The doctor was surprised to find Carole still alive when he came back four hours later. Her condition was the same, the respirator was still breathing for her, but another CT scan showed that the swelling to her brain had not worsened, which was a major plus. The worst of her injury seemed to be located in the brain stem. She had sustained a Diffuse Axonal Injury, with minor tears from severe shaking of her brain. And there was no way to assess yet what the long-term effect of it would be. Her cerebrum had also been impacted, which could ultimately compromise her muscles and memory.

The gash on her cheek had been stitched up, and as the neurosurgeon looked at her, he commented to the doctor checking her that she was a good-looking woman. He knew he'd never seen her before, but there was something familiar about her face. He guessed her to be about forty or forty-five years old at most. He was surprised that no one had come looking for her. It was still early. If she lived alone, it could take days for anyone to realize that she was missing. But people didn't stay unidentified forever.

The following day was Saturday, and the trauma unit teams continued to work around the clock. They were able to shift some patients to other units of the hospital, and several were moved by ambulance to special burn centers. Carole remained listed among their most severely injured patients, along with others like her in other hospitals in Paris.

On Sunday her condition grew worse, as she developed a fever, which was to be expected. Her body was in shock, and she was still fighting for her life.

The fever lasted until Tuesday, and then finally subsided. The swelling of her brain improved slightly, as they continued to watch her closely. But she was no nearer to consciousness than she had been when she came in. Her head and arms were bandaged, and her left arm was in a cast. Her cut cheek was healing, although it was going to leave a scar. Their worst concern for her continued to be her brain. They were keeping her sedated, due to the respirator, but even without sedation, she was still in a deep coma. There was no way to assess how great the damage would be to her brain long term, or if she would even live. She wasn't out of the woods yet by any means. Far from it.

On Wednesday and Thursday nothing changed, and she continued to cling to life by a thin thread. On Friday, a full week after she came in, the new CT scans they took looked slightly better, which was encouraging. The head of the trauma unit commented then that she was the only Jane Doe who had not been identified yet. No one had come to claim her, which seemed strange. Everyone else, whether dead or alive, had been identified by then.

On the same day, the day maid who cleaned her room made a comment to the head housekeeper at the Ritz. She said that the woman in Carole's suite hadn't slept there all week. Her handbag and passport were there, and her clothes, but the bed had never been used. She had obviously checked in, and then vanished. The housekeeper didn't find it unusual, since guests sometimes did strange things, like rent a room or a suite, to have a clandestine affair, and only appeared sporadically, rarely, or not at all, if things didn't work out as planned. The only thing that seemed odd to her was that the guest's handbag was there, and her passport was on the desk. Clearly, nothing had been touched since she checked in. Just as a formality, she reported it to the front desk. They made note of the fact, but she had booked the room for two weeks, and they had a credit card to guarantee it. Past her reservation date, they would have been concerned. They were well aware of who she was, and perhaps she never intended to use the room, but just keep it available for some unexplained purpose. Movie stars did strange things. She might have been staying somewhere else. There was no reason to link her to the terrorist attack in the tunnel. But they made a note on her account at the front desk (client has not used room since checked in). That information was, of course, not to be shared with the press, or anyone for that matter. They knew better than that. And her disappearance, if it was that, might well have to do with her love life, and a need for discretion, which was sacred to them. Like all fine hotels, they kept many secrets, and their clients were grateful for it.

It was the following Monday when Jason Waterman called Stevie. He was Carole's first husband, and the father of her children. They were on good terms, but didn't speak often. He told Stevie he had tried for a week to reach Carole on her cell phone, and had gotten no response to the messages he left her. And he had had no better luck when he tried her at the house over the weekend.

“She's away,” Stevie explained. She had met him several times, and he was always pleasant to her. She knew Carole had maintained a good relationship with him, because of their children. They had been divorced for eighteen years, although Stevie didn't know the details. It was one of the few things Carole didn't discuss with her. She just knew they had gotten divorced while Carole was making a movie in Paris eighteen years before, and she had stayed in Paris for two years after, with the kids.

“She has her cell phone with her, and it doesn't work when she's abroad. She left almost two weeks ago. I should be hearing from her soon.” Stevie hadn't heard from her either since the morning she'd arrived in Paris, ten days before, but Carole had warned her that she would be out of touch. Stevie assumed she was either floating around, or writing, and didn't want to be disturbed. Stevie wouldn't dream of bothering her, and waited for Carole to contact her when she was ready.

“Do you know where she is?” He sounded concerned.

“Not really. She started out in Paris, but she was going to do some traveling on her own.” He wondered if she had a new romance, but didn't want to ask. It sounded like that to him. “Is anything wrong?” Stevie suddenly wondered about the kids. Carole would want to know immediately if anything had happened to either of them.

“No, it's not important. I'm trying to make plans for Christmas. I know they're planning to spend Thanksgiving with her, but I wasn't sure what her Christmas plans were. I talked to Anthony and Chloe, and they weren't sure either. Someone offered me a house in St. Bart's over New Year's, and I didn't want to screw up her plans with them.” Particularly now, with Sean gone, the holidays with her children meant more to her than ever. And Jason had always been nice about it. Stevie knew he'd remarried briefly, and had two other kids, who now lived in Hong Kong with their mother and were in their teens. Carole had mentioned that he didn't see them often, only a couple of times a year. He was far closer to his children by Carole, and to her.

