Dead Run (11 page)

“What’s up?”

“Bonnet will fill you in.” Stone was uncharacteristically curt.

“How’s Arthur?” Taylor knew how Will was because he’d called the hospital before he’d stretched out on the sofa for a quick nap and had been reassured Monsieur Brandt was “comfortable” and had even regained consciousness briefly. Taylor had left instructions with anyone who would talk to him to call regarding any change.

Stone said, “Arthur will make it. They couldn’t save his arm.”

Shit.

Taylor said, “I’m on my way to see Bonnet.”

Stone clicked off.

Taylor stumbled upstairs to borrow a clean shirt from Will and get changed. Nine minutes later he was in Will’s Cadillac Escalade, negotiating Paris midmorning traffic. He arrived eventually at the Prefecture of Police shaken but unharmed—and dead set on using public transportation for the rest of his stay anytime possible.

The mood at police headquarters was much darker than the previous day. Taylor found his way to Inspector Bonnet’s office. She had bags under her red-rimmed eyes—but then so did he.

“I was sorry to hear about your colleagues,” Taylor said after the initial greetings.

Bonnet dipped her head. “Yes. Two good men. Two good officers. It is a tragedy for the entire city.” She managed a tired smile. “I was happy to hear that William is recovering.”

Taylor nodded.

She said, “You have been friends a long time?”

“Four years now. We were partners in the States.” Funny how it felt longer. As though he’d always known Will, as though Will had always been part of his life.

Bonnet smiled wanly. “Yes. I know. He was looking very much forward to your trip.” To Taylor’s relief, she briskly changed the subject. “We have had a break in our case. Marie Laroche has been discovered living in a commune twelve kilometers from Fontainebleau.”

“Is Helloco with her?”

“Non. However, you may ask her of his whereabouts yourself. It is the wish of your director that you accompany us to interrogate her.”

“Fine by me. Let’s go.” Taylor hooked a thumb over his shoulder.

Go they did, sirens screaming. Taylor was tempted to cover his eyes until they were safely out of the city proper. At the best, driving in Paris felt like playing bumper cars with very angry children. At the worst, it seemed to him that everyone in the city had a death wish—and very low insurance premiums. Funny that he hadn’t been nervous with Will behind the wheel. In fact, he barely remembered anything of their drives together other than Will.

The other police officers and Bonnet mostly discussed the tragedy in the catacombs. Bonnet translated their conversation for Taylor’s benefit. He learned that, ironically, the explosives had been set well away from the central passageway. Whatever had set them off—an unlucky rat?—the resulting blast need not have had lethal consequences. Unfortunately the catacombs were not the most stable of structures, and the underground blowout had set up a devastating chain reaction.

Taylor suggested, “It’s possible then that Finistère did not intend anyone to be harmed by the explosion?”

“That is unlikely given the mission of Finistère.”

“If they have a mission.”

Bonnet’s eyes met his.

“Has anyone questioned the former members of Finistère?”

“That is being done now. We have officers on their way to Fleury-Mérogis Prison to interrogate the remaining members of the organization. We will see what they have to say.” She gave another of those graceful shrugs.

With that, Taylor had to be content.

* * *

The farmhouse had been built before the French Revolution, and Laroche looked like she could have been living there since the first stones of the foundations were laid. The years—and prison—had not been kind to her. The photos Taylor had seen had been of a slender blonde girl who consciously or unconsciously played up a startling resemblance to Brigitte Bardot. Any trace of that girl was long gone. Somewhere along her travels—or travails—she’d picked up a piratical scar across her left eye. But even without the disfiguring furrow, she looked more like someone who’d be at home sitting in front of a guillotine shrieking for more heads than the chic little revolutionary she’d once been.

Although Marie spoke some English, the interrogation took place in French with Bonnet quickly translating the rapid-fire exchanges.

“Finistère disbanded after Yann’s death. Finistère had nothing to do with yesterday’s attack. This is what she says.”

“This is what they all say,” Taylor retorted. “Ask her where Helloco is now.”

“She insists Yann died in the explosion,” Bonnet told Taylor after she asked his million-dollar question and got Marie’s plugged-nickel answer. “Whoever this man is that you saw in the airport, he is not Helloco.”

