by Mark Pryor
“Yes, you do, don’t you?” She stood. “Just be careful with that. One of these days you’re going to pop up in front of someone who doesn’t like surprises.”
“It’s happened,” Hugo said. “And trust me, I’m careful. Back home there was always a chance that unhappy person carried a gun, so you better believe I’m in the habit of not taking stupid chances.”
He walked to the hotel, in no hurry and so drifting along in the wash of people on Rue de Seine. In front of him, an old couple clung to each other, the man in a blue blazer and the woman in a loose white dress, going at their own pace, creating their own little wake for Hugo to drift in.
Hugo meandered behind them and wondered about how to get more from Colbert and Prehn. One step they’d not taken was a thorough search of the room they’d shared with Baxter. Searching shared spaces always posed a problem for law enforcement, given the varying expectations of privacy that were protected by law—going through Baxter’s stuff was one thing, but with no good reason to search his roommates’ space, they’d not sought a warrant.
An image of his friend Tom flashed into Hugo’s mind. How many times had Hugo suggested ideas to Tom of actions he himself couldn’t or wouldn’t take, and let Tom do his dirty work? Most of the time it was to avoid red tape and procedure, not to skirt the law; but, even so, Hugo always hesitated before calling on his friend like that. And on the occasions he hadn’t hesitated, he made sure to ask himself later why not.
As he headed toward the hotel, Hugo felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He slowed and pretended to be interested in the modern art in the next store’s window, but he focused his eyes on the reflection in the glass, not what was behind it. He didn’t see anyone he recognized but was dimly aware of someone to his right moving into the shoe store he’d just passed. Hugo pulled out his phone and opened the camera app, reversing the image and holding up the phone so he could look behind him while walking. He acted like he was studying the phone, maybe about to talk on it, and kept going.
Ten steps farther on, a familiar figure slipped out of the shoe store, his head down and his hands deep in his pockets and—like any amateur trying to tail someone—making himself stand out like a sore thumb.
Hugo quickened his pace and turned the corner onto Rue de Buci, stepping off the sidewalk behind a white van. He stationed himself on the road, able to look through the side and front windows of the vehicle as the man following him came closer and closer. The person tailing him had hurried, too, and as he turned into Rue de Buci Hugo saw the worry on his face. Worried you’ve lost me? Hugo wondered. Or is something else bothering you?
He decided to find out.
As his follower passed on the other side of the van, Hugo stepped out, right in front of him. Lionel Colbert sprang back and held up both hands to ward Hugo off, as if he were a mugger.
Hugo moved closer. “Lionel, right?”
“Right. Lionel. Or Leo.”
Hugo could see the man almost literally pulling himself together after the surprise and decided not to let him get too comfortable. “Why are you following me?”
Colbert stared at Hugo for a second, long enough to muster some of that disdain from their previous encounter. “I’m not.”
“You spent last month’s salary on shoes. Doing the same this month?”
“You have a good memory.”
“A requirement of my job.”
“And what is that, exactly?” Colbert asked.
“At the moment, it’s to find out who killed an American citizen.” Hugo took a step closer. “And, right this second, it’s to find out exactly why the dead man’s roommate is following me.”
“I told you, I wasn’t.”
Hugo relaxed his body and smiled. “You know, I used to be in the FBI. I got real good at telling when people were lying to me or hiding something. I’m getting that feeling right now.”
Colbert looked at him with deep, dark eyes, as if trying to study Hugo’s mind, his soul even. But Lionel just shook his head.
“Let me guess,” Hugo said. “You know something about this, something you wish you didn’t. And you’re worried that if you tell me this information, I’ll think you’re more involved than you are, than I already think you are.” When Colbert said nothing, Hugo continued. “Thing is, when people hide stuff from me, that’s when I tend to think they’re involved. When they tell me things, even bad things, I’m far more inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. When we first met, my alarm bells were set to ringing pretty quickly, because you were so hostile and, as far as I could tell, you had no reason to be.”
