The Discarded

by Brett Battles

  “Orlando?”

  To Quinn and Nate, she said, “Not only a booster, but a number and location scrambler. My guess is that it routed the signal all over the place before Daeng’s—

  “Did she find you?” Daeng asked, cutting her off.

  Quinn’s brow furrowed. “Who?”

  “A woman drove up a few minutes ago and went inside. I assume she’s Nadine Chastain. I’ve been trying to call you, but none of you have been answering your phones.”

  Quinn shot a look at the safe-room entrance but no one was there. “We’ll call you back.”

  CHAPTER 29

  NADINE CHASTAIN BARELY thought about the cold as she left the elementary school where she volunteered in the library and helped students with their homework after classes ended. The temperature was part of living in Quebec.

  The weak winter sun had nearly set as she pulled out of the parking lot. She made one stop on the way home, picking up a few groceries at the market so she could prepare her favorite split pea soup.

  As she pulled into her driveway, she clicked the remote that deactivated her alarm and received the double beep that told her it was already off. This was not the first time she’d come home to find she’d forgotten to arm it so it didn’t concern her. It wasn’t as if crime was high in the neighborhood.

  Groceries in hand, she hurried to the front door and let herself in.

  She smiled and sighed as the warmth of her house wrapped her in its arms. She loved her little home and her little town. She couldn’t imagine living anywhere else, especially a big city. It was too easy to get lost, something that had happened to her four or five times when she’d been in Washington, DC, a few days ago, running the errand for her daughter.

  She left her coat and boots in the mudroom and carried the food into the kitchen. Very neatly, she set the ingredients for the soup on the counter in the order she would need them.

  That done, she went to get the slow cooker from the sideboard in the dining room. As she was returning to the kitchen, something in the corner of her eye caught her attention. She paused and looked into the living room. It took a moment before her eyes settled on the tiki figurines on her piano. Or, rather, the space where the tikis and the doily should have been.

  She looked behind her, positive someone would be standing there, but she was alone. She rushed into the kitchen, set the cooker on the sink, and grabbed the largest carving knife she had.

  In her head, she could hear her daughter yelling, “Where’s the gun I gave you?!”

  Right where it had been since the last time Desirae visited, locked in a metal box at the bottom of Nadine’s closet. She was scared to death that if she ever had to use it, she’d end up shooting herself, or, worse, one of her neighbors.

  She moved out of the kitchen and over to the piano. The tikis and the doily were sitting on the piano bench. She hadn’t put them there. She hadn’t touched them since dusting last week. Why would someone—

  Oh, no.

  She lifted the top of the piano and felt under the lip for the key. It was gone.

  Every few weeks, per Desirae’s instructions, she changed where she kept it. It had already been in the piano for two weeks. Another few days and it would’ve been time to move it again.

  She tiptoed across the room until she could see that the door to the basement was cracked open.

  Get out! Desirae’s voice yelled at her.

  Nadine tried to swallow but her mouth had gone dry. Yes, she had leave immediately, but there was something she could do that would give her an edge. She returned to the kitchen, quietly opened her junk drawer, and rooted around until she found the old basement key. Taking careful steps, she walked back to the basement entrance, turned the knob so the latch retracted, and eased the door back into place.

  Her heart was beating so rapidly she could hear the blood racing past her ears as she inserted the key into the hole below the knob. In her mind, she imagined someone rushing up the stairs and ripping the door out of her hands, but the door remained closed as the bolt slipped into place.

  Get out!

  She wasn’t about to ignore her daughter’s voice a second time.

  __________

  AS DUSK SETTLED on the area, it became less likely the SUV would be seen, so Daeng moved it into a position where he had a clean view of the woman’s house. He imagined in the summer the neighborhood was pretty active, with everyone getting as much outdoor time as they wanted. At least that’s what he would do. Now, though, the only people he saw were all moving from car to house or house to car.

  Five minutes after he repositioned, a late-model Volvo pulled into the driveway of the woman’s house. He tried calling Quinn first, then Nate, and finally Orlando, but no one was answering.

  As he made the calls, he watched the driver—a woman with shoulder-length gray hair—get out of her car and walk inside the house.

  “Maybe they heard her,” Abraham said, “and that’s why they aren’t answering.”

  Daeng grunted noncommittally as he tried Quinn again.

  No response.

  “Should we go in?” Abraham asked.

  “We stay here,” Daeng said.

  Several minutes later, as he was contemplating moving closer to the house, his phone rang. He snatched it up, thinking it would be Quinn, but the number on his screen was not familiar to him, and the locator below it read: CARSON CITY, NEVADA.

  He let it ring one more time before deciding to answer. “Yes?”

  It turned out to be Orlando. She started explaining something about scramblers and routed signals, but there was no time for that right now.

  He said, “Did she find you?”

  “Who?” Quinn asked.

  Daeng told them about the woman and how he’d been trying to reach them.

  Quinn said, “We’ll call you back.”

  It couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds after the call ended when the front door of the house opened and the woman rushed out.

  Daeng tried calling Quinn again but had the same luck as before. He was about to cycle through the other two when the woman jumped into her car and started backing out of the driveway.

