She never heard the front bell, the accompanying knock, the pounding on the door, or the call of her name. She never heard the front door open, or the footsteps traversing the small living room, or the bedroom door swinging wide. She never felt the other person’s presence in the room, never felt anything when the intruder lifted the sheet off the floor and covered her with it.
The slight creak of the bedsprings as the visitor sat down didn’t arouse her either. The quiet call of her name? Oblivious. The gentle shake of her shoulder? No response.
However, the glass of water thrown in her face? Now that got the lady’s attention.
She sat up sputtering, rubbing at her eyes and nose.
“What the-” she began angrily until her eyes focused on Shaw sitting there holding the empty glass and staring at her.
She let out one more gag as the rest of the water that had made its way into her windpipe went down hard. “How did you get in?”
“I rang the bell, pounded on the door, called out your name. I did the same thing when I got in. You never let out a peep. I didn’t think anyone was here until, well, I actually saw you lying in this bed.”
She rubbed at her throbbing temples. “I… I’m a heavy sleeper.”
Shaw picked up an empty bottle of gin. “You’re a heavy something.” He hooked a second empty bottle and then a third and then a fourth.
“You mix gin, bourbon, and scotch?”
“When in Scotland, you know.”
“We’re in France,” he said, frowning.
She ran a hand through her tangles of blonde hair and yawned. “Oh, right, Paris,” she said absently. Then something seemed to strike right through the clouds of alcoholic stupor. “Oh my God, right.” She hastily sat up straighter.
“Shaw, I am so sorry. For everything. For the stupid cell phone, for lying to you.” She paused. “And about Anna.”
Shaw took his time lining up the empty bottles on a bureau set against one wall. “I actually wanted to thank you for coming to see how I was.”
Katie seemed surprised by this. “You didn’t have to do that. Especially after yesterday at the hospital. It was yesterday, right?”
“Actually, it was five days ago.”
She looked stunned. “Five days! You’re joking?”
He glanced over at the line of bottles. “Does your head feel like I’m joking?”
She stared at him, then at the bottles, and sat back on the bed. “I hadn’t touched a drop in over six months, can you believe that?”
He glanced at the line of bottles. “No, I can’t.”
She let out a deep groan. “Well, it’s true. I… I can’t believe I did this. I can’t believe I fell off the wagon.”
Shaw looked at the line of bottles again. “It wasn’t a wagon, it was a cliff. I’ll wait in the next room. Get showered and dressed. Then I’ll buy you some breakfast.” He headed to the door.
“Wait a minute, what are you doing out of the hospital?”
“I’m done with hospitals.”
“You really think so?” she said doubtfully, eyeing the bulge under his left jacket sleeve.
“I’m heading to London later today on the Chunnel. But first I wanted to talk to you about Anna.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Why someone would have wanted to kill her.”
Katie stared at him blankly. “But I don’t know anything about that.”
“You might think you don’t. But you also might have seen or heard something when you visited her that could help me.”
“Shaw, do you really think you’re well enough to take this on?”
He turned and fixed his eyes on her, eyes that were so blue and potent that Katie found herself holding her breath, digging her fingernails nervously into her palms like a schoolkid in serious trouble.
He said quietly, “My life is over, Katie. But whoever did this to Anna is going to die. And soon.”
Every hair on the back of Katie’s neck stood straight up and her skin actually goose-pimpled for the first time in years. Her head was pounding and her stomach gave a sudden disquieting lurch.
“Now get dressed. Please.”
As soon as he left the room she sprinted to the bathroom and threw up five days’ worth of liquid hell.
CHAPTER 49
THEY ATE OUTSIDE at a small brasserie that had partial views of the Seine across Quai de Gesvres. If Katie craned her neck just a bit she could glimpse the spires of Notre Dame Cathedral in the middle of the famous river. The Louvre was less than half a mile to their west, the Bastille a little farther than that to the east.
The coffee was strong, the bread hot, the simple egg dish as delicious as only the French seem to be able to accomplish.
“You met her in London,” Shaw said. “At her office? Her flat?”
“We first met at a café, then we moved on to her office.”
“Anything strike you as out of the ordinary when you got there?”
Katie shrugged as she delicately took a forkful of eggs while her stomach continued to do little flip-flops. “It seemed ordinary and extraordinary at the same time. A beautiful old row house on a quiet street in the heart of London filled with a bunch of scholars who write things no one reads, or at least that last part was Anna’s description.” She glanced over at him. “Have you ever been there?”
Shaw nodded. “And just for the hell of it about a year ago I checked the real estate records to see how valuable that building was. Care to guess?” Katie shook her head and bit into a piece of toast as she stared at him curiously. “Sixteen million pounds.”
The toast nearly fell out of Katie’s mouth. “That’s over thirty million dollars.”
“That’s right. And that was just the purchase price ten years ago. It’s obviously worth a lot more now.”
“How long had Anna worked there?”
“Five years. She was a senior analyst, one of the best they had.”
“I’m sure. She told me basically what they do there. But who owns the Phoenix Group?”
“She said once. Some rich American recluse living in Arizona, hence the name. Although she also told me she thought it came from the mythical bird, the phoenix.”
“The one that never dies,” Katie said, and then her face reddened when she found Shaw staring at her.
“Didn’t turn out to be a very apt name, did it?” he noted.
Katie said quickly, “But there must be more to The Phoenix Group than people knew. So we really need to nail down who or what it is.”
“No, I need to do that.”
“I thought we were working this together.”
“You thought wrong.”
“I want to find out what happened to Anna too.”
Shaw just shook his head. “What else can you tell me?”
“Why should I tell you anything now?”
“Because I asked you politely.”
His eyes locked on her again and Katie felt herself quivering under their burn.
“Well, when I was about to leave I noticed she had all this research on her desk.”
“She always did. That was her job.”
“No, I mean it was about one thing, the so-called Red Menace.”
Shaw sat forward. “Did you ask her about it? Was she working on it for The Phoenix Group?”
She shook her head. “Anna said she was just curious. That it was just something she was working on in I suppose her spare time.”
“When we were in Dublin she was very interested about this R.I.C. organization. She went online trying to dig up some stuff but didn’t find much.”
“Well, it seemed like she was still very curious.” She looked thoughtful for a moment. “You don’t think her employer had anything to do with any of that? I mean trying to find out who was behind the Red Menace? And maybe they did and that would explain the shooting?”
Shaw slipped a business card out of his pocket and looked at it. Edward Royce, MI5. The man Frank had wanted him to team with on the Red Menace investigation. He was based in London. Shaw didn’t believe for an instant that The Phoenix Group had been investigating the Red Menace and that was the reason for the slaughter. Yet Royce probably had the connections to get Shaw at least into the building if Shaw agreed to help him on the Red Menace situation.