The Dark Hour (7 page)

“This is fine,” Sydney replied, since what she really wanted to do was allow Petra some time to herself, to gather her thoughts.

“The bathroom is down at the end of the hall.”

“Thanks.”

Sydney closed the panel door behind her, shivering as she walked down the short hall. She used the bathroom, washed her hands in the icy water, then shut it off. The white tiled room was more than cold, it was frigid, no doubt due to the inefficiency of the double-hung window. The snow came down in swirls outside, and as she dried her hands on the towel, she heard Petra cry out.

Sydney opened the bathroom door, listened. The hallway was empty, the panel door leading to the office still closed. She moved silently down the hall. As she neared the hidden door, she heard a man’s voice, deep, gravel-edged, and no trace of an accent. “Where is it?”

“Where is what?” Petra asked, sounding frightened.

“Hey. Look at this,” came another man’s voice, this one not as deep. “Dead ringer for the boss’s girlfriend.”

“Who drew this?” the first man asked.

“I—the artist. She’s . . . upstairs. In the bathroom.”

Upstairs? About to push open the panel, Sydney froze at the clear warning. She had no weapon. Her cell phone was in her bag on the other side of the door . . .

“Find her,” the man said. “Maybe she has it.”

“Has what?” Petra asked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“She looks like she’s telling the truth,” the second man said. “I don’t think she knows anything.”

“That makes it easy. Kill her.”

Chapter 10

December 5

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

S
ydney’s heart jumped at the sound of the gunshot. She stepped back. Stared in horror at the closed door. And prayed that whoever had fired that weapon was not familiar with this house and its hidden panels . . .

“Search upstairs,” came the gravel voice. “I’ll check this level.”

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed. A few seconds. A few minutes. Her pulse pounded so loudly in her ears, she had difficulty hearing whether they’d left the room to look for her. If by chance Petra was alive, her only hope was in Sydney escaping, getting help. Petra had to have known that, or why else would she send them on a false errand looking for her upstairs?

Sydney returned down the hall, eyeing the frost-covered panes of glass, wondering if she could get the window open without them hearing. It was just large enough for her to fit through. With no other options, she stepped up on the toilet seat, unlatched the window, and pushed up. It stuck at first, then made a creaking sound as wood scraped against wood.
Please don’t let them hear it
, she thought.

Large flakes swirled from the sky, landing on the sill. She looked down at the base of the house, hoping the snowdrifts were soft or deep enough to break her fall.

“You hear something?”

“Yeah. Right behind this wall.”

A knock on the paneled door. And then someone kicking it, causing the walls to shiver. Now or never, she thought, hearing the sound of splintering wood down the hallway.

She clambered through the window, then dropped. Landed on the rock-solid snowbank, sliding onto her butt. The palms of her hands burned from scraping the ice. Ignoring the pain in her tailbone, she picked herself up. The house stood on the corner, which meant she could be seen from either direction. She ran across the narrow street, then ducked behind a parked car on the canal side, the low metal railing the only thing keeping her from falling into the water. The snow fell fast and furious, sticking to the windows of the car, offering her some concealment. She dared a peek over the hood, saw one of the men exit the window she’d jumped from. He hesitated, looked down the street, then turned the corner walking quickly toward the front of the house.

She waited as long as she could stand the cold, not daring to move until she felt certain they weren’t lying in wait for her. Not that they needed to. It would take about ten seconds for them to determine her identity, whether from her name on the cover of her sketchbook, or her business cards in the bag she’d left behind.

Shivering, she took another look. It was damned freezing out here without a coat. And now she was standing in a foreign country she’d never been to, with no money, no phone, and someone bent on killing her.

She glanced down the street, wondering if she could backtrack, find the police station from here, and then she thought about Van der Lans and how he’d left them. On purpose? Or was this a crime of opportunity
because
he’d left? And if so, were they expecting her to go to the police, because that was the logical thing to do? Just about everything she thought of was logical, and she had the gut feeling that she needed to be very illogical about her next steps if she was to survive. Griffin’s enemies tended to be on the sophisticated side, a far cry from the usual bank robber or serial killer with whom she was used to dealing. And that limited whom she could turn to for help. Every contact number she needed was in her cell phone in Petra’s house, including any means of contacting Griffin or Tex.

