[Quinn 04] - The Silenced

“It’s all going to be okay,” he said as he instinctively reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. “Just try to sleep.”

Her left hand touched his. He thought she was going to push his off, but she grabbed it instead, pulling it around her so that he was hugging her. As if it were a single movement, they moved closer together, her back pressing against his chest.

She seemed about to say something, but her voice remained silent. He, too, opened his mouth to speak, but no words came.

After a few minutes, he could feel her body begin to relax. He thought she had fallen asleep, so he started to pull his arm into a more comfortable position. As he did, his hand brushed against her breast.

Before he could pull it away, she turned under his arm until she was facing him. She looked at him, her eyes soft. The fear was still there, but there was something more, too.

He leaned forward, his lips finding hers.

As her left leg slipped over the stump of his right, she hesitated. But it was only a second, and after that it didn’t seem to matter to her that he wasn’t whole.

THE 2 A.M. PICKUP WENT OFF WITHOUT A hitch. Nate had slept for just over an hour and a half before he got up and made his way to the trash can on Rue de Rivoli across from the Jardin des Tuileries. Just as arranged, inside he found Liz’s false documents wrapped in a paper bag, stuffed halfway down.

Nate had been afraid when he returned he wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep. But within a minute of closing his eyes, he was out.

At 4:30 a.m. he woke again, courtesy, as it so often was, of the alarm on his phone. Liz was draped across him, her head on his chest, her legs intertwined with his.

He started to stroke her hair, then stopped, suddenly realizing what he was doing. I should have slept on the floor. Or the bathroom. Hell, I should have taken a second room. His hand started moving again, lifting strands of hair from her face.

Her eyelids parted and she looked at him.

“Time to get up?” she asked.

“Almost,” he said.

“What are you doing?”

“Your hair fell on my hand.”

She smiled, then pulled herself onto him.

“You probably shouldn’t do that,” he said.

“You want me to stop?”

In his mind, he said, Yes, but in the real world, he slid a hand behind her head and pulled her mouth to his.

When they had made love before falling asleep, there had been an urgency to it, a want and desire that possessed them both. This time their motions started slower, as if they wanted to remember every second. But then the intensity overtook them, and by the time they finished, Nate now on top, they were both drenched in sweat.

Nate held on to her for a few moments. “We’re already late.”

“Just a little longer.”

“I want to.”

“Then do it.”

“Julien is going to meet us with a car at five-thirty,” he said.

“When did you arrange that?” she asked.

“Last night.”

“Sneaky,” she said. “What time is it now?”

He looked at his watch. “Crap,” he said.

“What?”

“It’s almost five. We need to move.”

“Once more,” she whispered. “He’ll wait. And we might not get another chance for a while.”

She slipped her hand between his legs and moved her lips to his ear.

Yeah, he thought. Julien can wait.

•   •   •

By the time Nate and Liz left the hotel, it was already twenty minutes after five. There was no way they were going to make it on time. Nate pulled out his phone and sent Julien a quick text:

+ 15

Outside, it took a few minutes longer than he’d hoped to find a taxi, but once they did, traffic was light, so it wasn’t long before the driver dropped them off near the entrance to the Sully-Morland Métro station on Boulevard Henri IV. As soon as the cab left, Nate pointed at the station entrance.

“Wait down there,” he told Liz, then handed her a piece of paper. “That’s your brother’s number. Give me fifteen minutes. If I’m not back, find a pay phone and call him.”

“What do you mean, if you’re not back? Why wouldn’t you come back?”

“It’s just in case. Don’t worry, I’ll be back.”

“Then I don’t need this.”

She held the paper out to him, but Nate insisted. “Just keep it. For me, okay?”

She didn’t look happy, but slipped the paper into the pocket of her jeans. Once she’d descended the stairs, he walked to the end of the small cobblestone square and turned onto Rue de Sully. Julien’s message had said he’d be parked somewhere along the northeast side.

Rue de Sully was a one-way street with empty cars lining each side, narrowing the useable space to a one-car lane down the middle. Keeping to the opposite side of the road, Nate searched the parked cars for the silhouette of a man sitting behind the wheel. But the further he went without seeing anyone, the more concerned he became. Had Julien already left?

He glanced at his watch. The deadline he’d given Liz was already a third of the way gone. Either he found Julien in the next few minutes, or he turned around and figured out some other way to get them out of town.