“So, you prefer your hair black or blond?” she asked.
* * *
By 8:30 p.m. they were deep into upstate New York. Quinn — with blond hair and brown-framed glasses that looked over a decade old— was driving a Volkswagen Jetta Nate had assumed temporary ownership of several blocks from the hotel. Beside him, Orlando sat staring out the window. The only one who seemed to be making good use of the time was Nate. He was curled up in the back seat, sound asleep.
The call from Peter had come just before they left the Morgan Motel.
“Montreal,” he had said. “As fast as you can.”
“And what are we supposed to do when we get there?” Quinn asked.
“Call me when you arrive, and I’ll have further instructions.”
So they had continued on their northern route, only this time with a specific destination in mind.
Quinn glanced over at Orlando. She seemed to be focused on a constant point several car lengths ahead of them, and didn’t acknowledge his gaze. He’d seen that look on her face before; she was working something in her mind, some problem she needed to solve. Whatever it was, he knew she’d share once she’d got it figured out.
He still had a hard time believing he and Orlando were together. For so many years it had been an unfulfilled dream with zero chance of ever happening. At least that’s what he’d convinced himself.
Yet here she was, sitting next to him, the smooth, pale skin of her neck peeking out from beneath her black hair. And her smell — the familiar, comfortable, enfolding smell that was hers alone. God, how he missed that smell when they weren’t together.
God, how he missed her.
But that wasn’t going to be as much of an issue as it had been.
“I like the idea,” she’d whispered into his ear as he kissed her shoulder, then her neck before they’d fallen asleep at the motel earlier.
“What idea?” he said, then moved his lips down her shoulder toward her breasts.
“What are you doing?” she said. “I thought you told me you were dead tir—” Her words turned into a moan, and her breath stuttered as Quinn’s tongue touched her nipple, then moved away, encircling it, teasing it. “I wish you wouldn’t do that.”
He stopped, and lifted his head an inch above her skin. “Are you sure?”
Her fingers weaved themselves into his hair. “No. I was lying.” She paused, but he remained frozen, his lips still hovering above the slope of her breast. “Please.”
“I don’t know. ‘I wish you wouldn’t do that’ seems pretty definite to me,” he said.
“For God’s sake don’t listen to me.”
She pulled his head to her chest, and moaned again as he began tracing a line with the tip of his tongue that encircled her areola but didn’t touch it. After a few moments, he began to spiral inward. When he reached the center, he caressed her nipple with his tongue, then began spiraling outward again, away from it.
He moved his hand down her waist, keeping his fingers hovering just above her skin so that they didn’t touch her. She at first shivered, then sighed as his hand slipped between her legs. He lifted his head so that her lips met his.
When they had finished making love, she nestled into him, a sigh of comfort escaping her lips. Just when he felt she was about to fall asleep, he used his finger to retrace the movement his tongue had made earlier on her breast.
Her back arched. “You keep doing that, we’ll never get any rest.”
He laughed, then reluctantly moved his hand onto her back.
“You said something about liking an idea …?”
For a moment he thought she’d fallen asleep, then she said, “You getting a place in San Francisco. I like the idea.”
It took him a second to realize what she meant. It was the conversation they’d been having in Boston before Peter had called. It had been less than twenty-four hours earlier, but with everything that had happened since, it could have been a month ago.
“Really?” he asked.
“I’m … thinking about getting rid of my place in Saigon,” she said. “We’ve been spending more and more time over here, it doesn’t make sense to keep it any longer.”
“But what about the relief agency?” he said. Orlando ran a small emergency organization call the Tri-Continent Relief Agency out of Ho Chi Minh City. It was a passion of hers, something she took very seriously.
“I’m not giving up the agency,” she said. “I’ll go back when I need to. But I’m going to open an office in San Francisco. It is the Tri-Continent Relief Agency.”
Quinn began to smile.
“Don’t get too smug. It’s not because of you,” she said. “It’s Garrett.”
Garrett, her son, was six years old. The product of a love affair with the man who had been Quinn’s mentor. But that was over now. Permanently. Quinn liked the boy. He was smart and seemed to have a lot more traits from his mother than from his father.
She went on, “He’s been accepted to the French American International School in the city. He starts first grade in September. I… I think it will be easier for him over here.”
Quinn smiled. “It is because of me,” he said. “You want to be closer.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Yes, you do. You can’t stand being so far away.”
“You have a serious case of inflated sense of self-worth.” She tried to push away from him, but he wouldn’t let go.
“Call it whatever you want, I know the truth.”
After several moments, she settled back into his arms. They stayed that way for a while, then Orlando yawned, and repositioned herself so that her chest was against his.
“Of course I am.” Her voice was soft and heavy with sleep.
“What?” he asked.
“Moving to be closer to you. Of course I am. That’s why you were being ridiculous.” She paused. “Stating the obvious.”
She was asleep a moment later.
Quinn continued to watch her for twenty minutes as she breathed in and out, her shoulders rising one second, then falling the next.
