Page 26 of A Life Betrayed

“You again.”

“I thought I’d stop by and introduce myself properly. I think we got off on the wrong foot.” Frances slid her contact card across the table toward him.

“Is that what you’d call it?” Mathias said, picking up the card and flipping it between his fingers.

Frances recalled the quiet unease she’d felt after their brief interaction in the parking lot. On the drive back to her apartment, she’d found herself checking over her shoulder, unable to shake the feeling. She cast the thought aside. If anything, Mathias was the one who should be on edge.

“If there’s something you’d like to discuss, I’m all ears. You wouldn’t want someone else to beat you to it. Cooperation can make all the difference in cases like these.” She leaned forward and placed her elbows down on the table. “Funny, I was just saying the same thing to an old friend of yours…” Pausing for effect, she felt a shot of exhilaration. “Rayan Nadeau. Mind telling me what he’s doing in Toronto?”

Frances could have been mistaken, but she thought she saw Mathias’s mouth twitch. So he wasn’t entirely impenetrable. She smirked.

“Now that you’ve infiltrated Hamilton, figured it was time to break into the Toronto market? And what—he’s some sort of scout, sent ahead to lay down the groundwork? What have you got him doing out there?”

Rayan hadn’t exactly been forthcoming about his involvement during their brief conversation. She’d wanted to spook him into submission and had assumed that, given enough of a push, he would prove cooperative. What she hadn’t anticipated was his complete and immediate disappearance. They’d managed to locate CCTV footage of Rayan returning to his apartment andleaving again shortly afterward, but from there, he’d seemingly ceased to exist. There was no record of his attendance at the university the following day or the day after that, and Frances could only assume he’d gone underground. While that was inconvenient, it was only a matter of time before he resurfaced. Meanwhile, she’d gone ahead and lodged alerts with the TPD and all the major airports so she would know if he attempted to leave the country.

“What are you on about, Allen?” Mathias said, the indifference of his tone not reflected in his eyes.

“I think you know.”

Mathias leaned back in his chair. He pulled a silver lighter from his jacket and flipped open the lid. “How was your date?”

Frances felt her blood run cold. “What?”

“Last week,” Mathias said, flicking his thumb against the striker and letting the flame spark. “Just your type, too—a cuck who likes talking about himself.”

She stared at him, unable to mask her terror. “You’ve been watching me?”

He brought the lighter to the edge of her business card and waited for it to catch. “I thought I’d return the favor, seeing how interested in me you’ve been lately.”

She stood, her chair scraping loudly against the floor. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she fought the instinct to run. “You think you can intimidate me?”

Mathias held the burning card until the flames reached his fingertips then dropped the charred remnants into his untouched coffee cup. He reached into his pocket, and she recoiled—but he produced only a handful of bills, which he dropped onto the table.

“I also have informants, Inspector. Eyes across the country.” Getting to his feet, Mathias towered over her. His eyes glitteredlike those of a snake closing in on its prey. “And I’m willing to bet mine are a lot more motivated than yours.”

Frances stepped backward, losing her footing as she stumbled over her chair. She felt the man’s hand on her arm, steadying her. His grip was strong, as though capable of crushing bone or tossing her to the floor like she was nothing. She remembered the photos from the files—body bags and dismembered corpses, men shot through the temple, as clean as an execution.

“Careful, Frances,” Mathias said as she righted herself. “We wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”

He released his grip and strode past her to the door. Frances stood perfectly still, the chair on the floor behind her. She was aware only of the lingering feel of his hand on her arm and the sinister sound of her name on his lips.

Mathias paced the living room of his apartment as he turned the burner phone over in his hand. His jaw was stiff, clenched to offset a growing panic. Early on, they’d established a way for Rayan to reach him without the man’s number finding its way into the web of complicity that was Mathias’s world. Mathias had an unregistered phone that he never let leave the apartment. He would check it once a day, usually in the evening, and respond then. The system had worked well thus far, and Rayan was never more than a day away from contact—until now. Mathias couldn’t get hold of him.

Mathias recalled the inspector’s smirk as she’d thrown down Rayan’s name like a prize. It had pierced him, a cold needle slid just beneath the skin. He’d thought they’d been careful and assumed that even if someone came for him, Rayan would be safe. Mathias gritted his teeth at his own hubris. He’d been theone to suggest Rayan return to Canada, and now the Feds had found him.

In his hand, the phone gave a short buzz, and he yanked it up to look at the screen. The flood of relief was palpable.En vacances, the message read, followed by a truncated address. Mathias plugged it into his phone, and a boarding house in Montreal’s industrial district came up.

He’s here?That could only mean something had gone very wrong.

The entrance to the concrete residential building was swathed in graffiti, and the glass door panel was badly cracked, a series of jagged lines creeping across its surface. Mathias entered the shabby lobby to find a young security guard seated behind the front desk, watching an unintelligible show on a tiny television. The residence looked like a halfway house, the kind of place that took cash but no names.

“We’re full,” the security guard muttered, not looking up from his show.

Mathias slipped a fifty across the counter. “I don’t need a room.”

The man glanced at him then reached over to take the money and returned his attention to the television screen. Mathias moved to the stairwell and made his way up to the fourth floor. The door’s number was marked crudely with black spray paint. Mathis knocked once. He heard the click of a deadbolt unlocking, and then Rayan opened the door and ushered him into a tiny bedsit. The air was as cold inside as it was outside. Rayan stood dressed in several layers, his gloves still on and a hat pulled down over his ears.

“It’s fucking freezing in here,” Mathias admonished him.

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