A Deadly Divide

by Ausma Zehanat Khan

  He stood in front of her speechless, and she smiled. She reached up to stroke his forehead where the bruise had grown more noticeable. Gently, she said, “You’re allowed to worry, but I’m not? Do you think it’s been easy for me so far away from you in Greece?”

  “Sehr—”

  Her arms circled his neck. “Now is when you kiss me.”

  He didn’t need to be told twice. When at last she broke away, her mouth was full and throbbing. His lips strayed over her temples, pressing kisses into her hair.

  “It’s stopping that’s the hard part,” he said. “Once you let me start.”

  She pressed herself closer, and he relished the weight of her in his arms, soft and supple and strong. This time she kissed him, her hand reaching up to stroke his jaw.

  “Keep the beard,” she teased. “It has definite possibilities.”

  When she saw the surprise on his face, she asked, “Was that too much?”

  He recovered himself at once. “It’s never too much, Sehr. If anything, it’s not enough.” With a deepening of his voice, he said, “Does this change things? Do you want a traditional wedding?”

  Full of fanfare, laughter, music, and food—the kind of wedding he’d had with Samina years ago. Sehr was watching his face. The rueful smile that touched her lips turned his heart over.

  “Three-to-six functions, taking us months to arrange?” The teasing look was back in her eyes. “You haven’t asked me properly yet.”

  And he damned well wasn’t going to in the middle of a police station.

  “Oh, I’ll ask you. I was just hoping for a concession.”

  Her expression became serious. To stop her from saying something he knew would hurt, he kissed her again, pushing past the boundaries he knew she was trying to observe.

  But he’d mistaken her. Her hands tangled in his hair; she gave in to the kiss wholeheartedly.

  “I don’t want any of that,” she muttered against his mouth. “I don’t need it; I don’t even need the ring. I just want you, Esa. I’ve waited a long time. I don’t want to wait any longer.” She was breathing harshly against his lips, driven as much by anguish as by love.

  Gaffney stepped into the lobby. “I’ve got Superintendent Killiam on the line.”

  Khattak squeezed Sehr’s hand and let her go. His conversation with Killiam was brief and to the point. The only progress he could report was that they thought they had found the gun. Benoit was processing the details.

  But when he shared his suspicions about Christian Lemaire, Killiam asked him bluntly, “Has he treated you badly?”

  Esa frowned. His experience with Lemaire had no bearing on the suspicions he’d just raised. If he was honest with himself, stopping himself making things personal was also the only way he was able to focus on his job.

  “He’s kept me out of the loop.”

  Killiam disagreed. “He’s kept you informed through Rachel, and left you to do the work you were sent to Saint-Isidore to do. Have some faith in your partner. She’s an excellent judge of character.”

  Killiam ended the call. Khattak strode to the armory, calling Gaffney to join him.

  “Just a moment, sir.”

  Benoit waved him over to his desk. “The gun you brought in. The ballistics were a match to the handgun used in the executions. It was a legally registered firearm—it wasn’t connected to Gagnon, or any of the biker gangs.”

  Khattak doubled back.

  “But it doesn’t make any sense.”

  Reading the name over his shoulder, Khattak felt as though he’d stepped into quicksand.

  Because the gun involved in the shooting was registered to Youssef Soufiane.

  65

  The raid on the Wolf Allegiance’s headquarters went down exactly as Lemaire claimed to have planned, designed to entrap police officers who’d been working with the Allegiance to stir up trouble in Saint-Isidore and to subvert the investigation into the shooting at the mosque. He’d divided the targets into three groups, assigning his handpicked team into the mix alongside officers seconded to INSET. Now the tactical team reported in from the other two locations. They had the arrests in hand—they’d taken their targets by surprise.

  Lemaire’s team acted last. His presence in the center of the operation gave them a tactical advantage. He leapt out from the back of the van, summoning Rachel to follow. She made herself count her breaths, trying to hold on to her nerve. When she stepped out of the van, she recognized the location.

