Left to Vanish (An Adele Sharp Mystery—Book Eight)

by Blake Pierce

  “But it did end?”

  “Yes. Divorced, like I said. Probably for the best…” Anita trailed off, frowning against what seemed a rehearsed line. “Maybe not the best anymore. But my father didn’t love my mother. Spoke harshly of her since…” She trailed off again, blinking as if suddenly realizing what she was saying. She stammered, looking quickly from Adele to Sophie, “Not that I think he did anything. No, sorry. I was just processing. Both of them were quite angry with each other. But I never felt like they might…” She swallowed. “Harm anyone.”

  “Right,” said Adele. To her surprise, facing across the table and watching Anita, she felt some of the unease from earlier had melted like ice in sunshine. She knew what it was to lose a mother at that age. But it didn’t sound like Signora Calvetti was anything like Elise Romei. Adele’s own mother had been her best friend. A kind, compassionate woman. Not cutthroat in any way.

  She wondered if it was easier or harder to have lost someone she loved, rather than someone she’d only respected.

  Adele listened as Agent Paige asked another question, but she couldn’t quite make out the words. She just watched, not quite seeing. Listened, not quite hearing, her own mind plagued with memories, images… Bleeding, bleeding…

  And now, Robert gone too.

  Paige patted Anita on the back of the hand, and Adele blinked, focusing once more and realizing she was being addressed.

  “Pardon?” Adele said, looking at Paige.

  The older Frenchwoman frowned slightly but said, “I think we best go, yes? Ms. Calvetti has been through a lot.”

  Adele released a breath but nodded quickly. “Right. Yes. Thank you, Anita, for your time.”

  The two agents pushed slowly up. Adele felt a sense of disappointment they hadn’t managed to exact any further information. She supposed the next stop would be the coroner. Hopefully that way—

  “How dare you!” a voice suddenly erupted from behind them.

  All three figures in the dining room spun around, eyes widened instinctively and fixating on the man standing in the door. He had a thick finger jutting into the room and his eyes blazed with fury. “You have no right! None!” he yelled. He stamped his foot hard against the floor, his face reddening even further, and for a moment, Adele thought he might very well explode.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Adele watched as Agent Paige’s hand darted to her sidearm, but she didn’t draw, her eyes narrowed on the man in the doorway. Continuing in broken English, the man made himself heard with increasing gusto. “No right! How dare speak me daughter without me? How dare!” Spittle actually flung from his lips, speckling the magnificent oak table. He wagged a finger around, nearly as round as a polish sausage.

  Anita winced as the man screamed, trying—it seemed to Adele—to sink further into her chair and hide beneath the table.

  At last, though, she groaned softly and got to her feet, interrupting the diatribe.

  “It’s fine, Dad,” she said, raising her voice. Then hurriedly she rattled off something in Italian.

  The man paused long enough to draw a deep, gulping breath, his cheeks reddened and his chest protruding like some strutting hen. He wore muttonchops of silver and gray, and had a wobbly chin that moved when he spoke.

  He turned to his daughter, shaking his red face adamantly, and replying in a burst of Italian himself.

  The daughter replied again, then, with an apologetic wince, switched back to English. “I am sorry, Agent Adele, but this is my father. He is not pleased you have spoken with me.”

  Adele frowned at the man in the doorway. “I’d gathered as much,” she said. “Excuse me, Mr. Calvetti,” she began, but she didn’t make it far.

  “Signore Herrera,” he snapped, returning to English. “You little French girl, why speak to me daughter?”

  Adele blinked, her eyes narrowing slightly. She’d long grown accustomed to blustering men throwing her gender back in her face as some sort of cudgel. Normally, she knew how to maintain her calm. She’d dealt with such barbs over the course of her career on countless occasions. The criminal elements, international or otherwise, often broke windows but weren’t exactly shattering glass ceilings.

  Now, though, as she paused, staring at the red-faced man, she could feel her own temper rising. Her lips formed a thin, firm line. “Signore Herrera,” she said, slowly trying to keep her rising anger in check. “I understand your daughter is an adult. She can speak for herself, yes?”

