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"I was talking about hisley pointed at Wes with his phone Laila ssley raised the phone to his ear Sorinned like the devil hi in that favor you owe us"

Part Two

EN PASSANT

11

THE QUEEN

For what felt like an hour, Nora paced the rooreen curtains They hadn’t handcuffed her, hadn’t gagged or bound her; they’d simply left her to walk unencumbered She tried thefirst and found it locked and barred She’d need a blowtorch to get out that way The door seeun waiting to shoot on sight Still, if no one caive it a try Better to die on her feet than huddled in a corner crying

She kept ive in to panic Where was she? She felt like she should know The furniture was elegant but old and dated She’d guess someone had decorated the house in the 1960s and no one had bothered updating the decor since then It gave the room an eerie feel, like she’d fallen into another time Or that tiainst old stale air that had probably wasted away in this roo? She thought she knew everything about Søren’s o, Søren had brought Marie-Laure frosley in lieu of the Je t’aied to hear Søren told her that he’d never considered the possibility of sley becae, he realized it could be the perfect solution But Marie-Laure had ignored Søren’s cautions that he would never love her back and she’d fallen head over heels for hiht it had ended Marie-Laure catching Søren and Kingsley in an intih the winter woods in shock and grief She slipped on ice, perhaps--or ed a hundred feet to her death, her body shattering on a rock belo she knew it had been a lie Marie-Laure had learned long before that sley and Søren that they were lovers Did she think she’d done them a favor? She would die and leave Søren a er, and he and Kingsley would fall into each other’s arave theift back

Nora stopped her caged pacing long enough to glance out theagain and peer between the bars The stars danced high in the night sky What ti had she been here? She wore the same clothes she’d had on in the stables with Wesley back in Kentucky She still had on her black snakeskin cowboy boots she’d worn riding Still had on

Nora glanced down at her left hand On the ring finger sat a diamond that outshone the stars in the sky outside the

"Wes" she whispered, staring at the ring God, poor Wesley He must be out of his mind with panic now What had he done? She prayed he hadn’t called the police Getting the police involved would only erously crazy She had to be intelligent to fake her death and make a life for herself for thirty years If Marie-Laure wanted revenge on Søren it would be easy enough--kill Nora She knew Søren would rather see his own heart cut out than allow anything to happen to her If the sirens started screa, it would be quick work to slit her throat and disappear back into whatever secret hellhole Marie-Laure had been hiding for the past thirty years

Footsteps in the hallway alerted her she had perhaps only a few more seconds alone At one end of the library stood a fireplace, and by the fireplace hung a row of antique bronze fireplace tools, including a poker She felt a strange so when she picked it up The heft of it surprised her There was a weightiness to it greater even than its actual mass She sensed history in it and didn’t understand why Didn’t ripped it just the sa crop in her hand A riding crop used properlylike fire when applied to the body but it sure as fk could do a lot of da to her when he gave her the first of her little red riding crops--never go near the face, never go near the eyes I met a boy in India who’d been blinded when a rich et me sued, chérie

The door started to open Nora strode toward it

A man stepped in the rom

Nora aimed for the eyes

Fro an attack, but not of this variety He caught the brass bar an inch frorasped Nora by the wrist and slammed her into the floor She hit hard and the air rushed fro, Andrei," ca tone froave up when theher down

"I saw it coroin," the ritted teeth She could hardly breathe with this Andrei bastard on her back The other guy, Dahed two tons dry