The creak of a door opening, the same creak Quinn had heard a few weeks before when he’d been there for his father’s funeral.
“Steven? Is something wrong?” Dorothy Oliver said, her voice muffled.
“It’s your son,” Howard said. “He needs to talk to you.”
“Jake?”
“Yes.”
“Jake. Is everything all right?” His mother’s voice was now clear and unimpeded.
“Mom, I need you to do something for me.”
“Of course.”
“I need you to leave the house. Steven will—”
“What?” she said. “Why?”
“Please, Mom. I need you to trust me, and not ask any questions.”
She was silent for a moment, then said, “I trust you, honey. But you can’t wake me in the middle of the night and tell me I have to leave my house without telling me why.”
He hesitated, but knew he had to tell her something. “There are some people … people who might use you to get to me. They may be on the way to the farm right now.”
“What are you talking about? What people?”
“Mom, we can talk more later. Right now I need you to do whatever Steven asks. He has a couple of friends who will be there in a few minutes to help. They’re going to watch over you.”
“Jake, are you in some kind of trouble?”
“I won’t be if you do what I’ve asked.”
“Okay,” she said. “If that’s what you need me to do.”
“That’s what I need you to do.”
“Then fine, honey. I’ll do what Steven tells me to do.”
“Thank you, Mom,” Quinn said, relieved. “Please put him back on.”
“I love you, Jake.”
“I love you, too, Mom.”
When Howard was back on the line, Quinn said, “Text me every hour, and call me if anything even slightly unusual happens.”
“You got it.”
“Keep her safe, Steven.”
“I will.”
Quinn hung up. Orlando was sitting on the floor in front of the couch, her computer in her lap.
“I can get us on a flight to Paris leaving in an hour and a half,” she said. “That should give us plenty of time to get to the airport.” When Quinn didn’t respond right away, she looked up. “Yes or no?”
He took a deep breath, trying to quell his anger and frustration. He wanted to take out whoever was trying to harm his sister with his own hands. But he let the moment pass in silence, and tried to rein in his emotions. As much as he wanted to say yes, he knew it was more important for him to stay here and find the source of the problem than to go rushing off to Paris to act as a bodyguard. He shook his head. “Nate and Julien can handle it for now. The only way to really stop this is to get to the one calling the shots.”
“And who would that be?”
“The guy I just quit on.”
Not sixty minutes after Quinn said he was not going to finish the project, a move was being made on his family. In Quinn’s world, the obvious wasn’t always right, but there were times it just couldn’t be ignored.
Orlando turned her laptop so Quinn could see the screen. On it was a hybrid map/satellite image of a city street. A single glowing blue dot pulsed over a building.
“Your sister’s street in Paris,” Orlando explained.
The blue dot, then, would be Nate’s position. Orlando had implanted chips in both Quinn’s and Nate’s phones that would allow her to track them even if the SIM cards had been removed.
“They’re still in Liz’s building,” he said. “They need to be out of there already!”
He started to raise his phone, but Orlando reached out and put a hand over his. “Don’t.”
Quinn glared at her, fire in his eyes.
“If you call him now, he’s not going to answer. And even if he did, you’d only delay them more.”
It took every ounce of will he had to lower his hand.
Nate raced up the stairs to the landing of the first floor.
“Liz,” he said, raising his voice as loud as he dared. “Liz. Where are you?”
She wasn’t on the landing. He looked down the central corridor, but didn’t see her there either. He took two steps in to make sure there was no place she could hide. There wasn’t.
He returned to the landing, listened for a second to make sure Julien and the others hadn’t come in yet, then headed up the stairs, searching the second and third floors.
As he neared Liz’s floor, he heard the lobby door open far below. It wasn’t loud, but it was unmistakable. He increased his speed.
When he reached the fourth floor landing, he could hear breathing. Rapid, but low, like someone trying to keep from being heard. Then, as he stepped into the hallway, he saw her.
She was pressed against the door to her apartment, trying in vain to find the right key to the lock. Her purse was at her feet, her wallet half in, half out. Nate guessed she’d dropped the bag when she found her keys, no longer concerned about anything but getting into the false safety of her own apartment.
He ran over to her and grabbed her wrist just as the key began to turn.
“Let me go,” she said.
“Liz, we have to get out of here.”
“Let me go. I’ll be fine inside. I won’t let them in.”
“They’ll still get in.”
“I won’t let them!”
Nate pulled the key out of the lock, then swept up her purse and handed it to her.
“Hold this,” he said.
Out of reflex, she did. He then lifted her over his shoulder in more or less a fireman’s hold.
“Put me down,” she said.
“If you keep talking, they’ll kill us,” he said.
Just then the door to apartment 25, two down from Liz’s place, opened. An old woman stuck her head out.
“Qu’est-ce que vous faites?” she asked.
“Rien. Tout va bien. Rentrez à l’intérieur,” Nate said, reassuring her there was nothing going on she needed to be concerned about.
“You speak French, too?” Liz said.
“A little.”
The woman looked at them for a moment longer, then closed her door.
Nate, with Liz still over his shoulder, began moving toward the stairs.
“What else did you lie to me about?” Liz asked.
“Not as much as you might think,” Nate said between breaths.
He could hear the elevator moving. Up or down, he didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. The next time the door opened on this floor, Julien’s pseudo colleagues would be behind it.
He turned for the stairs, but he couldn’t carry her down, so he lowered her to her feet.
“You have to do everything I tell you or this won’t go well. Understand?” He was using his best no-bullshit voice.
She nodded. He could see in her eyes that maybe she was finally getting it.
“We go down. Quickly but quietly.”
But before they had even gone one step, Nate heard someone on the stairs several floors below heading up.
“Dammit,” he said. “Back down the hall.”
She followed him without question this time. Behind them, he could hear the elevator stop for several seconds, then start up again. Then he noticed the doorway at the far end of the hall.
“What’s that?” Nate asked. He was pointing at the door.
“Emergency stairway. An alarm sounds when you open it.”
The alarm was a problem, but not as much of a problem as getting shot in the hallway.
The door to apartment 25 opened again, and the old woman stepped into the hallway.
“Si vous n’arrêtez pas, je vais appeler la police!”
Nate veered toward her and pushed Liz through the open door.
“Vous ne pouvez pas rentrer ici!” the woman protested, trying to block the way.