  She glanced toward Anita, who nodded quickly but looked nervously at her father as she did.

  “No!” Herrera snapped, wagging his finger now and stepping forward so he was pointing the offending digit beneath her nose. “No!” he repeated, seemingly stuck on one of the few English words he’d mastered. “This is no. My daughter speak not to you! Horrible, horrible French girl.”

  Another lance of rising anger jolted through Adele. She tried to count to ten in her head, calming herself as best she could.

  “You leave her alone. Anita, come—we go!”

  “Hang on,” Agent Paige called out. “We’ll say when you can leave.”

  The man turned to Sophie now too, sniffing dismissively and shaking his red face. “No,” he said, returning to familiar lingual territory. “I think no. Come, Anita.”

  The round, pretty-faced girl winced, glancing from her father’s beckoning fingers toward Adele and Agent Paige. Though Anita appeared in her mid-twenties, she seemed little more than a chastised child under her father’s fury.

  Again, Adele could feel her own temper rising… Counting to eight… nine… ten…

  The counting was supposed to reduce one’s temper, but she could only feel her fury rising all the more at the stupid look on that red face and behind those beady little eyes. Besides, hadn’t Anita let slip her father’s loathing for his wife? Divorced three years ago, no love lost. Now, Mrs. Calvetti was dead.

  And if anything Signore Herrera didn’t seem much broken up about it.

  “Come!” Herrera called with a final stomp of his foot.

  “No,” Adele said, rising from her seat now and facing the Italian. “You wait right there,” she said, finding her own voice, losing some of the normally calm facade she’d grown so accustomed to displaying in such volatile conversations.

  The man blinked at her in surprise, likely ill accustomed to anyone talking back beneath his tidal wave of personality.

  “You’re the victim’s ex-husband, yes?” Adele said, speaking slowly so he could track the English.

  “No!” he cried, shaking his finger.

  “He is,” Anita sighed, softly.

  Her father’s ire rounded on his daughter and he yelled something in Italian which this time went ignored.

  “I’d like to know what you were doing last night,” Adele said firmly. “When did you find out about your wife’s murder?”

  “Ex!”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Ex-wife,” snapped Herrera, still puffing his chest.

  Part of Adele wanted nothing more than to take a large pin and pop him like a balloon. She could feel her anger still swelling and was breathing heavily now as if after a long jog. She’d been able to get morning runs in most days during the weeks leading up to Robert’s funeral, but now she felt trapped, stuck in place as if glued to the floor.

  “Right,” she amended, her tone harsher than she might have liked. “Ex-wife. Where were you?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Where were you last night. It’s a simple question, sir. I’m afraid if you don’t have an answer, we can—”

  “Stupid girl,” he snapped. “Do you know who me are? Hmm?”

  “Who I am, Dad,” Anita said, sighing. “She’s an agent with the DGSI. Just answer her.”

  Adele took a step forward, standing nearly chin to chin with the short man. Her own eyes narrowed, meeting his beady gaze. He didn’t seem to have the good sense to step back though, and smelled of an entire bottle of expensive cologne. Her eyes beg
an watering at such proximity to the noxious odor and she glanced aside, inhaling deeply through her nose for the simple benefit of fresh air.

  “I don’t know who you are,” Adele said, growling now. “I don’t care.” She jammed a finger into his chest and the man suddenly yelped as if he’d been stabbed. He held his chest, making a big show of reeling back and thumping against the opposite wall. His eyes widened in horror. “Attack!” he screamed. “Assault! Polizia!”

  “Shut up,” Adele snapped. “Answer my question or I’ll lug your fat ass to a jail cell for a couple of days and then maybe you’ll figure out how to answer a simple question.”

  The moment the spiel fell from her lips, she blinked in surprise at the content of her own words. She could feel Sophie Paige watching her now, off to the side. She noted Anita shift uncomfortably, one hand pressed against her mouth as if trying to hide a gasp of surprise or a creeping smile.

