Shadow of Betrayal jqt-3

by Brett Battles

  “Here,” she said. She put three twenties on the counter just her side of the half-moon opening. “That should do it, right?”

  He looked at the money for a moment, then reached under the counter and came up with a key.

  “Third floor, in the front,” he said. “You’ll hear the street, but most of the other guests prefer rooms in the back.”

  She understood what he was trying to tell her. “Thank you,” she said.

  She exchanged her money for the key.

  “Elevator’s out the door and to the right.”

  * * *

  The clerk had been right about the room. She could hear every car that passed on the street, but while there were the occasional voices from the far end of the motel corridor, there didn’t seem to be anyone using the rooms nearby.

  Iris didn’t seem to mind any of it. She was fast asleep on the bed beside Marion. Something Marion wished she could also do. She had never felt this tired in her life.

  Bone weary. It was a term she’d heard one of her American colleagues use. Now she knew what the woman had meant, for her exhaustion went way beyond skin deep, touching every cell in her body.

  But sleep wasn’t coming. Not yet.

  It wasn’t that she was afraid she’d chosen the wrong place to stay. Far from it. The fact that the clerk hadn’t even had her fill out any kind of registration card had confirmed she’d made the right choice.

  It was the story in the newspaper. She had read it three times, then dropped the pages on the floor.

  Her parents were dead.

  Her sister was dead.

  The paper had said it looked like an accident, a leak in a gas line that had filled the home while her family slept. But Marion knew that couldn’t be possible. Her father had been meticulous in his care of the house. He’d had the entire gas system replaced only five years earlier. Far too soon for it to be experiencing any fatigue, and far too late for any installation mistakes to make themselves known. Besides, the new system had included leak detectors in each of the rooms where gas was used. The article had made no mention of detectors, and Marion found it impossible to think of a scenario where they all malfunctioned at once.

  Her family was dead, and it was her fault. There was no other possible explanation. Whoever was looking for her had all the information they needed. For starters, they obviously had access to her UN file, and that would be more than enough. It would contain a history of anywhere she had lived, the names of places she had worked prior to the UN, her college transcripts, and the names and address of her family.

  Maybe they thought she was in the house, too. At the very least, they’d thought the possibility she’d show in Montreal was high. Maybe they had tried getting her parents to tell them where she was. The article had made no mention of potential foul play, but could the police have been hiding that? Could her family have been tortured to see if they knew anything?

  Oh, God, she thought, I’ve killed them.

  Beside her, Iris smacked her lips in her sleep, then turned toward Marion, nuzzling against the woman’s side before settling back down. Marion looked at the child, knowing she was the cause of what had happened but unable to blame the girl. It was Marion who had decided to safeguard her. She could have easily told her superiors in Côte d’Ivoire about the child. An appropriate place would have been found for Iris, and Marion’s family would still be alive.

  But that hadn’t been the path she had chosen. She hadn’t trusted her own people to keep Iris out of harm.

  A thought occurred to her. Maybe everything would have still been all right if she hadn’t started digging into similar cases. Maybe that was the trigger.

  She closed her eyes. It was too much for her to think about, too much for her to consider. There was only one truth.

  Her family was dead. And it was her fault.

  * * *

  The first light of morning woke her. She was still dressed, and propped up in the same position she had been in since she’d climbed into bed the previous evening.

  Iris was asleep, lying comfortably on her back, her face slack and restful. The girl was amazing that way. She never seemed to have a problem sleeping. Maybe it was a kid thing, Marion thought. But she wasn’t sure. She had seen plenty of children at the orphanages she visited, even at Frau Roslyn’s, who woke up at least once or twice a night.

  Marion eased herself off the bed so as not to disturb the child, and went into the bathroom. The shower looked questionable, but she knew she needed it, so she turned the water on as hot as she could stand it and got in. The stiffness she had felt upon waking began to loosen under the steaming water. Once she was done, she used one of the threadbare towels to dry off, then went back into the room.

  She stopped after only a few feet and stared at the bed.

  Iris was gone.

  “Iris, where are you?”

  She took a step to her right so she could look around one side of the bed, but the girl wasn’t there.

  “Iris?”

  She shot a quick look at the door, but the security chain was still in place from when she’d locked up the night before.

  “Iris?”

  There was the crinkle of paper. It came from the other side of the bed.

  Marion rushed over, then breathed a sigh of relief.

  Iris sat on the floor grinning as she picked up one of the pages of the discarded newspaper and flapped it up and down. She let out a giggle as she noticed Marion.

  “Having fun?” Marion asked. She picked the child up, hugging her tight.

  “Why don’t you stay on the bed while I get dressed, hmm?”

  She set Iris down on the mattress, then retrieved the paper. She hesitated as she caught sight of the front page picture showing the house she’d grown up in. She almost put the paper back on the floor, but Iris was reaching out for it and making sounds like it was hers. Marion shook herself, then smiled and gave the newspaper to the girl.

