I resisted the urge to hit the door frame. “Monsieur, here at the station.”
He scratched his head. “This morning, no.” He leaned on his broom. “But last night we had two passengers from this station. A young lady and a young man.”
Bauer. He’d brought his motorbike on the Paris train, I knew. Maybe he’d seen Clare on his trip home. I needed to get to the Rue d’Ulm. I needed to see what he knew.
I paced the platform and then, once the train arrived and I boarded, I walked from one end to the other all the way to the Gare du Nord—as though I could make it go faster through sheer force of my restlessness. If Clare had left last night, when Bauer did, she’d been in Paris since then. She’d been all alone.
After the train arrived, I hurried to the university dormitories. Bauer was half awake and sporting a black eye.
“Please tell me you saw Clare at the station last night,” I said without preamble.
He scowled. “She is not very polite, is she?”
“She can be outspoken. Is that a yes?”
Bauer hesitated. “She was on the train, yes.”
“Where did she go from the station?”
“How do you think I know? She left. She did not give me her itinerary.” He put a hand to his head and winced. Apparently his evening had involved too much wine.
“You look like hell. Where were you last night?”
He hesitated again. “Lili’s,” he said, cradling his head. “The night did not go as I planned.”
“That’s what you get when you spend evenings at les maisons closes.”
“Whores are nicer than fifteen-year-old girls. No wonder you did not help her.”
I stopped. “Help her with what?”
He buttoned up his sweater tighter. “She talked again and again, always about her mama and a secret that you would not share.”
The paintings in the gallery. She’d come to Paris not to escape me, but to find her mother.
“You should find some coffee.” I clapped Bauer on the shoulder and he winced again. His evening must’ve been rougher than I thought. “I’m going to go find her.”
“Crépet.”
I turned in the doorway.
“You should be careful near her.”
“What, so I avoid a black eye?”
“She seems to like older boys.” He rubbed his shoulder. “Watch that she does not throw herself at you.”
“Clare is only a child.”
“Not as much as you think.”
I thought of her following me through the woods, insisting on drawing me when I’d tried to keep my distance.
“Don’t underestimate Clare Ross,” I said.
—
She was at Galerie Porte d’Or, of course.
She hunched in a doorway across the street, wrapped tight in a light gray linen jacket. Somewhere along the way, she’d lost her hat. It was summer, but she shivered.
“You don’t hide very well, mouse.”
She didn’t even look up, just slumped lower.
“Hi.” I took her arm.
At my touch, she flinched. She looked up then.
“Clare,” I said softly, “are you okay?”
She stared at me, shaking, but didn’t say a word. I slipped off my coat and held it out to her, but she shook her head. Her hands clutching at the neck of her jacket were white. Along the back of one was a long, thin scratch, bright red.
“What happened to you?”
“It was my hat pin.” She brought her hand up to her lips. “It was an accident.”
“But you don’t even have a hat on.”
