The Last Time I Saw Paris - Lynn Sheene [76]
In this shop she’d discovered a family in Madame’s gentle guidance, in Georges’ sweet friendship. She’d found her own worth, a gift with flowers more lasting than a pretty face and supple body. What she had created here mattered. More than her Oklahoma farmhouse or Manhattan brownstone, the shop was her home. She was damn well coming back.
Claire slipped the photo into her jacket pocket and plucked the rose from the vase. She met Grey at the bottom of the stairs and took one last look around. Flowers in tin buckets posed against the walls like vain ballerinas. Her eyes were hot, her chest hurt.
Grey took the case from her hand. “Claire,” he said, his voice gentle.
She looked up at his face. “Did it work? What I delivered at rue de Saussaies?”
“It did. Our man inside was able to pass it to the person in need.”
“Who was it?”
He shifted the bag in his hand and cleared his throat. “His name was André Paldiel. Our forger. He made identification cards.”
Claire’s breath caught in her throat. “The boy? The teenager?”
“Yes.” His gaze held hers, his eyes dark with pain.
The constriction in the bottom of her throat choked her. She fought the urge to reach for his bruised cheek and instead stroked the rose’s soft petals with the tips of her fingers.
“Alright, then.” Claire tucked the blossom in her lapel and led Grey out. Locking the door behind them, she shoved the shop keys through the mail slot.
They clattered as they hit the stone floor.
“This way.” Grey slipped into the darkness against the building.
They kept to the shadows for several blocks and found a car idling in an alley. Grey opened the door and they got in the back. The car was old, torn seats scratched the back of Claire’s legs. It smelled of stale sweat and cigarette smoke.
The driver glanced back at them in the mirror. He pulled the car into the street and turned into another alley. Claire studied him in the rearview mirror as he drove. He was short and stocky, his face set in a resigned frown. His beret was pulled down low; a handmade cigarette smoldered between creased lips.
Claire held her bag on her lap, her gaze outside. In the narrow alleys, it was as if they were gliding down dark, sinister canyons, neither the Arc de Triomphe nor the tower was visible. She brushed her hair from her face. Her fingers smelled of roses. She closed her eyes and let the empty darkness swallow her.
Chapter 8
THE ESCAPE FROM PARIS
18th Arrondissement. August 13, 1943.
Claire awoke to tapping on glass. The car was parked, engine silent. Grey was gone and the driver was peering in at her through the passenger window. He jerked his thumb toward the building next to them.
Body stiff and eyes gritty, Claire climbed out of the car. The brightening sky revealed a row of warehouses. She picked up her bag and walked through an open door. The dusty building was empty but for one beaten-up old farm truck. Smoke-green, a bent radiator grill, and wooden slats over the truck bed.
Grey slammed the truck’s back gate closed and walked around. “Your case,” he said, reaching for her bag then dropping it in the cab behind the seat. He held the door for her and offered a hand. “Ready?”
Claire hitched her dress up above her knees and scrambled up into the cab. She slid back into the seat and stared down at Grey, one eyebrow raised.
The edges of his lips turned up as he swung into the cab and turned on the ignition. With a coughing rumble and a black cloud of smoke, the truck came to life. Grey needed both hands to shove the shift lever into first.
“Where are they?” Claire turned to look behind the seat for the escapees.
Grey let out the clutch to the sound of grinding metal. They rolled through the doors. “Safe.”
Fifteen minutes of steady driving took them to the northern edge of town. It was the industrial side of Paris Claire had never seen. Smokestacks, factories and cavernous warehouses. Claire rolled down