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if Yves was working undercover, there’s more to this than we know. It’s dangerous,” Rene interrupted, wiping his brow, then glancing at his watch. “Think of that cryptic message he left.”
    That stopped her in her tracks.
    “You’re right. But the suspect would know.”
    “Aimée, that’s the Brigade Criminelle’s job. Go home, change, and take a rest.”
    “Hurry, or you’ll miss your train.”
    René paused, his hand on the handle of the rain-beaded door.
    “Promise me, Aimée, take care of yourself. I’ll call you tonight.”
    She nodded, reprogrammed the Citroën’s seat adjustment, and extended the pedal for her five-foot-eight height, instead of René’s four-foot reach. As she pulled away, she glanced in the rear-view mirror and saw René’s troubled look as he hailed a porter.
    She gunned the engine and headed to the Canal Saint-Martin. All she could do was hope Maillol hadn’t transferred the suspect to the Brigade yet.
    BACK IN THE Commissariat for the second time, Aimée’s eyes swept the front reception counter. No one sat behind the desk. As she leaned over the counter, her damp skirt molded to her thighs. Forms and binders marked proces verbal were slotted in dividers by the phone console. She saw no files on the desk or in the box labeled “in transit.”
    “He’s not responding!”
    She turned to see a cluster of uniformed flics and white-coated medics near the wire cage of the holding cells. She walked toward the group. No one was paying her any attention; their focus was on the last cell. Peering over a blue-uniformed shoulder, Aimée saw a stretcher with a clear plastic portable drip and tubes hanging from hooks attached to a pole.
    “Second junkie this week,” said a flic with a knowing look. “Bad stuff going around.”
    The medic, a woman with a blond ponytail, pulled the stethoscope from her neck. “An asthma attack,” she said, straightening up. “Romeo needed air in his lungs, not stuff in his veins.”
    Aimée stared at the chalk-white–faced figure curled in a fetal position on the stretcher. Platinum spiked hair, tight red Levis and turquoise earrings.
    He didn’t look like a killer—but then, he was dead. He looked more like one of the surplus store mannequins tossed out on the street after the January sales. Concave chest, chiseled defined cheeks and pale open lips . . . almost pouting, but then he’d been desperate to get air to his constricted lungs. Yves, and now this mec . . . she tried to still her shaking hands. Gave up and stuck them in her skirt pockets.
    “The homicide suspect . . . ?”
    “ Oui, and now he won’t talk. I’ll have to inform the Brigade. . . .” The flic frowned before he could finish. “ Et alors, ” he said, “no public allowed.” He herded her to the reception area. “What are you doing here? That area’s off limits.”
    She saw that it said Sergeant Theroux on the name tag above his pocket.
    “Commander Maillol questioned me this morning concerning Yves Robert’s . . .” she paused, then forced herself to go on. “. . . murder. Was this man the suspect?“
    “Are you family?”
    She reached in her bag for her card. Her fingers touched a worn, smooth rounded coin. The coin from the betrothal amulet Yves had given her.
    “I identified Yves’s body at the morgue,” she said.
    “I’m sorry.” He read her card and stroked his chin. “We responded to the call concerning an attack and discovered a homicide. It took time for the Police Judiciare to arrive. The Brigade instructed us to send the victim’s body over to the morgue, and the suspect to the Brigade. But now, well, the case looks open and shut.”
    “Open and shut?” That was the easy way, but she bit her remark back, determined to hold herself in check. If she flew off the handle, demanded . . . well, by the look of Theroux she’d get more out of him with tact.
    “That’s the Brigade Criminelle’s call,” she said. “Did this man