Left to Lapse (An Adele Sharp Mystery—Book Seven)

by Blake Pierce

  She gritted her teeth, resisting the urge to reach out and slap at Bella’s boyfriend. She needed her full attention now fixed on the unseen form of the valet. She heard a quiet huffing and desperate breaths as he struggled, trying to grip her wrist and push her away. At the same time, she remembered what she’d spotted in his other hand. She couldn’t see the syringe now, moving about somewhere in the dark.

  In her mind’s eye, she pictured a presumed trajectory. She’d tangled with knife-wielding suspects before. They always stabbed a certain way. The valet couldn’t sweep in an arcing fashion, as the seats around him would prevent the motion. So his hand would be above, stabbing downward.

  Lobbing a desperate prayer, she raised her own forearm, her one hand still gripped by the wrist, but the other free to maneuver in a blocking motion.

  And suddenly, something firm slammed against her upraised forearm. Bone clashed against bone. She heard a grunt of pain. For a moment, she listened, hoping to hear the clatter of the syringe. But the valet was strong, and he didn’t seem to lose his grip.

  She cursed and lashed out, kicking. She’d been aiming for his legs, but missed, and instead, in the dark, kicked the trolley.

  He was too close now for her to shoot. He gripped the wrist of her hand holding the firearm. She tried to aim, but it was impossible. The gun was pointed up toward the ceiling.

  “Just die,” he screamed. “You killed him. And so you die.”

  Adele didn’t know what he was talking about. But if he was talking, it meant he was distracted from stabbing. And so, grunting, and heaving a breath of exertion, she gasped, “Who? I didn’t do anything. Stop moving!”

  “You killed him! You made him suffer, and you killed him!”

  And then the young man tried to reach for her neck, releasing his grip on her forearm. She moved her hand with the gun. Another reading light switched on, this time again from the old man.

  Adele cursed as the valet realized his mistake. He spotted the firearm, and suddenly pushed her hand back again. Again, the weapon was pointed toward the ceiling.

  Just beyond, Adele spotted John grunting and rising. He was bleeding from a gash over his forehead, a jagged cut along his forearm. In pain and injured, he saw Adele’s plight, and with a growl bodily flung himself over the snack car, trying to reach her.

  But he was moving slowly, encumbered by his injuries, and Adele glimpsed the syringe. The reading light from the old man showed the syringe next to Adele’s neck. A needle was jabbing toward her. She could feel it scrape against her shoulder, just missing.

  She didn’t know what sort of toxin he’d used. But it had killed three people. Just an inch away. A fraction of an inch. If she wasn’t careful, she’d be next. What could she do, though? Her hands were tied up. They were locked in their struggle. The needle was in his grip, more deadly than her gun in such close proximity.

  And suddenly, the train emerged from the weather tunnel and came to a final, scraping halt. It was a climactic moment of motion. Everything went still. Light suddenly flooded through the train again. Another voice announced something over the black speakers above the windows. But this time, Adele couldn’t hear what it was saying, as she was too focused on the needle, now against her neck. She could feel it pressing, feel it practically nip against her skin. The needle suddenly jabbed in, hard, and she cursed.

  She’d released her grip on his forearm. But intentionally.

  The needle wasn’t the threat. It was the contents inside the shot itself. And while the needle was in her neck. He hadn’t yet pushed the plunger. She grabbed the edge of the shot, pressing her thumb directly between the plunger and the stem of the shot.

  The valet cursed, trying to inject the toxin, but failing. With the needle in her neck, as close to death as she’d ever been, Adele fired her gun.

  Once, twice.

  Still aiming at the ceiling. Still without any sort of trajectory on the killer himself.

  But she didn’t need it to be. The gun was next to his ear. It fired, and Adele jerked her head back as she did, aware of just how loud the thing could be in close quarters.

  The valet suddenly shouted in pain—the flash of the muzzle, the horrific blast directly next to his left ear. He screamed, and suddenly, his hand went limp. Adele yanked the plunger from his grip, and pulled the needle from her neck.

