by Blake Pierce
Adele felt a flutter of hope in her chest. “Yeah, that’s right. I didn’t want to damage the plane.”
“Of course, you didn’t know you were breaking the law, did you?”
Adele hesitated, mouth half open. She swallowed then and gave a quick shake of her head. “Er. Mm-mm.”
The correspondent smiled like a poker player who knew they had the best hand. “Which means you will have to spend at least two weeks in mandatory retraining, brushing up on international flight law.”
Adele winced. “Wait, hang on—two weeks?”
“Are you saying you did know you were breaking international law?”
Adele’s countenance fell; she breathed in frustration, but then shook her head. It was a punishment, obvious enough. But a punishment that didn’t end behind bars. She’d have to bite the bullet on this one. “Training? And would that be with Interpol?”
An innocent enough question, but with severe implications. Ms. Jayne just looked at Adele and then said, “After retraining, I can’t see any reason your capacity should change.” Her tone became a little less guarded now, and the older woman half glanced toward the police officer watching them. She sighed and said, “You did a good job there. Adele. The victim is going to make it.”
“He’s being treated?” Adele said, trying to hide the sudden surge of relief flooding her.
“Yes. At the local hospital. The killer too, on the same floor, in fact. Of course, we have six police officers guarding the madman.”
Adele shook her head. “Well, good…” She trailed off and winced. “Does this mean I’m free to go?”
Ms. Jayne glanced at her wrist, checking her watch, and then nodded to the German officer. “Henry here will see you out. I have a meeting with the chief to help smooth things over. Have a good day, Agent Sharp. And I’m serious about that retraining. Two weeks, ten-hour days. Good day.”
And then Ms. Jayne turned, marching off, her shoes clicking against the floor, her posture straight, her eyes ahead; not once did she look back.
Adele stared after the older woman, feeling a mixture of emotions, both despair at the thought of two weeks of rookie tests and training and lessons. But also stupefied she still had a job, and wasn’t going to be thrown in prison. She gave a small, incredulous shake of her head and breathed a slow sigh of relief.
The German officer gestured toward Adele, and she took her time about leaving the cell, not wanting to catch up with Ms. Jayne. An involuntary shiver jolted through her at the mere thought of trying to maintain a conversation, walking side-by-side with that woman. No, perhaps it was best to linger behind a bit. She kept her arm in the sling close to her side as they moved—her bandaged hands motionless.
The police officer guided Adele out of the holding cell room, toward the front of the precinct. She paused at an old locker room converted into a storage vestibule. Behind bulletproof glass, a frowning woman pushed two plastic baggies toward Adele, followed by a pen and clipboard.
“Verify everything is there,” she said in German, “then sign.”
After signing with a limp hand, the plastic bags crinkled as Adele delicately retrieved her things, taking back, with one hand, her weapon, her smart watch, wallet, ID cards and then, doing her best to ignore the angry looks from the other police officers in the precinct, she moved toward the front doors and stepped out into free air.
Sunlight streaked the marble steps and gray clouds rolled across the horizon. For a moment, she heard the glass doors swish behind her, as if sealing her back out in the real world, beneath the free skies and gentle wind. She smiled softly to herself, fiddling carefully with the band to her reacquired watch.
“You made it too,” said a voice. And she jerked, startled.
She glanced over. The handsome frame of Agent Leoni was silhouetted against the opaque glass window in the far wall of the precinct.
Her nerves quieted again and she said, “When did you get out?”
Leoni rubbed ruefully at his wrists, somehow managing to make this gesture suave and chagrined at the same time. “Only an hour ago.”
“Prognosis?”
“I’m on warning. Two weeks. Unpaid suspension.”
Adele whistled. “Sorry.”
Leoni shook his head. “I was expecting much worse. It sounded like someone from Interpol want to bat for you, which meant I got some second-hand goodwill. Two weeks, I can deal with that.”
Adele moved to cross her arms on instinct, but then winced at her sprained elbow and burned hands. “You waited for an hour?”
He smiled now, his cheeks splitting. “That’s what you took from all that?”
Adele studied Leoni, her eyes slipping along his dark gaze, down the smooth slant of his jaw, to his perfectly maintained teeth. But he didn’t just look it, he actually was handsome. He had proven himself loyal, willing to risk himself and his career to save a life. She nodded at him once. “I have to go. Flight back to France.”
“You still have a job?”
“Two weeks of retraining. International flight law.”
Leoni winced. “Wow, I got it better.”
“No kidding. Two-week vacation? What I wouldn’t give.”
They both chuckled at this. Adele gave Leoni a nod which he returned, and then she began to move away toward the curb, fishing out her phone with gentle motions to call a cab. After a bit though, she paused, standing on the sidewalk, and glanced back. Leoni was sitting on the bench now, glancing at his watch, likely waiting for his own ride. She called, her voice echoing up the precinct steps, “If ever you’re in Paris, you should stop by.”
Leoni’s dark eyes flicked up and studied her for a moment where he sat on the bench. He brushed his Superman curl out of his eyes. It struck Adele as incredible that somehow his suit was still unwrinkled. “I’d like that,” he replied.