“Maybe I don’t like cops.”
“Yeah, maybe. But even people who don’t like cops like them involved when their friend is murdered. I mean, it’s a joke in law enforcement that everyone hates cops until they need one. Kind of like lawyers.”
“Wow, you cops are hilarious.”
Hugo shrugged. “Our humor is a little darker than most people’s, but otherwise not much different. Point is, you have no reason to distrust me or to be hostile. Not that I know of, anyway. But you may have a reason to lie or to withhold information. People do that all the time, and usually it’s because they think that what they know or what they’ve done is irrelevant to the investigation. . . . Maybe something embarrassing that they did, and they’re sure it has no bearing on anything. Am I close?”
Colbert took a slow, deep breath, but his eyes never left Hugo’s. “I’m sorry you thought I was following you. Have a nice day.”
Hugo nodded. “OK then. You have a nice day, too.” He brushed past Colbert, heading back toward Rue de Seine, toward the hotel. He barely made it around the corner when he heard footsteps rushing up behind him. He turned.
“Wait.” Colbert swung around in front of him, breathing hard. He looked up after a moment, and his shoulders slumped as his eyes slid away from meeting Hugo’s. “You were close. Very,” he said. “But it’s not information I have. It’s something a little more tangible.”
“And what’s that?”
“I want you to know that I found it; I didn’t take it. Not before and not recently; I just found it.”
“Found what?”
“Andy’s computer. I’m moving into another room at the hotel, and I was clearing out some boxes. It was in one of them. At first I didn’t recognize it. Or realize whose it was. I didn’t know what it was doing in my stuff—so I fired it up to see.” He shook his head. “I ended up looking at everything on it.”
“You ‘just found it’?” Hugo pressed.
“Yes. And I should’ve turned it in straightaway but, man, I’m not wild about being sucked into any of this crazy shit.”
“How does that suck you in, exactly?”
“It was in my stuff, how do you think? Look, Jill Maxick was with me when I found it—she’ll tell you what happened. And some of the crap on there . . . I can’t believe he’d record that. I can’t believe he did.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Fifteen years previously.
1530 hours, Houston, Texas.
Hugo adjusted the car’s visor and tried to get a better view of the bank’s entrance, maybe see through one of the windows. He and Tom both stiffened as a sound echoed across the shopping-center parking lot, muffled but unmistakable. Hugo reacted first and opened the car door with his left hand as his right grabbed the handset of his radio and held down the call button. “Shots fired, we’re going in.”
Tom was already out of the black SUV, moving in a low crouch between the rows of parked cars, his gun drawn. Hugo swung the door closed as he got out, not caring about making a noise, worried only about his friend heading into the bank alone. He hurried to catch up with him, and did so at the last row of cars. He pulled Tom down into a full crouch, and they watched the bank for a moment.
“We need a plan,” Hugo said. “Any ideas?”
“I got a plan for you—”
“No, a real one. We can’t sit tight for backup, but le
t’s not get shot before we get through the door.”
“I’m OK with that, but we ain’t waiting around.” Tom pointed at the front of the bank, which had large glass windows on either side of double glass doors.
“Let’s just play it cool,” Hugo said. “I’ll walk in like a customer, and you come in behind me, gun drawn.”
“Works for me.”
They straightened and started across the lot to the bank. Hugo wiped his palms on his pants and made sure his jacket covered any view of his gun. At the twin doors, he took a deep breath and breezed into the main lobby, adrenaline surging through his body and only dimly aware of Tom coming in behind him. Hugo knew he didn’t look casual, like any old customer wandering in, but he couldn’t help it and, when he saw three bodies on the floor, he no longer cared.
Hugo couldn’t see either of the gunmen, but he drew his weapon anyway. The lobby was an open square with windows opposite where Hugo and Tom had just come in and with closed office doors to their left. Against those doors, half a dozen customers cowered, several of them crying. He looked to his right, where the tellers were stationed, but they were either hiding or had fled.
