Quinn found the Alexander Grant Building several streets away. He kept to the other side of the road and slowed his pace.
The information had claimed the Grant Building was due to be demolished. But one look at the place had Quinn wondering why it hadn’t happened sooner. It was sitting on a corner lot, so the land was worth a considerable amount of money. But the building?
The best words he could come up with to describe it were “unremarkable,” “rundown,” and “aging.” Eight floors of grimy stone. The kind of place a person could walk by every day for years and never notice. It was just there.
Scanning upward, he saw that most of the windows on the upper floors had been removed. So the demolition’s already under way, he thought. No wonder Wills’s client is anxious to get the body removal started.
But why did he need Quinn to do it? Any decent cleaner could handle the project with no problems. Didn’t make a hell of a lot of sense. It was another question for Wills when they met up.
He was about to walk around the block when he saw a light flicker in the building. He stepped into a darkened doorway a few feet away and crouched down.
The main entrance to the Grant Building was at the midpoint of the ground floor. Two glass doors led into what had been a darkened lobby. Only now a flashlight beam was lighting up one of the walls. A moment later an overhead light came on, revealing a security guard at the far back of the room.
He walked up to the front door, unlocked it, then stepped through. Super cop he was not. Five foot eight, about twenty-five pounds overweight, and bored. He strolled along the front of the building to the three-foot gap between the Grant Building and its neighbor, then turned and walked back past the entrance and around the corner, disappearing from sight.
Quinn held his position, counting off the time in his head. It was just over four minutes before the guard reappeared. When he did, he was speaking into a walkie-talkie. Quinn couldn’t make out the guard’s words, but a tinny, overamplified voice responded through the receiver, “… second floor …” Quinn glanced up at the darkened windows, but saw nothing of interest.
The guard spoke again, then clipped the radio to his belt and finished his walk to the front door. A moment later he disappeared inside, turning the lobby light off as he passed. Quinn retrieved his phone, accessed the camera, and switched to night vision. He took several pictures, then used the zoom to check the street in both directions.
London was a city that lived under the camera’s eye. Thousands of closed-circuit television cameras, CCTVs, were installed throughout the metropolis, where they passively watched everyone and everything. When people like Quinn worked in London, they had to take this citywide surveillance into consideration—altering appearances, doing nothing to attract attention, and, whenever possible, keeping real business to those dead zones with no coverage.
Occasionally, some of the quieter streets fell through the city’s video net. Quinn was pleased to see the street the target building was on among them.
Minor good news, but good news nonetheless.
He settled in and waited for the guard to reappear so he could gauge the schedule of rounds. When the lobby light came back on, Quinn checked his watch. An hour and seven minutes.
Say an hour to an hour and a half between rounds. He watched as the door opened again and the man stepped outside. Interesting.
While the pattern was the same, the guard was not. This was a younger guy, probably early thirties, and in a bit better shape. So there are at least two of them, he thought. For an abandoned building this size, Quinn could see it go as high as three, but no more.
For the first time that evening, he could feel sleep hanging behind his eyes. As he had hoped, getting out and doing some work had helped him to relax. Now, maybe, he could get a few hours’ rest before he met up with Wills.
When the guard disappeared around the side of the building, Quinn slipped out of his hiding place and returned down the street the way he’d come. At the end of the block, he took a look back at the building.
Easy.
Too easy.
NATE HAD ASSUMED LIZ WOULD LOSE INTEREST in him the moment Quinn was gone. And for a while she did disappear into the back of the apartment. When she finally came out, he was sure she was going to suggest it might actually be better if he did stay in a hostel, but instead, she said, “I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry. You up for some lunch?”
“Oh, don’t go to any trouble for me,” Nate said. He was still sitting on the couch.
“Who’s going to any trouble?” she asked as she walked over to the entryway, then opened a closet door. “We’ll pick up something on the way.”
Nate stood up slowly, confused. “On the way where?”
She pulled out a coat. “Nickel tour of Paris, of course. Unless you have something better to do.”
“Don’t you have to go to school or something?”
“Done for the day. So are you coming or not?”
“I don’t want to put you out.”
“God, are you always this difficult? Relax. Someone offers to show you Paris, you say yes.”
“Okay.” He smiled. “Yes.”
He shot Julien a text update from the bathroom before they left, then bundled up and followed Liz out into the city.
She helped him to buy a Métro pass, then they took the train to Saint-Michel. A half block away was the Seine, and just on the other side was the Île de la Cité and the Notre Dame Cathedral.
“You’ve come at a good time of year,” she said. “Hardly any tourists.”
Nate nodded, then took a step toward the cathedral.
But Liz grabbed his arm and stopped him. “Come on. Back on the Métro.”
“We’re not going to go take a look inside?” he asked.
“You’re here a week, right? I’m giving you the overview so you have an idea where things are and can come back when you want.”
Nate laughed. “Overview, it is. Lead on.”
