Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Everything hurt. Chloe couldn’t move, and she squirmed helplessly as she came back to consciousness.
Opening her eyes, she squinted, trying to see through the shadowy confines of the room.
She tried to move her feet, but they were tied, too tightly, to the chair she was sitting in, and her arms were behind her back, her wrists lashed to the chair.
Her hair was falling in her face, and she shook it back, then took in a deep breath behind the gag that silenced her mouth.
A man was sitting across the room from her, bent over a mound of papers, his forehead creased, and she waited for him to look up.
And waited. She made a muffled noise, but either he didn’t hear her or he ignored her, she wasn’t sure which.
She tried it again, shaking the chair beneath her, and he lifted his head.
Bastien! Except, it wasn’t. This man had darker hair, longer, and dark, inimical eyes as he stared at her with absolutely no recognition. It was Bastien’s face, and yet it wasn’t. It was the face of a cold-blooded killer, no humanity in it at all, as he stared at her from across the room.
“Flambeau!” he called out suddenly, another anomaly. He had a faint French accent, not Bastien’s British one, and the expression on his face was so deadly that for a moment Chloe was convinced she was looking at a stranger. “Your little bird is awake.”
The bear-like man shambled up, a leer on his face. “Yes, boss,” he said, coming up in front of her, blocking her view of…of Bastien. “You want me to question her here?”
The man leaned back, as if he was no more than casually interested. “Might as well. Ask her where she got that picture.”
It was then she realized they were speaking French, speaking it as if they assumed she wouldn’t understand. But Bastien knew she was fluent, had spent her days in Paris translating children’s books, and she tried to look around Flambeau’s bulk to catch his eye.
But he’d gone back to his papers as if she were of no importance, and the man in front of her had an ugly expression on his face.
“You are going to answer my questions, lady,” he said in thickly accented English.
“Do not attempt to lie to me, because I will know, and things will not go well for you if you do. You will tell me who you are, what you are doing in Paris, and where you got that photograph.”
Since he made no effort to remove her gag, she simply looked up at him impatiently, glancing once again at Bastien. He must be playing some deep game, but he’d hardly let anyone hurt her. Even if he was studiously ignoring her.
“You will tell me, hein?” the man said again, and Chloe glared at him.
“She can hardly tell you anything while she’s gagged,” Bastien pointed out lazily, as if the fact that his wife was bound and gagged and about to be questioned by a brute was of no importance at all.
“I was getting to it,” Flambeau said, and he ripped the duct tape off her face with brutal force. Spitting out the gag, she glared at him for a moment before turning to her husband.
“Bastien!” she said, her voice thick with tears.
The man didn’t react. “Answer his questions.”
“Who are you?” Flambeau demanded. “Who do you work for?”
She ignored him. “Bastien, I’ve been looking everywhere for you! What’s happened? Why are you…”
The slap across her face knocked her head sideways, and the chair rattled with the force of his blow. “Answer my questions!”
Bastien hadn’t moved, and his eyes were back on the schematics in front of him, barely paying attention to them.
Her face felt numb, and the man looked ready to hit her again. She swallowed her fury, glaring at him. “My name is Chloe Toussaint. That man over there is my husband Bastien Toussaint, and I don’t work for anybody.”
He slapped her again, on the other side of her face, and she felt her lip split. “There’s no one named Bastien here. What do you want?”
I want my husband back, she wanted to wail, but she bit back the words. She could taste her own blood, and her entire face felt numb, and yet the man who’d sworn to love and protect her was paying no attention.
She’d been a fool. Bastien must have a reason for pretending he didn’t know her.
He must have gotten involved in something from the Committee, and Peter had been lying to her when he said he didn’t know anything.
She had to somehow play along with him, wait till they were alone and he could explain what the hell was going on.
But she was going to have to hide her complicity. “He looks like my husband,” she said sullenly. “You’ve seen the picture—they’re very much alike. But now that I’ve seen him I know he’s not Bastien.”
Flambeau’s laugh was unpleasant. “So just like that, you’ve figured you were wrong, and you think I’m going to let you go, is that it?”
“Why wouldn’t you let me go?” she countered. “I’m no threat to you.”
“She’s lying.” Bastien’s voice was cool and distracted.