To his left, Tom moved past in a blur, heading for one of the people who’d been shot, a woman wearing a yellow sundress and cowboy boots. He knelt beside her, muttering and cursing, and when he looked back at Hugo there was rage and horror on his face.
Ahead of Hugo, in the middle of the open area, a security guard lay face up, unmoving. Hugo strode over to him and went down on one knee to feel for a pulse, and saw a pool of blood spreading out beneath his head. When he got nothing, he rolled the man over and saw why. One of the robbers had put a gun in the man’s mouth and blown most of the back of his head off.
Hugo left him and went to the third prone person, a middle-aged man in shorts and a T-shirt that had once been white but was now mostly red from the two bullet wounds in his stomach and chest. Also dead, Hugo thought, and silently cursed himself for not listening to Tom, for not following the men into the bank immediately.
“Tom, how is she?”
Tom was still down on both knees, unable to answer. He shook his head, which told Hugo all he needed to know. He turned to the huddled customers.
“We’re FBI—police are on their way. Where did those men go?”
An older white-haired man pointed to his left, to the double doors leading out to the smaller parking lot behind the bank. “They just left, that way.”
Hugo nodded and went to Tom, resting a hand on his shoulder. “Hey. We have to go. There’s nothing we can do here.”
Tom stayed still for a second, then nodded. “Yes. Yes, I know.”
“Come on, let’s get those bastards.”
“Too fucking right.” He looked up at Hugo, his eyes blazing. “Too fucking right we’re getting those bastards.”
“See if you can spot them.” Hugo pointed the way the robbers had gone. “I’ll get the car, come get you.”
Hugo heard Tom clatter into the back door as he himself hit the front one, sprinting to the SUV, his gun still in his hand. As soon as he reached the SUV, a black Chevy Impala squealed around the corner of the bank, heading right at him.
Where did they . . . ? Did they just carjack someone? But Hugo had no time to ponder. He stepped away from his vehicle and raised his gun, but the sun glinted off the windshield, and Hugo couldn’t be sure whether an innocent was in the car, his trigger finger stilled by the inclination not to shoot, not to kill. In seconds, the car was just feet away, almost on top of him, and instinctively he threw himself sideways, wincing as his left arm slammed into the grill of his vehicle and the Impala sped by, missing him by inches.
Forty yards away, Tom was sprinting toward him, face red and arms pumping. Hugo ran to the driver’s side, ignoring the pain in his arm. He started the engine and pulled out of the parking spot, leaning over to open the door so Tom could dive in. Before the passenger door was even shut, Hugo flipped on the lights and sirens and gunned it. The SUV leapt forward, tires squealing, and both Hugo and Tom held on for dear life as the back end slid wide before gripping the pavement and shooting them toward the exit of the parking lot a hundred feet away. Hugo fixed his eyes on the back of the Impala as it swung onto the main road, and pressed his foot all the way down.
“Those motherfuckers,” Tom said. “You better not let them get away.”
“Working on it,” said Hugo. He slammed on the brakes to avoid rear-ending the Prius in front of him, then bumped the SUV up on the curb and accelerated through the red light. “But when we get them, we do this the right way.”
“We do this however we have to,” Tom growled.
Hugo glanced over and saw anger burning in his friend’s eyes, and for the first time he didn’t want to be Tom’s leash—because he felt it too, a sudden burn of rage deep in his gut. “Yeah. Maybe this time you’re right.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Inside the lobby at the hotel, Hugo pulled out his phone and activated the recording app.
“Tell me again I have permission,” he said calmly.
Leo Colbert leaned toward the device. “You have permission to look around my new room.”
“And you give that permission freely and voluntarily,” Hugo said. In the old days when he was with the bureau, a judge would have taken his word that Colbert had given consent to search his things, but these weren’t the old days. And he wasn’t an FBI agent anymore. Camille Lerens had told him numerous times how she liked the officers working for her to record every conversation, every request for and grant (or denial) of consent.
