Page 8 of Icebound

“Because I said so. It’s stupid to kill without a reason. Wait till she gives us one,” he said.

The man called Flambeau was seething, and she wondered if he’d disobey orders. What would Bastien do if he killed her? The very thought was absurd, and yet Flambeau had clamped one of his thick hands on her arm so tightly it was aching, and her face was numb.

“I think…” he began, but Bastien interrupted him.

“Do not think. You’re not being paid to do so. Luc, you look after her. If you can get anything out of her, so much the better, but in the meantime, just keep her out of the way and quiet. I’ll decide what to do with her after I talk with Le Fauçon.”

“He’ll tell you to kill her,” Flambeau said sulkily.

“I’m not asking his opinion, any more than I’m asking yours.” Bastien’s voice was cold as ice, like that of a stranger, and Chloe watched him out of eyes that felt swollen. He was a stranger, one who looked exactly like her husband. But that wasn’t possible.

Luc came up to her, but Flambeau’s hand tightened painfully. “I get first crack at her when you decide,” he muttered gracelessly. “I’m the one who found her.”

“I’m the one who told you where to find her,” Luc corrected him. “No one’s getting a crack at her unless Jean-Marc says so, and he’s saying back off. Aren’t you?”

“For now,” said the man who should have been her husband, and Chloe was not comforted.

Flambeau didn’t seem in any particular hurry to release her, but Luc stood up to him, dwarfed by Flambeau’s size. “Let go,” he said patiently, and Flambeau’s hand tightened. “Let go,” he said again, his voice calm, and Chloe rearranged her idea of the pecking order of these three men. Bastien, or Jean-Marc, was clearly in charge, and she’d assumed Flambeau was second. But he acceded to Luc’s order with ill-grace, shoving her away from him so hard that she crashed against the other man. He righted her.

“Come along, madame,” he said. “You look like you could use some food. I’ll find you some bread and cheese and you can tell me all about this mysterious Bastien you’ve mistaken Jean-Marc for.”

But Chloe wasn’t relieved. Luc looked like a graduate student, with his wire-rimmed glasses and scruffy hair, but he wasn’t her friend. She glanced at Bastien, who sat engrossed in his papers, not bothering to look at her. He’d clearly dismissed her from his mind, and Chloe wanted to call out to him. It would do her no good. She had no choice but to wait till Bastien was ready to talk to her, obviously when his associates were gone. She’d be patient, as she’d always had to be with him. Getting details of his past out of him had been painful and sparse, but then, none of that had really mattered. He’d been entirely open about their current life, and she’d made do with that. The more she learned about his past, the more horrified she’d become, and she’d decided long ago that she was better off not knowing.

Now she wished she’d pushed harder. Maybe then she’d know why the name “Jean-Marc” sounded familiar.

She tried one last time. “Bastien,” she said, taking a step toward him.

Luc was faster. He’d whipped her back toward the door and she realized she’d mistaken another bad man for rescue. Because that’s what they were, bad men without conscience or scruples. And Bastien was the leader, looking at her now out of perfectly blank eyes. In any other situation, she’d believe that he was a stranger, some odd doppelganger to her beloved Bastien. But not this man with the distant expression in his eyes. This was her husband, looking at her as if he’d never seen her before in his life. And she was horribly afraid that he hadn’t.

“Tie her up and put her in the bone room,” Bastien said without looking up. “I’ll question her later.”

“Bone room?” Chloe echoed nervously.

Luc answered her. “Haven’t you heard about the catacombs of Paris? We’re off in a secluded branch of them, but we had to move the bones that were all around us. We piled them in a room at the back. Don’t worry—they’re the least likely thing to hurt you in this place.”

She glanced around her. These rooms may have been catacombs once, but clearly people had lived here off and on during the centuries. “Aren’t you afraid some tourists are going to get lost from the tour and show up here?”

“That would be too bad for them,” Flambeau said with a heartless laugh. He clamped his huge, rough hand on Chloe’s arm and pulled her away from Luc. “Come along, chickie. It’s the dead room for you. Sooner or later,” he added with an explosive laugh.

But Luc seemed to have lost interest, and Bastien was still perusing those damned papers. What could be that important? She tried one last time as Flambeau was dragging her from the room. “Bastien!”

“Shut up!” Flambeau knocked her sideways with his fist, and she went down on the hard stone floor, sprawling. He hauled her upright again, and she was dizzy from the blow, when the silent man deigned to speak to her.

“Madame, I am not your husband. I’ve never seen you before, and I don’t know where you got that picture, but it is definitely not me. My name is not Bastien, and I suggest you come up with the truth very soon or it will go badly for you. My friend Flambeau is not known for his tenderness with women, and I will turn him loose on you if you continue to lie.”

The words were cold and clipped, in the slight French accent that was real, not feigned. He’d been a master of languages and accents as an operative for the Committee so long, long ago—it was no wonder he could sound truly French.

She was dizzy, in pain, and in despair, and she almost opened her mouth to call his name once more, but she shut it again without uttering a word. This man couldn’t be her husband, no matter how much he looked like him.

And then Flambeau dragged her from the room, farther into the murky darkness, and she wondered if she would ever see daylight again.

“You’re putting off the inevitable,” Luc said once they were alone in the room. “Why are you being so squeamish? You need to get rid of her, sooner rather than later. What’s the hold-up?”

Jean-Marc leaned back in his chair, entirely at ease. “You think I’m squeamish?” he said gently, and Luc flushed.

“Of course not. I misspoke. But why don’t we just get rid of her?”

“Maybe I just don’t want to see Flambeau get what he wants.”