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caught him before he’d taken total control of the company’s network. They’d submitted the incriminating findings of their investigation to his firm. Next week, she was slated to testify against him in court.
    René’s four color-coded files were on his desk: IN PROGRESS, FUTURE PROJECTS, PROPOSALS SUBMITTED, and PROPOSALS ACCEPTED. For twenty minutes she checked each file but found nothing missing. The phone rang, startling her.
    “Good afternoon, Mademoiselle Leduc.” A honeyed voice, indicative of a sales pitch or request for donation. “Paribas bank here. I’m inquiring about the recent deposits to your business account.”
    She sat up, alert, remembering René’s accusation from the previous night.
    “Can you tell me which deposits you’re referring to?”
    “This is a courtesy call, Mademoiselle,” the honeyed voice continued. “For such large sums, we suggest a higher interest yield account.”
    “ Excusez-moi, but which deposits?”
    With all that had happened, she hadn’t checked their account for the sums René had mentioned.
    “I’m in the sales branch. Sorry, I don’t have that information.”
    “Why not?”
    “Your business’s banker keeps that. Think about moving funds to a higher yield account and increasing your portfolio’s value, Mademoiselle. We offer competitive rates.” The honeyed voice turned to vinegar. “I’ll call you later this week for your reply.” The phone went dead.
    She should have checked this sooner! She accessed it online and scrolled through the bank statements, and gasped. A one-hundred-thousand-franc deposit, just as René had said.
    No one owed them so much money.
    No doubt there had been an electronic error, perhaps an account number mistyped by data entry. All too easy a mistake for a late-night data entry shift. But surely it would be simple to take care of; her bank would find the error and correct it.
    After punching in their banker’s extension, she was put on hold.
    With the phone crooked between her neck and shoulder, she went through René’s top drawer. It took five minutes to sort through the account files.
    “Monsieur Guérin, at your service,” the banker’s recorded voice answered. “I’m in meetings today but will check my messages and get back to you before the close of business hours. Please leave your number.”
    She left a message. She found nothing else new in René’s file drawers. But in his bottom desk drawer, she found his brown moleskin office diary.
    No appointments yesterday. On Monday, she saw a conference call with Cybermatrice penciled in for the morning. There were notes to himself in the margins: train at Dojo; call Félice, EXPLAIN!; order chocolate Maman’s birthday; and a red line through the following week, Aimée NY.
    Think. She had to think. Who might have had it in for René?
    He’d broken up with Félice, a fellow student at the Dojo. Didn’t she have a new boyfriend? She remembered René saying he was a biker, a jealous type who’d done time in prison, not someone René thought worthy of Félice. And he had a motorcycle. For a moment she wondered if it came down to a jealous boyfriend. A stretch, but worth checking out.
    But she recalled René’s grumblings last week over the tactics of Cybermatrice, their rival, his complaints over their underhanded tactics. She called Cybermatrice, but only got a recording. Frustrated, she left a message.
    She thumbed through René’s diary and found Félice’s number. And she had the perfect excuse to call: René was in the hospital.
    “Allô? ”
    “It’s Aimée,” she said. “Remember me, René’s partner?”
    “Where’s René? Our Dojo practice just finished. He never misses a class.”
Aimée heard a gong reverberating in the background.
“Félice, he’s in the hospital,” she said.
“ Mon Dieu! What happened? Is René all right?”
    “He’s stable,” Aimée said. “Someone shot him.” She didn’t know how to put her question. “René said your