ABBEY knew that the policeman didn’t believe her story. There was no evidence left in Artillery Park of her encounter with the man in the gold-rimmed glasses. He was gone. Her Taser was gone. There were no witnesses.
The police officer had the look of a butler at a royal palace. He was in his thirties but oozed the kind of pompous condescension that most men take at least fifty years to perfect. He was slim and tall, with brown hair parted in the middle and greased down, and he sported a pencil mustache that he kept combing with the tip of his finger. He had prominent cheekbones and ears that jutted from the side of his head.
“You didn’t know this man?” the cop said with obvious skepticism. “You’d never seen him before?”
“No, but he knew me. He was waiting outside the bar. He called me by name.”
“Could he have seen you while you were inside?”
“I suppose. I didn’t see him, but it’s possible.”
“Did you have a lot to drink last night?” the police officer asked, staring down his nose at her.
“I had one beer. What does that have to do with anything?”
“Hmm,” the cop said, working his mouth as if he were chewing something unpleasant. “And you say this man pulled a gun on you?”
“That’s right. He was going to kill me.”
“How do you know that?”
“Well, the gun was my first clue,” Abbey snapped.
She shifted impatiently on her feet and looked around the park to see if anyone was watching her. It crossed her mind that maybe she was being followed; maybe she’d been followed for days, ever since New York. She felt tired, angry, and paranoid. It had been a bad night. She hadn’t felt safe going back to her apartment, so she’d crashed on a girlfriend’s couch and made up an excuse about ducking an old boyfriend. She’d hardly slept at all. And then, in the morning, she’d debated whether to report what had happened. Her editor, Jacques, had finally prevailed on her to call the police, but now she was regretting her decision.
“Did this man want something from you?” the police officer went on. “Did he ask for money? Or do you think he was planning a sexual assault?”
“I think he was just planning to shoot me.”
“Did the two of you argue? Was he angry?”
“No, he wasn’t angry. He never showed any emotion at all. This guy was an assassin. He met me in order to kill me. Period. If I hadn’t had the Taser, I’d be dead.”
“Ah, yes, the Taser,” the cop murmured with a reprimand in his voice. “I’m glad you came back to that. Are you aware, Ms. Laurent, that a Taser is a prohibited weapon in Canada? Importing and owning one is a crime. If it’s missing as you say, then I suppose I can let it go, but I would strongly advise you not to replace it.”
Abbey brushed her mahogany bangs out of her eyes with a swipe of her fingers. “Seriously, you’re worried about my Taser? That’s what you’re taking away from all this? A man tried to kill me. Right here. A hit man.”
“Well, that’s very dramatic, but I’m not sure we can leap to a conclusion like that,” he sneered at her. “I understand that journalists like to think they’re all characters in a Tarantino film, but if this happened as you say, the most likely explanation is that this man is some kind of stalker.”
“Call him whatever you want. The question is, how are you going to find him?”
“As much as we’d like to help, Ms. Laurent, I’m afraid we have very little to go on. Frankly, you’re in a better position than we are to identify this man. When you figure out where you crossed paths with him, or if you see him again, then you can let us know.”
“Don’t you have cameras all over town?” Abbey asked. “I told you what he looked like. I told you when this happened. How hard is it to check the cameras around the bar and try to find him? Maybe he had a car, and you can get a license plate. Maybe he was staying at a local hotel.”
The police officer gave her a strangely pained look, as if he wished she would just let it go. “In normal circumstances that might be an option, but I’m afraid there were technology issues in the city last night. Most of our surveillance cameras were offline.”
“Offline,” Abbey said. “Does that happen a lot?”
“No, it’s quite rare.”
“Starting when? When did the cameras go offline?”
“Sometime before ten o’clock. The issue wasn’t resolved until the middle of the night.”
“Well, that’s pretty damn convenient,” Abbey said. “Ten o’clock is the time when I was at Château Frontenac. I already told you that. And now there’s no way to confirm anything I’m telling you. Look, what happened up there, anyway?”
“There was an incident, but we’re not releasing details at this time.”
“Why? What’s with all the secrets? What are you people covering up? I was supposed to meet someone on the boardwalk who didn’t show up, and not long after that, I hear about people getting shot and killed up there. And then somebody pretends to be the person I was supposed to meet and tries to kill me? You don’t seriously expect me to believe that’s a coincidence, do you?”
“If you have questions about the incident at Château Frontenac, or if you feel you should be interviewed, you’ll need to contact the public information officer, and she can put you in touch with the appropriate government authorities.”
“The appropriate authorities? You mean the Quebec police aren’t running the investigation?”
The police officer didn’t answer. He simply combed his mustache.
“So what am I supposed to do now?” Abbey went on. “Go home? What if this guy is waiting for me?”
“If you have concerns for your safety, you should certainly call us back,” the officer replied with another condescending smile. Then he took a phone from his belt and gave her a look that said he had better things to do. “Otherwise, if you don’t have any other information to share, I think we’re done here.”
Abbey scowled. “Thanks for the help.”