  It was the same building where she’d picked up Khattak, after the attack. She saw the sign he’d mentioned before listing in the wind. The target location was the same place where Khattak had been assaulted and nearly choked to death.

  She tipped her visor up slightly for a better look at Lemaire’s face.

  What kind of game was he playing?

  What was waiting for her inside?

  * * *

  Lemaire snapped his fingers and the team divided in two. Now in the warm silence of the summer night, Rachel followed his lead. There were six other officers with them. Four went ahead, circling around the back. Lemaire kept her behind him and signaled the other two.

  In a minute, the door was breached.

  “Go!” Lemaire shouted. He drew his weapon.

  Rachel followed at his heels, her hand feeling for the reassuring weight of her gun.

  Inside, the scene was chaotic. Men crashed through the back entrance. Everyone ran. Tall, broad-shouldered men with brush cuts threw down chairs. Rachel stumbled over a chair, her leg getting trapped inside it. Someone aimed a fist at her head and she ducked, flattening her shoulders so the man went sailing past her. There were candles lit against one wall. As she fell, she saw the image of a wolf’s head on the wall.

  Someone kicked at her, a heavy boot against her ribs. She swiftly rolled to one side, scrambling back to her feet. A shot was fired from the outer room and she whirled to face the sound. Whatever Lemaire had planned, he’d underestimated the number of men he needed. At least one of the men inside had escaped, and two other officers were down. Someone had lit a smoke bomb. Coughing, Rachel pulled the visor closer to her head. She scrabbled over to check on a man on the floor. He was bleeding from a blow to the head.

  One of the members of the Wolf Allegiance dived in her direction. Her heart thudding in her chest, she waited. When his arm came down on her throat, she slammed her fist into his ribs. He was tackled by an INSET team member and forced down onto his knees. Rachel grabbed the injured cop on the floor and dragged him off to one side. A foot kicked out and connected with her visor. Stunned by the blow, she fell back. When nothing else followed, she ripped the helmet from her head. Her visor had been smashed and now she couldn’t see through it, though it would have been safer to keep it on. Staying low to the floor, she searched for an opening—for an opponent she could take down.

  There was a gunshot, followed by another.

  Most of the men in the room had been subdued, members of the Allegiance, but also a few officers Rachel recognized from the first team briefing. But Lemaire wasn’t in the room. She wiped the sweat from her eyes, pushing back sticky strands of hair. She dried her palms on her slacks, then reached down for her gun. Her hand closed on empty space. She’d lost the gun in the fight. She took hold of her baton instead, hearing the sounds of a struggle somewhere deeper inside the building.

  She pushed through the smoke, blindly following the sound. She called out a warning in her strongest voice. No one responded, so she stole along a corridor to a passageway at the end. The smoke thinned out as she moved, too late to stop her from tripping on a piece of rebar and crashing through the room beyond. She fell awkwardly on her wrist. Her baton rolled out of her reach. Blinking through the dust, she saw that it had come to rest against a man’s black shoes.

  Awkwardly, she stumbled to her feet.

  She was alone in the room with Lemaire.

  And his gun was pointed at her head.

  * * *

  The bl
ood rushed from her head. She held up her hands in surrender.

  His burning eyes locked on hers.

  “Don’t move another step.”

  A whimper escaped her lips. She took a trembling step back.

  “I said don’t move.”

  “Please.” Her aching whisper hurt her throat. “I’m asking you not to shoot.”

  His gaze flicked over her shoulder and back to her sweating face. Terror colored her vision, the scent of it acrid and hopeless. She was out of moves—she couldn’t stop him. And she knew from the lethal purpose in his eyes that he wasn’t going to change his mind.

  Then a tiny corner of her mind registered the sound of movement, the harsh breath of another person at her ear—someone close enough to save her.

  She made a life-or-death decision and feinted back.

  Lemaire aimed his gun and fired.