“I'll tell her to call you as soon as I hear from her. It shouldn't be long now. I expect to hear from her any day.”

“I hope she wasn't in Paris when that bomb went off in the tunnel. What a mess that was.” It had been all over the news in the States too, and an extremist fundamentalist group had finally claimed responsibility for it, which had caused an outcry in the Arab world too, who in no way wanted to be linked to the perpetrators of the attack.

“It looked pretty awful. I saw it on the news. I worried about it at first, but it was the day she got there. I'm sure she was cozily tucked into the hotel after the flight, and nowhere near it.” Long distance travel usually wore her out, and she often stayed in her room and slept the day she arrived.

“Have you tried e-mailing her?” Jason asked.

“Her computer is turned off. She really wanted some time to herself,” Stevie answered matter-of-factly.

“Where's she staying?” he asked, sounding worried. And he was getting Stevie upset too. She had thought of it, but told herself it was ridiculous to worry. She was sure that Carole was fine, but Jason's concern was contagious.

“At the Ritz,” Stevie said quickly.

“I'll call her, and leave a message.”

“She might be traveling, so you may not get an answer for a couple of days. I'm not too worried yet.”

“It can't hurt to leave her a message. Besides, I need to know about this house, or I'll lose it. And I don't want to take it unless the kids want to come down. It might be fun for them.”

“I'll let her know if she calls me,” Stevie assured him.

“I'll see if I can catch her at the Ritz. Thanks.” He hung up then, and Stevie sat at the desk in her office, thinking about it. It seemed so unlikely that anything had happened to Carole, that Stevie was determined not to worry. What were the odds that she had been in the terrorist attack? About one in a hundred million. Stevie forced it out of her mind as she went back to work on a project she'd been doing, gathering information for Carole for some of her women's rights work. With Carole away, it was a good time for Stevie to catch up. The research she was doing was for a speech Carole was planning to make at the UN.

As soon as he hung up, Jason called the Ritz in Paris, and asked for Carole's room. They put him on hold, while they called her room to announce the call. She always had her calls screened by any hotel she was in. They came back on the line then, said she wasn't in her room, and referred him to the front desk, which was unusual. He decided to stay on the line and see what they had to say. A desk clerk asked him to wait for a moment, and then an assistant manager with a British accent came on and asked Jason who he was. The call was getting stranger by the minute, and he didn't like it.

“My name is Jason Waterman, I'm Miss Barber's ex-husband. And I'm a long-standing client of the Ritz. Is something wrong?” He was beginning to have a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, and he wasn't sure why. “Is Miss Barber all right?”

“I'm sure she is, sir. And this is rather unusual, but we've had a note from the head housekeeper about her room. These things happen, and she may be traveling, or actually staying somewhere else. But she hasn't used her room since she checked in. Normally, I wouldn't mention it, but the housekeeper was concerned. Apparently all of her things are there, as well as her handbag, and her passport is on the desk. There's been no sign of activity in the room for nearly two weeks.” He spoke in a hushed voice, as though divulging a secret.

“Shit,” Jason blurted out. “Has anyone seen her?”

“Not that I'm aware of, sir. Is there anyone you'd like us to call?” This was very unusual. Hotels like the Ritz did not tell people who called that the guest they were calling hadn't used their room in two weeks. Jason knew they must have been worried too.

“Yes, there is,” Jason answered his question. “This probably sounds crazy, but could you check with the police, or the hospitals where the victims of the tunnel attack were taken, and just make sure there are no unidentified victims, either dead or alive?” It made him sick to say it, but he was suddenly worried about her. He still loved her, always had, she was the mother of his kids, and they were good friends. He just hoped nothing terrible had happened. And if it wasn't the tunnel attack, he had no idea where the hell she was. Stevie probably knew more than he did, and didn't want to divulge secrets. Maybe she'd been meeting some guy in Paris, or elsewhere in Europe. She was, after all, single again now, since Sean's death. But then why hadn't she used her room, or at least taken her passport and handbag? These things didn't happen, he told himself. But sometimes they did. He hoped she was shacked up somewhere, with a new romance, and not in a hospital, or worse. “Would you mind calling around?” he asked the assistant manager, who immediately promised that he would.

“Would you be kind enough to leave me your number, sir?” Jason gave it to him. It was one o'clock in New York, and just after seven at night in Paris. He didn't expect to hear from him till the next day. He hung up, feeling uneasy, and sat at his desk, staring at the phone for a long time, thinking of her. His secretary told him the Hotel Ritz in Paris was on the line twenty minutes later. It was the same clipped British voice he'd spoken to before.

“Yes? Could you find anything out?” Jason asked, sounding tense.

“I believe so, sir, although it may not be her. There is a victim of the bombing who was taken to La Pitié Salpêtrière hospital. She is blond, approximately forty to forty-five years old. She is unidentified and has not been claimed.” He made her sound like lost luggage, and Jason's voice was a croak when he spoke.

“Is she alive?” He was terrified of the answer.

“She's in the intensive care unit, in critical condition, with a head injury. She's the only unidentified victim of the bombing they have left. She also has a broken arm, and second-degree burns.” Jason felt sick as he listened. “She's in a coma, which is why they've been unable to identify her. There's no reason to believe it's Miss Barber, sir. I would think someone would have recognized her even in France, since she's known worldwide. This woman is probably French.”