Read Burned (Vanessa Pierson series Book 2) for Free Online Page B

never know it, but she
owed
him one. So now she was just pissed off at him.
    Minutes later, inside the back of the same black Mercedes that had waited for Vanessa and Jack at the Quai Voltaire hours ago, Fournier rapped twice on the open glass divider. The driver accelerated so quickly Vanessa’s spine pushed into the seat leather. They were heading back toward the Louvre.
    She was deciding how she wanted to break the silence when Fournier tossed a manila envelope onto her lap. With a glance at himshe unwound the thread that held it closed. When she opened the flap a photograph edged out. She pulled it free, studying the image: a surveillance photograph, time-stamped and dated six weeks earlier, and the subject was a dark-haired man of about twenty, possibly of Middle Eastern heritage.
    “Recognize him?”
    “No.”
    “What about any of the others?”
    She examined each of the remaining eight photographs. The subjects were similar—young men who appeared to be Middle Eastern. “Are these your candidates for the suicide bomber?”
    “The most obvious. They’re all known militants in the area, connected to several mosques that we’ve had under watch.”
    “I don’t recognize any of them.”
    “And you got a good look at the bomber?”
    “Yes.” Even if she wanted to, there was no way to block the mental image she knew would stay with her forever.
    She slid the photographs back into the envelope, even as she observed DCRI’s head of operations. For the first time since their initial encounter, she could begin to absorb and assess what she had only reacted to earlier. She placed him in his mid-forties, fit, intelligent, with a restless edge that struck her as feral. His classic Latin features told her his roots reached south to the Midi or perhaps as far as Corsica. She hadn’t had time to use the easiest open source for background checks—Google—but she would soon.
    She braced herself as the Mercedes took a hard turn at Pont Neuf.
    The driver signaled Fournier with the fingers of one hand.
Detour.
    Fournier extended his left arm quickly to glance at his watch. Even with the brief exposure beyond the cuff, Vanessa recognized the vintage timepiece as a Vacheron Constantin, a watchmaker whose elite customers included Pope Pius XI, the Duke of Windsor, and Napoléon Bonaparte.
    Nice watch for an intel officer.
    As if he’d heard her thought, Fournier adjusted the cuff of his jacket, covering the Vacheron.
    Vanessa shifted her gaze and found herself staring into deep-set eyes that widened as he raised his thick, dark eyebrows—challenging her to comment. She could smell a not unpleasant mix of coffee and citrus. A small muscle twitched on the left side of his jaw, as if he habitually locked down that side.
    She flashed back to Jack’s quip that Fournier would appeal to his wife’s taste for “bad-boy actors”—and her own thought that Fournier looked more like a cop than an actor.
    She would amend that judgment now because after a few minutes in close proximity to him, Vanessa thought Marcel Fournier might be a very skilled actor indeed. The man gave no clue to his thoughts.
A good poker player
—but Vanessa sensed his natural intensity, and that made her wonder about his ability to mask complex emotions.
    His voice held a low, smoky tone when he asked,
“Croyez-vous me connaître?”
    “Do I think I know you?
”
She shrugged; she could play poker, too. Her brother Marshall had taught his little sis how to win at poker and pool and some other important games of life . . .
    “Pas encore. Mais . . .”
She shifted back to English intentionally. “But you’re right, I am curious about you. I want to know who I’m working with.”
    “You’re not working with me, yet.”
    “Actually, the Agency has okayed my place on Team Viper.”
    He clicked his tongue once against his very white teeth. “Your Agency is not lead on this op—not now that it’s cleanup to your fuckup.”
    Obviously his