Sunfail Read Online Free Page A

brokers of commerce, big businesses, and big bank-balances dominated la Défense. Most of the people working in the neighborhood were inside, hidden away behind the anonymity of plate-glass windows. Even so, there were pedestrians, a mix of locals and tourists, cutting through the quieter streets on their way to livelier, more Parisian locations. Watching them was like seeing the physical laws of the universe played out on the streets. They moved in clusters, together or alone, everything at first seemingly random but ultimately following lines that provided order in the seeming chaos.
    They weren’t what had her on edge. That was something else. Someone else. Someone actively looking for her.
    She’d been made. It wasn’t like her to be sloppy.
    She’d allowed herself to be spooked. And when spooked, she’d allowed herself to make mistakes. She’d been so fixated on just getting out of there that she’d forgotten the basics. She clenched her fist, painted nails digging into her palm. What’s done was done. Her paymasters would send their killers after her to clean up the mess she’d made. Now she had no choice but to work around them.
    She was good at that.
    She was a survivor.
    She checked left and right without turning around. Left, she used the reflection in a shop window; right, a car’s passenger-side window. For behind, she used the windshield of a stalled Fiat stuck in the unmoving line of traffic. It was as if the entire street, everywhere around her, was filled with ghosts. They had no substance. Any one of them could have been watching her, but no one paid her obvious attention as she hit the sidewalk.
    Sophie moved quickly down the boulevard. She didn’t rush, but her native New Yorker’s gait meant she moved with a purpose the Parisians didn’t share. It was all about acting like you belonged there, giving no indication that you’d done anything wrong. A young French man strolled past, smiled, and nodded at her during that split second where they occupied each other’s space, natural, flirtatious.
    He was a good-looking kid and he knew it.
    She offered a smile back. She didn’t want him remembering her as the woman who was immune to his charms.
    A young couple skirted her, moving up quickly from behind and then splitting apart to go around her on either side only to come together again a few steps ahead. They moved with the familiarity of lovers, barely acknowledging her presence as they swept past.
    A bike messenger rushed by, bag slapping against his left leg as he pedaled furiously, weaving in and out of stalled traffic with the same death wish of bike messengers the world over. The streets were eerie these days, with the lined-up cars going nowhere. It had been like that for a few days now. Ironically, that stillness was the first sign that things were in motion.
    She could feel her tail closing the distance between them.
    She could run, but that turned survival into a game of chance.
    She didn’t know how fast her pursuer was, if they were working alone, or if a cordon was closing in around her.
    She could run, but with no idea of who was chasing her she could never stop running. That was a problem.
    La Défense wasn’t some Parisian ghetto. It was one of the city’s newer areas. It was less than sixty years old and had been revitalized in seventies, the eighties, and the nineties. Sidewalks were long and straight and clean with plenty of space for grass and flowers and low bushes between them and the buildings. The trees grew right along the edge of the avenues and boulevards, warring with the lines of cars for possession of the roads. The district was a wonderful place if modern living was your thing, but it was absolutely appalling for her current needs.
    She scanned the area. Most of the buildings were new, functionalist, with wide, flat roofs. The architecture meant her hunter could have eyes up there too: a sniper with a high-powered rifle. They didn’t need to be running and leaping