by Blake Pierce
The thought alarmed Adele. She sat in the corner booth of the café, a mile from the airport, watching her father. The smell of cheap coffee and even cheaper food floated on the air.
“They send you on your own?” her father asked, adjusting some of the silverware beneath a napkin.
Adele shook her head. “No, my partner is out in the car waiting. Plane doesn’t leave for a bit though; we’re fine.”
Her father raised an eyebrow. “Tell your partner to come in. I’m sure she doesn’t want to sit out in the cold.”
Adele shifted uncomfortably. “I’m sure he’s fine. How are you?”
Her dad sighed and then waved over the waitress. A woman in a pink apron with red polka-dots approached, smiling. “Can I help you, sir?” she asked. Adele’s father pointed without speaking toward the coffee on the menu.
The woman nodded once. “Cream?”
“Course not,” her dad snapped.
The woman shifted a little bit, her smiled turning down a few watts. She looked at Adele, her friendly expression seeming rather fixed all of a sudden. “And you?” she asked.
Adele shook her head. “I’m fine, sorry.”
The smiled completely faded now as the waitress turned away, grumbling to herself about tourists as she headed to get the Sergeant’s coffee.
“Doing good work,” her dad said with a nod. “I don’t know the extent of it, but from what’s coming across my desk, you had your hand in a nice series of arrests.”
Adele shrugged. She and John had spent the night in a hotel following the bust—separate rooms. They had waited on instructions from the DGSI and sat through interviews with the BKA. By all accounts except for Adele’s, it had all been a huge success. The trafficking ring had been shut down. Evidence suggested that Interpol would have many more busts to make in other countries. John was confident the Paris murderer would be among them.
But Adele shifted uncomfortably, twisting a napkin beneath her fingers and tearing it off a piece at a time and watching the fragments fall to the table. She didn’t think it would be so easy.
“What is it?” her father asked, studying her.
She looked up. “Nothing. Just something about the case. It’s not a big deal.”
Her father shifted. “Right. Okay then. Well, it’s good seeing you.”
Adele smiled. “Good to see you too. You’re looking healthy.”
Her father brushed the front of his uniform and nodded. “Thanks. You too.”
“How are—”
Before she could finish, her father blurted out, “You’re not dating your partner, are you? Is that why you don’t want him to see me?”
Adele slumped, trying not to rub her eyes in frustration. “Dad, I’m not dating my partner. I don’t want him to see you because he’s an ass.”
Her father scowled.
“Sorry for swearing. Look, let’s talk about something else.”
They drifted into silence again, and the woman in the pink apron came over, depositing the coffee, black, in front of Adele’s father. Adele tried to smile sweetly after the woman, but the waitress stormed away, still muttering about tourists.
The sound of airplanes taking off and landing could be heard in the distance.
“Well,” her father said, “you’ve been talking a lot about your mother’s murder. You said you had a lead.”
Adele tried not to let her exhaustion show as she shook her head. “Look, we don’t have to talk about work. How’s life? Are you seeing anyone? Have you made any good soup recently?”
“Soup is fine.” Another pause. “You shouldn’t go after him,” her dad said.
“Dad,” Adele said, “just let it go.”
The Sergeant nodded as if he saw the sense in this. Another pause. “It’s not safe, Sharp. You shouldn’t.”
Adele frowned. She wanted to look away out the window toward the parking lot where John waited in their loaner, preparing to take them to the airport before their flight.
But her father had a look in his eyes that gave pause. A haunted, heavy look.
He was staring at his hands, his eyes vacant as he shook his head, murmuring, “Not safe. It’s not safe.”
Adele watched the Sergeant for a moment, realizing it was almost as if he wasn’t even speaking to her. For the briefest moment, it seemed as if he didn’t realize she was there. He kept repeating, “Not safe, it’s just not safe.”
Adele felt a prickle across her skin as she watched her father. She had often thought her mother’s death didn’t bother him. But now, as she watched him, she felt the unease spreading, now prickling up her spine and down to the tips of her fingers.
“Dad, are you okay?”
Her voice seemed to jolt the Sergeant from whatever had come over him. For a moment, his expression softened, and she thought she saw tears forming in his eyes as he looked at her. But then his face turned stony, and he said, “You can’t solve your mother’s murder. Don’t go after him. There’s no point. I forbid you!”
Adele glared at her dad. “You forbid me? What do you think I am, six?”
Her dad shook his finger at her and began to raise his voice, but Adele pushed away from the table, shaking her head. “I can’t believe you,” she snapped. “Could we have a nice visit, just once?”
She tossed a ten-euro note on the table and said, “Goodbye, Dad; I have to catch my plane. Thanks for coming.”
The Sergeant was still scowling after her as she pushed out the café door and stomped over to their waiting vehicle. She didn’t return his look as John glanced over at her, opened his mouth to likely make some sort of snarky comment, but then seemed to think better of it, and gunned the engine.
“You okay?” John said, quietly.
Adele scowled at the dashboard. “Just drive,” she snapped.
John held up one hand over the steering wheel. He turned out of the parking lot and onto the street. For a brief moment, Adele felt a sudden flash of guilt.
