Central Park Guillaume Musso (read along books .TXT) 📖

“Erik drives one of those machines,” his secretary interjects.

I look Dalmasso in the eyes. “Who is Erik?”

“Erik Vaughn is a temp. He fills in here during holidays and busy periods or when one of our employees is out sick for a while.”

“Is he here today?”

“No, but we’ll probably hire him again for the Christmas season.”

Through the office’s fluted glass wall, I see the taxi waiting for me in the rain. “Do you have his address?”

“We’ll find it for you,” he says, handing a blank Post-It note to his secretary, who leaves the room.

This new revelation has rekindled the fire inside me. I don’t want to waste time. Hastily, I scrawl my phone number and e-mail address in Dalmasso’s desk diary. “Check the periods when Vaughn worked for you over the past two years and send them to me by e-mail or text them to my cell phone, please.”

Claudette returns and I grab the note that she is holding out for me, walk outside, and dive into the taxi.

The inside of the taxi stinks of sweat. The radio is on full blast and the meter is already showing ten euros. I give the address to the driver—a building on Rue Parent-de-Rosan, in the sixteenth arrondissement—and tell him to lower the volume. His response is contemptuous until he sees my cop’s badge.

I feel feverish and start shivering, overcome by hot flashes.

I need to calm down. In my mind, I test out an improbable theory, but one I want to believe. Erik Vaughn, an employee in the lost-and-found office, uses his job to target his victims. Clara Maturin, Nathalie Roussel, Maud Morel, and Virginie André all came to see him, but he never entered their names in the office computer. That is why Dalmasso couldn’t find any trace of them. Vaughn managed to win their trust, got them to talk, squeezed as much information as he could out of them. He knew their addresses; he knew they lived alone. After that first meeting, he let a few days go by and then went to his target’s home, claiming to have brought her the missing object. Unfortunately for them, all four women invited him inside. Who ever suspects a bearer of good news? Each was so relieved at having found her favorite scarf, her cell phone, or her son’s teddy bear that she opened the door, even if it was past nine p.m.

No, I’m just raving. What are the chances of this theory being correct? One in a thousand? And yet…

The trip passes quickly. After driving back up Boulevard Victor-Hugo, the car passes the Georges-Pompidou hospital and crosses over the Seine, not far from the Porte de Saint-Cloud.

Don’t do this on your own…

I know as well as anyone that solving a crime is not a solo job but the culmination of a long-term team effort. There are well-defined procedures and clear rules, which is why I would really like to call Seymour and let him know what I’ve discovered. I hesitate, then decide to wait until I’ve learned the dates that Erik Vaughn worked in the lost-and-found office.

My phone vibrates. I check my e-mail. Dalmasso has sent me an Excel file showing Vaughn’s work schedule. I click on my screen, but the file refuses to open. Incompatible format.

Fuck.

“This is it.” Unsmiling, the driver lets me out halfway along a small, one-way street between Rue Boileau and Avenue Mozart. The rain is falling even harder now. It streams down the back of my neck. I can feel the baby’s weight, very low and very dense, making it increasingly painful to walk.

Turn around.

Among the town houses and small residences, I spot a grayish façade that bears the number the secretary wrote on the Post-It note. A typical 1970s apartment building—a long concrete construction with a sinister, ugly look.

I see the name VAUGHN on the intercom and press the button.

No response.

Out on the street, in the parking spaces reserved for two-wheel vehicles, there is a motorcycle, an old Yamaha Chappy, and a three-wheel scooter.

I keep pressing the buzzer and eventually try all the buttons until someone in the building lets me in.

I note the floor where Vaughn lives, then walk slowly upstairs. I can feel the baby kicking inside my belly again. As if he’s trying to warn me.

I know this is a dumb idea, but something urges me onward. My investigation. I don’t turn on the light. I climb the stairs one by one in darkness.

Sixth floor.

Vaughn’s door is half open.

I take my gun from my purse, congratulating myself on the intuition that made me bring it along. I hold it in two hands.

Sweat and rainwater trickle down my back.

I yell: “Erik Vaughn? Police. I’m coming in.”

I push open the door, both hands still gripping the butt of the gun. I move along the corridor. I press the light switch, but the power has been cut. Outside, rain hammers on the roof.

The apartment is half empty. No light, almost no furniture, a few cardboard boxes on the living-room floor. Clearly, this bird has flown.

My anxiety goes down a notch. I remove my right hand from the gun to reach for my phone. As I’m typing in Seymour’s number, I sense a presence behind me. I drop my phone and spin around. A man in a motorcycle helmet.

I open my mouth to scream, but before any sound comes out, I feel the blade of a knife sink into my flesh.

The blade that is killing my son.

Vaughn stabs my stomach again and again.

My legs give way and I collapse to the ground.

In a blur, I feel him pulling off my tights. Then I feel myself swept away on a river of hatred and blood. My last thought is of my father. More precisely, I think of the words he had tattooed on his forearm:

The devil’s finest trick is to persuade you that he doesn’t exist.

9Riverside

Hell’s Kitchen, New York

Today

11:15 a.m.

ALICE HAD FINISHED telling him her story a minute ago. Still frozen in shock,