2

Venice? I looked at my watch: the plane was scheduled to leave in five hours, at two p.m. I printed the boarding pass, folded it into my pocket, and erased my session history before logging out of the computer. Not using credit cards was one thing, but I had business to take care of and there were people who would worry if they didn’t hear from me. I spotted a couple of pay phones against a side wall of the café. At the service counter, I bought a café au lait and a prepaid calling card, using cash, so that I could tell my grandmother that I had arrived. Otherwise, she would summon Interpol to track me down.

“Ah!” Grand-mère said, clearly surprised when she heard my voice. “It’s you, my dear. I didn’t recognize the number. Where are you now?”

“Paris,” I said.

“With Jean-Paul?” she said with a satisfied little sigh in her voice. My grandmother is in love with the idea that I am in love with her old friend’s handsome son.

“Not yet. I’ll see him tonight. My phone died, Grand-mère, so while the cleaners are working at Isabelle’s apartment I ducked into a café to let you know I’m here.”

“The cleaners are there now? Why are the cleaners there now? Freddy gave very clear instructions to Madame Gonsalves to have the place cleaned last Monday. I heard him repeat the date twice. Such inefficiency! Why they keep that woman is a mystery to me. Useless. She is simply useless.”

“Maybe she’s losing her hearing and didn’t quite understand the message,” I offered, thinking about the volume of her television. “I’m leaving some of my things at the apartment, but I won’t be staying. At least, not for a while.”

“Of course.” She was happy again. “You’re going to Jean-Paul.”

“Yes. We’re getting away for a few days. I’ll let you know when I’m back.”

“When you get back, I know you’ll bring Jean-Paul for a visit, won’t you? It isn’t such a long drive from Paris to Normandy. Or you can take the train to Caen and I’ll have Freddy pick you up. I’ve decided that since he’s here building his cottages I’ll just stay for the winter. Besides, my big old house in Paris costs too much to heat.”

“I imagine it does,” I said, though I doubted her big old stone farmhouse in Normandy was any more economical to heat than her townhouse in Paris. I suspected that having Freddy nearby was at the heart of her decision. “I’ll speak with Jean-Paul about a visit. See you then.”

“À bientôt, ma chère Maggie. My best to your Jean-Paul.”

The next call was to my Uncle Max in Los Angeles. Max is both my lawyer and my agent, and my primary fusspot among several contenders. I called his message-only number to let him know that I was fine, that the meeting with French television was set for Monday morning, and that I would be in touch in a few days. I assured him that my film production partner, Guido, was on his way back to L.A. to get started on post-production of the unexploded bomb film. No worries. Honestly, no worries. And by the way, my phone died so don’t try to call me.

As far as I knew I hadn’t lied to him. But then, I didn’t know enough about what was going on to lie about much of anything.

My next issue was money. I rarely carry very much cash. At the airport, I had exchanged the rest of my Ukrainian hryvnia for euros, but after paying for the taxi in from de Gaulle that morning, and then for the computer time and a phone card, I was broke. Jean-Paul asked me not to use credit cards or an ATM, but that was not actually a problem because I had another source for cash.

Freddy and I were co-heirs of our mother, Isabelle’s, complex estate. A year and a half after her death, the estate was still generally tied up by various arcane French inheritance laws and procedures. However, there was one account, a tontine, separate from the estate, that had been set up jointly by my late father and Isabelle naming me, their natural child, as their equal owner as a strategy to circumvent all sorts of tax and inheritance laws. As the sole survivor of the tontine, the funds now belonged to me alone. Out of everything I was to inherit from Isabelle, whom I had not known, her share of the tontine was the only asset I felt entitled to because it came to me far more from my father’s efforts than it did from hers.

Dad had worked on an energy-related process for many years before Isabelle came along. Ordinarily, a graduate student, as she was then, who spent a single year assisting on a research project, would expect to receive no more than a mention somewhere in any paper he might publish, as well as the possibility of presenting the research with him at a professional conference or two. And nothing more. However, Dad split the significant earnings from patents on the process with Isabelle as a way to support me, their love child. Neither of them is around to ask, but I suspect he continued with the arrangement after he took me from her as a way of paying her off.

As soon as I learned about the tontine, I made sure that Mom received a regular allowance from Dad’s share of that account, small compensation for her husband’s infidelity and for all the years of putting up with me, the product of Dad’s infidelity. But, so far, I had only made personal withdrawals from Isabelle’s share to cover incidental expenses when I was in Europe; a little play money, as it were. After Jean-Paul’s cautions about using cards or making electronic withdrawals, I decided that it was time to tap into what had become a substantial pot. In person.

——

Monsieur Revere, the banker who oversees the tontine account, seemed genuinely happy to see me. But he always does when I reassure him that I intend to leave the account right where it is, in his care. On that cold February morning, he was casually elegant in the way that French men can’t help being, wearing a navy sweater vest under a beautifully tailored charcoal suit. With graceful, easy charm, he ushered me into his office. Before I had settled into the deep brocade chair in front of his polished desk, hot tea and tiny pastries were brought in and set in front of me by an assistant. This, I had learned, was protocol; refreshments and pleasantries first, business second.

I was hungry, very hungry. But I restrained myself and only took two little pastries, savoring them; has anything ever been as delicious as something, anything, fresh from a French bakery?

“Your family is well?” he asked.

“I haven’t seen them since Christmas,” I said. “But, yes, everyone seems to be fine. And your wife?”

His eyes sparkled when he said, “My dear wife is very well, indeed. Our daughter tells us we’re to become grandparents during summer.”

“Congratulations. How wonderful for you all,” I said. “I’m sorry for the circumstance, but I enjoyed meeting your wife last spring. She will be a wonderful grandmother.”

“I’ll pass that sentiment to her.” The sparkle was gone from his eyes when, after a sip of tea, he asked, “And your brother, Frédéric, how is he faring?”

“Freddy’s coping, I think. Staying busy with his boys and his building project.”

“I hope he doesn’t bear ill-will toward me. If there had been any way I could have gotten out of testifying about your accounts at his wife’s trial, I certainly would have welcomed it.”

“He understands, Monsieur Revere. You did no more than audit the books. His wife committed the crime.”

“A sad business, embezzlement,” he said with a sigh. “Very sad.”

“Indeed.”

“So, Madame,” he said, pouring me a second cup of tea, a signal that it was time to get to my reason for coming. “A little withdrawal, I understand. How much would you like?”

I took a third tiny pastry and nibbled off a corner while I thought about that innocuous question. How much cash would I need when I got to Venice, and what would I need it for? Maybe hotels? Another airline ticket? Food? Ransom? I had a vivid imagination, but no facts.

“Not so little this time,” I said. His eyebrows rose. “Ten thousand, please. In cash.”

“Euros, not dollars?”

“Yes, euros. Is that a problem?”

“No. Of course, the funds are available. But, Madame, that is a great deal of cash to carry around. Perhaps you would prefer it in the form of a counter check?”

“No, cash please.” I set the empty teacup on the desk and leaned forward to look him in the eye. “Monsieur Revere, do you have any idea how much a Paris couturier-original gown might cost, even if it has been worn once?”