  He tossed his phone at Abraham and said, “Keep trying them until you get through.”

  As soon as the Volvo headed down the street, Daeng put the SUV into Drive and followed.

  __________

  QUINN WAS THE first up the safe-room stairs and into the basement, with Orlando and Nate only steps behind him. There they paused and listened, but it didn’t sound like anyone was in the basement with them, nor did Quinn hear any creaks from the floorboards above. He did, however, hear the faint scrape of metal on metal and a click.

  A lock.

  The realization hit all three of them at once. They raced through the basement toward the stairs, but before they could even reach them, they heard someone running through the house and then what sounded like the front door opening and slamming shut.

  Taking the steps two at a time, Quinn hustled to the top and grabbed the knob. But as he feared, the door was locked.

  “Son of a bitch,” he said.

  He tested the door and found it was a little loose in the frame, so he grabbed the railing and repeatedly kicked the door just below the lock until it broke free.

  Standing just inside the stairway, Quinn called in French, “Madame Chastain, are you there?” He was all but positive she wasn’t, but caution was dictated. “We just want to talk. We’re not here to hurt you.”

  The only response was Nate muttering, “Which is why we busted down your door.”

  Quinn glared at him before stepping through the doorway. “Madame Chastain?”

  While Orlando followed him into the living room, Nate paused near the door and pulled out his phone.

  “Hello?” he said. “No, we’re okay. She didn’t—” He paused, listening. “All right. Good….Call you right back.” He lowered the phone. “That was Abraham. Apparently the woman jumped in her car and
drove off. They’re trailing her and want to know what we want them to do.”

  Quinn looked at Orlando. “Your call.”

  “Given what we’ve found, I think it would be a good idea to try to talk to her, don’t you?” Orlando said.

  __________

  THIS WAS OFFICIALLY the most frightened Nadine had been in her life.

  Desirae had warned her that someday someone might try to use Nadine to reach her, but as the years passed, the possibility had become more unreal, like it was only a story her daughter had made up.

  Until she realized someone had been in or was still in her house.

  A horn honked. She blinked and saw she’d started drifting across the centerline. She jerked the wheel and brought the Volvo back to her side.

  Get it together, she told herself.

  A normal person would have driven directly to the police station. But as straitlaced and boring as she might appear, her life was far from normal.

  “Yes, Officer. Someone deactivated my professional-grade alarm and found the secret apartment under my backyard. No, no, there aren’t any building permits. My dead daughter had it built. And no, that gun you found upstairs is not registered. She got that for me, too.”

  Besides the awkward questions she’d have to answer, Desirae herself had said that while the local authorities could probably be trusted, the same could not be said of others who might gain access to their reports. That was something that needed to be avoided at all costs.

  Nadine’s most obvious option was her sister’s house. It was only fifteen minutes away, but she figured if the intruders knew about her, they’d know about her sister, too. So where the hell should she go?

  God, she wished there was a way to easily reach Desirae. Her daughter would know what to do. But that was not going to happen so Nadine would have to find a solution on her own.

  As she reached the south end of the lake, an answer occurred to her.

  Beatrice’s place.

  Of course.

  It was back in the other direction on Lac Delage, but Nadine’s friend was in Arizona for the winter and the place would be empty. And Nadine was one of the few who knew where Beatrice kept the spare key.

  She circled around to the other side of Lac-Saint-Charles and headed northwest toward Lac Delage, feeling for the first time since this started that things would be okay.

  __________

  FOLLOWING DAENG’S DIRECTIONS, Quinn drove to Lac Delage in the Lexus sedan he’d anonymously borrowed from one of Nadine’s neighbors.

  “There they are,” Orlando said, pointing ahead.

  Barely visible in an overgrown turnout at the side of the road was their rented SUV. Quinn killed his headlights as he pulled in behind it, and then he, Orlando, and Nate relocated into the other vehicle.

  “There’s a driveway on the other side of the road, fifty yards down,” Daeng said. “That’s where she is.”

  “Anyone with her?”

  Abraham shook his head. “No other cars, and the only person I saw inside was her.”

  “You saw?” Orlando said.

  “Someone had to check, and Daeng’s in no condition to sneak around, so who else was it going to be?”

  Orlando looked over at Daeng, skeptical.

  But Daeng shrugged and said, “When he’s right, he’s right.”

  “Was she calling anyone?” Quinn asked.

  “Not when I was watching,” Abraham said. “She was just pacing back and forth in the big room at the back of the house.”

  Quinn had a pretty good idea why she hadn’t called the authorities, but he thought she would have reached out to her daughter. The people Desirae might send in response were what worried Quinn.

  “Entrances?” he asked.

  “Main out front. Three sets of sliding glass doors on a high deck out back. Also an attached garage so there’s probably a way in through there.”

  Quinn quickly told Abraham and Daeng what they’d found in Nadine’s basement.

  After he described the trundle bed and the girls’ clothes, Abraham said, “Do you think—”

  “There’s no way to know anything right now,” Orlando jumped in. “That’s why we need to talk to Desirae’s mother.”

