A Deadly Divide

by Ausma Zehanat Khan

  As the girl began to calm in Réjeanne’s arms, Esa asked Réjeanne, “They were married?”

  Chloé’s sobs had turned into hiccoughs. Réjeanne rubbed her back in a circular motion.

  “Right here in this clearing,” she said. “We served as witnesses. Youssef’s mother was here, too.”

  Esa’s eyes squinted against the darkness, trying to see Chloé’s face without the use of the flashlight.

  “Who officiated the ceremony?”

  “I’m surprised you don’t know. It was Père Étienne.”

  Réjeanne’s statement carried the weight of a confession, but Alizah couldn’t make out its import. She looked at Esa again, observing the tension in his face. The confession meant something to Esa that she hadn’t grasped.

  After a pause, he asked, “A Catholic ceremony?”

  Réjeanne nodded.

  Esa gestured at the clearing. “With a similar set of rituals—the dance and so on?”

  Réjeanne smirked. “Not in front of Père Étienne. He would have accused us of witchcraft.”

  “I’m surprised he was willing to venture outside of the church. He couldn’t have thought it proper.” Now he addressed Chloé, his voice grave and deep. “Did Youssef become a Catholic?”

  Chloé raised her ravaged face to his, her body propped up by Réjeanne.

  “His mother said he could, so he did.”

  But something in her face gave her away.

  “It wasn’t real,” Esa guessed. “It was a means to an end, the end being that he wanted to be able to claim you as his own.”

  “Yes.” Her voice came out in a whisper. “We belonged to each other.”

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Amadou move away to the edge of the water where Émilie was still setting the lanterns adrift.

  “You didn’t tell us that before.” He gentled his voice, speaking to her the way he would to calm a frightened child. “Chloé, can you tell me anything about the lily that was carved on Youssef’s back? Did that have something to do with you? Or with the Lilies of Anjou?”

  She shook her head, the frantic motion sending her long, pale hair flying about her face.

  “No, no, never—I would never have done that to Youssef. And especially because—”

  Suddenly bored, Réjeanne released her hold on Chloé and stalked away to join Amadou. There was a small smile playing about her lips that reminded Esa that she’d said he would find what he’d been searching for in the woods.

  “Because?” Esa prompted.

  Chloé held up her arm and pulled back her long sleeve. She turned her wrist outward to show him the delicate tattoo.

  “Youssef didn’t like my tattoo. He asked me to get it removed. But my family said that I shouldn’t.”

  Khattak’s gaze flicked to Alizah, who he knew would understand. Many Muslims believed that the body should be returned to God without altering His creation. A permanent mark such as a tattoo was at odds with that belief.

  But why did any of it matter?

  “Did Réjeanne and Émilie know? Did anyone object to you having the tattoo removed? Were you planning to get rid of it?”

  Chloé’s hiccoughs had subsided and now she was able to speak clearly.

  “I would have done anything for Youssef. But we weren’t even married a week. I didn’t have time to do as he’d asked me. I told Réjeanne. But she was the only one.”

  Another dead end. He thanked Chloé for telling him. After a moment’s consideration, he asked Réjeanne to join him at the edge of the lake, where he pressed her for the rest.

  She didn’t answer his question about the tattoo, though there was a stillness about her, as though she was expecting something else from him. The clever little smirk was still on her lips

  “Réjeanne.” His voice darkened with caution. “If you know something, a murder investigation is a dangerous place to keep secrets.”

  She stretched, letting her sleeves fall back along her strong, white arms.

  “I’m not keeping secrets. I brought you here to reveal them.”

  Her gaze drifted over the lake. She pointed to something in the distance. He switched on his flashlight again: it lanced across the water, tracking the path of the lanterns. Two of the lanterns had bumped up against the dock and stopped there.

  He swept his flashlight across the lake twice before he saw it. Then he called in the officers who’d stood back observing the scene.

