Page 45 of A Life Betrayed

The safe house had been the easiest place to disappear, at least temporarily, but it wasn’t the real reason he’d found himself here. The gravity of what Rayan had done by contacting Dubois wasn’t lost on him. He’d extracted himself from his old life at a great personal cost, only to throw himself back in for Mathias’s sake.

Here it was again: the impossible situation. Their lives were fundamentally incompatible but inherently intertwined. Whereas before, Mathias had attempted to cut himself off, now the prospect was unthinkable. He was in far too deep, his grip on Rayan unable to be prized open. He didn’t know how to unravel what they had without unraveling himself.

“Are we going to pretend you didn’t spend the last three days in jail?” Rayan said finally, pushing away his empty plate. His voice was measured, as though he’d been waiting to bring it up.

“High chance I’d end up there eventually,” Mathias said blithely, unwilling to touch on the fear that lurked in his mind. He stood, reached for the frying pan, and spooned the remaining eggs onto his plate.

“Different when it actually happens, though,” Rayan said, staring back at him.

That look was dangerous, the way it cut through everything else and aimed right for the jugular. It made Mathias want to confess to things he’d never uttered aloud.

Mathias placed the pan back on the stove. “I went to see your father.”

Maybe he said it to turn the lens back on Rayan—distract him from his calm observations, which hit a little too close to home. Rayan’s eyebrows shot up. He stood jerkily.

“What?” He practically spat out the word as his fists clenched at his sides, angrier than Mathias had ever seen him.

Mathias shrugged. “You and my mother seemed awfully close—I thought he and I could be pals.”

“Don’t fuck with me, Mathias!”

Mathias relented, seeing how affected he was by the news. He hadn’t expected Rayan to take it quite like this. “Allen tracked him down. As it turns out, he had several choice things to say about you to the police.”

Rayan shook his head, his face furrowing in confusion. “About what? I haven’t seen him since I was a kid.”

Mathias hesitated, realizing the nature of what the old man had said. But Rayan had a right to know—it was his father, after all. He took out his phone and pulled up the document Gagnon had sent him. He handed it to Rayan. Rayan’s eyes darted across the screen, and he grimaced then placed the phone face down on the counter.

“It’s a crock,” Mathias said. “Not that it matters. I convinced him to reconsider his testimony.”

“Did he…?” Rayan spoke haltingly. “Was he…?” He gave a ragged sigh and ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t care.”

Mathias was struck by how young he appeared in that moment, as though mention of his father had revealed something of the boy within. “Why don’t you go ask him yourself?”

Rayan tilted his head, and his mouth curled into a half smile. “What for? I have nothing to say to a stranger.” He rubbed his palms across his cheeks, smoothing something that wasn’t there. “I’ve always been half a fucking stranger.”

Mathias recalled the dilapidated house and the old man’s yellowed eyes, his biting commentary. He thought of the inscription etched carefully in the book from Rayan’s mother, black ink in a steady hand:I can already see the man you will become, noble and kind. Someone to be proud of.

“You’re nothing like him,” Mathias said. “You must be all her.”

Rayan’s eyes, wide and unblinking, flew to Mathias’s face. Then he turned and walked to the window, concealing his expression. Outside, the snow was falling once again, floating silently from the sky and muffling the noise from the street. Mathias stared at Rayan’s shoulders, broad beneath the plain white T-shirt, and the curve of his neck as his head angled toward the window. He could see Rayan’s face reflected in the glass, his brown eyes shining.

“You were right, though,” Mathias said into the silence. “Maskinongé’s a shithole. Lucky you got out when you did—plane or no plane.”

Rayan gave a short laugh and brushed the back of his hand beneath his nose. When he turned back, the sheen in his eyes was gone.

Chapter Eighteen

“The deputy commissioner’s here,” Sabine said at the front desk when Frances showed up late to the office that morning. “He wants to see you.”

Frances nodded, still smarting from the events of the previous day. She’d suspected the family was accustomed to wiggling its way out of police scrutiny, but to have someone as prestigious as Grayson Dubois on their payroll… Dubois was legal royalty in Montreal and had recently acquitted a trio of municipal councilors in a high-profile embezzlement lawsuit. After scanning the civil claim Dubois had handed her in the interrogation room, she’d had little choice but to release Mathias.

Missteps had been made—she could admit to that. But Frances had wanted Mathias to feel in his bones what the next few decades of his life would be like. Yet he’d walked away unaffected—albeit slightly less put together. At least she’d succeeded in dulling that immaculate facade of his.

Deputy Commissioner Thomas Gill was waiting for her in the boardroom. “Morning, Inspector,” he said, offering out his hand.

“Deputy Commissioner,” she said as she moved to shake it. “I didn’t know you were in town.”

She’d worked with Gill on several cases over the years. He was nice enough, a barrel-chested man in his late forties who looked more tired every time she saw him. His wife had some sort of autoimmune disease, and he had two teenage boys in Ottawa but spent a considerable amount of time traveling between theprovinces as he assisted in overseeing the RCMP’s C Division, which included Quebec.

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