Think. Van der Lans had driven her past the red-light district and also her hotel. She thought she could find the bed-and-breakfast at the very least, and there would certainly be a phone there.

She checked both directions, didn’t see anyone, and got up. Teeth chattering, she walked casually away from the car she’d been hiding behind, buttoning her too-thin blazer, trying to blend in, look like a local—not that there were any locals out in this weather. Only when she was out of sight did she quicken her pace, tucking her freezing hands beneath her arms. After several minutes, she figured she might be somewhere in the vicinity of the hotel Carillo had recommended.

A frigid gust sent a flurry of snow into Sydney’s face. She closed her eyes against the sting. When she opened them again, she turned, saw a dark figure racing toward her. She didn’t stop to see if he was after her, or just someone in a hurry. She ran, darted around the first corner. And ended up on a street with a few windows lit by neon lights. The red-light district. The street appeared nearly deserted, the snow came down faster. She pounded on the first door she came to.

The window was lit, but the curtain drawn.

No answer. Syd tried the door, found it locked. She moved to the next door. And then the next. As she pounded on the fourth door, she looked up, saw a dark-haired woman, dressed only in a white lace bra and thong underwear, staring down at her. Sydney waved, beckoning her to answer the door.

She waited, turned back to the street, hearing a boat’s engine echoing down the canal. Through the blur of snow, she saw a low-slung barge chugging her way. As peaceful as the boats moored in the canal appeared, she had completely overlooked that the water might be an avenue of danger.

In desperation she turned, pounded on the door again. “Hello? Anyone there?”

The door opened slightly and the woman who’d been watching her from the window peered out, looking amused. “My customers are usually male.” Her accent was thick.

Sydney looked over her shoulder, heard the boat engine nearing, then someone shouting. She turned back to the door. “I need help. Please.”

Chapter 11

One hour later

December 5

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

G
riffin parked his car around the corner, then approached Petra’s house, squinting against the snow, which was falling in near whiteout conditions. He’d heard through Tex that Detective Van der Lans had called to say that he was going to be delayed. Tex thought it might be a good chance for Griffin to drop in, see the sketch before Van der Lans returned. Griffin only hoped he could get in there without Sydney asking questions about a case that he wasn’t ready to talk about. He’d heard that she’d nearly declined to do the sketch. And though he didn’t think Sydney was the sort to hold a grudge, he wondered if her reticence had to do with him failing to show up for Thanksgiving.

He tried to ignore the fact that if he’d simply called her, things might be different. But the anniversary of his wife’s death had taken a larger emotional toll than he’d expected. Explaining the reason he’d dropped off the grid was not something he was ready to do either then or now, he thought, as he took the porch steps two at a time, about to reach for the brass knocker. His hand froze midair. The door was slightly ajar.

He listened. Heard absolutely nothing. Drawing his gun, he pushed the door open with his foot. He stepped in, eyed the hallway, then the staircase. Empty. Tex would have called if they’d finished. He would’ve sent a copy of the sketch to his cell phone. Or at the very least mentioned that it was on its way to the police station. Whatever was going on, he didn’t like it.

The first door on the left was open. He stopped at the threshold, gun at the ready. After a quick glance down the hall, still empty, he entered the room. Saw the sketchbook on the table. The woman’s body on the floor, a fallen chair in front of it, blocking his view. And next to the body, a black canvas case, its contents dumped out, scattered. He recognized Sydney’s bag and the coat lying beside it.

He entered, scanned the room, saw the paneled door that had been kicked in. He walked toward the body. His pulse thundered as he pulled the chair away from it to see the face.

It wasn’t Sydney . . .