  Someone had drawn an arrow pointing up to the bird feeder on the post that faced the shore. Something dark was wedged into the opening of the feeder. He trained the flashlight on the bird feeder’s mouth. It took his mind a moment to sort out what he was seeing.

  Amadou saw it first.

  He looked back at Chloé and Alizah and said, “There’s a gun out there on the lake.”

  63

  Though she was tall, Rachel had to jog to keep up with Lemaire’s brisk pace. He was calling team members in from each of the inner offices. She’d left Sehr with Dr. Sandston and a sternly worded warning not to wander off on her own, offering Sehr the tried and true: If anything happens to you, the boss will never forgive me.

  In the center of the large room, team members gathered, ready to report on progress. Dr. Agarwal was back with another update on the series of autopsies her team had performed. She had no further forensic evidence to share, but she gave the go-ahead for funerals to proceed. Lemaire nodded. His blue eyes swept the room—a blue that reminded Rachel of the pieces of Caithness glass she’d used to decorate her condo.

  She noticed something else, too. Roughly a third of the team members were missing. Lemaire barked out orders at the others. They hustled to the small armory at the back to don protective gear. Everyone seemed to be in on a secret that Rachel didn’t know.

  Except for Gaffney and Benoit, both crouched in front of their computers, stabbing away at something Rachel couldn’t see.

  Gaff nodded at Lemaire. “We’re good to go.”

  “You’ll need a vest,” Lemaire told her.

  “We’re going out on a raid?”

  She followed him to the armory, her mind full of questions. Lemaire had told her about infiltration. He hadn’t told her that he was prepared to act. But all those sidebars, those team meetings, when she’d thought he’d been instructing his team on the investigation into the shooting, this was what he’d been doing. Setting up the takedown to pull in members of law enforcement suspected of working with the Allegiance by catching them in the act. Proof of which must have been established while she’d been busy with the shooting.

  She shouldered into her vest, watching as he did the same.

  “I’m surprised they found one to fit you.”

  His dancing blue eyes found hers. “They could have asked you,” he told her. “You’ve been tracking me pretty good.”

  Rachel’s thoughts shorted out, a hot red stain climbing her face. Before she could stammer a reply, he went on, “Just like I’ve been tracking you.”

  Rachel blinked several times, but Lemaire didn’t drop his gaze; it was rock steady holding hers. Finally, she said, “You’re an excellent cop.”

  “Yeah?” It came out like a lazy drawl. He tossed her a helmet with a black visor and took another for himself. “So are you. Is that all it is?”

  Her fingers clutched the helmet helplessly. Lemaire’s unequivocal expression of his interest floored her. He came closer, helping her fasten her vest. Rachel’s breath hitched in her chest. He was so close—so big that he surrounded her, like the men she sometimes played hockey with. He smelled like summer wind and fresh pine, tall and strong as an oak. He used the vest to tug her a little closer, his teasing softening at her obvious bewilderment.

  “I’m your senior officer. As long as we’re working together, nothing can happen here.” He fastened the vest and let go. “But you should know I want it to, after this is over.”

  Rachel needed a moment to collect her thoughts. For whatever inexplicable reason, this roughly
attractive man was expressing his interest in her. But there was none of the queasiness or helpless rage she’d felt with her former boss. He’d stepped away, giving her space if she wanted it. But space wasn’t what she needed. She was imagining Lemaire pulling her close with that same lazy smile and tugging her into his arms. She wanted to get close. She wanted to be close.

  “Ready, sir.”

  Another officer interrupted them. Rachel watched Lemaire reel off a list of instructions. She could have slipped out of the armory and left them to it. She could have turned tail and run. Instead, she waited for Lemaire to finish. He was nearly ready to head out. He cocked his head at her and waited. She stepped into his space, reaching around him to fasten his vest, letting her hands linger on his chest.

  “You’re not anything like him. And I want it to happen, too.”

  Now the blue eyes blazed at her and the cocky grin disappeared. He gave her a short, brisk nod.

  “Good,” he said gruffly. “Then let’s get this done.”

