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  She’d come for answers, but she was leaving with only more questions. What had been going on in Eva Louts’s head? And in Grégory Carnot’s? And in Clara’s, at the moment when that 220-pound piece of filth had leaned over her? So many unknowns, so many things not understood, which threatened to remain unanswered forever.

  She put away the pistol. She had bought it because, deep down, she had always hoped to use it against her daughter’s killer. To somehow slip it into the courthouse and put down the bastard with a clean shot to the head. But she’d never had the guts to go through with it. Because she still had Juliette, and her duty as a mother was to watch over her child.

  As she started driving, Lucie looked at herself in the rearview mirror and realized she was on the verge of tears. So she slammed on the brakes and dialed the number of the cell phone that she’d bought for Juliette, which should have been in the little girl’s backpack. It didn’t matter if the child was in class. She had to talk to her daughter, hear her voice, reassure herself that everything was all right, even if it meant interrupting the teacher’s lesson. That was why she had bought the phone in the first place, so she’d always be able to reach her daughter, so she could stay close to her and know where she was at any moment.

  But the call went to voice mail, so instead she left a long, affectionate message.

  11

  Franck Sharko walked bareheaded in the pouring rain. The wind had risen, a cold slap that reddened your cheeks. He raised the collar of his overlarge raincoat and, hands thrust in his pockets, entered the cemetery.

  The procession had halted at the end of the sixth alley. A line of black, motionless silhouettes, who fought against the wind to keep their umbrellas from shredding. Possibly Grégory Carnot’s adoptive parents, a few relatives. People for whom the murderer still retained a semblance of humanity. Individuals come to seek answers they’d never find. Soaked, the men from the funeral parlor were lowering a wooden box into its pit.

  As the cold was drilling into his back, Sharko noticed another static form, standing apart as he was, but on the other side of the cemetery. No umbrella, only an ample hood that devoured his left profile, leaving only the tip of the nose visible. The silhouette had taken care to place itself in a blind spot in relation to Carnot’s grave. To see without being seen.

  Intrigued, the inspector decided to go meet the figure, but by surprise. First, he made sure his Sig Sauer was ready in its holster. He quietly worked his way back along the alleys, skirting the sepulchers to position himself behind the individual’s back. The wind and rain covered the sound of his footsteps on the gravel. Firmly, he rested his large hand on the observer’s right shoulder, who spun around with a start.

  Sharko felt the ground shift under him.

  The face appeared to him in the half darkness, soaked and numb with cold, but instantly recognizable.

  “Lucie?”

  It took Lucie a fraction of a second before she realized who was in front of her. Could it really be the same man? The strapping fellow she’d known only a year before? Where was the flesh on his cheeks, the imposing breadth of his outline? Was she talking only to a shadow, or really to . . .

  “Franck? Is that . . . you?”

  She fell silent, with something powerful and gnarled rising in her chest. Good God, what could have changed him so drastically? Was it Clara’s death? Their abrupt separation? What hell had he gone through? In the depths of his eyes, he wore all the guilt of the world, a suffering as prominent as his cheekbones. Heavy rings devoured his stonelike face. Without thinking, acting on impulse or from too much emotional buildup, she crushed herself against him, slowly running her hand along his back. She felt his heart beat, the sharp edges of his shoulder blades along her fingers. Then she abruptly pulled away. Her hood had slid back, revealing her long blond hair. Sharko looked at her tenderly. She was as beautiful as he was damaged. He was hurting so, so badly. The wound had reopened.

  “I shouldn’t have come here.”

  Slowly, he again plunged his dripping hands in his pockets and turned away. He was grateful to the rain for hiding his sadness, his obvious feelings—he who, in his entire life, had cried so little. He was walking away when a word, the word he both desired and dreaded, echoed behind him:

  “Wait.”

  He halted, clenching his fists. She came up to him, ignoring the puddles.

