The Unwanted

by Brett Battles

  As he'd guessed, the items sticking out were pictures. But there were more than just two. Seven more by his quick count. But that wasn't all. There was a small wooden box, a stuffed bear, an old book, and what looked like a scarf or maybe a sweater under the pictures.

  Quinn was leaning down to pick up one of the pictures when Nate's voice cut through the silence. "Is that one of you?"

  "What?" Quinn asked.

  "Did one of you come outside?"

  "No. We're both in the house."

  "Somebody just crossed the front lawn," Nate said, his voice rushed. "I think he came from around the side of the house. My angle's bad here, I didn't notice him until he was already a few feet into the yard."

  Quinn shot a glance at Orlando, then pointed toward the back door. He made a gesture for Orlando to go out and around to the left. With a single nod, she ran through the kitchen, Quinn only steps behind her.

  "He's getting in a car parked out front," Nate said. "What do you want me to do?"

  "Follow him," Quinn said as he exited the house.

  Instead of going to the left with Orlando, he went right. At the back corner of the house, he slowed only enough to take the turn, almost slipping on the grass. The home next door with the blaring TV was silent now. The only thing Quinn could hear was the pounding of his own footsteps as he ran along the side yard.

  "He's got it started," Nate said.

  "Where's he parked?" Quinn asked.

  "Other side of the street. Almost directly across."

  Quinn reached the street side of the house a second before Orlando did. On the opposite side of the road a car was pulling out in a hurry. It was a small two-door sedan.

  Quinn increased his speed as he weaved between two parked cars on the near side of the street, then raced across the asphalt toward the departing vehicle. He was able to come within a foot of the driver's side door before the car sped away. But it had been enough.

  Back across the street, Nate made a quick U-turn from where he was parked, and took off in pursuit.

  "Dammit," Orlando said as she joined Quinn. "Did you get a look at him?"

  "Find us a ride," Quinn said. "But be discreet. I'm sure we've made more than enough noise to draw some attention." He looked down the street to their left as the two cars disappeared around a corner. "Meet me down there at the end of the block in five minutes."

  "Okay," Orlando said. She turned, and soon disappeared in the shadows.

  Quinn spent two of the allotted five minutes finding a dark spot, then remained still, hoping to pick up on anyone who might be paying unnecessary attention to the Dupuis house. He saw the curtain of one window about five homes down on the other side of the street fall closed. Whoever had been holding it open seemed to have lost interest.

  The street felt calm again, like it had returned to its normal evening self. He waited an extra minute just to be sure, then slipped from his hiding spot and made his way back into the Dupuis house.

  In the dining room, he looked at the pictures again. The most recent one was a five-by-seven shot of the two daughters. Emily's smile seemed put on, but the one on the face of her younger sister seemed genuine.

  Quinn grabbed the picture and started to turn toward the exit. But he didn't even make it a step before he stopped himself and looked back at the box still sitting on the floor of the living room.

  He thought about it for less than a second, then walked over and grabbed it, adding the photo he'd just taken to the top. The photo of Emily and her sister—the same woman, not a man, who had been behind the wheel of the car Nate was now following.

  CHAPTER

  14

  HER PARENTS WERE DEAD.

  Her sister was dead.

  And the only person who could be blamed for it was Marion herself. That's what she believed. How could there be any other answer?

  She had taken Iris on the train north from Penn Station back to Marion's hometown of Montreal. She had used the false passports her friend in Côte d'Ivoire had given her when she purchased the tickets. She hoped it was enough to fool whoever was looking for her.

  While the child was asleep, Marion would stare out the window, not sure what she was going to do, but knowing if anyone could help her, it would be her parents.

  Sure, her sister was living back at home, and bringing a child into the house wasn't going to do a lot to help Emily's recovery. The divorce Emily had gone through had been wrenching. Marion couldn't imagine what it must have felt like when her sister found out her husband, who never wanted to have children, was having an affair with someone who was now pregnant. Of course, that had been over a year ago. The baby was born by now.

  Marion knew her sister well. She knew Emily might not say anything, but she would feel humiliated, and think of herself as a freshly minted spinster too old to have children. It wasn't true, but that's the way Emily's mind worked. Poetic and tragic.

  But Marion couldn't worry about her sister's feelings anymore. She'd been living with Emily's drama since the day she was born. It was time to stop getting pulled into it. The reason was stretched out in the seat next to her, not asleep at that moment, but content. Iris.

  They arrived in her hometown that evening, then grabbed a taxi at the station. The cabbie took a second look at her and Iris, but said nothing.

  Iris seemed very interested in the world outside the taxi as they drove through the streets. The smile on the child's face, the smile that was almost always there, seemed a fraction broader. Marion took this as a good sign.

  As they turned onto the street where her parents lived, the anxiousness Marion had been feeling for so long began to subside. Soon she would be in the home she grew up in, eating her mother's food, sleeping in the room that had been hers, safe in the cocoon of family. But as they neared the house, she realized something wasn't right.

  On the lawn in front of her house were dozens of flickering candles and bundles of flowers, and people, their heads bowed. The house itself, though, was dark.

