“No kidding. I guess I will take that Stella now.”
The Extreme Fitness had been a guess, though not a wild one: there was a branch right across the street from Risque. Women pedalling their stationary bikes and staring into their smart phones.
The bartender bent to get the beer from the cooler and Delorme couldn’t help noticing the silky legs, firm of calf and thigh. Thinking, great-lesbian cop. A single encounter and I turn into a total cliche. As a countermeasure, she called John Cardinal to her mind, their kisses on that winter night that seemed so far away. Picturing his face, those mournful eyes of his, brought an ache to her heart. She dismissed the image.
“Darlene been in lately?”
“Darlene! You a friend of his or you just know him from here?”
“I know him from Algonquin Bay.”
“Is he from up there? Darlene. Boy, quite a character, that one. Was that you with him the night he had those three guys lined up and-oops. Forgetting myself here.”
“Have to be discreet, huh?”
“Big time. Really, I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“It’s okay. Take a look at this.” Delorme opened her purse and pulled out the photograph she’d taken from the envelope in Miranda Heap’s desk.
“Ohmigod, that was taken here!” The bartender clutched the photo to her tank top and looked around before leaning forward. “They’re dead serious about the no photos thing. Really, I’ve never seen a picture taken here before. I mean, they throw people out if they catch them taking pictures.”
“Well, you can see the club logo right behind him,” Delorme said.
“Put that away, girl. I never saw that, okay?” She rushed away to serve some people at the other end of the bar.
The place was filling up. Delorme stayed at the bar waiting for, well, she didn’t know what for. There was some kind of weird throbbing, a yearning inside her. People do things out of character all the time. I don’t know why I did it, they say-it was an impulse. Or, I had way too much to drink and suddenly I just, I don’t know, lost control. Police hear it all the time.
Out of character. Delorme thought about that. Across the room on a red plush couch, a woman lay back as two men kissed her and stroked her. If the woman felt anything other than lust, she wasn’t showing it, kissing them right back, unbuttoning their shirts. A few more minutes and they’d be heading up to the third floor.
Out of character. Who doesn’t want to be out of character once in a while? Junior detective on a small-city force with a reputation as a hard-ass, a decent worker but not much more. Single, and thirty-five a receding memory. Lusty, yes. Definitely fond of sex. But not promiscuous, at least not up until now, and about as unkinky as an average Canadian girl can be. Or so I thought. Why shouldn’t I fuck my brains out? It’s not like it’s going to upset the husband, embarrass the children.
A man came up and asked her nervously if she’d like to join him and his wife in an alcove.
Delorme turned her head toward the dark nook. A small woman in a silver lame halter smiled and gave a little wave.
“Let me think about it, okay? I’m not exactly used to-”
“I get ya. No problem. We just think you’re really cute and you seem to be on your own, so…”
“I’ll think about it.”
“We don’t come here a lot either. It’s only our second time.”
“Okay.”
The guy went back to the alcove. His wife straddled his lap and his arms circled her waist. They were both attractive, and Delorme thought she could detect honest affection in the way they touched.
Maybe it’s not out of character. Maybe it’s just discovering another part of my character, like coming upon a secret room in a house you’ve lived in all your life. She looked at the couple again, the man’s hands stroking the woman’s back. Suppose she went over there and sat beside them, the man reaching over and touching her, or perhaps the woman. Just thinking about it changed the chemistry in her bloodstream-a light sweat breaking out on her forehead, heart rate heading to the high end of her aerobic zone-a dark cocktail swirling through her veins, of lust, of fear, of guilt, with notes, as a connoisseur might say, of despair.
She turned around and caught the bartender’s attention, holding up her clutch purse. “Can I get a key? I think I want to lock this up.”
The bartender brought a key with a rubber band attached to it. “Taking the plunge, huh?”
Delorme had to take her phone out of the purse to get at her money. As she set it on the bar, it lit up and began to quiver. She picked it up and looked at the screen. John Cardinal. Something like a sob welled up in her chest. She pressed Talk.
“Jesus, you picked up for once. Listen, how fast can you get down to Toronto?”
“I’m in Toronto. Why?”
“Hayley Babstock has been abducted.”
When Hayley first woke up, she thought she was on her way to the beach. Her mother and father in the front listening to classical music or the news while she curled up in the back seat. Every year they went to Cape Cod in the States, drove there (when they could very easily have flown first class) because her father found the driving relaxing. They stayed in a perfect jewel box of a house in Wellfleet.
Her parents were both so happy during those vacations. It was the only time it seemed to Hayley that she lived in a family like the ones you saw on television. Everybody close and happy, especially her father. August was the only month she got to spend a lot of time with him. He would build sandcastles with her, put puzzles together on the huge refectory table, play board games. And the three of them reading, devouring stacks of books and magazines.
But this was not their car, and she was not a little girl. Her arms and legs felt thick and heavy. She tried to stretch, and found that her hands and feet were bound. There was a handkerchief or something tied across her mouth, tight enough that she couldn’t dislodge it, push as she might with her tongue. But no blindfold.
She remembered the alley, the security man, the thing in his hand. A hypodermic meant planning, elaborate intentions, and she felt a strong urge to scream. She forced herself to take deep, slow breaths.
Highway-the road smooth, the speed steady-a major highway. Sounds of larger vehicles growing near, fading, but no whoosh of oncoming traffic. There were no windows in the back of the vehicle, but passing lights swept through the darkness at regular intervals. Highway 400, the 401, or the QEW. At any given time, half of Canada was on these roads.
Whatever he had injected her with was wearing off. She could wiggle her hands and feet and turn her head. Her fingers touched the metal side of the van. She pressed here and there as many times as she could, leaving marks. She would get out of this. She would get out of this and they would find the van, and she would be believed. Her fingerprints would convict him.
She craned her neck to see. Part of the profile, the strong nose, hair the colour of a grubby coin, slicked back from his face. He turned his head to look at her and she closed her eyes too late. Moments later, the sway of inertia as the van changed lanes. Another move to the right and then it slowed and stopped. Whoosh of cars rushing by.
Hayley backed herself up against the seats, expecting him to appear at the back of the van. But a side panel slid open and he was right beside her. He held the needle, point up, by his shoulder. She squirmed away and tried to kick at him with both feet.
Giles Blunt
Until the Night
From the Blue Notebook
I am a person given to the scientific and materialist view of existence. Not a man to dwell on concepts of fate, predetermination or tragedy. But concerning that chapter of my life that began with Rebecca’s arrival at Arcosaur, I have been drawn again and again to the medieval idea of Fortune.
And yet not the wheel of fortune, which is a neat analogy to the common situation of being on top of the world one minute and utterly cast down-or at least on a marked downward trajectory-the next. But luck, yes luck, fair or foul, shows its hand in the affairs of man far more often than, say, effort rewarded or love conquering all. We commonly see fools come out on top and good men brought low.
My scientific training is of no use in explaining what had happened to us so far, let alone what was to come.