  She lashed out with the butt of the gun, slamming it into the bridge of the valet’s nose. He took a couple of stumbling steps back; blood erupted from his nose and poured down his lips.

  For a moment, he stood there, and they were no longer in the dark. The train was at a full stop. And the valet stood in front of the snack cart he’d used as a battering ram, one hand clutched to his ear, the other shaking and trembling where he’d dropped the syringe. Blood flowed freely down his nose. He stared at Adele, wide-eyed, stammering, and shook his head. “I don’t, I didn’t—”

  And then Agent John Renee tackled him full force from behind. The valet’s head snapped back, and he was sent crashing to the ground with all of John’s muscular frame behind him, bringing him to a thumping halt against the floor of the train car.

  John looked up, holding the man down, still bleeding from the gash in his forehead and the injury to his forearm. Gasping heavily, he looked at Adele. “I got it,” he said. “You’re safe, I got it.”

  Adele resisted a strange, inexplicable urge to grin. “Yeah, you did it,” she said.

  She could still feel the pain in her neck where the needle had jammed. She gripped the syringe she’d ripped from his hand. Her other hand went slowly limp, and she placed her weapon back in its holster. She glanced up, spotting two bullet holes, which had punctured the ceiling of the train car, allowing more light to flood through even such small gaps.

  “Good job,” she said to John.

  And this time, still bleeding, and yet not seeming to care, John returned her grin, flashing teeth. He glanced down at the valet and snapped, “Stop it. You’re done. Just stop.”

  And the young valet stopped struggling, and he began to cry, shaking against the ground and cursing at Adele, at John, and anyone who looked in his direction.

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  Adele regarded the train which had come to a complete halt beneath the shelter of the station at last. Shaken passengers disembarked, some of them glancing around as if shell-shocked, others—especially the ones who’d been in the first-class compartment—leaning on each other, or conversing in hushed whispers. Ticket collectors and attendants hastily guided the passengers to other trains to complete their trips.

  Adele turned and exited the station, feeling a lightness to her step that hadn’t been there before. By an SUV, John and Leoni were talking to an officer, using the Italian to translate the Frenchman to the German. Adele just glimpsed the hunched silhouette of the young valet in the back of the SUV.

  She winced, reaching up and probing at her neck where he’d jabbed his needle. So close to death—there would have been nothing the others could do. They still didn’t completely know the origin of the toxin, but they’d found another bottle of the substance in the valet’s personal effects.

  It hadn’t taken long to convince John to release the relief conductor. As he’d left, he’d promised the tall Frenchman he’d be hearing from his lawyers. To Adele’s surprise, John had actually attempted an apology—but it hadn’t been well received.

  Now, outside the German station, beneath the winking sun and folds of cloud, Adele moved across the sidewalk to the parking lot and approached the SUV with the suspect inside.

  As she neared, she could still feel the lightness in her footsteps. For some reason, this troubled her.

  She frowned, trying to place the sensation… Then she realized: what had been the source of the horrible foreboding? She’d felt certain this case would end terribly. Not so much a sixth sense, but a feeling. She didn’t know what to make of it. The killer was in custody—no doubt about that. Three lives claimed, a tragedy, but not unusual
in her line of work.

  Adele picked up the pace, reaching the SUV.

  She could her John muttering to Leoni beneath his breath, “Let him take the guy. Why should we? They’re the ones who wanted to handle the case, aren’t they?”

  Leoni reluctantly translated in German, using more diplomatic language. The German officer in question sighed and shrugged.

  Leoni spotted Adele and his countenance brightened. She gave a little wave, but then moved around the other side of the SUV, past the darkened glass. The silhouette within the vehicle went stiff all of a sudden as if noting this new attention.

