by Blake Pierce
Back in France. She never saw that coming.
She passed a hand through her shoulder-length blonde hair and smiled. Less than a month since the last time she’d seen her father. That business at the ski resort had ended strangely. Adele had wanted to visit her father for Christmas, now that she had relocated to Europe. But the small apartment in France was far enough away from his home in Germany that the snowstorm two weeks ago had prevented travel. So she’d spent the week with Robert, celebrating Christmas at his mansion.
She reached up and delicately touched the teardrop diamond earrings he’d bought her. Adele wasn’t normally one for jewelry, but from Robert, it always meant something special. She frowned, lowering her hand and staring toward the front of the apartment door. Robert didn’t seem well. Whenever she asked, he would deny it, but he would break into fits of coughing, and sometimes even excused himself from the room.
She shook her head, wishing she had broached the subject more aggressively last time she’d seen him. But Christmas celebrations hadn’t seemed the time.
And now, not only was she back in France, she was back in the apartment she used to live in with her mother. Fate had aligned—the unit had gone up only a week after Adele had started apartment hunting in Paris. Perhaps not just fate… perhaps something closer to inevitability…
Adele fished a small, worn, brown leather notebook from her pocket and thumbed through the pages, her mood darkening. She leaned against the banister, facing 1A while scanning the notebook.
Every clue, every possible lead, and some, she was certain, the police hadn’t even known. Her father had been hunting Elise’s killer for years. And now he’d given the notebook to her, effectively passing the baton.
Adele had been combing through the notebook for the last three weeks in between moves and Christmas celebrations. Three weeks of time sifting through her father’s notes, cataloging them, memorizing them. She had multiple files on her computer she used to sort through the notes. Eventually, she would find something.
Returning to this apartment? Not the same unit—but the same building she’d once shared with her mother. Not nostalgia—it had a purpose. Adele wasn’t someone who considered herself a particularly nostalgic person.
She was a bloodhound with a scent. Page thirty-seven.
She thumbed through it again and reread the lines now seared into her mind.
“Someone is switching notes… handwritten. Funny?”
Adele shook her head. She’d already asked her father about it, but he hadn’t been able to make much sense of it either. It had simply been a memory of a conversation he had with his ex-wife. The first time he’d suspected something might have been awry in France. His ex-wife had called him, and had seemed flustered. She mentioned someone had been switching something or other. Adele gritted her teeth. Her father had never been great at listening. At least he’d written it down before he’d forgotten completely. Someone had been switching notes, handwritten, funny…
So someone had been switching notes. What did that mean exactly?
Adele tapped the notebook against her hand and stared at the mailboxes.
She’d already spoken with the mailman. A young fellow, no older than thirty. Certainly didn’t fit the bill. She had tried to extort him for information of who had delivered mail to this building nearly ten years ago. He hadn’t known. Couldn’t say—confidential.
If someone had been switching her mother’s mail out, and leaving notes, perhaps he’d been a stalker. Someone interested in her. Perhaps the killer himself?
But the mailboxes were locked. Not sending notes… switching them. That’s what the message said. That’s what her father remembered. He’d been adamant about that part. On the phone call, from all those years ago, her mother had been upset that someone had been switching notes.
But for that to happen, someone would need a key to the mailbox. Not even the landlord had one. Adele had already tried to call the post office a few times but they refused to relinquish the information over the phone. She thought to use her credentials, but without an active case, it would be a breach in protocol and grounds for termination. This was only her second week working as a correspondent for the DGSI, in between cases for Interpol. Using credentials without permission might not be the best tactic.
But Adele now had a new idea.
She moved along the corridor and approached the door to 1A, raised her hand, and tapped delicately.
A shuffling sound from inside, then quiet. She tapped a bit louder. More sound, then footsteps.
Then the sound of a chain rattling, and the door swung open. Within, the apartment was quite neat. A cupboard filled with china sat across from a clean dining room table with four embroidered chairs tucked neatly under the table. The woman standing in front of Adele was old, with wrinkles around her eyes and forehead. She wore a single silver locket on a chain and had on a pink cardigan. One painted eyebrow rose on the woman’s forehead as she examined Adele. “You again,” she said in creaking French.
“Yes,” replied Adele, also in French, nodding politely. Very few Parisians could pick up that Adele’s first language hadn’t been their native tongue. She spoke with a faint accent, according to some, but for others it was difficult to detect. “I was wondering if you had a moment to talk.”
“Not about tenants again, is it?” said the landlord. “I told you before, I can’t tell you.”
Adele fixed a smile and nodded politely. “I remember. No, not tenants. Postman.”
The landlord’s eyebrow seemed permanently quirked. “Like I said, I don’t remember. It’s been years.”
“Yes,” said Adele, “but landlords in France are required to keep tenant records, yes? For tax purposes.” Here was the risk. But Adele had to go with her gut. She glanced back into the apartment, her eyes scanning the neatly arranged furniture, the freshly painted walls. Everything about the building, and the renovations, suggested order.
“You don’t use a computer for your records, do you?” said Adele.