  "Ici?" the driver said, not hiding the surprise in his voice.

  "No, no. Keep driving," she told him in French. "I must have the wrong street."

  The driver seemed relieved when she gave him the name of the next street over.

  "Horrible," he said as he glanced over at her childhood home. "Just horrible."

  She almost asked him what had happened. His words indicated he knew, but her own voice had left her. Someone had died in the house. There was no question about it. But who? Why? Water pooled in her eyes, but she held back her tears.

  On the next street over she got out, paid the cabbie, then watched him drive away.

  Ten minutes later, at a pay phone several blocks away, she called for another taxi.

  "Where to?" the driver asked once she and Iris were in the back seat.

  She had thought about this while she'd waited for him to arrive. She was afraid to use her false ID, thinking it might create a trail someone could pick up on. And there was no way she could use her real ID. She needed to find someplace anonymous.

  "Saint Laurent," she said, naming the borough on the west side of Montreal. "Boulevard Marcel-Laurin."

  The cabbie eyed her in his rearview mirror. "Do you have a specific location?"

  She hadn't recalled the name of the motel, but knew basically where it was located. A sleazy place that she'd heard charged room rates by the hour. It worried her to take Iris there, but she at least knew they wouldn't ask for an ID.

  "I'll tell you when we get there."

  "I'm sorry," he said. "I need to know now."

  She took a quick breath. She was on the edge of breaking down, but she forced herself to keep it together. "It's a motel, okay? I don't remember the name."

  The driver hesitated. "Motel Monique?"

  "Yes," she said, realizing he was right. "That's it."

  "Deposit," he said.

  "What?"

  "I need a deposit first."

  "I'll pay you when we get there," sh
e said.

  "Maybe you don't have the money."

  "I have the money."

  "Then pay me now. I'm not going to wait around while you say you're going inside to get the cash from one of your . . . customers."

  Marion stared at the man's eyes in the mirror, unable to believe what she was hearing.

  "I'm not a . . ." She paused. "I've got a child with me! You think I'm a prostitute?"

  "Wouldn't be the first hooker to have a kid, would you? Twenty dollars right now or no ride."

  She stared at him for another second, then broke eye contact and pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of her purse. She dropped it in the front seat, purposely avoiding his outstretched hand.

  "Can we go now?" she said.

  The driver shook his head a couple of times, like he'd seen it before and knew he would see it again. He dropped the taxi into drive and pulled out onto the street.

  She spotted the Motel Monique a half a block before they arrived. It was a big dingy box of a building with a faded sign out front lit by a couple of floodlights. But most important, the neon sign that had been tacked on at the bottom said Vacancy.

  The first thing she did after the cabbie dropped her and Iris off in front of the motel was to walk over to a group of newspaper dispensers in front of the liquor store next door. There were no more copies of Le Devoir left, so she was forced to buy a copy of the English paper, the Gazette.

  It was right on front, the lead story.

  GAS LEAK ENDS IN FAMILY TRAGEDY

  She stared at it, wanting to read more. But she knew if she did, she'd break down right there on the sidewalk. So she forced herself to fold the paper and stick it into her travel case.

  Iris started to whimper against her shoulder. Marion repositioned her arm around the girl's back, then said, "It's okay, sweetie. Everything's okay. You can lie down in a minute. Would you like that?"

  The tone of Marion's voice carried an undercurrent of panic, but there was enough comfort to settle Iris. The whimpering ceased, and the little girl lay her head heavy against Marion's shoulder. A few seconds later her breathing was deep and even. Asleep now, no need for a bed.

  Marion walked back to the Motel Monique clutching the child to her with one hand while pulling her suitcase behind her in the other.

  From the moment she entered the motel's office, the clerk eyed her suspiciously. He was sitting behind a poorly laminated counter with the very classy addition of a Plexiglas wall that extended from the counter's top all the way to the ceiling. There was a small circle cut into the see-through divider about a foot and a half above the counter, and another, half-moon shaped, where the plexi met the laminate. Like an old movie-house kiosk, only scummier. The plexi was scratched and worn, and at some point in the past several years it looked like someone had thrown liquid against the surface, and no one had gotten around to cleaning it yet. But it worked well with the rest of the office's décor: old, barely functional, and uncared for.

  "Help you?" the clerk said as Marion approached the window. He was only slightly better than the room itself. At least it looked like he'd taken a shower in the last forty-eight hours.

  "I need a room," she said.

  His gaze flicked to Iris, then back at Marion. "For how long?"

  "Just one night."

  "The whole night?"

  "I just need a place to sleep. For me and my child."

  "That's your kid?" he asked, again with the suspicious eyes.

  "Just tell me how much."

  "There's an EconoLodge not too far from here. You'll be more comfortable there."

  "Your sign outside says Vacancy. Are you telling me you don't have any rooms?" she said.

  "Lady, you're not likely to get a lot of sleep here."

  She pulled out several bills. "How much? Sixty dollars?"

  A slight widening of his eyes told her sixty was more than the going rate, but she wanted to close the deal.

  "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.