  Iris immediately began playing with it again. Marion suspected that most five-year-olds would pretend to read the paper or at least be interested in the pictures. But Iris wasn’t at that point yet. She seemed caught up in the sheer joy of the sound the paper made as she moved it and hit it and rubbed it against itself.

  There was a small TV bolted to a shelf against the wall. Marion couldn’t locate a remote, so she walked over and turned it on, and was greeted with a scene of multiple naked bodies entwined in some kind of grotesque semblance of sex. The moans that came out of the speaker sounded more rehearsed than natural. Porno for the typical Motel Monique guest, she realized as she hastily changed the channel. She found a local morning news show, then got dressed as she watched, hoping to hear more about what had happened to her family.

  The lead story of the six-thirty update concerned the kidnapping and murder of a prominent American official in New York City. There was even a police sketch of a possible suspect. Marion glanced up at it as she was pulling on her pants.

  Then the story ended, and a new graphic appeared over the shoulder of the news anchor. It was a picture of her parents, and superimposed over them the word:

  Tragédie

  Tragedy.

  “Police now say the deaths two nights ago of a Montreal family while they slept might not have been an accident after all.” The anchor was a young woman looking far too put together for such an early hour. “Francine Blanc is at the scene of the fast-breaking story.”

  Marion sat down on the edge of the bed as the image on the TV switched to an outside shot across the street from her parents’ house. There was a near clone of the anchor standing on the sidewalk facing the camera. She was holding a microphone in her hand.

  “Francine, what can you tell us?” the anchor said.

  “Nicole, police now think there is a very real possibility that this was not an accident. As you know, yesterday morning, the Dupuis family was found dead in their beds by a friend of the family who became concerned when Madame Dupuis failed to show up for w
ork. At that time it appeared that the family had succumbed to a gas leak sometime during the previous night. While it is still believed that gas is what killed them, sources inside the police department are now saying the leak may have been caused by a deliberate act.”

  They showed some video from the previous day, including an interview with the person who had found the bodies. It was Madame Devore from the school where Marion’s mother taught.

  “It’s terrible,” Madame Devore said. There were tears streaming down her cheeks. “They were just… please, I can’t talk about this now. Excuse me. Please.”

  There was a shot of one of the bodies being removed from the house. It was on a stretcher and covered with a sheet. Marion wondered who it was. Her mother? Father? Emily?

  A new shot showed the candlelight vigil that had formed the night before, as the voice-over talked about a gathering of friends. Then the image of the reporter returned.

  “It’s clear that the Dupuis family had many people who loved them. Nicole.”

  The image on the TV split, the reporter on the right, and the anchor on the left.

  “We’re hearing there might be another member of the family,” the anchor said. “Is that correct?”

  “Yes.” The reporter was nodding. “Neighbors tell us there is a younger daughter who works in New York. One person told us she is with the UN, but I have not been able to confirm that yet. I can tell you that police have not been able to make contact with her, and think she might currently be on assignment overseas.”

  “So she’s not a suspect.”

  “No. Not at this time.”

  Marion stood up and turned the TV off. She stood there staring at the blank screen for several minutes.

  Dead. Gone. No more.

  No more reassuring smiles from her father. No more shopping trips with her mother. No more long talks with her sister. No more family Christmases. No more trips to the mountains. No more anything.

  Perhaps she wasn’t a suspect, but she was an unwilling accomplice.

  A shout from Iris brought her back. The newspaper had fallen on the floor.

  “Come on,” Marion said. “It’s time to get ready and go.”

  They left the motel five minutes later.

  Marion wanted to go back to the house. She wanted to get inside to see for herself. She knew it was stupid, but it was her family. She couldn’t just leave.

  She had another taxi drive her by just after 9 a.m. There were several police cars out front, and a crowd of the curious gathered on the sidewalk.

  She made another try at 4 p.m. This time the police were gone, but some of the crowd remained. That was okay. It was still too early for her to try to get inside. In the daylight, she would be spotted in a second, and would be detained by the police, and no doubt forced to tell more than she was willing to.

  She still had Iris to worry about. That had to be her first concern. But she wasn’t going to leave Montreal without getting inside. She owed her family that much respect at least.

  She felt like another taxi ride down the street would be one too many. Even if it happened after dark, someone might start to get suspicious. But her choices were limited. She couldn’t rent a car, and she certainly couldn’t get in touch with any of her friends and ask for help. God knows what would happen to them if she did.

  Steal a car? Right. She’d seen it in movies, but suspected it was even harder than it looked. That was not even close to an option.

  Her only choice was to walk in.

  Her suitcase was a problem, though. She needed someplace to stash it. Her best solution was the same hotel they’d stayed in the night before. So it was back to the Motel Monique, where she arranged for a second night in the same room. The clerk didn’t even question her this time. He simply took her money and handed over the key.

  Suitcase dropped off, she and Iris headed back out. At a sporting goods store, she picked up a hooded pullover sweatshirt. It was black, and would hide most of her features when the hood was up. She then found a diner, and waited there until dark.