The woman frowned. She adjusted her glasses and shook her silver-crowned head. “So what if I don’t?”
Adele swallowed slightly. “And you’ve owned the building for what, more than ten years?”
“Been in the family for fifty; yes, I’ve owned it. My late husband helped, but I do most of the paperwork, what of it?”
“I was wondering if there are disputes. Missing packages, complaints. Fragile items that have been smashed. In a building this large, there has to have been someone with an issue.” Adele swallowed. “Specifically, anything from up to ten years ago.”
The landlord blinked behind her glasses. “I do have a folder for complaints. Not sure how long they go back. But so what? Without a warrant, I can’t show those to you.”
Adele nodded once, feeling a prickle spreading across her skin. “Because you don’t want to betray your tenants, I understand. But what about tenants that don’t live here anymore? People that have left? Surely it wouldn’t be an invasion of privacy. Specifically… what about my mother?” It was now Adele’s turn to study the landlord, waiting patiently.
The woman wrinkled her nose. “You don’t want to let this go, do you?” Her voice creaked with age, but there was a glint in her eye that propelled Adele to say, “If I could, I would. Please, I’m not interested in the tenants. Just the postman. That would’ve been public information anyway, yes?”
The woman cleared her throat. “Did you try calling the company?”
Adele flinched. “Yes.”
“And?”
“They said the information was confidential.” Adele quickly added, “But that’s on their side. They have to safeguard employee records. But a public dispute—a missing package… Or,” she licked her lips, “tampered mail… That would be on record. Yes? Please, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. Elise Romei, do you remember her? My mother. We used to live here nearly fifteen years ago.”
To Adele’s surprise, the woman seemed t
o react at the name; she blinked owlishly behind her glasses. “Elise Romei?” she said. “Of course I remember her. I still remember the policeman when they came around asking questions. Tragic. You say she’s your mother?”
Adele nodded. “I don’t know if you remember. But I actually used to live here too. With my mother—I should have mentioned it when signing the lease, but didn’t feel it was relevant.”
“Yes? It is now, though?”
Adele nodded, quiet, patient. She watched the older woman. Somehow, in those intelligent eyes set in a wrinkled fixture, she glimpsed something familiar. The woman looked back at Adele, studying her, evaluating her, and then said, “I can make no promises. But I’ll check. Give me a few hours. If there are any names on the dispute form for a postman that involved your mother I can send them to you. Other tenants, though—I can’t. Will that suit you?”
Adele smiled, a flush of relief spreading through her. “That would mean the world to me, thank you.”
The landlord smiled, her eyes wrinkling again, and she nodded once. Then, slowly, she began to close the door.
Adele breathed another quiet gasp of relief and stared at the closed, freshly painted door. Now, she would just have to wait. The landlord had her number.
She could only hope the lead would pay off. Someone had been exchanging notes. Handwritten. Funny? That last part still didn’t make sense, but Adele hoped she could figure it out by talking to the postman. What if he was the killer? Someone who’d been delivering packages years ago would’ve had the perfect alibi to sneak into buildings and spy on his unwitting victims. Adele wasn’t sure, but she felt closer than before.
Still, she suppressed the emotion, not wanting to get her hopes up, and exited the front door, stepping into the street. She paused for a moment, facing a closed bus stop across from a cafe. Above, she noted a speed limit post. Kilometers, not miles. Small differences, but small differences compounded.
Adele sighed. She would just have to wait for the landlord to reply.
CHAPTER THREE
It felt different walking into DGSI headquarters this time. No longer as an Interpol correspondent, but once again an employee. Not a proper agent, but a resource all the same. Freelance investigator. At least, that’s how Executive Foucault had pitched it.
Yet, as she entered through the side doors, passing security, she wasn’t headed to the Executive’s office. Instead, Adele made a beeline toward the stairs, heading down. It had only been a half hour since she’d spoken with the landlord. She had checked her phone while driving the borrowed vehicle the agency had provided her. But after nearly running a red to a chorus of blaring horns in the Parisian streets, Adele had decided perhaps it was best she parked herself somewhere.
She took the stairs, enjoying the sense of physical motion. One of the reasons Adele liked to go on runs was because she enjoyed the sheer movement. The way her arms would extend, her legs beneath her, like pistons. She enjoyed a similar feeling of vitality on the stairs—control. At the bottom, a long stretch of corridor led to open and empty old rooms. The basement of the DGSI had been abandoned years ago. And yet, one person, she knew, still made use of it.
For a moment, she thought she could detect the faint odor of fermentation on the air.
She tapped her knuckles against the second door on the left, then glanced down at her wrist. It was nearly nine p.m. Which meant most of the agency had gone home for the day. Which also meant he would still be here.
“What?” came a gruff voice from within.
“John, it’s me,” Adele replied.
“Me who?” said John’s voice, a little less gruff.
She rolled her eyes, and without waiting, she twisted the door handle and pushed open the door.
John was sitting on his couch, without a shirt, his head back, a glass with ice and clear liquid clinking in his left hand.
One eye was closed, as if he’d been caught in the middle of a nap, but the other was open, staring at her. He had the lazy, lounging look of a tomcat. His shirt was bunched up behind his head. Adele felt the corner of her lip twitch, and she eyed him.