“I bet. Ask her if she knows Yannick Hinault.”

Bonnet asked the question.

Marie shook her head.

Taylor said, “Tell her I believe that Hinault is Helloco.”

Bonnet repeated his words. Marie’s expression was contemptuous. “
Porc stupide
!” She rattled off a short and clearly to-the-point sentence.

Bonnet looked mildly apologetic. “Marie says she is in better position to know if her lover is dead than you.”

“Then how does she explain how some forty years ago the only body in that blown-up country house in Sarthe belonged to Guillaume Durand, the gardener?”

Bonnet relayed the request. Marie gave Taylor a long, strange look before she responded. Her answer seemed to excite the other two police officers. Bonnet looked doubtful.

“What did she say?”

Bonnet replied, “She says that
both
Yann and the gardener died that day. She says she, Roland, and Didier removed Helloco’s body after the explosion. They did this to try to keep us, the police, from discovering that the estate in Sarthe was used as a safe house.”

Marie continued to stare at him with her basalt gaze. Taylor said, “What did they do with Helloco’s body?”

Bonnet inquired, and Marie answered shortly. Bonnet shook her head. “She says they buried it in the woods.”

“What woods?”

“The woods surrounding the estate. I think she is lying. The woods were searched repeatedly, and this grave would have been discovered.”

Watching their faces, Marie added something else and gave a harsh smoker’s laugh.

Bonnet said, “She says they hid the grave too well for us to find. I do not believe her.”

Taylor wasn’t convinced one way or the other. Marie might be lying. She didn’t display the obvious giveaways of looking into space or changing vocal pitch or fidgeting, but prison was a great training ground. Even FACS, or micro expressions, were open to multiple interpretations. And on the other side of the coin, Bonnet was naturally defensive on behalf of her colleagues. Even in the most closely conducted investigations, mistakes were made.

“It’s easy enough to prove. She can take us to the gravesite, and you can run a DNA sampling on whatever’s left of him.”

Maybe Marie could guess the direction the investigation was going to go because she interjected another string of French.

“She says it was too long ago and the grave was concealed too well. She could never find it now.”

“She’ll never know until she tries.”

Bonnet translated for Marie, who folded her arms and stared fixedly into space.

Taylor said, “Throw her wrinkled butt in jail and ask her again in forty-eight hours.”

His tone must have made his feelings clear. Marie glared at him. Bonnet stifled a stern smile. “You are what they call a hard-ass, Agent MacAllister,
oui
?”

“Me?” Taylor raised his brows. “I’m a pussycat. Go on. Tell her she’s headed back to prison.”

“But you realize we cannot jail her for such an infraction as you suggest? There is the parole violation, oui, but we do not really have  anything to link her to—”

“Charge her as an accessory—or whatever you call it over here—to last night’s attack on the catacombs.”

Bonnet frowned. “
I
cannot make such allegations. We have already investigated, and as she has informed us, there is proof that she possesses an alibi for all of yesterday. She does not appear to have received any visitors—”

“Somebody from Finistère claimed responsibility, and according to her, she’s the only remaining member of Finistère still on the loose. Remind her of that. You have that guilty-until-proven-innocent thing, right?”

Bonnet said tartly, “Oui, but we prefer to arrest and charge the correct people, Agent MacAllister.” All the same she turned to Laroche and began to speak.

Laroche folded her arms and stared stubbornly out the window at the blue-green blur of the distant forest. However, Taylor—or the memory of the atrocity the night before—prevailed, and Laroche was duly arrested and bundled into a police car that preceded them back to town.

* * *

It was six o’clock that evening before Taylor was at last able to get over to the hospital. He’d tried calling twice during the day, but once he’d been informed Will was sleeping, and the second time the doctor had been with Will. So it did nothing to improve his temper when he finally walked into Will’s hospital room only to find Naval Lieutenant Commander David Bradley sitting beside Will’s bed with a big, fat grin on his face.

Taylor checked in the doorway.

Will looked up and smiled, his eyes lit. “Hey. Where’ve you been all day?”