  * * *

  Rachel was on the floor, gasping. She felt a heavy weight collapse over her chest; blood began to ooze from her neck. She thought she’d screamed, but the sound came out as a croak. Her whole body was on fire, her chest convulsed in reaction, her ears ringing from the gunshot. She was breathing in dust and debris, choking on the smoke in her mouth. The weight on her chest grew heavier, the blood sliding down her neck under her clothing, pooling between her breasts. Her hands scrabbled to touch the wound, but they were weighted down as well.

  She couldn’t breathe. She was suffocating in her own blood.

  Then the weight on her chest shifted. What had felt like a drowning embrace was lifted from the floor and shoved aside. Lemaire straddled her body and pushed her down. He’d taken off his helmet and gloves. His hands made a thorough search. They came away red with blood.

  “Christ, woman. I told you not to move.”

  He shouted something into the other room, stripping the vest from her body with hands that shook. She was drowning in sweat and blood, but still she tried to call for help.

  Lemaire shifted aside and pulled her up in his arms. He braced her against one knee, pressing his glove to the wound at her neck. His free hand brushed the hair from her face, and then there were others in the room—paramedics who laid her down again and switched her over to a stretcher. The room was suddenly filled with blinding light. She felt the sting of anesthetic at her neck, dizziness darkening her thoughts.

  She heard someone say, “Missed the artery. Did you get him?”

  And saw Lemaire nod once.

  Through a haze of smoke and dust, she struggled to make sense of the chaos in the room. Her chest was no longer aching. Lemaire had stripped off her shirt as well as her vest, and when she looked down at her torso she couldn’t see a bullet wound. Her fingers traced over her ribs and sternum. There was a biting sting at her neck, but she seemed otherwise unharmed.

  Her gaze followed the movement of the paramedics. They were lifting another body onto a second stretcher. He was dressed like a member of the Allegiance. A paramedic stopped to kick away the gun still clenched in his hand. It was taken into evidence by another officer.

  “Still smoking,” the officer said.

  “I don’t know how he missed,” Lemaire answered. “She stumbled right into his path.”

  Rachel raised her eyes to his face and saw that he’d lost his normal healthy color.

  “Why didn’t you listen? I told you I had it covered.”

  She was shivering violently, trying to make sense of the sequence of events. The heavy weight that had trapped her body, that sense that she’d been on fire … Lemaire snapped at someone behind her. Her half-naked body was wrapped in a cotton blanket.

  “It doesn’t need stitches,” the paramedic told her. He’d cleaned the wound from the bullet that had grazed her, and set a thick bandage in place. “Doesn’t mean it won’t hurt like hell.”

  Rachel nodded absently, her gaze still fixed on Lemaire.

  “Christ, woman,” he repeated. “You just took years off my life. Is this what you do to Khattak? No wonder the man’s on edge.”

  The words sounded fuzzy in her ears. She jerked her chin at the dead man on the stretcher. “He’s the one who shot me?”

  Lemaire’s head came up with a jerk. His hot blue gaze found hers.

  “What the hell did you say?”

  The minute he said it, Rachel knew.

  She had no answer for his outrage.

  He spoke to her slowly, measuring out each word.

  “You thought I was aiming at you.”

  “Please.” Rachel choked back a sob. “Christian, I’m sorry. I lost my bearings in the smoke.”

  He knew it was more than that. Hostility darkened his face. He leaned down, putting his face close to hers, his blue eyes bleak with regret.

  “I was wrong about you, Sergeant Getty. You were never a member of my team.”

  66

  Three days passed before Rachel was able to insist on being discharged. Esa was at her bedside, where she was grumpily listening to the doctor, who’d seen too many of the dead to give in to Rachel’s demands.

  “I’ll certify you unfit for duty if you keep putting up a fuss.”

  “That’s blackmail,” Rachel grumbled.

  “Well.” The doctor hooked a clipboard over her arm. “Blackmail would be the least offensive thing to have happened in Saint-Isidore for months.”

  “She’ll stay,” Khattak told the doctor firmly. “Until you say she can go.”

