I laid down my fork and knife. It could not be put off any longer.
“When I began to figure out what was going on,” I told Jean-Claude earnestly, “the first thing I came up with was your grand-mère’s address.”
He looked across the table at me. “How did you get that?”
“From the mess in your pickup truck. My brother stuck it underneath the barn after the fire and I searched it. There were papers and receipts behind the seat.”
“Oh well,” Jean-Claude grinned, “you were always after me to clean it out. And now I’m suffering for it.”
“I got the feeling someone else had searched it.”
He shrugged. “When I took the dead man’s car to make my getaway, I had no idea where I was going, so it wouldn’t have been easy to follow me. They wouldn’t learn anything they didn’t already know from what was in my truck.”
“I learned what a bastard you are.”
“Let’s not get back on that again. You have your apology. What else do you want?”
“How did you get out of the country and into France without being detected?”
“False I.D. is not hard to get when you live on the fringe as I have. It just costs so bloody much now, though. When I arrived in France, I had only ten dollars in my pocket.”
I pulled the conversation back from its detour. “Your grand-mère —”
“How is the old lady?” he asked, as if suddenly realizing he had a grandmother.
“Well, right now she thinks you’re dead.” When Jean-Claude frowned, I added, “She’s the only relative you’ve got and she loves you. You really should let her know you’re okay.”
“You know why that’s impossible. If anyone else finds out I’m alive, there will be no safety for me. I know too much for them to let me live. She will talk to her friends. She always does. And it could put her in danger.”
“Jean-Claude, do you know who the rotten Mountie is? I need to know.”
There was a flash of anger in his eyes, but also something else. Fear?
He leaned across the table, and asked with an intensity I’d never heard in his voice before, “Exactly who in the Mounties did you talk to?”
“When I was in Montreal, someone named Parker interviewed me.”
“Merde! When was this?”
“Soon after I got back from Paris.” I quickly sketched how I’d gone to the farm, then to Montreal, and finally about the Mountie turning up at my hotel shortly after I’d seen Jean-Claude’s grand-mère. “I got the feeling they’d somehow been watching the farm. Parker also knew I’d spoken to Madame Lachance.”
“And you told Parker nothing about seeing me?”
Again there was that intensity. I began to wonder if Parker, the cop who couldn’t let go, was the bad apple in the Mountie barrel.
“Relax,” I said grimly. “I can’t afford to have it get out that I’m seeing dead people. Since my meltdown when you supposedly died, my reputation is bad enough as it is. I had to be sure about what I’d seen in Paris.” I paused until he looked up at me. “There’s something else you need to know.”
“What?”
“After talking to your grande-mère, I decided to talk to a reporter who knows all about biker gangs and —”
“Tabernac!” Jean-Claude said too loudly, causing several people in the restaurant to curiously look in our direction. “You told a reporter? You stupid, stupid woman!”
I sighed and shook my head. “I didn’t tell him anything. I just asked if he’d ever heard of you, and if so, what had he heard. He only had your name in an old database, but said he would ask a reporter friend in B.C. who might know a bit more.”
“You swear that was all?”
“No. That isn’t all.” I took a deep breath. “Two days later, both men were murdered.”
It was as if the statement fell out of my mouth, rolled to the middle of the table and sat there while we both stared down at it. The silence lasted a good minute.
Finally, Jean-Claude’s shoulders slumped.
I leaned forward. “The reporter in Montreal who died was Sébastien Bouchard. Did you ever meet him?”
“I had heard of him. Always eager for the inside scoop. Looks like he scooped a little too deep.”
If Jean-Claude thought I’d even crack a grin at his little pun, he was sorely mistaken.
“He was the chum of one of my best friends,” I said, using the Quebec slang for boyfriend. “And I want to get the people responsible for this.”
“How do you plan on accomplishing that?”
“You.”
There. It had been said. Jean-Claude’s eyes bugged out of his head, and his hand, near his glass of wine, jerked, knocking it over, after which it rolled off the table and loudly shattered on the tile floor.
As a waiter rushed to our assistance, my husband’s eyes narrowed. “You are mad!”
We kept our mouths tightly shut while the waiter cleaned up and the maitre d’ came over with a fresh glass of wine.
Jean-Claude picked up the glass and swallowed almost all the liquid in one go.
“I barely escaped with my life last time,” he finally said. “You can be certain the next time I won’t be so lucky.”
“Do you want to live the rest of your life looking over your shoulder? I asked you before and you sidestepped answering. I’ll ask you again: who is the Mountie who ratted you out?”
“I have a few guesses. But surely after what you have just told me about the death of those two journalists, the police are investigating.”
“Yes, but they don’t seem to be making any progress.” Using my fork to punctuate my words, I added, “What concerns me is that Parker’s still on your trail. It was pretty clear from our conversation he believes you’re still alive.”
“He is the one who busted me. Of course he won’t give up! You’ve met him. Can’t you see that?”
“Busted you? He told me you had agreed to help them.”