  “One year ago, Carnot tore us apart, and today he’s brought us together again. I don’t know what for. But I think we have to talk. If you’re willing.”

  A long silence. Too long, to Lucie’s mind. Why? What was he thinking about? Did he hate her for the way she’d left him? Finally, his hoarse voice sounded in the rain.

  “Okay . . . but not too long.”

  Lucie turned back toward Carnot’s distant gravesite. Water was running down her face and her lips trembled; she felt abnormally cold.

  “I have to see the earth swallow up his coffin,” she finally said. Sharko nodded without moving, so she added, “Alone.”

  12

  He was waiting for her in a dark corner of the café, not far from the graveyard, his hands wrapped around a large, steaming cup. Furious volleys of water slammed against the window, isolating the place from the rest of the world. Two or three shadows were idling near the beer taps, regulars who’d come to damage their livers at the bar. In the shadows, Lucie removed her soaked jacket and wrung it out on the mat before going to join the man sitting alone at a table. She pulled up a chair and sat down opposite him, wiping a handkerchief over the droplets that were still running down her face.

  They sized each other up for a moment with timid glances. Both opened their mouths at the same instant, the words fluttering on the threshold of their lips; finally, it was Lucie who broke through the awkward silence.

  “I’ve sometimes thought about you, Franck, after . . . after what happened. I always imagined you impeccably dressed, standing firm on your feet, your face hard and assured.” She nodded toward the cemetery that they could barely see from there. “I imagined you so far away from this filth. I thought you’d maybe forgotten all about it.”

  Sharko gave Lucie a sad smile, which made her sadder still. What shadows had he been wallowing in?

  “The more time goes by, the deeper the wound grows. How could I forget?”

  Lucie was surprised to feel a pain in her heart. No sense asking how he was doing, what he’d been up to these past months: everything was etched into his bony face, in the empty eyes that had lost all their sparkle. No doubt he had wandered from case to case, soaking up his days and nights. Submerged in work, in blood. Just another way of numbing yourself, of not having to think, like Lucie at her call center. In spite of herself, she couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. She forced herself back to the reason for their meeting.

  “I stopped in at Vivonne. The prison psychiatrist told me everything. Your visit, the investigation into this Eva Louts. You have to talk to me, let me know everything you’ve got on her.”

  Sharko tried to check her enthusiasm. He had to calm her down, quickly, convince her to go back up north and put all this behind her.

  “Grégory Carnot is dead, Lucie. Dead and buried. There’s nothing left for you here. Go home. Forget this stuff and get on with your life.”

  “I hear you’re back at Homicide now. Where’s your partner? Why did you come here alone? This isn’t an official visit, is it?”

  Sharko ran his finger pointlessly around the rim of his cup. He didn’t dare look at her.

  “I see you haven’t lost your observational skills.”

  “Why are you here, Franck?”

  The inspector looked vainly for a distraction that wasn’t coming. He’d handled himself ten times better in his run-in with Leblond and Manien. But in front of Lucie, all his inner barriers collapsed. He paused a bit too long before blurting out the truth:

  “
I came here to look Carnot in the eye. To see how that creep was getting along. But he’s dead . . .”

  Lucie tried to repress the shiver running up her spine. She had fallen in love with this man. Then she thought she hated him more than anything in the world. And now her certainties were being shattered. Deep inside of her, a small flame still flickered. So Franck Sharko had never forgotten them—her, Clara, Juliette. He lived with their ghosts in the depths of his heart and it was eating him up inside, like a disease that would inevitably prove fatal. A waiter arrived at their table; Lucie shooed him away and turned back to the inspector.

  “You won’t get there alone. Let me help you. I need to know. I need to . . . do something!”

  “You’re not a cop anymore.”

  “I’m still a cop deep down. You can’t deny your true nature, no matter how hard you try. Anything, Franck, just one clue. I’m begging you. Give me a trail to follow. The fact that you’re here proves Carnot isn’t really dead yet, and you know it.”

