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

in my mind while I was stranded in that hospital bed—the sound of the magazine clicking into place, the taste of cold metal in my mouth, the barrel pointing up so it would explode my brain.

I used to fix on that image as a way of getting to sleep: My finger on the trigger. My head blown to pieces. Salvation.

And yet, that was not the trajectory my life took.

“You’re going to live with us,” my father told me when he came to pick me up from the hospital.

I looked at him, wide-eyed. “What do you mean, ‘with us’?”

“With me and your friend, that nice young gay fellow.”

Without telling me, while I was in the hospital, my father had rented a large house with a garden on Rue du Square-Montsouris—a former painter’s studio surrounded by greenery. Like a little bit of countryside in the middle of the fourteenth arrondissement.

Seymour had just broken up with his partner, and my father took advantage of this to persuade him to move into the house with us. I knew that my colleague had a complicated romantic life; for professional reasons, his long-time boyfriend—a dancer and choreographer with the Paris Opera—had left France for the United States, and their relationship had not survived the trial by distance.

And so, for almost two years, the three of us lived together. Our odd arrangement worked surprisingly well. Against all expectations, Seymour and my father put aside their prejudices and became the best of friends, each strangely fascinated by the other. Seymour was impressed by the legendary cop that was Alain Schafer—his flair, his big mouth, his sense of humor, his ability to impose his point of view, and his rebellious streak. As for my father, he realized that he had been too quick to judge my young colleague, who was an unusual character—rich, dandyish, and highly cultured but always ready to use his fists and happy to down glasses of twenty-year-old whiskey.

Most of all, the two men were united by their fierce determination to protect me from myself. During the weeks that followed my return, my father took me on vacation in Italy and Portugal. In early spring, Seymour took time off work to go with me to Los Angeles and San Francisco. These trips, coupled with a cocoon-like family atmosphere, helped me get through that period without falling to pieces.

I went back to work as soon as I could, even though, for the first six months, I remained on desk duty. Seymour had taken my place as the head of the Schafer squad, and I made do with the position of paper-pusher, gathering and organizing all the documents that made up the legal file used in court. For a year, I was “closely monitored” by a psychiatrist who specialized in dealing with post-traumatic stress.

In the Criminal Division, I was in a difficult situation. After the Vaughn fiasco, Taillandier had me in her sights. In other circumstances, the department would simply have fired me, but the media had gotten hold of my story. Paris Match devoted a four-page spread to my tragedy, transforming my bad decision-making into a romantic thriller where I had the starring role—I was a Parisian Clarice Starling, risking everything to catch a killer. After that, I was even given the Medal of Honor by the minister of the interior for my acts of courage and dedication. This media benediction and the bonus I received had angered my colleagues, of course, but at least it allowed me to keep doing my job.

Some ordeals you never really get over, but you survive them all the same. Part of me was undone, wounded, destroyed. The past still choked me, but I was lucky enough to have people around me who stopped me from sinking.

Paul was dead. My baby was dead. Love seemed impossible now. But, deep down, I had the confused feeling that the story was not over. That maybe life still had something to give me.

So, little by little, I began to live again. A blurry, impressionistic life, fed on scraps: a walk in the woods on a sunny day, an hour spent running on the beach, something sweet my father said to me, a fit of uncontrollable laughter with Seymour, a glass of Saint-Julien out on the terrace, the first buds of spring, weekly outings with my old college friends, an old edition of Wilkie Collins discovered at a used-book stall…

In September 2012, nearly a year after the attack, I took over as head of the team again. My fascination with police work and my passion for investigation had not gone away, and for a year or so after that, the Schafer squad was on a roll—we quickly solved every case we were assigned. The dream team was back.

The wheel of fortune turns fast. By early the next summer I had regained my credibility in the Criminal Division. I had also regained my self-respect and the respect of my men. It felt like we were all on the same side again.

I had the sharp sense that maybe life still had something to give me.

I never would have guessed that it would take the form of another ordeal.

22Vaughn

WIND HOWLED ALL around them. The duct tape had finally given way in the powerful gusts, freeing the plastic sheet over the window and creating a gaping hole at the back of the Shelby. The rain beat down in a rage, flooding the sports car’s floor and seats.

“We’re almost there!” Alice shouted over the din of the storm. The map that lay on her lap was soaked, disintegrating in her hands.

Slowing down, they carefully crossed an intersection where the traffic lights had stopped working due to the storm, then, just afterward, they sighed with relief as they saw the sign for the Grant General Store and Gas Station shining in the night.

They stopped next to the two gas pumps in front of the store. Gabriel honked the horn several times to let the owners know they were there. Protected by