Jean-Claude rolled his eyes disgustedly. “That is not how these things work, Marta. People in the position I was in don’t help the cops because they want to. They help them because they have to. You are so naive.”
“Parker told me you were helping voluntarily, that you wanted to put those men behind bars.”
He smiled sadly. “You would really like to believe that, wouldn’t you? I was set up, ma chère, pure and simple. Your Jean-Claude got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Isn’t that the way you always used to put it, as if I was some naughty child you needed to straighten out?”
That stung. I hadn’t been aware that he’d thought I was so condescending toward him. I also had to acknowledge that it might even have some basis in fact. We came from such wildly different backgrounds. That was what had initially attracted me to him. He was my bad boy, exciting, intoxicating, so different from anyone I’d ever met. Little did I know.
I shook my head in an outward effort to stay on track. “So what did you get caught at?”
“The leader of the biker gang wanted me to kill someone. That’s how guys like this get their dirty work done. It would have allowed me to finally become a full-patch member. I was young and stupid and full of myself. I thought I wanted to be a tough guy. But when it came down to it, I just couldn’t cross that line. Some tough guy, eh?
“Turns out it was a lucky thing I had trouble with my morals. The guy I’d been sent to whack was an undercover cop. Perhaps those who sent me knew that. I can’t be sure. They were probably laughing among themselves about poor, stupid Jean-Claude. Anyway, it was a set-up and I walked right into it.
“What option did I have? Testify or get sent up for attempted murder of a cop. I was caught between a rock and a very hard place. If I kept my mouth shut and went to prison, I would probably get knocked off there for not carrying through the bikers’ orders. It would be a matter of honour for them, and they would have made an example of me for the others, show what happens when someone crosses them. My only choice was to work for the
Mounties, help them gather information, testify, and then try to disappear into the night. Do you know what happened in B.C.?”
I nodded.
“That’s when I fled back east. I needed money so I started doing handyman work. Then I came to your farm.”
“Was I just a stopping point for you along the way?”
For a moment, Jean-Claude looked at me in the way that used to melt my heart, but now it was like watching a magic trick when you knew how it was done.
“You were so ... different, Marta. Perhaps I was rash. I did a stupid thing, but I wanted to stay. In my arrogance, I thought I could keep a low profile in Ontario and make a life with you.”
“And now?”
“Ma chère, I cannot go back to that life. It is over.”
His arrogance stunned me. As if I ever would take him back! “Your son ...”
“Yes, my son. I am every day so surprised how fatherhood has changed me. You and I never would have had children. It was just not in the cards with your career always being first.”
Dessert arrived and I looked down at the plate of tiny, exquisite one-bite pastries and pushed it away.
“Jean-Claude, you must come back to Canada, if not for yourself than for your son. Unless you end it, someday they will find you and it might not be just you who gets killed. Surely you can see that?”
He actually seemed to think that over. We were now out on the tip of the knife. One way or the other, he was going to finish this, but he didn’t know that yet. I had that lever that had already forced him to Paris to meet with me. I would use it again — not that I wanted to. It would be better for everyone if he did this on his own.
Finally he came to his decision.
“No,” he said with complete commitment. “I will not do it. I tried to do the right thing, and it twice nearly got me killed. They did not protect me. In fact, they did the opposite. Two of my friends died. No. I am through.”
“Then you leave me no alternative. Don’t think I —”
“You will not turn me in.”
“I’m warning you.”
“No, Marta. I cannot believe you have become so completely hateful that you would do that to my family.” He caught the waiter’s eye and signalled for the bill, then looked across the table at me and in his eyes was only tenderness and love, no anger. Whether it was truly there or simply another deceit, I could not tell.
“I am leaving now. You are going to fly off to wherever it is you are performing next. You will forget all about finding me and we will never see each other again. I know you will do this because you are a good person.”
The waiter brought over the bill and Jean-Claude barely glanced at it before pulling out a wad of cash. He peeled off a few bills, then got to his feet.
“Marta, you do the right thing. There is nothing to be gained in this affair by ruining even more lives. Let it go. Know that I will always hold you in a special place in my heart because of what you will be doing.”
Jean-Claude’s voice and manner were so soft and gentle that I found myself responding almost as if hypnotized. Yes, it would be easy to watch him walk the length of the restaurant, then get on his motorcycle and disappear to Beauvais again. He was almost certain to be safe in such a backwater. He looked and sounded so different. Too many lives had already been wrecked. It would be on my head if anything more were to happen. I squeezed my eyes shut as he turned to leave. This was for the best.
While my eyes were closed, I could see Lainey as she’d looked when she’d arrived in Toronto: pale, ragged, miserable, and somehow physically diminished by her loss. Now she’d been physically attacked. It couldn’t end here. This was what had hardened my heart. Things had to be put back into balance by making sure that those who had done evil were made to face justice.
