Brett Battles - Shadow of Betrayal

“An adult daughter.”

“Yeah. Maybe that’s who Peter was talking about.”

“Maybe,” Quinn said. “Anything else on the family?”

“Hold on,” she said.

She brought up a search engine, then typed in the names of the three people who had died. Martin Dupuis, Rose Dupuis, Emily Dupuis. Husband, wife, daughter. A list of several links appeared, most associated with people other than those who had died. Orlando clicked through several of them before stopping on one.

“Here we go,” she said.

The website was for another newspaper, this time in French. Le Journal de Montréal. While Quinn was well versed in several languages, French was not one of his strongest. The same wasn’t true for Orlando, though. She was fluent.

“What’s it say?” Quinn asked.

“It’s another article about the deaths, but it goes into more detail about the family. Martin Dupuis was a retired professor. Taught sociology at McGill University until two years ago. Rose was a teacher, too. Literature, but at a private high school. She was still working. Their daughter had apparently been living back at home following a recent divorce.” Orlando paused as she continued reading to herself. “Interesting.”

“What?”

“There’s another daughter. Younger than the one who died. Only says she no longer lives in Montreal. No name given.”

“Maybe they haven’t been able to reach her yet,” Quinn said.

“Maybe she’s the one who killed them,” Orlando suggested.

Quinn shrugged, then straightened up. There was no way to tell these were the Dupuises Peter wanted them to check out. Still, the potential was too large to ignore.

“Get an address,” Quinn said. “Let’s at least do a drive-by.”

“Already got it.”

They rousted Nate out of his room, then took the Jetta across the river into Montreal. They found the Dupuis house about forty minutes later on the northeast side of town. It was a neighborhood of single-family homes, on small economical lots that made it difficult for one neighbor not to know what the other was doing. Several had lights on in their windows, but many were already dark, the owners either settled in for the night or not home.

They passed the Dupuis home at a slow, steady pace. It was two stories tall, but narrow. Quinn guessed no more than twelve hundred square feet of living space. The windows were all dark, but a nearby streetlamp illuminated enough of the front to see a strip of yellow tape strung across the opening between two bushes that led to the front door. Police tape. There was also a makeshift memorial at the front of the lawn. Dozens of glass candle containers, half already burned out, and several bundles of flowers spilled over from the grass onto the sidewalk.

Other than that, it was just like any of the other houses on the street.

Quinn circled the block and came back down the road again. This time he pulled to the curb two houses before reaching the Dupuis’, taking one of the few remaining parking spots on either side of the street. He stared out the window at the house the three members of the Dupuis family had died in, and tried to imagine the gas filling the house, pushing the oxygen out. But he was having a hard time believing it. From all appearances the house looked well maintained. In fact it looked in better shape than most of those around it. Could it be possible that a family who took that good care of their home could be neglectful when it came to the maintenance of the house’s inner workings? Quinn didn’t think so.

“Are we going in?” Orlando asked.

Quinn thought for a moment, then nodded. “Nate, you stay here.”

“Why me?”

“Someone needs to stay with the car, in case we have to get out in a hurry,” Quinn said.

“That doesn’t answer my question,” Nate said.

Quinn’s eyes narrowed. “Because I told you to stay.”

“I can stay,” Orlando said.

“No,” Quinn said. “You’re coming with me.”

Orlando looked at Nate, but he shook his head and said, “It’s fine.”

Quinn opened the door and started to get out.

“Wait,” Orlando said. She reached into the small backpack she’d brought along, and pulled out three cloth packets. “Radios. Just in case.”

She handed them around.

Once they were out of the car, Quinn and Orlando did a quick visual check up and down the block. There were no other pedestrians. Not surprising for 10 p.m. on a residential street.

Satisfied, Quinn started walking toward the Dupuis home, Orlando falling into step behind him.

“You could have handled that better,” she whispered.

“Not now,” he said. But she was right, and he’d known it the moment he’d told Nate to stay in the car. He was just trying to protect Nate, but everything he did made him look like an asshole.

A dog barked from across the street. Two yips, then nothing. A warning to not even think about crossing the road. In the house next door to the Dupuis’, someone was watching a TV with the volume up much too loud. The blue flicker of the screen spilled through the second-floor window. The bedroom of an older resident, perhaps.

Quinn took one last look around before they reached the corner of the Dupuis’ property. They still seemed to be the only people out. The memorial in the front yard was down to one burning candle that looked like it wouldn’t last much longer.

“Let’s do it,” Quinn said.

They turned up the short walkway like they lived there. At the end of the concrete path, a short two-step staircase led up to the door. But instead of ascending, they paused at the bottom. As Quinn had noted when they drove by, there was police tape across the walkway to the door. On the tape, bold black letters spelling out in both French and English:

BARRAGE DE POLICE PASSAGE INTERDIT • POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS

Passage prohibited by the police. It was, after all, a potential crime scene now.

Quinn still wasn’t sure if they should try and get inside, but he did know that using the front door was out of the question. The same streetlamp that had provided the good view of the house when they drove by now lit their every move.

“Around the side,” he whispered.

Orlando nodded.

“Anything?” Nate asked.

“Nothing yet,” Quinn said.

As they moved down the side of the house, Quinn glanced more than once at the home next door where the TV blared upstairs. He wanted to be able to get the hell out of there if he saw someone staring back at him. But there was no one.

When they reached the rear corner of the house, they stopped. Quinn pulled out two pairs of disposable rubber gloves, and handed a set to Orlando. Once his were on, he retrieved his gun from under his jacket. He then peered around the edge, but pulled back immediately.

“What is it?” Orlando asked.

“Back door’s open,” he said.

“I don’t hear anything from inside. Do you?”

Quinn listened for a moment, then shook his head.

“Come on.”

He led them around the corner, and over to the door. Leaning forward, he listened again to see if he could hear anyone moving around. Still nothing. Then why was it open? Couldn’t have been the cops. Quinn had been one himself before Durrie had recruited him to be a cleaner. He knew the training, and the precautions taken at crime scenes. Leaving doors open just wasn’t done.

He moved his head a few inches so he could look at the door itself. It had been swung open about halfway. The darkness made it hard to see anything for sure, but there were no obvious marks near the lock that would have indicated someone had broken in.

A friend with a spare key? A killer who picked up a key on his way out? Or maybe had one all along? A neighbor kid who did the yard work and knew where an emergency key was hidden? It was human nature, after all, to be drawn to the pain and the horror life sometimes served up.