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Allegra isn’t crying anymore. She looks at me. Her voice is raspy when she speaks.

“What the hell just happened?”

“I’m so fucking stupid. Liliane is with Wormwood.”

“How do you know?”

“She knew the thing wasn’t a drill. Only one way she’d know that.”

Allegra looks puzzled.

“They sent her to kill Eugène?”

“No. Me. But Vidocq was the way in. She could get to me and use him to find out what we knew about black milk.”

She strokes Vidocq’s brow.

“She was always going to kill him, wasn’t she?”

“She came here for me.”

“Then she just did Eugène for fun.”

I nod.

“Yeah. A two-hundred-year-old grudge.”

Allegra’s hands shake. I look at her.

“She would have done you too, you know.”

She ignores me.

“I just killed someone,” she whispers.

“You saved both of us. Liliane wasn’t going to stop.”

She looks up at me.

“What do I do? Call the police?”

I go over to her.

“No. Too many cops are on the take. Let me handle the body. You stay with Vidocq.”

She looks down at him.

I put the syringe in my pocket. Straighten Liliane’s body, then grab some paper towels to wipe her blood off the floor. I pile them on her chest and look back at Allegra.

“I’m going to need some garbage bags and duct tape. Also, your car. Mine is still dead.”

She goes to her purse and hands me the keys. I pocket them.

Fairuza knocks on the door. Opens it a crack and sticks her head in.

“Everyone is gone,” she says.

She looks at the bodies.