“Like a dog with a bone.” Johan sighed. “Fine. I painted that Roubaud on request for a client. A paying client.”
“I know you don’t do illegal stuff, Johan. Just borderline.” Colin chuckled. “That’s why I like you. You skirt the edges all the time.”
“Yeah, but I don’t know if I skirted too close to the edge with this Roubaud.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” It was quiet for a few seconds. “I had a bad feeling about this from the start. The client was very specific about the painting she wanted. There was something off about the whole deal.”
“She?” Colin looked in the rear view mirror again and frowned.
“Yes. élodie Baille. A soft-spoken young lady. She didn’t know very much about art, but she seemed cultured enough. Her English was quite good, but then we spoke French because she was more comfortable with that.”
“Did she say why she specifically wanted a Roubaud?”
“It was a private joke, she’d said. Didn’t tell me what the joke was.”
“Huh. Did you meet this élodie?”
“No, we did everything online. She insisted I use a courier to deliver the painting.”
“Do you remember the courier’s name?”
“Yes. It was banal. Easy Post. No creativity at all when they thought up that name.”
“How did she pay you?”
There was a long silence. “What’s going on, Isaac? You’re asking a lot of questions here.”
“It’s something bad.” Colin glanced in the rear view mirror and his eyes narrowed. “So? How did élodie pay you?”
“In cash. You know, this is another reason I didn’t like this deal. She paid promptly, didn’t quarrel about the price, but...”
“Yes?”
“I don’t want to sound like one of those anti-immigrant people, but the guy who brought the cash was Arabic. He looked okay and was very nice. But now you’re asking all these questions and... well, I don’t know. I’m thinking that I should stay far away from Ms Baille.”
When Colin looked in the rear view mirror again, his expression sent a rush of adrenaline into my system. He entered the main road we’d just come from and pushed himself against the seat. “Johan, I’ll have to call you back in a bit.”
“Oh. Okay.” Johan cleared his throat. “Listen, I’ll be unplugged for the rest of today. Phone me tomorrow.”
“Will do.” Colin was no longer paying attention to the conversation. Instead he looked at the side mirrors before ending the call. Immediately, he tapped on the phone to start another call.
I looked behind us, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Except that we’d turned around and were returning to the forest. The road we were on was always busy. It only emptied when one got closer to the forest. As I turned back to ask Colin why we were going back, his call went through.
“Dude! Whaddap!” Vinnie sounded happier than after the confrontation with Manny.
“Vin, we’re being followed.”
“The fuck?” Vinnie paused then shouted to get Daniel’s attention, his voice muffled, but loud enough to make me wince. “Where are you? We’re coming to you.”
“I’m on my way back to the Robertsau forest. We crossed the bridge and are just about to go past the turnoff to Adèle’s house.” Colin glanced in the rear view mirror again. “Two SUVs, both with tinted windows. I can’t see how many inside.”
A door slammed and the sound of an engine starting came over the phone. “You think they know you’re onto them? Did they do anything when you turned around?”
“No. They just continued following us at a distance.”
“Jen-girl, you there?”
My voice croaked when I answered and I cleared my throat. “I’m here.”
“You doing okay?”
“I’m well.” I was also extremely worried and was trying to see these vehicles Colin had spotted. I couldn’t. There were too many other cars on the road to be sure which ones were following us.
“Dude, bring them all the way here. Dan is on the horn to the old man. We’ll get Franny to track as much as she can on the city cameras as well.”
“I’ll keep this line open for now, but I’ll let Jenny speak to Francine. You deal with Millard.”
“Oh, boy.” Vinnie’s resigned sigh would’ve been amusing had it not been for the deep concern etched into Colin’s expression.
“You’re worried.” I felt silly stating the obvious.
“I am.” He nodded. “I have something very precious in the car with me that I want to keep safe.”
I frowned. “What?”
Colin’s smile was immediate and relieved some of the tension. “Not a what, a who.” He glanced at me. “You.”
“Oh.” I shook my head to change the topic. “I can’t see the SUVs following us.”
“They’re keeping a really good distance and they’re not making it obvious.” He looked at the rear view mirror again. “The first one is the silver SUV behind the small blue Toyota. The second is four cars behind him. A charcoal colour.”
I looked again and saw the silver SUV. But I couldn’t see the darker-coloured vehicle. I turned back in my seat and looked at Colin. Really looked. His eyebrows were drawn in and down, the corners of his mouth also turned down, his lips tight.
Colin’s past and his many aliases had helped him develop exceptional control over his emotions, especially allowing his thoughts and emotions to show through nonverbal cues. To see him so obviously concerned brought pure panic to my mind. Darkness seeped into my peripheral vision and my breathing shallowed.
“Jenny!” Colin’s sharp tone brought me back from giving in to the safety of that darkness. “Love, I need you to phone Francine.”
I couldn’t. I wanted to, but I was frozen. I hadn’t given in to the looming shutdown, but my mind didn’t allow my body to react to Colin’s request. I couldn’t even speak.
I pushed Mozart’s Horn Concerto No. 1 in D major into my mind and thought about Jace. He had overcome so much more than I had. My ability to verbalise my thoughts had always been a way for me to maintain control over my life and mind. He’d never had that. Yet he’d achieved so much. I focused harder on the Allegro playing in my mind. If Jace could venture out into the world without the ability to talk then I could regain control over my hands and phone Francine.
It wasn’t that simple. Colin spoke gently to me, encouraging me, but I felt powerless. Knowing that he needed my help to keep us safe exacerbated my panic. It was the dramatic Queen of the Night aria of Mozart’s Die Zauberfl?te that jerked me out of this new kind of shutdown.
Immediately, I knew where it came from and I took my phone from its place in my handbag. This might be the only time I wasn’t irritated with Colin for changing the ringtones on my phone. I swiped the screen to put her on speakerphone. “Francine.”
“Hey, girlfriend. Are you okay?”
“No.” I cleared my throat and rolled my shoulders to get rid of the lingering effects of feeling trapped in my own body.
“What can I do?” She paused for a second. “Colin? Are you listening?”
“Yes, you’re on speakerphone.” Colin raised his voice slightly, but didn’t turn towards my phone. I rested it in the palm of my hand and held it closer to him. “Can you get eyes on our location?”
“I got your GPS location from your phone the moment Dan called Manny. But you are fast on your way out of the range of the city cameras.” The sound of keystrokes in the background was non-stop. “You thinking I can get a lock on the idiots following you? Hack their cars?”
Colin huffed a laugh. “Um, no. I wasn’t thinking that, but if you can do it, great. I was hoping for IDs on those guys. Car registration or something that can help us know who we’re dealin—”
“Woohoo! Gotcha!” Francine’s loud exclamation interrupted Colin and startled me. “Dammit. I won’t be able to hack them. These are rental cars, but”—her voice drifted off and the clicking of keystrokes increased—“yup, they’ve disabled all ways to track them or connect to them remotely. No Bluetooth, wifi or anything like that.”
“Where’s Millard?”