Paris held many secrets. Sutton wanted to discover them all. She rose early, brushed her hair into a thick ponytail, put on a pair of dark New Balance sneakers, threw her laptop in her bag. Today was for exploring. She needed a change of scenery.
She didn’t know where she was headed, just grabbed the first train at the Metro and rode for fifteen minutes. She’d gone north, across the Seine. She didn’t recognize many of the stops, but one name pulled at her consciousness. Montmartre. Constantine had told her the light from Sacré-Coeur was some of the most amazing in all of Paris. He’d suggested they meet there for lunch today. Perfect. She’d visit the cathedral, see the sights, settle in to write at a café nearby (there was always a café nearby, this was Paris), then, if she so desired, would walk down the hill and meet him for lunch.
She gathered her bag and stood. When the train stopped, she waited for the doors to open. Nothing happened. A teenager knocked her in the shoulder as he reached for a small metal latch and opened the door. Oh. Tourist move there, Justine.
She climbed the stairs to the surface, a periwinkle emerging from the sand. She’d never need to exercise at this rate. Paris was nothing if not filled with stairs. The street appeared before her. It had a different feel than her neighborhood, immediately more cramped and artsy. She thought of Constantine then, the thick arms that had held her—well, no, not really held, more pinned her down. He’d been rough, and she’d enjoyed it, though now, looking back, she felt like things weren’t as blissful as she’d made them out to be. Revisionist history, tainted by alcohol. Her specialty.
Instinct told her meeting him, continuing this dalliance, was a bad idea. She knew better. She knew she should be more careful. She’d just been feeling so reckless, and the alcohol had gone to her head. She still felt ill. Regret and a two-day hangover, the breakfast of champion writers everywhere. Great.
So why was she even considering meeting him? She should blow him off, let him disappear into the fabric of the city, like she was trying to do. Connections were the last things she wanted.
He wouldn’t like it. She could tell he’d been very interested in her. A strong miasma of desire and dread filled her. You are a stupid fool, Justine. To risk all you’ve overcome to please yet another man. She wanted to see him badly; she didn’t ever want to see him again.
She took the funicular to the top, surprised to find it empty. The path was also quiet in the early morning. She walked in silence for a few moments, her sole companion a small black cat with white socks who mewed happily in a friendly French manner when she stopped to scratch his ears.
Constantine was right. As she emerged from the winding, leafy path from the funicular and made her way to the church grounds, the city unfolded before her. Rooftops and cathedrals, the lone skyscraper in Montparnasse straight ahead, the aggressive, thrusting buildings of La Défense to her right. Greens and golds and white, painfully beautiful to behold. It was as if she were the only person standing on the top of the world. The white marble of the cathedral so perfectly lit in the sun, the brightness nearly burned her eyes.
She shut them, took a breath. This was something she’d wanted for so long, and here she was, feeling more alone than she’d ever been.
Ethan.
The name came like a whisper on the breeze.
What was he doing? Did he miss her? Was he so thrilled to have her out of his house, his life, that he was planning a huge party?
She shouldn’t have done it this way. But she knew if she’d told him she wanted out, really out, divorce and separate lives out, he would talk her down from the ledge and she’d be stuck. He was so good with his words when he wanted to be. A clean break, disappearing from her life, it was the only way. She wasn’t strong enough to do it otherwise. She was so broken lately. The past year had been hell incarnate.
People arrived, flowing around her. The spell quickly broke in the face of their intrusion. So many languages. So many colors. She wanted to be alone again. She walked to the western edge of the courtyard. There she saw two flics, and it seemed like they were guarding something. She walked closer, but one held up a hand and barked, “Arrête.” Stop.
She froze. She could see now there were many people beyond the perimeter. He approached, speaking rapid French. “What are you doing here? You need to leave, right away. This area is closed.”
She smiled and nodded. “I’m so sorry. Is it construction?”
“No. Move along, now.”
He went back to his partner and took up his station again, hands on hips, legs spread, frowning at her. With a last glance at the knot of people down the hill, she walked back the way she’d come, through the leafy green canopy to a small square. There was no way to be alone now, which was a shame. She’d felt something deep connecting her to the city atop the hill. Something strong and good. A beginning, maybe. Or an end.
Winding down the hill, past the artists who’d been painting the sunrise over the city, she took a seat at the first café she saw, asked for coffee and a croissant, opened her laptop. As she was putting in her earbuds, two women took the table next to her. She couldn’t help but tune in when she heard the tone of their voices, so unlike the usual happy babble of the Parisian café. This was filled with dread and wonder and excitement.
“Did you hear? About the murder? A young American couple. Pierre said their bodies are still up there.”
“I heard they were gutted.”
“I heard she was beheaded.”
“These terrorists are ruining our city.”
“Pierre spoke to the flics. It was not terror. They were targeted. It was cold-blooded murder. In our backyard, no less.”
Sutton felt a small frisson. It was rude, frowned upon, to eavesdrop, but Sutton couldn’t help herself. She needed to know more.
“Excusez-moi. Le meurtre des Américains, c’était où?” Where?
The women turned. They were so classically French, at once painfully plain and yet ethereally beautiful, one brunette, one blonde, both perfect, elegant, lines on their foreheads, no makeup outside of a swipe of red lipstick, their hair in identical styles, shoulder-length, straight, flipped up on the ends.
In English, the brunette replied, gesturing over Sutton’s shoulder, “Sacré-Coeur. You’re American?”
“I am.”
“You should go home, and you need to be careful. If there are murderers about, Paris is dangerous for a young woman such as yourself.”
Their breakfast interrupted, the two women stood and left.
Normally Sutton would be hurt by the brusque exchange, but she ignored their slight. The two flics, on the back side of Sacré-Coeur. Had they been guarding the bodies of the two young Americans who’d been murdered?
She tied in to the café’s Wi-Fi, pulled up the website of French24, the English language website and news station she’d been watching online for the few weeks prior to leaving. The murder was the lede, the details thin.
She read rapidly. The Americans were young but unidentified, only named as exchange students. The cause of death was not listed.
She gulped down her coffee, wrapped the croissant in the paper napkin, packed away her laptop. There was no peace in the day for her anymore.
She starting winding her way down the hill. Half a block later she came across a flower stand. So many gorgeous blooms, all the colors of the rainbow. Those children—it was hard to think of anyone in school still as an adult—dead by a stranger’s hand in the most beautiful city in the world. It broke her heart.
She plucked a bunch from the water, paid for it, then trudged back up the hill. She didn’t know why she felt the need to mark their deaths—these two were nothing to her—and yet she was compelled. Maybe the fact that they were Americans, maybe that she’d come close again to death and the flowers were a sort of protection against it following her home. She didn’t know, and she didn’t care.
She walked directly to the white steps of the cathedral, set the flowers there, whispered a short prayer, and hurried away.