by Blake Pierce
Adele stared out the window, watching the corpulent rain clouds lumbering across the gray horizon. The bleak skies matched her mood. She could hear Robert at his computer, which was once again clear of viruses. She’d spent the last thirty minutes listening to the tech rep admonishing Robert and giving him a series of instructions to avoid infecting his computer again.
Adele had very little doubt the computer would likely be inoperable within the week. Still, she could hear her old mentor tapping away and murmuring quietly to himself. She glanced over her shoulder in his direction, and said, “Anything?”
He didn’t look up, and instead smoothed his mustache and yawned, exposing the two missing teeth in the upper part of his smile.
“Still nothing,” he said. “Nothing related, at least. No missing kidneys as far as I can tell. There was a case three years ago where someone’s lungs were taken, but it was done sloppily. Not professional. They were useless once the police caught up with him.”
Adele shivered. “Well, thanks for that image,” she said. “Let me know if there’s anything relevant.”
Robert waved and returned his attention to the screen. Adele glanced back into the gray skies. She pressed her hand to her pocket with her phone, waiting impatiently for it to buzz. She’d contacted Ms. Jayne, who’d promised to have her own people at Interpol look for connections to organ-harvesting outside of France.
The way clearance worked with Interpol’s files, only one of the French agents had access to old cases at a time. Adele and Robert had flipped a coin and he’d won—though she suspected he’d cheated. But now, Adele had to sit and wait for her turn to go over the old cases.
“Almost done?” she asked.
Robert shrugged. “Only a few more hours,” he said. “Then you can have the security key.”
Adele sighed. This license with Interpol was still in a testing period. She hoped, eventually, the more trust she garnered, the easier it would be to access files. For now, though, a few hours was a long time to wait and stare out a window.
At last, sensing her disgruntlement, Robert glanced up from his computer. “If you want,” he said, “you can take a break. You look like you need it.”
Adele studied the rain clouds and watched as the first few droplets appeared as hazy streaks against the sky. She had once found herself caught in a rainstorm, right on the verge of the raindrops, fleeing it. Angus hadn’t believed her when she’d told him, but Adele still swore to this day that at one point the back half of her car had been tapping with rain, while the front windshield had been completely clear.
“Nowhere to go,” she said with a shrug.
Robert waved distractedly at her, once again his attention fixed on the computer. “The swimming pool is open back at the house. Or you could go for a jog.” He trailed off, muttering to himself. Adele glanced over; it seemed as if he was again riveted by whatever he was reading.
“Just make sure to text me if there’s anything important,” Adele said.
Robert waved distractedly and continued to study his computer screen, scrolling with his mouse. “Fascinating…” he murmured.
Adele rolled her eyes, pushed out of her chair, and exited the office.
As she approached the elevator, she felt a prickle up her spine, and she glanced over her shoulder, half expecting Agent Paige to be watching her every move. But there was no one in the hall. The disruptive agent had been assigned a new case, and Adele would have to wait for her new partner.
She thought of Robert’s comment about the pool back at the mansion. The last time she swam in the pool, she had company. But that had been nearly a month ago. A month since she last spoke with John.
Adele found her hand moving absentmindedly to the elevator’s buttons. She pushed the down arrow, waiting for the compartment to arrive. She entered the elevator and pulled out her phone. Absentmindedly, she scroll down to a contact: Dad. She stared at the screen for a moment, and then tapped the button.
At the same time, as the phone emitted a quiet ringing noise, she reached out with her other hand and pushed the button for the basement. She didn’t really feel like taking a break, but right now there was nothing for her to do. Perhaps she could meet up with an old friend.
She sighed as her phone continued to buzz. At last, before the elevator reached the bottom floor, there was a quiet clicking noise, the sound of static, then a voice. “Sharp?” her father’s voice buzzed through the speakers.
