Page 29 of Under Her Protection

"Where did you find this," Leo said.

"A private blog. Archived. Taken down within a week of posting, nineteen years ago. Someone mirrored it. I spent most of last night pulling at threads."

"They were…”

"They were something. This photograph has an intimacy to it. A personal relationship.”

"For how long."

"Public association, two years. Private, two to three. Both ended their public association in 1999.”

Leo spent half a minute looking at the photograph. Vivienne's hand on the other woman's arm. The angle of Vivienne's laugh. Vivienne's hair was down.

She said, "Vivienne did not mention any of this."

"No."

"She has not volunteered a theory."

"No."

"She suspects."

"She almost certainly suspects."

"She has not told me."

"Correct."

Leo rubbed the back of her own neck once. The muscle there was tight from four days of short sleep, and she knew it, and the knowing did not help.

"Run YLV a layer deeper," she said. "I want to know who else sits on the board. I want to know who Kossek has lunch with. I want to know what hotels she uses and which plane she flies on. I want to know whether she has been in Paris in the last six weeks and whether she is in Paris today."

"Already started."

"I want cameras on every door at Strauss HQ. I want the service corridor at the residence on a dedicated feed to your screen, not Beaumont's. I want someone eyes-on the north wall at night."

"I can have someone in the lodge by eighteen hundred."

"Good."

"Leo."

"Yes."

"I will be in Paris tonight. I can take the lodge myself."

Leo looked at her sister.

"You do not have to."

"I know I do not have to. I am telling you I will."

"All right."

"All right."

It was a small conversation. It was also a thing they did not often do in front of anyone else. Leo felt the corners of her mouth ease a fraction, and Avery's face did not change, which was the Avery way of acknowledging that Leo had allowed her mouth to ease.