Hunt Through Napoleon's Web

Chapter 28

Arif’s grip slackened.

Gabriel released himself from it, throwing the dead man’s arm to one side. Arif slumped in the aisle as Gabriel stood.

Lucy’s hands dropped, the gun sliding from them to the floor. Her whole body was shaking. Gabriel took her in his arms. As he did, she started to cry.

“Damn it,” Michael said, “somebody tell me what’s going on!”

“It’s okay,” Sammi said. “Everything’s okay.”

Gabriel finished carrying out the last bags of garbage from Lucy’s apartment and sat down on the couch. They had been in Nice for twenty-four hours, doing nothing but restoring her home to its original condition. Practically everything had to be junked. She needed a new computer, new furniture, a new paint job. There was a lot of work still to be done.

“Maybe I should just leave,” she said, dropping down on the couch beside him. “I never stay in one place too long, and this one . . . let’s just say the memories here aren’t the best.”

“I’ll try not to take that personally,” Sammi called from the other room.

Gabriel shrugged. “I can’t tell you whether to stay, Lucy. You’ve always done what you wanted to do. Is there anything keeping you here?”

She rubbed her chin. “I don’t know. Not really. My work I can do anywhere. There’s Sammi . . . but you’d come with me if I decided to move to Spain, right? Or Denmark?”

“Maybe Spain,” Sammi said, appearing in the doorway. She was wiping her hands on a rag. “Denmark’s too cold.”

“Or maybe you’d like to go back to New York with Gabriel,” Lucy said. “I’ve seen the way you two have been looking at each other.”

Gabriel and Sammi did look at each other then. Gabriel couldn’t have said what the look in Sammi’s eyes meant, or what the one in his own eyes did. He didn’t plan to settle down in New York any time soon, with Sammi or anyone else—but spending some more time with her wasn’t at all an unappealing notion.

A ringing coming from Gabriel’s pocket broke the moment. He reached into it for the new cell phone Michael had overnighted to him. It had at least twice as many buttons on it as the last one, and no doubt had reception even if you were in outer space.

“Hello,” Gabriel said, flipping it open.

“Ah, Gabriel,” Michael said. “Glad to see you got the phone.”

“That’s sort of a funny thing to call me to check. I mean, if I hadn’t gotten it and you tried calling—”

“I didn’t call you to check,” Michael said. “I called you to say I’m on my way.”

“To Nice?” Gabriel said.

“To the third floor,” Michael said. A moment later footsteps sounded on the other side of the front door. A fist knocked briskly.

Gabriel turned to Lucy.

“You set this up,” she accused.

“Not me,” Gabriel said. “I didn’t—”

Another knock.

Gabriel closed the cell phone. “I bet he has a way of tracking this thing.”

“You think?” Lucy said.

“Do you want me to tell him to go away?” Gabriel said. “I will if you want me to.”

She stood. “No.”

She walked to the door, swung it open.

Michael was standing there in a suit and topcoat, hands in his coat pockets.

“Hey, Michael,” she said.

“Hello.”

She walked back to the couch. “You can come in, but I’m warning you, the place is a mess.”

Michael stepped inside. “That’s okay,” he said.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call,” she said. “For nine years.”

Gabriel went over to Sammi. “Come on,” he said.

“Let’s go back to the place with that awful red wine, and you can finally tell me how you managed to escape from this apartment the day we met.”

“A good magician—” Sammi began, but Gabriel stopped her with a kiss. It went on for some time. When they finally separated they saw Lucy and Michael both staring at them.

“Maybe we should go,” Lucy said, “and leave you two here.”

“That’s okay,” Sammi said. “My apartment isn’t far.” She took Gabriel by the hand. “I think maybe you can get me to reveal a secret or two. If you ask very nicely.”

Looking back at Michael and Lucy, seated side by side watching him, Gabriel was struck by a sudden memory of the last time he’d seen them sharing a couch. Michael had been twenty-three, Lucy seventeen. It had been nearly a decade since then, and so much had changed. And yet some things never would.

“You guys talk,” he said, putting an arm around Sammi’s waist. “You’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”