The Missing Sister Read online

  Call me the tactless twin.

  He takes a step back. His eyelids shut several times, maybe focusing blurry vision. “That’s impossible. I was there last week.”

  “Could be it was moved there recently. Makes sense to deposit it after the police finished looking around.”

  He nods slowly, as though disturbed by my candor. “Anything else?”

  I consider taking his hand but think better of it before I do. No need for theatrics. “Do you think it’s Manu?” I need her to be alive, to prove Angela wasn’t implicated in anything, that they were actually good friends despite obvious conflict.

  Valentin exhales, staring at his feet. “I hope not. You had better get inside and remain there. I hope you’re not talking to strangers anymore, Miss Darby.”

  “No. Not anymore. Did you learn anything else?” I can’t help pressing him for more information, more detail. Especially when I recall my visit to identify Angela’s supposed corpse. Valentin must know more than he’s saying. “I meant to ask: the morgue director said Angela’s gunshot wound and tattoo were administered postmortem. Why would anyone do that?”

  He sighs, annoyed. “He should not have shared that with you. Once we confirm how those details align with the cause of death, I will update you. You can be assured.”

  “What about this dead body?” I motion to the apartment building. “He has the tattoo and the gunshot to the head, too, right? Is this the work of the same serial killer that went after Angela?”

  Valentin rubs the bridge of his nose. “I wish I had more to divulge. Really, I do. We are working at all hours, given these developments. I, myself, am performing on three hours of sleep.” He glances over his shoulder. “Have you ever heard of Michel Fourniret?”

  Jean-Luc’s Ogre des Ardennes. “The serial killer, right?”

  Valentin nods. “Fourniret killed nine people. The inspector working that case blamed himself for not being able to apprehend Fourniret sooner. Over time, this failure became the inspector’s legacy. I have no intention of these murders here becoming mine.” He locks eyes with me. “Do not move. I’ll get someone to take you home.”

  I watch him dodge a procurement team taking bags to a white industrial van before he disappears inside the foyer.

  No one comes for me after thirty seconds, and I sneak closer to the entrance. The officer who found me must be inside; I don’t recognize anyone else from the station. A crowd of locals gathers beside another van with direct line of sight into the building. Three men flank a well-dressed woman in a suit speaking into a camera, the same woman I saw on my taxi’s seat screen—they’re a news crew. Monsieur Leroux, she says, gesturing behind her, along with other words she speaks too quickly for me to grasp. The ticker flashes to mind, the text regarding a body.

  Delphine mentioned that name in her office—Dr. Leroux—and Valentin confirmed it.

  Could this body be Angela’s archaeology director?

  At the end of the ground floor hallway, a door is cracked open. Feet protrude from a black tarp beside a yellow shopping bag with black cursive writing. The letters look familiar. I make out the word L’Opéra before more policemen enter the hall and the view is blocked.

  Valentin emerges alone from another door some fifteen feet removed from the main entry. Something glints in his hand before he pockets it. He looks up, directly at me.

  I push through the crowd, ignoring the angry huffs from people, knowing he won’t leave to follow me. If I’m lucky, I’ll find another taxi waiting, go to my bordels tour, then squeeze in a visit to the Paris Opera before they close. Yellow bags with the same black cursive lettering were sitting in Nour’s living room; she’s a costume designer at the opera. And she might know more than anyone thinks.

  My sandals smack the pavement, noisy in the quiet residential streets, until small convenience stores and restaurants bloom toward the city center. A thrill courses through me with each pump of my arms. Faster and faster, like adrenaline spurts in my limbs. The sun sets, and a breeze sweeps through the roundabout square. A yellow cab idles by the curb, and I’m panting like a dog when I come to a stop beside it. The driver rolls down his window to fully look at me. He hesitates to say hello, peering behind me for a pursuer, as I slip into the back seat. My heart swells, feeling the satisfaction of making tangible headway, on my own terms—on our terms—and like I finally have a grasp on next steps. Disregarding the declarations of outsiders who believed Angela would do this or Angela did that leaves me feeling empowered, and in control in ways I haven’t experienced in years.

  Even as Valentin’s expression of surprise, locking eyes with me as he exited the building, lingers in my mind. And it registers the object he was taking care to conceal was a pair of shiny steel scissors.