Adele frowned. Her father often referred to her by their last name. It had been something he’d done since she was a child. Secretly, she suspected it made him feel more like he had a boy than a girl. Her father had always wanted a boy. In recent weeks, he had done better at calling her by her first name, but turning over a new leaf often took time. Especially in her father’s case; she had it on good authority he hated leaves, and trees, and anything green in the world.
“Dad?” she said.
“What is it?” his buzzing voice replied. A quiet pause in the elevator, then, as if realizing perhaps he’d been too blunt, he said, “It’s,” he cleared his throat on the other end, “good to hear from you. How are you doing?”
Adele suppressed a smile. At least he was trying. “I’m doing fine, Dad. How are you?”
“Oh, can complain, but won’t,” he said.
Adele waited, and so did he.
At last, he cleared his throat. “Do you need anything?”
“Christ, Dad, we’ve been over this. Sometimes I’m just calling to catch up.”
“Oh,” he said, clearing his throat again, “right. Well, yes. I’m, to be honest with you, I’m actually in the middle of something, but, actually, I suppose it could wait. A few minutes.”
To most, a few minutes of their father’s time every week might not seem like much, but Adele knew it was a great improvement. “Thanks,” she said. “Is anything going on back home? How’s the job?”
The one thing the Sergeant cared about most besides politics was his job. “Fine,” he said, “fine. Of course, had some trouble the other night. Couple of drunks came in and one of them overdosed in the entry hall. Wasn’t pretty. Which, I might add, is why you should always stay clear of—”
“Dad, I’m not doing drugs. Are you watching anything good?”
She knew her father spent a lot of time watching TV, but he hated to admit it. The Sergeant hadn’t looked fondly on those who watched TV when she’d been growing up, but in his old age, in an empty house, there were only so many model sets and crosswords one could do.
“Oh,” he said, “you know how it is. Mostly the news. How—how is your job?”
Adele smiled faintly and glanced at the phone. The elevator dinged, and the sliding doors opened at last. She stepped off into the basement, glancing down the long hall. Before she could turn back and reconsider, the elevator made another noise, suggesting someone had called it back upstairs, and the doors slid shut. The compartment rattled, leaving her alone in the abandoned hallway of the DGSI basement.
“Oh,” she said, “not great. Getting a new partner, which isn’t bad.”
There was silence, and Adele frowned at her phone, wondering if she’d lost reception. After a moment, though, a staticky voice said, “Hello, dear, I can’t hear you. You’re breaking up.”
Adele tilted her head, pressing her phone tightly against her face. “Sorry, Dad. I’m in a basement. Reception is bad.”
“Sharp? I can’t hear you. I’ll call you later. Soup is getting cold.”
“That’s fine,” she said, shouting in order to be heard. “Take care, Dad!”
She paused, then heard, a muffled, “Goodbye, Sharp.” There was a quiet click and then silence.
Adele turned away from the elevator and stowed the phone in her pocket. “Progress is progress,” she murmured out loud to no one in particular. The only times they argued now, when her father was trying, was when the topic of her mother’s killer came up. The Sergeant knew Adele still intended to bring the murderer to ju
stice, but he wanted her to leave the case alone.
Adele put the thought from her mind as she moved through the abandoned hall toward John’s old makeshift speakeasy. He had set up a distillery in the basement, which would’ve surprised her in anyone else, but given what she knew about the tall, scar-faced agent, she supposed it was somewhat predictable. John didn’t often play by the rules, but he was a reliable partner when times got tough.
Hesitantly, she rested her hand on the door to the interrogation room. She noticed it was cracked. For a moment, her heart fluttered in her chest and she felt a flash of excitement.
She swallowed the emotions, though, wondering why she was acting like a schoolgirl. Adele reached out, gripped the door handle, and began to ease open the door to John’s bachelor pad. The hinges creaked, and Adele’s excitement culminated, but then fell.
The room was empty.
She felt a flash of disappointment. But she suppressed the emotion just as quickly and looked around the room.
