Safe didn’t mean unharmed.
She’d been naïve to think that she could disappear on her own. Most likely Richard had offered a generous reward for her return, and if she came back slightly damaged, well, so much the better. It would explain why she hadn’t been shot in the head like the others. If Zabat was recording her captivity, Richard would’ve paid handsomely to see her imprisoned in that cabin, deprived of human company. Watching her slowly go mad would’ve pleased him. In fact, he might even have made suggestions for her long-term confinement. The gas range, for example. He knew it frightened her, so he’d force her to use it or do without. How he must’ve laughed at her becoming so domesticated. Here she’d thought herself in charge of her future, and all she’d been was a puppet in a shadow box he’d made for her.
She set the empty cup down on the table and leaned back.
“Have you got my sketch pad and pencils?”
“Right here,” Mike said, standing and reaching for them on top of the fridge.
“If Richard does know I’m alive, he’ll move heaven and earth to get to me. You know that, don’t you?”
Mike nodded. “But now that I’ve snatched you away from under Zabat’s nose, so to speak, he doesn’t know where you are, and we’ll keep it that way. Since we’ve figured out who the enemy is, things will get easier. You’ll see.”
Alexa reached for the pencil and put the pad on the table.
“Let’s hope you’re right.”
• • •
Mike examined the wine-colored French passport in his hand. The document, issued four years ago, belonged to Lucien Gravelle from Lyon. From the number of stamps in it, Monsieur Gravelle traveled extensively.
“Where did you get this?” he asked, holding up the document and scrutinizing the photo identification page for flaws, anything that would prove it was false. “It’s the best forgery I’ve ever seen. Have you got a side job I don’t know about?”
“Sometimes one has to be creative to survive. It’s one of my identities,” Andy answered and chuckled. “Colette and I have a lot of time on our hands. Occasionally, we like to travel and relive the old days.”
“Sure you do.” Mike shook his head. “And I suppose you really went to Iceland.”
“We spent a week there in June.” He bit his pipe stem. “There’s no place in the world like it. When we first arrived, I thought, ‘My God, we’ve landed on the moon’—nothing but rock and the occasional weed fighting for existence—but I was wrong. Reykjavík is a beautiful city, nice and green, and the people are friendly. And the Blue Lagoon . . . magnifique—”
“You’re full of it. This is my picture, old man. There’s no way you traveled overseas on this document.”
“Changing a picture and a date are easy. The hard part is having an identity with enough behind it to substantiate its authenticity. It’s a good picture, eh?” he asked. “I got it from the stills I took at Marie-Louise’s wedding. I don’t think I could’ve found you smiling if you’d offered me a million dollars, but staring straight ahead, stone-faced . . . That was easy.”
Glancing down at the picture taken just after Thea’s death, Mike noted the shorter hair and the bare face. “What did you do? Photoshop this? I still had my chin strap then.”
“But you don’t have it now.” He shrugged. “The passport will pass muster if you decide to leave the country, but I wouldn’t—at least, not yet. The credit card is valid and has no limit. Use it freely, but I’ll expect you to pay the bill when it comes due. You can use all that money you brought with you to do it, but no one travels with close to fifty grand in cash.”
“The bill comes here? Doesn’t that make all this pointless?”
“You would make a lousy secret agent, Delorme. I’m surprised you survived as long as you did undercover with such a limited imagination.” He shook his head. “It’s the twenty-first century. Pay for a fancy restaurant meal with cash, you’ll get smiles and thank-yous, but do it for a hotel bill and you’ll raise eyebrows. Most places insist on a credit card on file at check-in, and you know it. Everything is done with plastic. The e-statement is sent to this e-mail address.” He handed Mike the sheet of paper on the table. “We’ll stay in touch this way, or with this. Do you still remember the emergency number I gave you as a kid?”
“Yes, and the code name.” Mike reached for the cell phone. “Can it be traced?”
