Left to Vanish

by Blake Pierce

  Gym, Adele had replied. Second floor.

  Paige just shook her head, lowering the phone again. She had to hand it to Agent Sharp—the woman was a hard worker, no doubt. Impetuous, intrusive, and obnoxious, but still a hard worker. She’d stayed up until three on the case, and had woken up before Paige to go to the gym. A sustainable schedule? Absolutely not.

  But still, credit had to be given, even if grudgingly. Perhaps Paige was being a bit hard on the younger agent.

  She sighed to herself and reached for a second cup. For a moment, her fingers hovered over the paper container and then she grabbed the thing and poured a second cup of coffee, also black. If Adele wanted sugar, she’d have to work twice as hard. The coffee would have to be enough.

  Grabbing both paper cups, Paige turned on her heel, stalking down the second floor’s hall along a row of glass windows which revealed an old workout room. She passed a dance studio in the small London hotel, and then came to a halt outside an indoor track.

  Adele was the only one inside, jogging around the red circle, sweat slicking her body, her eyes fixed ahead as she went around and around. No music, no earbuds, just a determined expression and a consistent pace. Paige watched, frowning as Adele circled the track, her legs stretching beneath her, the pace only picking up, it seemed. For a moment, it didn’t even look like exercise. The intense stare, the wide-eyed look of focus—it almost felt like Adele was running away from some invisible ghost. Paige felt a soft shiver down her spine.

  She pressed her shoulder against the glass, easing open the door and stepping into the stale gym. “Coffee!” she called.

  Adele looked over, blinking suddenly and shifting the strange atmosphere over her workout. She paused next to a floor-to-ceiling window, panting briefly, and bent over for a second, checking her watch and then resting her hands on her knees and breathing at the floor, before straightening.

  For a moment, she just looked at the second cup of coffee in Paige’s hand as if the woman had sprouted a third arm. She stood on the opposite side of the room.

  “Almost done,” Adele called.

  “We need to get going,” Paige returned.

  “I found a clue.”

  Paige blinked, then took a slow sip from one of the containers, long enough to process her reaction and then lowered it again. “Oh?” she said simply.

  Adele bobbed her head, reaching up and wiping sweat from her forehead. “Both victims owned summer homes in Southern France.”

  Paige blinked, but didn’t say anything.

  “In the same region,” Adele said, more insistently.

  Paige shrugged slowly. “This is Europe. A lot of wealthy folk own homes in France.”

  “Yes… but that’s a connection. It has to be.” Adele looked off for a moment, blinking toward the window and wincing as if against a sudden headache. For a moment, it almost seemed like she’d forgotten Agent Paige was even there.

  Sophie sighed, staring at the younger woman’s sharp profile. She could see the exhaustion weighing on Adele. Could see the doubt in the woman’s eyes, the frustration. Could see the need for some sort of approval in every askance glance and awkward gesture.

  But what could Paige say? A second home in France was hardly significant. Besides, neither victim was even killed in France. The connection was spurious at best.

  She opened her mouth to say as much, but then paused, staring at where Adele’s sleep-deprived, sweaty form was outlined against the windows. Paige’s gaze returned to the plastic cup of dark coffee.

  Instead, she grunted and said, “Maybe. Here, coffee. Will help wake you if—”

  At that moment, her phone began to buzz. At the same time, a ring tone began to twitter from a discarded sweater by the front doors. Adele frowned, jogging over toward the ringing phone buried in her clothes, as Paige also pulled her cell from her pocket.

  She raised the phone, recognizing the number and feeling a cold chill down her back.

  “Yes?” she answered, frowning.

  “Sophie?”

  “Foucault?”

  The Executive cleared his throat on the other line. “Bad news, I’m afraid, Sophie. The killer got another. We have a third victim.”

  Paige felt her frustration spark, but she kept back the burst of emotion and simply said, “Where?”

  Foucault cleared his throat, coughing briefly before saying, “Germany this time, Sophie. I need you both to head there straightaway.”