“Ah, yes, I see.” He relaxed visibly, smiling, a man who knows women well. “A private sale. What denominations would you prefer?”

“One hundreds, I think. Anything larger can be cumbersome to use. And I’d like one thousand of it in small bills, please.”

“As you wish. Please excuse me for just a moment. More tea?”

“No thank you,” I said. For the next ten minutes, I looked everywhere in that handsome office except at the four perfect little pastries still on the plate in front of me. I needed food, real food, and not a belly full of sugary, buttery treats, no matter how delectable they were. When M. Revere returned, he resumed his seat and counted out ten thousand euros in front of me on the desk. When I nodded, he zipped the cash into an elegant green leather pouch and presented it to me.

“Enjoy your gown, Madame,” he said with a little flourish. “And welcome back to Paris.”

Welcome back, indeed. I hadn’t actually lied to him, either, and it truly was genteel of him to have concern for my safety. But before I felt better about telling him about a beautiful dress I would never buy, I had to remind myself that it was none of his business what I wanted my money for. I shook his hand, thanked him very much, wished him well, and walked out into the bank lobby. I stopped long enough to transfer the thousand in small bills into my own wallet. As I walked back toward the apartment on rue Jacob, I kept a hand in the coat pocket that held the cash-stuffed leather pouch, lest it fall out or get lifted by sticky fingers, and entertained myself imagining the grand party I was not wearing that couturier dress to, one I would expect to enter on the arm of Jean-Paul. Along the way, I stopped at a bakery for a take-out sandwich—French ham and cheese in a length of baguette with tomato and fresh basil—and at a greengrocer for a few apples. The next stop was a small neighborhood electronics shop.

“I need a prepaid telephone, please,” I told the much-tattooed young clerk behind the counter; I wanted a burner phone of my own. I would do as Jean-Paul asked and leave my phone in Paris, but I’d be damned if I would disconnect myself entirely. During the two days that I spent shuffling through airports, rescheduling missed connections and cancelled flights without a phone, I became keenly aware how much I depended on the damn things to tend to essential business, to stay connected with those I care about, to find my way around, and even to know what the weather is going to be. I caught the clerk’s attention and said, “Make that three.”

“Three?” A terrorist or a drug runner can look like anyone, and it seemed that the clerk was trying to decide whether I was someone to worry about. Who needs three prepaid, therefore unregistered, untraceable telephones?

With a broad American smile, the sort that makes the more restrained French think we might be half wits, I said, “Have you any idea how exorbitant the telephone bill might be for a parent on vacation in Europe with three teenagers who send endless texts and photos and posts to their friends in the States without any regard for the cost of transmitting data? The national debt would pale in comparison.”

Of course, he said, he understood. What model would I like? He showed me several. I wanted to be able to remove the battery so I needed phones that did not have a solid case. When I suggested that I would likely need to change SIM cards as we moved about the world, he raised his eyebrows, but showed me a model with a snap-off back. The battery was just below the SIM card slot. I said, Yes, please, three of those. How much time will we load onto the phones? We talked it over like old friends and he suggested that we start with two hours each and when they were used up the kids could spend their own money to reload them, n’est-ce pas? I answered, “Oui, d’accord,” and the deal was done.

On the counter, there was a display promoting prepaid credit cards. Sometimes cash is useless, such as when you need to make flight or hotel arrangements over the phone or the Internet. While the clerk was distracted, activating my phones, out of his line of sight I unzipped the green leather bank pouch, counted out thirty bills, and tucked them into my wallet. When the clerk came back I pointed to the display and said, “And three of those, please.”

He needed a moment to think about that before he asked, “For what amounts?”

I smiled. “A thousand euros each should do it.”

“Your children are very fortunate to have such a generous parent,” he said as he pulled three cards from a locked drawer. With a smile, he added, “Maybe you’d like to adopt me?”

I laughed. “I have my hands full as it is. But if I decide to trade one in, I’ll call you first.”

Transactions complete, the affable clerk tucked my purch­ases into a plastic bag and shook my hand. “Enjoy your travels, Madame.”

I wished him farewell, took the handle of the bag, and turned for the door just as a man came in from outside, letting in a gust of icy air. The shop was very narrow and the man, a very large man enveloped in a very large coat pulled up over his chin, seemed to fill up most of the available space. He wore a knit watch cap pulled down so low over his brows that all I could see of his face between collar and cap were pale, almost colorless gray eyes and a cold-reddened nose. He trained those pale eyes on me long enough to make me uncomfortable. Nodding toward the door, which he blocked with his bulk, I said, “Excuse me.”

Instead of moving out of the way, as I expected, he pulled off his cap and grinned at me. “We’ve met, have we not?”

I took a good look at him. He was tall and very blond. Not beauty-salon blond, but the real thing; nearly translucent hair, eyebrows, lashes. Because I make films that have my name and face all over them, and that are regularly broadcast on an American television network, it isn’t unusual for people to recognize me. Or to think they recognize me. Offscreen, walking around, I do not wear TV makeup or have my hair styled and lacquered in place, so when people recognize me it is more common that they think that we went to school together or shop at the same supermarket than to realize that I have a face they saw on the television in their living room. Also, because of what I do for a living, I meet a lot of people. Many I remember, more I do not. When I saw this man’s pale eyes and white hair, I knew that I had never seen him before. My first thought was that he was looking for female company and had pegged me for a fellow tourist. Even if all he wanted was a little chitchat, I wasn’t interested. I said, with what I hoped was a modestly polite smile, “No, sorry. I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“Yes, I’m sure of it,” he persisted, holding his cap against his chest. I could not place his accent. Not quite British. Dutch or Scandinavian with a British education? Eastern European? “Perhaps over a coffee we could discover where we knew each other.”

“Thank you for the offer, but I’m afraid I haven’t time.” I gestured toward the door. “If I may.”

“Ah! Sorry, yes.” After some complicated choreography, he shifted a bit to one side and held the door open for me. As I ducked under his outstretched arm, which put me uncomfortably close to his body, he said, “It’s cold, ja?”

I answered, “Oui,” though he had spoken to me in English, the first person to do so all day. During the last year and a half, I had become quite proficient with French. So, what was there about me that clued him, I wondered, as I went out into the cold?

When I turned onto rue Jacob, I saw the two cleaning women walking away from number seven, and felt relieved. With them gone, I would have a quiet place to relax, to eat without getting jostled, perhaps to get a brief nap, and to figure out what to pack for a jaunt to Venice when I had no idea what I might need.

Mme Gonsalves intercepted me as I came through the gates. “Madame MacGowen, a delivery arrived for you.”

She handed me a white paper bag imprinted with a green cross, a pharmacy bag. I thanked her and took it without asking any of the questions running through my mind, and refrained from opening it right there where she could see the contents, though I suspected that if she were curious she could have opened the bag when it arrived. Instead I crossed the courtyard and went straight up to Isabelle’s apartment, clutching the bag against my chest. I didn’t know what was going on, but seeing the green cross on the bag was not reassuring. As soon as I had locked the front door behind me, I hung my purchases on a hall tree hook and opened the white bag.

