Rules of Vengeance

65

Midnight.

The house on the Rue Saint-Martin was dark, except for a dim glow in an upstairs window. A nightlight, Emma guessed, in the children’s room. Crouched behind the stone wall that ran around Jean Grégoire’s house, she slid the balaclava over her face, taking time to adjust the eyes and mouth. Her knees ached.

She had held this position for an hour, keeping watch as the lights were extinguished one by one and Grégoire took a last walk around the garden, picking up a stray rake and righting his daughter’s bicycle before enjoying a cigarette on the back stoop. He was a compact man with narrow shoulders and the beginnings of a paunch. An unassuming man to look at, except for his posture, which was ramrod straight and hinted at a military background. She pegged him as a fighter and made a note to take him first. The air hummed with the sawing of crickets. Somewhere close by, a swift stream hurtled past. Despite this, she’d heard the rear door close quite clearly and even the lock as it fell into place. A moment later Grégoire had opened a side window to allow the night air to cool the old cottage.

Emma checked her watch. Forty minutes had passed since the last light had gone out. It was a guessing game now. Some people enjoyed their deepest slumber immediately after nodding off. Others took ages to fall asleep. She could go now or later. The risks were the same.

In a single fluid motion, she rose and bounded over the wall. There wasn’t a soul within a kilometer, but she ran to the house all the same and pressed her back against the wall. Training. A circuit of the cottage revealed no evidence of a security system. The back door was locked.

Instead of risking her steel picks, she circled to the open window. The sill was at shoulder height. Freeing the screen, she propped it against the rock slurry that belted the cottage and peered inside.

The ground floor appeared to be a large, uninterrupted room with groupings of furniture defining its spaces. Closest, there was a television and a couch and two chairs. To the right was a dining room set. The stairwell rose in the center of the room, blocking her view. She guessed the kitchen was behind it, accessed by the back door, through which Grégoire had retreated after his cigarette.

Emma held her breath, listening.

The house was silent.

Taking a breath, she boosted herself onto the sill and swung her legs inside. The floor was wooden, aged, and warped. She shifted her weight from her left foot to the right. The floorboards groaned. Pulling off her shoes, she laid them by the window. The secret was to move fast. Everything had to happen quickly. There was no time for hesitation. No room for second thoughts.

She crossed the living room and mounted the stairs two at a time, careful to rise on the balls of her feet. In her right hand she held the Taser. In the left, flexicuffs. Precut strips of duct tape were laid across her forearm; her work bag was strapped snugly against her back.

She reached the top of the stairs and kept moving. The ceiling was low, the corridor short and narrow. A door stood open on either side. She remembered that the nightlight had been on the east side of the home- the right-hand side of the corridor. Grégoire and his wife slept in the room to the left.

She poked her head around the doorframe. Grégoire was sound asleep on his back, snoring quietly, his mouth open wide. His wife lay on her side, separated from her husband by several inches. Emma walked to his side of the bed, placed the Taser against his bare chest, and fired the 10,000-volt charge. Grégoire bucked, then lay still. The scent of burned flesh soured the air. Before he’d settled, she’d slapped a strip of tape across his mouth. Her left hand pulled down the blankets. She dropped the Taser and with both hands grasped his limp arms in an effort to secure the flexicuffs. One arm was pinned behind his back. She struggled to lift him. Grégoire’s wife awoke and bolted upright in bed. Emma dropped his arms and reached for the Taser. The stun gun was not where she’d left it; she saw that she’d placed the duvet on top of it. The woman started to scream. Emma backhanded her across the mouth. Leaping onto the bed, she pinned Grégoire’s wife down and taped her mouth. The woman was wiry and fit. A mother’s fear amplified her strength. She shoved Emma violently, sending her sprawling onto the floor. Emma jumped to her feet, her vision blurred, her head throbbing. Grégoire’s wife was sliding out of bed, working to pull the tape from her mouth.

Kill her.

Emma’s hand dived into her bag. Her fingers closed around the pistol as her thumb dropped the safety. She thought of the little girl and released the pistol. With a cat’s agility, she stretched out an arm and took hold of the woman’s hair. She gave a single brutal tug, and the woman crashed to the floor. Emma dropped to a knee and brought her elbow onto the bridge of the woman’s nose, immobilizing her.

Up again. Breathing hard now.

Emma found the Taser and rammed it against the woman’s shoulder. Grégoire’s wife shuddered, eyes rolling back into her head, saliva issuing from her mouth.

Panting, Emma stood, sweat streaming down her back. She looked at Grégoire. Thankfully, he remained unconscious. She went to his side of the bed and cuffed his wrists. More tape bound his ankles. She returned to Grégoire’s wife and bound her similarly.

In their room, the children continued to sleep. Emma stepped toward the boy, then halted. The nightlight fell upon his face, and she observed his long, graceful eyelashes, his unblemished cheeks. An angel’s hair, she thought, looking upon his blond locks. Three years old. He would forget.

Then she heard a sound emanating from the parents’ room. A grunt. The efforts of a man struggling to free himself. A split second later came a thud as Grégoire rolled off the bed and hit the floor.

Emma returned her attention to the boy. She moved quickly. Tape. Cuffs. She did not look at his terrified eyes.

The girl was awake. She sat up, staring at Emma. A vision from her worst dreams. A wraith in black. Tears fell from her eyes.

How old? Emma wondered. Six? Seven? Old enough to remember. Old enough never to forget. Emma wanted to say something, to tell her not to be afraid, that everything would be all right. It was a stupid thought.

Peeling off tape, she pressed it over the child’s mouth and cuffed her hands.

Then Emma left the room, closing the door behind her.

She walked into the parents’ bedroom and saw Grégoire struggling to his feet.

There was no time for mistakes.

Quietly she closed the bedroom door and reached for her pistol.