by S. Cedric
What are you going to do to me, he wanted to ask. Are you going to kill me, just like that, for no reason?
The woman smiled. He could see her muscles distinctly in the open wounds. And he saw his death in her pale eyes.
“Some live, and some die,” she said, as if she had heard his question. “Life is a game. Fortunately, you can cheat.”
The woman ran her long fingernails along his neck, and then he felt a burning fluid seeping under the collar of his shirt. It was not sweat, as he had thought for an instant. It was not sweat at all.
I’m bleeding. Why am I bleeding? She only touched me with her fingernails.
Blood was flowing from his neck, from his torn skin.
And he could not do anything to defend himself.
He could see nothing but the woman’s eyes and the leering slashes on her cheeks.What is she doing to me?
“Do you think you have all the answers? You know nothing about her,” she whispered.
Vauvert swallowed hard. Tried desperately to move. He couldn’t. He felt the pain of the cuts he could not see. He felt his blood running down his chest, not understanding why. For a minute, he felt dead. Then he heard the woman whisper in his ear.
“I knew this day would come, Alexandre. You had those dreams too, didn’t you? You, too, could have been one of us. I find that really ironic, I have to admit. But now, everything depends on her. Only the first blood.”
With these enigmatic words, she let the gun fall to the ground and left.
Her fur coat brushed him as she walked away.
He heard the door of the Chevrolet slam shut, and the engine roar.
Then he collapsed like a marionette with cut strings, and he was certain that he had barely escaped death.
Temporarily.
He stayed like that for a while, paralyzed, curled up in the bloodstained snow. It was his blood. His life, which he thought he was losing once and for all.
When he started to regain his strength, he rolled to his side. He felt the cold again, along with his limbs.
He grabbed his gun.
Snowflakes landed in his eyes.
He waited for his breathing to become regular, and then he rose to his knees.
The scarred woman’s car was already far down the road. How had she done that?
She knows my name.
He inspected his throat carefully and felt nothing under his fingers. Yet he was covered in blood. It was all over the snow, as well. He coughed. It hurt, and he doubled over, spitting up blood.
“What did you do to me? Shit.”
He stood up. He did not understand why the stranger in the white fur coat had not taken his Smith & Wesson, but he was glad she had not. He took out his phone and called headquarters while looking into the house. Blanca answered.
“I’ve got a problem.”
“At the Beaumonts?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s happening?”
He still felt dizzy, but he slowly entered the house. Inside, the smell of decomposing flesh was suffocating. He knew from experience that this kind of stink seeped into the floors and walls of a house and never went away.
The buzzing intensified as he approached the living room.
“What’s going on, Alex?” Detective Blanca repeated.
He did not need to go into the room. He saw the forms of two people. They were tied to chairs facing each other. Someone had cut their throats to the bone, and their heads were dangling to the side. The flies swarming around them droned mechanically.
“Alex? Answer me. What’s that sound?”
“They are dead.”
“The Beaumonts?”
“I think it’s them.”
“Holy mother of god. I’m sending backup now. Tell me what happened. Can you hear me? What happened?”
Vauvert looked at the two bodies tied up with barbed wire. Their rotting bellies were swollen like balloons. He looked at his own clothes again. They were covered in blood, even though he felt nothing.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Benjamin, I don’t understand what happened here.”
25
Night had fallen, and Boris and Helene Beaumont’s bodies were being put in the hearse. Vauvert still did not understand what had happened. It made him furious.
He stood on the side of the road, under the slow waltz of the snow, and lit a cigarette. He had to think.
The doctor who had examined him a little earlier had not managed to come up with any explanation. There wasn’t one. For the first time in a long while, Inspector Alexandre Vauvert felt like he was losing control.
“You are not hurt at all,” the doctor said. “You don’t have a scratch.”
“I know. But it’s my blood.”
“That would be strange, I must say. How would you have lost it?”
“Get that shirt tested. You’ll see it’s my blood.”
The doctor took the shirt, not at all convinced.
The other squad members were clearly concerned. Their leader had a reputation for being different, but they had never seen him in this kind of state. He had dried blood on his cheeks and such a lost look.
Vauvert watched the lights from the hearse disappear on the horizon. Then he turned to the Beaumont house, which was now swarming with agents, technicians, and other people whose jobs even he did not know--other than to add to the confusion and lose precious evidence.
He preferred to leave that swarm of activity. He had enough questions to work with. The woman in the fur coat knew his name. She had called him Alexandre. I knew this day would come, Alexandre. Those were her exact words before she left. You had those dreams too, didn’t you?
He bit his lip. How could she know about his dreams? He did not talk about them. His dreams were his cross, his mystery.
But now, everything depends on her. Those were the woman’s last words, just as cryptic. They were like the pieces of a puzzle, but he did not understand their meaning—if there was anything to understand. Who was she talking about?
And what had she done to him?
She paralyzed you just by talking and waving her hand in the air. That’s what she did. She opened your skin with her nails, and then the injury closed up. That was not a dream.
