Brett Battles - Shadow of Betrayal

Quinn took one last look around before they reached the corner of the Dupuis’ property. They still seemed to be the only people out. The memorial in the front yard was down to one burning candle that looked like it wouldn’t last much longer.

“Let’s do it,” Quinn said.

They turned up the short walkway like they lived there. At the end of the concrete path, a short two-step staircase led up to the door. But instead of ascending, they paused at the bottom. As Quinn had noted when they drove by, there was police tape across the walkway to the door. On the tape, bold black letters spelling out in both French and English:

BARRAGE DE POLICE PASSAGE INTERDIT • POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS

Passage prohibited by the police. It was, after all, a potential crime scene now.

Quinn still wasn’t sure if they should try and get inside, but he did know that using the front door was out of the question. The same streetlamp that had provided the good view of the house when they drove by now lit their every move.

“Around the side,” he whispered.

Orlando nodded.

“Anything?” Nate asked.

“Nothing yet,” Quinn said.

As they moved down the side of the house, Quinn glanced more than once at the home next door where the TV blared upstairs. He wanted to be able to get the hell out of there if he saw someone staring back at him. But there was no one.

When they reached the rear corner of the house, they stopped. Quinn pulled out two pairs of disposable rubber gloves, and handed a set to Orlando. Once his were on, he retrieved his gun from under his jacket. He then peered around the edge, but pulled back immediately.

“What is it?” Orlando asked.

“Back door’s open,” he said.

“I don’t hear anything from inside. Do you?”

Quinn listened for a moment, then shook his head.

“Come on.”

He led them around the corner, and over to the door. Leaning forward, he listened again to see if he could hear anyone moving around. Still nothing. Then why was it open? Couldn’t have been the cops. Quinn had been one himself before Durrie had recruited him to be a cleaner. He knew the training, and the precautions taken at crime scenes. Leaving doors open just wasn’t done.

He moved his head a few inches so he could look at the door itself. It had been swung open about halfway. The darkness made it hard to see anything for sure, but there were no obvious marks near the lock that would have indicated someone had broken in.

A friend with a spare key? A killer who picked up a key on his way out? Or maybe had one all along? A neighbor kid who did the yard work and knew where an emergency key was hidden? It was human nature, after all, to be drawn to the pain and the horror life sometimes served up.

But at the moment, it didn’t matter who had left the door open. The question was, was anyone still inside?

Quinn looked back at Orlando.

“Anything?” she mouthed.

He shook his head, then indicated he was going in and wanted her to cover him. Once Orlando gave him a nod, Quinn leaned toward his mic and whispered, “We’re going in.”

“Copy that,” Nate said over the receiver.

Quinn put both hands on his gun, and aimed it like he’d been trained to do in dangerous situations as a rookie police cadet back in Phoenix. Behind him, he could sense Orlando moving into position.

He silently counted to three, then stepped around the edge of the building and into the open doorway, his gun moving left, right, down, up, looking for targets. But the room was empty.

It was a kitchen, lived in but neat. The semidarkness of the evening was cut only by the light filtering back from the lamps on the street, turning the interior into shades of gray Everything one would expect to be there was—refrigerator, dishwasher, sink. On the counter were several cookbooks, a toaster, a ceramic jar full of utensils, and a blender, all ready and waiting. And to the left, a small table was set against the wall wide enough only for one chair per each of the three remaining sides. One for Mrs. Dupuis and one for her husband, Quinn guessed. And the non-matching third chair that stuck out into the room? That had to be for the recently returned daughter.

The only thing that was unusual was the stand-alone stovetop range. It had been pulled away from the wall, and turned at an angle so someone could get behind it. One of the first places checked for the gas leak, Quinn guessed.

All in all, it could have been the kitchen of the house Quinn grew up in. All the similarities were there. Even the layout was basically the same. He stepped over the threshold, looking to his immediate left, then moved the door enough so he could look behind it and make sure no one was there.

“Clear,” he mouthed to Orlando.

He continued across the kitchen, and stopped just shy of the doorway that led into the rest of the house. There was a solitary creak behind him as Orlando stepped inside.

“Everything all right?” Nate asked.

“Fine,” Quinn whispered.

On the other side of the doorway was the dining room. An oval dining table surrounded by five chairs filled half the space. The chairs were all perfect matches to the orphan chair in the kitchen. Along the wall to Quinn’s right was a wooden buffet cabinet. The bottom portion had two doors that would swing open to access whatever was stored inside. On the hutch above were three shelves. Instead of plates or other serving dishes, there were dozens of framed photos.

Enough light came in through the window for Quinn to make out the faces. A mixture of shots, but all had at least one of four people in them. The older man and woman had to be Martin and Rose Dupuis. That meant one of the younger women was their daughter, Emily. The third woman looked a few years younger than Emily, but bore a striking resemblance to the others.

The missing daughter.

“What’s that?” Orlando whispered.

Quinn looked at her. She was in the doorway, but her eyes were focused on a point at the far end of the room, past where he was standing. So he turned to see what had caught her attention.

There was an item on the floor just a few feet beyond the dining room, in what Quinn guessed was the living room. It was a box, about the size law firms use to put files in. It was in the middle of the floor, definitely out of place. Quinn could see several items sticking out of the top—thin, flat, rectangular shapes.

He looked back at the hutch, scanning the pictures, concentrating on the placement of the frames instead of the pictures themselves. On the pattern.

He found what he was looking for toward the right side on the second shelf. An obvious open spot that Quinn imagined the Dupuises would have never created. There was another spot, too, on the shelf above toward the center.

What the hell? Quinn thought.

He eased into the living room, his eyes taking in everything before he approached the box.

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.