  At 9:15 p.m. she called another taxi. This time instead of driving down her street, she had the driver drop her and Iris several blocks away. They walked, avoiding any direct eye contact with the few people they passed. When they reached her parents’ block, Marion slowed, eyeing everything in case there was someone waiting for her.

  “No,” she said to herself as they neared the house, not hiding her frustration.

  There were a dozen people out front again, and more candles. Another vigil. She wanted to be touched by the gesture, but all she could feel was anger at being denied access to the house yet again.

  But when a few of the people began moving off, she realized the impromptu service was ending. She stopped one property away, and turned her head to Iris, to hide her face from those leaving the gathering.

  A few of the people were talking as they walked by, and Marion was surprised to find she recognized one of the voices as a friend she hadn’t seen in over a year. She wanted to turn and call out to her, to feel the warmth and sympathy of her friend’s arms around her, but she remained where she was.

  Once the steps began to recede, she chanced a look back toward her house. The only things left were a few dying candles. The crowd that had been there was gone.

  Marion glanced up and down the street, making sure that there were no stragglers, then she started walking again.

  As she got closer, she could hear the TV on in the Blair house. Mr. Blair was the only one who lived there anymore, his wife gone at least four years now. He’d been growing more and more deaf, and the volume of the TV had been getting increasingly louder every time Marion visited home. Her mother had joked that if they were watching the same channel, they could mute their own TV and still hear what was going on.

  Marion slowed her pace as she moved in front of the house she had grown up in. When she reached the far corner of the property, she stopped again. She had noted the tape across the front entrance, but that was fine. The key she had worked on both the front and the back doors, and the latter was much preferable.

  She glanced around again, saw no one at all, then took a deep breath.

  “I need you to be quiet, okay?” she whispered needlessly to Iris. The child was one of the quietest she’d ever known.

  Iris lifted her head up for a moment, then lay back against Marion’s shoulder.

  “Okay, then. Let’s go.”

  Marion turned and walked rapidly down the side of the house to the backyard. She had expected to find more tape across the rear door, but there was none. She slipped the key into the lock and turned it. Five seconds later, she was standing in her mother’s kitchen.

  She walked through the first floor, looking at everything but touching nothing. It was like she was in her parents’ house, but she wasn’t. The familiarity was all there. The pictures. The dining table where she used to do her homework. The couch in the living room where she’d caught her sister making out with Peter from down the street. But even surrounded by all these things, it felt empty. Soulless, she thought. Home to no one.

  In the living room, she hesitated at the base of the stairs before mounting them.

  This is why you’re here, she thought. You wanted to see this.

  With a nod of self-confirmation, she climbed up to the second floor.

  She didn’t know what she expected to feel, but numbness was a surprise. She looked in her sister’s room first. Someone had taken the time to put the duvet back in place. Not a perfectly made bed, but one that was hard to imagine had recently held her sister’s body.

  She moved to her parents’ room. The duvet had been straightened here, too. Marion was about to turn and leave, when she spotted the picture on her mother’s dresser. It was a family photo from a cousin’s wedding two years earlier. It was the last formal photo the four of them had taken together. Marion walked over and leaned in for a closer look.

  Her parents, happy and still very much in love. Her si
ster trying hard not to show the effects of her own deteriorating marriage. And Marion, proud of her parents, proud of her new job at the UN.

  She reached out with her free hand and picked up the picture, knowing before she even touched it she wouldn’t be putting it back. It was coming with her.

  She carried Iris and the picture back into the hallway and walked over to the room at the front of the house. Her room. Like the others, the door was open wide, it, too, having been checked once the first body had been found.

  Like the others, her bed was also made. Only instead of looking like a rush job, someone had taken the time to make it look good. Her mother. And the sheets underneath the duvet would be clean, waiting for Marion to come home for a visit.

  My God, what have I done?

  She slumped down onto her bed, and placed Iris beside her. The child’s mouth was turned down, and her eyes were wide. It looked as if she was about to cry. She must have been sensing Marion’s own desire to let the tears come.

  “It’s okay, sweetheart,” Marion said. “We’ll leave soon.”

  Water began to pool at the base of the girl’s eyes. It was the last thing Marion wanted. She tried to think of something to distract the child. Out of desperation she pulled the motel key out of her pocket and waved it in front of Iris. It was a regular metal key attached to a plastic rectangle with the name of the motel and the room number. Iris reached out for it, so Marion let her take it. But the child merely threw it across the room, the key landing near the door.

  As Marion got up to retrieve it, she happened to look at her old painted dresser near the door. On top was the stuffed bear her father had given her when she’d been a little girl. Pauline.

  Marion smiled at all the memories Pauline represented. She grabbed the bear and handed it to Iris.

  This time the distraction worked. The child’s tears began to recede as she focused on her new stuffed animal. Pauline had a way of doing that, Marion remembered. The bear had always been good at pushing the tears back.

  Marion realized there were several things she wanted to take with her, memories of her family, of her life. She had no idea how long she would have to stay away from home, from Montreal for that matter. Maybe they would continue to chase her, forcing her to be on the run for months, or maybe even for years. If that was the case, she needed something to give her strength. She needed the power of her memories.