Crossfire (8 page)

“You can’t risk going back there, chéri,” Louis exclaimed, horrified. “What if the police are waiting for you?”

“I’ve seen nothing in the papers about it. Those criminals must have removed the body and cleaned up the mess.”

“Well, they could also be waiting for you to return.”

“You forget that they don’t know who I am, what I look like, or what car I drive. How could they possibly be waiting for me?”

“But you’re going incognito just in case?”

“Better safe than sorry, don’t you think?”

“Please promise me you’ll be careful.”

“I promise. Please could you make Stefan some breakfast? I really need to go. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Down in the garage, Marcelle feverishly searched the interior of the Ferrari, but came up empty. She wanted to scream with frustration. Was this her reward for saving a helpless man? It was cruel punishment indeed.

She climbed into the Ferrari and pressed the button on the dash to open the garage door. There was just no way around it. She would have to return to the post office.

The drive to the post office was uneventful, though the traffic irritated her immensely, and Marcelle felt relieved when she pulled into the gravel parking lot of the post office. She sat in the car for several minutes, scrutinizing her surroundings. She saw several other cars in the lot, and many people coming and going, just like any other Saturday morning.

Reassured, she picked up the red baseball cap on the passenger seat, and put it on. She tucked her hair neatly under the cap, and put on a pair of oversized sunglasses. Swallowing hard, she opened the door of the Ferrari, and stepped into the sunlight. Nothing happened. She slipped a small but powerful torch into one of her pockets, and headed for the post office. Maybe she should rather have come after office hours. She snorted derisively. Fat lot of good it did her last time.

Marcelle entered through the mirrored swing doors, dismayed when she saw three people emptying their post boxes. She used her post box key to do the same. Then she took off her dark glasses and sat on a bench against the wall, pretending to go through her mail, but imperceptibly scanning the floor of the post office lobby. She couldn’t see anything shiny, but a few dark corners begged for the powerful light of her torch.

She tapped her foot as she waited for the three people to leave. They finally exited through the swing doors, and she sprang into action before more people came from the customer service area of the post office.

Covering the barrel of her torch with her post, she sauntered around the chamber, shining the powerful beam into every dark corner and crevice. She saw something glint, and bent down, her fingers scrabbling in the corner to find it. It was a spent cartridge from a pistol, and she snatched it up, relieved that she had found it before somebody else had.

This evidence of poor housekeeping filled her with hope. If the cartridge had rolled into a dark corner, her ring could also be in a dark cranny somewhere. An elderly couple came from inside the post office, and Marcelle clenched her jaw in frustration as she stomped back to her bench, and pretended to look through her post.

As soon as the couple had emptied their post box and strolled from the room, Marcelle anxiously resumed her search. Her heart jumped when her torch’s beam found another, much brighter sparkle in a recess beneath the only other bench in the lobby. She fell to her knees, and reached for the bright glint. It was her ring.

She got to her feet and sat on the bench, awash with relief. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she whispered as she examined the ring. It was a gold band with a large diamond pressed into the gold. On the inside of the ring was an inscription from Jean-Michel, in English. “Never forget that I love you.” The words made her feel even worse about sharing Stefan’s bed. She slipped the ring onto her second finger, finding it a comfortable fit, and vowed never to take it off again.

She saw no sign of her gold chain, and assumed that some passerby had found it and taken it. The chain, though expensive, had no sentimental value, so she didn’t care.

After basking in the security of wearing her wedding ring once again, even though it wasn’t on her third finger, Marcelle got to her feet. She shoved the few pieces of post into the back pocket of her jeans before slipping her torch into another pocket. Then she strode towards the exit, her car keys ready in her hand.

She had her hand pressed flat against one door, ready to push it open, when a movement caught her eyes. Through the tinted glass of the swing door, she saw two men standing next to her Ferrari. They looked to be of the same descent as the man she had killed last Sunday, and her blood turned to ice as she shrank away from the door. Why were they standing at her car? How could they possibly know that she had been driving the red Ferrari last Sunday? Did that horrible man tell them, after somehow surviving the many bullets she had pumped into his body?

More people came from inside the post office, and Marcelle stood aside to let them pass, her heart hammering in her chest. She had no idea what to do. One option, that of calling a taxi to take her home, came to mind, but she dismissed the thought instantly. The Ferrari was too precious to her to allow it fall into the hands of criminals.

She continued to watch them through the glass door. Both men were dark and slender, and dressed in dark clothing to match their dark hair. They were talking animatedly, pointing at the car, and one man bent down to examine the tires of the Ferrari. The other man pulled a cell phone from his pocket, and pressed it to his ear. Marcelle could see the energy in his manner as he talked on the phone, gesturing with his free hand towards the post office. She wondered if they knew how obvious they looked. But perhaps it was only obvious to her. To passersby they would look like two men admiring an exotic sports car.

She retreated to one of the benches, and sat, feeling faint. Then she remembered the man on the phone. He had no doubt called for reinforcements. With every passing moment, her chances of escape were diminishing. She wondered if they had seen her arrive. If they had, they would be able to identify her, which put paid to any chance she had of strolling out of the post office. But after many years of evading the paparazzi, she had become an expert at altering her appearance, and she had come prepared.

She walked into the customer service area of the post office, and threaded her way through the crowd to the ladies toilet. After locking herself in a cubicle, she set to work.

She took off the baseball cap and took off her sweater. The navy sweater was reversible, so when she turned it inside out, it became cerise. Beneath the sweater, she wore a long-sleeved white button up blouse. She twisted and folded the sweater with practiced ease, and turned it into a cloth handbag that would not look out of place anywhere in Paris.

