Page 78 of Icebound
“When is Jean-Marc due back?” she asked.
“Any day now. If he’s back early, he can join you.”
Did that mean they were planning to kill Bastien too? Maybe she was being paranoid, but she didn’t think so. For all Le Fauçon’s avuncular good will, he was still her enemy, and she knew too much. If Bastien didn’t return soon, her days were numbered.
Unless they expected Bastien to take care of business. He was hardly a sentimental man; the real Bastien had killed women he’d fucked. His doppelganger could very likely do the same, and he would never know that he loved her.
She was going to have to find her way out of here, and fast. She’d already searched her room, but there was no escape. Maybe she stood a better chance in the desert.
“It sounds lovely,” she said in a flat voice, and Luc gave her an encouraging smile.
“I promise to show you a good time,” he said, and she wondered if she hated him most of all.
It was after five o’clock and the evening traffic noise drifted up to the third floor of Spence-Pierce Financial Services and the two men sitting there. It wasn’t a pleasant conversation.
“You’re sure it was Bastien?”
Peter Madsen eyed his companion, Finn MacGowan, with exasperation. “What do you think? He was aiming for her. I shot at him but Chloe pushed him out of the way.”
“I should think so. Are you sure he was aiming at LaDonna? Maybe he was aiming at some threat to her…” His voice trailed off. His Irish accent had faded from his years of living in the States, but it was still recognizable. “No, I suppose not.”
“Considering he killed her the next day, I could say I’m pretty sure,” Madsen said with some asperity.
“Well, what the hell is going on, then? Last I heard, Bastien and Chloe were living in the woods in North Carolina, out of the business. And where the hell are their children?”
“Their children are with ours. They planned to spend the summer with us a long time ago. But Bastien disappeared a month and a half ago and Chloe’s been gone two weeks, and my assistant for the last four years tried to kill me when I found out where he was…”
MacGowan leaned forward in his chair. “Anderson tried to kill you? Why?”
“He didn’t have time to tell me.”
“And he worked for you for four years? Any sign that he was on the other side?”
“He was entirely reliable,” Peter said in disgust. “I don’t know if he was always bent or if someone turned him at the end. I’m afraid it was kill or be killed and I didn’t stop to think.”
“Who do you think is behind this mess?”
Madsen shrugged. “It could be any number of players, but I’m assuming it’s Le Fauçon. The assassination of LaDonna has his fingerprints all over it. The only problem is, Bastien went after him a long time ago, nearly caught him. Le Fauçon would hardly let him back into the fold.”
“You think Bastien’s undercover?”
“Not without my knowing it. He’s been retired for more than fifteen years, and now this. And dragging Chloe into it as well. Though my guess is, she did better than us and found him first, and he simply pulled her into it.”
“That doesn’t sound like Bastien. He worships the woman,” MacGowan said.
“None of it makes any sense.” Peter’s exasperation was clear. “Their kids are beginning to wonder why Chloe hasn’t called them, and I almost killed their father with a bullet to his head. It’s a clusterfuck of monumental proportions, and I need help.”
“You need answers,” MacGowan said. “And I think I’ve got them. You ever heard of Agent Gray?”
“Who’s he?” Madsen said irritably.
“Not who, what. It’s a new drug that’s out, very hush-hush, very expensive. Like millions of dollars expensive.”
“And you’re going to tell me it can turn my agent?”
“Bastien isn’t your agent anymore. Neither am I. But yes, it could turn Bastien. It’s a combination of powerful drugs that can brainwash someone so effectively that he’d kill his own mother without a moment’s hesitation. I’m betting they’ve got Bastien on it and he doesn’t know who the hell he is.”
“That doesn’t explain Chloe being with him. Or do you think they’re drugging her too?”