  For a moment, Adele paused outside the car, her hand hovering near the handle. They’d solved the case. She ought to let it go…

  And yet, she still couldn’t shake the strangest of feelings. She hated the sense of leaving something unfinished. Was there something she’d missed? Or were her emotions completely out of whack? To anyone else, it might have seemed like the vanity of perusing tea leaves in the bottom of cup. But Adele’s instincts, like the senses of a bloodhound, had proved effective over the course of her entire career. Her instincts, which she couldn’t always explain, had led to more than one arrest, more than one closed case.

  So why, now, did it seem like her sense of impending doom, her sense of something cresting the horizon—why did it seem like she’d missed it?

  Her fingers touched against the cool metal of the handle.

  Let it go… she thought to herself.

  But then, as she listened to John and Leoni continue to barter with the German officer, her eyes narrowed. “No,” she said out loud to her own subconscious.

  And then she grabbed the handle, pulled open the door, and slid into the back seat opposite the serial poisoner.

  The young valet didn’t look so frightening now, cuffed in the back seat, buckled against the cool glass and reclining on the door. His eyes roamed around the car for a moment, and then shifted to her—a sidelong glance of passing curiosity more than anything.

  When the young man recognized her, his eyes widened a bit, and he turned, as much as he could in his restrained form, and acknowledged her with a blink.

  Adele watched him, unblinking herself, her gaze fixed on the killer. And yet, to think of him in terms any less than “human” didn’t seem to do justice. He was so young, so lost. She’d seen the hatred in his eyes, seen the loathing. Seen his complete and cold disregard for the lives of others. He’d tried to kill her, after all.

  And yet, she couldn’t shake a feeling of sympathy. A shared pain. For a moment, she had a sense as if she were staring into a reflection of a sort. She remembered losing her mother, just after turning twenty. It seemed so long ago now, but in the grand scheme of things, it was little more than a passing day.

  “What do you want?” the valet asked at last, swallowing and staring.

  Adele watched him a moment longer without responding. The other agents didn’t seem to have noticed she’d entered the vehicle. This served her fine. She wanted some alone time with the killer—a few moments to simply chat.

  “I don’t know,” she said, honestly, after a moment. Her earlier sense of foreboding had faded. Her worries, her fear, seemed to have vanished. Had she missed it? She frowned in thought, looking across his young features.

  “How old are you?” she asked.

  He grunted. “Twenty-five. It’s in my ID.”

  She nodded slowly. Older than she’d first thought, but still young. “I… I don’t normally do this,” she said. “I know you probably won’t want to tell me. The German authorities will likely want to question you themselves…”

  “That’s a lot of preamble,” he muttered.

  “I’ll cut to it.” Adele fixed her gaze on him once more. “Why did you do it?”

  “Do what?” he said, belligerently.

  “I’m not asking on the record. Confess or don’t—it doesn’t matter. The evidence is overwhelming against you. We double-checked the passenger and staff lists of the trains again, too. That’s how we missed you the first time. You logged as a passenger on the LuccaRail. But as a staff member on Normandie Express.” She nodded. “Clever.”

  “You can’t sweet talk me,” he retorted. He turned, obstinately staring out the window again.

  “Fine,” she said. “I can’t get you to talk. Let me talk a little then.” Adele continued to watch the killer, even though he’d turned away. She needed to know, now. Something wasn’t adding up. She’d missed it. Maybe this business with her mother’s killer reemerging had completely thrown her instincts off. Maybe she was losing it…

  She frowned deeply at this final thought, and through pressed teeth said, “You truly hated them, didn’t you? The first-class passengers? Was it their wealth? Their looks?”

  “Looks?” he snorted. “You seen half of those ogres? No.”

  “So what then?”

  “I told you, I’m not talking. Leave me alone.”

  “I’d like to. I lost my mother, you know…” Adele felt stunned by her own words. She had never voluntarily shared that with a killer before. She rarely shared it with friends. And yet the words tumbled from her lips, dragged—it seemed—again by instinct. She followed up with, “Was it your mother? Or your father?”

  He turned to her again now, a haunted look in his gaze. “What?”

