excerpts from the first chapter of
Murder in Belleville
by Cara Black
Aimée walked up the uneven pavement to the end
of the street, regretting her impulsiveness at following Anaïs'
trail. This goose chase had led nowhere. She wanted to kick herself
- why had she agreed to help? She needed to hustle for the EDF
contract!
Spousal surveillance wasn't her field. Next time she'd think
twice before she ran into the rain. She turned to retrace her
steps. On her way back to the car, she'd try one more time.
In the distance, she saw two women emerge from the door of 20
bis. Aimée recognized one as Anaïs, her blond
hair illuminated by the streetlight. The other, a dark-haired
woman, wore a shiny black raincoat that swung as she moved. The
woman opened the driver's door of the car parked in front, reached
in then shoved something across the car's roof to Anaïs,
who waited on the curb.
As Aimée walked closer, she saw that the car was a powder
blue Mercedes. Anaïs stuck the object in her shoulder bag,
put on her sunglasses, then rushed off without saying goodbye.
Odd, Aimée thought.
"Anaïs!" Aimée called out, hurrying up
to catch her.
Anaïs turned, noticed Aimée, and waved in recognition.
Strains of Arabic music suddenly blared from nearby. Loud and
piercing. "Shut that crap off!" someone shouted from
a window.
The dark-haired woman slammed her car door and started her engine,
and with a blinding flash the Mercedes exploded. The car burst
into a white-yellow ball of flames with a deafening roar. Aimée
faltered and everything seemed to move in slow motion but it
could only have been microseconds. Terror flooded her. Tires
and doors blew off like missiles into the stone buildings. She
saw Anaïs rise in the air, as if she were flying, then disappear.
The ground reverberated.
The pressure wave knocked Aimée off balance mid-dive as
she aimed for the nearest car. The backdraft sucked the air as
if trying to vacuum her body into a smaller space. Tighter than
she could stand. Steel fragments and bloody clumps of viscera
rained over the cobblestones.
Aimée landed on wet cobblestones praying nothing else
would explode. Her heart hammered. She tried to cover her head
with her hands. Memories of the Place Vendôme explosion
killing her father came back; his burned body ejecting from the
surveillance van, her hand holding the molten door handle, and
the fireball that engulfed the van as it smashed into the Place
Vendôme column.
And then she realized the danger, gas tank vapors from the parked
cars could ignite from the flames. She pulled herself up. Made
her legs move. Made them go past the Mercedes metal skeleton,
burning furiously and bulging like an accordion. The intense
heat singed her eyebrows. She had to find Anaïs, get out
of here.
Her ears rang and she choked on the billowing smoke. She tripped
over the cobblestones, greasy with oil and antifreeze. Her hands
came back bloody and shaking. Like five years ago when her father
had been blown up in front of her eyes - the same horrible nightmare.