Left to Vanish

by Blake Pierce

  Adele turned, brushing past Paige and exiting the nursery. Her head was beginning to pound, a slow headache coming on. There had to be a tie between the two victims. Unless… maybe it wasn’t a serial murderer? Maybe just a coincidence?

  Adele paused in the drive, facing the car, but then turning to glance back up at the old, looming stone mansion outlined against the lake.

  She thought of the crime scene photos. The strange, beaded ligature marks…

  No. Not a coincidence. Now, she’d simply have to prove it.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Adele’s eyes fluttered beneath the flickering light above the borrowed interrogation room’s table. She winced as the two long cylindrical bulbs sputtered once more, eliciting a sound like popping bubble wrap. She glanced up and then looked away again, feeling another stab of a now familiar headache.

  Now back in the precinct, she tried to find a comfortable position in the cold metal chair the locals had provided. Across from her, on the opposite side of a table scattered with folders and two borrowed laptops, Agent Paige had yet to sit.

  She stalked from one side of the room to the other, taking a moment every so often to return to her borrowed laptop and scan the screen.

  The last half hour she had made a big show of checking her watch. But Adele was too focused to acknowledge her. She scrolled through the files she’d been provided. Three of the manila folders were printouts of receipts and liquid assets. On her computer, she had bank transactions for Mrs. Churchville.

  Her eyes felt dry, the poor lighting exacerbating her headache. But she couldn’t give up, not now.

  Even as she thought it, though, watched by the winking light and the unblinking glare of Agent Paige, Adele could feel sweat forming inside her palms. She could feel the quiet, building nausea from her headache, but also from something deeper.

  She could feel the stage fright from earlier still lingering in the background.

  “It’s getting late,” Agent Paige said, her voice betraying a flash of irritation.

  Adele looked up, surprised. Paige was still pacing back and forth in the small room. Adele glanced down at the bottom right of her laptop screen.

  “Oh,” she said. “Nearly midnight.”

  “We haven’t found anything,” Paige replied, staring pointedly at the pile of folders next to Adele. “Best we can do is reconvene tomorrow.”

  “Don’t wait up if you don’t want to. I’m just going to go back through the financials one more time. Just in case.”

  “In case what?”

  “In case I missed anything,” Adele said. In case I’m completely out of touch, she thought quietly. In case I failed this before it even started. In case I’m suffering some sort of mental breakdown.

  She tried to smile, to hide her thoughts and the racing pattern of their accusations, but it came out more like a grimace, which Paige returned.

  “What are you trying to prove, Sharp?”

  “Prove?”

  “I get it, you work late. Now how about you come back with me so we don’t have to bother the Brits to drive both of us to the hotel.”

  Adele hesitated, shaking her head. “I can call a taxi. It’s fine.”

  “There’s nothing there.”

  “I’d like to look one last time.”

  Agent Paige threw up her hands and snorted; she spun on her heel, shaking her head as she did. Without another word, bearing the air of someone simply dismissing her entirely, Agent Paige stalked back toward the door. She shot one more reproachful look toward Adele, then growling, barged her shoulder into the metal surface and left the interrogation room.

  Just through the closing slit, Adele spotted a brightly lit hall, and the midnight precinct, without another soul in sight. She supposed bare bones would be working the night shift, which suited her just fine.

  Fewer people to witness…

  The door clicked shut. Sealing her in.

  Witness what?

  Her headache pulsed along with another sputter of the light bulbs. She felt carsick all at once, but refused to allow herself to feel pity. She returned her attention to the laptop, scrolling through once more, her eyes dry and strained.

  She desperately wanted to go for a morning jog. Take a shower back at the hotel. But no, not now. She had to focus. She felt half the detective she’d ever been. Second-guessing herself, getting stage fright, feeling out of touch. She was alone, well and truly now.

  In moments like these, in the past, she would take the opportunity to call Robert. He always knew what to do.

