I WAS ABLE TO BASK IN THE MEANING OF HIS words for exactly three seconds before he put a firm arm around my shoulders and began steering me toward an exit. “What—” I began, but his steely expression quieted me and I followed his lead—walking steadily, but not quite running, toward a doorway.

Once on the street, he headed back toward the subway. “Where are we going?” I asked, breathless from the brisk pace.

“I saw someone I didn’t want to run into.” He slipped his cell phone from his pocket and speed-dialed a number. Getting no response, he hung up and tried another.

“Do you mind telling me what’s going on?” I asked, confused by his sudden personality change. In an instant Prince Charming had morphed into Secret Agent Guy.

“We have to find Jules,” Vincent said, talking more to himself than to me. “His painting studio’s right around the corner.”

I stopped, and since he had ahold of my arm, I pulled him backward. “Who are we running away from?”

It took a lot of effort for Vincent to compose himself. “Kate. Please let me explain later. It’s really important that we find one of my . . . friends.”

The wonderful feeling from five minutes ago had disappeared. Now I felt like telling him to go ahead without me. But remembering what my days had consisted of lately, I decided to throw caution (and boredom) to the wind and follow him.

He led me to an apartment building that practically oozed with old-Paris charm next to the Église Saint-Paul. We climbed a tightly winding wood staircase to the second-floor landing. Vincent knocked once before pushing the door open.

The studio’s walls were hung with paintings all the way up to the high ceiling. Reclining nudes hung alongside geometric-looking townscapes. The visual overload of color and form was as overwhelming as the strong smell of paint thinner.

In the far corner of the room a stunningly beautiful woman was draped across an emerald green couch. Dressed in a tiny bathrobe that barely covered her, she might as well have been naked. “Hi, Vincent,” she called across the room with a low, smoky voice that couldn’t have matched her seductive looks better if she had bought them as a paired set.

Vincent’s friend, Jules, walked out of a tiny bathroom just beyond the couch. Wiping some dripping paintbrushes on a rag, he said without looking up, “Vince, man. Just getting started with Valerie here. Did you get Jean-Baptiste’s call?”

“Jules, we have to talk,” Vincent said with a sense of urgency that made Jules jerk his head up. He looked at me in surprise and then, seeing Vincent’s face, his own darkened. “What’s going on?”

Vincent cleared his throat, staring expressionlessly at Jules. He pronounced his words with care. “Kate and I were walking around the Village Saint-Paul and I saw someone there.”

The code word meant something to Jules. His eyes narrowed. “Outside,” he said, looking sideways at me, and strode out the door.

“Be right back, Kate,” Vincent said. “Oh, and this is Valerie, one of Jules’s models.” And having made that introduction, he followed Jules into the staircase, the door slamming behind him.

A gentleman even during a crisis, I thought, amazed at Vincent’s sangfroid in making sure I was introduced to Naked Girl before leaving us alone together. “Hi,” I said. “Bonjour,” she replied, bored. Picking up a paperback, she settled back to read. I lingered near the door, looking at the paintings while trying to hear what was going on outside.

Their voices were hushed, but I could pick up a few words. “ . . . couldn’t do anything without backup,” Vincent was saying, bitter regret in his voice.

“I’m with you now. Ambrose can be our third,” Jules responded.

There was silence, and then Vincent was speaking to someone on the phone. He hung up and said, “He’s on his way.”

“Why the hell did you bring her with you?” Jules sounded incredulous.

“I’m not on duty twenty-four/seven. She’s with me because we had a date.” Vincent’s low voice traveled through the thin wood door easily.

He called it a date, I thought with as much pleasure as I could derive under the circumstances.

“That is exactly why she should not be here,” Jules continued.

“JB only said we couldn’t bring people home. . . . I don’t see why she can’t come here.” Their voices were getting lower. I scooted closer to the door, keeping an eye on Valerie, who glanced at me and back down at her book. She obviously couldn’t care less if I was eavesdropping.

“Dude. Anywhere we have a permanent address is off-limits for . . . ‘dates.’ Or whatever. You know the rules. In any case, date’s over!”

There was a pregnant silence, which I imagined was taken up by lots of boy-to-boy stare-down action, and then the door opened and Vincent walked in, looking apologetic. “Kate. I’m sorry, I have to take care of something. I’ll walk you to the Métro.” I waited for him to give an explanation, but none came.

“That’s okay,” I said, trying to sound like I didn’t mind. “But don’t worry about seeing me to the Métro. I’ll do some wandering on my own. Walk up to rue des Rosiers for some shopping or something.”

