“Excusez-moi, madame. Ms. Jones requested fresh towels for when your friends arrive.”
“Poppy requested this?” Marielle asked.
“Oui. An hour ago. Before she left for le stade.”
Olivia opened the door far enough to accept the towels while Marielle kept her hand on her holster.
Olivia closed the door and watched through the peephole to make sure the woman actually left. Then Marielle secured the deadbolt and chain.
“Poppy left the door open and requested towels? Are we sure she’s CSIS?” Marielle pushed her glasses up on her nose with more force than was strictly necessary.
“Don’t forget, she ordered room service last night. That’s an invitation for someone to push their way into the room. But then, she is Poppy Jones. What did you call her before you knew—a bubble head? Being deeply unserious, while admittedly talented, is her whole cover.”
“Her cover’s gonna get us killed,” Marielle grumbled. “We need to get out of here.”
“And go where? If they’re tracking your phone, they know everywhere we’ve been. We need new phones. New location. New everything.”
Marielle smiled slowly as Liv’s lament tickled the seed of an idea in her brain.
“I know that smile. What’ve you got?”
“We could use their access against them.”
Olivia frowned. “How?”
“Like you said, they know everywhere I go. So, we put my phone back together and turn it on. I’ll leave it on the charger. Anyone tracking us through it will think we’re still in the suite.”
“Meanwhile, we’ll be meeting with Hanna and Officer Sabban. It could work.”
“But first we need to reach out to Sabban, for real, let her know we did not cancel the meeting, and set a time and place. Without using our phones.”
“That’s easy,” Olivia said. “There’s a business center on the first floor. We’ll message her from one of the hotel’s computers. We should change the meeting time.”
“Just in case, let’s meet without Hanna first. Sabban can stash her somewhere nearby until we’ve confirmed we’re all clean.”
“That works. What about Poppy?”
“We’ll tell her what’s going on when we see her tonight. We can’t risk reaching out. Her phone could be compromised, too,” Marielle pointed out.
Olivia frowned. “I don’t like it. That leaves her in the dark for hours. Not to mention, Chelsea and Leilah land soon. Who knows if there’s someone waiting at Charles de Gaulle to tail them.”
Marielle didn’t like it either. “Is there any other option?”
“No good one,” Liv sighed. “We’ll have to trust that Poppy’s limo driver knows to watch for a shadow.”
They put Marielle’s phone on the charger in her bedroom and took the service stairs down to the lobby. The business center was tucked away near the meeting rooms.
Olivia logged into a generic messaging account she kept for emergencies and typed out a text:
See you at 13:00 at Shakespeare and Company bookstore. Don’t bring our friend.
She hit send and they waited. Three minutes later, a response appeared:
Understood. I love the rare books section.
10
Omar stared at the laptop screen, his jaw tight as Cal McCloud’s face appeared in the video feed. He looked like he’d aged a decade. His skin was sallow, his cheeks were hollow, and deep lines bracketed his mouth. But his eyes were the same, still sharp, calculating, and aware.
