Established ateliers—Dior, St. Laurent, and Courreges—clustered in the Triangle d’Or, or Golden Triangle, between Avenues Montaigne, George-V, and the Champs-Élysées. The grande-dame of ateliers, Chanel, held court on rue Cambon. The addresses were as chic as the clothes. And they were in the opposite direction.
My fitting was with a new designer, one whose atelier was near the considerably less chic Les Halles, a thousand-year-old market.
Thor, Consuela, and I climbed into a taxi and I gave the driver the address.
The taxi driver responded with drawn brows and a very Parisian grunt (apparently, he didn’t appreciate dogs in his car).
“Where are we going?” Thor stared out the window, carefully scanning our surroundings. “Antoine Gabriel’s atelier.”
He turned his head toward me. “Atelier?”
“His studio.”
“I thought we were going to a dress shop.”
“We are.”
“But you said studio.” Thor twisted his shoulders and neck and looked out the back window. “Aren’t those for artists?”
“Antoine is an artist.” I followed his gaze. “Are you looking for something in particular?”
“Just making sure no one is following us.”
“Are they?”
His shoulders relaxed. “I don’t see anybody. You have a special occasion?”
“No. Why?”
“New clothes.”
“No occasion. It’s just a couple of dresses.”
“For no reason?” Was that judgment I heard in his voice?
“For no reason,” I confirmed. “Except, I like Antoine and me being seen in his clothes will help him.”
Thor looked doubtful. “Help him how?”
Warmth crept up my neck and into my cheeks. “There are people who pay attention to who I wear—” I looked out the window, unwilling to meet his gaze “—and where and I go and…”
“How do they know where you go?” Thor’s voice was sharp, all judgment gone.
“Sometimes I post a picture. Sometimes I get tagged.”
“Tagged?”
Apparently, John Brown’s operatives didn’t spend a lot of time on Instagram. “Tagged. On social media. And there’s the paparazzi…”
“Did you post where you were last night? That you were going for a walk?”
“No. Of course not.” I thought for a moment. “Dylan was posting pics of me as if I was still with her. Anyone following her on Instagram would have thought I was at a club. Whoever shot at me must have followed me from the hotel, spotted me at Café de la Paix, or seen me on the sidewalk.”
“Dylan who?”
“Dylan Roberts. She was on…” I still couldn’t recall the name of her show. “She’s a reality star.”
“A what?”
Did the man live under a rock? “A reality star. She’s on a reality show.”
“I don’t watch much TV.”
Apparently not.
“You and Dylan are friends?”
“I hardly know her.”
“You go clubbing with people you hardly know?”
“I went with André DuChamp. He brought Dylan.”
“Who’s André DuChamp?”
“One of my best frie—”
A Citroën cut in front of us. Our driver slammed on the taxi’s brakes, honked, and stuck his head out the window. “Putain!”
Thor reached inside his jacket.
Consuela, who sat between us, growled.
My breath caught and I clenched my hands into fists. Was it happening again? Was someone going to shoot at us?
The driver of the Citroën gave the little car some gas and it shot ahead of us.
Thor took his hand out of his jacket.
I breathed again.
The taxi driver glanced in the rearview mirror and said, “Ce mec conduit comme un fou.”
“Oui.” I nodded my agreement and relaxed my fingers.
“What did he say?” asked Thor.
“The other driver was crazy.”
A few minutes later, the taxi delivered us to Antoine’s atelier. I paid the fare, and we climbed out of the taxi.
Consuela stopped and sniffed the trunk of a horse chestnut tree.
Thor took my arm. “We should get inside.”
“Fine.” I tugged gently on Consuela’s leash.
Thor pushed open the door to Antoine’s storefront.
I breezed past him and found the front room empty. “Antoine?” I called. “Es-tu ici?”
