Because You Despise Me by J. S. Cook

of him, even helped to make a sketch of him for the police to circulate. When she left, she took one of Renard's cards with her but declined the offer of a ride home and left the station bravely stifling her sobs into a handkerchief. When she was apprehended, Renard's men found the corpses of six people hidden in a cellar underneath her house and dried blood under her fingernails. Renard didn't bother asking why; he knew. He turned off the light, arranged the pillow under his head, and lay down. The house was absolutely silent, and even the smallest sounds were audible through the open window. The fluting call of some lonely night bird throbbed out into the darkness and was gone; a breeze lifted the window curtains and let them drop. Renard shifted his tired body in the bed and waited for sleep to come but knew it wouldn't—not yet, and maybe not for a while. His thoughts turned to Frederik Abaroa; Renard had instructed Andine well in advance of Abaroa's exodus. Don't go by a direct route. Danzig will be watching for that. Take the old road through the Thieves’ Quarter, and dress in your ordinary clothes. Put him on the plane, and don't waste any time for tender goodbyes, do you hear me? Abaroa is strong, but if Danzig gets a hold of him, he'll make sure that Frederik spills everything he knows. He had sworn Andine to secrecy; Renard had trusted no one with the details, not even Jake, and it was just as well. Jake had the answer he wanted, the only answer he would ever accept,