Until You

"I know that."

"And now you want me to hand this off to someone else?"

Conor's mouth narrowed. "That's right."

"I've never known you to leave an assignment unfinished, my boy. You admit, you've yet to question Moreau or to check Amalie de Lasserre's motives more deeply, and you've as

ked me to check out one Vincent Moratelli."

"Isn't it good to know that I'm leaving something for the next guy to do? Listen, I didn't phone to ask permission, I phoned to tell you I was signing off."

"May I ask the reason?"

"I told you, I don't like playing bodyguard, especially where I have no authority."

"Foreign soil, and all that."

"Now you've got it."

"Well, I can't disagree with you, Conor. It's just that the second note puts a new twist on things."

"Not in any way that affects me."

"I'm not talking about the note Miss Beckman received." Thurston paused, long enough to highlight the drama of the moment. "A second note was delivered to Eva, just today."

"I still don't see how that changes things," Conor said, but a warning buzz was already tingling down his spine.

"The note was on the same paper as before. Same ink, looks to be the same handwriting."

"I still don't see—"

"It was written in French and it says..." Conor could hear the faint rustle of paper. "It says, and I know you'll forgive my accent..."

"Just read the damned note, Harry, okay?"

"It says, C 'est de la foutaise, ta fille. C'est une allumeuse et bientot, elle sera morte."

Conor felt his heart begin to swell, until it seemed lodged in the middle of his throat.

"I suppose you had that translated?"

"Please, credit me with some competence. Of course I had it translated. It means..." Again, there was the rustle of paper. "It means, 'Your daughter is garbage. She is..."' Harry cleared his throat. " 'She is a cock-teaser and soon, she will be dead.' " Silence hummed along the line and then he cleared his throat again. "So, what do you think?"

Conor closed his eyes. Thurston, the son of a bitch, knew exactly what he thought.

The notes to Eva, the vile message sent to Miranda and the trashing of her bedroom were definitely connected. To hell with Hoyt's appointment; that wasn't the issue here. What was happening was about Miranda and had been, right from the start.

"Conor?"

"Yeah," he said brusquely. "I'll call you back in ten minutes."

He dropped the phone back into its cradle, turned up his collar and leaned against the wall of the booth. The lights were still on in Miranda's apartment. He thought of her lying in the warm, wide bed and then he thought of what she'd said to him and the cold, deliberate way she'd said it.

The bitch.

He owed her nothing. He never even wanted to see her again—but, God help him, there wasn't a way in the world he was going to turn this fucking case over to anybody else. He stood there, shivering in the cold, thinking and planning, and then he picked up the telephone and dialed Thurston's home again.

* * *