How in God’s name had he gotten so lucky?
But he’d fallen asleep before he could come up with an answer.
CHAPTER 13
“The last name’s Dupuis,” Peter said. “A woman, early thirties. First name unknown.”
Quinn had activated the speaker function on his phone so all three of them could hear. They were still in the car, the U.S.-Canadian border now ten minutes behind them, and Montreal about twenty ahead.
“That’s not a lot to go on,” Quinn said.
“It’s all I have,” Peter snapped.
“How’s Tasha?” Orlando asked.
Peter took a moment before he answered, and when he did, he sounded calmer. “Still unconscious. But she’s made it twenty-four hours so far, so they tell me that’s a good sign.”
“What are we supposed to do when we find this woman?” Quinn asked.
“That’s a big if, I think,” Peter said. “What I need you to do is find out as much as you can about her. Where she might go if she had reason to hide. Who might help her.”
“Does she live in Montreal?”
Peter paused again. “The name came from Primus. He sent the information to the DDNI when they were negotiating the follow-up meeting after Ireland. An act of good faith, he’d said. It was an attached document with a single line of information. ‘Dupuis. Female. Montreal. Unresolved.’ That was it.”
“Unresolved? What does that mean?” Orlando asked.
“I’m open to suggestions,” Peter said.
No one spoke for a moment.
“Montreal. That doesn’t necessarily mean she lives there,” Quinn said.
“Maybe she has family there. Or friends. I didn’t say it was going to be easy.”
“So why are we looking for her?” Quinn asked.
Peter paused. “It’s the only lead we’ve got. And since she’s apparently of interest to the other side,
I think that’s worth looking into, don’t you?”
“She’s part of them?”
“You have everything I know.”
Again silence.
“Peter,” Orlando said, “any chance you can send me that itinerary you showed us?”
“Why?”
“Just something I was thinking about. Thought I could check it out.”
Quinn gave her a questioning look, but she only smiled.
“All right,” Peter said. “I can do that.”
“Thanks,” she said. “You said there were more documents, too. If you really want our help, you should probably send those to me, also.”
“Fine,” he said. “Anything else?”
Quinn looked at Orlando. She shook her head. He then turned to Nate, who looked surprised by the attention.
“I got nothing,” Nate whispered.
“That’s all for the moment,” Quinn said, then disconnected the call.
Once they were back on the road, he said, “Itinerary?”
“Something that was bothering me on the drive. I think there’s a connection between all the destinations. But I need to see the list again to be sure.”
“What kind of connection?”
“Relax. Just let me take a look first.”
* * *
They got rooms at the Comfort Inn in Brossard just across the St. Lawrence River from the old city of Montreal. Nate used a localized jammer Orlando had brought along to neutralize the surveillance camera in the lobby when he made the arrangements for the rooms. Quinn had remained in the car, staying out of sight just in case.
By the time they were getting settled in their rooms — Nate in one, and Quinn and Orlando in another — it was 8:45 p.m. Outside, the sun had just sunk below the horizon.
While Quinn ran some cold water over his face in the bathroom, Orlando got out her laptop and checked to see if Peter had sent the documents.
“Nothing,” she called out.
“See what you can find out about the woman,” Quinn said. “The sooner we get this done …”
Orlando nodded, then turned back to her screen and set to work.
After drying his face, Quinn checked the dresser and nightstand until he found what he was looking for. A phone book. Not just for Brossard and the South Shore, but the whole Montreal area.
He flipped through the pages until he came to the D’s, then slowly turned a few more before stopping.
“Well, this isn’t good,” he said.
“What?” Orlando asked, not looking up.
“I’ve got three dozen Dupuis right here. More than half are just initials. No first name. And you’ve got to believe there are at least as many other Dupuis unlisted.”
Quinn used the tips of his fingers to create a crease along the edge of the page near the binding, then tore it out of the book. He set it on the desk next to Orlando’s computer.
“Here,” he said. “In case you need to cross-reference.”
She glanced up at him. “Why don’t you get us some dinner?”
“Trying to get rid of me?”
“Yes.”
Quinn smiled, then nodded and started for the door.
As he was pulling it open, Orlando said, “Wait.”
He looked back. Her attention was still on the computer, but she was waving him to return with her left hand.
“I think I found something,” she said.
Quinn walked back and leaned over her shoulder. She had the website for the Montreal Gazette up on the screen. The specific page featured an article titled:
FAMILY TRAGEDY NOT AN ACCIDENT
Before Quinn could read further, Orlando said, “This is from two days ago. An elderly couple and their daughter, also an adult, died from a gas leak in their house. Went to sleep, never woke up. At first it was thought to be a faulty gas line, but now the police are saying the gas line might have been tampered with.”
“Don’t tell me,” Quinn said. “The family’s name is Dupuis.”
“Yep.”
“Could be just a coincidence,” Quinn said.
“Could be,” Orlando said, but she didn’t sound like she believed that.
“An adult daughter.”
“Yeah. Maybe that’s who Peter was talking about.”