Two prescription vials with large white tablets, a box of sterile gauze pads, a roll of surgical tape and a tube of antibiotic ointment. I examined the labels on the bottles. I know enough about drugs to recognize what they were: an antibiotic and a generic for hydrocodone-acetaminophen, a painkiller. My name was on both prescriptions, but someone else was sick and in pain, and because the prescribing physician was Jean-Paul’s brother-in-law, Émile Lepage, I was afraid they were intended for Jean-Paul.

Fear can make you stupid. And so can fatigue. I sat down and made myself breathe, to think. Jean-Paul had sounded all right on the phone. He coughed once, and that meant absolutely nothing. He kept the conversation brief and on message, the arrangements he made for me had taken some care and attention, so at least he was coherent when we spoke. For the next three and a half hours, until my plane departed for Venice, I needed to keep that in mind and not to imagine seventeen dire scenarios. The best way to do that was to get busy.

First, I plugged in the burner phones so that they would be fully charged when I needed them. Next was the issue of what to bring. In the armoire of the bedroom Freddy’s sons shared, I found a good, somewhat worn backpack. Into it went a couple of changes of my freshly laundered underwear, some silk long johns, a black turtleneck, black wool slacks, a string of pearls because one never knows, a red Pashmina, two T-shirts, a black V-neck sweater, and the usual toiletries kit. When the phones were charged, I pulled the batteries out. I found three zip-top sandwich bags in a kitchen drawer and put a phone, a charger, and a battery into each one. I changed into fresh jeans—my own—and put one of the cell phones into my pocket. The other two went into the backpack with the pharmacy bag. I zipped up the backpack and set it beside the front door, ready to go.

My two big suitcases were still in the vestibule where I had left them. To get them out of sight, I lugged them into the boys’ room and shoved them into the armoire. Before I closed the door, it occurred to me that by using only disposable phones, I could be functionally without a camera, and I’m never without a camera. From the larger bag, the camera bag, I selected a palm-sized high-definition video cam that also took good still shots, and packed it along with an extra battery pack and two photo storage cards into a fitted case that went into the backpack.

My own coat was still damp, so I decided to hang on to Freddy’s coat. It was waterproof, warm, and had deep pockets for phone, money, and passport. When the coat pockets were packed and buttoned shut, I cleaned the boots I had arrived in and pulled them on. I was ready to go, and there were still three hours until departure. With nothing else to do, I decided that I might as well head for the airport and wait there. Ordinarily, I would pull out my phone and call for a taxi. Instead, I decided to walk up to boul’ Saint-Germain where there was sure to be a cab stand.

I made a quick circuit of the apartment, making certain that windows were locked. The cleaners wouldn’t win medals for their work, but they had effectively removed the eau de gym socks from the place and made order out of the worst of the mess, and it would do until I returned. Whenever that might be.

The telephone in the office rang. I ran in to get it, expecting to hear Jean-Paul’s voice.

“Maggie? Émile Lepage here.” Jean-Paul’s physician brother-in-law.

“Émile?” Cold white panic rose from somewhere deep inside me. “Ça va?”

“Me? Fine, thank you. Happy I caught you. I’m just turning onto rue Jacob. Will you please open the gates and let me drive in out of the cold? It’s beginning to sleet.”

“Sure” was the best I could think to say; how many people knew I was there? After I hung up I went to the panel next to the front door and pushed the button marked porte to open the gates, and hurried down the stairs to wait for Émile. The big iron gates were already parting by the time I opened the front door. As Émile drove through, he spotted me and aimed his Citroën for the open space closest to the blue door. The car had barely come to a complete stop before he was out. With his coat pulled up over his head, a black medical bag hugged close to his chest, he made a dash toward me.

“Getting colder,” he said once he was inside. “We’ll have a good snow tonight.”

He handed me his bag so that he could shed his sleet-speckled coat, which he then draped over the stair rail. We exchanged les trois bises, kisses to both cheeks and the third that is saved for familiars. When I extended his bag toward him, to return it, he took my wrist, pressed his fingers on my pulse and looked at his watch.

“Your pulse is racing,” he said, releasing my wrist.

“I’m sure it is,” I said, gathering up his coat as I led him up the stairs and into the apartment. “First, you send over prescriptions for pain and infection, and dressings for a wound I don’t have. And then you show up. Émile, what is going on?”

His shoulders and palms rose, the French gesture package meaning, Who the hell knows? “I was afraid it was for you, Maggie. That’s why I’m here. Our Jean-Paul telephoned, telling me only that the medications had been prescribed by a physician abroad and that I should send instructions to a pharmacy here and have them delivered to you straight away. I did as he requested, Lord knows why, but I told him that I would need to see you to make sure that you’re all right. He was adamant when he told me not to come. Of course, he had to tell me where to have the pharmacy deliver, n’est-ce pas? Et voilà.” Another shrug, just one shoulder, finished his sentence: and here he was.

I glanced toward the telephone on the table. “He gave you this number so you could call me?”

“He did not.” With a little laugh, he pointed toward the ceiling. “For that I went to a higher power. I called my mother-in-law, who called her good friend your grandmother, who was only too happy to share that bit of information so that we could invite you to our home for dinner. So, Maggie, now that I see that you are fine, I am worried about Jean-Paul. Where is he? I want to see him for myself.”

“So do I. Will you drive me to Orly?”

He eyed me as he thought through that question. “You are going to him?’

I nodded. “If I tell you where, dear Émile, you might tell your wife, who would tell her mother, who would immediately call my grandmother, so—”

What I said apparently made perfect sense to him. He reached into his suit-coat pocket and brought out a card with his contact numbers and handed it to me. “Of course, I will take you to the airport. In exchange, you must promise me that you will call me if anything—anything—is wrong. D’accord?”

“D’accord,” I agreed. “Ready?”

We put on our coats, I slung the backpack over my shoulder, but before we got out the door, Émile spotted the bags with my uneaten lunch and fruit hanging from a hook on the hall tree, where I had left them, forgotten in my rush to see what the pharmacy had sent over.

“When did you last eat, Maggie?” When I took too long to answer, he grabbed the bags and handed them to me. “You look very pale and quite drawn. For strength, you will eat this while you wait for your plane. And when you arrive at your destination, you will get some rest. Doctor’s orders.”

At Orly, Émile dropped me at the curb outside the departure lounge, kissed my cheeks, and then merged back into traffic headed toward central Paris. With no luggage to check and a boarding pass in hand, I went straight to the security area, suffered the usual humiliations, put myself back together, and made sure that I was still in possession of my essentials. On the way to the departure gate assigned to my flight, I acquired a paperback book, a bag of trail mix, a bottle of water, and a cup of coffee. I found a seat near the gate, ate my sandwich, opened my book, and settled in for the wait until my flight was called.

