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“Hello?”

Reine-Marie was jolted back to the Joséphine and looked up into her husband’s smiling face.

“Désolé,” he said, bending to kiss her. “I didn’t mean to startle you. You were a million miles away.”

“Actually, not that far.” She kissed him back and heard him whisper, “Don’t react.”

She kept the smile on her face and tried not to betray any confusion.

He stepped aside and revealed Claude Dussault.

“Claude,” she said.

But she was confused. What had Armand meant? Was she not supposed to recognize this man she knew well?

Had seen the night before in the hospital?

But as the Prefect bent to kiss her on both cheeks, with an exaggerated politesse that had become a joke between them, she understood.

She tried not to react, but she feared she might have, momentarily, given it away. In the slight widening of her eyes. In surprise.

She was pleased to see Jean-Guy and focused her surprise on him.

Everyone got settled in the banquette and ordered drinks as Armand brought Reine-Marie up to speed.

She listened, asked a few questions that had no answers, then fell silent.

But her mind was racing. So quickly she actually felt it was spinning. Kicking up dust. Obscuring what should have been clear.

Jean-Guy pointed to her brioche. “Are you … ?”

She pushed it toward her son-in-law, who was always, it seemed, ravenous.

“One big question is whether Monsieur Plessner was mistaken for Monsieur Horowitz, or whether the attack on him was deliberate,” said Claude Dussault. “What’ve you got there?”

He gestured toward the box, where Reine-Marie’s hand still rested, protectively.

“Oh, yes,” said Armand. “We wanted to show you.” He looked around and caught the maître d’s eye.

“Jacques.”

“Oui, Monsieur Armand?”

The two men went way back. Jacques had been a busboy when Stephen first brought Armand, at the age of nine, to the Lutetia. They were a decade apart in age, and while they’d known each other for almost half a century, there remained a formality between the two. A good maître d’hôtel was never overly familiar with guests. And Jacques was among the best.

“Is there somewhere we can go to talk privately?”

“Of course. I will find you a room.”

A few minutes later they found themselves in the presidential suite.

“I was expecting some basement storage closet,” said Dussault, looking around with amusement. “You clearly have some pull here, Armand.”

“As do you at the George V.”

Dussault laughed. “I wish. I haven’t been there in years.”

“My mistake. I thought you said you had.”