Four years of high school French didn't seem to address his particular choice of vocabulary. Still, she was ninety-nine percent certain that she understood him. He seemed to feel that her mother lacked morals, that she herself was a worthless bitch and that her life wasn't going to be worth dog breath if she didn't give up her purse.

She was more than willing to.

Almost.

"Look," she said desperately, and then stopped. He tightened the choke hold on her throat. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't think. She was panicked enough to suffer a heart attack. Or pee in her pants. Or hurl.

Or possibly all three.

At the same time.

Her mugger hissed another command, this one angrier and more urgent than the first.

She got it, she got it. She didn't have an hour or two to think up a plan. Either she released her death grip on her purse, or just maybe he was going to break her neck.

"Look," she blubbered. "You don't understand. You can have all my money. I don't care. You can take every euro, every dollar. And all the credit cards. Everything. My passport-you want my passport? You can have that, too. But I really need some papers in that purse. You couldn't possibly want those papers. Please, I-"

On her last gulp of oxygen, her voice quit. Completely quit, like a cell phone with no battery. She tried to tell herself it didn't matter. He probably couldn't speak English, so why was she even trying to reason with him?

It was just…there were some very old, very private letters in her purse. They were her father's. The only thing she had, or would ever have, of her dad's. They were the whole reason she'd made this impulsive trip to Paris. She couldn't give them up. She just couldn't.