Mid-February, the beginning of two weeks of Carnevale in ­Venice. The plane was packed with boisterous people who had started celebrating early. Carnevale di Venezia is more subdued than the semi-controlled riots you might find in Rio or New Orleans. To begin, it’s generally cold in Venice at that time of year, so there aren’t legions of nearly naked people parading in the streets. There are public events, of course, and plenty of alcohol, but most of the real partying is private, fancy-dress, indoors, and very expensive. Did I say, plenty of alcohol?

Boarding seemed to take forever as people jostled for overhead bin space. My fellow passengers had not packed lightly for the festivities, perhaps bringing elaborate costumes with them. The plane had unassigned seating and I lucked into a window spot, stuffed the backpack under the seat in front, and hunkered in for the duration. I was distractedly watching baggage handlers on the tarmac below my window when the woman in the aisle seat reached across the empty seat between us and gave me a gentle nudge. She flicked her chin toward a man approaching down the aisle. The very blond man from the electronics store that morning was waving a hand, trying to get my attention over the heads of people shuffling ­forward down the aisle in front of him.

“This time you can’t deny that we’ve met before,” he said with a broad grin when I looked up and saw him. “In the shops today, yes?”

“Oh, sure,” I said without enthusiasm.

“What a coincidence.” A woman in front of him turned to deliver a scowl at him; he was quite loud. “Going to Venice for Carnevale? Let’s hope the weather clears up.”

I was saved from further conversation when a young man with the requisite little hipster beard and close-cropped hair dumped a duffel onto the middle seat beside me and made a fuss trying to stow an oversized bag into the already full bin above us. I leaned toward the window to stay out of his way and opened my book. By the time my neighbor settled in, the blonde had been impelled along toward the back of the plane by the tide of passengers behind him.

The book I bought was written by a favorite author. But I reread a passage I had already read at least twice, and closed it. My mind was elsewhere. Jean-Paul had given me all sorts of instructions, and a ticket to Venice, but he hadn’t given me a contact number or said that he would be at the airport to meet me. If he wasn’t there, where the hell was I supposed to find him?

The flight was over almost before it began, ninety minutes between takeoff and landing. Eager to deplane, I was stuck behind the slow shuffle of people collecting their gear before I could shoulder my backpack and stream out with the mob. I looked over feathered hats and long-nosed Carnevale masks for Jean-Paul as we approached baggage claim and the exits beyond. Air travel within the European Union is very like travel within the United States. Passengers get “sterilized” before they board their planes, so no one bothers with them when they disembark at their destination. No customs to go through, only a passport check.

“Quick flight, yes?” My fair-haired buddy elbowed his way through the crowd to walk beside me. “I think water taxi is the fastest way in. Shall we share the ride?”

“Thank you, but no,” I said. “I’m being met.”

At least, I hoped I was. Instead of finding Jean-Paul, though, I spotted a wiry little man among the water taxi pilots holding a card with m duchamps printed in thick black letters. Margot Duchamps is the name on my birth certificate, the American version, and Marguerite on the original French, a tidbit that Jean-Paul, but not many strangers, would know. I caught the taxi man’s eye, pointed at myself and walked toward him.

“M. Duchamps? Not a monsieur, eh!” he said, gesturing for me to follow him to the baggage conveyer. “Your luggage?”

“I don’t have bags to claim.”

“Then we go.”

“Where do we go?” I asked, falling into step close beside him.

With a shrug, he said, “Ca’Giuliano,” as if everyone would know that we were going to Giuliano’s house. But who was Giuliano?

We walked out of the airport, past rows of bright posters and costumed vendors hawking tickets for expensive Carnevale events, and into a cold, foggy afternoon. An icy wind blowing straight down the Adriatic from the Alps hit me in the face as I followed the man I assumed had been sent by Jean-Paul—would anyone else know I was arriving?—down a long lagoon-side walkway toward the ranks of water taxis parked along the quay. I was handed into a beautiful teak craft and offered a seat in the low, open-front cabin behind the pilot wheel, out of the wind if not out of the chill. I had many questions, but my driver wasn’t a chatty sort. How far? Not far. Who arranged for you to pick me up? My dispatcher.

I gave up and stayed inside the relative shelter of the cabin, watching our progress through the side windows. The boat sat low in the water as we crossed the white-capped lagoon, moving with traffic along the inbound lane of the dredged boat channel. On either side of the channel the water was so shallow that we could look wading birds right in the eye as we passed them, a strange sensation. The birds paid no attention to us.

Suddenly, like Camelot rising from the mist, the domes and towers of Venice began to appear along the gray horizon. As always, it was magic. Soon, on our left, the many-domed Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute loomed out of the fog and we turned, heading into the Grand Canal. Along both sides, colorful Carnevale crowds paraded into and out of shops and cafés, around kiosks and pavilions set up on open piazzas and on the steps of magnificent churches that were offering musical performances. Gondoliers ferrying tourists glided into and out of side canals, calling, “Oi!” to warn of their approach. It was all a grand circus and the more I saw of it the edgier I became. I needed to find Jean-Paul. Now.

After we passed the modern white shell of the Guggenheim Museum, I leaned out of the cabin and asked again, “How far?”

“Not far.”

A few minutes later, as we approached Accademia Bridge, the driver cut his engine. Silently, we glided under the bridge and then, immediately and skillfully, he maneuvered the boat into a short and narrow inlet between massive palazzos on the left and a small grassy park on the right. Beyond the strip of grass there was an open piazza filled with revelers visiting commercially sponsored covered pavilions. Improbably for this automobile-free city, a new-model Fiat was being craned off a barge and onto a platform in front of one of the pavilions. My driver threw out a line and on his first try snagged an iron cleat bolted into the stone seawall, pulled us in and tied up the boat. He hopped out and offered his hand to me. I was hardly back on terra firma before he began releasing his line.

“Where am I going?” I asked, baffled, feeling a bit forlorn, as I looked at the collection of buildings rising around me.

The driver was already backing out toward the canal. He tipped his head toward the tall palazzo built tight against the canal, and called out, “Ca’Giuliano,” and was gone.

A small tile plaque affixed high on the front corner of the massive peach-colored house reassured me that this was, indeed, Ca’Giuliano. I looked along the side wall, saw no door, but started walking, hoping to find a way in. About thirty feet down I came to a filigreed gate that led to a dark and narrow walkway between two tall houses. Ahead, on the left side of the walkway, there was an arched opening. I pushed through the gate and ventured in. Behind me, I could hear rock music coming from the piazza, but everything immediately around me seemed eerily quiet, except for the echo of my own footsteps on the stone walkway. Twice I looked around to see if someone else was there. But I was alone.

Through the arch there was an elevator, secured by a digicode lock. And no intercom, no tenant directory. I sighed: Now what?

Jean-Paul’s email message said, “Always aim for the moon, and remember how far it is to China.” When people spend a lot of time together, they develop their own private little codes, a sort of language of their own. When Christopher Columbus set out from Spain in 1492, he believed that China was less than 3000 miles due west from Europe. He was wrong, and because of that error he collided with America and changed the world in unexpected ways—some good, some horrific—and destroyed his own life. When either Jean-Paul or I have a big decision to make, the other will pose the question, “Have you measured the distance?” Meaning, have you considered all the possibilities?