Thor followed me inside and gaped as if he’d never been in a boutique before. Maybe he hadn’t. Or maybe he’d never seen one like Antoine’s. The floor was black concrete polished to an impossibly high shine. The walls were painted the palest shade of shell pink. A chandelier dripping thousands of crystals hung from an exposed structural beam. Velvet poofs two shades darker than the walls dotted the floor. Two gilt fauteuils upholstered in camouflage flanked the three-way mirror. Champagne (Pol Roger, not Krug) chilled on a bar cart.
On this, the prêt-à-porter side of his space, Antoine sold tulle skirts paired with vintage T-shirts, pencil-leg pants coupled with oversized trench coats, linen scarves in ice-cream hues, and jean jackets hand embroidered with wild, colorful designs.
“Antoine?” I called.
There was still no answer.
I tried again. “Gaston?” Gaston was Antoine’s partner in business and in life.
He didn’t answer either.
Consuela sniffed and growled deep in her throat.
Thor reached inside his jacket and jerked his head toward the door to the street. He wanted me to leave.
I nodded. Something was off, and chills were creeping and crawling up and down my neck. “Fine. Let’s go.”
My hand closed around the door handle.
“Wait!” Antoine exploded through the rose velvet curtain hiding the hallway to his work room and stumbled over his own feet. “I thought I heard you.” His usually cultured voice was unnaturally high, his hair was mussed, and there was a crazed look in his eyes.
“Is everything all right?” I asked. “Ça va?”
“Everything is fine. Perfect now that you’re here.” Antoine pulled me into a hug and kissed the air next to my cheek. “You are—” his voice was barely a whisper. He switched cheeks “—in danger.”
Again?
He moved in for the third kiss and I murmured, “What’s happening?”
His answer was a tiny jerk of his head toward the curtain.
“Where’s Gaston?”
Tears welled in his eyes.
My insides chilled as if they were being flash-frozen. “I know I have clothes to try on—” I spoke at regular volume in case we were being watched or listened to “—but I want to see those jackets. They’re new since I was last here.” They weren’t. “They’re gorgeous.” They were. “I might be obsessed.”
I grabbed Antoine’s arm and led him toward the embroidered denim. “Tell me about this one.” I held up a jacket with a dragon winding across its back and hid our faces from anyone watching from the work room. “Is he all right?”
“They have him tied up.” Antoine covered his mouth with his hand and squinched his eyes closed. “They have a gun to his head.”
“Why?”
“They want you.” Antoine’s voice was watery.
My heart stuttered to a momentary stoppage. “How many?”
“Trois. Three.”
“Mark,” I trilled. “Come here. I need your opinion.”
Thor, who’d been standing by the door, alternating between frowning at Antoine and scowling at passersby on the pavement outside the store, walked over to the display of jean jackets.
“I want to try this one.” I turned my back on the curtain and pulled the dragon embroidered jacket on over my sweater. “There are three bad guys in the back,” I whispered. “They’re holding Antoine’s partner.”
Thor didn’t react. His expression remained the same. There was no sudden stiffness in his shoulders, no tightening near his eyes. He simply said, “You need to get out of here.”
“No!” Antoine shouted. All the color bled out of his cheeks. He glanced over his shoulder at the curtain, then grabbed another jacket and thrust it into my hands. “This is the one for you. I’ll help you.” He moved behind me, yanking the dragon jean jacket I was wearing away from my shoulders. “They said if you walked out the front door, if I warned you, they’d kill him.”
And he’d warned me anyway.
Why hadn’t the men in back just shot me? Here in the store, I was an easy target.
I glanced at Thor. “We have to help Gaston.”
He shook his head. “My job is to protect you.”
As if I’d leave a friend in trouble. “You know—” I put a smile in my voice “—I think you’re right, Antoine.” I moved toward the three-way mirror. “This jacket is fabulous. If you pour me a glass of Champagne, the decision to buy it will be easier.”
Both men looked at me as if I’d lost my mind, but Antoine poured wine into a flute and handed it to me.
“Merci.” I walked toward the curtain, stopping only to tell Consuela, “Do not follow me.”
“Poppy.” There was a warning in Thor’s voice.