  ***

  Adele sat with one hand gripping the window seat’s arm rests, and the other feverishly poking at her phone.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she glanced at Agent Paige. “They haven’t moved the body yet?”

  Sophie leaned back in the airplane seat and shook her head a single time, staring ahead and frowning. She had an untouched cup of orange juice in front of her, her eyes fixed off in the distance. “Not yet,” she murmured. “I hate these damn flights,” she added, beneath her breath.

  Adele raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment, instead searching for Foucault’s number; she raised the phone, allowing it to ring for a second, and then a voice on the other end said, “Executive’s office.”

  Adele swallowed, feeling a rising sense of anticipation. “Agent Adele Sharp. Could you please put me through.”

  The voice on the other end spoke without inflection. “He’s not taking calls right now.”

  “Mary,” Adele said, through gritted teeth. “I need you to put me through right now—it’s important.”

  The Executive’s assistant sighed on the other end, but then in that same dry voice, she replied, “Let me see if he’s busy.”

  There was no dial tone, or music, but Adele could tell she’d been put on hold. She growled, clicking the phone to speaker mode, and looking to Agent Paige. “Did the Germans say anything about a summer home in France?”

  The silver-haired agent continued staring off in the distance, swallowing once as the plane hit a small patch of turbulence, but then settled with a rattle of the cabin. “You’re still obsessed with that?”

  “It’s the only connection we have. If this third victim has a summer home in—”

  Before she could continue, though, a voice cleared on the other end, and she heard the rasping, throaty sound of the Executive trying to gain her attention.

  “Sorry, sir,” she said, quickly. “So sorry. Just, I wanted to ask if you knew anything about a vacation home in Southern France. I called ahead to the investigators in Germany, but I haven’t heard back.”

  The Executive grunted then said, “Agent Sharp, I’m sure if they find anything they’ll tell you. We have more important things to worry about than vacation homes.”

  “I… No sir, I don’t think we do actually.”

  “Oh? What does a vacation home have to do with it?”

  Adele leaned back, feeling a jolt of frustration. “It’s like I told them, sir. The last two victims both had homes in the same area.”

  “And?”

  “And, sir? It’s a connection.”

  “Perhaps, but neither of the victims were killed in France. So I don’t see how—”

  “I know that, sir. But I was just thinking—”

  “Don’t interrupt me, Sharp. I need you and Paige to get to the crime scene. The body is still there, but I can’t keep the coroner off for much longer. I’ve already arranged for your ride from the airport.”

  Adele tried not to let her frustration leak into her words. “Sir, I’m very confident that if we look into the vacation homes, we’re going to find a connection.”

  For a moment, he paused and a soft static sound filled Adele’s ear. He seemed to be considering his next words very carefully before saying, with the same lack of inflection as his assistant, “Is there a reason you’re so focused on France right now?” His tone gave her pause, and it took her a moment to realize there was a pitying quality to it. She shivered, feeling unclean. She could have taken frustration, anger, impatience. Hell, she’d been given
a master class in the cold shoulder from Agent Paige. But pity?

  No, this emotion she couldn’t stomach.

  “Sir,” she said, firmly, “this has nothing to do with my personal business. I checked; they both really do have homes in Southern France.”

  “I believe you. Just, are you feeling yourself?”

  Adele frowned, glancing toward Paige. “Why? What have you been told?”

  “Nothing. Should I have been told something?”

  Adele wanted to press further on the vacation home line of questioning, but decided she was already skating on thin ice.

  “Agent Sharp, if this is getting too much for you, and if you want to return to France—”

  “No, sir. Sorry for interrupting. But no, that’s not what this is at all. Oh, sorry, flight attendant. I have to go.”

  Adele hung up on the executive of the DGSI. She shivered, lowering her phone, doing her best not to glance in Agent Paige’s direction, though she could tell the older woman was shooting sidelong glances.

