The Renault's vinyl seats crackled with static—or was it the tension between them? Lydia stared at her rain-streaked reflection in the window, Gavin's knuckles still burning like brands against her memory. His hand had recoiled as if her skin were acid. Now, silence hung thicker than the Rhône fog.
"Demande ce que tu veux plus tard," Gavin muttered, eyes fixed on the passing quays. "Pas ici."
Lydia swallowed her protests. The driver's knowing smirk in the rearview mirror felt like a violation.
"T'es vexée?" Gavin's voice softened, a rare fissure in his marble composure. His hand lifted—hesitant—toward her wind-tousled hair.
She batted it away. "Arrête! Tu vas finir par me rendre idiote!"
"T'es déjà assez bête sans mon aide," he teased, the ghost of a smile playing on his lips. "Mais si tu deviens pire…" He leaned closer, pine soap and danger enveloping her. "…je pourrais te garder. Comme un agneau égaré."
"Je ne suis pas ton agneau!" She swung her fist, connecting with his chest—a solid thump against muscle and bone.
Gavin gasped, doubling over. "Putain…"
"Ça fait si mal?" Her bravado faltered. "J'ai à peine tapé!"
"Essaie toi-même," he wheezed, straightening. "Vas-y, frappe."
She jutted her chin. "Frappe! Je n'ai pas peur!"
His knuckles grazed her collarbone—just as the taxi lurched over a pothole. Lydia pitched forward. Gavin's hand slipped, the heel of his palm crushing against her left breast.
"Aïe!"
Their eyes locked—shock, then wildfire. The driver's chuckle echoed like gravel in a tin can. Gavin's neck flushed crimson, matching the geraniums spilling from window boxes along Rue du Bœuf.
At 9 Rue des Canuts, the courtyard gate groaned. Lydia's gaze flew to the west wing—to the patch of damp cobblestones where Gavin's Cervélo S5 had leaned against Monsieur Bernard's noodle workshop.
Empty.
"Ton vélo…" Her voice cracked. "Il est parti."
Gavin froze. The bike—carbon fiber, electronic shifting, worth more than Mémé Louise's annual pension—had vanished. Lydia's stomach clenched. Theft in Croix-Rousse was rarer than snow in July. Neighbors watched. Neighbors knew.
"Appelle la police," Gavin ordered, already striding toward the street-side téléphone publique. His calm was unnerving.
Lydia scrambled after him. "Tu crois que c'est… quelqu'un d'ici?" The question tasted like ash.
He didn't answer. At the phone booth, he dialed 17 with rigid precision. "Vol de vélo. 9 Rue des Canuts. Modèle Cervélo S5."
Mémé Louise emerged, wringing flour-dusted hands. "Qui prendrait ça?" she fretted. "Seulement Madame Gagnon est venue pour des pâtes à midi… et le petit Bastien."
Bastien. Lydia's blood ran cold. The boy whose bicycle brakes Danielle had sabotaged—was this retaliation? Or something darker?
Two officers arrived—gendarmes from the local commissariat, their uniforms crisp but eyes weary. Gavin recounted the timeline: bike present when they left for the TV studio, gone upon return.
"On va interroger les voisins," the senior officer sighed, jotting notes. "Mais sans témoins…"
Lydia hovered, catching fragments: "…pas assez d'hommes… priorité aux agressions…"
Gavin's jaw tightened. He picked up the receiver again. This time, he dialed a number Lydia recognized—the prefix for the Palais de Justice.
"Oncle Robert? C'est Gavin. On a un problème."
Twenty minutes later, the sirens began. Not the wail of local police municipale, but the staccato shriek of Direction Régionale de la Police Judiciaire vehicles. Ten unmarked cars disgorged plainclothes officers—men and women with coiled energy and eyes that missed nothing.
Croix-Rousse emerged from its shuttered silence. Faces pressed to windows. Old men abandoned their pétanque games. Madame Gagnon gaped from her doorway, a half-peeled onion forgotten in her hand.
