The woman slapped some money on the desk. “You go.”
Mary Isobel Curwen looked at the bills. She was still feeling drugged. The world had turned upside down, and she was lost. If nothing else, she needed some answers.
“Did you see where they took him?”
“They didn’t take him, mademoiselle. He took them.” She shoved the money toward her. “Go.”
Blood money. For some strange reason the thought came to mind. What in God’s name was Killian doing with smugglers and terrorists? He was a graduate student, a teacher, with a fashion model ex-girlfriend and a family back home in the Midwest. The woman had to be crazy.
“Did you see what direction they went? You can keep the money if you tell me.” Dumb, Mary thought. The avaricious woman would probably just make up something.
“They were headed to the docks. I heard them say something about it. There are old warehouses down there, most of them boarded up. You’ll never find him. Let him go, chérie.” She’d already pulled the money back. “He’s a bad one, and you were too blind to see.”
Was she? Could she have been that wrong about him? For the first time in her life Mary Isobel had fallen in love. Had she been so stupid as to fall for a liar? And perhaps even worse?
“I don’t know anything more. If you have any sense, you’ll get the next train to Paris and go home. You seem like a nice young lady—these people aren’t like anyone you’ve ever known, and the sooner you get away from them the better.”
She’d go to Paris. But she wasn’t going home—she was moving on with her life, her plans, her semester at the Cordon Bleu, where she’d learn to butcher meat, and think of a certain lying American while she did it. But before she left she needed more answers. “Which way are the docks?”
The old woman shook her head. “You’re a foolish girl. You don’t want to get mixed up in this business.”
“Where are the docks?”
She jerked her head. “Turn right and follow your nose,” she said, moving away. “And good luck to you.”
Mary shouldered her backpack and stepped out into the rainy evening. She had no idea where she was—she couldn’t remember when they’d arrived in Marseille, and she had no idea what part of town she was in. Some kind of slum, with narrow, hilly streets leading down toward what must be the docks. Killian had found her in a port city; it was only fitting that their friendship end in the same kind of place.
After the first half hour she stopped crying. Her red hair was a tangled mess from the rough soap she’d used, but the steady rain dampened it down, and she let it hang around her face, shielding her misery from the few people curious enough to look at her. There were clearly no tourists out and about, at least not in the section she was scouring, and the few people she came across weren’t interested in a bedraggled young woman. She walked and she searched. Her sandaled feet were frozen, her fingers numb, but she kept trudging.
It was close to midnight when she finally found Killian’s car hidden behind a warehouse in a relatively empty area of the docks. She’d been walking for hours, and her backpack weighed a ton. As far as she could tell she hadn’t eaten in days, and at one point she’d had no choice but to stop in a corner café for a bowl of bouillabaisse and some crusty bread. At another time she would have savored it, tried to define the various fish and spices used. That night all she did was eat, trying to fuel her body enough to find Killian, slam him against a wall and get some answers.
The huge old warehouse looked deserted, with junk piled all around it, a rusted lock and chain on the doors that faced the narrow street. She wouldn’t have seen the Citroën if she hadn’t been searching—it was covered with a tarp, tucked back in a yard full of rusted machinery and the hulks of dead cars. But the wind caught a tail of the covering, flipping it back, and the familiar orange color caught her eye. She wound her way through debris that looked as if it had been piled there for decades, telling herself she was crazy, until she pushed the rest of the tarp back and saw the scratch on the side panel, a scratch he’d told her came from a rock. A scratch that looked more and more like it was from a ricocheting bullet.
“Crazy,” she muttered under her breath, standing in the rain, staring at the abandoned car. She was imagining disasters, when the answer was probably much simpler. He’d tired of her and gone off with someone else. But why bother to hide his car? And what was he doing with people the innkeeper thought were smugglers?
When Mary Isobel first heard the voices, she thought she was imagining them. She was standing there in the pouring rain, stunned, for God knows how long, but the rough French made her suddenly dive down next to the car, purely on instinct, and yank the corner of the tarp over her as they drew nearer. Then the nightmare blossomed into full-out horror.
“I’ve sent Ahmad to take care of the girl,” one man said. “I don’t know why you didn’t kill her when you had a chance. She served her purpose.”
She heard Killian’s voice, familiar and yet strange, cold-blooded and devoid of any emotion. “She provided excellent cover, and I pumped her so full of drugs she won’t remember a thing. Another dead body will just bring more attention, particularly when it’s a young American.”
“I don’t think that’s all you pumped her with.” The next speaker gave a snigger of a laugh. “Loose ends are a mistake.”
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“So is overkill,” Killian said calmly.
“We’ll live with the consequences. She’s dead by now, and Ahmad will get rid of the body. Everyone minds their own business in that part of town, and no one’s likely to question her disappearance. You’re sure her family has no idea where she is?”
“She hasn’t been in touch with them for the last two weeks. I made certain of it. I know my business. She was the perfect mark—no family or ties to speak of, entirely at loose ends. No one will miss her.”
“So why didn’t you finish her? You have a reputation for taking care of details.”
“I’ve been more concerned with completing the job and killing General Matanga. The girl knew nothing—she wouldn’t have caused us any trouble.”
“And if she did?”
“Then I would have killed her,” Killian said in a cool, dispassionate voice. “As it was, I didn’t think she was worth the trouble….”