Page 134

The streets were crowded now with people brushing by and bumping by, and others staring. At the two versions of the same man, thirty years apart, arguing.

Armand looked around. Putting his half-eaten crêpe in a bin, he said, “Come in here.”

They were at the entrance to a garden. The very one he and Reine-Marie had trespassed in when he proposed. It was now open to the public, with one proviso. On the gate hung a sign.

En cas de tempête, ce jardin sera fermé.

In the event of a storm, this garden will be closed.

Well, thought Armand, hold on to your hats.

Grudgingly, Daniel followed his father, recognizing that there was no avoiding it now. The tidal wave that had been moving toward father and son for decades was upon them.

As he stepped forward, Daniel wondered if his father had any idea what was about to happen.

Reine-Marie looked at the stacks of dossiers on the long table in the reading room of the Paris archives.

The head of the Archives nationales, Allida Lenoir, put the last stack down, then sat across from her.

They were alone in the great room. The sun was barely making its way through the huge high windows. The lamps on their table were the only source of light.

In her early sixties, Madame Lenoir was a legend in the world of archives. She was tiny, and solidly built.

Her wife was the head of the Bibliothèque nationale. When the two started their relationship thirty years earlier, it was deemed inappropriate. Not because, they were assured, both had uteruses, but because it was a conflict.

Though the women knew what was really being said.

This was a dangerous alliance of two powerful women. Who now held the keys to too many documents. Too much information. They wielded too much control. Which was code for power.

Refusing to end their relationship, they stared down the establishment and won.

“Okay, spill. Why do you want these, and what’s the rush?” Reine-Marie took off her reading glasses and placed them on a manila folder bursting with thick paper. On it, in a careful hand, was written September 1944.

She told Madame Lenoir. Everything.

Archivists knew how to not just keep secrets, but keep them safe.

And none better than Madame Lenoir, who listened, nodded. Then, digging into the pile, she found a dossier and shoved it toward Reine-Maire.

“You’ll want to see this.”

On it, some long-dead hand had doodled a ship, but instead of masts it had the Cross of Lorraine.

Below it was written Lutetia.

Armand turned and held his hands, palm out, in front of him. Asking for, and offering, calm.

“Why didn’t you tell Commander Fontaine that you knew Alexander Plessner?”

His voice was gentle. Almost soothing. Trying to hold on to, and invite, civility. He was clinging to the wreckage of his relationship with his son. No longer sure if it could be saved.

But there were, now, more important things.

“Because I was shocked that he’d been killed,” said Daniel. “Because I needed time to think.”

Armand was grateful Jean-Guy wasn’t there. He could imagine what he’d say to that. And what he himself would have said, had this been any suspect in any murder investigation.

“What did you need to think about?” Armand’s voice remained reasonable. Reassuring.