Brett Battles - Shadow of Betrayal

What a stupid idea, she thought, knowing that the box was going to have to stay. She could put the scarf around her neck, and perhaps take one of the pictures out of its frame and stuff it in her pocket, but that was about it. The rest had been a waste of time.

But then she saw the key hanger next to the back door. There were three sets of keys, each on a separate hook. Her father and mother had never been big on driving, choosing instead to take public transportation or ride their bikes to where they wanted to go. So their keys were limited to those they needed for the house and, in her mother’s case, work. But Emily’s keys were different. She’d had a car. An old Saab, unless she’d sold it. The set of keys hanging from the hook on the left had a large key that could only be for a car. It was a duplicate, so there was no company name on it, but the vehicle had to be outside somewhere.

Marion grabbed her sister’s keys, then sneaked a peak around the edge of the curtain in the living room. The only things she could see were a couple of cars parked directly in front of the house—neither familiar—and a third car driving by on the street. It was hard to tell, but it looked like the people inside the vehicle were gazing at her house. Probably curious about the makeshift memorial in the front yard. All the same, she watched the car until it disappeared.

Once the vehicle was out of sight, she set the box down on the couch, then ran back upstairs. Iris, still happily occupied with the old bear, look up when Marion hurried in.

“We’re leaving in a moment,” Marion said.

She crossed the room to her window. It was a view she’d seen thousands of times before, tens of thousands even. The houses on the other side of the street had changed little. Some of the trees were larger, but that was about it. And like there had always been, cars lined either side of the street, waiting for their owners to wake and need them again.

She spotted Emily’s car right away. The old silver two-door Saab was parked directly across the street. A lucky spot, they would have said. As Marion smiled, some of the tension left her body. Here was the break she needed, not just because she could take the box with them, but now they had transportation. Now they could drive to the other end of Canada if they wanted. It would free them, for a little while anyway.

“Come on, baby,” she said as she scooped up Iris and headed downstairs.

In the living room, she set Iris on the couch, then picked up the box to bring out to the car first. But Iris would have none of it. She reached out and grabbed Marion’s leg.

“It’ll just be for a minute,” Marion said.

But the child wouldn’t let go.

“Fine. You first then.” She set the box down, then picked Iris up.

Marion knew it wasn’t the best plan. But it would have to do. Iris would only be by herself in the car a few minutes at most. And it was doubtful anyone would notice her.

Marion carried the child out of the house and around the side. She was careful when she reached the front, checking twice to make sure it was quiet, then she scooted along the edge of the property to the sidewalk.

To be safe, she walked down half a block to avoid the light from one of the streetlamps before crossing the street. As she approached her sister’s car, she half expected there to be another notice from the police, marking it as part of the crime scene. But there was nothing. Either they hadn’t realized it belonged to her sister, or they didn’t care.

She slipped the key into the lock and opened the door. Inside, the dome light came on. She leaned in and turned it off.

“Okay, you’re going to stay here while I go get the box,” she said to Iris. “I’ll be right back, so you’ll be fine.”

As she put the girl down on the small back seat, Iris’s lower lip began to tremble.

“No, don’t cry, sweetie. Just play with your bear.” Marion looked around. “Where is it?”

But the bear wasn’t there. They must have left it upstairs, she thought. That’s why Iris hadn’t wanted to be left on the couch.

“Dammit,” Marion said under her breath.

She glanced around to see if there was anything that could keep Iris occupied. The best she could come up with was a map of eastern Canada, but it seemed to do the trick.

“I’ll only be a minute,” she said, then shut the door and hurried back to the house.

Once inside, she went straight for the box in the living room. She started to pick it up, but then stopped. Pauline.

She first checked around the couch to make sure Iris hadn’t dropped the bear there, then ran upstairs, her gaze focused on the steps to make sure it wasn’t somewhere along the way.

She expected to see the bear sitting in the middle of the bed when she entered her bedroom, but it wasn’t.

“Where the hell did you go?” she said, annoyed.

She got down on her knees and looked under the bed. Nothing.

She retraced her steps back into the hallway and down the stairs to the living room couch. It was nowhere. But that didn’t make any sense. It had to be somewhere between the bed and couch. She knew she should just forget it and leave, but Iris had liked the bear, and it warmed Marion to think about the connection it gave the girl to Marion’s father.