  The third victim had been killed only a couple of days after the second. The killer was escalating and as in the first two cases, he had scouted out the territory before, avoiding the blind spots in the security systems, targeting older, wealthy women.

  The connection was in France. She was sure of it. And if they wouldn’t listen to her, she’d have to figure it out on her own. For now, though, there was a body waiting in Germany.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The trip from the airport passed in silence like the quiet hush before a funeral. It wasn’t often that DGSI agents were able to reach a crime scene in another country before the body was carried away.

  Again, perhaps predictably at this point, as they pulled into the German countryside driveway, through the arching golden gates flecked with paint and along the smooth red drive, Adele spotted a mansion in the distance. This time, the home looked old, and some of the walls were weather worn. Part of the roof was covered in plastic sheeting, suggesting reshingling. She spotted a blue pool beneath the patio as the car drew nearer.

  They pulled to a halt at the smooth roundabout, and Agent Paige exited the vehicle first, moving toward a waiting police officer next to a row of trees outside a small black gate.

  The moment she stepped out, Adele’s senses were met by the odor of chlorine. She frowned, glancing from the pool to the still Jacuzzi. Her eyes traced the marble ground and the clear, slick blue porcelain slabs. Through the branches of the trees beyond, she spotted a small white and blue structure—a barn or maybe a garage.

  Adele’s attention was regained by Agent Paige, who was scowling at the officer by the trees and waving angrily at Adele, gesturing like a queen summoning a subject.

  Reluctantly, Adele strolled over, quirking an inquisitive brow.

  “What’s he saying?” Paige demanded as Adele came close.

  Adele hesitated, and then switching to German, said, “Excuse me?”

  The officer in question was quite old with silver bangs poking out from beneath his hat, and a curling white mustache like a resting cloud. “I was saying the body is this way. The coroner is wondering when he can get to it.”

  Adele shook her head. “I can’t be sure,” she replied in perfect German. “Could you take us there, please?” Then, translating in French, she said to Paige, “He just wants to know when the coroner can get to the body.”

  Paige frowned, replying in French, “We haven’t even seen it yet.”

  “That’s what I told him.”

  “I see. Well, we don’t have all day.”

  Adele decided not to translate this part, and instead fell into step behind their new German guide, moving along the row of trees in the direction of the waiting barn she’d spotted in the distance. There was no caution tape here, a sure sign this was private property.

  As they neared the old barn, the white-mustached officer led them around the edge of the structure and toward a row of wooden barrels.

  Here, Adele spotted three other police officers moving about the edge of the woods, or near the base of the barn itself. One of the officers wore gloves and was gently moving one of the barrels to the side, rolling it over and checking the bottom with close scrutiny.

  As the barrel moved, though, Adele’s eyes landed on the body. Pale flesh—cold and clammy from a night abandoned behind the small barn. The eyes closed, mercifully, both hands rigid against the corpse’s sides, motionless.

  Elke Schmidt, once upon a time. Now just a fleshy memory.

  Adele blinked, feeling a sudden rushing headache. Other thoughts threatened to bob to the surface in her mind, but she staved them off with a growl and stepped forward, stooping low next to the body and frowning toward the victim’s neck.

  “Ligature marks?” Paige called, standing back and watching the scene with an unusual, nearly queasy expression. Paige didn’t fare well on the flights, but this seemed different, somehow, than simple motion sickness.

  Adele leaned in, eyes narrowed, breathing shallowly from her mouth. Experience taught her that inhaling through her nose within the vicinity of any corpse was an odoriferous venture in self-punishment. Even a corpse as fresh as this one.

  A couple of the German officers were standing back now, still examining the barrel, but using this attention as cover to keep their eyes on her as well. Every so often they murmured to each other in low voices, likely thinking the DGSI agents couldn’t understand them.

  One was saying… “She’s young to take a case like this…”

  “Boss thinks it’s a serial case,” the other murmured in reply, rotating the barrel.