  * * *

  Gaff caught her on the way down the steps.

  “What is it?” She lifted the visor to look at him. And then remembered to ask him to keep a close watch on Sehr.

  “Where’s Khattak?” she added.

  “Still at the vigil, why?”

  “Benoit and I tracked down each member of this team—nearly all seconded from the Sûreté du Québec—with white supremacist ties.” Lemaire looked up at them from the bottom of the steps and he hesitated. “There are some anomalies. I’d prefer it if Khattak had your back.”

  “What kind of anomalies?”

  “Rachel!” Lemaire called her to come. It wasn’t a request.

  “I haven’t figured it out,” Gaff muttered. “But something’s off around here. Even about this sting.” He drew her aside so Lemaire couldn’t overhear. “I’ve seen the way Lemaire looks at you. But maybe he’s trying to distract you from something else.”

  * * *

  Rachel’s face was white under her helmet. She climbed into the van. The driver shifted smoothly onto the main road, and Rachel tried to get her bearings as they drove past the station and around the bend of the creek. For a moment she could glimpse some of the town’s landmarks from the center: the university, the town hall, and the church. Lemaire had insisted that she take the seat across from him. Swallowing hard, she’d listened. She couldn’t be wrong about him, she told herself. It couldn’t be an act—what would be the point?

  But a cold, analytical part of her brain provided the answer at once.

  To draw you away from the Wolf Allegiance. To disguise the extent of their infiltration into the Sûreté and our INSET team.

  And what better way to distract her than to pretend an interest? He was the one who’d repeatedly asked her to partner with him, leaving Khattak on his own, an act that served a twofold purpose. Neither one of them had backup. And neither one had the chance to get inside Lemaire’s operation. And the worst part was that it was entirely consistent with Lemaire’s actions from the outset of the operation.

  The arrest of Amadou Duchon. The free hand Lemaire had given Thibault and his thugs. His lack of response to Alizah’s list of hate crimes. The way he’d failed to dig out Pascal Richard’s ties to neo-Nazis … right down to not noticing the swastika at the back of Richard’s head. His failure to offer protection to Alizah and Amadou or to put a watch on the mosque. He’d taken no action on a profiler or on following up on who might have been responsible for the assault on Khattak.

  In fact, he’d dared to suggest that Khattak had contrived the entire incident to focus the investigation where he wanted it: squarely on the Allegiance and their ilk.

  Something niggled at her memory. Some small, insignificant detail.

  There was something Lemaire had dismissed.

  It slipped through her mind, elusive and dark.

  She listened to Lemaire go over the raid with the tactical team commander, in his strong, dark tones, and forced herself to think. It had happened almost at the beginning; it was almost the first thing Khattak had singled out.

  What was it?

  The van hurtled around the corner past the empty parking lot of the mosque. Someone had made an attempt to wash out the spray-painted swastika, covering it with patterns in green. Abruptly, Rachel remembered.

  The synagogue was vandalized first.

  And Lemaire had done nothing in response.

  Not even when Khattak had warned him to make the synagogue a priority.

  Her hands shook in her lap, her fingertips ice-cold.

  These were things he would have done, not to entrap others, but because he himself was behind them. The photograph on the wall in his office lurched up in her memory.

  He’d given a neo-Nazi the key to Saint-Isidore.

  Wasn’t that proof of his corruption? What greater proof did she need?

  She’d been disarmed from the first by Superintendent Killiam’s recommendation of Lemaire. And then by the personal interest he’d used every opportunity to express. If he’d been conducting a sting, he would have wanted to lock things down and keep them quiet.

  Instead, he’d invited her in. And he’d given Khattak and Gaffney a free hand.

  She sucked in her lips in a bitter grimace, tears forming in her eyes behind the visor.

  They were tears of humiliation.

  Because of course she’d fallen for it—for him. She’d stupidly imagined that a man like Lemaire might actually be interested in her.