There was a cup resting on the speakeasy’s desk. The distillery, with all its pipes and flasks and beakers, looked like it had been used recently. A couple of droplets of clear liquid dangled from the edge of a spigot, over the floor, which had a single splash on the varnished wood.
Adele glanced up and down the hall, but there was no sign of her former partner.
The floor was dusty in the hall, and various footprints ran up and down the space; some were hers from the previous day, and others were larger. Vaguely, Adele wondered if John brought other people down here too. This thought bothered her. She moved back into the old interrogation room, swinging the door shut.
She inhaled the room, smelling the odor of liquor and the faint hint of dust. She glanced over to the wall where there hung pictures of John with the Commandos Marine—special forces similar to US Navy SEALs. John often spoke highly of his old crew, but she had never met any of them. There had always been a sadness to John when he mentioned them.
Agent Renee wasn’t a particularly sentimental man, and those two photos of his old crew were all he had on the wall. There were no pictures of a family or a wife or kids. As Adele moved into the room, she reached out for the cup on the counter. She examined the inside, decided it was likely clean, and poured herself a drink from the distillery.
She then took her ill-gotten gains and collapsed onto the lumpy couch beneath the unframed photos. The couch was more cushion than support; she melted into it and breathed a deep sigh, leaning back against the cushions.
Adele inhaled the scent of the alcohol from her glass. It stung her nostrils, and she lifted it to her lips, taking a sip. It nettled as she remembered it had, and her eyes watered briefly at first, but it was smooth going down.
After the first sip, Adele felt alert. After the second, she felt a flash of contentment. And after the third, she closed her eyes and settled back, embraced by the cushioned couch, allowing her thoughts to wander.
She considered the case for a moment. This had to have something to do with organ trafficking. She was nearly certain of it. But she’d been wrong before. Foucault had struck a nerve. If he withdrew support for her connection with Interpol, the whole operation would likely collapse. This was a trial run. Ms. Jayne had hired her as a liaison between the three agencies and the three countries. A shared asset between the FBI, the BKA ,and the DGSI. But if Executive Foucault thought she wasn’t up to the task, or decided to take Agent Paige’s side over hers, the whole operation could end before it even started.
Adele shifted again, throwing her legs up on the couch now and taking her shoes off, knocking them with her right foot onto the floor, listening to the dull thumps as they landed on the ground. She stretched, exhaling as she lay against the couch, and then took another sip from the glass, her head elevated against the cushion of the armrest.
She needed to be in France. Her mother’s killer was somewhere in France. Maybe in Paris, maybe not. Wherever he was, he had gotten away with it.
Adele took another long sip, wincing against the strong flavor. She found she could breathe clearly through her nostrils now.
Adele tried to consider her father’s aversion to her mother’s case. Why did he care so much what she investigated? It wasn’t like he even cared about her mother before she had died. Had he?
She thought of her father’s house. He kept the home they’d lived in when she’d been a child back in Germany. Adele had left at the age of twelve to move in with her mother in France. But her father still kept the family pictures. He kept her room the same way, and the last time she’d been there, she had even seen her stuffed animals on the old bed.
Those weren’t the actions of a man who didn’t care. So why did he want her to ignore her mother’s case? Didn’t he want justice realized? Surely they had loved each other once upon a time.
Adele breathed deeply, pushing the thoughts from her mind. It wouldn’t do to be scatterbrained, to split her focus. Robert was currently looking into other organ harvesting cases in France. She wondered what he would come up with. They needed a lead. A solid one. But where would that come from?
As Adele thought, her mind began to slow. She lowered her glass and placed it on the floor, half empty. She listened to the sound of the quiet bubbling from the distillery; beyond that, there was no other noise. Even the vents down here were quiet.
No footsteps, no quiet mumble of voices, no buzz of electricity or clack from a keyboard. In silence, Adele slowly drifted off to sleep.
She awoke to a quiet creaking sound.
Slowly, Adele opened her eyes—her training kicking in—keeping them half slits, surveying the room before announcing her consciousness. She still lay on the couch in John’s bachelor pad.