Next, she unzipped her baggy blue jeans, and stepped out of them. Beneath the jeans, she wore a pair of closefitting black jeans, already tucked into her knee high boots. She picked up her double layered silky blue scarf, and reached inside it to turn it inside out, revealing a floral pattern on a cream background. Using the scarf to cover her hair in the same way she would for a ride in a convertible with the top down, she draped the rest of the scarf over her shoulders. She picked up her self-made handbag, and shoved the rolled up blue jeans inside, together with her post, the baseball cap, the torch and the oversized sunglasses.

From the pocket of her black jeans, she withdrew a slim hard case, and opened it to reveal a stylish set of silver framed glasses with smoky gray lenses. The lenses were suitable to wear indoors, thereby changing her appearance and hiding the color of her eyes. But once outside, the lenses would darken to black, turning them into sunglasses.

Marcelle stepped from the cubicle and examined herself in the mirror above the washbasins. Satisfied with her transformation, she stepped out of the ladies restroom, and pushed through the people standing in queues.

Returning to the post boxes, she walked to the doors, and looked through the tinted glass. The two men were still standing there, but another man had joined them. They were all staring hard in the direction of the post office.

Marcelle swallowed, trying to moisten her dry throat. Though she had changed her appearance, she still had no way to get past the men waiting by her car. And now there were three of them. Just then, two of the men started walking towards the post office. The third man remained by the Ferrari.

Marcelle’s heart pounded in her chest as she considered her options. She was quite capable of throwing a punch, so one man, especially such a slender one, would not present a problem. She decided to trust her new appearance, and went to sit on one of the benches. She took a few letters out of her handbag and waited, watching the door.

As the door opened, she busied herself with her mail, keeping her face lowered, holding her breath as she watched two sets of dark clad legs walking past her position. She looked up as soon as they had taken a few steps past her, and watched as one of them held the door open for three women who were coming from the customer service area. The other man waited patiently for the women to pass before entering through the door that his companion held open.

Marcelle waited until the men had gone inside before she jumped to her feet and joined the three women, following closely on their heels as they exited via the swing doors. One of the women gave her a funny look, but Marcelle smiled at her as if she knew her, and said in French, “I can’t believe the crowd in there. I thought I would be in there all day, and all I needed was three stamps.”

The woman laughed, and replied, “Yes, a Saturday morning is the wrong time to buy stamps.”

The other two women laughed as well, and Marcelle was grateful, because it gave the impression that they were a group. She walked with the women to their car, and then walked past their car in the direction of the Ferrari, pretending to rummage through her bag for her car keys.

But from behind the dark of her lenses, she watched the man standing at the rear of the Ferrari. He showed no interest in her as she approached him, strengthening her impression that they had a specific description of her.

She decided she would have to be bold. Due to the gravel of the parking lot, it would be impossible to sneak up on the man. Just before she reached the Ferrari, she dropped her keys on the gravel, remembering the politeness the other two men had shown towards the three women. Right on cue, the man stepped forward and bent to pick them up for her, putting his face within range of her uprising knee.

The blow was only enough to stun him, rocking him back on his haunches. But it lined him up for the powerful kick that followed. Marcelle heard the crunch as her boot connected his cheekbone, and stepped back to avoid the spray of blood. The man dropped to the ground without making a sound.

She wasted no time dragging him out of the way, but left him resting on his side so that his airway was open. Then she ran for the driver’s side of her car, unlocking the door with shaking hands before diving inside and starting the powerful engine.

A hurried glance at the post office revealed that the other two men had returned sooner than she had hoped, and were sprinting towards the parking lot. The car with three women inside drove past behind her car, costing her a precious second. She threw her car into gear, and backed out of the parking spot, cursing beneath her breath.

The men were seconds away, but the Ferrari’s nose was already pointing at the exit. She stepped on the throttle, showering the men with gravel as the sports car leapt forward. In the rearview mirror, she saw them clutching their faces as they turned away, trying to escape the spray of stones. But as she exited the parking lot, Marcelle saw them running towards a blue car, and knew it wasn’t over yet.

With a powerful car like the Ferrari at her disposal, escape should have been a mere formality as she opened up the throttle. The industrial area was mostly deserted, but within a few minutes, she found herself in the thick of Saturday morning traffic.

Marcelle took gaps when they presented themselves but wanted to scream with frustration as the Ferrari’s engine idled in the traffic. She kept a close eye on her rearview mirror, and felt her hands go clammy when she spotted the blue car about five cars behind her. She had lost the element of surprise, and didn’t doubt that the men had firearms. The darkly tinted windows of the Ferrari protected her from public scrutiny, but were no defense against bullets.

With the traffic slowed to a crawl, she feared the men might consider leaving their car and racing towards her on foot. Again, she considered abandoning the Ferrari, but then she found what she had been looking for, a sign for a parking garage. Her heart leapt with joy. She owned that parking garage, along with several others that Jean-Michel had purchased throughout Paris.

The parking garages provided a lucrative income, but Marcelle was happy for a different reason. All of the garages had special features that had allowed Jean-Michel to leave paparazzi behind when they pursued him.

The Ferrari was equipped to make use of the special features, so she turned into the entrance of the parking garage, and grabbed a ticket from an automated booth. She made sure that the two men saw her entering the parking garage, though she remained tantalizingly out of reach as the blue car tried to catch up with her.

Four levels up, she turned into a dark tunnel that had a big no exit warning sign, and was gratified to see her pursuers follow suit. She picked up speed, needing to get gap on them for what would follow.