He looked relieved, as if that was the response he had hoped for. “I’ll at least come downstairs with you.”

“No, really, that’s okay,” I said, feeling a little cloud of anger form inside me. Something was obviously going on that I didn’t know about. But it was still rude of Jules to demand that I leave. Not to mention cowardly of Vincent to give in.

“I insist,” he said, and opening the door for me, he followed me out into the hallway. Jules stood, arms crossed over his chest, glowering at us.

Vincent walked me down the stairs and into the courtyard. “I’m sorry,” he said. “There’s something going on. Something I have to take care of.”

“Like police business, you mean?” I said, unable to hide my sarcasm.

“Yeah, something like that,” he said evasively.

“And you can’t talk about it.”

“No.”

“Okay. Well, I guess I’ll see you around our neighborhood . . . ,” I said, attempting to mask my disappointment with a smile.

“I’ll see you soon,” he said, and reached out his hand for mine. Though I wasn’t very happy with him, his touch warmed me to my toes. “Promise,” he added, looking like he wanted to say more. Then, giving my hand a squeeze, he turned to walk back into the building. My bad mood eased a little with his gesture, and I wandered through the gate feeling not quite ditched but not very pleased with how things had turned out, either.

I started walking north, trying to decide whether to visit the shops on the rue des Rosiers or stroll under the shady arcades surrounding the seventeenth-century square called Place des Vosges. I wasn’t even halfway up the block when I decided my heart wasn’t in it. I wanted to know what was going on with Vincent. Curiosity was killing me, and if I wasn’t going to get any answers, I just wanted to go home.

I stopped at the crepe stand outside the Dome café and waited as the vendor spread the batter on the piping hot circular grill. I couldn’t help but wish that Vincent were here getting a crepe with me as I watched people come and go from the Métro stop across the street. As if prompted by my wish, I spotted Vincent approaching the entrance with Jules. They began making their way down the stairs.

This is my chance to find out what’s going on with the policeman charade, I thought. Vincent had said that there was something he had to take care of. Based on his behavior at the Village Saint-Paul, it seemed more like someone he had to take care of. I wanted to know who it was. I reasoned that if I was going to keep seeing Vincent, or whatever it was we were doing, I should be aware of any mysterious activities he was involved in.

“Et voilà, mademoiselle,” said the vendor, handing me a paper-towel-wrapped crepe. I pointed to the change I had left on the counter and called, “Merci,” as I sprinted toward the subway entrance.

Once through the turnstile, I spotted the boys heading down the tunnel to the train. When I reached the bottom of the steps, I saw them standing halfway down the track. Before they could notice me, I slipped onto one of the plastic benches lining the wall.

It was then that I saw the man.

Just a stone’s throw away from Vincent and Jules, a clean-cut thirtysomething man wearing a dark suit stood at the edge of the platform, holding a briefcase in one hand and pressing the other against his lowered forehead. It looked like he was crying.

In all my years of riding the Paris Métro, I had seen some weird things: Street people peeing in the corners. Madmen ranting about government persecution. Bands of children offering to help tourists with their luggage and then taking off with it. But I had never seen a grown man cry in public.

The whoosh of air that precedes the train came gusting through the tunnel, and the man looked up. Calmly placing his briefcase on the ground, he crouched down, and using one hand to steady himself on the edge of the platform, he jumped down onto the tracks. “Oh my God!” I felt the words coming out of my mouth in a scream, and looked around frantically to see if anyone else had noticed.

Jules and Vincent turned my way, not even glancing at the man on the tracks, though I was wildly pointing at him with both hands. Without speaking, they nodded at each other before each moving rapidly in a different direction. Vincent approached me and, taking me by the shoulders, tried to turn me away from the track.

Fighting him, I whipped my head around to see Jules jump down off the platform onto the tracks and push the now sobbing man out of the way. With the oncoming train just feet away, he looked up at Vincent and, giving a slight nod, touched his index finger to his forehead in a casual salute.

The sound was terrible. There was the earsplitting screech of the train’s brakes, way too late to avoid the disaster, and then the loud thud of metal hitting flesh and bone. Vincent had prevented me from seeing the actual crash, but a snapshot of the penultimate second lodged in my mind: Jules’s calm face nodding to Vincent as the train rushed up behind him.

I felt my knees give way and slumped forward with only Vincent’s arms to hold me from falling. Screams came from all sides, and the sound of a man’s loud wailing drifted from the direction of the tracks. I felt someone lift me and begin to run. And then everything was as silent and black as a tomb.