Chapter 23: The One Man She Could Not Track

The black sedan still sat at the corner of Rue Saint-Dominique, its driver's door hanging open like a broken wing.

Elara knelt on the wet pavement beside it. Smoke from Hart Maison still smudged her coat. Her palms were raw. Tobias stood guard at her shoulder with his hand inside his jacket, and Priya had gone silent behind her, arms wrapped tight around her phone.

"Give me a minute," Elara said.

She closed her eyes and breathed in.

Exhaust. Rain on stone. Hot metal from the engine.

And nothing else.

She almost laughed, and the laugh stuck in her throat like a stone. Every person she had ever known left a trail she could follow through a crowded street. Julian, cedar and pepper. Odette, lavender and old paper. Even Priya, a bright dry note of cut grass and ink.

But the man who had vanished from this seat smelled of nothing at all.

Of course, she thought. Of course it would be him.

She pressed the heel of her hand to her chest, willed her heart to slow, and made herself think the way her mother had taught her. Not for the person. For everything around the person.

She bent closer to the seat.

There. A thread, thin as spider silk. Expensive musk and dried orange peel.

"Theo," she said softly.

She leaned across to the door handle. Under her fingertips the leather was damp and faintly sweet. Chloroform, or something near it, sharp and chemical. She drew back sharply. Her eyes watered.

"They drugged him," she said. "Quickly. At least three men. One was Theo."

"Any trace of where?" Tobias asked quietly.

She lowered herself to the pavement. The kerb was dark with oily water, and in the crack between two paving stones lay a strand of something coarse and tarry. She lifted it to her nose.

Hemp. Pine tar. Diesel.

And under it, cold and green and unmistakable, the muddy river smell of the Seine.

"A boat," Elara said. She was on her feet before she knew it. "A barge. Moored on the river, within a mile. They wanted somewhere nobody would look."

Priya swore under her breath and began pulling up maps. "There are forty barges between the Pont de Sully and the Pont de l'Alma."

"There's tar on this rope," Elara said. "Fresh. It's an old working barge, not one of the tourist ones. Wooden hull. Probably a coal boat."

"How could you possibly—"

"I can smell it."

Tobias looked at her for a long moment.

Then he turned and opened the car door.

It took them twenty minutes to find her.

She was a long black barge moored at the far end of the Quai de la Tournelle, half hidden beneath a willow, her name painted in flaking white across the bow. Aurore. No lights on deck. No crew. A thin curl of smoke drifted from a stovepipe.

Elara stood on the quay in the gray drizzle with her heart beating so hard it hurt.

"I will go first," Tobias murmured.

"No." She was already walking. "If it's a trap, they expect you. They don't expect me."

"Elara—"

"Stay here."

She crossed the gangplank in four steps.

The deck was wet and slippery. A porthole glowed amber near the stern, and she crept toward it and pressed her face to the cold glass.

Inside, a lamp burned over a narrow oak table. Three men sat at it.

Conrad Hart leaned back in a carved chair, silver cane propped against his knee, his white hair perfect, his hands folded in his lap. Theo Calloway stood at his shoulder with his arms crossed. And across the table, motionless, bareheaded, with a cut at the corner of his mouth and a pen in his right hand, sat Rhys.

He was awake. He was unbound.

A single sheet of paper lay in front of him.

Elara's breath stopped.

He is going to sign.

She did not think. She wrenched open the cabin door and burst in out of the rain.

"Rhys, don't!"

Every head turned.

Conrad's eyes widened, then softened into an expression of mild, regretful surprise. Theo took a half-step forward. But Rhys did not move. He sat with the pen in his hand, and when he finally looked up, his gray eyes were tired and clear and terribly gentle.

"Elara," he said.

"Put it down."

"It's done."

She looked at the paper. At the black signature scrawled across the bottom. At the Calloway Group letterhead, and the single line above it.

Transfer of all voting shares to C. Hart.

"I signed it before you came," Rhys said. His voice was very quiet. "I am sorry. I could not think of another way."

"Why?"

"Because he offered you your life." His mouth twisted. "In exchange for mine. It seemed a fair price."

Conrad Hart smiled warmly and rose from his chair.

"Now, Mrs. Calloway," he said. "I believe you have something for me."