“I know that,” Flambeau said irritably, while Chloe tried to deal with the fact that Bastien was selling her out. “You want me to get rid of her?”
Bastien lifted his dark eyes to look at her, and they were completely expressionless. “Find out what she wants. Then we’ll see.”
“What’s going on here?” A new voice entered the fray, and Chloe jerked around to see another man stride into the dark room.
“She’s been looking for Jean-Marc. Insists he’s her husband and that his name is Bastien.”
“Maddelena wouldn’t like to hear that,” the man said with a twist of humor. “What’s taking you so long?”
Flambeau hit her again, without any warning, and she spat blood on the floor. “Keep your fucking hands off me,” she snapped.
“Oh, she’s a feisty one,” Luc said. “Who do you think she’s working for?”
Flambeau shrugged his massive shoulders. “If I knew, I wouldn’t still be dealing with her. Until we find out, we’re going to have to keep her alive. Unless you think you can do a better job?”
The man called Luc was young, somewhere in his thirties, lean and aesthetic-looking, and he shuddered dramatically. “That’s more up your street than mine. You sure you don’t know her, Jean-Marc?”
Bastien lifted his head. “Never seen her before in my life,” he said flatly, and his voice was so impervious that Chloe could almost believe him.
“I’ll get rid of her, assuming I can do it without anyone finding the body.
Dead American tourists cause too much of a fuss.
” Flambeau hauled her out of the chair, and disbelieving panic swept over her.
Bastien must have some plan, some way to rescue her, but he simply went back to his papers as Flambeau began to drag her from the room.
“I’d wait if I were you,” Luc offered. “I doubt she’s in this on her own, and you can’t get information from a corpse.”
“Mind your own business,” Flambeau snapped, and his small black eyes were alight with anticipation.
Bastien rose, stretching six foot two of lean muscle, every inch she knew so well.
“You’ve got a point. Leave her be, Flambeau, at least for the time being, while I go out and see what I can discover.
One thing we know—she hasn’t been around for more than a couple of days, and she hasn’t been seen with anyone, but that doesn’t mean she’s on her own.
Tie her up and put her in the back room and we’ll question her later. ”
Chloe wanted to throw up at his casual words, and Flambeau looked sulky. “Why do I have to wait?”
“Because I said so. It’s stupid to kill without a reason. Wait till she gives us one,” he said.
The man called Flambeau was seething, and she wondered if he’d disobey orders. What would Bastien do if he killed her? The very thought was absurd, and yet Flambeau had clamped one of his thick hands on her arm so tightly it was aching, and her face was numb.
“I think…” he began, but Bastien interrupted him.
“Do not think. You’re not being paid to do so. Luc, you look after her. If you can get anything out of her, so much the better, but in the meantime, just keep her out of the way and quiet. I’ll decide what to do with her after I talk with Le Faucon.”
“He’ll tell you to kill her,” Flambeau said sulkily.
“I’m not asking his opinion, any more than I’m asking yours.” Bastien’s voice was cold as ice, like that of a stranger, and Chloe watched him out of eyes that felt swollen. He was a stranger, one who looked exactly like her husband. But that wasn’t possible.
Luc came up to her, but Flambeau’s hand tightened painfully. “I get first crack at her when you decide,” he muttered gracelessly. “I’m the one who found her.”
“I’m the one who told you where to find her,” Luc corrected him. “No one’s getting a crack at her unless Jean-Marc says so, and he’s saying back off. Aren’t you?”
“For now,” said the man who should have been her husband, and Chloe was not comforted.
Flambeau didn’t seem in any particular hurry to release her, but Luc stood up to him, dwarfed by Flambeau’s size.
“Let go,” he said patiently, and Flambeau’s hand tightened.
“Let go,” he said again, his voice calm, and Chloe rearranged her idea of the pecking order of these three men.
Bastien, or Jean-Marc, was clearly in charge, and she’d assumed Flambeau was second.
But he acceded to Luc’s order with ill-grace, shoving her away from him so hard that she crashed against the other man. He righted her.
“Come along, madame,” he said. “You look like you could use some food. I’ll find you some bread and cheese and you can tell me all about this mysterious Bastien you’ve mistaken Jean-Marc for.”