Chapter 1
Chapter One
“Where the hell is he?” Chloe snarled into the telephone, dumping her empty suitcase on the bed. It was Bastien’s—leather, old and battered, with no convenient wheels and handles, but it would be small enough to cart with her wherever the hell she was going.
“I truly don’t know, Chloe,” Peter Madsen said, and she believed him. “There have been rumors…”
“What rumors?”
“An old enemy of his has resurfaced, one we thought was dead. So far there’s been no connection.
There’s been no sign of Bastien since he was last seen that day at Notre Dame, but you know your husband—it would take a hell of a lot to bring him down.
I know right now he’s working to get back to us…
to you. We’re doing everything we can, but so far we’ve come up with nothing but a name. ”
“What name?” Chloe demanded.
“You know I can’t tell you that. And it wouldn’t mean anything to you. You need to stay put and wait till you hear from me. Better yet, come over and join us and the children. That way you’ll be nearby when he surfaces, and our people can look out for you.”
“You think I’m in danger?” She began throwing clothes into the suitcase, putting the phone on speaker.
“If I did, I’d have people watching you already. The one thing you need to remember is that Bastien can take care of himself. If he’s in the wind right now it’s because he means to be. He didn’t say anything to you before he left, did he?”
“He didn’t tell me anything. Just that he was going.” She made sure her voice was steady. His eyes had been cold, expressionless, the way they’d been so long ago when they first met, and her heart ached.
“Then he’ll be back when he can. I’m not ready to call in the reserves, and you just need to calm down.”
“I’m calm,” she said in a dangerous voice. “I’ve been calm for thirty-four fucking days. You think he’s still in Paris?”
“I don’t know!” Peter snapped. “That was just one possibility when we heard a friend had reappeared.”
“A friend, or an enemy?”
“Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.
” Peter sighed. “I know you want him back, Chloe. We all do. But you need to have faith. Bastien Toussaint is the best operative I’ve ever worked with and if he’s missing, it’s for a reason.
He knows what he’s doing, and he’ll resurface when he can. You have to trust him.”
“I trust him. It’s everybody else who’s sketchy.”
“I assume you mean me too,” Peter said, clearly unoffended.
“I trust you with my children, Peter. That’s huge. But I want my husband back.”
“I want him back too. We’re doing everything we can to find him, make sure he doesn’t need backup.”
“Just answer me one question,” Chloe said.
“If I can.”
“Who is Le Faucon?”
Dead silence on the other end of the line. “Where did you hear that name?” he demanded after a pause.
“I walked in on Bastien talking to someone on the phone,” she said. “Was it you?”
“Am I Le Faucon? No.”
“That’s not what I asked. Is that the name of the old enemy who’s resurfaced? The Falcon?”
“Chloe, drop it. If something were to happen to you, Bastien would never forgive me. Come to England. Genny would love to see you, and your kids miss you. They’re busy with the archeological dig nearby, but they would love to have you here.”
“Teenagers do not want their mothers interfering in their vacations,” Chloe said, managing to sound both wry and calm. “I’ll be fine here, don’t worry about me.” She tossed her sneakers into the suitcase. “I’m sorry—I just got worried for a bit.”
“I can send someone to stay with you…”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Peter. I’m perfectly fine on my own. You’re right, Bastien will return when he’s ready to. I’ll kill him when he does, but I can be patient.”
“Can you?”
Peter Madsen was no fool, and she managed a breathy laugh. “Well, maybe not. But I’ll stay put.”
“You promise?”
“I promise. You can trust me.” She hung up the phone, then looked at the suitcase on the bed.
She’d pulled out every piece of black clothing she owned as she remembered the old, horrifying mantra.
Black doesn’t show the blood. Her husband still dressed exclusively in black when they left their sprawling compound.
Paris. Le Faucon. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was a start. She would make her way to France, as surreptitiously as she could, and hope that the people who were already watching her wouldn’t be able to follow.
They would see that she booked a ticket to Amsterdam, though her plane stopped in Paris.
“They” being the Committee and whoever else was watching her, maybe this mysterious Le Faucon.
So be it—she was hardly up to anyone’s standards when it came to the games they played.
But if Bastien were anywhere nearby, he would come to her, she knew he would, and if she had to put herself in danger to lure him out, then so be it.
Something was not right, and she’d waited long enough. She would go after her husband herself.
Peter Madsen set the phone back in cradle.
He had a bad feeling about all this, and he’d learned long ago to trust his instincts.
He had absolutely no idea where Bastien Toussaint was—there’d been no word and no sighting since he’d collapsed at the base of Notre Dame.
Rumor had it he was in Gdansk, but things in Poland were surprisingly peaceful at the moment, and if there was something going on, Peter would be the first to know.
Another rumor was that he’d been taken to Algeria, but he didn’t believe that either.
Bastien was still in France, but no one knew where the hell he was.
Peter had men searching for him, for weeks now, but there hadn’t been a sign, and he was beginning to doubt his infallible instincts.
Bastien wasn’t dead—he knew that much. But he’d simply disappeared off the face of the earth, leaving Chloe and his children with no word.
The children shrugged it off, of course, caught up in the amateur dig in Hampshire.
But he knew Chloe, and he didn’t make the mistake of underestimating her.
Despite her promises, he knew damned well she wouldn’t stay put for much longer, and then they’d have both of them in the wind.
Bastien counted on him keeping Chloe safe—if anything happened to her…
He needed to send someone to stay with her. She was safe in Bastien’s fortress up in the North Carolina mountains, as long as she stayed put. There were few places safer. But sooner or later, she’d was going to have enough of waiting, and she’d go after Bastien, and probably screw up everything.
No, he’d find someone to keep her company and her mind off her missing husband. While he did everything he possibly could to find him.
A man with Bastien’s talents wouldn’t be found if he didn’t want to be—Peter knew that much.
It would be a cold day in hell before anyone could get the drop on him—therefore, he must be hiding away from the Committee and his wife, though Peter couldn’t begin to guess why.
In the old days, he would have let him go, knowing Bastien was a good enough operative to know what he was doing.
But the entry of Chloe and the children in his life changed everything. He wouldn’t stay away this long without a damned good reason, and Peter needed to know that reason, now. Before Chloe packed her bags and showed up…
No, she wouldn’t. She had no idea where he was, any more than Peter did. If she came to Europe, the only place she could go was to him, and he knew how to keep her quiet. It wasn’t an emergency yet.
Now who could he send to keep her company?