How can you explain that?
He could not. There was nothing rational about it.
His only hope was the license plate number. He called Inspector Damien Mira, who had just started his night shift. Damien was the oldest member of the squad—and one of the rare people he considered a true friend. It was a rental car. Mira was contacting the rental company.
If I had a name, I could find her and try to understand.
He tossed his cigarette butt into the snow when he saw State Attorney Anastasia Chanabé leaving the house, deep in discussion with the crime-scene investigators. She strode in his direction. She was very tall, very thin, and very beautiful. The flashing blue lights of the police cars illuminated her face. She raised her collar against the bitter cold that came with nightfall.
“Alexandre, I want your squad on this case. But first, what exactly happened to you?”
“It’s a little complicated.”
“Someone told me you were hurt. Is that true?”
“There was someone here when I arrived, a woman.”
He hesitated and then said, “She pushed me. I fell. She ran off. It all happened very quickly. I’ll write up a report.”
Vauvert held out his pack of cigarettes with a smile, defying her to challenge him. She stared at him for a moment, not believing his story, and then took a cigarette between her thin fingers. He held out the lighter and lit her cigarette.
“Thank you,” she said, exhaling.
Then she became all business again. “We have two bodies, the husband and the wife. According to the medical examiner, they’ve been dead for some time, maybe two weeks. They were tied up with wire, and their throats were slit like chickens. Any ideas?”
“Someone is on a punitive exp
edition, and the body count has just started,” Vauvert said. “Two weeks. You know what that means, don’t you? That coincides with the son-in-law’s disappearance.”
“Pierre Loisel? The businessman who vanished? Do you think it’s vengeance?”
“With what happened to Amandine Beaumont and her son, it gets you thinking, doesn’t it?”
The state attorney nodded. Her eyes shone in the darkness.
“I heard about that accident. A drunk mother who drove into the canal. For a while, people were thinking it was murder.”
“There was no proof,” Vauvert said. “In any case, someone has decided to make things right.”
“If so, then why kill the parents-in-law?”
“No idea,” Vauvert said. “We don’t have enough pieces to the puzzle.”
He avoided any mention of the woman in the white fur coat and what she had said. I arrived too late. Too late for what? To save them? To save Pierre, who is perhaps dead somewhere, tied up with wire and drained of his blood?
The state attorney tossed her cigarette butt in the snow.
“Do you feel up to taking on this case, inspector? You don’t look like you’re in good shape.”
“No problem at all.”
“So it’s yours. Keep me posted.”
“Of course.”
He was watching her walk off when his telephone chimed. It was a message from Mira.
“Car rental gave this name: Madeleine Reich.”
Vauvert smiled for the first time that evening.
He had a piece of the puzzle.
One day, they will save your life.
26
A winter wind blows on the park. Powdery frost covers the stone statues.
The moon slides between the clouds, which are throwing frozen reflections on the windows of the mansion.
The rooms are lifeless, plunged in blue shadows.
Yet there is a presence in this house, in the still furnishings and fixtures.
Calm, deliberate footsteps on the hardwood floor.
He has come for Madeleine.
But Madeleine is no longer there.
The little bitch ran away before he got here. Now he is going through the home, kicking the doors open, digging through the desk, ripping pictures off the walls, and throwing drawers onto the floor.
“Bad Madeleine. How did you know I would come?”
His voice holds dusk, power, and patience. Yet there is also an explosive rage. As soon as he can wrap his fingers around that traitor’s neck...
Another room. More hallways. Overturned furniture. The moon comes out from behind the clouds again and casts shadows of the falling snowflakes on the walls. Tomorrow morning, the yard will again be an immaculate white.
He keeps moving. He examines the remains of Madeleine and Jonathan Reich’s last meal. The sushi is already rotting, giving off a sweet odor.
There is also the smell of blood.
He touches the puddle of blood with his bare finger. There is no risk that his prints are on file. He draws a line down the middle of the plate and brings his finger to his mouth. His tongue shivers.
He has an intense vision.
He hears Madeleine’s screams here, when her wounds opened up again.
Her injuries have reappeared. That is a very good thing. That means that little by little, order is returning. The mistakes of the past are being corrected, one by one.
He smiles in the shadows, showing his teeth, which are filed to a point. He is close. So close now.
His swipes at one of the porcelain plates.
It flies, spins, and crashes to the floor in an explosion of white. Outside, birds fly off, cawing.
“I have waited long enough.”
He climbs the stairs to the next floor, silent and on guard. The smell of blood is an effective guide. It leads to the one thing Madeleine has abandoned. That bitch Madeleine, who probably thinks she has gotten away. At best, she has earned a respite, a short, hopeless respite.
The body is in the bedroom. Jonathan’s inanimate body. It is clear that she left Jonathan there for him. She wanted to show him that she still has tricks up her sleeve, that nothing she has acquired is absolutely necessary.