  Chapter 20

  Once a year, we went to the San Diego Zoo as a family. Always in the summer and with a battery of antics. Angela and I would stand next to the monkey enclosure and groom each other while miming finding tasty bugs in each other’s hair until a small crowd formed around us. Then I would get shy, and Angela would bow.

  Things changed between us after that day on the beach. We lost the implicit trust that we shared as children; I never fully let my guard down with her again. By the time we went to college, long gone were our hammy bits and the comedic routines we both got such a kick out of. I began to feel that we were strangers; I didn’t recognize the fluctuations in Angela’s emotions, which dipped and peaked wildly. Reactions to mistakes in school or to hard words from our parents were twice the level I felt was appropriate. Everything was heightened for her. My therapist, Dr. Poucer, symbolized the undoing of our bond, according to Angela, even though our parents had always appreciated therapy and had sent us to a psychotherapist when we were fourteen to ensure we each had our own identities and were having our individual needs met. In Angela’s mind, she, as my twin, was supposed to be my source of comfort and understanding—not the therapist.

  Her feelings weren’t unfounded. I did need an outlet I could confess everything to. An impartial ear to my twin worries, the pressures of twin for the win being our sister slogan, urging togetherness for success.

  My fears of Angela’s outbursts—for what they were doing to our family, and to her own relationships after she broke up with her boyfriend, then keyed his car—were making me jittery. It got to the point where I would receive a call from her and a cramp would form in my stomach, anticipating conflict I couldn’t reason with, that refused to be fair. I didn’t want to feel that way about my sister when I was there for her. I would always be there for her. Our parents loved her, too, just not always in the way she wanted.

  Somehow, after they died, Angela’s tirades, originally aimed at our family, her friends, and her boyfriends, landed squarely on me. A fact that royally pissed me off, in the midst of grieving, graduating college, and being tasked with managing my parents’ testaments. Although we received equal halves of their estate, and that might be enough for other siblings, she never forgave my not selling the family home. As the executor, I didn’t want to, so I didn’t. About a month after the funeral (and several nasty exchanges by email and phone), we stopped talking. Just quit altogether. I was never entirely sure of Angela’s reasons, but I couldn’t take it anymore, the guilt she insisted I should feel regarding our parents’ favoritism—knowing the crushing guilt I felt was far worse.

  Posters of American metal bands and images of women in animal-print lingerie posed in various attack stances line the walls of the bar—far cries from the beasts Angela and I first encountered at the zoo. A furry claw curls under my bartender’s jawline, an arm tattooed down to the collar of his white tank top. The fur color matches his surprised eyes—red, like he just smoked a bowl or contracted pink eye. He looks me up and down, then points past a pair of men at the counter—drunken regulars, from their looks of quiet stupor.

  I double-check the address on the receipt I found in the folder as I head to the shadow-filled courtyard behind the building; w
e’re near the Pantheon, a secular mausoleum—shudder—on the Left Bank, and it’s still eerily quiet before the night gets underway in the Latin Quarter. It’s not that I expected a historical brothel tour to be rainbows and daisies. But an official sign would have been nice, or a pamphlet describing the tour itself; instead, broken glass lines the doorway of this bar like a crunchy get lost mat.

  The tour guide grimaces when I emerge into the brick enclosure, then takes a beat to stare at my chest.

  “Bon soir.” I try to make eye contact with the other civilians, three young men, if you can call them that—maybe late teens—but they’re all absorbed in the cracked cobblestone at our feet. Cigarette butts layer the ground.

  Mathieu, the tour guide, introduces himself with shifty eyes. Dyed jet-black hair hangs to his chin in strips, but from the parentheses around his mouth, I bet he’s at least forty. He turns and leads us through a side exit; I follow the throng of black jackets into an alleyway. Crowds begin to form before the adjacent bars and clubs and amplify the silence among us. We walk for ten minutes, alternating our route with sidewalks on busy streets and narrow alleys. The air is cool, allowing the constant sheen of sweat on my chest to finally dry at ten o’clock at night.

  Our guide pauses beside a brown door. The muted space is couched in neon spray paint lining each side, and the only other business on this stretch is a convenience store. Bells chime as two men exit the store carrying paper bags. They see us, then burst into laughter.