She headed back upstairs into the bedroom. She was almost at the point of wanting to tear the room apart when she spotted it wedged between the bed and her nightstand.

With a relieved laugh, she pulled it out and headed back downstairs. She put the bear in the box, then picked the container up and turned to leave. She made it halfway across the living room when she heard the noise.

It wasn’t much. Just a subtle scrape at best, but it had come from behind her, near the front door. She looked over her shoulder as she heard a second scrape. Not near the front door, just beyond it. Outside.

She froze, her gaze darting from one window to the other on either side of the front door. The curtains were drawn, but the light from the streetlamp made them glow. As she watched, a dark shadow of a man appeared in one window. He was heading from the front door toward the side of the house.

It’s them, she thought. They’ve found me.

She set the box on the floor carefully so as not to make any noise, then tiptoed to the back door. She hesitated just inside it for only a second, then stepped through into the backyard. Unless the intruder had doubled back when she’d turned away, he’d be coming down the side to her right, so she moved across the yard to her left. When she turned the corner, she was relieved to see no one waiting for her.

She went only a few feet down the side, then stopped. She could hear steps. Faint, like someone was making an effort to be quiet. They were around the back side of the house now. Whoever it was had missed spotting her by seconds.

She waited, then heard a very light creak. Only someone who had lived in the house would have noticed it, and known what it meant. Someone had entered the kitchen. Then the creak came again. Not one person. Two.

Her breathing began to increase. She reached a shaky hand back and pulled the hood of her sweatshirt over her head. She crept toward the front of the house, taking careful steps so as not to draw any attention. As she did, she listened for the progress of those inside, knowing the deeper they went, the better her chances of getting away.

She stopped a few feet before the front of the house, and waited until she was sure at least one of her pursuers was in the living room. That’s when she made her move.

She rushed through her parents’ front yard and across the street to the Saab in seconds. As she opened the door, she thought she could hear noise from the house. Had they heard her?

She was in near panic as she climbed into the car. The keys slipped in her fingers and nearly dropped on the floor. But she managed to get them in the ignition and get the car started.

“Hold on, baby,” she said to Iris, who was lying unsecured in the back seat. She knew the words would mean nothing, but was unable to do anything else at the moment.

Marion backed up as far as she could, then pulled out of the spot, just clearing the car in front of her. As she started to press down on the accelerator, movement outside to her left caught her attention.

She turned just in time to see a man approaching her car. His hair was short and blond, and the look on his face determined, like he would stop her at any cost. There was also something familiar about him. The hair was wrong, but she swore she had seen his face before.

And then he was gone, left behind as the Saab’s speed increased.

She worried that he might pull out a gun and shoot at her. But as she monitored him in her rearview mirror, he just stood there watching her drive away. Then it came to her. The news report that morning. The man who had killed the American official. The sketch. That’s who this guy looked like.

But before she could process that thought further, she saw something else in her mirror.

A car making a fast U-turn and heading in her direction.

CHAPTER

15

“WHERE ARE YOU?” QUINN ASKED. HE HAD HIS PHONE to his ear. Nate was on the other end, his speakerphone switched on.

“How the hell do I know?” Nate said. “I’ve never been here before.”

“You’re still behind her, though,” Quinn said.

“Yes, I’ve still got… wait. Did you say her?”

“Her name is Marion Dupuis. She’s the missing daughter.”

“You’re sure?”

“I saw her as she drove off, and I’ve got a picture right here. Same person.”

Quinn was sitting in the passenger seat of a Lincoln Continental he and Orlando had stolen a block away from the house. In his lap was Marion’s box. The contents seemed to be consistent with someone on the run, who wanted to take a few personal mementos along. Two items were of most interest. The first was a book. A French version of A Wrinkle in Time. Inside the cover, in the handwriting of a preteen, had been written: Ce livre appartient à Marion Dupuis—this book belongs to Marion Dupuis. That had given Quinn the woman’s name.

The other curious item didn’t fit with anything else in the box. A motel key for someplace called Motel Monique.

“Hold on,” Nate said. A moment later, “Shit.”

