The Unwanted (21 page)

The tone of Marion's voice carried an undercurrent of panic, but there was enough comfort to settle Iris. The whimpering ceased, and the little girl lay her head heavy against Marion's shoulder. A few seconds later her breathing was deep and even. Asleep now, no need for a bed.

Marion walked back to the Motel Monique clutching the child to her with one hand while pulling her suitcase behind her in the other.

From the moment she entered the motel's office, the clerk eyed her suspiciously. He was sitting behind a poorly laminated counter with the very classy addition of a Plexiglas wall that extended from the counter's top all the way to the ceiling. There was a small circle cut into the see-through divider about a foot and a half above the counter, and another, half-moon shaped, where the plexi met the laminate. Like an old movie-house kiosk, only scummier. The plexi was scratched and worn, and at some point in the past several years it looked like someone had thrown liquid against the surface, and no one had gotten around to cleaning it yet. But it worked well with the rest of the office's décor: old, barely functional, and uncared for.

"Help you?" the clerk said as Marion approached the window. He was only slightly better than the room itself. At least it looked like he'd taken a shower in the last forty-eight hours.

"I need a room," she said.

His gaze flicked to Iris, then back at Marion. "For how long?"

"Just one night."

"The whole night?"

"I just need a place to sleep. For me and my child."

"That's your kid?" he asked, again with the suspicious eyes.

"Just tell me how much."

"There's an EconoLodge not too far from here. You'll be more comfortable there."

"Your sign outside says Vacancy. Are you telling me you don't have any rooms?" she said.

"Lady, you're not likely to get a lot of sleep here."

She pulled out several bills. "How much? Sixty dollars?"

A slight widening of his eyes told her sixty was more than the going rate, but she wanted to close the deal.

"Here," she said. She put three twenties on the counter just her side of the half-moon opening. "That should do it, right?"

He looked at the money for a moment, then reached under the counter and came up with a key.

"Third floor, in the front," he said. "You'll hear the street, but most of the other guests prefer rooms in the back."

She understood what he was trying to tell her. "Thank you," she said.

She exchanged her money for the key.

"Elevator's out the door and to the right."

The clerk had been right about the room. She
could hear
every car that passed on the street, but while there were the occasional voices from the far end of the motel corridor, there didn't seem to be anyone using the rooms nearby.

Iris didn't seem to mind any of it. She was fast asleep on the bed beside Marion. Something Marion wished she could also do. She had never felt this tired in her life.

Bone weary.
It was a term she'd heard one of her American colleagues use. Now she knew what the woman had meant, for her exhaustion went way beyond skin deep, touching every cell in her body.

But sleep wasn't coming. Not yet.

It wasn't that she was afraid she'd chosen the wrong place to stay. Far from it. The fact that the clerk hadn't even had her fill out any kind of registration card had confirmed she'd made the right choice.

It was the story in the newspaper. She had read it three times, then dropped the pages on the floor.

Her parents were dead.

Her sister was dead.

The paper had said it looked like an accident, a leak in a gas line that had filled the home while her family slept. But Marion knew that couldn't be possible. Her father had been meticulous in his care of the house. He'd had the entire gas system replaced only five years earlier. Far too soon for it to be experiencing any fatigue, and far too late for any installation mistakes to make themselves known. Besides, the new system had included leak detectors in each of the rooms where gas was used. The article had made no mention of detectors, and Marion found it impossible to think of a scenario where they all malfunctioned at once.

Her family was dead, and it was her fault. There was no other possible explanation. Whoever was looking for her had all the information they needed. For starters, they obviously had access to her UN file, and that would be more than enough. It would contain a history of anywhere she had lived, the names of places she had worked prior to the UN, her college transcripts, and the names and address of her family.

Maybe they thought she was in the house, too. At the very least, they'd thought the possibility she'd show in Montreal was high. Maybe they had tried getting her parents to tell them where she was. The article had made no mention of potential foul play, but could the police have been hiding that? Could her family have been tortured to see if they knew anything?

Oh, God,
she thought,
I've killed them.

Beside her, Iris smacked her lips in her sleep, then turned toward Marion, nuzzling against the woman's side before settling back down. Marion looked at the child, knowing she was the cause of what had happened but unable to blame the girl. It was Marion who had decided to safeguard her. She could have easily told her superiors in Côte d'Ivoire about the child. An appropriate place would have been found for Iris, and Marion's family would still be alive.

But that hadn't been the path she had chosen. She hadn't trusted her own people to keep Iris out of harm.

A thought occurred to her. Maybe everything would have still been all right if she hadn't started digging into similar cases. Maybe that was the trigger.

She closed her eyes. It was too much for her to think about, too much for her to consider. There was only one truth.

Her family was dead. And it was her fault.

The first light of morning woke her. She was still dressed, and propped up in the same position she had been in since she'd climbed into bed the previous evening.

Iris was asleep, lying comfortably on her back, her face slack and restful. The girl was amazing that way. She never seemed to have a problem sleeping. Maybe it was a kid thing, Marion thought. But she wasn't sure. She had seen plenty of children at the orphanages she visited, even at Frau Roslyn's, who woke up at least once or twice a night.

