It was an hour before opening. Staff not yet arrived, but all was ready for them. LaCroix sat in his chair in his newly repaired glassed-in booth. If he’d heard her approach, and certainly he had, he didn’t care enough to acknowledge it.

She could think of nothing to say. He was who he was, he’d done what he’d done, and his daughter who was gone would never be worthy of more than she’d gotten. Still…

“Je s’ouvrirai.” It was all she could do. And all he’d allow anyway.

“D’accord.”

When she laid a hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently, he didn‘t pull away.

“Merci.”

“De rien, Lucien.”

Half an hour after closing he found her. For the first time she’d filled the cases and stacked them in the alley on her own. When lights were out and everyone gone, all doors locked but that to the alley, he found her there. Where she’d met Nicholas, where she’d been taken hostage to his past and very nearly killed. Where she’d found somethiing that could inspire her to kill. Where apart from Nicholas she’d joined with only one other, whose absence had echoed quietly all night.

He watched her for a moment or two as she sat on the empty case where she’d gone so often to talk and listen and think. She was looking up and down the alley as if waiting for someone.

“Je se fermerai,” he told her. Returning the favor.

“D’accord.” She turned to watch him watching her. What, her eyes asked him, what else?

“Qui cherche-toi? ” A foolish question, begging an equally foolish answer. Instead of his bitterness being predictably reflected, the emptiness he saw in her was a more accurate mirror than he was willing to admit.

“Personne.” When she bent her head and covered her face with her hands he knelt in front of her (the first time ever that he wasn't looking down at her) and asked in an unfamiliar and quiet voice, “Shall I call Nicholas to take you home?”

She nodded without looking up.

“Very well. I’ll tell him where to find you.” He rose and went to the door.

“LaCroix?”

He stopped.

“Thank you.”

He bowed his head slightly in response. “De rien, Maura.”

Translation from French

Je s’ouvrirai: I’ll open

D’accord: Okay

Je se fermerai: I’ll close up

Qui cherche-toi?: Who are you looking for?

Personne: nobody

De rien: you’re welcome