I punched in 1492, the year of Columbus’s monumental blunder, and the elevator doors slid open. Inside there were four buttons to choose from. Because the fourth floor was as close to the moon as I was likely to get at that moment, I hit number four. At the top, the elevator opened into a small, frigid atrium. I stepped out and knocked on the only door. I waited. And knocked again. When no one came, I was ready to turn and leave. To do what? Go to every door in the building to see if Jean-Paul might be there, or go on a treasure hunt for yet more inscrutable clues? Instead, I tried the handle. The door swung open.

Not knowing what to expect, I worked up a lame excuse in case I hadn’t cleverly figured out Jean-Paul’s coded instructions after all and was instead intruding on strangers: Stupid tourist, lost, wrong address, hand over all your cash and no one gets hurt. But no one seemed to be there at all.

The apartment was silent except for the muffled racket from the piazza below. I looked around: The space had once been the attic of a very large house. Open-beamed ceilings sloped down on two sides from a high central peak. A kitchen was on my right in the near end of the long central space, a plank dining table sat in the middle, and a well-appointed stanza—living room—at the far end looked out onto the Grand Canal through tall casement windows. Built into the eaves on both sides were, I suspected, bedrooms and bathrooms. The door on my left was ajar. Hanging onto the straps of my backpack in case I needed to flee, I pushed the door open enough to peer through.

Closed shades left the room, a bedroom, nearly dark. A crack of light from the partly open door of the en suite bathroom threw a silver line across the end of an unmade bed and a tangle of soiled clothing heaped onto a chair. Someone in the next room turned on water. As quietly as I could, almost afraid to breathe, I began to back out, ready to run for the front door. But then I heard a cough and knew who was on the other side of the bathroom door. I knocked once before pushing it open.

Startled, Jean-Paul spun around from adjusting bathtub taps. The love of my life stood there wearing nothing except a three-day beard and a dirty sling that immobilized his left arm against his chest. Intricate black stitchery closed twin gashes on his handsome face, one above his left eye, the other on the cheekbone below. His body was so covered with bruises and abrasions that he looked as if he had been tied to the bumper of a pickup and dragged along a country road. Something very bad had happened to him, but here he was, mostly intact. Mostly. And smiling his sweet, self-effacing upside-down French smile, as if he needed to apologize for the sorry state of the corpus he presented to me. I fought back tears as relief, shock, over-active imagination worked through what might have been. He responded to my look of horror by reaching for me with his free arm.

“It isn’t as bad as it appears, ma chère,” he said as I hesitated before moving into his embrace, afraid I would cause pain. “It only hurts when I laugh.”

“Says you.” I laid a hand along his injured cheek when we kissed. “You have a fever.”

He nodded, a single backward bob of his head, acknowledging an unfortunate truth. “I present to you a pathetic wreck. A stinky one, too. I had intended to get myself cleaned up before you arrived, but I’m afraid I fell asleep, and— What time is it?”

“About three-thirty.” He leaned on my shoulder getting into the tub. The edge of the sling gaped a bit as he bent forward, giving me a view of a large, oozing dressing over his left chest and shoulder. “What the hell happened to you, Jean-Paul?”

“It’s a long story,” he said with a deep sigh as he sank into the warm water.

“I have nothing but time.” I found a bar of soap, a face cloth, and a towel in a linen cupboard at the end of the vanity. While he washed himself, I shrugged off my coat and knelt beside the tub to get a better look at his injuries. There was no cast or splint on the arm immobilized by the sling. “Broken shoulder?”

“Fractured clavicle.”

“And what’s under the dressing?”

“A gash.”

“A gash?” I repeated. “A little swordplay, and you lost?”

“If it were, at least I might have had a chance to fight back.” He looked up at me. “Maggie, I was hit by shrapnel.”

“Dear God.” I fell back on my haunches. “Where were you?”

With a little laugh, he settled further down into the water. “Apparently, in the wrong place, yes?”

“Apparently.” I unzipped my backpack and took out the pharmacy bag. “Émile sent you a care package. Let me get you a glass, and then you damn well better tell me the whole story. From the beginning.”

The kitchen was well stocked with dishes and equipment, but there was nothing in it to eat except some condiments at the back of the refrigerator. I filled a glass at the sink and took it back to the bathroom.

“How long have you been here?” I asked as I tapped a pill out of each of the vials and handed them to him.

“Since early this morning.” He shrugged, and the movement made him wince. “Around four.”

“When did you eat last?”

“Yesterday.” He swallowed both pills with a single gulp of water. “Sardines out of a can, which is ironic.”

“Why ironic?”

“I was brought here on a fishing boat.”

“That explains why that filthy sling smells like dead fish. You might as well soak it because we’ll have to change it, if I can figure out how it’s constructed. Interesting engineering. And that’s very nice embroidery work on your face. Who put you back together?”

“A Belgian plastic surgeon and a Japanese orthopedist.”

“I’m guessing they weren’t on the fishing boat with you.”

“Non.” Quickly, he dunked his head under water and came up slicking his streaming hair away from his forehead. In his lightly accented, genteel English, he said, “Just me, the fish, and two smelly Greeks. Good men, both of them. They got me here safely and only asked for most of my money and my watch in exchange. No, the doctors who patched me up were on staff at a Médicins Sans Frontières hospital in a refugee camp on an island off the coast of Greece. You know the MSF?”

“Doctors Without Borders,” I said. Years ago, I worked on a documentary about the MSF. To me, the doctors, nurses, and technicians who volunteered with the international organization were true heroes. With no compensation and no fanfare, and sometimes at great personal risk, they go into the most benighted, besieged places in the world, set up state-of-the-art medical facilities, and do battle with whatever plagues present themselves, sometimes as bombs fall around them. Miracle workers, often. Everything they have in their medical arsenal comes from donations. And as no good deed ever quite goes unpunished, what they offer—modern medicine—and who they are—outsiders—aren’t always without controversy. Like the rich uncle who swoops in at Christmas bringing gifts to his poor relatives, their presence can breed resentment among the local powers that be. Sometimes to the peril of both doctor and patient.

“Were you in Greece with the MSF?” Prodding him to continue as I picked at the tape holding the shoulder dressing in place, trying to figure out how to get it off without ripping out strips of his dark chest hair.

“We did visit the MSF hospital, yes.” He leaned forward so I could soap his back, what I could see of it. The sling was encased in a second sling that tied around his torso to both support the arm and keep the shoulder stable. “Do you remember Eduardo Suarez?”

“A polo player friend?”

He nodded. “He’s also one of the top research chemists in Spain. A Eurozone consortium on refugees sent Eduardo and me into one of the larger refugee camps—a miserable hellhole—as observers. The hospital was the one bright spot in the place, and even it is woefully understaffed and undersupplied relative to the need for medical care there. We spent two days speaking with people, taking photos, recording what we saw, making notes for a report to the consortium.”

“Someone in the camp attacked you?”