“Please remember my warning about the Taser, Ms. Laurent.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Abbey stalked away in disgust. When she glanced over her shoulder, she saw the policeman watching her, making sure she was actually leaving. His phone was poised in his hand. She kept walking, her shoes crunching on the gravel path. She passed the park’s welcome center, then turned the corner past a stone wall near the outer gate.
When she knew he couldn’t see her anymore, she crept back to the corner to listen.
Almost immediately, she heard the policeman on the phone, but it took her a moment to realize it was him, because his voice and tone had changed completely. He didn’t sound like a bored, stuffy street cop anymore, handling a citizen’s complaint with polite disbelief. He spoke like someone in authority who was used to giving orders. In fact, he didn’t sound like a cop at all now.
He sounded like a spy.
The appropriate government authorities.
“I just completed my interview with the Laurent woman,” she heard the man say, switching easily to upscale urban French as he talked. “Oh, yes, they were targeting her, no doubt about that. She described the man who tried to kill her. Stocky, forties, blond hair, gold-rimmed glasses. No, that’s right, it’s definitely not Cain. Tell the Americans. This was their operation and their mess, let them worry about it.”
Abbey didn’t wait to hear more. She spun off the wall and ran for the gate, to make sure the man didn’t realize she’d been eavesdropping on his call. He’d said the one word that had been in her nightmares for a week.
Cain.
THE area of the boardwalk near the Château Frontenac was still cordoned off with crime scene tape and guarded by police to keep the public away. Abbey tried to stay inconspicuous as she sat on the steps of the statue of Champlain near the entrance to the funiculaire that took tourists down the cliff to the lower town. She wore sunglasses to cover her face. She sipped coffee from the Starbucks inside the hotel, and she checked her watch often, as if waiting for someone to join her.
The city police guarding the area were just a diversion. The real investigation was going on beyond the crime scene tape, and the men in charge were definitely not police. They wore suits and had wired headsets connected to radios, and they were all armed. Abbey had been around enough government personnel to know that she was looking at a team of intelligence officers. They were mostly Americans, too. Americans stood out even when they were trying to blend in. In an operation like this, that meant they were probably CIA.
She had no trouble identifying the agent in charge. He barked orders to everyone else. He was a small, hard-looking man, well into his fifties, with a face that didn’t look like it knew what a smile was. The sun was out today, but he wore a gray raincoat over his suit and a fedora low on his forehead. He was in pain. That was obvious. He used a cane awkwardly, and she could see his features contort into a grimace whenever he took a step. Abbey took her phone and pretended to be typing a text, while in reality, she zoomed in on the man’s face and snapped several pictures.
She had plenty of contacts in the U.S. and Canadian governments. Someone could tell her who he was.
Abbey climbed off the steps and wandered toward the police tape. She took a selfie with the Château Frontenac behind her and then picked the youngest, cutest cop and put on her flirtiest smile. “Wow, what’s going on?” she asked him. “I’ve never seen so many cops around here.”
“It’s nothing to be concerned about, miss,” the officer replied.
“I hope not, but everybody’s talking about people getting shot and killed! It’s hard to believe. Did you catch the guy who did it?”
“There’s no danger to the public.”
“Oh, good. That’s a relief.” Abbey ran her fingers through her loose hair and gave her head a little toss. She knew she was pretty much irresistible when she did that. “How many people were killed?”
“We’re not releasing any information. I’d suggest you turn on the evening news, and you’ll probably hear all about it.”
“Sure, of course. I get that. But is it true they were shot?”
“I’m sorry, but we’re not—”
“Yeah, yeah, no information, I know. The thing is, I write stories for The Fort. The online magazine? Do you read it? You really should. We’re always looking for scoops, and I would be a hero to my editor if I could bring him something on this. Seriously, a hero. I mean, they must have told you some of the dirt, right? Is there anything you can give me behind the scenes? Totally anonymous. Believe me, you steer me in the right direction, the drinks are on me this weekend.”
The young cop looked pained. He glanced both ways to make sure no one else was around. “They haven’t told us anything. They’re keeping it very quiet.”
“Sure, I understand. You’re cute, by the way. Maybe we could have that drink anyway. Hey, do you know who’s in charge around here? That guy with the limp over there, do you know who he is?”
“Somebody called him Rollins. That’s all I know.”
“Rollins. He’s American, right?”
“They all are.”
Abbey leaned close enough that she knew the cop could inhale her perfume. “Did anybody say anything about New York? I heard there might be a connection to that congresswoman getting killed in the park.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“What about the name Cain? You hear anyone mention that today?”
The cop looked uncomfortable, as if he’d made a big mistake saying anything at all. “I’m sorry, miss, you better go. If people see us talking, I could get into trouble. We’re not supposed to talk to reporters.”
“Sure. I get it. Hey, thanks for the help.”
Abbey headed away from the boardwalk. Before she’d gone too far into the plaza, she took one last look over her shoulder, and when she did, she froze in place.
The American agent named Rollins was leaning on his cane and staring directly at her.
Like he knew exactly who she was.