by Blake Pierce
Adele glanced at the parchment. “What’s that?”
John smirked, but shrugged with one shoulder. “Don’t worry about it.”
Adele glanced at the paper, noticing a couple of numbers before he finally slid it completely from view.
She lowered her voice to a hoarse whisper. “You didn’t.” She resisted the urge to reach out and shake the man. “Is that the girl’s number?”
John chuckled again and patted Adele on the shoulder in a gesture he had to know would infuriate her. “My American princess, what you don’t know can’t hurt you.”
“I can’t believe you. I can’t—”
“—you know what I feel like? A drink. You should come. You look tightly wound. I heard Agent Paige was talking about you with Foucault, by the way. She’s not very nice in her report.”
“I don’t—I just—” Adele didn’t know what to say. She glanced toward John’s pocket, then back up at his smirk, and then down to the hand which he was still pressing against her shoulder. There was something condescending about the gesture, but also familiar.
Strangely, this invitation to get drinks seemed to suggest he had warmed to her somewhat. If not for the burn along his neck and up his throat, John would have been quite handsome, with his bold nose and disheveled bangs. It was little surprise, in his position, with his personality, that he would leverage his authority to coerce the number from the prostitute. Adele sincerely hoped it was just a joke, but decided it wasn’t worth pursuing; she had more serious matters to commit her thoughts to.
If Agent Paige was causing trouble back at the office, there was nothing Adele could do about that either. Their history proved that.
She shook her head, mouth slightly agape, and glanced back toward the two black-latex-wearing suite occupants. The tickets on the phone had confirmed the man’s claim—he’d only arrived last week, and he hadn’t come from the States. She sighed softly, breathing through her nose as she surveyed the arresting officers and then turned back to John. “I don’t even—”
“A rough night, I know. You got your hopes up.” For a moment, it almost seemed like John’s voice was sincere. He reached out and began to guide her, tugging insistently at her arm and pulling her toward the elevator. “Come. I’ll show you my favorite spot.”
“I don’t know…”
“It’s back at headquarters. I know how much you like the office; you can pretend you’re working.”
“A drink at headquarters?”
John nodded and continued to guide her along with a strong but surprisingly gentle grip. “You need to unwind as much as I do.”
Adele loosed a sigh, lifted her eyes skyward as if in silent prayer. But at last, she nodded, numbly. What else was there to say? The killer had evaded her once more. The APB had been useless. Perhaps a drink was exactly what she needed.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Adele could feel the exhaustion from the last couple of days taking its toll. The thought of her morning run tomorrow filled her with dread, but she hadn’t missed one in years and she wasn’t about to start in Paris. Still, as John drove his SUV wildly up the nighttime streets, darting beneath the vibrant light posts lining the sidewalks, she couldn’t help but feel the last vestiges of her energy being spent on an emotion eerily similar to unease.
“I thought we were going to get drinks,” she murmured from the passenger seat. Her cheek was pressed against the cool window, and her hair cushioned the side of her face. She stared out the front windshield, her eyes tracking the buildings ahead of them.
“We are. Back at headquarters.”
“You said that. Sounds awful. Why not just go to some bar—”
“Just hang on. I’m about to show you.”
“You sure they won’t tow my car?”
John kept his long arms out, holding the steering wheel, but still managed to evoke a shrug from a shoulder followed by a slight tilt of his head.
“Even if they did, so what. It’s a government car. They’ll have to give it back. You’re too tired to drive.”
Adele sighed again, closing her eyes, if only for a moment, like someone on a diet inhaling the scent of chocolate cake. “If I didn’t know better,” she said, “I’d think you were worried about me.”
John tutted quietly and said, “I thought you were a good detective. I’m worried about my own ass. Follow the clues, American Princess.”
They pulled into the parking lot outside the DGSI headquarters, nodding at the night guards as John flashed a badge and Adele handed hers to John so he could poke it out the window.
One of the guards nodded in familiarity to Renee, a gesture which the tall man returned. Adele was reminded of her own relationship with Doug, one of the security guards on the third floor.
John parked beneath the dark overpass, the concrete lot illuminated only by rectangular incandescent lights in the enclosed space’s ceiling.
Adele followed after her partner, an uneasy gait to her step. She couldn’t sleep, not now. Not after the day’s events. Her idea of a good time and relaxing with a drink rarely involved the workspace, but she hadn’t wanted to turn John’s invitation down. John’s personality took some acclimating, and she didn’t want to shoot down his one offer of camaraderie. He was a strange one. A rebel, in the most juvenile sense of the word. But there was also something deeper. Something she couldn’t quite make out about him. It piqued her curiosity.
She had to walk double pace to keep up with his long, steady strides as he moved down the nearly empty office hallways.
“APB was a bust, but the tox report should be on my desk,” he said conversationally, leading her toward the stairwell.
“Not more stairs,” Adele groaned.
“It will be worth it. Don’t worry.”
John’s office was on the seventh floor. But instead of heading up, he took the descending flight.
Adele stared uneasily after the tall man. “You’re not going to kill me, are you?”