  Mathieu clears his throat. “Here is the location of one of Paris’s most infamous brothels.” He gestures mechanically, using practiced movements. He explains this was a favorite haunt of top Nazi brass during the Occupation, but it has since been turned into a storage unit. I’m the only one who seems to have any questions, searching for reasons why I’m here. Does the Sorbonne study these sites? Do classes study sex workers? Mathieu dutifully explains prostitution has long been decriminalized in France. Only the johns are fined now.

  We move to the next location. Mathieu uses a flashlight when the streets become crooked and unlit, while thoughts of every horror movie ever swirl in my head. Girl goes to Paris. Girl bonds with locals. Locals attack! Why did I come here? Why did Angela? She clearly wanted me to find this receipt—she drew a sun and moon on it. The tour isn’t on TripAdvisor, and I only found the one review on a French website that stated it was a good time for Parisians.

  Mathieu halts in front of an abandoned three-story building, the structure leaning like a tenement. “Here we see the business of Madame Trudeau, famous proprietor of Trudeau’s Home for Girls.” Mathieu seems to zone out again while he recites this site’s history. I have a hard time staying focused. I’m only able to catch his meaning when he uses swear words I recognize. Lots and lots of fucking occurred here.

  We move on, heading back toward the sound of glasses clinking and bass pumping. Mathieu assures us our final stop is coming, and the boys all perk up, fidgeting and adjusting their jeans. Groups of people clad in their Thursday night finest crowd the sidewalk, forcing us to pass through single file, with me bringing up the rear. Cigarette smoke mixes with the smell of sugary cocktails, engulfing us.

  Mathieu nods to a hulking bouncer outside a club bursting with young and beautiful patrons dying to get in; we’re admitted without a second thought. We trail Mathieu through the entry until he leads us to the crowded bar. A red claw twitches from the same bartender’s neck. I squint past an army of gyrating bodies and spy the heavy metal posters and photographs of animal-print women adorning the walls. We’re back.

  “Excuse me,” I shout in French. “But we had three stops on this tour.”

  Mathieu shakes his head and points to his ears. He hands us each a shot of something green, tosses one back himself. The boys follow suit, but I eye my tiny glass, feeling my heart beat against the bass’s rhythm.

  Mathieu smirks. “It is to relax,” he shouts in English. He mimes gulping it back, then he rubs the belly of his torn Iron Maiden T-shirt like it’s a warm ladle of soup. “Relax. One more stop. You must drink—part of tour.”

  I open my mouth to argue with Mathieu, to say I didn’t sign up for alcohol or being obligated to drink, but he crosses his arms. “Part of tour,” he repeats. “No enter without this drink.”

  “That’s not fair. That’s not legal.”

  He shakes his head to show he doesn’t understand.

  “Goddammit.” Not seeing another way, I take a sip. “There. Happy?” Its sweetness contrasts the bitter taste I was expecting. What is the point of this visit? Why did Angela come to this shitty excuse for a historical tour of Paris, paying fifty euros for an hour-long walk of nothing and a shot of something warm and green and altogether delicious that makes me suddenly parched and tickles my insides? The green fairy. Like a scene from one of Angela’s favorite films, Moulin Rouge, this is a shot of absinthe. Instead of a musical number, images of the dead bodies I’ve seen this week jostle behind my eyelids. A girl bumps into me, sloshing the tiny cup.

  I hand it back, empty, to Mathieu. He presents another, already prepared, but I shake my head. “No.”

  With a wink, and the first show of genuine interaction since I started following his cracked leather jacket, he leans into my ear. “You have need . . . extra relax.” His French tongue grapples with the English, near swallowing the words. The boys, who only got one shot as part of their ticket fee, exchange a glance; I pass this second one to the redheaded boy when Mathieu isn’t looking.

  Colors seem brighter as we leave the bar and weave our way through the crowd, while the air feels thicker, covering my exposed skin, my tank top and shorts, like a sleeve. The sip of absinthe ignites my senses by the time we leave the brick courtyard and pass into the alleyway once more, its fierce mint flavor continuing to tingle my mouth.

  It’s been so long since I’ve had the slightest bit of alcohol; enjoyment registers before a wave of shame courses through me.