“Non.” As he leaned back again, he took my soapy hand, pressed it against his hard belly and held it there. His voice was full of emotion, sometimes anger, sometimes pain. His grip on my hand tightened as he spoke. “Eduardo and I had just driven out of the camp. We wanted to catch the afternoon flight out of the little regional airport near the fishing village where we had been staying. We were talking about our report, or maybe the topic was women’s legs, but we heard a buzzing, saw something in the sky coming toward us from over a little rise; we were no more than three hundred meters from the camp gates. The object was right on us before we understood it was a drone; not very big, the ordinary sort you can buy in an electronics store. For a moment, it hovered over the road ahead of us, and then ka-boom!”

“Ka-boom?”

“Exactement. The drone dropped a payload on the road directly in front of us. It doesn’t take much explosive to wipe out a crappy little rental car and leave a crater in the road.”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Jean-Paul.”

“Oui.” Again, a slight shrug, as if resigned to the vagaries of life.

“Was the bomb intended as an attack on the refugee camp or the MSF hospital? By terrorists? Anti-immigration wackos?”

“Reasonable targets for those, yes?” He waited for me to agree. “But, sorry, no, I’m afraid that the target was none other than Jean-Paul Bernard.”

“You?” I sat straight up.

“I know, eh?” That sweet little smile again, meant to reassure me. “I have come to conclude that this was a very personal event. The question is, who would want to kill me? I mean, I think I’m a fairly lovable guy, d’accord?”

“Oui, d’accord. I think you’re entirely lovable. Not very huggable at the moment, but lovable. So, who have you pissed off?”

“I hope you can help me figure that out.” He trained his big brown eyes on me, and yawned. “The pain med is kicking in.”

“Good.”

I helped him out of the tub and gingerly wrapped him in the towel. He rested his head against me as I dried his wet hair. For a moment, we were quiet. If one can have nightmares while awake, I was having a doozy as I imagined possibilities for things that could have, but did not, happen to Jean-Paul. Hadn’t happened yet, maybe.

We shared a lovely, reassuring kiss. We were together again, and for the moment, we were safe.

I found a clean white sheet in the cupboard and then rummaged through vanity drawers until I found a pair of nail scissors before following him into the bedroom. He sat patiently on the edge of the unmade bed, supporting his left elbow with his right hand, while, first, I deconstructed the soiled sling, and then as I snipped away the hair stuck to the surgical tape holding the gauze dressing to his wound. By the time I finished removing the tape, the top of his chest looked like it had been mowed by a tiny drunk. He took a deep breath and the old dressing fell onto his lap. When I saw the mincemeat underneath, I started to cry.

“It isn’t as bad as it looks,” he said, reaching for my hand.

“Says you. What monster did this to you?”

He laughed. “That is the question, yes?”

“Damn them, Jean-Paul.” I took out some of my angst on the sheet, tearing it into wide strips to make two new slings, one for now and one in case we needed it later. “Let me guess: the MSF doctors told you to avoid doing anything that would put stress on the wound. To just go to bed until the bone and the flesh had some time to heal, right?”

He bobbed his head, meaning, grudgingly, yes. “But I could hardly stay at the MSF facility and take up one of their scarce beds, could I?”

“Some people could.” I wiped my eyes on the corner of his damp towel. “You’ve pulled out a few of the stitches and it looks like the wound is infected. Why didn’t they at least start you on antibiotics?”

“They offered, of course, but Maggie—”

“I know. Scarce supplies.”

“I thought I would be in Athens the next morning, where I could get the prescribed drugs. But things don’t always happen as planned, yes?”

“Too true.” As gently as I could, I spread antibiotic ointment around the wound. “When I go out for food, I’ll try to find some butterfly bandages to close the edges until we can get you to a doctor. One with plenty of beds and drugs, I hope. In the meantime, I’ll lay new gauze over it and hope you lie still until I get back from the market.”

I spread out the original, sodden, sling on the floor and studied it for a minute, trying to figure out its structure. Then I did my best to fold lengths of the clean sheet to match what I saw. The trickiest part would be putting the new sling on Jean-Paul without disturbing the clavicle or touching the wound over it. For a moment, I considered giving him a second pain pill to knock him out for a while, because I knew any movement of the shoulder and the infected sutures would hurt. While I mulled over-dosing him, I assembled the new sling. It would be neither as intricate as the original, nor as pretty, but I thought it would do its job of keeping his shoulder immobilized until we could find a doctor.

“Your Japanese orthopedist must have studied origami,” I said as I eased the fabric under his bent elbow and laid it over his right shoulder, avoiding the wound on his left. “I can’t recreate what he did, but I think I understand what he was trying to do.”

As a distraction while I struggled with the sling, he said, “We have hardly spoken since you landed in Vientiane. Did all go well in Laos?”

“Ah, Laos,” I said, leaning around him to tie the two ends behind his neck. “I don’t know where to begin. Laos was amazing. Warm. Beautiful. Deadly. I hate to admit this, but the twerp at network who put a cork in my Normandy project and sent me off to chase down unexploded bombs was right. Finding dead German soldiers in Grand-mère’s carrot field and the conversation about unexploded ordnance from World War Two was probably the most interesting part of the Normandy footage for viewers. Going into Flanders, Germany, Ukraine, expanded that theme, and we shot great stuff. But Laos, my God, Jean-Paul, it’s the scope of the problem there that blew me away.”

“Pun intended?”

“Ka-boom is certainly the topic of the day, isn’t it?” The sling supporting his elbow was in place. I set to work on the second part, immobilizing the left arm with a second binding that wrapped around his torso. “When the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam, we left behind something like eighty million tons of unexploded shit in Laos. That’s a little more than eleven pounds of ka-boom per capita. And it’s everywhere.”

“Merde,” he said, smiling his usual ironic smile. “And here I am whimpering over the effects of a single insignificant little bomb.”

“Oh, go ahead and whimper,” I said as I tied the last of the fabric ends. “How does this feel?”

“Good,” he said. “Solid.”

When he had convinced me that the construction was, indeed, quite comfortable and that I hadn’t cut off circulation to his left hand, he asked for the clothes he’d left in a heap on a chair. I could smell them before I touched them; a holey fisherman’s sweater, a pair of well-worn denim dungarees, and flimsy rope-soled canvas shoes.

“Where did you get those things?” The clothes stayed on the chair while I helped him lie down. I pulled the duvet over him and tucked it in; he was shivering. I retrieved the apples and the bag of trail mix I had acquired in Paris and gave them to him.

“My kind fishermen gave me those handsome clothes,” he said, patting the bed beside him. I kicked off my boots and lay down with him, exhausted. “My own clothes were shredded, of course. I left the hospital wearing scrubs. I planned to pick up something to wear and a new telephone—mine was destroyed—at the local shops when I was driven into the village. But—” He hesitated too long.

“Something happened, yes?”

He nodded, munching trail mix. “Long version or short version?”

“Long version, please.” I scrunched a pillow under my head and settled in to listen.

