Murder in Belleville by Cara Black Read Free Book Online

tunneled down the hallway. Her bare-legged reflection, in the worn mirrors opposite, stared back at her. Was she this rooster-haired, skinny creature armed with a broom and high-heeled boot?
    Miles Davis’s low growl amped to a high-pitched bark. With the broom she prodded the envelope, feeling around. “Back off’ was smeared in brown letters—a deep dark brown. She looked closer. Dried blood.
    She stepped back.
    Her poking had dislodged the contents of the unsealed envelope. Something gray slid onto the black-and-white diamond tiles. Mottled and furry. The odor, strong and rank, filled her hallway.
    At first she thought a stuffed animal had emerged, but it was the biggest gray rat she’d ever seen. At least it would have been if the head had been attached to a body.
    She turned cold inside. The head was as big as a kitten. She hated rodents, fat or skinny.
    She scanned shadowy corners but saw only the dusty niched statues that spiraled the wall of her staircase.
    No one.
    She had to get rid of it. The putrid stench filled the landing. She pulled a pink TATI plastic shopping bag from her coat rack and shoved the dripping head into it with a broom. Using the broom handle, she carried the bag at arm’s length down her marble stairs.
    She watched for an attacker but figured they’d gone—the “message” had been their goal. Miles Davis barked, keeping up the rear under the dim hall sconces. By the time she dropped the bag in the trash, a slow anger burned over her fear. Her thoughts skipped back over the events since Anais’s call. Did this have a link to Sylvie or Anais?
    Her evenings hadn’t been this eventful in a while, she thought. A dead woman and a dead rat all in one night.
    B ACK IN her apartment the musty smell lingered. Outside her bedroom, at the far end of her hallway, stood a small yellowed statue. Beside it lay a pile of what looked like tea-stained bandages. She froze. Voodoo … evil spirits.
    The rustle behind her caused her to turn and swing.
    Yves jumped aside, wearing her father’s old bathrobe and a smile. She almost beheaded the marble Napoleonic bust in the hall beside him. He leaned against the door frame, his tan body and damp hair silhouetted in the bathroom light.
    “So that’s how you greet someone, after a long flight, who’s brought you priceless Egyptian artifacts?”
    She took a deep breath.
    “Just unannounced ones,” she said, setting the broom against the wainscoting. “Did I give you a key?”
    “Your partner Rene had an extra one,” he said. “Maybe you should check your messages,” he said, coming closer. His dark sideburns snaked to his chin.
    “I’ve been a little busy,” she said, realizing she was still barefoot and in a faux-fur coat.
    “Something’s spoiled,” his nose crinkled.
    “Rat tartare,” she said. “Someone’s trying to scare me.”
    “Scare you?” he asked. “Aimee, what’s the matter?”
    She almost told him right then about the explosion and the rat. But she hesitated. He was dangerous to her psyche. A soul shaker and troublemaker.
    Yves searched her eyes, sniffed her breath. “Busy enough to have a drink around the corner?”
    She shrugged.
    “Why haven’t you come to Cairo?”
    “Ecoute, Yves,” she said, pulling her coat tighter. “Parts of Paris are Third World enough for me.”
    But that wasn’t totally true. It had to do with commitment. Her inability to commit made it difficult to visit another continent.
    “Et, voila.” He pursed his mouth. “I’m just another notch on your lipstick case.”
    “If I remember correctly, you moved, Yves. Not me,” she said. “Then you pop into my life and disturb my concentration.”
    “Maybe I need to disturb it more.”
    “I haven’t heard from you for ages,” she said, rubbing her legs in the frigid hallway. “Suddenly you appear. I don’t owe you an explanation.”
    Yves turned away. There was a lot more she could say, but she didn’t feel like addressing his