A man in a charcoal suit cut through the chaos—Lefèvre, Chef de Cabinet to the Procureur de la République. His rimless glasses gleamed under the afternoon sun.
"Gavin," he clasped the boy's shoulder. "Quel imbécile ose voler le vélo d'un Sterling?"
Gavin massaged his temples. "J'ai juste demandé une enquête sérieuse, pas une invasion."
Lefèvre smiled thinly. "Le Procureur a insisté. Il ne veut pas que votre père pense que Lyon est un coupe-gorge."
Lydia watched, nausea rising. The police moved with surgical precision—cordoned the block, began door-to-door inquiries. Madame Gagnon's voice trembled as an officer questioned her. Bastien's mother wept in the alley.
"Ils croient que c'est nous," Lydia whispered, clutching Gavin's sleeve. "Les pauvres. Les étrangers."
"Non," Gavin's gaze swept the courtyard—lingering on the noodle workshop's window, the empty space where his bike had been. "C'est moi qu'ils visent. Le vol n'est qu'un avertissement."
"De Danielle?"
"Ou de quelqu'un qui veut qu'on se taise." He nodded toward the west wing. Danielle's curtains twitched—a pale sliver of observation.
As dusk bled into the cobblestones, a junior officer approached Lefèvre. "On a trouvé ça dans la ruelle derrière la boulangerie."
He held up a mud-smeared smartphone—cracked screen, rhinestone case. Lydia gasped. "C'est le portable de Sophie! La fille de Madame Gagnon!"
Gavin took the phone. Swiped open the photos. Grainy, hurried shots:
A man in a hoodie wrestling the Cervélo into a white van
The van's license plate, partially obscured by grime
A close-up of the driver's hand—thick fingers, a scar across the knuckles.
Lydia froze. "Je connais cette cicatrice. C'est Marcel—le garde du corps de Danielle."
Lefèvre's radio crackled. "Fourgonnette repéré près des docks. On encercle."
Gavin gripped Lydia's arm. "Danielle ne voulait pas le vélo. Elle voulait qu'on trouve le téléphone. Qu'on accuse les voisins."
"Pourquoi?"
"Pour nous distraire." He pulled her toward the noodle workshop. "Pendant qu'on cherchait le voleur…"
The door hung ajar. Inside, flour sacks slashed open, noodles strewn like pale serpents. And beneath the loom—the strongbox gaping, empty.
Captain Shaw's journal. The 7.62mm bullet. The damning photos.
Gone.
Danielle's laughter floated from her window—a silver dagger in the twilight. "Cherchez bien, les enfants! La vérité est un oiseau qui s'envole!"
Lefèvre paled. "Mon Dieu… si elle a les preuves…"
Gavin's phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number:
Libération ne publiera rien. Ton père non plus. Dis à ta petite pute de se taire ou la prochaine chose qu'on volera… c'est sa grand-mère.
Lydia read it over his shoulder. The world tilted. Mémé Louise…
"C'est fini," she whispered.
Gavin's fist slammed into the wall. Plaster dust rained down. "Non. C'est la guerre."
Mémé Louise emerged, clutching a rusted biscuit tin. "Prends ça." She pressed it into Lydia's hands. Inside:
A spare key to the strongbox
A microcassette labeled Backup - Mali Evidence
A faded photo of Captain Shaw and Thibault shaking hands at Saint-Cyr Military Academy
"Ton père…" Mémé's voice trembled. "…il savait qu'ils viendraient. Il a fait des copies."
Gavin's eyes met Lydia's—a silent pact forged in dust and defiance.
"On va les enterrer," he vowed.
Somewhere in the city, Marcel grinned at the stolen strongbox. He never noticed the GPS tracker Gavin had epoxy-glued beneath its base—a pulsing red dot on Lefèvre's tablet.