“No, I’ve removed the locator chip. I bought the phone in France two years ago, and like the card, I keep it up to date with an international carrier. You can use it to call Henri, but remember, while your end of the phone isn’t bugged, his could be, so maybe you should use it to lay down the false trail we mentioned.”
“You know, CSIS made a big mistake letting you retire.”
Andy removed the half-glasses he wore. “Who said they did? I may be sixty-six years old, but I’m not dead. Even an old dog knows a few tricks.” He winked. “I still have my uses and my connections. While you were watching television, I had a second look at the money in that bag. It isn’t counterfeit nor is it marked, and the bills aren’t consecutive, but I’ll bet my reputation this isn’t cash from any RCMP or QC stash. They would be the last ones who would worry about the money being traceable. No, the mole provided this, and he probably got it from Zabat or this magician of yours. There’s a fair amount of cocaine on the bills, but unfortunately, unless you’ve got brand-new ones, that’s not unusual these days. I suggest you leave most of it here. If you get stopped, that amount of cash will definitely be suspicious, and of course, you could never cross the border with it. Two or three grand wouldn’t be unusual for an international traveler, but today, with worldwide access to bank accounts, few people would carry even that much. Now think. Who would’ve handled that money?”
“Doucet handed me the bag. I don’t think the captain knew what was inside. There were passports and credit cards, but I left all that with the bag in the chalet.”
Andy pursed his lips and nodded. “That was the smart thing to do. So, who gave it to Doucet? Figure that out, and you’ll be one step closer to your mole. I’ll make a stop on my way to the airport and have a friend take a look at the money bands, see if there are prints on them. If there are any, he may be able to identify them.”
Huffing out a breath, Mike nodded.
“Mike?”
He turned toward the sound of his name, his jaw dropping at the sight of the woman standing on crutches in the kitchen doorway. Beside her stood Colette, a satisfied grin on her face.
The transformation was incredible. Colette had said even her mother wouldn’t recognize her, and she was right. If Alexa hadn’t spoken, he wouldn’t have known her either.
Her hair, now the color of a new copper penny, had been cut short, and despite its mass of curls, framed her face and hid the scar that ran from her scalp to just below her ear. She wore rectangular glasses that made her eyes larger than they were, the slightly tinted lenses giving the impression her irises were brown instead of the hazel color he remembered. Gold hoops hung from her ears, dangling above her shoulders, making her neck seem longer as well. Colette had skillfully applied a slightly darker foundation and blush that eliminated all trace of her pallor. She’d shaped her eyebrows, now also tinged copper, and had added eye makeup and a darker lipstick. Alexa had been beautiful, but this woman was exquisite.
His eyes raked her from head to toe and back again. Her loose blue sweater and jeans were gone, and in their place, she wore a long, chocolate-brown sweater, its cleavage implying a larger bust than he recalled; a three-inch-wide belt with a tortoiseshell buckle cinching an amazingly small waist; and black, brown, and gold animal print leggings that made her look taller than she was. The biggest surprise was the hot pink removable cast encasing her lower right leg. Her crutches had been spray-painted to match it.
“Say something,” Alexa said as her teeth embedded themselves in her lower lip.
“You look fantastic,” he said, frowning. “But if the
idea is not to stand out, this definitely won’t work.”
Colette laughed. “And that’s exactly what we want,” she said, her hands on her hips. “People make the mistake of trying to be ordinary and disappear in the crowds when what they need to do is project an image so different from the one people expect that they dismiss even the possibility this could be the person they want. Come and sit while I get supper.”
Mike continued to stare. The sweater skimmed Alexa’s bottom, but it was tight enough to show off the smooth shape of her ass. My God, she was every man’s wet dream and more.
Shaking off that thought, Mike moved quickly to pull out the chair next to his and then pushed it back in
“Magnifique, Colette,” Andy said, the glint in his eye implying he knew exactly what Mike had been thinking. “She’s even better than I hoped she would be.” He rummaged through the shoebox on the table and pulled out an American passport. “You have it?”
“Oui.” She handed him a digital camera. “I took three, just in case.”
