Next, she left messages at the Berlin hotel-still no answer from her father. Had he found her mother's secret Stasi files? Would he tell her if he had?

She changed the bandage on her smarting knee, donned her boots, wrapped a wool scarf around her neck and headed to the river bank Clement had pointed out.

Those feelings she'd been suppressing took over. The anger. How her mother hadn't been there to cuddle with her in the window seat, reading stories and stroking their old chat, emilie. The birthdays and graduations marked by her mother's absence-Aimee's classmates winged by beaming parents while Aimee stood alone, her father inevitably arriving late from a stakeout.

No time for a pity party. Feeling sorry for yourself gets you nowhere, her grand-mere would say; put one foot in front of the other and move on.

Her mother had. Never a word, a photo, a message.

After her mother had first left, their old neighbor Madame Bouvier would invite Aimee over for chocolat chaud every month, and she put out paper and pencils so Aimee could draw pictures, write stories about her day. Madame Bouvier said she loved hearing her stories and shared them with a lady who lived far away and missed France. Aimee did her best to make the stories funny.

One day she'd gone to Madame Bouvier's as always and a man had answered the door. A man who spoke French with a strange accent. Madame Bouvier had left, no idea where she'd gone, he said. And what did she talk about with Madame Bouvier, what did they do together?

Something made Aimee lie. Oh, we just talked about my piano lessons, she said. Madame helped her with mathematics sometimes. She ran away when the man asked her where she lived.

The chill brought her back to the Cher riverbank. She walked in the drizzle, searching for the spot where Clement had found the mayor. Bullfrogs croaked and her boots sank in the spongy loam and sodden birch leaves. She doubted she'd find any trace after forty years. Still, her father always insisted on revisiting the crime scene-to put yourself in that time and place and imagine. Her imagination stalled on this damp, overcast morning.

Here on the riverbank in 1942, the mayor, Alphonse Gaubert-rumored to be a German collaborator, a traitor-had been shot in the head execution-style. More than forty years later, two of the four men who'd found him had been murdered in the same way on the quai in Paris. A symbolic reenactment, a message?

Clement, then a young boy, the eyewitness-she'd put his name in the suspect column, along with Dufard and Royant, the survivors who'd fled. But in her head, she could hear her father asking why. What was the present-day motive?

Her mind went back to last night. Elise, in her wine-induced rambling, had mentioned Madame Jagametti, the woman Aimee had met on the train. Aimee hadn't been able to get anything further from Elise before she'd passed out. Better find out what the connection might be. One more try before she caught the train back home.

Bertrand, the grandson, answered Madame Jagametti's door. Aimee guessed she was a few years older than him.

"Bonjour. May I speak with madame?"

He took in her cowboy boots, leg warmers, the long shearling coat and smirked.

"Grand-mere's at church."

"Bon, I'll wait."

She wiped her boots on the mat, stepped inside before he could stop her. She spotted the open books on the kitchen table and the Tetris showing on the tele screen. She realized she'd caught him playing video games instead of studying. Good, a way to get him to talk.

"Studying for le bac is a real grind. I almost had to take it twice."

He stared at her. "You don't look like most Parisians who come down to mix with the peasants."

She laughed. His envy was as obvious as the brand-new Converse sneakers he wore. "Parisian rats like me go for the dark side, mon ami. I'm here to try to find out about an old murder that happened here during the war. That's what I want to ask your grand-mere about."

He shrugged. Bored.

"Don't suppose you've heard anything?"

"Why should I tell you if I did?"

She glanced around the house. A few expensive pieces-a period chair in the sitting room, in the kitchen a sparkling state-of-the-art stove. A pile of records by the high-end stereo. Heavy metal mostly, and Styx. She shrugged. "Maybe you'd like tickets to the Palladium next week. Styx."

"That's sold out." His bored look evaporated.

Aimee pulled out a card from her worn Vuitton wallet and flashed it. "My old classmate Stephan works there. He always finds me a ticket if I ask him."

Bertrand's eyes popped. "Vraiment?"

"Do me a favor and I'll do one back."

"Like what?"

"Tell me what you know about what happened here during the war. Has your grandmother ever talked about it?"

"They talk all the time, the old folks, when they're playing belote or drinking at the cafe. You think I listen?"

Bertrand, she figured, didn't want to appear uncool.

"But if you did?" She put Stephan's card down on his homework. "Should I call Stephan for a ticket?" she said. "After I sit down and you tell me what your grandmother knows? Or should I just go talk to her at the church?"

He shook his head. "She'll lie. They all do. Pay homage to the Peltiers, the aristocrats."

"Then this better be good, Bertrand."

He pulled out a chair, gestured for her to sit down. He offered her a Carambar from a pile by his mathematics book. She unwrapped the paper twisted around the caramel and glanced at the comic inside.

"I'm listening."

"There's always been this thing-we can't offend the Peltiers. Never talk about the dark times. But the villagers do."

She ran her tongue around her molars, checking for caramel. "What do you mean, the dark times?"

He rubbed his fingers together. Money. "They've paid off my grand-mere and her friends for years."

Surprised, she sat up. "For what?" And why was he revealing this to her? Unless those Styx tickets meant more to him than his grandmother.

"Silence is golden," he said meaningfully.

The second time gold had come up since last night.

"I'm tired of platitudes and riddles." She tapped Stephan's card. "Give me something or this goes back in my wallet. Who's paying whom to keep quiet about what?"