“Because of his injuries, Eduardo had to stay behind at the MSF hospital, some concern about broken ribs puncturing a lung. But after I was patched up I managed to catch a ride into the village along with a young volunteer nurse from Sweden. Her service time was up, and she was on her way home. The local airport is very small, only two commercial flights a day, one in early morning and one late in the afternoon. Before we left the camp, I booked a room in the village hotel, and planned to leave in the morning. The nurse, Ingrid, was scheduled to leave on the afternoon flight, but because of all the fussing over me at the hospital, and the bomb crater on the access road, Ingrid missed her flight. She had no choice but to stay over. But the village inn was full by the time we arrived. What else could I do, but give her my room?”

“Please tell me you didn’t sleep on a bench somewhere.”

“Non.” He crumpled the empty trail mix bag and tossed it onto the bedside table with surprising force; a great black pall seemed to have dropped over him, an unbidden sadness. Before continuing, he was quiet for a moment, rubbing the injured shoulder as if to comfort it. I wondered whether I’d worn him out. Probably, I had. All I could do was be there close beside him until he was ready to go on with his story. After a deep breath, he turned to give me a game little smile and the we’re-in-the-hands-of-fate shrug with his one good shoulder.

“Our driver, a young local,” he said, “knew a fisherman’s family that had a spare room they rented out. We three, the driver, Ingrid and I, ate dinner together in the hotel restaurant. I handed her my room key, we all said good night, and the driver and I went to the fisherman’s house. In the morning, we stopped by the hotel to pick her up to go to the airport. When she didn’t answer her phone, we asked the desk to have a maid check on her. I thought she might have overslept or was in the shower. But—”

His voice caught and he needed another moment before he could go on. In a quavering voice, he said, “In the night, her throat was cut.”

“She was murdered?”

“Oui.”

I met his eyes. “You think it was meant to be you?”

“My first thought was that we should never have left her in the hotel alone; the village is a bit rough. But she was not assaulted, nothing was taken. There were no signs of struggle. Apparently, sometime in the night, while she slept, someone slipped in, slit her throat, and was gone. It made no sense. But then, my shoulder began to throb and I remembered Eduardo sitting at the edge of the road, bleeding, trying to breathe, and it occurred to me that the room was registered in my name, paid for with my credit card. We told no one in the hotel that Ingrid would be staying in the room instead of me; we thought she would be safer that way. In truth, by the time we finished dinner there was no one around to tell. The reception desk was dark, the hall was empty. No one else knew she was there. So, unless that isolated village harbored a madman, Ingrid was not the intended victim.”

“What did you do?”

“First I checked on Eduardo; he was okay. So, was I alone the target?” He cocked his head and looked me in the eye. “What does your Big Bird tell you to do when you’re trying to find something?”

I had to think. “Walk backward through your memory.”

“That’s exactly what I did. If I was the target, how were my attackers finding me with such precision? The drone hit was spot-on, but the hotel was a miss. So, what was different?”

He waited for me to mull that through. I went back over his story, and found a little detail. “Your phone was destroyed. They tracked you using the GPS locator function in your telephone until the phone was destroyed. Even then, they could find you by hacking into your credit cards to see where you used them.”

He reached out and pulled me tight against him and planted a noisy kiss on my forehead. “How do I love thee, Maggie? Let me count the ways…”

“That explains why you want to stay off the grid. So, what’s the next move?”

“You fight fire with fire, yes?” He raised his palm with an apple on top of it, as if holding up the obvious answer, and smiled his upside-down smile. “So, I thought, I’ll fight a hacker with a hacker. I went to the best I know, a little sixteen-year-old misfit who lives here in Venice, over on Giudecca. And, my love, I’ll need you to rendezvous with him at exactly forty-two minutes past five o’clock tonight.”

“You’re a fun date, Jean-Paul.” I kissed his cheek. “I never know what’s going to happen when I’m with you. But I always know it will be interesting.”

He laughed. “I can say the same about you.”

“You can’t just disappear, though. Not after what happened to you and Eduardo. People must be worried about you.”

“I told everyone who counts that I was sneaking away with you for a week or two, and threatened dire consequences to anyone who dared interrupt us.”

“So, why am I here, except to offer succor?”

“I hope that’s reason enough. As you can see, I need your help. I was also worried that whoever is doing this would make a target of you, to get to me. And I couldn’t bear that risk. So, I knew I had to make you invisible, and get you out of Paris as soon as I could. But I didn’t know when you would arrive. You were expected two days before you turned up.”

“Bad weather, delayed flights, cancelled flights; I had only been at Isabelle’s about an hour or so when you called.”

He nodded, clearly no surprise there. “I asked Madame Gonsalves to call me as soon as you showed up.”

My first thought was that the old bat did know I was coming, after all. But my next thought had a strange and gritty edge that made me sit straight up. I wanted to hear him repeat something he’d said. “You had Madame Gonsalves call you?”

The question seemed to puzzle him. “Yes.”

“The concierge at Isabelle’s building?” I watched his face.

“Yes. She saw you at the gate and rang me immediately; there is a security camera.”

“She left me standing out in the street, in the cold, while the two of you chatted?”

He smiled sweetly as he bit into the apple. “She told me you were getting impatient; I could hear the street buzzer through the phone.”

“You know her that well?”

With a dismissive shrug, he said, “Bien sûr.”

“Of course? What do you mean, of course? How the hell do you know the concierge at Isabelle’s apartment so well? No, why would you know her?”

“I hired her.”

“You did? Why you?”

“Your Uncle Gérard asked me to find someone who could keep an eye on Isabelle.”

“But why would Uncle Gérard have anything to do with hiring their concierge?”

“Their?”

“The building’s owners.”

For a moment, he looked at me with pure confusion written on his face, at a loss for an answer to a question he either could not parse or the answer to which was so obvious that the only mystery for him was that it wasn’t obvious to me. And then, a light seemed to flicker on behind those deep brown eyes. He pushed himself up against the headboard and took my hand.

“Maggie, have you read the terms of your mother’s—Isabelle’s—will?”

“Read it?” I said. “Hardly. It’s complex and it’s written in French legalese. I wouldn’t understand all of it even if it were written in English. I turned the pages while my notaire explained it to me. Does that count?”

“Did your notaire explain to you about number seven, rue Jacob?”

I settled back down, leaning on my elbow, watching his face while I thought about the question. No glimmer of light flickered on for me. I shrugged and said, “She told me that I have inherited an interest in Isabelle’s apartment on rue Jacob.”

“Apartment? Is that the word she used?”

I thought for a moment. “No. She said residence.”

“Aha.” He picked up my hand and kissed it. “I think I see now where the canyon in this conversation opened up. When the coast is clear and we are back in Paris, we will find you a notaire who speaks better English. But for now, let me explain rue Jacob.”

He let out a long breath while he decided where to begin. “So, ma chère Maggie, you know that from time to time Isabelle battled personal demons.”

“She was bipolar.”

He nodded. “When she was in balance, she was remarkable. A force, yes?”

“So I hear.”

“You know she was a scientist with many accomplishments. But you may not be aware that she was also a very astute businesswoman. When she first saw number seven, rue Jacob, the place was a disaster. Part of the roof had caved in, there was water damage, the leaky plumbing was a century old, or more, the electricity—impossible!—floors had collapsed, and there had never been central heat. But Isabelle saw its potential when anyone else would have seen a tear-down, and she was determined to acquire it.”