  She allowed herself to close her eyes for a moment, but this was no better. She heard the sputter of the bulbs above. Across her mind flashed an image. A familiar image… bleeding… bleeding, always bleeding.

  Not just her mother, though, no. But also Robert, beneath his red leather chair, tortured to death.

  She remembered the small marble angel, the statue shoved in the mud. She remembered the way she entered the house, her voice calling in the dark mansion. The fear, and then the shout. And then she’d seen what the Spade Killer had done.

  She hated him. Hated him with more than she had. And now, she feared him. Which was far worse. In the past, she had been too stupid to be afraid. Yes, that’s what it was. Stupid. Stupid enough to get Robert murdered. Stupid enough to get others hurt too. Who else was going to suffer because of—

  Her phone buzzed next to her.

  Adele blinked, but then pushed the device away, refusing to glance down. Probably just Paige, goading her into quitting again. But Adele couldn’t quit. She was losing her edge. And without that, all there was left was effort. Stark, naked, fervent effort.

  She clenched her teeth now, scrolling once more through the finances. On one side of the screen she had Mrs. Churchville’s information, and on the other Signora Calvetti’s. “Come on,” she murmured. “Something. Just give me something…”

  Her eyes grew heavy, and the sputtering bulb above only irritated her further.

  “Dammit,” she cursed, as the lights flickered. In a fit of rage, she pushed from the desk, sending the chair scraping across the floor, and she lunged toward the light switch, flicking it off.

  Now, in the dark interrogation room, her eyes strained toward the blue screen.

  Her headache only worsened as she leaned in, scrolling through the finances. Her eyes like lead. Her eyelashes fluttering, drooping, and then…

  ***

  Her head jolted off her folded arms.

  Pitch-black.

  For a moment, Adele panicked. Where was she?

  Her hand lashed out, striking a pile of papers and sending them fluttering in the dark. Her knuckles brushed against the cold lid of the borrowed laptop. She calmed a bit, breathing heavily, focusing.

  She was in the precinct. In the interrogation room. The laptop’s screen had darkened to save battery. She blinked, clearing sleep from her eyes and groaning as she tapped the keyboard. The blue screen lit up, and she spotted the time. Two in the morning. She’d dozed off.

  Adele cursed beneath her breath, shaking her head and feeling another bout of a headache.

  How many people were still in the station?

  She paused for a moment, both hands on the cold table, and her eyes darted to her phone, which had lit up with silent notifications. Frowning, she tapped the screen and winced. Two missed calls. One from Agent Renee, another from Agent Leoni. She shook her head, muttering to herself, and turned the phone over, facing the screen to the table.

  Adele inhaled slowly, trying to focus. Financial records. That’s what she’d been going through.

  But nothing. No connection points. Nothing that stood out. The second victim divorced. The first victim inherited from her late husband.

  Adele blinked.

  Her late husband. Robert Churchville. What if all the assets hadn’t been fully moved over just yet? What if she was looking under the wrong name?

  Blinking to herself, Adele returned to the file and did a quick word s
earch. Robert. He had died three years ago, leaving his fortune to his wife.

  And suddenly, Adele froze, her eyes glued in the dark to the glowing screen.

  Four lines on the spreadsheet. Four assets still in Robert Churchville’s name, yet to be relinquished to his wife due to some sort of tax barrier. Adele hungrily scanned the listed items on the estate tax document. First off, some sort of Aston Martin. Another, an old trust fund. The third item on the list, though, caught Adele’s attention.

  A small summer country house in France.

  She blinked, staring. She looked at the item, clicking, following the thread. And then she stopped. The country home resided in the Aquitaine region of France. The same region Signora Calvetti was said to have a summer home.

  Adele’s fingers trembled, but she clicked quickly over to the second victim’s details. This time, instead of scrolling by purchase amounts and expected asset allocations, Adele simply searched for the word Aquitaine.

