Page 80 of Blood Game

James' hand closed around her upper arm as they walked toward ground transportation. He waived down an Uber driver and gave him an address.

“The friend of a friend.”

They passed familiar landmarks and monuments, skirted the river, then into the medieval streets of the Marais with its bars, restaurants, old-fashioned bread shops, and boutiques, an enclave much the same as it was three hundred years before.

He signaled the driver and had him pull in front of one of those old-fashioned bakeries.

La Patisserie sat mid-street among other old buildings, with stone steps just beyond the entrance at the side of the building that led to an upper floor landing.

The entrance was tucked back. There was no overhead light, only the faint glow of a red security light beside the door. There was no sound from inside the building, no ring-tone when he pressed the button, or indication that anyone was there.

A light eventually came on outside the entrance. The heavy steel door slowly opened. Dark eyes peered at them from an equally dark face. A fall of white hair framed delicate features.

“He said you might come here.”

“Innis,” James whispered as Kris looked over at him.

The door opened further. The girl was slender, wearing jeans, boots, and a turtleneck sweater. A sleek Belgian Malinois stood quietly beside her. But the body language was anything but quiet as the dog glanced up at the young woman.

She spoke to the dog in French and he sat down, not an animal Kris would want to encounter in a dark alley.

“I'm Daenerys.” The girl smiled. She glanced past them into the darkened street below, then opened the door further.

“Please, come in.”

CHAPTER

TWENTY-TWO

THE MARAIS, PARIS

The apartment over the bakery had been a private residence in the old section of Paris a few hundred years earlier, with several rooms, including what had once been a grand salon, with more rooms on the third floor at the top of a scarred wood staircase.

The private rooms were typical of the period with high ceilings, arched window casements, stone walls, and wood floors that reminded her of the residence Isabel Raveneau had lived in at Mont St. Michel.

The main salon was empty. An arched doorway led to what appeared to be a kitchen.

“Anthony will be back later,” the young woman explained as she turned down a wide hallway.

Like the Raveneau residence, the apartment smelled of old places—stone walls, the dull gleam of wood floors, the pervasive scent of candle wax over the centuries, and a fire in the hearth.

Daenerys stepped to the other side of a doorway at the end of the hallway, and pushed open the door to a bedchamber.

“There are blankets in the wardrobe, and you can turn on the gas in the fireplace. There is food in the kitchen. Do you need anything else?”

“Bandages,” Kris replied, shoving her hand back through her hair. “And something to disinfectant a wound.” She was pretty certain the crude bandage she'd made on the train needed to be changed.

There were no questions, not even a flicker of surprise.

Daenerys nodded. “I'll bring what you need.”

The door closed behind her.

Kris dropped her shoulder bag into the large wood chair as James eased out of his jacket.

“All the comforts of home.”

The furnishings were sparse, along the lines of early street-fare, but the sheets on the bed were clean under a thick comforter. It could have been on the floor and she wouldn't have cared.