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“Use it. I’m not sure how much time Tate has before he hits full-on shock.”
Hudson stepped away to text, and she pulled out her phone. Then the envelope. The return address was a PO Box in Luxembourg. She folded it and was about to drop it in the trash when Tate reached out, grabbed her wrist.
“Don’t.”
“He’s…a traitor.”
“But maybe, too, we can use it to find him.” His grip loosened.
Her gut said that was probably a bad idea, but she put the envelope back into her pocket, along with the phone.
“I texted Ziggy, and she told me to leave Tate here and go. That she’d get him.”
Iris stood up. “What? No. I’m not leaving my cousin here to die—what if she doesn’t get here in time?”
Hudson drew in a breath. “There’s a train that leaves just before midnight for Paris. She wants us on it.”
She stared at Tate, then back at Hudson. “Then tell her to hurry, because I’m not leaving Tate to die in a hotel room, alone in Prague.”
Four
Thirty-six hours. Thirty-six excruciating, informationless, thumb-twiddling hours during which Ned wanted to do anything but get on a flight to Berlin, get a change of identities, then hop on a train to Paris, sleeping on a narrow bunk and listening to Fraser snore all night.
Roy had rolled over, the pillow over his head, and hadn’t moved until they’d pulled into the Paris station early this morning.
Ned, however, had sat up, watching the countryside rumble by, trying not to dream up nightmares of what might be happening to Shae.
They’d already survived so much.God knows where we are, right?
He’d said those words to Shae while running from a murderer, his shoulder dislocated, his ribs deeply bruised. But he’d been trying hard to keep her alive, to keep himself from despair, and now the words tumbled back to him.
You know where she is, right?
No answer, but maybe, deep inside, something reached out and held him.We are not alone, Shae. And we are still safe.
Yes. He’d said it then, but he still meant it now. At least, he was trying to.
Please, God, watch over her. Give her a protector. Keep her safe. Help me get to her.
Yes, thirty-six hours was too long.
He was up and packed and ready to disembark long before the train hit the Nord station. He got off and found a map.
“Take the B line down to Châtelet, then switch to the fourteen train over to Madeleine Station, then get on the eight down to École Militaire. We can walk from there.” Roy ran a line over their route.
Ned had never been to Paris, so he didn’t argue. Even when Roy got off the B line and climbed the stairs to the street level and found a bistro.
He bought them breakfast, a ham sandwich slathered in salty butter and creamy cheese on flaky French bread.
Shae would have loved it.
He also downed two strong shots of espresso, and the coffee went right to his veins. He’d gotten up, picking up his pack, was staring out at the foot traffic in front of the under-construction Notre-Dame.
He’d seen the fire on television. So much destruction of such a beautiful piece of history. “C’mon, guys, let’s get going.”
Roy was looking at his phone. Now he set it down. “Change of plans. Well, not on our end, but our courier got made last night in Prague. We’re meeting someone else.”
“Same place?” Ned said.