He nodded. “I won’t be long.”
Once he’d left the kitchen, Mike turned his attention back to Alexa. “I can’t believe how different you look. Will you be able to keep it up?”
She nodded. “After Colette’s step-by-step directions, she cleaned my face and had me do it myself three times.”
“It’s all in the way it’s applied,” Colette said, smoothing back her own slightly darker red hair. “To be effective, cosmetics have to enhance and yet look natural. The last thing you want is to look like some kind of clown.” She shook her head, implying that was a fate worse than death.
“I see you colored, too,” Mike said. “It looks good.”
She chuckled. “Thanks. As Andy says, the proof is in the details. I had to buy the dye, so if someone asked, I had to be a redhead, too.”
“What about the clothes?”
“Alexa’s five new outfits were bought in Europe last spring. I was going to give them to Marie-Louise for Christmas, but she’s expecting. I’ll take the clothes Alexa had with her, including the sweaters she knitted, with me and dispose of them in Florida. Andy said someone has her on videotape, so disposing of them locally might not be a good thing. The jewelry may look real, but it’s paste. I’ve added a few things from my own closet. I used to be a lot slimmer, as you well know.”
“But you’re still sexy and gorgeous,” Mike said, pleased when Colette blushed.
“Get away with you.”
He turned to Alexa. She looked different, yet nothing had really been altered. Like magic, it was all smoke and mirrors or, in this case, cosmetics and spectacles. Maybe Andy was right and this was what Zabat had done to be in two places at once. All it would take was someone with a similar build and olive skin. Add makeup and the facial hair as well as those touches unique to the man, and voilà. From a distance, no one would know the difference.
“Can you see with those?” He indicated the glasses.
“Yes. Quite well, in fact. I may keep wearing them when this is over.”
He looked down at her feet. She wore a scuffed leather half boot on her left foot. “Where did the shoe come from?”
“It belongs to my daughter-in-law,” Colette answered. “She wears the same size. With the cast, no one will expect Alexa to have fancy heels. And before you ask, the cast was Denise’s, too. She broke her ankle skiing last winter. I had Andy spray-paint the crutches.
“You’re a genius, Colette.” Mike kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you.”
“You can thank me by peeling the potatoes while Alexa makes the salad. I’ve got meatloaf for supper. Andy wants to leave at seven. I told everyone I possibly could how excited I was to see my sister and get away from this miserable weather. Since they’re used to seeing us travel at short notice, it won’t seem unusual. I pointed out that we’d expected to leave on Sunday, but the snow . . . so when La Vieille Racine sees us leave in the morning, it’ll be all over town by nine.”
“I don’t know how to thank you,” he said.
“Hey, family helps family, and I adopted you long ago, even if you didn’t know it. Your mother, bless her soul, was a good friend. Keeping her boy safe is the least I can do. Now, Lucien,” she stressed the name he needed to use from now on, “get the vegetables out of the fridge. The potatoes are in the box.”
Mike nodded to Colette and smiled at Alexa. The last thing he ever wanted her to know was how worried he’d been at the chalet once he realized he’d been set up and then again when he’d found the C-4. He’d walked into that trap in Montreal and then again in Saint Sauveur. Sure, he’d gotten out alive, but did he really want to try it a third time? As Doucet said, sooner or later a man’s luck ran out. That was why he needed Andy and Colette. As he’d told Alexa, sometimes you had to ask someone to have your back even when you wanted to go it on your own. With Colette and Andy’s help, they had a shot at hiding safely from Zabat, a hell of a better one than they’d had Sunday morning, and if Richard was involved as he now suspected, Mike would keep her safe from him as well. The biggest problem would be keeping himself in line. The lady had awakened things in him best left dormant.
Chapter Fourteen
Three hours later, after carrying Alexa upstairs so she could finish packing and get ready for bed, Mike joined Andy in his office for a glass of the brandy he’d taken from the chalet. As he’d pointed out to Alexa, it was too good to waste.
