A Life Betrayed (Montreal #2)

Chapter Eighteen

“ T he deputy commissioner’s here,” Sabine said at the front desk when Frances showed up late to the office that morning. “He wants to see you.”

Frances nodded, still smarting from the events of the previous day. She’d suspected the family was accustomed to wiggling its way out of police scrutiny, but to have someone as prestigious as Grayson Dubois on their payroll… Dubois was legal royalty in Montreal and had recently acquitted a trio of municipal councilors in a high-profile embezzlement lawsuit. After scanning the civil claim Dubois had handed her in the interrogation room, she’d had little choice but to release Mathias.

Missteps had been made—she could admit to that. But Frances had wanted Mathias to feel in his bones what the next few decades of his life would be like. Yet he’d walked away unaffected—albeit slightly less put together. At least she’d succeeded in dulling that immaculate facade of his.

Deputy Commissioner Thomas Gill was waiting for her in the boardroom. “Morning, Inspector,” he said, offering out his hand.

“Deputy Commissioner,” she said as she moved to shake it. “I didn’t know you were in town.”

She’d worked with Gill on several cases over the years. He was nice enough, a barrel-chested man in his late forties who looked more tired every time she saw him. His wife had some sort of autoimmune disease, and he had two teenage boys in Ottawa but spent a considerable amount of time traveling between the provinces as he assisted in overseeing the RCMP’s C Division, which included Quebec.

“It was somewhat of an unplanned stop. I wanted to speak with you about the investigation,” he said, pulling out a chair.

Frances took a seat at the table across from him, keeping her face neutral. “Progress has been slower than I’d hoped.”

“I received a report on Friday that we had Beauvais in custody.”

She felt a spike of anger. After they’d released Mathias, she’d stood outside the booking room and watched him retrieve his personal effects with an arrogance that set her teeth on edge. “He’s been released.”

“Released?”

Frances looked past the deputy commissioner to the curling poster on the wall, which featured two uniformed Mounties holding their hands to their hearts. Maintiens le Droit , it read. “His lawyer contested the charges.”

Gill made a reproving noise with his tongue. “If Beauvais is proving difficult, why not focus on the other key figures? At this rate, we only need one to justify continuing the investigation.”

“They’re relics, figureheads. Beauvais has been the most active player in the province for years. He’s said to have orchestrated the expansion of the mob’s construction sector lending and is widely believed to have played a key role in Bianchi’s takeover.”

“You know, or you suspect?” the deputy commissioner asked carefully. “If there wasn’t anything to hold him long enough for a hearing, I’m not sure what you’re going off here.”

“Statements, evidence,” she replied, flustered. “I have William Truman of the Hamilton Red Reapers as an informant. He’s proven very helpful.”

“Not helpful enough.” Gill fixed her with a judicial stare. “I hate to have to do this, Frances, but we’re almost a year in and have nothing to show for it. HQ needs results to continue the funding. Otherwise, it will be shifted elsewhere.”

“They’ll pull the funding?” she asked, her voice rising. “We’re working against decades of entrenchment here. The family’s influence stretches as far as the mayor’s office, maybe further.”

Gill glanced down at his watch. “It’s out of my hands. Launching this investigation in Quebec was already a showy move. There are other cases that need the money, and HQ’s looking to repurpose some of it. It’s about optics at this point—”

“Otherwise what?” Frances challenged him. “We leave the province with our tails between our legs?”

“If it comes to that, HQ knows how to spin it. Throw the divisional office under the bus—Lord knows they’re finally due for some scrutiny. The Montreal branch has always been a weak link. I sent you out here to show them how it’s done, and when you eventually step away, and they don’t follow through—which we both know they won’t—it’s not on us.”

She narrowed her eyes. “To be frank, Deputy Commissioner, that benefits no one.”

“Who it benefits is not my problem. I just need to worry about where the money goes.”

There was a knock at the door, and Sergeant Gagnon poked his head into the room. “Sorry to interrupt, sir. Inspector, I’ve got legal on the phone about the civil claim.”

Frances could have kicked the man. Across from her, Gill raised his eyebrows. “Civil claim?”

“Beauvais’s lawyer is citing human rights violations,” Gagnon supplied almost eagerly.

To his credit, as someone more familiar with the Quebec legal system, he’d cautioned Frances about her tactics. However, he’d appeared unduly amused when the whole thing had ended as a bust. She’d procured the warrant for Mathias’s arrest from an Ontario judge she was on friendly terms with, bypassing regular proceedings in Montreal, only to find that the local magistrate was less inclined to side with her and had promptly thrown out the charges.

“Sergeant, have legal call back. I need to speak with Inspector Allen a moment longer,” the deputy commissioner instructed.

Frances steeled herself as Gagnon left the room. The door clicked shut behind him.