John glanced over his shoulder up at her and flashed a jack-o’-lantern grin. “Haven’t decided yet. Just come, American Princess. You see killers everywhere. Makes it hard to recognize comrades.”
“Yeah? You’re a comrade, not a killer, is that it?”
“Perhaps I’m a bit of both.” He gestured at her and, without waiting, continued down the stairs.
With a rising sense of malaise, which made her feel silly, Adele followed after John, taking the stairs much slower than earlier.
He led her down to the basement and pushed open an old rusted door. A dusty, cracked hallway filled with chipped paint and dull lights stretched before her. At the far end, she spotted an evidence locker and a couple of interrogation rooms that seemed little used. John pushed open the door to interrogation room three and glanced inside, looking around. “Coast is clear,” he said, conspiratorially.
Adele didn’t know what or who he was looking for or expecting to find in the old, abandoned interrogation room, but she didn’t care to ask. Out of the entire building, this floor was the worst she’d seen.
Large flakes of paint peeled off the walls, and watermarks scoured the floor, suggesting the basement had flooded more than once. Lettering marked some of the doors as interrogation rooms, displaying words beneath thin layers of dust. The building had been serving the DGSI for a decade, but the basement had been left, it seemed, to fend mostly for itself.
John moved further down the hall until he reached Interrogation Room Six. Then he fished a key from his pocket. He tried the door handle, which wouldn’t turn. He nodded in approval, humming quietly to himself—the same tune that served as his ringtone. Then he inserted a small key, turned the door handle, and pushed it open.
He glanced up and down the hall, only further adding to the burden of unease on Adele’s shoulders. As the door opened, she was assailed by a strange, fruity smell. She’d been to vineyards before, and the odor of fermentation in the basement was overpowering.
John inhaled it, though, like a matron coming home to
fresh-baked cookies. He stepped into the room, and, reluctantly, Adele followed. She scraped past the rusted metal frame and stepped into a room that was entirely dark. A second later, the door slammed shut, sealing off even the illumination from the hallway.
Adele felt her heart lodge in her throat. “John?” she barked. “This isn’t funny.”
She heard chuckling from the darkness, but then, a moment later, there was a quiet clicking sound. Lights sputtered into being above her, illuminating the enclosed interrogation room.
Except, instead of a metal table and cold chairs, there was a large, oversized couch pressed up against the back wall. A small distillery leaned against the wall, set on a wooden plank table that looked to have been handcrafted. A couple of pictures hung on the wall opposite the distillery, and miniature wooden barrels were stacked in the far corner, next to a sealed blue plastic tub with a thin layer of duct tape circling the lid. The fermentation smells came from this pile of barrels and the rectangular plastic container.
Adele saw a couple of bags of sugar, some clear tubing, and two hard corks on the ground as well as some other ingredients that she knew went into making wine and moonshine.
“You’re joking,” she said, staring at the place.
John whistled a cheerful tune and retrieved a couple of glass cups from on top of the window ledge. The window glimpsed the adjacent interrogation room, but it was too high for Adele to see much.
“Glasses are clean, don’t worry,” he said.
“By the smell of it, this stuff is strong enough that even if they weren’t clean it wouldn’t matter.”
John raised an eyebrow at her, then gestured toward the couch. “Has a reclining lever on the side. TV’s over there—turn on whatever you want. Actually, second thought. If it’s not sports, you won’t be able to find it down here.”
Adele wasn’t sure what to make of all this. Somehow, John had managed to build himself a secret mancave in the basement of the DGSI headquarters. By the looks of things, and the number of glasses, he either used it regularly, or he had guests over on occasion.
“Do you bring all the girls down here on their first day?”
John snorted, but any retort was interrupted by the sound of liquid trickling into a cup.
“You in for some sangria? Or would you prefer something from the distillery?”
Adele hesitated, then said, “The hardest thing you’ve got.”
John nodded in appreciation, and after a moment, he returned with two cups. Both held clear liquid.
Adele accepted her glass from John. She leaned back in the couch and pulled the handle on the side, sighing as the footrest lifted up and the back of the chair reclined.
John sat on the couch, also, but preferred the arm, his boots on the cushion of the couch.
John faced Adele and leaned against the wall. He grabbed a remote lodged between the back of the couch and the wall, and pointed it toward the small screen attached to a swinging arm in the middle of the room. He clicked the remote, and the TV sputtered to life, filling the room with French commentators chattering about some recent soccer game.
“Do you like football?” said John.
Adele shrugged. “I played a lot of sports growing up, but I was never particularly interested in watching them.”
John tutted, sniffing in mock offense.
Adele inhaled the contents of her glass and winced as a powerful odor assailed her, clearing her nostrils and raising the hairs on her neck. She could feel John’s eyes on her. She pressed the glass to her lips, tilted it back, and swallowed a gulp.
Immediately, she regretted this decision.
The moonshine scorched her throat and filled her mouth with a strange, gingery taste. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was powerful.
She felt the burning sensation turn to a tickling one, threatening to elicit a cough. She clenched her teeth, refusing to give John the satisfaction of seeing her react to the liquor. Her eyes watered, but she managed to keep the drink down. A small victory.