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just a pain in the ass to follow someone who knows a city that I don’t.”

“You lost her?”

“Of course not,” he said.

“Give us some street names. We’ll see if we can find you.”

“I’m on … eh … Rue Drummond. It’s one-way, but we just turned off a big street. Renee something.”

Quinn had found a map of Montreal in the glove compartment. It was old and worn, and had been buried deep under a stack of other papers. He looked down the street index for Drummond, got the coordinates, then found it on the map.

“Do you mean Boulevard René-Lévesque?” he asked.

“That sounds right.”

“Okay, I got you, then. Tell me when you change streets.”

“That’d be right now,” Nate said. “Turning onto another big street. Dammit, where’s the sign? I don’t know the name.”

“Probably Rue Sherbrooke.”

“If you say so.”

“We’re heading your way.” Quinn moved the phone from his ear and looked over at Orlando. “Back the other way, then west. They’re on the other side of the island.”

She nodded as she moved the car over to the left lane. At the next intersection she hung a U-turn.

Quinn switched his phone to speaker, then said, “Still on Sherbrooke?”

“Yes,” Nate confirmed.

“Okay. You’re basically heading north-northeast. For the moment it doesn’t look like she is heading for any bridges, so she’s still contained on the island.”

“Got it,” Nate said. “She’s behaving a little odd. She keeps looking back, but I don’t think she’s looking at me.”

“She knows you’re following her?” Quinn said.

“Yes. Definitely.”

“Then maybe she is looking at you.”

“It just doesn’t seem like it.”

Something nagged at Quinn’s mind. A memory. A flash of when Marion Dupuis drove past him in the street. Movement elsewhere in the car. Maybe it was something moving around in the back. A bag, perhaps, or another box she had taken from the house. Whatever it was, Quinn couldn’t see it clearly in his mind.

“Turning again,” Nate said. “Right. Onto … Avenue Union.”

Quinn found the spot on the map. “Got it.”

A moment later. “Still on Avenue Union. Passing a big church on my right.” Then, “Turning again. Rue Ste. Catherine. Left… dammit, here we go again. Left. Onto … I didn’t get the name.”

Quinn guessed it must be Rue Aylmer, but he said nothing.

“She’s really trying to lose me now,” Nate said. “Left again.”

Over the speaker, Quinn could hear the tires of his apprentice’s car screeching as Nate made a quick turn.

“She’s a block ahead of me now, turning left again.” More screeching. “We were on this road before, it’s the one with the church.” Several seconds passed, then, “Same turn as before. Onto Saint somebody. Can’t remember the name.”

Quinn followed the action on the map, picturing the two cars racing down the streets.

“She’s going to turn … no, wait… she’s staying on this road for now. We didn’t make the same turn again … Whoa!”

“What is it?” Quinn asked.

“A taxi just pulled in front of me. Trying to get around him, but he’s slowing me down.”

“Do you still have a visual of her car?”

“Yeah, but she’s almost a block and a half ahead of me now … she’s turning! Right.”

Depending on how far they had gone, it was either Rue Ste. Alexandre or Rue de Bleury.

“She’s out of my sight,” Nate said. “Come on, faster, jerk!” The last words meant, no doubt, for the taxi that had gotten in front of him.

“Okay, he’s going straight, I’m taking the turn. Ste. Alexandre.” The pause went on for several seconds. “Ah, shit.”

“What?”

“She’s gone. I … dammit… I lost her.”

“She’s got to be around there somewhere. Maybe she parked along the curb.”

Quinn listened as Nate searched the street, but there was no sign of the woman. Marion Dupuis had gotten away.

“I’m sorry,” Nate said.

“Meet us back at the motel,” Quinn said.

“Give him a break,” Orlando whispered.

Quinn frowned, but knew she was right. Nate had done well under the circumstances.

“You did the best you could,” Quinn said. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll find her some other way.”

“Thanks,” Nate said, a hint of relief in his voice. “See you at the motel.”

The line went dead.

Quinn and Orlando drove in silence for several minutes.

“You’re being too tough on him again,” she said.

Quinn glanced at her, then looked back at the road.

“I mean it,” she said. “He’s doing everything you tell him to.”