  Words in French from smokers and drinkers outside pass over and around us, encircling me, and I accept them without thinking, or overthinking, and swear I become fluent in the course of five steps. Frustration knots my fists. I still have no idea why I’m here, and with my crap tolerance, I have a buzz.

  Mathieu pauses down the length of the courtyard along the same wall, before an unmarked door I hadn’t noticed. He opens it and ushers us all inside a scant lobby, looks backward, then pulls it shut. A cozy fit for the five of us. Dirt covers the ground beneath, except for a large, circular metal plate I stand on—a manhole. Bass from the adjacent club vibrates my chest, and I’m not sure if it’s the absinthe or bad wiring, but the one light bulb illuminating the space flickers.

  The panel in the metal door before us shifts two inches to the left. A beady eye lands on Mathieu, lingers on each of us—longer on me than I’d prefer—then slides shut. A bolt is undone, and the door with no handle swings inward with a groan. Mathieu and the boys step forward. The absinthe only allows for a quick jolt of nerves, a sudden fear for my safety and whether someone who’s been trailing the tour since it began might follow me inside—then the impulse is stifled. Excitement at what lies beyond bubbles in my chest. Maybe this is Angela’s favorite French speakeasy, like the one we visited in San Diego’s Gaslamp District once.

  A grizzled woman greets us in the somber foyer darkly decorated like something from a red-light district in the forties. Two antique parlor chairs and a table with a chessboard carved into its face occupy the round enclosure. She offers to check any belongings we might have. Heavy bags beneath darkly made-up eyes make her welcome ominous, as though we might not get our belongings back. The lamp behind her augments the scowl she reserves for me when I shake my head. She withdraws five tickets from a pocket and warns us not to lose them. When she gets to Mathieu, she speaks to him, dropping her voice and throwing me a side-eye. Serious shade for a glorified hostess. They argue, with her pointing at me, and I hear Mathieu say Américaine, but she shakes her head, wiry hair quiv
ering in a bun. The words for trafficking, police, and United Nations tumble from her mouth in quick succession before she plants herself in front of me.

  “Are you police?” Sharp eyes narrow, daring me to flinch.

  I shake my head.

  She says something snide, judging from her lift of one eyebrow. Then she nods over to Mathieu. Without further pomp, she turns on her heel and motions for us to follow.

  We move down a skinny hall with red cloth lining the walls. A large man waits for us at the end, bald and pink cheeked in the warmth of the low ceilings and stunted environs. One at a time, he pats us down for objects, and the small voice that fought through my intoxicated haze pipes up again. Part of the tour? The man pats me down as thoroughly as he did the boys, and I focus on the crisscrossed pattern of the walls as he slides his hand around my waistband. Mathieu watches intently. When I’m released, we step through a restaurant-style door that swings behind us with an aggressive flapping sound. The dim lighting continues. A red haze grows the farther we walk in. Classical music thrums from speakers louder than I’ve ever heard violins, along with a deeper noise I can’t place. I stumble along, behind Boy One and Boy Two through another empty vestibule. Boy Three takes off to the right like he already knows the drill. Mathieu leans into me and says, “Excited?”

  A figure approaches from a counter tucked off to the side. Alcohol bottles line glass shelves, with no bartender in sight. Maybe this is a real speakeasy, with no liquor license. That’s what I was getting the side-eye from the hostess about.

  The man wears a hat with a large brim, and for a second I panic, thinking it’s the fake cop. Then he leans in, and his accent purrs in my ear, trilling his r’s. Not a French accent. “What are you looking for?” he asks. “Old boyfriend break your heart? Best friend cheat with him? I can help.”

  I jerk out of reach, though the movement is much slower. Mathieu says something to make the man turn back to the DIY bar and takes my hand. I watch him pull me to the right, following the group. My chest burns, warming me beyond the temperature of the small space. I wasn’t supposed to drink anything. I shouldn’t have drunk anything. He pushes a velvet curtain to the side, allowing me to enter first, and I almost trip on a couple making out on a footstool. “Sorry,” I mutter. But neither one bats an eye at my slurred English. Mathieu pushes me forward with a hand on the small of my back, past an aisle of four doors, then left down a series of curtains. The deeper we travel inside this speakeasy, the more heightened my senses become.