Rogue Angel 54: Day of Atonement (6 page)

Roux would speak to the girl. She would tell him about the near-miss and the falling rocks at Carcassonne, and the old man would know it wasn’t accidental. He would know that she had been lucky—lucky to have been warned just in the nick of time that she was in the path of the masonry, sent falling at his word. And for that moment Roux would know Cauchon had had her life in his hands and could easily have snuffed it out had he so wanted.

The change in the tone of Roux’s voice as he’d mentioned Annja’s name had been delicious. It was all the confirmation he had needed to know he was right. He had never intended to kill the young woman, just shake her up, and only then so that she could pass the scare on
to the old man so he would realize his mysterious caller meant business.

The old man was going to pay.

Cauchon played his fingers across the row of SIM cards he had lined up on the table in front of him, each one still attached to the credit-card-size retainers.

He had no intention of making it easy for Roux. That would only serve to take the sport out of it. Cauchon knew Roux wouldn’t turn to the police. That was an avenue that was never open to him. Far more likely was him taking matters into his own hands. Cauchon welcomed the idea. Let the old bastard fight back. Breaking him then would be so much more satisfying.

It didn’t matter if the girl herself believed that the incident was actually an accident. No doubt Roux would disabuse her of that notion when he talked to her, and that would keep her looking over her shoulder, on edge. Uncomfortable.

Cauchon was banking on the belief that Roux was protective of her. He had plenty of reasons to believe he was right.

He watched the hands of the clock on the wall slowly turn.

He wanted to give the old man time to find out what had happened and then more time to think about the call, to let his words get under his skin. He wanted him to start worrying, to imagine what might happen next. He wanted him to be constantly worrying, doubting, looking at strangers and thinking,
Are you the one trying to get to me?

And then he wanted to visit the man’s worst nightmares upon him.

They drove back to the hotel in near-silence, Philippe constantly tuning the radio in search of a song that wasn’t going to get on his nerves. Obviously it wasn’t about the music. It didn’t matter what he found. Nothing matched his mood. Annja resisted the temptation to lean over and kill the radio. She concentrated on the road, checking her rearview mirror a couple of times more than she normally would have.

As much as she didn’t want to admit it, Roux’s call had disturbed her. She knew he was always concerned about her well-being, but that the first thing he said was to question whether the incident at Carcassonne was an accident…that was a little paranoid, even for him. So she was watching, even if she wasn’t sure what she was watching for. Of course it had crossed her mind that the falling masonry
could
have been something other than a freakish accident, especially as Roux had chosen that moment to call her. Annja had been in the old man’s orbit enough not to believe in coincidence. He hadn’t misdialed as he’d said.
He was checking up on her. And once her mind started down that path she knew it wasn’t an accident.

She thought about the silver Mercedes.

Cause and effect? Or seeing patterns where there were none?

“What do you want to do about food?”

“I like the way you think.” She grinned.

Philippe shrugged and started to fiddle with the radio again. “I’m French. We love good food and good company.”

“And I sure could use a drink.” Annja tried to stay focused, but her thoughts kept going back to her conversation with Roux.

“Now I’m liking the way you’re thinking,” Philippe murmured as he glanced out the side window. Clever. She could be friends with this one, she decided.

“I think we might even stretch it to sharing a bottle,” she suggested.

It wasn’t long before her mind was elsewhere though, as the horn of a car traveling toward them on the other side of the road blared, causing her to admit she’d drifted toward the middle of the road. Instinctively, she jerked to correct the drift, overcompensating and yanking the wheel too hard in the other direction, which had the seat belts bite hard into their shoulders.

“Whoa, there, speedy. I know you want me, but let’s get to the bar in one piece, eh?”

“You wish,” she snapped back, regretting it the moment the words left her mouth. She tightened her grip on the wheel and eased her foot off the accelerator. “Sorry, it’s been a weird day.”

“All the more reason to end it with a friend,” Philippe said, and she realized he was right.

“I need to blow off some steam.”