“Trying to figure out who dropped a crypt on you.” He smiled without warmth at Bradley, who had stood at his entrance.

Bradley said, “Can I talk to you, MacAllister?”

Taylor looked from Bradley’s strained face to Will, who was still smiling and holding a hand out in greeting.

“Can it wait?” Taylor moved toward the bed, but Bradley intercepted him.

“No.”

Taylor opened his mouth, but the message in Bradley’s eyes was urgent.

“MacAllister? Where the hell are you two going?” Will complained as they stepped into the hall.

“Back in a minute, Will,” Bradley said.

“What’s going on?” Taylor demanded. He’d only met Bradley once before, but he wasn’t an easy guy to forget, being very big and very handsome. He had thick brown hair and warm brown eyes. When off duty he sported a beard, but he was not off duty now, and he looked offensively impressive in his uniform. Taylor hated that he had to look up to meet the other man’s gaze.

Bradley’s ham-sized hand closed around Taylor’s biceps, and he forcibly shifted him a few feet down the hall and out of earshot of the room.

Taylor freed himself. He was now thoroughly alarmed and thoroughly angry. “What the hell’s going on?”

“Shut up and listen.” Bradley kept his voice low.

Taylor’s apprehension ratcheted up another notch. “Say it. Whatever it is.”

“Will is…a little confused.”

He’d been thinking subdural hematoma or spinal injuries or… He didn’t know what he’d been thinking, but all of it had been terrifying and terminal. His abject relief that it was none of these things, nothing serious at all, apparently, mutated to fury. He shoved Bradley.

“
Confused
? What does that mean? Jesus, I thought—why the fuck did you—”

It was like shoving an elephant. Bradley barely shifted, didn’t seem to notice, in fact—which was even more infuriating. He cut across Taylor’s angry outburst with a crisp, “I mean he doesn’t remember that you two are together.”

Taylor froze. “What?”

“He doesn’t remember the last year or so. Or at least his memories are sketchy. He doesn’t remember that you have a relationship beyond work.” Bradley added, “And friendship.”

Taylor’s mouth opened. “I… What?”

“There’s more. And, from your perspective, worse.”

David
. He knew what was coming. His heart was pounding so loudly he almost couldn’t make out Bradley’s voice, but he knew what he was saying, could read his expression and his lips.

“He thinks he and I are still dating,” Bradley told him.

Chapter Eight

“What was that about?” Will asked when David returned to the room. “Where’s MacAllister?”

“Using the head.” David took the chair next to the bed and smiled into his eyes.

“Yeah? Then give me a kiss before he gets back.” Not that Will felt like kissing. His head ached like a son of a bitch, he felt vaguely nauseated, and for someone who had apparently spent fourteen hours in bed, very, very tired. And then there were the giant moth holes in his memory. But there was something troubling in David’s gaze. Almost a trace of sadness.

“I don’t think your doctor would—”

“Shaddup,” Will growled.

David leaned over, smiling, and their mouths brushed. That was better. Nice. Familiar.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Taylor said from the doorway, and David jumped and sat up as straight as if he were undergoing a military inspection. Or possibly a rectal exam, given the extreme discomfort of his expression.

“Didn’t anyone ever teach you to knock,” Will drawled.

Speaking of expressions, Taylor looked ghastly. His face was bone white, his eyes shadowed and red-rimmed. He looked sick. Will’s memory flickered. Something about Taylor being ill. Nearly dying? It worried him. He needed to hurry up and remember. But Taylor must be okay now because he was working again. According to Stone he’d been out all day chasing leads to last night’s terrorist attack. So he had to be okay, right?

Why couldn’t he remember this stuff?

Taylor still stood in the doorway. Since when did he wait for an invitation?

“You okay?” Will asked.

“Great.” Taylor came in and took the room’s other chair. He gave David a baleful look, and David looked guilty. What. The. Hell. It wasn’t Will’s imagination. There were more currents running through this room than the entire Pacific.

“How are
you
feeling?” Taylor turned to Will.

“Like someone dropped a piano on me.”

A familiar if faint gleam lit Taylor’s gaze. “Maybe you tried to sing for them.”

“Nah. I know better by now.”

“What’s that?” David asked, watching them.