At the next block she took a right, then looked both ways to cross the street.

That’s when she noticed him again. He turned when she turned, and he crossed when she crossed, staying about a block behind.

This wasn’t a coincidental stroll. No one would take this route unless they were headed to the same cluster of apartment buildings.

And if they were, they wouldn’t have crossed the road to lean against a lamppost first.