Suspects(57)

She lay in her bed on Sunday night, beginning to panic, and decided to call his main office line the next day. But with the time difference, she had to wait until three p.m. her time before there would be someone at his office to answer. She wondered at least once if he had decided to end the affair with her and didn’t have the guts to tell her, but that was so unlike him, and nothing had gone wrong during his recent visit to Paris.

She hardly slept that night and had sent him half a dozen anxious texts by then, and left at least ten voicemails and an email. She wondered if he had lost his phone, which was the simplest explanation for his silence, and she hadn’t even thought of that before. It had happened to her once and she was out of communication for a week until she got a new one. Matthieu had been very annoyed with her, but she hadn’t had time to stop and pick up a new phone.

She got to her office promptly, her DGSE agents with her. They had a comfortable spot to sit outside her office where they could see her through a glass wall, without disturbing her. She checked her watch constantly for the next six hours, trying to get some work done in between, not too successfully. Her assistant Martine asked if anything was wrong, and she said there wasn’t, but she could tell Theo was lying and hoped it wasn’t something to do with the kidnappers again.

At five after three precisely, she took out the business card Mike had given her when they met, with his main office line on it, and she put the number into her phone and waited.

A serious male voice answered and gave the fictional name of the law firm he allegedly worked for. She asked for Michael Andrews in what she hoped sounded like a normal tone and not as hysterical as she felt by then, after six days of silence.

The male voice said simply, “Just a moment. Please hold the line.” She had never spoken to any of them, since she always called him on his personal cellphone, not the office number. The wait seemed interminable and she assumed they were asking Mike if he would talk to her. She hadn’t even had time to give her name before she was put on hold, and she wanted to scream while she waited. After five minutes, a female voice came on the line. She sounded serious and older, and not young and sexy, which reassured Theo since she had no idea why Mike was no longer speaking to her. Maybe he had fallen in love with his secretary.

“May I help you?” the voice said. “Mr. Andrews isn’t available at the moment. He’s out of the office.” The only thing that reassured Theo was that since she hadn’t given her name to the first voice, the refusal wasn’t personal.

“I’m afraid that the call is important,” Theo said politely, but with determination. “Will he be in shortly?”

There was the slightest pause, and then, “I’m sorry. He’s working out of the office with a client today. May I help you with something?” Theo was at a loss for an instant. She knew his assistant’s name but had never spoken to her.

“Could I speak to Jocelyn, his assistant?” Theo said. “I’m Theo Morgan.” She hoped that Jocelyn knew about her, but she wasn’t sure since Mike was so secretive about everything.

“One moment please, I’ll transfer the call,” the woman said, and Theo had another five-minute wait. She had never realized how complicated it was to reach him, since he called her most of the time. A younger woman’s voice came on the line then, also sounding serious, and Theo identified herself again. And then in desperation, she added, “I’m the person he visits in Paris,” hoping that Jocelyn knew about her.

“I know who you are,” the girl said quietly, and there was a tremor in her voice that Theo didn’t like. “Mike isn’t coming in today,” she said in the same tone.

“Is he working out of the office?” Theo felt as though she had hit a stone wall and was looking for a door but couldn’t find it. There was a long silence after her question.

“I’m so sorry,” Jocelyn said, and Theo almost thought she was crying. “I’m not supposed to give out information. He had an accident last Tuesday night.”

“What kind of accident?” Theo could feel her blood run cold, and she had a terrifying déjà vu of when she was told that Matthieu and Axel had been kidnapped, after she arrived and found Axel’s running shoe on the front step and then found the chateau empty. “Is he all right?”

“No, he isn’t,” Jocelyn answered. “He’s in critical condition, in the ICU. He was shot during a big field operation.”

“Oh my God. Where?” She meant geography, not that it mattered.

“In the chest. They’re keeping him in a coma, he’s on a respirator. He joined the operation in the field at the last minute,” she said. The floodgates had opened and she was crying, and so was Theo. She wasn’t listed as an emergency contact for him, so no one had known to reach out to her, or that she even existed, if he couldn’t tell them himself.

“What hospital is he in?”

“New York Presbyterian. He can’t have visitors, just family. He only has the office listed as his next of kin, so I don’t think anyone is with him. He has a sister but he didn’t want to worry her if he ever got injured.” It was more information than he had ever given her. He was very close-mouthed about things like that.

“Is he going to be all right?” She held her breath after she asked.

“The bullet grazed his heart, but it didn’t enter it. He was in surgery for twelve hours. I don’t know more than that.”