Out beyond the port, the river split in two around Ile d’Orléans as it snaked toward the Atlantic.
Abbey checked her watch. It was already after one o’clock, which meant she was late. Ahead of her, beyond the terminal building, she saw the riverside restaurant known as Les Vingt Chats. Whenever Michel was in town, they met there. He was waiting for her now, and the thought of seeing him gave her an intense sense of relief.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She took it out, expecting a message from Michel, but when she read it, she knew who the message was from.
It was the man in the funicular. The man who’d lured her to the boardwalk the previous night.
It was Cain.
I’m not trying to hurt you. You’re in danger.
She trembled as she stared at the screen. She stopped where she was and turned around to study the port. Had he found her? Was he hiding near the terminal?
No. She was all alone on the blustery river walk. And yet she felt watched.
Another text came in.
The woman on the funicular was going to kill you. Tell me where you are.
She didn’t believe him. She couldn’t let him find her.
You’re Cain! You’re the killer!
She powered down her phone rather than let him taunt her with more messages. She was distracted now, focused on getting to the restaurant. The sign for Les Vingt Chats called to her, as it had so many times before. The long row of windows in the dining room overlooked the water, and stairs led from the portside walkway to the lobby. She headed there, but then she heard someone calling to her.
“Abbey!”
Startled, she tried to find the source of the voice. Then she heard it again.
“Ici! C’est moi!”
Far down the pier, she spotted a man by the water, framed against the sun. It was Michel, waving at her. He felt like a lifeline after two days caught in a nightmare. She ran toward him, but as she got closer, she was disturbed by what she saw. Michel, who was always the perfectly dressed bureaucrat, looked disheveled and unshaved. He wore a dirty raincoat; his tie was loose. The wind had blown his coiffed black hair into messy tufts.
“Michel!” She went to embrace him, but instead, he took her by the shoulders.
“What the hell have you gotten me into?” he demanded.
“What? What are you talking about?”
“They threatened to fire me. They threatened to arrest me.”
“Who?”
“The government. They told me to bring you back to Ottawa with me. You need to answer their questions, Abbey. You need to tell them everything you know.”
Abbey pried his hands from her and backed away. “Michel, what have you done?”
“Me? What have I done? My career is finished. They’ll never trust me again. All because I tried to help you.”
“Slow down. Tell me what’s going on.”
Michel walked to the edge of the concrete pier. Out on the river, dots of sunlight glistened on the whitecaps. He ran his hands through his hair and stared at the sky. She’d never seen him like this. She’d barely seen any emotion from him in all the time they’d spent together, and now he was falling to pieces.
“Jesus,” he said. “I can’t believe this.”
“Michel, talk to me. What happened?”
He turned and looked at her. His eyes were sleepless and bloodshot. “After we talked last night, I went to the office. I was there all night. I dug into our intelligence reports to see what information we’d gathered about the assassination in New York. Then I reached out to a few of my American contacts. That was all. I was still at my desk at four in the morning when the phone rang. It was the minister. The minister himself. He told me that three CSIS agents would be in my office in ten minutes, and I was to tell them everything about the inquiries I’d been making. And he said the answers would determine whether I’d keep my job or spend the next twenty years in Millhaven.”
“Oh, my God! Did you tell them about me?”
“They already knew all about you. The CSIS think you’re a threat to national security, Abbey. Why do they think that? What the hell have you been doing?”
“Nothing! This is insane! I’ve been following a story, that’s all. I tried to set up a meeting with a source, and then someone tried to kill me. Last night someone broke into The Fort and searched my desk. Today I was followed as I came here.