Central Park by Guillaume Musso (ebook reader macos .TXT) 📕

with one hand shackled. She did eventually manage it, after a few contortions, taking care not to wake the stranger. One bullet missing. As she handled the pistol, she became aware that the butt was stained with dried blood. Unzipping her jacket all the way, she discovered that there were traces of blood all over her blouse.

My God, what have I done?

Alice rubbed her eyes with her free hand. A migraine was throbbing in her temples now. She felt as if her skull were being crushed in an invisible vise. She took deep breaths, trying to push back her fear, gather her memories.

The night before, she had gone out on the Champs-Élysées with three girlfriends. She’d had plenty to drink, downing glass after glass in a series of bars: the Moonlight, the Thirteenth Floor, the Londonderry…around midnight, the four friends had gone their separate ways. She had been alone when she’d headed to the underground parking garage on Avenue Franklin-Roosevelt, where she’d left her car. And then…

A blank. As if someone had dropped a black veil over her brain. Her mind floundered in the void. Her memory was paralyzed, frozen, jammed on that final image.

Come on, think, for God’s sake! What happened next?

She had a distinct memory of paying at the ticket machine, then walking downstairs to the third underground level. She had been drunk, without a doubt. After staggering over to her little Audi, she had unlocked the door, sat behind the wheel, and…

Nothing.

No matter how hard she tried to concentrate, a white brick wall barred the way to her memories. A vast, unclimbable wall.

She swallowed. Her panic level went up a notch. These woods, the bloodstains on her blouse, this gun that wasn’t hers…whatever was going on, it was a hell of a lot worse than an ordinary hangover. If she couldn’t remember how she had ended up here, she must have been drugged. Maybe some creep had spiked her drink. It was far from impossible—as a cop, she’d dealt with several cases involving date-rape drugs in recent years. She filed this idea away in a corner of her mind and began emptying her pockets.

Her wallet and her police badge had disappeared. No ID, no money, no cell phone.

Her fear was compounded by worry.

The crack of a branch sent a flock of warblers flying. A few red leaves fluttered down, brushing Alice’s face. With her left hand, she zipped up her jacket, holding the top of it down with her chin. That was how she came to notice the writing, in faded ballpoint, on the palm of her hand—a series of numbers, scrawled on the fly, as if she were some schoolkid trying to cheat on a test:

2125550100

What did they mean? Had she written them? Maybe, but I can’t be sure, she thought, examining the handwriting.

She closed her eyes for a second, feeling lost and frightened.

But she refused to give in to her fears. Obviously, something serious had occurred last night. She remembered nothing, but the man she was handcuffed to would soon refresh her memory. She hoped so, anyway.

Friend or foe?

There was no way of knowing, so she slid the magazine back into the Glock. With her free hand, she pointed the gun at her companion’s head before unceremoniously shaking him.

“Hey! You! Time to wake up!” she said in French.

The man was struggling to open his eyes.

“Come on!” she yelled. “Wake up, asshole!”

He blinked a few times and stifled a yawn before painfully sitting up. His face registered shock as he saw the barrel of the gun a few inches from his forehead.

He stared at Alice, wide-eyed, then turned his head from side to side, apparently flabbergasted by the sight of the surrounding woods.

After a few seconds of shocked silence, he gulped. Then he opened his mouth and asked in English: “Who the hell are you? And what are we doing here?”

2Gabriel

THE STRANGER HAD spoken with a strong American accent.

“Where the hell are we?” he demanded, frowning.

Alice tightened her fingers around the butt of the gun. “That’s what I’m asking you!” she replied in English, bringing the barrel of the Glock closer to his temple.

“Whoa, calm down, okay?” he said, raising his hands. “And put the gun down. Those things are dangerous, you know.”

Still sleepy-eyed, he pointed with his chin at the steel bracelet around his wrist. “Why did you cuff me? What’d I do this time? Did I get in a fight? Was I drunk?”

“I didn’t cuff you,” she replied.

Alice looked him over. He was wearing dark jeans, a pair of Converse sneakers, a crumpled blue shirt, and a fitted suit jacket. His eyes were clear and engaging but had dark rings of fatigue under them.

“Kinda cold out here,” he complained, hunching his shoulders. He looked down at his wrist to check his watch, but it wasn’t there. “Shit…what time is it?”

“Eight in the morning.”

As best he could, he went through his pockets before exclaiming angrily: “What the hell! You’ve taken everything! My cash, my wallet, my phone…”

“I haven’t stolen anything from you,” Alice assured him. “They got me too.”

“And there’s a pretty big bump on the back of my head,” he noted, rubbing his skull with his free hand. “Let me guess—that wasn’t you either?”

He watched her from the corner of his eye. Dressed in tight jeans and a leather jacket, beneath which he could see a bloodstained blouse, Alice was a slender blonde, her hair in a ponytail that was on the point of coming undone. Her face was hard but harmonious—high cheekbones, thin nose, pale skin—and her eyes, spangled with the copper reflections of the autumn leaves, shone intensely.

His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden pain, a burning sensation running up the inside of his forearm.

“What now?” She sighed.

“It hurts.” He grimaced. “Like I’m wounded or something.”

Because of the handcuffs, Gabriel couldn’t take off his jacket or roll up the sleeves of his shirt, but through a series of contortions he managed to see a sort of bandage encircling his arm. The