"Listen," he said. "My parents died in a car accident when I was twelve. I came to live here. My clothes, my extra lessons, my tutor-all paid for by the grace of the seigneur-not God, but Peltier. There are regular deposits made into grand-mere's bank."

"But what leads you to think she's covering something up?"

"Secretive, her and all her friends. At first I thought they were Freemasons."

"So what exactly is it that your grandmother knows that Bruno Peltier has paid her to keep quiet about all these years?"

His brows knit. He blinked. He was trying to play cool, but he was nervous, she realized.

"She won't know what you tell me. I promise, Bertrand."

"There was a traitor, a collaborator during the war. A villager killed him."

"Old news. You mean the mayor who was killed by the Resistance?"

"That's just the story. After a bottle of eau de vie, though, my grand-mere would tell you how the mayor was honorable, that the others stole his share, had his wife committed and made his kid disappear."

That corresponded to Clement's words.

"Share of what, Bertrand?"

He checked his watch. Shrugged uncomfortably.

"Does it connect to the reprisals in Givaray in 1942, the sixty people executed, this German truck that's been found?"

Bertrand stood up and parted the lace curtain. Checked his watch again. "I don't know, but I know where we can find out."

She followed him into the kitchen. By the pantry he pulled open a cellar trapdoor in the wood floor. "After you."

Did she trust him?

"My grand-mere doesn't believe in bank deposit boxes. Keeps stuff down there."

"Stuff like what?"

"You interested or not?" He glanced at his watch again.

She nodded, pulled out her penlight. Shook it until the thing lit.

She wished she had Rene's martial arts skills. But that didn't stop her from stretching the truth. "Don't get ideas, I do judo."

The dark cellar was lined with canned goods, jam jars, crocks of preserves, some dated as far back as 1975, others from last season.

"Enough food to feed an army here," she said.

"She's afraid of going hungry, like during the war. As if that would ever happen." Bertrand latched the trapdoor from the stairs. "A sickness, that old war mentality."

Aimee passed a card table covered with a red-and-white checked cloth. On top were a pack of cards, and full tins of foie gras and truffles. A kerosene lantern, chintz-covered armchairs. A vaulted stone underground refuge.

"Gourmet taste, eh?"

"The old fogies gamble for goose liver, can you believe it?"

Expensive goose liver.

"Why bring me down here?"

"The houses connect by tunnels dug during the war," said Bertrand, "from the barn near the river."

Aimee thought. The barn. Somehow this was important. "Whose barn?"

"The murdered mayor's barn. Been for sale for years."

"Tell me what the men stole from the mayor, according to your grandmother."

He never answered. A high-pitched voice was calling him from upstairs.

"Bertrand! I know you're down there. Why aren't you studying?"

He put a finger to his lips.

"Get back up here."

"Wait here," Bertrand said to Aimee. "She'll get mad if she knows I showed you this place." He scurried up the wooden steps. "Give me two minutes to get rid of her." The next thing she heard was the trapdoor closing.

Panic prickled her skin. She was stuck. Stupid to trust him. Idiot, what had she been thinking?

The jolt of fear caused her to perspire in the dank air. Caused her shirt to stick to her back. How could she get out? Bertrand had said the tunnel led to other houses. Shuddering in the damp, she hitched up her bag. With her penlight marking yellow rays over the stained earth walls, she made her way. She didn't know what she was looking for, but Bertrand's grandmother and her village cronies felt safe down here in this hidden lair.

The bank deposits, the inexplicable wealth, the villagers' silence all spun in her mind.

Was there some kind of treasure buried down here?

Farther on she found a wormholed door with a shiny new lock. Above it was a faded sign: Abri-an old bomb shelter. Curious, she pulled her lock-picking set out of her makeup bag and got to work. Japy, her father's friend the thief, had taught her to pick locks the summer she was fourteen.

Jiggle here, toggle there, squeeze, et voil.

The wormholed wooden door creaked open. Behind it was an old-fashioned storm door with another lock. A tougher one. She groaned. No wonder it had seemed easy. More security than the Banque de France.

Perspiring from anxiety despite the chill, she fanned herself with the newspaper from the Peltier's kitchen. Tried toggling with a slim hook and pressing down with the double-ended straight pick. The whole time she listened for noises, for anyone coming down here.

No one. Only a steady drip, drip in the distance.

The kid probably got wrapped up in his computer game. Or his grandmother had wrestled him down to study.

On the fifth try the lock yielded. Her penlight shone on stone walls as she descended more wooden stairs, breathing in the earthy, mold-tinged smell.

A niggling uneasiness crept up her neck. She had no right to be breaking into the old bomb shelter-did she? She didn't even know if there was anything down here worth finding, despite the grandson's implications. Maybe he was playing a game; maybe she should forget this and turn around and get the hell out of here.

Her eyes spied another door, a key set hanging from a nail. Might as well investigate since she'd climbed down here. And then she saw the thin orange thread in the door jamb.

She'd seen that in a spy movie-a trick to mark if someone had entered. With her tweezers she removed the thread and stuck it in a crack in the wall.

The key turned in the well-oiled lock.

She hit the cracked porcelain light switch and stepped into a past era. The wartime shelter, buttressed by wood beams, was clean and freshly dusted. The vaulted stone cellar ran a quarter of the length of what she figured was the street above. She explored, noting an old charcoal stove, canned food, framed black-and-white photos on a tidy notary-style desk. Plastic Evian bottles were the only concession to the present day.

Someone had been down here very recently. She caught a whiff of muguet, lily of the valley-the scent her mother wore. For a moment her mother's laugh floated in her mind, low and silvery.