  A second passed as the spreadsheet loaded…

  Then….

  A detailed description of a small country home in the heart of France. A vacation home.

  Adele leaned back, the chair rigid against her spine. Her eyes wide.

  “That’s it,” she muttered to herself. “Holy shit. That’s it.”

  She blinked, shaking her head in equal parts relief and pending delirium. She winced against the headache, feeling her stomach twist.

  Both victims had small country homes in the South of France. Both victims had summer homes near the other. A connection. Tentative, perhaps. But Adele knew Aquitaine. It wasn’t a particularly large region. A coincidence?

  Adele lowered the lid of the laptop, her fingers trembling again.

  Couldn’t be a coincidence. She had to sleep, and then talk to Paige. This had to be the break in the case they were looking for. The thread that would lead them to the killer before he murdered anyone else.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Elke Schmidt stepped down from the veranda, inhaling the morning air with a contented sigh. She walked barefoot around the marble circumference of her family swimming pool, pausing to make sure the children had turned the jets of the Jacuzzi off the night before. She glanced over her shoulder toward the enormous home they’d moved into five years ago, smiling and acknowledging the stone stucco and black shingle roofing. The house was perhaps a bit larger than they needed. But it allowed for the entertaining of guests and hosting of dinner parties. In fact, that very night they’d be hosting a get-together with some of their close family friends.

  In one hand, she gripped the porcelain handle of a small coffee mug. A generic pink cartoon heart was painted on the side of the thing, and steam wafted up from the confines of the white cup. She inhaled the scent of the coffee and took a delicate sip, wincing against the sudden heat. She strolled across the edge of the pool, toward the black gate which led out onto their property. In the distance, she spotted the small barn for horses they had never bought. A pipe dream, her husband said. They didn’t have enough time to take care of the horses. Still, hopefully one day.

  Mrs. Schmidt didn’t mind walking alone, along her property line, beneath the trees and toward the old barn. This was a safe neighborhood after all. A neighborhood for the wealthy and the well off. Few places in Germany were as safe as this one.

  She felt the damp grass from the sprinklers beneath her toes, and she hummed softly to herself, reciting one of the piano pieces her daughter had been practicing the previous day. She took another steaming sip from her coffee mug as she strolled through the trees now, moving across the well-maintained yard and then past a small incline along the creek behind the house. Now, she could just make out the top of the roof, over the incline, and through the trees. It was harder to see the pool from this angle.

  Mrs. Schmidt simply enjoyed the sensation of her toes pressing in the dirt, smiling to herself at the three-course meal she had planned for the party tonight. She would cater at least half of it, but still, she made a mean Sauerbraten.

  That’s when she spotted movement.

  Elke frowned, staring up toward the old barn.

  Something fluttered behind one of the trees ahead, and she heard the soft thump of footsteps, and then something moved past another tree and stopped.

  Her breath came a bit quicker now and her eyes narrowed, fixated on the tree.

  “Hello?” she said, softly, her voice extending over the grass.

  She frowned.

  One of the neighbor kids? A couple of times she’d been forced to speak with the Bauers next door about their children camping in the barn.

  She sighed in an exasperated fashion and moved quickly toward the barn. Best to catch them red-handed.

  “I see you there!” she called out. She had seen a flutter of motion, which had now gone still behind one of the larger oaks. Still, children couldn’t often tell when adults were bluffing. “I see you there, come out!”

  She quickened her pace, striding purposefully and frowning, some of the coffee sloshing over her knuckles with a steaming hiss. She winced and quickly sucked on the back of her hand, gently angling the mug so it didn’t spill further.

  “Come out,” she demanded. “Peter, Luka? Is that you?”

  She rounded the tree, all bluster and annoyance, still sucking at the back of her thumb.

  And froze.

  She stared for a moment and then yelped in surprise, the blood draining from her face as she dropped her coffee mug and it shattered against one of the protruding roots beneath her feet. She gasped, but the sound died as a hand suddenly lashed out at her.