  And then she was struck by a far more terrible thought. Sick to her stomach, Rachel began to sweat.

  She had only Lemaire’s word for it that he’d seen someone push her from the bench in the church. She’d heard only one set of footsteps approach.

  What if Lemaire himself had pushed her from the bench?

  He’d struck his head because he hadn’t been able to move out of the way in time. And then he’d used her ensuing concern to his benefit, seeing at once the ways in which she could be manipulated.

  He must have known about her father. As a police officer, he’d be familiar with the profile, with her vulnerabilities. She’d always have the need to prove herself to a man in a position of authority. He’d used that—used her.

  A furious rage replaced her self-pity.

  Lemaire had wanted her here in this van. She didn’t need to be here. She should have been with Khattak.

  He looked up at her and smiled.

  She sketched a stiff smile in return, a painful movement of air between her lips.

  Like a death rattle, she thought.

  He must have seen it, too, because he asked, “Are you all right?”

  She took too long to answer. He leaned across the open space, whispering, “Don’t be afraid, Rachel. I’m going to take care of you.”

  64

  It had taken some time to retrieve the gun. A call out to Gaffney to mobilize resources while keeping things quiet enough to prevent a leak had resulted in Benoit showing up to fetch it with the appropriate gear. Now Khattak entered the gun into evidence, frowning at the empty station. He’d insisted that Alizah and Amadou accompany him; he left them waiting in the lounge.

  Gaffney found him a few minutes later and brought him up-to-date.

  Grimly, Khattak said, “Our communication with Lemaire seems to be a one-way street.”

  When Gaffney told him the rest, his response was so fierce that it brought Sehr out of Dr. Sandston’s office.

  “What’s happened?”

  “Nothing,” he said, trying to soften his voice, aggrieved at the sight of her in the center of a perilous storm. He had to get her out of the station so he could focus. But the warning Dr. Sandston had given him was too serious to ignore. She had suggested that his stalker had targeted others connected to him in the past. If Tom Paley hadn’t died of an innocuous heart attack, if his death had been part of some twisted campaign against Khattak, that meant he wasn’t dealing with a stalker. Khattak was dealing with a killer.r />
  “Something,” Sehr persisted. “Tell me, so I can help.”

  He throttled the angry words that rose to his lips. He tugged her out into the lobby, his hand on her wrist possessive, thrilled by the answering flame in her eyes. Until he realized that it was anger—anger in place of passion.

  He’d worked too hard to arrive at this place with Sehr. If he went on as he had in the past—as he had with his sisters, ruthlessly overprotective—he might end up losing what he’d worked for, as he had with Ruksh. He expelled a harsh breath. If he was going to do this, he wouldn’t hold anything back.

  “Rachel is out on a raid with Lemaire. He hasn’t kept me informed and I’m concerned that there’s a reason for that—that he’s put her in danger on purpose. And with the photographs, and the messages, and the attack—” His expression was so fierce that she grimaced. “God help me, Sehr, having you here—defenseless and at risk—is preventing me from doing my job. I can’t focus when you’re in the way. But I don’t want you anywhere else.”

  She studied his face in silence, drawing it out so he had time to get himself under control and think back over what he’d said.

  A flash of alarm passed through his eyes. “Sehr—”

  In the clear, precise tones of a prosecutor, she said, “What makes you think I’m defenseless? Do you think I just wandered into the midst of a refugee crisis without taking any steps to prepare myself—to protect myself?”

  She was using the same tone she used when she conducted a cross-examination.

  Angrily, he said, “I was taken by surprise, and I’m a police officer. Forgive me for thinking that you might be more vulnerable than I am.”

  Her reply was measured. “It’s because I’m a woman that I take sensible precautions. For example, Inspector Khattak, I would not have attempted a rendezvous with my partner at an unknown location without calling to check with her first. I would not have entered an abandoned building on my own in the middle of the night. I would have called for backup and waited. So you tell me, Esa Khattak. Which one of us is more reckless when it comes to taking risks?”