They had murdered Petra. A bullet between her eyes. He turned back to the room, looked around. His gaze landed on the sketchbook. He flipped through a few of the pages. No drawing.

He examined the splintered panel door. Walked down the short hallway. Saw the bathroom at the end, the open window. He checked the rest of the house and was descending the stairs when his cell phone vibrated.

It was Tex.

“Whatever it is,” Griffin said, “I don’t have time. Petra’s dead and Sydney’s missing.”

“I’ve already heard. It’s partly why I’m calling. You’ve been burned. Blacklisted. Your operational status has been pulled. And if you don’t get the hell out of there soon, they’re likely to add murder to the charges. The police are en route to your location, because they’ve heard you’ve gone there to kill Petra.”

Griffin stopped in his tracks. He shouldn’t have been surprised, especially since the man he was sure was responsible for Faas’s murder had tried to pin it on Griffin at the scene. If not for Petra decrying his innocence, Griffin wouldn’t have escaped the mob from the tram. And now Petra—the only one who saw the man’s face—was dead. Griffin reached down, scooped up Sydney’s things, piling them onto the table on top of her sketchbook. “How long do I have?”

“Less time than you think.”

“I’ve got to find Sydney.”

“She’s fine. She called me at the
Recorder.
She thinks she was followed, but managed to lose them. I’m about to send a team in after her.”

“I need her, Tex. You know what this means to me.”

“Can’t do it, Griff.”

“The sketch is missing. I only saw the guy from across the street, and not even his face. If she finished it, she may be the only person alive who knows what he looks like.”

Tex didn’t answer right away.

Griffin heard sirens in the distance. “Tex?”

“She’s in the red-light district.” He read off the address. “I’ll give you fifteen minutes’ lead time.”

“Thank you.” He grabbed Sydney’s things, shoved them into her bag, then picked up her coat.

“Look, Griff. You don’t get her to an airport ASAP, that entire country will be crawling with operatives looking for you. McNiel won’t be happy if he has to explain to the Bureau how it is we lost an FBI agent in the Netherlands, before we even got approval to bring her there—and at this rate, I don’t see them green-lighting this. It’ll be one more nail in your coffin. I don’t know who it is, but they’re out to get you on this. That case was closed two years ago, and you were told to leave it alone.”

“I did leave it alone. For two years.”

“Like hell you did.”

Now wasn’t the time to waste in a useless argument. The last thing Griffin needed was to be on the wrong side of the jailhouse door with no way out. “You promised me fifteen minutes. Gotta go.”

G
riffin was halfway down the block when the first patrol car, siren blaring, zipped around the corner, its wheels sliding on the icy paving stones. Grateful for the snow that covered his escape, Griffin continued at a brisk pace to his car. His eye on the mirror, he drove a circuitous route in hopes of avoiding any possibility of surveillance. It took him minutes longer than he would have liked, but with an international warrant, he couldn’t take any chances. The snow was coming down heavily when he finally knocked on the door, trying to imagine how it was that Sydney came to be holed up in a prostitute’s house. Many of the windows on the street were dark, the street itself empty.

Someone pulled a curtain aside from the above window. A moment later, the door opened. Sydney stood there, a sight for sore eyes. “Petra. She—”

“I know,” he said, stepping into the doorway, closing the door behind him. He handed Sydney her coat, but kept her bag slung over his shoulder. “We need to go. Now.”

“As friendly as ever. This is Ivana,” Sydney said as she put her coat on. “I think you should pay her for her time. She’s lost business taking me in.”

He looked past her, saw a young woman dressed in a thin robe, sitting on a cot-sized bed in a small narrow room just beyond the entryway. She was in the process of lighting a cigarette. And though he doubted that all but the most desperate would come out in this weather, Griffin pulled out his wallet, dropped a hundred euros on the table just inside her room. That done, he opened the door, saw two men walking in their direction, then shut the door again. “I don’t suppose you have a back way out of here?”

Ivana rose from her seat, picked up the money. “Down the hall, third door on the right. The door next to the stairwell. But it leads only to a common garden.”