Adele glanced over at John, who had already downed half his glass.
“Good, isn’t it?” he said with a smirk.
Adele shrugged and leaned even further back. Above her, she spotted a couple of the pictures she’d initially noticed from the door. Both photographs displayed men with guns and wearing uniforms.
She stared. “Were you part of the Commandos Marine?”
Absentmindedly, his hand reached up and massaged at the burn mark on his neck. The handsome man shrugged and murmured quietly, “Once upon a time.”
“My father served in the military.”
John nodded to show he’d heard, but offered no comment himself. He took another long swallow from his drink, downing the rest in a giant gulp, and then swung his legs over the couch to retrieve some more.
“I’ve heard stories about you guys,” she said, nodding toward the picture. “Some people say you’re the Navy SEALs of France.”
John gave a harsh, barking laugh. “We’re better than those Americans,” he snapped, an undercurrent of anger to his words. “We sacrifice more and take harder jobs.”
Adele didn’t see the point in arguing.
“Well, I should’ve figured you for a military guy. You have the manners of a soldier.”
John flicked an eyebrow up and downed another glass in two quick swallows. He poured himself a third from the distillery spigot.
“We still have work tomorrow,” Adele reminded him.
“Never stopped me before,” John said with a shrug. This time, he took the glass back to the couch. He once more sat on the armrest, facing Adele, his dirty shoes pressed on the dusty cushion.
“Thanks for inviting me here,” she said.
She couldn’t get a good read on John. Was he trying to make a move on her? If so, he was sitting far enough away for them to be siblings. She had no interest in becoming romantically involved with anyone at this point. John wasn’t bad looking, but he was ill-mannered and seemed to hate his job. She wasn’t sure the career path that led from special forces to DGSI agent. The way he carried himself, his weapon drawn, back at the hotel, had suggested more than basic field training.
The memory of the hotel room came rushing back. Adele visibly winced, shaking her head and taking a long sip from her cup. She swallowed, savoring the burn as the alcohol did its work.
Stupid. So stupid. Redheaded tourists—just a john and a prostitute. Adele refused to see the humor in the situation.
The killer was out there, probably preparing to strike again. She needed another clue, a directional signal. The APB had been a bust. A wig, then? Probably. Red hair was too obvious. Robert had been right. She was back to square one. Nothing to show for it.
She felt her hand squeezing tightly around the cold glass and she resisted the urge to chuck the thing across the room.
A replay of some soccer goal displayed itself on the small color TV. She watched, mesmerized by the lights, looking for some source of distraction. What next?
She stared at the glass in her hand, at the clear, trembling liquid. She was missing something. There had to be a way in; some way to break the killer’s defenses. To figure out where he’d made a mistake. He was clever, but he couldn’t be that clever.
“You really love the work, don’t you?” John said, breaking the silence.
She glanced over and noted no change in his appearance. His voice wasn’t slurred either. But, by her count, he was almost finished with his third glass.
“It’s what I do,” she said.
“You’re obsessed. I used to know men like that. Back in, well… where I used to work. Obsession got them killed.”
His voice choked for a moment, and Adele look sharply away, hoping to spare his pride. John did not seem like the sort who would appreciate sympathy or pity.
“I don’t know what that life is like,” she said, softly. “But I do know what it’s like to lose someone.”
She thought of the overgrown grass next to the
bike trail. The sheltered portion of the park, hidden from eyes. She thought of cuts and intricate patterns, like some patchwork art, lacing up and down her mother’s body. She thought of the mutilation, the pain, the loneliness, the terror. She thought of how helpless she’d been to do anything. And, afterward, how miserable she’d been in solving the case.
This case taunted her in the same way. There were eerie similarities between the two. Of course, Adele highly doubted they had anything to do with each other. Still, she could feel the killer, the one from ten years ago, and the one now, teasing her, mocking her, leering at her from the dark, waiting for her to fail again.
“Death comes for us all,” said John. He tipped his glass in a sort of mock salute toward Adele, and downed the rest. “You think, sometimes, that if you’re skilled enough, trained enough, if you put in more hours than everyone around you, that you will be able to protect them. You know? Pitiable thing. Much easier not to care. Either way, the outcome is the same.”
Adele kept her gaze on the TV. She hadn’t heard John speak like this before. It made him seem a little less annoying. He was now staring off at the wall, his eyes fixated on the two photographs of military men.
“I…” she began to say, not sure where the sentence would lead. She paused, though, staring now at the glass in her hand. She frowned, slightly. “You said the tox report would be on your desk tonight?”
John didn’t seem to have heard her and continued to stare blankly at the wall.
“John?”
He grunted.
“The toxicology report. From the lab. You said it would be on your desk?”
“That’s what I was told by the technician. He said by tonight.” John shrugged. “The lab is good at their job. I don’t expect there was a delay.”
“Have you read it yet?”
Some of the sarcasm and scorn returned to Agent Renee’s gaze. “I said it would be on my desk by tonight. I’ve been out with you all day. When would I have had time to read it, hmm?”
Adele was getting to her feet, though, ignoring his comment. “We need to see what it says. Now.”