The door, however, was open.
She spotted a tall silhouette in the door, staring at her; then, just as quickly, the figure turned and exited the room, easing the door shut behind him, quietly. As the door clicked, Adele’s eyes shot open, and she bolted upright.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Hang on!” she called, her voice quieter than anticipated as the sleep slowly left her and she regained her motor skills. She heard the sound of footsteps in the hall, and her frown deepened.
She swung off the couch and surged forward, rushing to the door and flinging it open. Adele stepped into the hall and peered down it, her eyes fixating on John Renee where he headed for the stairs with long strides.
“John!” she called out.
The agent froze, one hand on the banister, a long leg extending up four steps, his foot pressed into the marble. The other, though, remained at the bottom of the stairs as he seemed to have momentarily frozen. She heard a vague swallowing sound.
Adele cleared her throat. “John,” she repeated.
“Oh,” said John, with a would-be nonchalant shrug. Hesitantly, he began to turn, and his dark eyes surveyed her across the hall. “How are you doing, American Princess?”
He still carried an air of indecisiveness as he twisted on the stairs. His lopsided smile stretched his face, and Adele noticed the burn mark along his neck and up the underside of his chin. He wore a loose, unbuttoned black shirt, and his forearms were more defined than she remembered. He had a handsome face, which in the past she’d likened to that of a James Bond villain. Now, he seemed caught on the stairs, half turned to leave, and half stuck in place like a child with his hand caught in a cookie jar. He looked uncomfortably at Adele, studying her like the same child determining how much trouble they were in. His lanky form and broad shoulders did little to offset the discomfort written across his face.
Adele strode across the hall, a feeling welling inside her that she couldn’t quite place: part frustration, part happiness, and part rejection.
“What was that?” she demanded, jutting a thumb over her shoulder toward the doorway. John glanced at her thumb, then toward the door, a stupid look on his face.
“Oh, what was… I don’t…” He trailed off, jumbling his words, and ending with anot
her shrug of his large shoulders.
Adele’s eyes narrowed. She came to a halt in front of him, her chin angled so she was looking into his eyes. He was a head taller than her, well over six feet, and yet it was him, not her, quailing in that moment. “You saw me, and you left!” she exclaimed.
John paused. He seemed to be considering his words and frowned slightly, his dark eyebrows like gashes in granite, angling over his brooding gaze.
“I,” he hesitated, “I saw a pretty figure sleeping on the couch,” he said, pivoting quickly, now adopting a wry grin. He gave a nonchalant shrug, seemingly relaxing. “You know you snore when you sleep.”
Adele scowled. “I do not. And don’t bullshit me; pretty figure indeed. Why didn’t you stay to talk?”
John gave an emphatic role of his eyes. The uneasiness from before seemed to melt beneath his returning confidence, his posture now one of relaxed indifference, like a tomcat slinking through an alley. He smirked and wiggled his eyebrows, “Did you want me to come in while you were sleeping?”
Adele glared at him. “Cut it out. Why have you been dodging me?”
John’s smirk faded slightly, and Adele caught a glimpse of something authentic in his eyes. Just as quickly, though, he mastered his expression and grinned again. “Well, Adele Sharp, I didn’t know you were into that sort of thing, I’ll keep it in mind for future reference.”
“Why did you duck me?” she said, jabbing a finger into his chest now.
He winced and daintily withdrew her hand. “All right, hang on there, jabby. No need to dent my chest. Look, I came down for a drink, saw you sleeping, decided not to disturb you. What’s the big deal?”
“You’ve been avoiding me,” she repeated. “Agent Paige said the moment you heard I was coming back you took a case—”
“Oh,” said John with a snort, “forget what that vampire says. You can’t trust the woman. Take it from me, I think she’s sleeping with the executive.”
Adele hesitated. She didn’t think the same, but wanted to stay on task, so she didn’t correct him. “John, I’m serious, why have you been avoiding me?”