Marion eased herself off the bed so as not to disturb the child, and went into the bathroom. The shower looked questionable, but she knew she needed it, so she turned the water on as hot as she could stand it and got in. The stiffness she had felt upon waking began to loosen under the steaming water. Once she was done, she used one of the threadbare towels to dry off, then went back into the room.

She stopped after only a few feet and stared at the bed.

Iris was gone.

"Iris, where are you?"

She took a step to her right so she could look around one side of the bed, but the girl wasn't there.

"Iris?"

She shot a quick look at the door, but the security chain was still in place from when she'd locked up the night before.

"Iris?"

There was the crinkle of paper. It came from the other side of the bed.

Marion rushed over, then breathed a sigh of relief.

Iris sat on the floor grinning as she picked up one of the pages of the discarded newspaper and flapped it up and down. She let out a giggle as she noticed Marion.

"Having fun?" Marion asked. She picked the child up, hugging her tight.

"Why don't you stay on the bed while I get dressed, hmm?"

She set Iris down on the mattress, then retrieved the paper. She hesitated as she caught sight of the front page picture showing the house she'd grown up in. She almost put the paper back on the floor, but Iris was reaching out for it and making sounds like it was hers. Marion shook herself, then smiled and gave the newspaper to the girl.

Iris immediately began playing with it again. Marion suspected that most five-year-olds would pretend to read the paper or at least be interested in the pictures. But Iris wasn't at that point yet. She seemed caught up in the sheer joy of the sound the paper made as she moved it and hit it and rubbed it against itself.

There was a small TV bolted to a shelf against the wall. Marion couldn't locate a remote, so she walked over and turned it on, and was greeted with a scene of multiple naked bodies entwined in some kind of grotesque semblance of sex. The moans that came out of the speaker sounded more rehearsed than natural. Porno for the typical Motel Monique guest, she realized as she hastily changed the channel. She found a local morning news show, then got dressed as she watched, hoping to hear more about what had happened to her family.

The lead story of the six-thirty update concerned the kidnapping and murder of a prominent American official in New York City. There was even a police sketch of a possible suspect. Marion glanced up at it as she was pulling on her pants.

Then the story ended, and a new graphic appeared over the shoulder of the news anchor. It was a picture of her parents, and superimposed over them the word:

Tragédie

Tragedy.

"Police now say the deaths two nights ago of a Montreal family while they slept might not have been an accident after all." The anchor was a young woman looking far too put together for such an early hour. "Francine Blanc is at the scene of the fast-breaking story."

Marion sat down on the edge of the bed as the image on the TV switched to an outside shot across the street from her parents' house. There was a near clone of the anchor standing on the sidewalk facing the camera. She was holding a microphone in her hand.

"Francine, what can you tell us?" the anchor said.

"Nicole, police now think there is a very real possibility that this was not an accident. As you know, yesterday morning, the Dupuis family was found dead in their beds by a friend of the family who became concerned when Madame Dupuis failed to show up for work. At that time it appeared that the family had succumbed to a gas leak sometime during the previous night. While it is still believed that gas is what killed them, sources inside the police department are now saying the leak may have been caused by a deliberate act."

They showed some video from the previous day, including an interview with the person who had found the bodies. It was Madame Devore from the school where Marion's mother taught.

"It's terrible," Madame Devore said. There were tears streaming down her cheeks. "They were just . . . please, I can't talk about this now. Excuse me. Please."

There was a shot of one of the bodies being removed from the house. It was on a stretcher and covered with a sheet. Marion wondered who it was. Her mother? Father? Emily?

A new shot showed the candlelight vigil that had formed the night before, as the voice-over talked about a gathering of friends. Then the image of the reporter returned.

"It's clear that the Dupuis family had many people who loved them. Nicole."

The image on the TV split, the reporter on the right, and the anchor on the left.

"We're hearing there might be another member of the family," the anchor said. "Is that correct?"

"Yes." The reporter was nodding. "Neighbors tell us there is a younger daughter who works in New York. One person told us she is with the UN, but I have not been able to confirm that yet. I can tell you that police have not been able to make contact with her, and think she might currently be on assignment overseas."

"So she's not a suspect."

"No. Not at this time."

Marion stood up and turned the TV off. She stood there staring at the blank screen for several minutes.

Dead. Gone. No more.

No more reassuring smiles from her father. No more shopping trips with her mother. No more long talks with her sister. No more family Christmases. No more trips to the mountains. No more anything.

Perhaps she wasn't a suspect, but she was an unwilling accomplice.

A shout from Iris brought her back. The newspaper had fallen on the floor.

"Come on," Marion said. "It's time to get ready and go."

They left the motel five minutes later.

Marion wanted to go back to the house. She wanted to get inside to see for herself. She knew it was stupid, but it was her family. She couldn't just leave.

She had another taxi drive her by just after 9 a.m. There were several police cars out front, and a crowd of the curious gathered on the sidewalk.

She made another try at 4 p.m. This time the police were gone, but some of the crowd remained. That was okay. It was still too early for her to try to get inside. In the daylight, she would be spotted in a second, and would be detained by the police, and no doubt forced to tell more than she was willing to.