Chapter 16
Liv shook Marielle’s shoulder. Again. Marielle ignored her. Again.
“Will you get up already?”
Marielle pulled up her pink silk sleep mask and glared at her. “Why? A woman wants to catch up on her beauty rest. That’s a crime, now?”
“Ryan called on my booty call phone. He found that woman.”
Marielle was suddenly wide awake. She pushed herself up onto her elbows as Liv sank on to the bed beside her.
“Ryan?”
His voice was clear through the speaker. “We believe the woman you saw at Le Coeur is Diana Marsh. Liv, show her the picture.”
Olivia swiped her photo app and handed the phone to Marielle.
She stared down at an image of a middle-aged white woman with a blonde pixie cut, wearing a tailored blouse and a thick gold necklace.
The woman gazed into the camera with a lifted chin and a confident expression.
Marielle could picture her holding an espresso.
“That’s her. Who is she?”
“She was a diplomat stationed at the American embassy in Tunis.”
“Was?”
“Her body was found floating in the Rh?ne hours ago,” Olivia whispered.
“The Rh?ne? Where in the Rh?ne?”
Olivia nodded. “Near Interpol.”
Ryan cleared his throat. “This next part is bad.”
“A corpse floating in the river isn’t?” Marielle asked.
“Point taken,” he allowed.
Poppy burst into the room. “Leilah and Chelsea went to hit some boutiques. We can talk freely.”
“Poppy’s here,” Marielle said, just in case he hadn’t heard.”
“Ms. Jones, I’d be grateful if you kept what I’m about to say to yourself.”
“Depends what it is,” Poppy told him.
Ryan sighed loudly enough that they heard him through the phone. “Diane Marsh was listed as a State Department employee, but—”
“But it was diplomatic cover. She was really CIA,” Poppy guessed.
That wasn’t groundbreaking news. About a third of the embassy employees were actually CIA operatives.
“She was,” he confirmed. “She’s also the person who hired us to infiltrate the yacht and get Hanna’s intel.”
“Wait. She burned Hanna?” Marielle asked.
“We may never know, but it sure seems that way.”
“Did you find out anything?” Olivia asked Poppy.
“I contacted our embassy. All the diplomatic missions are on high alert, of course. They leaned on the French police to scour the CCTV records in Lyon. Diana Marsh was last seen in the Parc de la Tête d’Or.”
Marielle stared at her. “Please tell me she wasn’t meeting with—”
“She was meeting with Anissa Sabban, who is now in the wind.”
“Sabban’s dirty, too?” Marielle closed her eyes. Her chest squeezed.
Finally, she asked, “And Hanna?”
“Still stashed safely away. But Interpol wants to cut her loose and make her Tunisia’s problem. We need to get to her before Sabban does.”
“Hey, Ryan?” Marielle said.
“Yeah?”
“We’re gonna have to go get Leilah and Chelsea from their shopping spree. We need a fast driver, and nobody’s faster than Leilah.”
Ryan exhaled. “Tell Sparky to call me when it’s over.”
Olivia ended the call while Marielle threw on clothes and shoes and grabbed her gun.
Poppy stood in the doorway. “This is the part that sucks. I can’t come. There are eighty thousand people waiting to hear me sing.”
They exchanged brief, fierce hugs and Marielle and Olivia flew out the door.