“So we’re agreed. Both plans are terrible.”
“Completely terrible,” she confirmed.
Omar reached for an olive, rolling the brined fruit between his thumb and forefinger before biting into it. He worked the pit free with his tongue and set it on the edge of the plate. “There has to be a third option.”
“I can’t think of one.” Marielle tipped her head back as if the heavens held the answer. The stars had multiplied, transforming from a scattered handful into a lavish spill of light. Orion hung low on the horizon, his belt, a trio of jewels catching fire.
“We both know the third option is we bail on Hanna,” he said.
Before she could respond, a flutter of white fabric caught her eye.
“Omar.” Her voice was sharp.
He followed her gaze up to the open window where the gauzy curtain still fluttered. Hanna’s room.
They stood, the bistro chairs scraping against terra cotta with a harsh metallic shriek and rushed through the door into the kitchen’s golden warmth.
The instant they crossed the threshold, she heard it: the decisive thunk of solid wood meeting frame. The front door.
Her espadrilles slapped against the floor as she raced through the kitchen and into the narrow hallway that connected to the inn’s front parlor.
Luc looked up from his work, startled. He sat in a faded velvet armchair positioned to catch the lamplight, a confection of pale pink tulle and raw silk spread across his lap like an exotic flower.
“Did Hanna just leave?” Omar demanded, his voice stripped of social niceties.
Luc blinked, processing the abrupt question. “She said she needed air. I assumed she meant the garden, but she went out the front instead.”
Marielle yanked open the heavy door. The narrow street beyond stretched empty in both directions, illuminated by pools of amber light from the antique street lamps. Hanna could have gone left toward the village center, or right toward the coastal road and the marina beyond. Or she could have disappeared down any of the dozen narrow alleys that threaded between the centuries-old buildings.
Luc set down the delicate fabric, concern drawing lines across his forehead. “Is she in danger?”
“Maybe. Probably,” Marielle said. “Call the gendarmes if we’re not back in thirty minutes.”
She didn’t wait for his response. She was already running.
Eight
Omar hit the cobblestones at a full sprint, Marielle half a stride behind him. They turned left instinctively, toward the village center. It was the logical direction for someone panicking to choose. More people. More places to hide. More chances to disappear.
The narrow street opened onto a small square dominated by an ancient fountain. Water trickled from the mouth of a carved dolphin, and a handful of teenagers had claimed the fountain’s worn stone lip as their territory. Their phones cast shifting blue light across their faces, modern constellations against the Mediterranean dusk.
Omar slowed to a jog, his gaze sweeping the square in trained arcs. A café with mismatched bistro tables scattered across the pavement, their red and white checked tablecloths fluttering in the evening breeze. A tabac with its yellow sign glowing weakly. A boulangerie, its metal shutters already rolled down and locked against the night. No sign of a woman in a yellow dress.
He approached the teenagers, modulating his breathing to sound less desperate than he felt. “Excusez-moi.” His French was serviceable but unmistakably American-accented. He switched languages mid-sentence, a calculated choice. “A North African woman. Dark hair in a braid, yellow dress. Did she come through here?”
A girl with kohl-lined eyes and a nose ring that caught the fountain’s light looked up from her screen without real interest. “Non, desolate.”
Marielle had already peeled away toward the café, her borrowed linen pants flowing as she moved. She spoke in rapid, fluid French to the server wiping down tables with methodical swipes of a bar towel. The man shook his head, gestured vaguely toward the opposite end of the square with his chin in the universal language of unhelpful directions.
They split up without discussion. Omar took the street that angled down toward the water, past shuttered shops with sun-faded awnings and darkened windows. He passed an elderly man in a flat cap walking a terrier the size of a throw pillow.
“Une femme?” Omar asked, breathing harder now. “Yellow dress?”
The man frowned, his weathered face folding into a topographical map of confusion and he shook his head.
Omar doubled back, frustration building like pressure behind his sternum. The village was compact and intimate, the kind of place where everyone noticed strangers. Hanna should be easy to spot.
Unless she’d found a car. Or convinced someone to give her a ride. Or ducked into one of the buildings whose doors remained stubbornly closed against inquiry.