They had gone swimming once before, back at Robert’s estate. But it had been dark at the time. Now, in the heat of the basement room, John’s chest was revealed. She had always known he had burn marks along the underside of his chin, down his neck, but Adele hadn’t realized just how far the wound traveled.
Criss-crossing patterns of scar tissue ornamented the entire left side of his torso, curling under his arm and down to the edge of his waist. The burn mark seemed to coil as John breathed, twisting like the scaled hide of some snake. Beneath the burn, and around, it was evident John spent time in the gym—his muscles slick with sweat beneath the single naked bulb dangling from the fixture above.
“Like what you see?” he said, a purr to his voice.
Adele cleared her throat and blinked. She tore her gaze away from the wound, looking at John. The handsome agent’s eyes were hooded and his dark hair was combed back out of his face. He looked the picture of comfort, despite the burn wound, as he returned her gaze.
“Does it… does it hurt?” she asked, gently, still meeting his eyes.
“Every single day,” he said with a shrug. “Are you here to admire the view or taste the local cuisine?” He jangled his glass in her direction and nodded toward the makeshift distillery across from the couch, edged against the wall. Adele had been here before, and noticed that John had recently added to his collection of beakers, sugar tanks, and spouts. She didn’t know much about moonshine, but from what little she’d tasted before, she certainly approved.
Adele’s gaze flickered to the edge of the couch, her eyes flitting to a small glass frame. Instead of a painting or a photo, though, the portrait displayed a single metallic emblem attached to a ribbon.
Adele blinked.
“Is that a Légion d’Honneur?” she said automatically.
John noticed her attention and quickly reached out, knocking the thing off the couch and behind it, wedging it against the wall.
Stunned at the cavalier way he treated the French military’s highest medal of honor, Adele ventured, “Is that yours?”
John grunted, his eyes still hooded. “Not mine,” he said. “They gave it to me, but it isn’t mine.”
The only other ornamentation John kept in the room were the two pictures of a group of men. All wearing desert fatigues, all members of the Commandos Marine, the French Navy SEALs. The pictures were worn and sun-stained, and yet placed in positions of honor above the couch, where John could see them while lying down.
“How did you get that wound?” Adele said, softly, nodding toward Agent Renee.
John rolled his shoulders and took a long sip from his glass. “Which wound are you talking about?”
Adele murmured, “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want.”
John laughed and shook his head. “I’m not embarrassed, American Princess. Here, it’s not a pretty story, you’ll need a drink.”
He got to his feet and approached the distillery, pressed a spigot, and poured the clear liquid into a spare red cup kept upside down on the wooden counter. He brushed past Adele and handed her the cup. As he passed her, she was reminded again just how tall he was. She found herself looking up at him, her eyes trailing the edge of his chin, down to the scar, then up into his brooding gaze.
“Helicopter crash,” he said, simply. “My stupid ass couldn’t fly in a straight line. Hit by enemy ordinance.” He shrugged. “A lot of good soldiers died on my watch.”
“They don’t tend to give Légion d’Honneurs out for being a bad pilot,” said Adele.
John quieted a bit, going stiff. He took another long sip from his glass and said, “I can’t pretend to know why they do what they do. But that Légion d’Honneur was earned by others, I’m just keeping it safe for them.”
Adele wanted to press further, for the sake of curiosity, but thought this would be an unusual cruelty, and instead switch
ed tack.
She took another sip from the glass and winced. “Stronger than before.” The drink singed her lips, and started with a burning sensation, but it became mercifully sweet and mellow as it went down.
“Secret ingredients,” said John, wiggling his eyebrows.
Adele tilted her red cup, watching the liquid slosh back and forth in the confines of the container. “Do you usually invite girls into your bachelor pad while half naked and drinking alcohol?”
Just as quickly, John retorted, “I didn’t invite you, you came in without permission.”
“And yet you’re still half undressed. Not very professional in the headquarters for the DGSI.”
“Or,” said John, his eyes hooded again, a wolfish grin on his lips, “perhaps you’re the one that needs to match me. I’ve always found moonshine tastes best when half clothed. You should try it.”
She smirked. “You would like that, wouldn’t you?”
John downed the rest of his glass, pushed off the couch, and brushed past her again, pouring himself another drink. He smelled faintly of sweat and cologne. He moved with surefooted motions, and had a swagger, even in the small space.
John was a strange fellow. Equal parts infuriating and reliable. Trustworthy and blunt. He was the single best shot she’d ever seen with a pistol, and one of the few agents, in either the FBI, DGSI, or BKA, whom she trusted completely.
And yet, he was covered in prickles, like a cactus. Any attempt to get close with someone like John ended in some sort of wounding. He intentionally went out of his way to be obnoxious at times, if only to throw people off. Sometimes he would say cruel things, just to get a reaction.
Now, though, as he eyed her through his hooded gaze, his lip twisted into a quiet smirk. Again, she was struck by the image of an alley cat. A creature bred to be free, the king of its own back street, but nothing further.