  Sharko crushed his fist against his lips, as if he were about to make a decision of vital importance.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t. It’s too risky. My colleagues will be making calls to the eleven prisons on the list, trying to learn more about Louts’s visits. Sooner or later they’ll call Vivonne and find out you were here.”

  “Unless you tell them they don’t have to because you called Vivonne yourself.”

  Sharko remained imperturbable. Anger flashed in Lucie’s face and she stood up.

  “How can you just let me walk away empty-handed? Without giving me a chance to get any answers? What am I supposed to tell Juliette when she gets older? How can I explain what happened?”

  She stormed off toward the coatrack, while Sharko stared after her, unable to breathe. He rubbed his hands over his face, feeling as if his entire world was crumbling around him.

  “Oh my god . . .” he murmured.

  At that moment, everything rushed through his head. As she was about to leave, he called out:

  “All right.”

  Somber faces turned toward him. Lucie sat down again at the table. He got up, went to the bar, and returned with paper and a pencil.

  “Can you leave right away? For maybe two or three days?”

  Lucie felt a pernicious impulse rising in her, one she thought she’d left behind forever: a dangerous excitement that annihilated all her promises. Especially the one to take care of Juliette, never leave her alone again, bring her to school every day of every week and wait for her in the afternoon. To act like a mother. The predator she’d thought dead and gone was still lurking deep inside her, and today it had reawakened.

  “Yes.”

  “I was hoping you’d say no.”

  “So was I. But I said yes.”

  A silence. A final hesitation that might have changed everything.

  “In that case, listen carefully. I spent a good part of last night at number thirty-six going through Eva Louts’s bills, account statements, and credit card charges. And I discovered something peculiar. On August 28, a bank slip says she withdrew money in Montaimont, not far from Val Thorens, in the Savoie. The day before, as if by coincidence, she had met with Carnot and the prison psychiatrist.”

  The inspector continued his rundown. He chose not to mention the part about the two trips to Latin America. Too far away, too complicated, and for the moment too incomprehensible. Lucie had to stay on the outskirts of the investigation, just close enough to make her feel she was doing something useful . . .

  “She withdrew two hundred euros, late in the evening. Montaimont is a backwater. Did she use the money for a place to stay that night? Given the amount, she couldn’t have stayed much more than the weekend, and they didn’t note any absence at the primate center. So why did she make such a rush trip to the middle of the Alps? The prison psychiatrist said that neither he nor Carnot had made any mention of that area.”

  He jotted down the name of the village and slid the paper toward Lucie.

  “Just do a quick round-trip. I’m to remain your sole contact. No one, and I mean no one, must know we’re working together on this. We haven’t been in touch.”

  “Got it.”

  “As you said, I’ll tell my colleagues I called Vivonne because I wanted to know what Louts was after. Meanwhile, you try to pick up her trail, call me with the info, and then go home to Lille. Are you in?”

  “More than ever. The mountains will make for a nice change of scenery from my day job. It’s been a year since I took a break. It might be about time. I’ll head straight there—I’ve got a change of clothes in my bag.”

  “Remember, you’re not a cop anymore.”

  “Do you have a photo of the vic?”

  The cop pulled an ID photo from inside his raincoat and handed it to her.

  “Louts was a pretty girl, barely more than a child. A loner like you, with a real zest for life. She did bungee jumping, fenced, worked hard, and had serious plans for her future. I want to find the scum who did this to her. I’ll make him pay his debt.”

  Lucie felt a slight shiver. Sharko tossed some money on the table. He also held out three hundred-euro bills to Lucie, which he peeled off a thick wad.

  “For expenses. It’s my investigation, no reason you should have to pay for it.”

  Lucie wanted to refuse the money, but he crushed it into her hand and closed her small fist over it. A sensation of warmth crept over her at his touch.

  “Take it. At least there’s no shortage of cash.”