She turned back to the road, smiling now, and scheduling her cab.
***
This flight involved far less adrenaline or screaming bosses, and Adele was glad to be back in first class, rather than the cockpit. She was additionally glad to be leaning as far back as her chair would go, thanks to the empty seat behind her. No work this time. No laptop, or case files, or anything. If she wanted, she could watch a movie or, as she was doing now, take a nap. She pulled her blanket up beneath her chin, nestling into the seats, her window shade half closed, allowing light to stream through, warm against her cheek. The cool air from the nozzle above her intermingled with the warmth from the sun, and she felt like a cat in a sunbeam. Content.
But, though her eyes were closed, and though she had an opportunity for rest, it was a difficult thing to turn off the mind of an agent.
It all came back to Adele’s mother. But perhaps that was why she’d been failing to catch the killer back in Paris. Why she had failed ten years ago. And why the Spade Killer, as the news had called him, had escaped.
Because it shouldn’t all trace back to Elise.
In fact, in the killer’s mind, Elise was just a tool, a plaything. In the killer’s mind, it all went back to him.
This new psycho had reminded her of that. She had thought like a killer because she knew killers. That was how she was able to catch him. That was how she was always able to catch them. Every case, it was the advantage she had. She thought of herself like a bloodhound with a scent. But that scent was a knowledge. The scent was her ability to put herself in the minds of these monsters.
And yet with her mother, she hadn’t managed to. She’d been putting herself in the mind of her mother. Queue the dreams, the horror, the nightmares. Queue the sympathy, the empathy, the tears.
But an investigator couldn’t risk those things. She wasn’t trying to figure out Elise’s thoughts. She knew her mother and it was useless for the case.
She needed to figure out the killer. Which meant she had to put aside, for a moment, the memories of her mother. Put aside empathy for the woman who’d been taken. And embrace fully knowledge, empathy, understanding of t
he murderer who’d sliced up innocent women, leaving them to die, bleeding out on the side of a park path.
Perhaps, an impossible thing. But empathy could be turned off as well as on. She needed to find the murderer. Which meant she needed to think like him. She’d been playing it too safe, and playing it too emotional. She’d been letting her feelings cloud her judgment.
She knew she had to get into the killer’s head and understand his unique and bizarre view of the world if she was ever going to catch him. And while it felt like a betrayal to her mother, to think of that case in terms of anything but Elise’s own story, she knew the killer cast himself as the main character. Which meant she would have to as well.
And though it was an unsettling thought, Adele felt a tranquility descend on her as she lay back in that airplane seat. Her eyes were closed, and she didn’t smile, but she didn’t frown. She dreamed. It was as sleep came, the nightmares returned.
But for the first time ever, bleeding, bleeding, always bleeding, as she watched the images flash through her mind, she viewed them not from her mother’s perspective, not from her own perspective, but from the eyes of someone standing off the side of the road, amidst the trees, studying the death, the carnage, studying the work of art he’d left for others to find.
In this place, with her mind engaged, she heard a quiet buzz. She frowned, glancing at her phone connected to the plane’s Wi-Fi.
A message from John.
It read: We need to talk. ASAP.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Adele took the stairs up to her apartment with a slight spring to her step, as if she were shedding a burden at the base of the hall. She no longer wore the sling, and though her elbow still throbbed occasionally, she did her best not to move it. Even the discomfort from her injuries couldn’t dampen her thrill of excitement as she curled around the banister of the old building and moved higher and higher. No elevator, which suited Adele just fine. Her hands were hurt, not her legs. She liked the required exertion, like built-in exercise to her own home.
She was back in Paris. She’d only received a slap on the wrist for the events back in Germany, but Adele didn’t care about any of it just now.
She could still feel the cool metal of her phone through the lining of her pocket. The same phone that had carried a message from Agent Renee. What was so urgent? ASAP, he’d said. Something in the case?
She had told him she needed space. Told him to leave her alone. But now, he wanted to talk. He’d asked when she would be home, and if she would meet with him back at her place.
Adele took the stairs three at a time. Her legs stretching pleasurably as she reached her floor. Her handbag carry-on swayed next to her, where it dangled loosely from her good arm as she moved, and she felt her hair shifting across her sweaty forehead. A night sprinting through forests, another in jail, followed by a flight from Germany… Adele wrinkled her nose at the thought. She needed a shower. She could only hope John wouldn’t arrive until after she’d had a chance to settle.
But as she rounded the wooden banister, her luggage and laptop bag dangling from the same arm crook, she pulled up and spotted a tall form outlined against the doorframe of her apartment.
Agent Renee had his arms crossed, his long legs stretched over the hall and pressed to the metal bars of the stairwell.
Her eyes flicked to his face at the same time as his head snapped up.
And for a moment, she stopped, pausing at the top of the stairs, staring at her old partner.
John gave a small little fluttering wave with one hand. He had dark features, a sharp, bold nose, and eyes that were always half hooded like a lazy tomcat in a dark alley. A thick scar, from burn marks, roped down his chin over his throat and toward his chest.