  Mr. Herrera though, looked like he’d been slapped. He gaped at her a moment, meeting her eyes as if giving her a chance to take it all back.

  But Adele was in too deep now. Even without John Renee around, she seemed to find a way to piss off their witnesses. Then again, as far as she knew, this man was a suspect.

  At last, he waved his fingers, adjusting his shirt with an air of wounded pride. “I was not here,” he said. “I in city—Milan.” He waved a hand airily up the hall in the direction of the great city.

  “I know what Milan is,” said Adele. “Do you have proof?”

  “I prove? I with girlfriend,” he snapped.

  “You were with your girlfriend.”

  Anita coughed, waving delicately. “He always spends the night in the city with her,” she said. “They usually post about it online.” She glanced at her own phone, and then, with a little sigh of relief, she hurried over, patting her father consolingly on the arm and extending her device beneath Adele’s nose. “See,” she said. “Look. That’s them right there. Look at the date.”

  Adele glanced down, watching as Anita scrolled through a series of social media photos dated from the previous night. Mr. Herrera was unmistakable, accompanied by a much, much younger woman with a sculpted nose. Both of them were laughing and drinking in the pictures, equal parts bar-hopping, it seemed, and driving around in a bright red Ferrari.

  Adele resisted the urge to roll her eyes and instead checked the timestamp on the photos.

  The pictures ranged from ten p.m. through midnight. In each of the photos, Herrera was accompanied by his younger girlfriend.

  She glanced from the phone to Agent Paige, raising an inflective eyebrow and nodding toward the device. Paige stepped in, glancing over Adele’s shoulder at the phone in Anita’s hand, frowning even deeper as she too read the dates.

  “Your wife’s passing,” Adele said, turning back now. “Any idea who might have wanted her dead?”

  “All want dead!” he declared, smiling now and wagging his head. “Yes. Here,” he said, suddenly reaching into his pocket, pulling out a wallet and peeling off two crisp hundred-euro notes. He flung them at Adele. “Give gift to killer. Hmm? Thanks him. Thanks! Very thanks!” He grinned now, nodding quickly and wiggling his fingers toward the bills fluttering to the ground.

  “You don’t seem too upset about it,” Adele said, feeling her own frustration still pulsing in her chest.

  He snorted and reached for his daughter now, trying to tug at her. Anita reluctantly joined her father, patting him consolingly on his hairy arm and trying to pull him through the doorway.

  “We didn’t say you could leave,” Adele snapped.

  The man hesitated, framed in the door, glancing sidelong at his daughter, back to Adele, and then licking his lips slowly.

  Adele paused, considering it all for a moment. The social media photos suggested the man had spent all night with his girlfriend. An accomplice? Given the state of them, and the redness of his cheeks, though, he was still wearing off a hangover. Was that the sort of man to plot out a route through a security system, lure a smart and competent woman, and kill her without leaving a trace?

  Looks could be deceiving. Time stamps, less so. She couldn’t fully cross the infuriating man off the list, but he wasn’t at the top. Besides, she’d already made a scene.

  Her nerves, her temper—all of it felt out of whack. She felt like a rookie again, wishing someone was around to show her through the ropes once more. She missed John… missed Robert… But sometimes, no amount of wishful thinking made an ounce of difference.

  “Now you can go,” Adele said, pointedly glaring at the red-faced Herrera.

  He turned before she’d even finished, dragging his daughter toward the door and muttering a series of Italian words Adele didn’t need a dictionary to interpret, leaving the DGSI agents standing in the otherwise abandoned dining room.

  Adele traced a finger along the oak table, wincing against a headache but at last looking up to meet Agent Paige’s frown.

  “Not protocol, Sharp,” Paige said slowly.

  Adele shrugged. “Sorry. I’ll do better. Just a bit of jet lag.”

  “Right, jet lag…”

  Adele winced, but nodded. The last person she’d confide in was Agent Paige. Besides, Paige was close with Foucault, and the Executive had made it clear: any whiff of unprofessional behavior and he’d take her off the case.