“Maybe,” Quinn said. “Anything else on the family?”
“Hold on,” she said.
She brought up a search engine, then typed in the names of the three people who had died. Martin Dupuis, Rose Dupuis, Emily Dupuis. Husband, wife, daughter. A list of several links appeared, most associated with people other than those who had died. Orlando clicked through several of them before stopping on one.
“Here we go,” she said.
The website was for another newspaper, this time in French. Le Journal de Montréal. While Quinn was well versed in several languages, French was not one of his strongest. The same wasn’t true for Orlando, though. She was fluent.
“What’s it say?” Quinn asked.
“It’s another article about the deaths, but it goes into more detail about the family. Martin Dupuis was a retired professor. Taught sociology at McGill University until two years ago. Rose was a teacher, too. Literature, but at a private high school. She was still working. Their daughter had apparently been living back at home following a recent divorce.” Orlando paused as she continued reading to herself. “Interesting.”
“What?”
“There’s another daughter. Younger than the one who died. Only says she no longer lives in Montreal. No name given.”
“Maybe they haven’t been able to reach her yet,” Quinn said.
“Maybe she’s the one who killed them,” Orlando suggested.
Quinn shrugged, then straightened up. There was no way to tell these were the Dupuises Peter wanted them to check out. Still, the potential was too large to ignore.
“Get an address,” Quinn said. “Let’s at least do a drive-by.”
“Already got it.”
* * *
They rousted Nate out of his room, then took the Jetta across the river into Montreal. They found the Dupuis house about forty minutes later on the northeast side of town. It was a neighborhood of single-family homes, on small economical lots that made it difficult for one neighbor not to know what the other was doing. Several had lights on in their windows, but many were already dark, the owners either settled in for the night or not home.
They passed the Dupuis home at a slow, steady pace. It was two stories tall, but narrow. Quinn guessed no more than twelve hundred square feet of living space. The windows were all dark, but a nearby streetlamp illuminated enough of the front to see a strip of yellow tape strung across the opening between two bushes that led to the front door. Police tape. There was also a makeshift memorial at the front of the lawn. Dozens of glass candle containers, half already burned out, and several bundles of flowers spilled over from the grass onto the sidewalk.
Other than that, it was just like any of the other houses on the street.
Quinn circled the block and came back down the road again. This time he pulled to the curb two houses before reaching the Dupuis’, taking one of the few remaining parking spots on either side of the street. He stared out the window at the house the three members of the Dupuis family had died in, and tried to imagine the gas filling the house, pushing the oxygen out. But he was having a hard time believing it. From all appearances the house looked well maintained. In fact it looked in better shape than most of those around it. Could it be possible that a family who took that good care of their home could be neglectful when it came to the maintenance of the house’s inner workings? Quinn didn’t think so.
“Are we going in?” Orlando asked.
Quinn thought for a moment, then nodded. “Nate, you stay here.”
“Why me?”
“Someone needs to stay with the car, in case we have to get out in a hurry,” Quinn said.
“That doesn’t answer my question,” Nate said.
&nb
sp; Quinn’s eyes narrowed. “Because I told you to stay.”
“I can stay,” Orlando said.
“No,” Quinn said. “You’re coming with me.”
Orlando looked at Nate, but he shook his head and said, “It’s fine.”
Quinn opened the door and started to get out.
“Wait,” Orlando said. She reached into the small backpack she’d brought along, and pulled out three cloth packets. “Radios. Just in case.”
She handed them around.
Once they were out of the car, Quinn and Orlando did a quick visual check up and down the block. There were no other pedestrians. Not surprising for 10 p.m. on a residential street.
Satisfied, Quinn started walking toward the Dupuis home, Orlando falling into step behind him.
“You could have handled that better,” she whispered.
“Not now,” he said. But she was right, and he’d known it the moment he’d told Nate to stay in the car. He was just trying to protect Nate, but everything he did made him look like an asshole.
A dog barked from across the street. Two yips, then nothing. A warning to not even think about crossing the road. In the house next door to the Dupuis’, someone was watching a TV with the volume up much too loud. The blue flicker of the screen spilled through the second-floor window. The bedroom of an older resident, perhaps.
Quinn took one last look around before they reached the corner of the Dupuis’ property. They still seemed to be the only people out. The memorial in the front yard was down to one burning candle that looked like it wouldn’t last much longer.
“Let’s do it,” Quinn said.
They turned up the short walkway like they lived there. At the end of the concrete path, a short two-step staircase led up to the door. But instead of ascending, they paused at the bottom. As Quinn had noted when they drove by, there was police tape across the walkway to the door. On the tape, bold black letters spelling out in both French and English:
BARRAGE DE POLICE PASSAGE INTERDIT POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS
Passage prohibited by the police. It was, after all, a potential crime scene now.
Quinn still wasn’t sure if they should try and get inside, but he did know that using the front door was out of the question. The same streetlamp that had provided the good view of the house when they drove by now lit their every move.
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