“I’ve known you almost your whole career, Frances. You’re tenacious, with an impressive track record, but you should know by now this job isn’t that simple. Not everything can be categorized neatly in terms of success and failure.” Gill folded his arms. “When you get too hung up on results, you make stupid mistakes. When you make stupid mistakes, you give the wrong people all sorts of opportunities.”

“I know,” she relented. “But come on, Thomas. We’ve done this so many times—we put the pressure on and pounce when they crack.”

The deputy commissioner frowned. “You said it yourself—the mob is entrenched here. This isn’t some two-bit street gang. They rub shoulders with the city’s elite. They have powerful friends in high places, and they will be looking to exploit any vulnerability you give them. We need everything to be aboveboard, by the book. You can’t afford to play fast and loose. And we can’t afford a legal battle—a fucking civil claim, Allen? Do you want the funds meant to put this man behind bars lining a bunch of lawyers’ pockets?”

She shook her head, chastened. “Point taken, sir.”

“Good. And on that note, I saw in the case file you have alerts set up with Transport Canada. Remove them. The last thing we need is for him to go after us for surveillance without probable cause.”

“Noted,” she replied tightly.

Gill gave a sigh. “It’s not like you to let a case get under your skin. I sent you out here for results, Inspector, so get your proverbial shit together. We’re running out of time.”

After the deputy commissioner left, Frances remained in the conference room until she’d managed to get a handle on her frustration. The last thing she needed was for the rest of the office to catch wind of her not-so-subtle rap on the knuckles. Seeing how dedicated they are to the investigation, she thought dryly.

When she stepped out into the hallway, she found Gagnon waiting by the elevator. “What did the deputy commissioner want?” he asked as she approached.

Frances suppressed a derisive snort. The sergeant had been gunning for her failure since she’d first arrived at the Montreal office. “Results. They’re looking to repurpose the funding if we don’t make progress soon,” she said, pressing the call button on the wall as the elevator whirred to life. “The suits at HQ have no idea what we’re up against, how things are out here.”

“Hate to say I told you so,” Gagnon said. “Ottawa’s only a few hours away, but it might as well be another country. Things work differently in Quebec.”

“So I keep hearing,” she said, trying to keep her voice even. The elevator doors opened, and they both stepped inside.

The sergeant waited until the doors had closed before turning to her. “While you were out earlier, surveillance called. Said they’ve been asked to pull back on Beauvais and can no longer approve the use of cameras. I think it might have something to do with—”

“Thanks for letting me know,” Frances cut in, well aware of what he thought.

First the funding and now the surveillance. How am I supposed to get results with no resources? It was as though HQ had lost faith in her ability to turn the investigation around after the bungled arrest and was preemptively retreating.

Seething, Frances returned Gagnon’s self-assured gaze. “You know, I was going through some of the old boxes in the filing room and discovered the strangest thing.” She studied his face for clues, but Gagnon simply stared back at her, undeterred. “Documents and photos missing. It looks like Beauvais’s former subordinate, Rayan Nadeau, has been wiped from the record entirely. Seems odd, doesn’t it?”

Gagnon shrugged. “Those boxes get passed around a lot of different departments. We’re working on a better system to ensure everything is accounted for when they come back.”

Frances hit the emergency-stop switch on the wall, and the elevator lurched to a halt. “If we’re being candid, Sergeant, it looks like an inside job. Like the mob had their reasons for wanting that information erased. I wonder what else may have slipped through the cracks in your system.”

Gagnon gave her a steely glare. “What exactly are you implying, Inspector?”

Frances stepped forward. “I thought that was pretty clear.”

“Are you accusing me and my department of disposing of federal evidence for the mafia? Just wanting to be sure you knew exactly how dangerous your insinuations are.”

“Well, you would know, right, if someone was tampering with evidence?”

“I would know,” Gagnon retorted, defiant.

“My mistake. I thought that was just another thing you did differently here.”

Gagnon leaned over to release the switch, and the elevator once again began to whir. “I’d be careful if I were you,” he warned quietly.

Frances gave a short laugh. “You sounded like Beauvais there for a second. So I’ll tell you what I told him: you don’t scare me.”

The doors opened with a ping, and she strode out of the elevator and into the office.

Mathias had known the call was coming, but that didn’t make it any easier when it did. The boss wanted to see him. No longer at his home—a privilege that had clearly lapsed—instead, he would meet Giovanni at Vol de Nuit, a club on the outskirts of Hochelaga. While the fall was to be expected, it was no less jarring, and Mathias tried not to draw parallels to the time Giovanni had broken the news of his impending transfer to Hamilton.

The club was unaffiliated, which made meeting here safer than one of the family’s own establishments. There was no telling what the Feds had eyes on at this point. Mathias walked in and slid the bouncer a fifty to gain access to the darkened passage behind the stage. Henri stood outside the door to a small room in the hallway and gave Mathias a short nod as he approached. He opened the door, and Mathias stepped into the room to find Giovanni seated at a table with a bottle of whiskey and two glasses.

