part0045

The examination went quickly. She was discharged with some pain medication for headaches. She had a scraped knee but no other serious injuries. As she washed what remained of Gerard Louis’s blood off her legs and shoes in the hospital’s restroom, she was trying to figure out how to trap the powerful Hervé Simone. At least he had apparently had the police abandon the search for the gun-toting American in Paris. A gunman was still on the loose though. Simone’s leaving her in Thierry’s care seemed to her counterintuitive. She couldn’t figure out every angle of Simone’s rather elaborate plan, so she gave up trying. Instead, she examined the blue-black contusion on her forehead and finger-parted her hair so that one side covered it.

“I need to leave Europe,” she said, as she exited the bathroom. They began walking towards the boat launch to await the police escort.

“I was thinking the same thing.”

She exhaled. “Good. I was hoping you wouldn’t try to convince me to stay.”

“We will go by way of the United Kingdom first thing tomorrow morning.”

“We’re speaking French again?” Havilah pulled the ties of her wrap dress tighter and retied them.

“You cannot possibly think I would let you leave without me. If I am traveling with you, Hervé Simone will have no reason to suspect you are trying to get back to the United States.”

“I hadn’t thought about that. When does he expect us back?”

“I never said. The point is he suspects nothing and we must act as if he suspects nothing.”

“Bellisima ,” the policeman escort said directly to Havilah. “She is beautiful, your wife,” he repeated in English in case Thierry hadn’t understood.

“Grazie. I was just admiring her myself.”

“Prego .”

Havilah remembered that Italian men could be notoriously forthright in their opinions about beauty, especially when it came to women. They were far more aggressive than French men in such matters. And they certainly didn’t care if the woman was escorted by another man. At least the officer had done Thierry the courtesy of recognizing that the two of them were together— even if they weren’t husband and wife. She suspected he’d only done that because he knew Thierry was with law enforcement. Otherwise, he might have begun a full-on macking session.

“I am just glad you are alive, Professor Havilah Gaie. I thought I had lost you back there.” He took a lock of her hair and began to twirl it lightly between his fingers, following the curl pattern.

“And I am glad to be alive, Agent Thierry Gasquet. I can’t begin to thank you enough.”

At that moment, she didn’t care about Claire or anything else. She was grateful to him. So she hugged him. She marveled at how he managed to still smell so good after a hellish 24 hours.

“I need to buy some daywear. This outfit is getting old.” She laughed, as she released him from her embrace, in order to avoid the intensity of her attraction to him.

He reached for her again. “Allow me five minutes, Havilah. To imagine something different than right now. We are in Venice. A Romantic city. That is what I had in mind when I planned this trip. The train ride. The film festival. The hotel. Separate rooms.” He smiled. She had to giggle at his playfulness.

“Can you do that? Imagine something different?” He put his hand around her waist and brought her closer.

She shook her head yes. They began a slow dance under the dark sky to some tune in both their heads. They didn’t speak. She placed her head on his shoulder and wrapped her arms around his neck. And then the police boat pulled up to the launch. Not quite five minutes. Thierry assisted her into the police water cruiser.

“Professor Havilah Gaie?” the driver inquired as she entered the boat.

“Yes?”

“There is a call for you on our line.”

She and Thierry looked at each other quizzically as if to ask who could have found her here on this boat in this city at this hour?

“How are you feeling?” the husky man’s voice inquired when she took the telephone from the driver.

“Who is this?”

“You don’t recognize my voice? That really saddens me. Nous sommes tous foutus .”