  The doctor’s eyes ran over the bruises on his face and neck.

  “You’re not looking too good, either.”

  “Ha!” Rachel said. “That’s gotta be the first time someone’s said that to you.”

  The doctor hid a smile at Khattak’s embarrassment. “I’ll work up your papers,” she promised Rachel.

  Rachel studied the bruise on Khattak’s forehead. “We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?”

  He tried not to grin and failed. “Decorated officers.”

  “What made Gaff suspicious of Lemaire? I screwed up there. He’s not going to want to work with me again.” She didn’t need to state aloud that she’d repaid Lemaire’s trust with unstinting disloyalty.

  “Oh, I think he will,” Khattak told her, nodding at the door.

  Rachel’s temperature shot up. With everything that was going on at the station, Lemaire couldn’t be at her door. All hands were needed on deck.

  “He’s asked the nurse about you at least a dozen times over the last few days. He’s waiting for me to leave.”

  “You probably shouldn’t,” Rachel said. “He might throttle me in my bed.”

  He’d avoided answering her question about Lemaire, so doggedly she asked it again.

  “Gaffney’s leads point to a senior figure as the leak. That’s why the raid went south. The officers recruited to the Allegiance had a few minutes’ warning of the raid. Gaff thought the leak might be Lemaire because Lemaire didn’t take anyone into his confidence. But we know now he was right to keep what he knew to himself.”

  “Where is Gaff now?”

  “With Sehr.”

  He didn’t have to tell her that he didn’t trust any of Lemaire’s officers with Sehr’s safety. There might be others associated with the Allegiance who had escaped the raid.

  “And the kids?”

  “Outside waiting for me. Alizah wants to see you. And we need to talk to Chloé.” He looked a little discomfited as he asked, “Now that you’re back on your feet, could you be the one to speak to her?”

  “Why me, especially? You usually have more luck with women.”

  He told her what they’d learned about Youssef’s gun, that it was the weapon that had been used to murder the women in the basement of the mosque. And Chloé had to know something about the gun.

  “You made a connection with her—you’ll be able to draw her out.” He hesitated as if he would say more, and Rachel suddenly had an inkling of what might be in his mind—her brother, Zach, and her work with troubled youth—she quickly straightened up.

&nbs
p; “Let’s get me discharged. Lemaire’s operation may have been a success in terms of rooting out white supremacists in law enforcement, but we still haven’t caught the shooter at the mosque.”

  * * *

  Feeling like a new woman after a brisk shower in the washroom attached to her hospital room, Rachel mumbled a question at Alizah as she pulled a fresh shirt over her head.

  “Youssef was a good friend of yours. Do you know why he had a gun?”

  With a curious note of detachment in her voice, Alizah asked, “Rachel, weren’t you paying attention to the list of incidents I gave you? We reported them to the dean. We also reported the break-in, but the administration took no action. We also informed the police about the vandalism of the mosque and synagogue, but again no one took any action.”

  Drawing her jacket back on, Rachel holstered her gun at her waist. Lemaire had found it for her and placed it in her hands with that still-banked fury in his eyes. She’d have to work up the nerve to deal with him, once they’d run the killer to ground. They were close to untangling this whole mess. She gave Alizah a summary of Lemaire’s operation, watching the girl tilt up her head. Alizah shivered in relief.

  “I wish Inspector Lemaire had told me what he was doing,” she said. “All this time, I didn’t think anyone cared.” She handed Rachel her jacket and helped her shrug it on. “When no one was willing to respond to our complaints, we felt endangered and that’s why Youssef got the gun. The threats against Youssef and Amadou were becoming serious because of their involvement with Chloé and Émilie.”

  Alizah abruptly went still. She turned to look at Rachel, the words falling slowly, sounding like they’d come from a great distance away.

  “Why are you asking me about Youssef’s gun?”

  From the wary look in her eyes, Alizah had already begun to suspect.

  “The gun we recovered from the lake was registered to Youssef. You didn’t recognize it?”