What an idiot.
The body is lying on the bed in a strange position. The contents of his head have escaped through a hole in the back of the skull and spread across the wall. Death came by surprise, like a bolt of thunder. How typical of Madeleine.
He nears the body, observes it, and feels sorry for the man.
Outside, a wailing ambulance flies down a distant boulevard.
Silence returns, settling in for good this time. The night is a guardian of secrets. It alone can guess what occurs on the edge of human lives.
“Madeleine, Madeleine,” he says in a dusky voice. “It is always so easy to throw you off balance.”
His slender white hand touches Jonathan’s face. His sharp nails cut across Jonathan’s budding beard, lacerating the skin, and leaving black lines.
“Isn’t that right, Jonathan? She was such a bad girl.”
He leans over and opens the body’s mouth. Rigor mortis is wearing off, and the jaw barely resists. He inserts two fingers into the mouth that will never utter a word again.
“Hush,” he says.
He begins to murmur—a soft, repetitive drone. It is a simple, naive chant, spoken in a deep voice, like a litany that he repeats again and again until the air in the room becomes wavy and opens up, and the fabric of reality becomes undone, like a skein of yarn. Then he will follow the thread to its source.
“Tell me what you know, Jonathan. I am the one who speaks to shadows and the glimmer in the shadows that hold no light. Listen to me, and obey me. I want to know everything now.”
The film-covered eyes in Jonathan’s body pop open.
He leans forward and digs deeper in Jonathan’s mouth.
He starts chanting again.
The song of saints and gods.
Little by little, the body’s memories return, streaming through the mouth and into the hand holding the tongue.
The memories are disappointing. It is as if poor Jonathan never knew anything about the fabulous miracle who shared his life. His mind is filled with nothing but ignorance and naive love. His time with Madeleine comes back, little by little, in shining images, like air bubbles rising from the bottom of the sea. The memories are intact and disarmingly simple. A mysterious woman opens a door one evening, and her beauty swallows Jonathan up. He forgets the rest of his life and wants only one thing—to be with her, to belong to her. He sends her red flowers, takes her to fine restaurants, and gives his whole heart to a sublime and triumphant Madeleine. And Jonathan, drowned in his blind love for her, never asks the slightest question. He is too happy to have her, to share nights of lovemaking with her, and to simply be there for her. He jokes about his wife’s silences, about her refusal to share the secrets of her former life, as she calls it. He would never know the things she had to do for her success and for the absolute power she wielded over both friends and enemies.
“What a useless idiot. You don’t know anything. You never understood.”
It does not matter. There are other means.
Love is perhaps blind, but retinas are not.
He raises his voice again in a deeper monotonous chant. It is more insistent. There is no one nearby to hear him, and he grows louder, quickening the pace. The words stand apart, stronger and stronger as he spits them out with increasing violence, like screams of love—or pain—called out in the darkness.
Jonathan died here, in these sticky sheets. When the gunshot threw his head back, his retinas registered the final instants of his life and the first ghosts populating his death.
He is looking for these images deep in what remains of Jonathan.
They are images of Madeleine with a smoking gun in hand. They float by for a second before separating and then melting into the great nothingness.
Madeleine observing him
, leaning over him, her lips mumbling something. “It’s the only way, Jonathan.”
Then Madeleine straightens and calmly makes her way across the room to the closet, where she grabs a suitcase from the top shelf. Madeleine takes her time to choose her outfits. She folds them carefully and arranges them neatly in the suitcase. Madeleine has always been disciplined.
She returns to Jonathan.
She smiles at him again, even though he is dead. She does not suspect that his empty pupils are still recording her activities in the room.
Madeleine’s features begin to blur as the death memories break up.
No. It can’t stop there. He grumbles. He needs more. He needs to dig deeper, to press harder. He pushes his fist into Jonathan Reich’s throat. He must know. The information is there, right there, in those final blurry images.
They come back into focus. Madeleine’s eyes and mouth reappear. Yes, Jonathan has seen them. His dead eyes have seen them.
Madeleine mumbling, thinking.
It is impossible to see what she has done, but he can see her lips. Madeleine’s lips moving, whispering, unwittingly betraying her.
All he has to do is read her lips.
Then he will have the answers.
Everything is said. His confidence returns. He grips Jonathan’s tongue and pulls it gently until the muscle gives way. The tongue comes out.
He gets up. His eyes shine in the darkness.
He opens his hand and drops the soft tongue to the floor, where he watches it decompose.
He knows what he has to do.
It takes him less than ten minutes to go to the car and return to the house with a container of gas in one hand and a box of sea salt in the other.
He spreads the salt over the body to remove all evidence, both visible and invisible.
He recites the text. He raises his voice. The tone is different, swollen, as he calls on the forces beyond the veil.
As he splatters gas on the body, the bed, and the furniture, it is no longer a simple litany. It is a joyful, exalted war chant.
27
Vauvert woke up with a start.
An intense burn on his face.