  Adele needed the work. She needed this and so she just nodded, trying to force a smile at Paige and saying, “Don’t think it’s him. Doesn’t seem the sort.”

  “The pictures aren’t an airtight alibi.”

  “No. I guess not. But they’re enough that I think our next stop should be the coroner.” Adele half expected Paige to protest, if only to be contrarian. So it was much to her surprise when the older woman paused in thought, but then nodded once, adjusting her suit and brushing past Adele. She strode with clicking footsteps down the hall and toward the front where the taxi driver was still running their meter.

  Adele stood in the old mansion, beneath the fake chandelier…

  Robert’s house was a bit smaller, but not by much. And his sense in décor was infinitely better. Or, at least had been.

  Was the coroner the best step?

  Maybe talking to some of the board? What about the first victim in London?

  So many options. Adele winced, trying to think it through. She heard the front door open and shut as Agent Paige made her escape from the old house.

  Normally, Adele wasn’t the type to endlessly second-guess. But now she wasn’t sure. The coroner? The victim in London? The board?

  At last, she sighed and just shook her head, rubbing at the bridge of her nose. Maybe it really was jet lag… If not, she was beginning to feel unraveled.

  One step at a time. That’s all. Every case was one step at a time. What other choice was there? Lives were on the line. Nothing to boost a mood like staring at a corpse.

  Adele shivered and turned slowly, walking up the hallway in the direction of the roundabout and the waiting taxi. Coroner it was. One step…

  …At a time.

  One kill at a time.

  She’d just have to keep up.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Agent Paige leaned down, glancing through the window. “Tip is included,” she said, frowning toward where the driver waited expectantly. The man’s features twisted into a scowl which Paige was happy to return. She made a shooing motion. “Go. We’re done with you.”

  The man muttered darkly a couple of times, and then with a screech of tires peeled away from the curb, moving back out into the night.

  Paige turned now, facing the small coroner’s office on the outskirts of Milan, bordered by an old, blocky industrial building and a row of small eateries with names she couldn’t pronounce. She turned with stiff motions, approaching the door to the coroner’s where Agent Sharp waited, one hand braced against the glass, her eyes staring off into the distance as if tracking some weather pattern on the horizon.

  Paige approached the younger woma
n, frowning as she did.

  Agent Sharp had never been her favorite person, especially not after that business nearly ten years ago. The younger woman had nearly ruined Paige’s career. Adele had protested her innocence more than once, but some betrayals were unforgivable regardless of an apology.

  Now, though, as she approached the door held open by the younger woman, Paige couldn’t help but examine Adele where she stood.

  The young agent was headstrong and often shirked protocol, but she was a competent operative. Competent enough, at least. Naive and inexperienced, in Sophie’s opinion, but still with an acceptable closure rate… Well, perhaps if she was being fair a bit more than acceptable. The only person who had a better closure rate in the DGSI was the late Robert Henry, Adele’s mentor.

  Paige hesitated on the sidewalk before brushing past the younger woman without comment, stepping into the dingy lower level of the small coroner’s office. She resisted the urge to glance back at first, but when no sounds came in pursuit, Paige paused in a doorway, regarding Sharp.

  The woman remained in the frame, the vacant look in her eyes.

  “You coming?” Paige said, raising her voice.

  Adele didn’t seem to hear.

  “Hey!” Paige snapped. “Are you coming?” she enunciated.

  Adele blinked and looked over. She nodded swiftly and stepped into the dingy hall, allowing the glass door with the golden lettering to swing shut behind her. Paige kept her lips pursed as Adele hastened over.

  The younger woman was behaving strangely. She seemed on edge, nervous even. The way she’d lashed out at Signore Herrera was only one from a slew of alarming interactions. Paige studied Adele’s flustered expression as the younger woman approached. Adele was taller than Paige by a few inches, and had an exotic beauty about her which Paige in her younger years might have envied. Now, though, there was nothing about the dark clouds behind her eyes which Paige coveted.