Yip. There was a warning in Consuela’s bark. She had no intention of minding me. I scooped her up and handed her to Antoine. “Keep her safe,” I whispered. Then, louder, I added, “I’ll only be a minute.” I pulled back the curtain.
Thor reached for me.
I slipped through his grasp and into the hallway.
The empty hallway.
I hurried down its length toward Antoine’s workroom.
Thor caught me, his hand like a shackle around my arm. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Were we being watched?
“I’m not done yet, dear.” I smiled up at him and took a sip of Champagne. “This fitting won’t take long.”
He tugged me in the other direction.
I narrowed my eyes. “I know you’re dying to get to the Louvre, but I simply must get those dresses fitted.”
He bent down and whispered, “This is too dangerous.”
“The only way you’re getting me out of here is if you drag me,” I whispered back.
“And I thought your mother was a pain in the ass.”
“You did?” For a moment I forgot all about poor Gaston. Thor had seen through Chariss? Men never saw through Chariss.
“She drank your coffee. She ate your croissant. She hit on your bodyguard.” He tugged on me again.
“You’re a very nice man, but I’m not leaving.”
He muttered something about me getting us both killed.
I shook off his grasp and took another step. “Gaston?” I called. “Antoine said you’d pin me. Where do you want me?”
“In here.” Gaston’s pitch was strangled and high.
I drained my Champagne and broke the flute against the wall.
Thor just rolled his eyes. What good was one broken bit of crystal against three killers? At least he held a Glock.
“Poppy?” Gaston called. “What happened?”
“I’m so sorry, Gaston. The glass slipped through my fingers. Do you have a broom?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
I closed my hand around the curtain and yanked.
There were three men—just as Antoine had said. One beefy, one scrawny, one scarred. The beefy one held a gun to Gaston’s head. The other two pointed guns at me.
They hadn’t counted on Thor.
Bang.
He shot the scarred man, the one nearest me.
The body thudded to the floor before I had time to blink.
The scrawny man swung the muzzle of his gun away from me and pointed it at Thor.
A long second passed and no one moved. I didn’t breathe.
A trickle of sweat ran down the scrawny man’s temple.
The beefy man with the gun pressed to Gaston’s head watched with a mixture of horror and rage on his face.
The men were at an impasse.
I was not. I lunged forward. The sharp edges of the jagged Champagne flute met the beefy man’s throat and entered his skin. Sickening.
He made a bloody, bubbly sound, dropped his gun, and clasped the glasses stem with both hands.
I scrabbled for his pistol, slipped in the scarred man’s blood, and landed on my bruised knees. Hell! I stretched and grabbed for the gun.
Too late. When I flipped over, the scrawny man had a Glock pointed at my forehead.
Bang!
The gunshot reverberated off the concrete floors—reverberated through my spine and heart and lungs.
The scrawny man toppled to the floor.
Gaston’s eyes rolled back in his head and his chin fell forward. He’d reached his limit of guns and death. He was out cold.
Thor stepped over the scrawny man’s body and grabbed the bleeding beefy man. “Who sent you?”
“Alluha Akbar.” The man reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a wicked knife.
“Watch out!” I lifted the pistol I’d recovered from the floor and pulled the trigger.
The light faded from the beefy man’s eyes as crimson blossomed across his chest. Thor was left holding dead weight.
“Dammit!” Thor’s cheeks flushed a deep red and the space above his nose furrowed until his brows touched.
I scooted away—from him and from the growing sea of blood. “He was going to stab you.”
“He had information.” Thor let the beefy man’s body fall to the floor. “You ever seen any of these guys before?”
“No.” I’d been expecting sicarios. The dead men looked Middle Eastern.
He rubbed the back of his hand across the bridge of his nose, then kicked a blameless poof. “Dammit, dammit, dammit!”
The poof tipped and rolled through a pool of blood.
I didn’t move.
Thor scanned the dressing room, spotted a black nylon duffle, and ripped it open. “What the—”
“What?” My voice was barely there.
He held up a bag of zip ties and a roll of duct tape.