“I haven’t had cognac this good since the last time I was in France,” Andy said, sipping the amber liquid. “Whoever her jailor was has excellent taste—expensive but excellent. It was wise not to let it burn. Is she settled?”
Andy handed him an American passport. Like the French one, this looked authentic. The photograph of Alexa identified her as Laura Sykes from New York City.
“Not yet. She and Colette are doing some last-minute packing. Your wife is robbing your son’s closet and giving me more clothes. We’re about the same size, but I don’t know. Some of that stuff isn’t my style.”
“And that’s a good thing. Remember what she said. You want to project a very different image from your own.” He indicated the passport. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know how you do it,” he said. “This looks like the real thing to me. One of Colette’s identities?”
“No, but there’s enough evidence behind it if someone does a search. You’ll need this, too.” He indicated a sheet of paper on the table.
“All I can say is it’s a damn good thing you’re on our side. What is this?”
Andy laughed. “What does it look like?”
“A marriage license issued in New York City, and according to the signatures, Mr. and Mrs. Lucien Gravelle tied the knot two weeks ago at city hall. You can forge my signature?” he asked, his voice rising at least an octave as he recognized his usual scrawl.
“Hers, too. She named and dated a few sketches. That was all I needed. This will make sharing a room easier and add another layer to your cover.”
“I don’t believe any hotel will be looking for proof we’re actually married,” Mike said. “Lots of couples travel and stay together. It’s not a big deal.”
“It is at Lune De Miel, an exclusive honeymoon resort north of Quebec City. The owner is one of us and knows what’s at stake. You can trust him. He’s got connections not only inside CSIS but deep within the RCMP in a place I can guarantee is mole-free. You need to be there in ten days, but take your time. Stay in the best places, the more expensive and exclusive, the better. Whoever is after you will be looking for a policeman and an invalid, not a high roller on his honeymoon. Wine her, dine her, and above all, act like a couple in love.”
“You’re joking. That’s going to be a tough sell to Alexa. Right now, I would say she sees me as a necessary evil. She doesn’t trust me. When I stopped the snowmobile in those trees, she jumped to the conclusion I was going to leave her there to die.”
“Merde. Her participation is essential for this to wor
k. Like I told you before, people need to see what we want them to see.”
“Fine, I’ll do my part.” But the very thought of pretending to be on intimate terms with Alexa shook him to the core. “How do we explain the cast and crutches?”
“A skiing accident in Vermont. There’s even a record of it at the hospital in Montpelier.” Andy sobered. “You’ll see the passport stamp indicates you crossed into Canada five days ago. Until I can find you a permanent hiding place—and you may be there a lot longer than you plan to be—I suggest you stay in Canada. Crossing over too many times might raise some flags.” He rubbed his chin. “As you suggested, I did a little digging into Dr. Richard Fields. Did she tell you he’s a prominent cosmetic surgeon? He moved to Toronto from Philadelphia about ten years ago. I guess he decided he preferred guaranteed government money to whatever he could earn on his own.”
“No, she just said he was a doctor, but I doubt he came here for the money. According to Alexa, he has more than enough of that. Strange that he would come here from the States. The brain drain usually goes the other way. She did say he’d made arrangements at the clinic for her to have that scar on her face fixed. Knowing how much he controlled her life, it makes sense he would want to be the one to put her under the knife. That puts a new spin on the doppelganger, don’t you think?”
“If you’re talking about Zabat’s double, it’s possible, but plastic surgery is rather permanent. I don’t think it would be easy to find someone ready to give up their own identity to assume his on a part-time basis, but what do I know? Some people will sell out their own mothers if the price is right.”
“I suppose that would be a little drastic,” Mike conceded, but he was unwilling to give up the idea completely. The thought the mob could have a plastic surgeon in their pocket brought up a lot of ugly possibilities—doubles were only one of them. “Alexa heard one of the killers use the word visage the night of the execution. I thought someone might’ve been yelling at them, but what if that’s why the men were killed? What if the intent was to steal their faces?”
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