  Abraham reached for the door. “Let’s go.”

  “Abraham,” Quinn said. “We don’t know how she’s going to react when she sees us, but I promise we’ll bring you in as soon as the situation is settled. Deal?”

  “So I stay,” he growled. “Again.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Abraham shrugged in annoyance. “I obviously have no say so whatever you want.”

  Quinn, Orlando, and Nate headed back out into the cold night.

  As a gust of wind blew down the road, Nate said, “Times like this make me long for Isla de Cervantes. I mean, other than the electric shocks and the whippings.”

  “You’ll excuse me if my memory of the place isn’t quite as fond,” Orlando said.

  Quinn glanced at her. She looked even more worn out than she had when they’d met her at the airport.

  “You want to sit this one out?” he asked. “Nate and I can handle it.”

  She sneered. “Right. Who do you think Desirae’s mom is going to want to talk to? You guys or me? I’m fine. Really.”

  The driveway led down to a large, two-story chalet. Most of the windows were dark, the only illumination coming from the rear of the house like Abraham had said. The garage off to the right was of the two-car variety, with a wide automatic door along the front and a regular-sized one on the side near the back. They headed toward this last one.

  After Orlando checked for an alarm—there was none—Quinn did the honors of picking the lock. No cars were inside, only a workbench and some storage boxes, and, as hoped, a door into the house. Quinn put his ear against it, but the only thing he could hear was the low drone of the home’s heating system.

  The lock was an easy pick. On the other side was a laundry room with an open doorway at the other end. He crossed through the space and peered into the other room, which turned out to be a kitchen.

  Just as he stepped across the threshold, his phone vibrated twice in quick succession, letting him know he’d received a text. Whatever it was, it would have to wait.

  There were two exits to the kitchen, one to the right leading to the back portion of the house where Abraham had seen the woman, and one to the left into a dining room. He signaled to Orlando and Nate what he wanted to do. Orlando nodded and headed to the door on the right, while he and Nate entered the dining room and made their way to the corridor at the far side.

  They moved into the hallway, which bisected the house front to back, and inched as close as they could to the back room without entering it. The woman was pacing in front of a large leather couch, lost in thought.

  Quinn looked over at Orlando, who was peeking around the kitchen doorway, and gave her the go signal.

  Keeping her movement slow and smooth, she stepped into the room and said in a soft voice, “Madame Chastain?”

  The woman whirled around in panic. “Non! S'il vous plait! Laissez-moi tranquille!” She backed toward the exit where Quinn and Nate were.

  Nate moved to block the doorway, but Quinn grabbed him and shook his head. She was already frightened enough. He didn’t want to make it worse by letting her discover they were there yet.

  “We’re not going to harm you,” Orlando said in French. “We just want to talk.”

  “I don’t have anything to say to you,” the woman said. “Go. Get out!”

  “We need to talk to your daughter,” Orlando said.

  “She’s…she’s dead,” the woman said, trying to sound defiant. “Long time ago.”

  “You’re trying to protect her. I get that. I would, too, if she was my daughter. But we don’t want to hurt her. We just need to talk to her.”

  The woman was only a few steps from Quinn and Nate. “I said she’s dead!”

  “She’s not dead, Madame Chastain.
She goes by the name Desirae Rosette, or at least she did.” There must have been confirmation on the woman’s face because Orlando said, “She has the girl, doesn’t she? She has Tessa.”

  Nadine nearly tripped over her own feet as she turned to run out of the room.

  Quinn swore under his breath as he was forced to step out in front of her and grab her.

  She screamed.

  “Take it easy,” Quinn said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  She pounded her fists against his chest as she tried to squirm out of his arms.

  “Let me go,” she said. “Let me go.”

  “As soon as you calm down, I will. I promise. Nothing’s going to happen to you. My friend was right. We’re only here to talk.”

  “You’re lying,” she said, the defiance back, real this time. “She said you might come someday. That you would try to get me to talk about her. Well, you won’t get anything from me!”

  While Quinn had been corralling Nadine, Orlando had hurried over. “Why don’t we sit down? If you don’t want to talk, then don’t talk.”

  “Right,” Nadine said. “I’m sure that’s how it’s going to work. Then you…what? Start cutting me up?”

  “No one’s going to cut you up,” Quinn said.

  In a fit of rage and terror, she began twisting even faster as she screamed for him to release her.

  Quinn sensed someone move in behind him.

  “Let her go, Johnny,” Abraham said.

  Quinn held on to the woman for a moment longer before releasing his grip. The woman looked back and forth as she searched for some way out, her chest heaving with each breath.

  “I told you to wait in the car,” Quinn said to Abraham.

  “If I may,” Abraham said, gently trying to push Quinn to the side.

  The sound of crutches moved through the dining room and then Daeng appeared beside Nate. Quinn gave him a what-the-hell look as he kept himself between the woman and the exit behind him.

  “Sorry,” Daeng said. “It’s not like I could stop him. I did text you.”

  “Please,” Abraham said, his hand still on Quinn’s arm.

  Reluctantly, Quinn moved to the side.