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“Not far, but I can’t say.”
She stared at her father, as serious as she’d ever seen him.
Armand turned to Jean-Guy. “Would you like to stay with Annie?”
“I …” He wanted to stay. To stand in front of her. And the baby, and Honoré.
But he also wanted to stand beside Armand.
And there were things only he knew. Things he needed to tell them.
“I …”
“You need to go with them, mon beau,” said Annie. “We’ll be safe. We have the cop, and no one’s going to bother us with such a strong, handsome, manly man protecting us. I bet he has a huge gun.”
Jean-Guy narrowed his eyes in mock concern.
“Go,” Annie whispered and gave him a long kiss as her father looked away.
Outside the door, Jean-Guy spoke to the cop, letting him know that if anything happened to Annie and Honoré, to Roslyn and the girls, he would come for him.
“Entendu,” said the flic, and tightened his grip on his automatic rifle. “Je comprends.”
“You’d better understand,” said Jean-Guy as Armand and Reine-Marie, Daniel and Séverine Arbour waited by the elevator. “And you tell no one we’ve left.”
“Oui. I mean, non.”
The ferocity of Jean-Guy’s tone and expression had thrown the cop off a bit.
Once in the elevator, Reine-Marie said quietly to Armand, “You’re not really going to meet him, are you?”
He took her hand and squeezed. “We’ll talk.”
But she had her answer.
Jean-Guy stood in silence, watching the numbers drop. With each floor they passed, there was a chime, meant to be cheerful, but all it did was rattle him further.
“You okay?” Armand asked as they sped past the main floor. And kept going.
“Oui.”
Past the basement. Past the subbasement. And as they dropped, so did the color from Jean-Guy’s face.
“You can go back up, if you like.”
“Non.”
When it could go no deeper, the elevator stopped.
They stepped out, and Armand took an envelope from his pocket and removed a slip of paper and a key.
Unlocking a door, he led them down a dim corridor, pausing once to consult the hand-drawn map. Then he headed this way, then that.
Both sweaty and ice-cold, Jean-Guy followed. Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears.
A fine time, he thought, to remember that quote. But he finally understood what it meant.
Pipes hissed, as though serpents were passing overhead. The walls clanked and groaned.