“Wait, hang on,” she said. “Turn back…”
John raised an eyebrow at her. He put on his blinker and began to turn, but just as quickly Adele changed her mind. “Wait, no, never mind. Keep going. It’s fine.”
John muttered beneath his breath but turned off the blinker and directed the vehicle toward the airport.
Adele wasn’t paying attention to her partner. She had wanted to go back… to what? To apologize to her father? But apologize for what? Her father was still treating her like she was a child. Granted, storming off didn’t exactly speak of some huge maturity. Still, what was the point of sticking around to be yelled at? To be commanded like she was somehow employed by him?
That man was insufferable. She shook her head, still glaring at her fingers.
“Everything okay?” John said hesitantly, his eyes fixed on the road ahead.
“It’s fine,” she said, sullenly. “Just used to the men in my life causing trouble, I guess.”
John hesitated, seemingly stuck between two options. At last, he said, “Well, I mean, I haven’t known you nearly as long as your father, but I’m not trying to cause trouble for you if that’s what you’re implying.”
Adele looked over and did a double take. “You, no, I wasn’t talking about you. I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. She had been thinking of Angus. Of her father. Perhaps John. Was John worth the thought? It wasn’t like she knew him that well. He was unpredictable. Dangerous. He had struck a witness in front of the executive for the DGSI for crying out loud. He’d shaken down an informant for money. He’d given the money to a surviving victim, but did that make it any better?
“Look,” John said, softly, “I’m not trying to cause pain. If… if this is about…” He waved his hand in the air between them and winced. As he spoke, it sounded like he was choking on the words. He paused for a moment, his cheeks tinged red, and stared through the windshield resolutely as if determined not to look at her.
“John it’s not about that,” Adele said, the
exhaustion from a lack of sleep weighing heavily on her. “We’ll just keep it professional and friendly then, fine?”
John frowned. He didn’t answer one way or another, still staring out the windshield. For her own part, Adele wondered at the words. Was that what she really wanted? Professional? Did it matter? She allowed the silence to swell in the cabin as they moved closer to the airport.
“I—” He continued to struggle to speak as if the words were lodged in his throat. “I’m just not the best at getting close to people, all right?”
Adele hesitated. She didn’t look at him, knowing that this would only agitate his discomfort. But as she considered his words, this brief flash of vulnerability from her otherwise stoic partner, her frown deepened into something akin to thought.
“What?” John asked abruptly.
She glanced at him.
“What are you thinking?” he said. “I know that look. You’re on to something? What?”
She shifted uncomfortably, adjusting the seat belt across her chest into a more comfortable position. “It’s nothing,” she said, softly. “Nothing, not really. Except, well…” She paused. “Just what you said…”
“I am very wise,” he said, nodding.
“Funny. No, about getting close.”
John’s jaw clenched and his look of discomfort returned.
But Adele began speaking quickly now, her eyes narrowed, fixed on the road speeding by. “It is hard to get close sometimes. Hard for a lot of people. Especially if you’re moving to a new country, yes?” she asked, tilting her head.
John shrugged, seemingly still disgruntled by the vulnerability of the moment.
“It’s lonely moving to a new country. I know it myself. It’s hard to get close. But you can make it easier. Especially in the day of the Internet,” she said, picking up pace as she spoke, nodding to punctuate each word.
“I don’t get it,” John grunted.
She turned to him now, staring at the side of his face. “It was obvious. All this talk about online forums, about groups. We didn’t chase that trail enough. We should have focused on it more. Expats are victims. Especially from America. Why America? I’ve been so caught up in this trafficking angle that I lost sight of a valuable clue—both those women were members of that forum, Yankees in Paris. But what about the third one? Was she just another expat—a coincidence?”
Now John glanced at her, taking his eyes off the road for the briefest moment. “What are you getting at?”
“What if this isn’t just about them being from America? Or them needing online groups for company and all that. What if it’s that specific forum? Yankees in Paris. A stupid name, sure. But what if it’s that group where the killer is finding his victims? With Waters, or whatever his real name is, we thought he’d been contacting the woman to lure them. We thought he was just targeting expats. But what if it is that specific group?”
“You think the third victim was a member of Yankees in Paris also?”
Adele shrugged. “It’s worth looking into.”
“It’s a shot in the dark is what it is.”
“Well, if you ask me, we’re on a lucky streak.”
Adele fished her phone from her pocket, no longer looking at John, her heart beating. It was an obvious clue. Just sitting in front of her. The sort of clue Robert would’ve seen immediately. Except Robert hated computers. He hated technology. So she should’ve seen it. Maybe Foucault was right. Maybe she wasn’t cut out for this.
She staved off the storm of self-doubt, though, and quickly dialed Robert’s number, preparing to give instructions to her old mentor.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Back in France, they clustered in Robert’s office. Adele sat behind her own desk, and Robert behind his. When John had followed Adele into the room, Robert’s eyebrows had risen slightly, but he’d made no comment besides, “Hello, Agent Renee.”
John had grunted in return.
