Chapter 26
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
A massive port city, Calais thrums and pulses all day and night, beating with tourists, refugees, fishermen, mariners. And when they have a few spare Euros with nowhere to go, they might spend their night at a pub like this one.
There’s a distinct smell. Sweat, hopefully, given the shoulder-to-shoulder chaos. Or maybe it’s whatever thick, sticky substance coats the bar and now the elbows of my leather jacket.
I managed to find a free bar stool at the furthest section, facing the door and the crowd. I’d feel uneasy anywhere else.
Truthfully, I don’t feel great as it is, having separated from Graham so he can meet his colleague and acquire more funds.
I’ve no idea what he’s planned, but he mentioned it being rather unsavory and that it would be best if I didn’t know—plausible deniability.
Although I have a hunch he’s selling the ring we purchased from Alban.
Now it’s midnight.
It’s been four hours. At hour two, when the pub began to fill and the bartender started eyeing my spot, I managed to convince an unsuspecting Dutch tourist to buy me a drink.
I paid for it by entertaining him for a half-hour with an entirely fictional story about being separated from my friends at the ferry terminal that afternoon.
Made up on the fly, too—maybe I have a future ahead of me in whatever Mateo does.
I nursed my whiskey for as long as possible.
Graham hasn’t resurfaced, I have no phone, a river’s running down my back, and I can’t take this jacket off unless I want to show the entire bar what the outline of a 9mm looks like. Exactly how long does it take to sell a single ring? I think miserably, and why couldn’t I have been there for it?
Sighing, I sip the last of my watered-down drink and avoid eye contact with the bartender. A man with a missing tooth and a ruddy face has been leering at me from a few stools away since he arrived. Maybe I can wheedle a drink from him. Hopefully I won’t have to break a bone afterward.
I’m about to plaster on my best attempt at a flirty smile when something presses against my hip bone. Hard enough to make me grimace on reflex. The only way someone could’ve snuck up on me is leaving the women’s restroom, but I don’t move to check.
“Are you stupid?” I hiss. “You’ll have to inflict some major carnage to get me to leave with you, and I don’t think your boss will be too pleased about that.”
“You’re right, he loathes a mess.”
My blood runs cold. The chatter around us turns strange, distorting like bleeding ink. I blink several times to clear my vision as my neighbor is elbowed from her seat and a new face comes into focus.
“Didn’t I tell you that we might run into each other?”
“Kat,” I murmur.
She sucks her teeth in disapproval, her gun already hidden beneath a black puffer jacket. “I hoped we wouldn’t, of course. I tried to warn you, didn’t I?”
“No.” My head’s spinning. “Unless you were speaking in Latin, you didn’t warn me of anything.”
“That’s my fault, I suppose. You were never good at riddles.”
The anger surges into my veins on a delay. “Did you come here to insult me?”
“Of course not.”
Our eyes lock. The crowd behind her stills. I swear I can see the cloud of sweat condensation in the air.
She smiles. “I came here to kill you.”