That made no sense. They wanted me dead. Why bother with the accoutrements of a kidnapping?
“What kind of gun is that?” Thor demanded.
I glanced down at the pistol still gripped in my hand and squinted at the engraving. “Ed Brown.”
“May I see it?” His voice was tight, controlled.
I held the gun out to him.
He took it and his eyes narrowed. “This is a Special Forces Carry.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It’s expensive. It costs upwards of two thousand dollars.”
I waited for him to tell me more.
His lips thinned till they disappeared. “These guys weren’t well trained. And—” he used the gun’s muzzle to point at the baggie of zip ties “—they weren’t here to kill you. So how did they get their hands on a top-of-the-line gun?”
I wasn’t worried about the label on the gun—my mind was still on the zip ties. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.”
Gaston moaned.
I’d forgotten all about him. I stumbled to his chair. His hands were tied behind his back. “Gaston, are you all right?”
He groaned again and opened his red-rimmed eyes. “Antoine? Is he—”
“He’s fine.”
“Thank God.” Gaston closed his eyes on the carnage.
I couldn’t blame him for closing his eyes. Antoine’s workroom looked like something from a nightmare—awash with blood and scented with death. I swallowed. “Tho—Mark, is there a knife in that bag?”
Thor opened the bag wider and dug out a wicked-looking dagger.
“Would you please cut Gaston loose?”
Thor cut the ties.
With his arms free, Gaston hugged himself. And shook. Like a leaf.
“What are we going to do about this?” I asked.
“This?”
How could Thor not understand this? There were three bodies at our feet. I was responsible for one of them. I waved my hand at all of them.
He rubbed his chin, considering. “I’ll call Mr. Brown. He knows someone at the National Police.”
“The National Police?”
“It’s like the French FBI.”
“Maybe you should call Mr. Brown now. Right away.”
He stared at me for a long second, then nodded and took a few steps toward the hall.
“Mark—”
He stopped walking.
“How did they know I’d be here?”
He tilted his head. “What do you mean?”
“These guys were waiting for me. I’ve never posted about coming here. I’ve never mentioned Antoine or his clothes. How did they know I was coming?”
Thor scowled at Gaston. “Did you or your partner—”
“We would never!” Gaston sounded outraged.
“Ever!” Antoine had ventured down the hallway. He held Consuela, squirming in his arms.
Yip!
Antoine put my dog down and hurried to Gaston’s side. “Are you all right?” Ignoring the blood on the floor, he fell to his knees and wrapped his arms around his partner’s waist.
Gaston lowered his forehead until it brushed the top of Antoine’s head. “I’m all right, thanks to Poppy and her friend.”
If it weren’t for me, they wouldn’t have been in danger.
Yip. Consuela sat at my feet, demanding my attention. I picked her up and she licked my chin.
“Did any of these men say what they wanted?” Thor looked very Thor-like with his shoulders thrown back and his feet planted just beyond the gore.
“They wanted Poppy,” Gaston replied.
Guilt twisted inside me. The men had come for me, but they’d terrorized Gaston and Antoine.
Yip. Consuela had no patience for guilt.
“What exactly did they say?” Thor insisted.
Gaston shook his head. “They mainly spoke Arabic.”
Antoine nodded. “The only time they spoke French was when they told me they’d kill Gaston if Poppy left.”
“How did they know I’d be here?” I really wanted an answer to that question.
“Maybe they hacked your cell,” said Antoine. “I read about that happening in Le Figaro. Do you keep a calendar on your phone?”
I did.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and opened the calendar. There it was, the only entry for today: Antoine Gabriel’s, with his address and a timeframe. My fingers tightened, and I drew my arms back, ready to throw the phone to the concrete floor and grind it to dust beneath my heel (or maybe Thor’s heel—my Tod’s weren’t really made for destroying electronics).
“Wait!” Thor held up a hand, stopping me.
“Why?” I felt as if the cell in my palm had betrayed me. “They can track me.”
“Yeah, and we can set a trap.”