As they walked back to the Saint-Michel Métro station, Nate caught a glimpse of Julien standing in line at a patisserie. When the big man glanced at him, Nate said to Liz, “Which way?”
“Over there.” She pointed at the Métro entrance. “Same one we used before.”
“Right. Sorry, wasn’t paying attention when we came out.”
He glanced quickly in Julien’s direction. The Frenchman had gotten the message and was headed toward the subway.
It was the tour most locals would give to friends from out of town. The Louvre Museum, Montmartre and the Basilique du Sacré-Cæur, the Eiffel Tower, and finally the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs-Élysées. The only place they actually spent any time at was the Champs-Élysées. There they strolled down the famous street, looking at the shops and restaurants.
“How about a coffee or something?” Nate suggested. “My treat.”
“You’re on,” she said, smiling. She pulled him by the arm over to the nearest café.
A couple of hours earlier, the gesture might have been surprising, but now it seemed almost natural. She had been laughing easily at his jokes, teasing him whenever he attempted to pronounce the names on the street signs, and a few times glancing at him when she thought he wouldn’t notice.
If nothing else, Nate decided, she was at least enjoying his company.
The café was one of those places that spilled out onto the sidewalk even in the fall. In deference to the weather, a cloth and plastic awning complete with front and side walls jutted out from the building, claiming a portion of concrete. Inside, heaters kept the customers warm.
A waiter looked over as they walked in. He was balding, with a close-cropped rim of dark hair. “Deux?”
“Oui,” Liz said.
He pointed at a small round table. It had been set up in a row with several others. Each had two chairs, both on the same side of the table, so customers could watch people walk by.
Nate and Liz sat down, and soon the waiter returned, looking at th
em expectantly.
“You want some coffee, or something a little stronger?” Liz asked Nate.
“What are you having?”
“I was thinking about a glass of wine.”
“Sounds good to me.”
She ordered two glasses of Château Cos d’Estournel Saint-Estèphe Bordeaux.
“Anything else?” the waiter asked in English.
“Non, c’est tout, merci,” Liz said.
The waiter gave her a halfhearted smile, then left.
“I don’t think he likes us,” Nate said.
“This part of town, they think Americans only really know English.”
“But you speak excellent French.”
She smiled. “Thanks. I’d better. Three years in high school. Four years of undergrad. And two years here already. Oh, and I had a French boyfriend for a while, too.”
“In Paris?”
“No, back at Michigan State,” she said.
“What about now? No French boyfriend?”
She blurted out a laugh. “Not with my schedule.”
“You can’t be studying all the time,” he said.
“Wait until you start grad school. Then think what it would be like to write all your papers in two languages.”
“Seriously?”
“I think better in English, so it’s easier to write that way first. Then I have to translate it, and make sure it reads correctly.”
“Sounds like a pain in the ass. I’d pay someone to do the translation for me.”
“That would mean I had extra money lying around.”
Nate realized he’d stumbled into an area he really hadn’t meant to get into. Quinn had told him about the scholarship, but there was no way Andrew Cain would have that information. He decided to go with a more innocent approach. “How much do they cost?”
She looked at him, one eyebrow raised. “Why? You going to pay for it for me?”
He laughed. “That would be a big no. I’m probably just as poor as you.”
“But your father sounds like he has a bit of cash.”
“He might, but I don’t. He made it very clear as I was growing up that I wasn’t getting any kind of free ride.”
“Good for him.”
Nate felt a sense of relief as the waiter approached with their drinks.
After that the conversation turned back to the safer topic of life in Paris.
Before they realized it, it was starting to get dark. At Liz’s suggestion, they headed to the Latin Quarter to get some dinner.
The area was a maze of narrow cobbled streets closed off to most traffic and reserved, instead, for pedestrians. Along each road, restaurants and clubs vied for space and customers, some using touts and others lights and aromas.
Liz chose a cozy place that was about five times longer than it was wide. There they shared a cheese fondue and a bottle of wine.
By the time they got home it was after 9 p.m. Nate excused himself to use the bathroom, where he shot off two quick texts. Both were basically the same. To Quinn he wrote:
In for the night. All clear here.
And to Julien:
Done 4 today. Bed soon.
As Nate washed his hands, his phone buzzed once in his pocket. On the screen was a reply from Julien.
What? No late-night disco?
Nate texted back:
If you’re up for it, I can suggest it.
A few seconds later, Julien responded:
Do it.
Nate smiled, then tapped in one last message:
Good night, Julien.
When he returned to the living room, he half expected Liz to have already gone to bed. But she was sitting on the couch, an open bottle of wine and two glasses on the coffee table in front of her.
He joined her, sitting near but not too close. She poured wine into both of the glasses, then raised hers.
“To your first night in Paris,” she said.
“To making a new friend,” he countered. They touched glasses, then each took a drink.
By now Nate was starting to feel the effects of the wine. He wasn’t drunk, but he was less in control than he should have been. He was there on a job, he reminded himself. He’d have to nurse this glass for the rest of the evening.
