Black Ice - Anne Stuart [54]
And she was no longer his problem. Except that he’d ended up in a bar two streets away from her, for no earthly reason. And he might as well stop fighting it, go and see if she was there.
If she wasn’t, he could forget about her. He should have already, but such things were easier in theory than in practice. He liked answers, and Chloe’s disappearance left too much unsettled.
Fernand was looking at him with far too much curiosity. Then again, information was one of his most valuable commodities, he’d be wanting to get everything he could from Bastien for future use.
Bastien named a street in the opposite direction. “And I’d better get my tail over there before she decides to come looking for me.”
“Then we’ll be seeing more of you? With your girlfriend in the area?” Fernand persisted.
“This will be my home away from home,” Bastien said grandly, portraying the slightly inebriated cock of the walk known as Étienne. “’Soir!”
He was well-hidden in the shadows by the time Fernand followed him out of the bar. The little man peered through the lightly falling snow in search of him, never realizing he was only a few feet away, hidden. Fernand swore, then moved to a corner of the building, away from the light, and pulled out a cell phone.
He was too far away for Bastien to hear more than a few words, but he heard enough to know that his death wish was drawing closer. One more mistake like this one and that would be the end of it. Too bad he couldn’t bring himself to care. It didn’t matter who Fernand was working for, or why. He’d have connections to half a dozen people who wanted him dead.
Fernand closed the phone, looked around one last time and spat before heading back into the bar. Bastien wondered how long it would be before reinforcements showed up.
It wasn’t important—he would be long gone by the time Fernand’s mysterious compatriots got there. It wouldn’t take more than a moment to check the apartment. And then, unless he were completely suicidal, he would go to his house in St-Germain-des-Prés and become Bastien Toussaint again. And Little Miss Chloe would have to fend for herself.
Sylvia and Chloe shared a typically small apartment on the top floor of an old house in a poorer section of the Marais. The ground floor was let to a tobacconist, the first was occupied by an elderly couple who spent most of their time traveling and the top floor held storage rooms and the cramped little flat. The entire house was dark when Chloe finally turned the corner. Her hair was wet with snow, and the burnt edges smelled horrible. The first thing she was going to do was take a bath and to scrub her entire body, even the waxed-over wheals. It had been a lot longer than four hours since he’d spread the stuff on her. A lot longer than four hours since she’d managed to leave the hotel without anyone looking twice. She’d been so muffled in his black coat that they might have thought she was Bastien. Except that duplicating his walk would be just about impossible, for her or anyone else.
Maybe, twenty years from now, she’d remember him, and wonder what fit of insanity had come over her. She’d like to think she’d been drugged, anything to take the responsibility off her shoulders, but she couldn’t. She had been in an altered state of consciousness, all right, but it had nothing to do with drugs and everything to do with…God, she couldn’t even begin to understand what had prompted her to act that way. She’d been bored, longing for romance and adventure. No, actually, she’d been longing for sex and violence, and that was exactly what she’d gotten. Be careful what you wish for—hadn’t the Chinese said that? Or was it, “May you live in interesting times”? Whatever—right now all she wanted was a long bath and a warm bed, and tomorrow she’d fly home to the loving, protective arms of her family and all the