The Fate of the Croissant
Flicka von Hannover
In which I am far more interested
in the fate of the croissant
than in the dangerous plan to save my life.
The next morning, Flicka walked two paces behind Dieter as he wove through the Monday morning crowds that thronged the Parisian sidewalk. The people in the crowd were young, Flicka’s age and younger, which made sense because they were staying in the Latin Quarter. Many universities and conservatories made their home in the Latin Quarter, so named because university classes used to be taught in Latin.
Flicka and Dieter had discussed their options, but speed seemed to be in their best interest. Flicka had found her rubber bands under the bed and scraped her hair back under the baseball cap again.
Dieter ducked into a small cafe, and Flicka followed him through the maze of tiny tables to one at the very back. The walls had been hand-painted with a Mad Hatter’s vision of vines and flowers in muted tones.
The driver from yesterday, Aaron, sat at a table with three coffees and a basket of croissants. He looked up, and his black eyes met Flicka’s gaze for an instant before he looked away.
Dieter joined Aaron and dug into the basket of croissants, ripping apart the pastry with his fingers and chewing the hunks.
For just a second, Flicka had a vision of herself as the croissant as Dieter tore it apart and sucked the flakes off his fingers. A sexy tremor shivered up her spine.
It had been a long time,years,since something that a man was doing had caused that frisson of lust in her. Pierre was always attentive and kind, but a little too cool toward her. When he touched her, whether her hand in public or her body in their bed, it had felt perfunctory, or else there was a moment of stillness as he did it for any paparazzi taking a photo.
Or just hesitation, that moment of overcoming the instinct to withdraw because you are in love with someone else.
Flicka wondered if Pierre had felt her hesitate, too.
Dieter noticed her watching him and looked straight into her eyes, biting into the croissant and tearing part of it away. Heat filled his gray eyes, and she got the distinct impression that he was thinking about last night, too. He licked a crumb off his lip with a swipe of his tongue before wiping away the rest with a napkin.
Aaron sipped his coffee and studied his hands, which were large and rough around his blunt fingers. “The overnight team says that the others are already at the locations. They’ve been there for hours, rotating shifts. Everything’s in place to take her back if she tries to walk in.”
No one had to tell Flicka that he meant the law offices. “Can’t we just call them? If there isn’t paperwork to sign, we might not have to go at all, and we might be able to do electronic signatures, anyway.”
Dieter nodded. “We could call.”
“Phones might be tapped,” Aaron said. “The two state agencies—”
He meant the Secret Service agencies of Monaco and France.
“—have very close ties. There’s almost no daylight between them. I wouldn’t trust a phone in the slightest, and if you call him at all, I’d expect that the adversaries would know your conversation and location within minutes.”
Flicka sipped her coffee, a strong and bitter brew that filled her mouth and throat. She downed it fast.
Dieter nodded to Aaron. “We’ll have to draw him out to a meeting. The adversaries know that Rogue is investigating the disappearance, so a contact from us would be expected. It would raise alerts but not alarms.”
“I have four Rogues here,” Aaron said. “The other guys are expecting to snatch someone. We could set up a meeting outside the office, drag the lawyer into a van, and take him to you. They’ll be watching the other direction. There’s a chance they wouldn’t even see it happen, and even if they did, they won’t be ready for it.”
Dieter nodded. “I like it. Do we have another location?”
Aaron shrugged. “We can find something.”
