The Boy Who Tried to Steal Her Bag Carried Her Sister's Necklace

CHAPTER 2 - THE NAME HE SHOULD NOT HAVE KNOWN

The policeman's name was Moreau. He walked beside them, still cautious, one hand near the radio on his shoulder as the boy led them away from the bright storefronts toward narrower streets behind the market square.

Eleanor could barely feel the pavement beneath her heels.

"How did you know my name?" she asked.

The boy kept hold of her fingers as if afraid she might disappear. "Mom showed me your picture."

"What picture?"

He frowned, trying to remember exactly. "You were younger. You had big hair."

Under any other circumstances, Eleanor might have laughed. Instead she felt something crack open in her chest.

Moreau cleared his throat. "What's your name, son?"

"Leo."

"And your mother's name?"

The boy hesitated. "She said to bring the lady first."

Eleanor looked down at him. "Leo, is your mother hurt?"

He nodded. "She coughs blood now."

That sent a cold wave through Eleanor so suddenly she had to stop walking.

Leo tugged her onward. "Please. She said if I found the necklace lady, you'd come."

The necklace lady.

Twenty-two years ago, Clara had been twenty and wild-hearted, singing in cafes, falling in love too quickly, and insisting she was going to make a life no one in their strict father could control. Then she vanished after a bitter argument with him. Months later, a body had been pulled from a river outside Lyon. The handbag found nearby was Clara's. The police had called it an accident. Their father had insisted the coffin stay closed.

Eleanor had been the one who chose the flowers.

Now she followed a hungry child through side streets that smelled of bread and rain.

They stopped outside a narrow building over a laundromat. Peeling blue paint. A broken bell.

Leo turned back, suddenly frightened. "If she's sleeping, don't be mad. Sometimes she can't wake up fast."

Eleanor's heart thudded.

Moreau stepped forward first and pushed the door.

From upstairs came a woman's harsh, tearing cough.

And then, weak but unmistakable, a voice Eleanor had last heard as a girl whispered, "Leo? Did you find my sister?"