  Not a child at all. Not a neighbor. In fact, in a brief moment, she spotted a man with a mustache and dull, gray eyes. She had never seen the man before in her life.

  “Miss me?” he growled as he lurched at her.

  He was wearing a strange outfit. It took her a moment to realize it wasn’t a bathrobe. In fact, it looked more like an old monk’s habit. Something black dangled from his right hand, and swished about as he lunged at her.

  Elke screamed and darted back. The man was fast, but she spent most mornings, after her walk and coffee, going for runs in the woods. She was quick too.

  “Come here!” he snarled, missing, his hands groping toward her again.

  She didn’t wait to talk, and instead spun on her heel, sprinting back in the direction of the house.

  But the man tackled her from behind, grabbing at her ankle, and they both collapsed with dull thuds to the dewy ground. She screamed again, her throat hoarse, fear flooding her. Her chest pounded a million miles an hour. Who was this? What did he want?

  She tried to bite, to kick. She lashed out, her heel catching him on the bridge of his nose.

  He yelped and released her ankle. Elke scrambled to her feet, dodging the other direction this time, and he missed another lunge. Now she was racing toward the barn, away from the house. A deadly mistake, but one that was hard to track amidst the chaos of the moment.

  “Remember me?” he screamed out, rising from the mud.

  She glanced back, but then looked forward again, breathing heavily as she sprinted around the barn, desperately looking for a discarded plank of wood, a rock, a rake. Anything to use as a weapon.

  “You thought I was crazy,” he screamed. “Didn’t you, Mother?”

  Mother? What was he talking about? Her heart raced and her throat prickled with terror.

  “I’ve missed you too,” he yelled.

  She reached the barn, rounding it, and heard the sound of thumping footsteps. She looked frantically around. There, a stack of barrels. Could it serve as a hiding place?

  She sprinted toward the trees, but heard more thumping footsteps. Had he doubled back? Was he trying to round the other way. She’d been stupid. She should’ve headed toward the house. Nothing for it now, though.

  Hastily, she raced toward the barrels, her shoulder scraping on rough wood as she slid behind the wooden containers, crouched low near the earth, s
melling mud and the damp mold at the base of the barn. She froze, on her haunches, breathing loudly.

  The thumping footsteps followed, and she spotted a flash of movement between the gaps in the barrels toward the trees. She sat still, gasping far too loudly in her own ears, but there was nothing to do about that now.

  She waited, her head resting against the wooden grain of the barrel.

  And then, silence.

  Her fear circled in spinning pulses, racing with the wild cadence of her thumping heart.

  Had he gone the other way? She couldn’t see any better, lodged behind the old barrels as she was. She couldn’t stay here, though. She needed to get back to the house. Back to her family. Her phone had been left on the kitchen table.

  Slowly, still breathing in shallow gasps, she began to inch around the barrel, toward the edge of the barn.

  A shadow fell over her.

  A single strand of black beads fell past the edge of one of the barrels, dangling down toward her nose, with an ebony cross at the very edge.

  Two dull, gray eyes peered over the barrels now.

  She screamed, and the barrel was thrown aside with a dull thunk.

  She tried to scramble back, but this time he moved, anticipating the motion, and grabbed her, fingers tight around her throat, holding her still. He wrapped the black beads around her neck, and she gasped, spluttering, trying to kick.

  And then he squeezed.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Agent Paige paused near the hotel’s small coffee maker on the second-floor landing. She poured herself a paper cup—black, no sugar. She paused, staring at the drink, reaching up and brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

  Adele had come back late the previous night. Paige had heard her enter the room next door sometime after three AM. Now, seven in the morning, Paige was going to meet the younger woman.

  She glanced down at her phone for the second time, frowning at the text exchange:

  Where are you? Paige had texted after visiting Adele’s room and receiving no answer.