“So what do you think of my brother?” Liz asked.
“He seems fine,” Nate replied, as naturally as he could. “I didn’t really spend that much time with him, and I’ve only met him once before. You know how it is, right, meeting a friend of your parents? What do you talk about?”
Liz smiled as she leaned back. She looked comfortable, totally relaxed. She raised her glass to her lips and took another drink.
“When I was a little girl, Jake was my hero. You know, one of those people who can do no wrong. I wanted to hang around him all the time. He was older, he didn’t have to, but he let me anyway.”
Another dangerous topic, but for a moment Nate’s curiosity won out over his caution. “How much older?”
“Eight years.”
“That is quite a bit.”
“Eight years and seven months, actually.”
Nate instinctively knew the next question he should ask. “Do you have any other brothers or sisters?”
She said nothing for a moment. “We did.”
“Oh. I’m sorry,” Nate said. “We can change the subject.”
“No, it’s all right,” she said. “We had a brother. Davey. He was in between us. But he died in a car accident when he was five, I think. I don’t remember him.”
“Oh, God. I really am sorry.”
“I was in the accident, too. The whole family was. You want to see my scar?”
She sat up suddenly, a little unsteady from the wine, and began working her fingers through her hair.
“It’s okay,” Nate said. “I believe you.”
“See?” she said.
She had created a part across her scalp that revealed a portion of a scar that looked like it ran for several inches.
“That must have hurt,” Nate said.
“I’m sure it did. I’m told there was a lot of blood.”
“Head wounds have a way of doing that.”
“Oh, really? And you know this how?”
He shrugged. “Grew up watching ER on TV.”
She snickered, then let her hair fall down as she leaned back. “I wasn’t even two yet. This is the only proof I have that the accident even happened. Well, and Davey’s grave, I guess.”
Nate tried to stop himself, but he couldn’t. “So what happened between you and Jake?”
“One night he just left,” she said. “I was nine.”
That surprised Nate. “He ran away from home?”
“Can you really call someone who leaves home at seventeen a runaway?” she asked. “All I know is he was gone.”
“For how long?”
“The first time I saw him after that,” she said, “was last month at our father’s funeral.”
“Whoa,” Nate said. “That’s a long time.”
“The only reason I knew he wasn’t dead was because he still keeps in contact with Mom. She asked me once if he’d ever been in touch with me. I lied and told her he had. Mom’s always had this kind of defeated sense to her. I guess I just didn’t want to add to it.”
“Look, you don’t need to—”
“I thought I’d moved past him, forgotten about him. But then the funeral, and now here.” Her eyes started to glisten. “He never called me. He never wrote. I don’t understand why.”
Tears began to slide down her cheeks, then she took a big gulp of air and could no longer keep herself from sobbing.
Without even thinking, Nate reached out and pulled her into his arms, letting her bury her face in his shoulder. He rubbed her back, and every once in a while whispered, “It’s okay” or “Just let it out.”
Then, when her crying subsided, she lay against him, her breaths fast at first, but gradually slowing down. After a while he thought she might have
fallen asleep, but then she turned in his arms, and looked at him for a moment before pushing herself back up.
“More than you bargained for this evening, huh?” she asked as she wiped the last of her tears from her eyes.
He liked that she didn’t apologize. “You never know which way life is going to come at you. I find it better to let things happen than expect anything in particular.” He gave her a smile. “At the risk of setting you off again, I’m wondering if you ever asked him what was up.”
She shrugged. “Once.”
“And what did he say?”
“Nothing.”
“You mean he gave you the runaround?”
“No. I mean he said nothing. It was on the phone. He’d called to talk to Mom, but I happened to be home and had answered. So I decided I’d just ask him why he left. He was silent for a long time, and then he said, ‘Can I talk to Mom, please.’ That was it.”
“Maybe he had a good reason.”
“Yeah, well, if he did, I don’t care anymore.” She drained the rest of her wine, then picked up the bottle. “You want some more?” She looked at his glass. It was almost full. “I guess not, huh?”
“I’m fine.”
She started to tip the bottle over her own glass, but stopped before any liquid spilled out.
“Maybe it would be better if we just call it a night,” she said. “I’ve got class in the morning, and I’m sure you must be tired.”
“I’m doing okay,” Nate said. “But it’s up to you.”
She smiled, then started to stand, the bottle of wine still in her hand. When she straightened her knees, she swayed.
Nate jumped up and put out a hand to steady her.
“Thanks,” she said. “I think I just proved another glass would have been a bad idea.”
“Why don’t you give that to me?”
He took the bottle from her, then picked up the two glasses and carried them all into the kitchen. When he returned, Liz had moved the sheet, blanket, and pillow she’d set on the floor that afternoon onto the couch, and looked like she was about to make his bed.
“I can do that,” Nate said, rushing over.
She gave him a smirk. “I’m not completely helpless.”
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