He wasn’t wearing a suit, but had opted for a ten-dollar hoodie and sweatpants, stained on one sleeve. Anyone else in such attire waiting outside a young woman’s apartment would have elicited a call to the cops. Adele wondered if any of her neighbors had asked who he was.
She cleared her throat a bit, adjusted her own shirt with one free, still bandaged hand, absentmindedly brushed a few loose strands of hair behind an ear, and then approached, not quite smiling, but also not frowning.
“Adele,” John said as she drew near.
“Renee,” she replied.
“Miss me yet?”
“You’re the one who texted me.”
“Right.” His tone went very serious all of a sudden, and Adele paused again, this time standing in front of her own door, next to her old partner. He didn’t smell like cologne, but more like sweat, and worry.
A strange aura from John Renee. He wasn’t normally a man given to worry. He didn’t seem to think too much of the emotion. But now, in his every sidelong glance and twist of his heel against the ground, Adele discerned something lurking there. Something uncomfortable.
“How can I help you?” Adele said.
John snorted. He reached out and put a finger against her chin, not too hard, but firm enough so he could guide her to look him in the eyes.
She reached up and slapped his hand away.
“How can you help me? What is this, a bank?”
Adele, now that she was looking at him, refused to look away lest he take it as a sign of weakness. She wasn’t even sure what she was feeling. She’d been excited, almost like a schoolgirl, at the thought of meeting her partner again. But when she’d seen him, something else had snapped in place. Some other, deeper emotion. One of rejection? Embarrassment? Vulnerability?
She had run from Paris. Run from the killer who had targeted her own mother. She’d abandoned the case to John. It wasn’t his fault. It was hers. And yet she couldn’t bear being around it. He must think she was so pathetic. Such a coward.
The thoughts burned through her mind, and robbed the last vestiges of any attempted smile. Now, she felt alone, her shoulders shaking. With a slight sigh, she tore her gaze away, fished the key from her pocket, and began prodding it toward the locked door to her apartment. She winced a couple of times as her numbed fingers and palm encased in the bandages from the rope burns made it difficult to navigate the lock.
“Look,” he said, sternly. “We need to talk.”
“About what?” she grunted. “The case?”
“Exactly.”
“We landed a plane on a highway, and I grabbed a rope before the victim fell. Big deal.”
John snorted in frustration. “I’m not talking about your case. I’m talking about—”
“I know what you’re talking about.”
John blinked. “So you heard?”
Adele pushed open her unlocked door and stepped into her apartment. She glanced around; everything was the way it had been left. Neat, tidy, save a cereal bowl near the sink.
She sighed, shouldering her laptop bag and luggage carry-on where they had slid uncomfortably close to her hand. She moved into the small apartment. John waited at the threshold of the door, shifting uncertainly. Adele didn’t invite him in. She’d let him figure that one out on his own.
“Adele, how much did you hear?” John said, his voice extending from the doorway as she came to a stop by the island counter. Across from her small kitchenette.
“About your case? Nothing. I haven’t been kept apprised.”
John went suddenly still. His eyes narrowed. “Wait, so you don’t know.”
“I don’t know anything. And honestly, John, while I’d love to hear what you found, I need a shower, some sleep,”
“I saw the killer.”
Whatever she’d been expecting to hear, it wasn’t this.
Adele just blinked at him, and she found the strap to her laptop bag slid suddenly down her shoulder, and her fingers went numb, painful beneath their bandages. The bag thudded to the hardwood floor. She stood feet at shoulder width, inhaling softly through her nose. She detected the faint smell of cinnamon, from one of those unlit scent candles on the kitchen table.
“Hang on, what do you mean?”
John still stood in the doorway, but he stretched his frame. Now, his arms reached up, past the doorframe on his side of the hall; he rested his fingers against the wall above the door.
“I mean, I saw the killer. He was torturing a victim. I got there just in time.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“I did. Just now. You said you wanted to be left alone.”
“Forget about that. You saw my mother’s killer?”
John’s hands dropped from above the door now, and he held them up in mock surrender. “Hang on,” he said, quickly. “No one said anything about it being your mother’s killer. We don’t know that yet.”
Adele’s second bag thumped on top of the laptop bag, and she crossed her arms now, staring at John, who looked at ease in his old hoodie and sweatpants.
“Copycat killer?” Adele snorted. “Are you guys still going with that? Please. Attacking a woman with the same middle name as my mother? After I started poking around? What are the odds, John? Really?”
John shrugged.
Adele huffed. “How did you see them? Did you get a good look at them?”
He winced. “I got a good look. They were wearing a mask. But, before they saw me, the mask was lowered. I got a look. Not long.”
“What did you see?” Adele said, her heart pulsing and her face warming, leaving tingles across her cheeks. She wouldn’t have been surprised if her face had gone completely pale.
“Clean-shaven. I couldn’t tell his age. Pale skinned. Also small, like a small skeleton—couldn’t have been much larger than a child. Something off about one of his eyes. But I didn’t get a good enough look. The killer saw me coming.”
“You chased him?”
John hesitated.
“Dammit, are you saying he got away?” Adele gritted her teeth. She could feel anger surging through her. Now, some of it irrationally directed at her old partner. “John, tell me you at least got a license plate. Something?”