Page 128 of The Bone Code

“The summer of 2002. Late July, maybe early August. It made absolutely no sense.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Mélanie would have told me if she was planning to leave. We confided in each other. Besides—” A long, hesitant pause. “Her options were even more limited than mine.”

“How so?”

“I don’t want to make trouble for her.”

“You won’t.” A promise easily kept.

Eisenberg leaned forward and whispered, “Mélanie was in Canada illegally.”

“How did she manage to work without a visa?” Matching Eisenberg, sotto voce.

“I don’t know all the details. I wouldn’t say she was living off the grid, but she was definitely lying low, using a false name.”

“What was her real name?” Calm, though my heart was thumping.

The thick lenses swiveled left, then right. “Melanie Chalmers.”

“How was she lying low?”

“She had an aunt who owned a building here in Laval, or a great-aunt or something. Family, anyway. She was renting from her.”

“Do you recall the aunt’s name?”

“No. Sorry.”

Crap!

Eisenberg looked truly glum. Then, “But I remember the house. It was on avenue Voltaire, brick with green shutters, right across from the entrance to a small park.”

“Do you know who got Mélanie the job at InovoVax?”

“She made it clear that topic was off-limits. Super hush-hush.” Eisenberg leaned back and began wriggling into the malodorous outerwear. “I’ve probably said too much.”

“Just a couple of more questions, please?”

Eisenberg went still.

“Back then, why did you think Mélanie quit?”

“I assumed she couldn’t take Dr. Murray’s badgering any longer.”

“Where did you think she’d gone?”

Eisenberg looked down at the gloves clutched in her sausage fingers. Sighed. When her eyes came up, they were moist with emotion.

“Mélanie loved her kids above all else in this world. She would never have done anything to put them at risk. I assumed she took them back to the States.”

“Why leave so abruptly?”

“I had no idea.”

Eisenberg’s description took us to a two-story four-flat near the intersection of rue Vallières and avenue Voltaire. The brick box was one of an armada of boxes, each featureless save for some slap-dash patches of siding, shutters, or paired balconies jutting from first- and second-floor windows.

Ryan pulled to the curb. We scoped out the scene.