Now, as they discussed the case, John’s expression only seemed to darken. Robert shook his head once more and said, “Look, Adele, there’s no connection. We’ve been over that list five times. I even had Ozil from upstairs double check me. There’s no way anyone on the online form is a killer. No past convictions, nothing suspicious. No connections with the victims outside the internet. But,” he held up a single finger, like a judge’s gavel, preparing for a pronouncement. “You were right. That woman, the third victim, she wasn’t in the group, but she’d been sent an invite. There is a connection there at least.”
Adele straightened her posture and tried to wipe the sleep from her eyes with the back of her hand. She stared at Robert. “Yankees in Paris sent an invite to Shiloah Watkins?”
“The one and the same,” Robert said with a quick nod.
John crossed his arms from where he stood by the window between the two desks. “This is over,” he said. “Your killer, whoever he is, was either shot back at that facility, or will be arrested in the coming weeks. We have list after list of names. Almost a hundred arrests will be made.”
He extended his hands like he was weighing a scale and shrugged at the end of it. “The chances of him getting away are slim. We may not be able to find exactly who he is,” he said, “but I’ll bet my bottom dollar that he’s either dead or in custody.”
Adele studied the tall man, her mind flashing back to images of him moving into the facility in tandem with the special operations unit. He’d moved so seamlessly. He was a man built for violence. She wasn’t sure why this bothered her, and at the same time, it gave her a level of comfort.
She sighed and shook her head. “You could be right. There’s no doubt in my mind that you could be one hundred percent correct. Could. But what if you’re not? What if he got away?” She interlocked her fingers, cracking her knuckles absentmindedly. “Did you see how big that place was? The number of people working at that facility? The hundreds of containers?”
John glared. “So what?”
Adele shrugged. “Seems like they had no shortage of supply of victims. Homeless, the destitute—why start going after higher profile targets? The expats are vulnerable, but conspicuous. Why jeopardize their operation by committing such public murders? Not only that—they only took the kidneys. I’m not sure how their grotesque business model works, but…” She cleared her throat, considered the thought, but then didn’t finish the sentence, allowing the men to fill in the blanks themselves.
John tapped his forehead against the glass a couple of times, bending over slightly to do so, keeping his hands at his hips in a posture of frustration. “You’re not listening,” he said. “Whoever this killer is, he’s done. Done. Understand? Besides, listen to what Robert said, there’s no one they suspect. No one with priors. No one who had connections to the three women. Yes, a couple of the administrators on the online board would’ve known their names, but we’ve vetted them.”
John looked at Robert and raised an eyebrow as if seeking confirmation.
The older mentor nodded once. “You’re not wrong, we have. The moderators who contacted the murdered women, other than Melissa Robinson, are both women in their sixties. They also have no past convictions and airtight alibis on the days the victims were murdered. One of them was even in London.”
Adele shrugged. “Maybe it’s not someone in the group. But someone getting their information from the group. I don’t know. But I have to be sure.”
“And how exactly do you plan on doing that?” John demanded.
Adele shifted, then clasped her hands in front of her. Her eyes were heavy, and her eyelids felt like sandpaper. She wanted nothing more than to go to sleep, to get over with it. But, at the same time, she wouldn’t let this killer get away. He didn’t deserve her complacency. John might think the operation in Germany would catch him up, like a fish in a net. But she felt otherwise. This killer was no minnow. She was starting to suspect he might not even have been involved with the organ traffickers at all. But if not, what was he doing with the kidneys?
In a ghost of a voice, Adele said, “We’re on a clock here, gentlemen. The killer strikes every few days. He’s due for another kill—soon. I can only think of one way to lure him out for sure. It’s risky,” she said, shrugging, “But like I said, we’re out of time. And if, like John thinks, he’s already caught, or is going to be, then we shouldn’t have to worry about anything. But if he’s still out there…” She trailed off.
Now it wasn’t just John frowning at her, but Robert too. His trimmed eyebrows rose over the top of his computer and he leaned over, staring at her across the room.
“I’m going to pose as an expat,” Adele said. She nodded with finality. “It’s the only way. I’m going to pretend to be new to Paris. I’ll make a cover story, something he can’t resist. Hell, I’ll even post my address.”
“Your address?” said Robert through thin lips.
She looked at him and shook her head quickly. “Not your place. I’ve already talked with Foucault. He’s willing to give me a safe house for a couple of days, just to see if it works. He didn’t like the idea at first either. But he knew I was right. We’re against the clock. We can’t have another body drop.” John and Robert were now frowning so hard Adele could barely make out their eyes from beneath their eyebrows. Both of them began shaking their heads at nearly the same moment.
“No,” John said, “that’s stupid. You’re just putting yourself in danger.”
Robert didn’t say anything, but he echoed John’s sentiments with his scowl.
Adele shrugged. “What is it? Either he’s captured or dead, or he’s still out there. Why would I be in danger if he’s captured?”
John huffed, his hands jammed in his pockets. “You’re playing with fire, Sharp. This is stupid.”
Adele shrugged. “I mean, I wasn’t planning on going there alone. That’s just what he’s going to think. That is, if you’re willing to spare another day from your super important embezzlement case.”