Mathias pulled out a chair and sat down across from him, and the boss poured a generous amount into both glasses. “Drink,” he instructed.

Mathias took a swig, and Giovanni did the same then placed his glass down on the table with a dull clink.

“Lose the shirt,” the boss said.

Mathias balked. “Are you fucking serious?”

Giovanni fixed him with a hard stare.

Exhaling loudly through his nose, Mathias stood and shrugged off his jacket. He undid the buttons of his shirt and held it open to expose his bare chest. “Satisfied?” he snarled.

The boss nodded and reached into his pocket for his smokes. “It’s simply a precaution. You’ve got a lot of heat on you. Naturally, my first thought was whether you’d made some sort of arrangement.”

Mathias finished rebuttoning his shirt and tucked it back into the waistband of his slacks. “If you think I’d come here with a wire,” he said in a low voice, pulling on his jacket and once again taking a seat, “then quit wasting my time, and get Henri in here to finish me off.”

Giovanni chuckled, placing the cigarette between his lips and flicking his lighter. “No need to be dramatic.”

Mathias scowled. “Or better yet, do it yourself.”

The boss let out a slow curl of smoke and studied him carefully. “For whatever reason, the Feds have latched onto you. It seems your time is up.”

Mathias felt a drop in the pit of his stomach. Since being released, he’d managed to downplay the danger of his predicament. But coming from the boss’s mouth, the situation took on a whole new meaning.

“As long as they’re digging, we’re all in the line of fire,” Giovanni continued. “The way I see it, you have two paths going forward. One, stay and see what you can wriggle out of with that impressive Rolodex of contacts you keep—all the while knowing that prison is right around the corner. Or two, leave.”

Mathias struggled to hide his disbelief. “Leave? And betray my oath? I’ve given my fucking life to the family.”

The boss snorted. “Jesus, kid, you’re not even forty. Let me tell you about life, Mathias. It’s longer than you think.”

What the fuck am I supposed to do if not this?

“I’m not going to run like a coward,” Mathias snapped.

“And what would you do here? Your name is mud. I can’t have you involved in establishing a new direction for Collections—the RCMP will tear it to pieces. When you’ve got the smell of the Feds about you, everyone keeps their distance. I know you, Beauvais—you can’t sit still long enough to blow your fucking nose.” Giovanni reached for his glass. “Think about it. Plenty of men have left when the heat got too much, when they were looking at ten, fifteen years in the hole. Some of them come back. Others don’t.” He took a pointed sip.

“And the ones that don’t?” Mathias asked, his eyes narrowing. “Like Caravella. What happens to them?”

The boss stared at him across the table. “When someone gets too much attention, we cut them off. You know that. It’s nothing personal—think of it as self-preservation. Even now, I’m taking a risk meeting with you like this.”

During Mathias’s time, a few faces had quietly disappeared. Or taken the fall—exactly what had happened was never entirely clear. He shook his head, refusing to let the man spook him. “The charges they held me on were paper-thin. Allen talks a big game, but she’s got nothing. If they had something concrete, this would be over already.”

“So it’s just a matter of time. That doesn’t make you any less radioactive.”

“Giovanni,” Mathias cautioned sharply, breaking rank. He’d known the old man longer than he’d been boss. “Don’t write me off yet.”

Giovanni sighed, and they exchanged a look. “The runaround you’ve given this girl means ongoing funding could be a sore spot. The new government wants to pay for results, not dead ends. But she’s got her eye on you—that’s for sure. Doesn’t look like she’ll give up easy.”

Mathias hated that he was right. Allen was proving far more tenacious than a stone he could simply shake from his shoe. “Truman’s behind this. He’s on the hook with Border Services, so he’s passing on information to Allen in exchange for leniency. I’m heading to Hamilton to set him straight and cut ties—that is, with your sign-off.”

Giovanni shrugged. “Your tower. You built it—you can tear it down. Can’t say I’m not glad to be rid of him. I’d be happy to wash our hands of the Reapers. Though I do recall warning you not to trust the man. Looks like what we’re offering is no longer tempting enough.”

Mathias bristled. That had been the reasoning he’d offered Giovanni back then. He’d made the mistake of assuming the Reapers’ head was rational enough to predict. But Truman’s recent actions might as well have come from the mind of a petulant child.

“The way I see it, it’ll only delay the inevitable,” the boss said, his mouth pulling into a frown. “Even if you can silence Truman, you’re just waiting around for the Feds to find something strong enough to put you away. I wouldn’t take the gamble, but I’ll give you some runway with this. That being said, don’t think for a second I won’t cut you off if I have to. That’s just business. You’re no use to me if you’re too dangerous to have around.”

Mathias downed the last of his whiskey to quell the resentment that gripped him.

“There’s an art to knowing when to leave,” Giovanni said, leaning back in his chair. “If you can’t make that call, you might find someone does it for you.”