  He stood up. He had so many questions for her—especially about Juliette—but he couldn’t bring himself to ask them. Keep his distance. Stay away from Lucie at all costs, and push away the dangerous feelings that were already taking hold of him.

  He plucked his wet raincoat from the rack just behind his shoulder.

  “Okay, then. I have to get home. Tomorrow’s another workday. One more time: the Vivonne business stays just between us.”

  Lucie remained seated. She ended up pocketing the cash, then ran her finger over the photo of Eva Louts.

  “Your phone number, Franck. I don’t have it anymore.”

  He gave it to her and buttoned his gray coat to the top. Still shaken by his unexpected run-in with Lucie, he couldn’t keep himself from asking in a low voice, “Tell me what Juliette says to you, Lucie. Does she whisper what happened to her during those thirteen days of captivity? Does she come wake you in the night? Does she resent you for it? Is she good to you?”

  Lucie paused before answering.

  “Juliette is my little angel. No matter what she says or does, I’ll always love her.”

  Sharko felt a surge of anger against himself, and he already regretted having implicated Lucie in this business. She needed to go home, to rest. He tried to take back the sheet of paper, but Lucie flattened her hand over it.

  “Why, Franck?”

  Sharko didn’t answer and contented himself with nodding good-bye. He was disgusted by his sudden emotional weakness.

  “Call me only if you get some answers,” he finally said. “And afterward, go back home.”

  He headed toward the exit and stepped out into the downpour. The storm was raging; lightning tormented the horizon. The cop felt as if he were at one with nature. Once he was alone inside his car, he let out in a murmur:

  “Why? Because we’re both cursed, Lucie, that’s why.”

  13

  The feeling of rolling through nothingness.

  Since passing Chambéry, at around midnight, Lucie had trusted only the readings from her GPS. From what the indicator said, she had about thirty miles to go.

  Alone, exhausted by the constantly winding road, she felt lost in a void. She had only one fear: that her car might break down. All around her was an apocalyptic landscape that no stars could brighten. While the mountains were probably
beautiful in daytime, at night they looked like angry titans—frozen monsters with bodies of ice, which tore the horizon to shreds and absorbed the slightest ray of light. Lucie imagined Eva Louts in the same situation, driven by a force that had pushed her to travel all those miles, toward the far edge of darkness.

  Finally, she arrived in Montaimont. Eyes burning, jaw aching, neck in tatters. On her dashboard was Eva’s photo, and next to it an empty water bottle and a sandwich wrapper, along with Franck Sharko’s phone number. Lucie could still see his scarecrowlike frame in the gloom of the café. I want to find the scum who did this to her. I’ll make him pay his debt, he’d said in a cold voice, with no trace of feeling. She had also seen all that money in his wallet. Large bills, at least two thousand euros, she’d estimated. She knew he’d received a huge life insurance settlement following the deaths of his wife and daughter. He could have taken an easy retirement somewhere in the sun, but instead he kept on scraping the worn-out streets, his wallet stuffed with unused cash. Why would he inflict that daily torture on himself?

  Back to the narrow road. Fewer than five hundred lost souls here, scattered across the foothills. The streetlamps struggled to diffuse a coppery glow.

  The GPS told her she’d reached the street with the bank machine. Under her headlights, the village center revealed a few sorry-looking shop windows. Louts must have driven up by the same route, arrived late, and withdrawn some cash, no doubt for a night’s lodgings. Lucie began exploring the nearest streets. After about ten minutes of driving around, a lit sign caught her attention.

  The Ten Marmots hotel was set back slightly from the road, at the other end of the village. An unpretentious structure, white façade, little wooden balconies, carriage entrance. A dozen rooms at most. Lucie stopped at a gravel-covered parking area and, once out of the car, stretched lustily. The fresh, sharp air made her quickly put on her jacket. Finally, she pulled her meager bag from the trunk: a pair of jeans, two T-shirts, underwear . . .