  “That hatred,” she said. “I recognized it because I’ve seen it before. Usually reflected in a mirror. I know the loss. I don’t know why you blamed the passengers. But I know the feeling.”

  The killer reclined his head against the rest and shook his head firmly. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re lying.”

  “I’m not. My mother. Ten years ago. Butchered.”

  For a moment, she thought he might say something disparaging or dismissive. She wasn’t sure she wouldn’t slap him if he did. Sometimes John Renee’s approach seemed the only path.

  But instead, the valet just looked at her, his young features softening, if only a fraction. “That’s awful,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  Adele went quiet, considering these words from a man who’d just killed three people. He seemed so… sincere. And yet the gulf between them—their choices—was nearly insurmountable. She refrained from speaking her thoughts, though, and dipped her head once to accept the conciliation. She waited, listening to the quiet breathing in the back of the police car. Listening to the thrum of muttered voices just outside the glass. Sometimes, listening was key.

  After another passing minute, the young man glanced at her and muttered, “My father.”

  “Sorry,” Adele replied on reflex.

  The man shrugged, his cuffs shifting as he did in his lap, his forearms resting against his knees. “Never knew my mother. But my father and I were close, you know…”

  “I know… How did it happen?”

  The young man sighed. “Not like you won’t be able to find out anyway.”

  “I told you, I’m not here to make a case. Not even recording. You have my word.”

  “Your word? I’m going to prison, aren’t I?”

  “Probably for a very long time. I can’t do anything about that. You killed three people.”

  “People?” he snorted again, his voice hardening. “Cockroaches,” he said. “Parasites. All of them. They did it, you know,” he continued, some of the previous fury flashing in his eyes. He began to build up a head of steam as he spoke, the words starting to come faster. “They killed him. All of them. The way they treated him—like dirt. He was a conductor, you know. He ran the same line…”

  “The switches,” Adele said. “Where you killed. That was your father’s route?”

  “Dunno,” he said, with a sniff. But his eyes told the story.

  “It was, wasn’t it? Your father was a conductor, then. What happened?”

  “Fired him—the company did. Some rich bastards complained. Said the ride was too bumpy or some shit. It’s a goddamn train; of course it’s bloody bumpy.”
>
  “That’s why he got fired?”

  “Well… maybe some other things. Made up things. A couple of the women said he made them uncomfortable—a damned lie, though! And another man said my father showed up drunk to the job. But that was only once! I swear it. Only once and they went and fired him. Stripped away the only thing that mattered to him. Left him broke, helpless, trying to raise me with nothing. All of the whiners, the complainers—all of them were rich assholes.”

  “They cost your father his job?”

  He rounded fully on her now, his eyes blazing once more with hatred. “Cost him more than that!” he spat. “He got mad—got dangerous. Never was like that before. Not usually. Drank a ton. Gave me more than one scar.”

  “He beat you?”

  The valet snorted again.

  “Then what happened?”

  He got in his truck,” said the valet, murmuring now, his eyes staring off as if watching something a million miles away. “Drove to the tracks, parked in the middle. Late at night, raining. No chance for the conductor to see a thing.”

  “He killed himself?”

  At this, the young man laughed. “Actually, no.” There was no humor to the cackling sound. Just an abandoned, empty husk of a noise. An echo of joy more than the thing itself. “He died of a heart attack. That’s what the coroner said. Got right up and terrified as the train came down. Heart attack took him right out before the train could. Car was crushed too. But the heart attack did him in.”

  Adele nodded slowly. “So that’s why you killed them the way you did?”

  “I never said that.”

  “No, I guess you didn’t… Well, I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry enough to get me out of jail?”

  “I’m not the one putting you there. You might not believe me, but I don’t like to see people in your position… not unless they’ve made their own choices. And you did—three times. Almost a fourth.”

  The valet glanced toward her neck and winced. He seemed almost sheepish for a moment and shrugged his bony shoulders. “Sorry about that.”