Page 89 of Mountain Void

Silence—and darkness—stretched, broken only by the sound of the wind and the snow. Lorenz had never been more grateful for the dark.

“You’re lying. I can see it in your face.”

“I’m telling you the truth, Monsieur Pelletier,” Lorenz said, raising his palms in a slow, deliberate gesture. No threat. “It’s just me.”

Pelletier adjusted his stance. “You expect me to believe that? I know gendarmes never go anywhere alone. Like the two who took me from my house last night—handcuffed, like a criminal, in front of my son, for all my neighbors to see.”

So that was what triggered him.

“I’m sorry about that,” Lorenz replied evenly. “That shouldn’t have happened.”

“You will be sorry if you don’t call out to your friends right now,” Pelletier said, his voice rising. “Sortez! Stop taking me for a fool.”

“There’s nobody here but us,” Lorenz tried again, but Pelletier wasn’t talking to him anymore.

“Show yourselves, or I will shoot your friend!”

“You’re not going to shoot me,” Lorenz said. “Not in front of your son.”

“He’s watching TV,” Pelletier snarled.

Lorenz kept his face impassive, but inside he was smiling. Now they had confirmation. Théo was inside.

“Last chance,” Pelletier boomed. “Or he loses his left knee.”

Lorenz stood his ground, pretty sure the man was bluffing. TV or no TV, that would be a hard thing to explain to a kid. But what he believed wasn’t important. The important thing was what Charlie believed. She had to stay where she was. Hidden.

Stay still, honey.

A tremor ran through Lorenz as he heard the sound behind him.

“Please don’t hurt him.”

Charlie’s voice.

Lorenz’s jaw tightened.

Pelletier’s attention snapped sideways, savage satisfaction cutting across his face.

“Charlie,” Lorenz said, his voice low and controlled—not betraying the panic he was feeling. “Stay down. Don’t come closer.”

Too late. She was already there, a few steps behind him, hands half-raised, her face paler than he’d ever seen her.

“Please,” she said again, in that thin, thin voice. “You don’t need to do this, Monsieur Pelletier.”

Pelletier let out a sharp laugh. “Well. Look at that. Mademoiselle Brooks. You’re impossible to get rid of, it seems. I keep wondering … I keep wondering who could have put those ideas in my wife’s head. In my boy’s head.”

“What ideas?” Charlie asked.

“The idea that I am not a good provider. Un bon mari. Un bon père.”

“That’s not … I never said that.”

Lorenz stepped back and to the right, angling his body just enough to keep himself between Charlie and Pelletier’s weapon.

“I tried to get rid of you,” Pelletier said. “But you wouldn’t back away. You refused to take the hint.”

“You … you messed with my trash? And wrote that message on my driveway?” Charlie asked, her voice tremulous.