“No, Jean-Claude, I cannot do what you ask. At least five people have died because a man, an officer of the law, did not do what he had sworn to do. I don’t really care about the bikers. I care about a cop who broke faith. I will see him stopped. I can help you with this. We will take this right to the top with the Mounties and I will move heaven and earth to make sure you and your family are protected.”
“You? How can you do that?”
“By using who I am. We can leave now for the Canadian Embassy. I met the ambassador at a party when I was last here, and I can get us in to see him. Tell him what you know, and they will catch this rogue cop. Please don’t force me to go there alone, because I will if I have to. Do it for little Gaston and Marie. You must do the right thing.”
I’d put everything I had into what I’d just said, every bit of sincerity, and I suddenly felt I could do what I had promised. I had to.
Jean-Claude sighed and shook his head. “No. I am through trusting — even you. Every time I have trusted, it has got me in trouble. No!” He got up from the table again and looked down at me grimly. “Do your worst!”
I got up and followed.
At the front of the restaurant, as we got our coats on, I thanked the maître d’ for the lovely meal I’d hardly touched. Passing through the small entryway, we found ourselves once again on the jostling sidewalk of the busy Paris side street.
I started to give it one more try with Jean-Claude, unwilling to let go, but also unwilling to hurt his little family.
A truck that was parked directly in front of the restaurant pulled away and I could see across the street where a car was partially up on the sidewalk, illegally parked. Behind that stood a small taverne, its front covered in those big sliding glass doors, indicating that tables would have been spread across the sidewalk in warmer weather.
I don’t know what caused me to look farther into the building. Maybe it was a movement on the other side of the glass, maybe it was fate, but suddenly I could see Tony sitting there, a glass of wine on the table in front of him.
My anger erupted. How dare he after what I’d told him?
Without even looking right for traffic on the one-way street, I stepped off the sidewalk. Jean-Claude, noticing my danger, grabbed at my arm. His gesture did little to stop my forward motion.
“Marta! What are you doing?”
“I can’t believe he followed me!” I spluttered.
Tony saw me coming and threw some money onto the table as he quickly got to his feet.
By that point, Jean-Claude had let go of my arm. A truck’s horn blared as it barreled down the street. Typical impatient French drivers.
As Tony came through the door of the taverne, I dodged around the illegally parked car, then turned to look back at Jean-Claude.
He was standing in the middle of the street, glaring at me with unmistakable disgust. It was easy to see that he thought my meddling had set him up, that Tony was either a cop or an assassin.
The truck driver honked again impatiently, and Jean-Claude stepped farther onto the road instead of back to the sidewalk.
Swinging quickly into the vacant parking spot in front of the restaurant, that truck saved his life, probably mine and Tony’s, as well.
It hadn’t even stopped moving when the bomb went off.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The whole universe came unglued.
The earth under my feet, the buildings around me, the very air itself seemed to become liquid, and I possessed no ability to stand against it.
Tony, barely five feet in front of me, had a look of horror on his face as I flew forward and landed hard on my side. He was knocked to his knees but had the presence of mind to huddle over, protecting his head, because it was suddenly raining glass. My right hand was under my body, but I’d used my left to try to break my fall and it was unprotected. I felt a sharp stab as something bit into it.
As suddenly as it had come, the wave passed, and everything solidified once again — painfully.
As I began to understand what had happened and realized the explosion had been behind me, I rolled onto my side and lifted my head.
Jean-Claude lay face down in the street. The truck that h
ad protected us from the worst of the blast had been flipped on its side. Smoke rose from behind it. It fluttered into my rattled brain that it might explode, too.
Something touched my face and I moved my eyes again to see Tony bending over me. His mouth moved but all I could hear was a buzzing sound.
“I’m all right, I think,” I told him. “Go see about Jean-Claude.”
I had to repeat it twice, but finally Tony nodded and moved out of my line of sight.
Probably twenty seconds had passed since the bomb had ripped the world apart, but it felt like a day.
Can’t lie here on the sidewalk, I told myself. There must be people who need help.
I sat up and took stock of how I felt. It didn’t think I’d broken anything, but my whole body ached. Alerted by sharp pain in my left hand, I turned my head and saw a shard of glass several inches long sticking out of it. Quite calmly, considering how squeamish I am about blood, I pulled it out. Examining the one-inch wound further, it appeared as if it hadn’t hit anything crucial. My hand still moved just fine, although flexing it caused blood to come out far more rapidly and hurt like hell.
I know now that I was suffering from deep shock, but I seemed so calm at the time, almost detached, as I took my wool and silk scarf, a Christmas present from my sister and something I dearly loved, and wrapped it tightly around my dripping hand. My badly-skinned knees would have to wait until later.
Suddenly remembering Jean-Claude again, I got unsteadily to my feet and went to where Tony was kneeling next to him.
“He’s knocked out, but I think that’s because he bounced off the car.” The sound of Tony’s words barely made it past the swarm of bees inside my head, but I understood enough by also reading his lips.
“He’s not dead?” I asked, kneeling down, too, and putting my mouth near Tony’s ear so he might hear me better.
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