“I think I can help with that,” the cameraman said with a wry smile.

“I’m sure you can.”

Garin was in the air within the hour.

He leaned back in the seat as soon as he was able to switch to automatic pilot. He wouldn’t normally have taken the stick himself. It was late, he’d been working hard all day, then playing harder, but there was something about being up in the clouds, surrounded on all sides by the stars, the lights blinking on the wings, the city laid out below in a landscape of molded light, that clung to the world. It was one of the most beautiful sights, so completely manmade, unlike many of the other spectacular things he’d seen in his life.

It was a sight he could never grow tired of.

Up here, away from the world, he could think.

His hacker had already come through with the information Roux was looking for, but he wasn’t going to pass it on to the old man yet. Information was as good as currency. And given he wanted something in exchange for it, he wasn’t about to say anything until they were face-to-face. Garin was good at reading people. That particular skill had made him a lot of money. He was also good at
exploiting weaknesses and vulnerabilities. He fully intended to make himself indispensable to the old man and, once he was on the inside, pull the strings.

Garin was determined to get his hands on Guillaume Manchon’s papers, but not simply to hand over to his mysterious client. He wanted to know what was in them himself. Knowledge. If it wasn’t money, it was knowledge that greased the wheels in this life. And then he’d decide if they were worth more than the agreed sum, and just how desperately his buyer wanted them. It wasn’t personal. It was purely business. Roux would understand one day.

Garin had been surprised at the ease with which the hacker had traced the source of the call and turned up the information the old man was looking for, but then, a location was worthless in this day and age when you could circumnavigate the globe in twenty-four hours. The caller would have moved. Potentially a long way. Even so, he’d paid the hacker a hefty bonus to keep on digging and see what else he could turn up.

Now he was more interested in his own questions, like what it was that had gotten Roux spooked about the call, and how it was connected to Annja and the medieval town of Carcassonne. Because there was always a connection. Nothing in life was random when it came to trouble—especially the kind of trouble Roux brought to the party.

It had been a while since Garin had last heard from Annja, but that was hardly a surprise, given that he was once again persona non grata thanks to a little greed on his part. He couldn’t exactly remember what it was he was supposed to have done, but obviously it had offended her sensibilities. She didn’t approve of the way he lived his life. He didn’t take it to heart. But it would be best for both of them if she would just learn to shrug things off. Nothing was that important in the grand scheme. And it
wasn’t as if he actively set out to piss her off; that was just an unconsidered consequence of his actions. Surely the fact he didn’t mean to do it should count for something?

He glanced at his watch. He was making good time.

The radio burst into life with a request from the airport.

The short hop had taken an hour, and the time had rushed by so quickly that he’d almost missed the twenty-minute descent and wound up bringing the jet down a little more sharply than intended. With no passengers to complain about the steep angle of descent and hitting the runway hard, he wasn’t worried. He’d called ahead, so his car was already waiting for him in the parking lot.

He allowed himself a smug, satisfied smile; it felt good to be him.

Next stop, the chateau.

Once he was inside those doors, in Roux’s inner sanctum, the rest would be child’s play.

Garin lived for this kind of stuff.

Even after all these years, he enjoyed it when the apprentice could get one over on the master.

But then, it was all a game to him, and money was just a way of keeping score.

Roux never seemed surprised to see him.

It was as if he knew Garin wouldn’t do as he was told.

The old man’s expression was utterly unsurprised when he opened the door to find him on the doorstep.

“You have news?” Roux asked as he ushered him inside.

“Carcassonne,” Garin said, pausing just long enough to make sure that he was well inside Roux’s home before he said it. He had to make sure the old man couldn’t just close the door in his face now that he had what he wanted. He wouldn’t have put it past him. They had a peculiar relationship these days. Once upon a time Garin had been the student, Roux his mentor, master. He knew the old man better than anyone alive—better than himself probably. He knew he wasn’t averse to using people to get what he wanted, then discarding them when he had it.