“Yes, you can search my shit,” Colbert said testily. “I told you like four times.”
Good enough, Hugo thought, turning off the recording. “Your room key?”
Colbert dug it out of a back pocket; as Hugo took it, he said, “Wait here, please, I won’t be long.”
“Whatever. You believe me that I just found it, don’t you?”
“Right now I do, yes. But if you’re not right here when I get back, I may change my mind.”
Hugo left Colbert mumbling to himself and went to the concierge table. The man behind it looked up and smiled. “Can I help you, monsieur?”
“Bonjour. Do you have one of those plastic bags for wet umbrellas?”
The man’s brow creased and he looked from Hugo’s empty hands to the front door. “But it’s not raining, monsieur.”
“I know.” Hugo tried not to sigh heavily. “I need it for something else.”
“D’accord.” The man shrugged and reached into a drawer, pulling out a roll of bags. “Just one?”
“Oui, seulement un.” He took the bag with a merci and headed for the elevator bank. In two minutes, he was letting himself into room 424. He could see why Maxick would chose this one for an employee. It was smaller than the other rooms he’d seen, with no kind of view. And it was situated between the elevator shaft and the room with the ice and snack machines. The kind of room in which your average guest, paying upward of 600 euros a night, would be less than happy to rest his head for the night.
Colbert hadn’t unpacked, probably because there wasn’t much space to put everything. Three cardboard boxes sat on the queen-size bed and two laptops sat on the built-in desk, between piles of papers. According to Colbert, the small Dell on the left belonged to Baxter. Hugo left it where it was and instead looked through the stacks of papers. Nothing of any interest, so he moved to the boxes. One was full of books, and he started there, flipping the pages of each one, not sure what he was looking for, and stacking them on the bed as he finished.
Decent taste, he thought, noticing the titles—two nonfiction works by Erik Larson, three heavy biographies by David McCullough, and some self-help books. Hugo paused at the one he might find on his own shelves, The Ultimate Sherlock Holmes Collection. He flipped through the book, as he had with the others, but also made a mental note of the stories contained within its pages.
When he was done, he put the
volume down and finished going through Colbert’s other belongings. He found nothing else of interest, so he used a clean pillowcase to pick up the laptop and put it in the umbrella bag, relieved that it fit, if only just.
He made his way down to the main reception area, where a police officer put there for Hancock’s peace of mind lounged against a back wall. Hugo handed him the computer in its bag and said, “Hop on your radio and have Paul Jameson come get this, please. Don’t touch the computer inside and tell him not to, either. He’ll understand.”
The flic straightened, seemingly glad to have something to do. “Oui, monsieur, immédiatement.”
Hugo turned and saw that Colbert was making a beeline for a pretty receptionist.
“Leo,” Hugo said, stopping the young man in his tracks. “Here’s your key, thank you.”
“Find anything?” Colbert watched Hugo intently.
“You have good taste in reading material.”
“That surprise you?”
“Nope. You seen your boss?”
“Jill? I can have her paged; she’s working today.”
“Thanks, I’d appreciate that.”
Colbert continued his journey to the reception desk and was greeted with a big smile from the young lady behind it. He talked for a moment, then she picked up the phone and punched some numbers into it, presumably paging Maxick.
Maxick appeared after five minutes, flustered.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “I was in the middle of helping Helen switch rooms.”
“Why is she moving now?” Hugo asked.
“Because one of the larger suites just become available, and I thought it was the right thing to do, letting her have it. After all that’s happened, all she’s been through . . .”
“Quite right,” Hugo said. “Nice of you.”
“So what’s the emergency down here?”
“You were helping Mr. Colbert here move, too, this morning?”
“That’s right.”
“Why?”
Maxick glanced over at Colbert, who was slouching over the front desk as he spoke to the receptionist. “Did you ask him?”