“Who owned the place?”

“That was the first issue for Isabelle to conquer,” he said. “Both the Vatican and the local diocese claimed it, but a defunct order of nuns still held the title. To complicate the issue, the neighborhood, afraid some big chain store, like the Gap or Benetton up on the boulevard, would move in, had the property designated as a historic treasure to protect it.”

“It was a convent?”

“It was. The Little Sisters of Saint Jérôme Émilian ran a school and orphanage there for centuries. But times change. By the 1970s the order was impoverished, reduced to just a few very old women. The Vatican closed the order and sent the survivors to a retirement facility in Switzerland. The place remained empty for decades, deteriorating, until Isabelle decided she wanted it. She moved, you could say, heaven and earth, and somehow she managed to strike a deal that both the Vatican and the diocese accepted, and that appeased the neighbors at the same time.”

“What about the nuns?”

“Long gone,” he said. “Silenced by the grave.”

I scrolled mentally through the bits and pieces I had gleaned about Isabelle over the last year and a half. A project of that scope just did not seem economically feasible for a civil servant like Isabelle to undertake, even with the earnings from the tontine. I said, “To buy and restore that property would cost a fortune. Where the hell would Isabelle come up with that much capital?”

“Restore?” He chuckled. “It was a complete rebuild, from basements to attics. And yes, it cost a fortune. Three fortunes to be exact. Isabelle came up with considerable capital, but she still needed financing, and she needed someone with building experience. So, she invited her brother, Gérard, to join her as a partner.”

“Makes sense. Uncle Gérard is a developer. He has worked on far larger projects than that one.”

“He certainly brought the expertise, but he was, as usual, embarrassed for cash. He made up for his deficit by borrowing, let’s say, much of the building material and some of the work crews from a large project he was directing in southern England.”

Good old Uncle Gérard. “He stole the building materials?”

“You say tomayto, he says tomahto, but yes, we discovered later that some of the material was delivered without invoices. And someone else paid the salaries of some of the workers. Your uncle gave a whole new dimension to international partnership on this one.” He set aside his apple core. “Britain will find that Brexit hinders many little larcenies, n’est-ce pas?”

I looked at him askance, seeing a whole new dimension to the man. I found his complete lack of moral outrage to be oddly sexy. But then, after a couple of months apart I found even the bit of towel lint caught in his three-day beard to be sexy.

“Don’t you worry about my Uncle Gérard. He’ll find a way to work around the barriers and be just fine, whatever the future holds,” I said, knowing only too well what my uncle was capable of. “I’m afraid to ask, but you said the project took three fortunes. Who was the third? Their pigeon? Their cash cow?”

“Moi.” He grinned, kissing me full on the lips.

“I should have known,” I said, getting to my feet. “And that explains how you came to hire Madame Gonsalves. Is the woman part of your vast information network?”

“Not mine,” he said. “But someone’s. Your concierge is an old Basque separatist. Probably still good in the trenches.”

“Something to keep in mind.” I found a pad and a pencil on the nightstand. “Tell me your sizes and I’ll get you some clothes while I’m out.”

“Um.” He paused, blushed. “Mon coeur, maybe we should just wash that wretched pile in the chair. It’s my turn, I’m afraid, to be embarrassed for cash. At the moment, I have very little and I don’t know how long my scarce resources need to stretch.”

“Ne t’inquiètes pas,” I said, Don’t worry, as I retrieved my coat from the bathroom. I pulled out the green bank pouch, unzipped it, and handed it to Jean-Paul. With a look of wonder on his battered face, he thumbed the sheaf of bills inside.

“What did you do, rob a bank?”

“No. I just walked through the front door and said, Please.”

“How much is this?”

“I withdrew ten thousand. Then I bought a few prepaid phones and some credit cards. There should be something around sixty-eight hundred in there.”

Laughing, he took my hand and kissed the palm. “Ma chère, you never cease to surprise me. I certainly picked the right sidekick to go into hiding with.”

“Glad you think so. Anyway, we won’t have to hitch a ride out of here on a fishing boat,” I said. “The condition you’re in, that’s a good thing. But, Jean-Paul, why, exactly, are we hiding? Can’t you just go to the authorities and ask for protection? Or summon one of your well-connected friends?”

“Not until I know who’s behind all this. And why.” Suddenly, he looked up at me. “Who knows you are here?”

“In Venice? No one except you, me, passport control, and the airline,” I said. “My grandmother and Émile know I was leaving Paris to meet you—Émile drove me to Orly—but they don’t know where I was headed.”

He laughed softly. “Émile and my sister will have something interesting to talk about over dinner tonight, yes?”

“I’m sure.” A thought occurred to me as I was pulling my boots back on, getting ready to go out to the shops and on to a rendezvous with a misfit youth. “Jean-Paul, if you’re short of cash, and you weren’t using your ATM or credit cards, how did you pay for my flight?”

“I used a burner phone to call the one person, other than you, that I know will keep a secret and never betray me.” He leaned closer and whispered, “My mother.”

“Your mother? Keep a secret? How long until she tells her dear friend, my grandmother, who will tell my brother, Freddy, and my daughter, and so on, and so on, and so on?”

He shook his head. “Jamais. Never. Not when I told her it was important. I needed her to help me find you in Paris, and she did; she called your grandmother for information. She made your travel arrangements using a prepaid telephone and prepaid credit card in case she was being monitored. There will be questions to answer later, many questions. But until then, she says nothing.”

“Not even a word to Émile and your sister?” I was still dubious. I’ve seen how quickly the intra-family information network can broadcast bits of news.

“Not a single word from Maman to anyone. But I can’t say the same for my fishermen friends, or anyone at the airline or the taxi company that brought you here.”

“Did your mother also rent this Venetian nest for us?”

With an enigmatic little smile, he said, “No. The apartment belongs to my friend, Gille.”

“Someone else you trust, then?”

“Not very much, no. But Gille doesn’t know we’re here.”

I was appalled. “Aren’t you afraid he might walk in?”

“Not at all. Gille hates Carnevale. This is the last place he would show up.”

“Lordy.” I looked around the well-appointed apartment and thought, with a few pangs, about how I had ripped up the owner’s thousand-thread-count sheet and wondered what the etiquette was for replacing ruined linens. And with a flashback at the state of Isabelle’s apartment when I walked in, I cringed at the thought of leaving soiled towels and bedding behind for Gille to walk into.

“What time is it?” he asked.

I looked at my watch. “A little after four. Tell me about this rendezvous I’m to make at forty-two minutes after five.”

“Get to the Rialto Bridge a few minutes before the meeting time. Stop to admire the display of red handbags at the front of the third shop from the San Marco end, as you face the lagoon. If you find one you want to buy, so much the better. While you are looking among the red bags, someone will tap you on the shoulder three times. Don’t turn around, don’t try to see who it is. Wait a decent interval, and then continue across the bridge as if you are any tourist.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No. I am serious. Dead serious.”