That one word shook the old man.

Without another word he led the way through passageways of priceless oil paintings and previously lost antiquities into his study. The wealth assembled in the house
was beyond counting. Roux crossed the room, straight to the old freestanding globe beside his leather-inlaid desk, and opened the world up to get at the drinks inside.

“I take it you are thirsty?” Without waiting for an answer, he uncapped a bottle of brandy aged to the point of musky perfection. He handed a snifter to Garin and sat in the leather armchair beside the guttering coals of the open fireplace. Garin sniffed at the liquid, knowing it dated back to the time of Napoléon.

“All right, now that we’re being all civilized, do you want to tell me what’s so special about Carcassonne?” he asked.

“Annja’s there,” Roux said as though that answered everything.

“So?”

“So, think. I get an anonymous call asking if I’ve heard from her. When I eventually get hold of her, I find that she’s had a near-miss with half a castle wall, and both the phone call and the near-catastrophe originate from Carcassonne.”

“Okay, I’ll give you that—two events, same town. So you think your caller fired a warning shot? But was it meant to kill her, or screw with you?”

“I don’t know. Yet. But we have to work under the impression that option number one is true, and just hope the answer to number two is the reality we’re actually facing.”

“Motive? Why would someone want to kill Annja? Revenge?” There were any number of people she’d crossed in the past who could come looking for some kind of payback. It wasn’t impossible even if it was improbable. But who, then, would tie her to Roux? That changed everything in Garin’s mind. It surely meant the trail ran instead from him to her. They hadn’t exactly broadcasted their relationship. Roux was the kind of man who lived
his life in the shadows even if his protégé was one for living in the spotlight.

“Possibly, but I’m inclined to send the questions the other way. Who would want to draw me out by threatening her? Who would have the wherewithal to get hold of my phone number and orchestrate something like this?”

“It’s not
that
hard to get hold of a telephone number. Telecommunications companies don’t exactly have the most effective security systems in place, even given your special arrangements, so we can assume he bribed someone, or has an element of technological know-how. The thing is, it didn’t take long to source the call, did it? So he can’t be that clever.”

“I suppose not,” Roux said thoughtfully. He raised his snifter to his lips and took a slow swallow, then rolled the remaining brandy around the glass. “Of course, it would be a lot easier if the caller already knew the number, or knew someone who did.”

Garin could feel the old man’s stare burning into him.

“You can’t really believe that I have anything to do with this?”

Roux said nothing.

“Do you really think so little of me?”

Roux said nothing.

“Seriously, this has nothing to do with me. I was in bed with a beautiful woman when you called. I would tell you who so you could corroborate this, but I didn’t get around to getting her name. I’ve got nothing to do with this. Come on, Roux, we go back a long way. You know I wouldn’t hurt Annja.”

“No, but you’d screw with me, so if you knew she was never in danger?”

“She’s one of us, Roux. She’s just like you and me. It’s the three of us against the world.”

“Is it? Is that how you really see things? I thought it was, but after the Pass of the Moor’s Last Sigh it’s hard to believe you sometimes. I think the things you want are very different from the things we want.”

“Okay, so I like the finer things in life. I would say that’s not a crime, but obviously sometimes it is. But you
know
me. You know I’d never hurt her.” It was true, and he was very delicately dancing around the fact that he’d come here with every intention of stealing from the old man. The objects of his nefarious intention were only a few feet away in his hidden vault. There was wealth beyond imagining in that vault, not just in monetary value, either. The old man was a hoarder. He had works of art and irreplaceable antiquities all around the house. He wasn’t worried about prying eyes seeing those, so he didn’t keep them under lock and key. It was only things that could lead back to who he really was that ended up in the vault. Secrets.

“You may be telling the truth,” the old man said, but he didn’t sound entirely convinced. Garin was a gambling man. He knew a safe bet when he saw one. Roux still thought he was behind the whole scheme. Old habits died the hardest. Garin had to force himself not to look over the old man’s shoulder at the vault.