The Paris Widow by Kimberly Belle

Author:Kimberly Belle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Park Row Books
Published: 2024-04-10T13:08:25+00:00

Nineteen

Zoé’s warning beats in my head the entire way back to the Hôtel Luxembourg Parc.

I take the long way, going far, far out of my way in order to stick to the busiest streets, the ones jammed with traffic and pedestrians. I size up every person I pass. Tourists. Parisians. The people whizzing by in their cars or waiting at the light. I search every face, watch for any sudden movements. I feel myself sinking deeper into contingencies, into panic.

Whoever’s after Adam will be coming for you next.

Le marché noir. Adam is caught up in le marché noir. Which means now, suddenly, so am I.

Trust no one trust no one trust no one.

This is what I’m thinking when a text hits my phone, a message from an unknown number. I open it, and a sudden surge of anxiety stops me in the middle of the sidewalk.

Digging into Adam’s business = digging your own grave.

Before I can stop myself, my thumbs tick out a reply: Who is this?

The answer lands two seconds later. A friend. I’m telling you now, stop.

A friend, my ass. Friends don’t send threatening texts from an unknown number. They give their names instead of hiding behind a vague label. I’m not stupid enough to fall for that, friend.

I’m considering how to respond when a motor backfires a block or two away, and I flinch. I look around, eyeing the people passing by and leaning against a pair of immense wooden doors to catch my breath. German tourists in sandals and socks, a gaggle of Americans smothered in tattoos, petite Frenchmen in comically slim-cut suits. They barely notice me at all.

And then suddenly: eye contact.

It’s a man coming toward me on the opposite side of the street, and there’s something about him that turns the air solid in my lungs. The way he’s walking too slowly, maybe, or the suit that doesn’t quite fit his skinny frame. Or maybe it’s those shoes, beat-up lace-ups that are too ugly, far too out of place among the hipsters here in the Marais. I press myself to the door and watch him pass, waiting until he’s disappeared up the street and out of view.

The breath comes out of me in a loud whoosh, right as an elderly woman in an impeccable bouclé suit shuffles by, pushing a walker.

“Bonjour!” she says, at a volume that says she’s more than a little deaf.

The sun beats down on my forehead, and I tell myself that this is ridiculous. I’m being ridiculous. I push off the doors and get moving.

I’m at the next corner when it happens again, another angry backfire, followed by the growl of a motorcycle gunning its engine. I stop in the center of the sidewalk, turning in a slow circle, and I think of the Brit, tailing me all the way up to the 18th. The motorcycle is louder now, moving closer.

I take a sharp right toward the Seine, where the boulevards are wide and more trafficked.

I spot him when I’m almost to the river, halfway across the zebra path to the busier side of the street.

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