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“You are crazy. Who’s going to tell Reine-Marie?”
“I’ll give you five dollars to do it.”
“Not even for ten.” He glanced at the bathroom door, still closed. “What were you saying?”
Armand raised his brows. “What do you mean? I thought I was the one with the hearing problem.”
“No, I mean when Caron talked about…” Jean-Guy didn’t want to bring it up again, so he ended up just waving his hand. “You know.”
“Daniel.”
“Oui. You were repeating something to yourself. What was it?”
Armand paused and lowered his eyes to the worn linoleum floor before raising them again. “Do you remember the Vaslov case?”
“Of course. The girl murdered by her classmates for being transgender.”
It had been a horrific crime. A hate crime by a gang of teenagers. It was a shock, and a wake-up.
Armand and Isabelle had spent a lot of time with Katie’s parents. Trying to answer questions. Preparing them for the onslaught of press, and the court cases. And the online bile and hate. Aimed, incredibly, at their daughter, and them.
“Her parents are staunch Christians. Born-again. They couldn’t accept Katie as transgender. After she was killed, they went to the trial every day, then in the evenings they volunteered at the LGBTQIA+ help line.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Non. Not many do. They wanted to turn their ignorance into understanding. To help others like Katie. To help other parents, like themselves. To turn hate into love.”
“So that was what you were repeating? ‘Hate into love.’”
“Non. I was saying, ‘Katie Vaslov. Katie Vaslov.’ It’s what I always say when tempted to put more hate into the world.”
“Is there no one you hate?”
Again, the smile, though now without the tinge of sadness. “I wouldn’t say that. If you took the last éclair…”
“I would never dare, patron. Now, off to let Reine-Marie know who else is coming for Sunday lunch.” Jean-Guy motioned to the door. “You first.”
CHAPTER 9
Shona Dorion looked around the dingy room in the dingy office building, in the dingiest quartier of Montréal. Real estate agents had rebranded it Vieux-Montréal, the more honest among them adding “adjacent,” in an effort to align the neighborhood with the charm of the cobblestoned Old Montréal next door. And increase property values. But with a view of a cement plant on the shores of the St. Lawrence River on one side and railway tracks on the other, it was a hopeless cause.
Shona liked hopeless causes. As, clearly, did the rest of the dingy people in the room.
Now that the end-of-day briefing was over, and next-day assignments were handed out, Shona bent over her phone. Its face was cracked, but it still worked. Most of the time. She tapped out a message.
I have something. Meet me tomorrow for breakfast. The Ritz.
She hit send and waited.
“Shona, can you join me please?” The boss was hanging half out of her office.
“Oui, d’accord.” She slipped her phone into her pocket.
“I read your story on our work.”
Shona had, unusually, given it to the head of the organization to read over before posting it on her site. She was anxious to get on the woman’s good side. This sort of obsequious behavior went against the grain, unless there was a higher purpose.
Action Québec Bleu was formed to study and promote water security. Though that was not the higher purpose Shona Dorion had in mind.