  “Serial?” the first said.

  “Yes. Apparently the younger woman is experienced catching serial killers.”

  The second officer muttered an expletive in disbelief.

  Adele could feel the expectations settling on her shoulders now, and she shivered under the scrutiny. Her own gaze fixed on the corpse. Fingers probed out, not quite touching the body, but used like a magnifying lens to focus her attention. Her eyes narrowed as she stared at the angry red marks circling Mrs. Schmidt’s neck. “Just like the others,” she said, shaking her head. “The same odd markings. Like beads, or small bubbles.”

  Agent Paige shifted uncomfortably behind her, and the older agent said, “Strangulation?”

  “Yes. As reported.”

  “So this is a serial killer,” Paige replied.

  Adele didn’t look back, preferring to scan the body for further clues. No defensive marks that she could see. The woman hadn’t been able to put up much of a fight. Judging by where she’d been found, behind the barrels, she’d been hiding. Which meant she’d seen the killer coming.

  Adele straightened up, dusting off her pants.

  “I don’t think she knew the killer,” Adele murmured.

  Paige cleared her throat. “What makes you say that?”

  “She was hiding back here. No defensive wounds, which means there was an initial attack.” Adele turned now, her frame still facing the corpse, but her eyes now on Paige, who still maintained her distance, the queasy look across her features. “If she had known the killer, why would she have run, why would she have hidden?”

  “Maybe he approached her threateningly. Maybe she had a bad feeling.”

  Adele nodded slowly, glancing back. “Maybe. But the killer has been careful up till now.” Adele trailed off and glanced at the victim’s feet, her eyes narrowed. “Barefoot,” she said. “Scratch marks.”

  “She ran through the forest?”

  Before Adele could reply, a voice called out from the trees around the barn.

  All eyes swished in the direction, and Adele hurried around the wooden structure to see a German officer waving her fingers and pointing toward something in the grass amidst the row of trees.

  Along with a grudging Paige, Adele hurried over, and went still.

  “A mug,” said the investigating officer. A pretty, red-haired woman with a smattering of brown freckles. �
��And look, the ground here is disheveled.”

  Adele nodded in gratitude and dropped to her haunches again, frowning toward the broken ceramic pieces. She looked back toward the barn and then swiveled, glancing in the direction of the large mansion looming behind the trees. It was barely visible from here.

  “The husband, is he still up at the house?” Adele asked.

  The red-haired officer who’d found the mug nodded once. “He took the news horribly. Hasn’t left his room. His sister-in-law is on her way over, though. She might be able to provide more information.”

  Adele swallowed, tapping her fingers against her thigh. “It looks like Mrs. Schmidt was out for a morning walk. Carrying the coffee mug, and then the killer surprised her—she dropped it and ran, but he chased her down.” Adele felt a shiver along her spine; she thought about being chased in the woods, no backup, no weapon. Nowhere to go. A familiar sensation of stage fright arose in her belly.

  She clenched her teeth, pushing roughly back to her feet again, and turned toward Agent Paige. “She has a husband. That’s different from the first two.”

  Paige nodded, frowning. “Perhaps that’s why the killer waited to strike until she was away from the house.”

  Adele shook her head. “Which means he kept an eye on her too. To figure out her morning routine. He knew she’d come this way.”

  Paige gnawed on the corner of her lip, her back to the barn and the body, some of the queasiness having faded from her pale features. “She has to be in her fifties also,” Paige said.

  Adele glanced at her phone, scrolling to the file on Schmidt. “Fifty-five,” she replied.

  “Wealthy,” Paige said, waving a hand in the direction of the mansion.

  “Same as the first two. But not single.”

  “No, I suppose not. The husband isn’t speaking?”

  Adele shook her head, nodding toward the German officer. “Says he’s too distraught by the death. Can’t blame him. The sister-in-law is on her way…” At that moment, a sudden sound of voices and motion caught Adele’s attention. She turned, frowning. “Speak of the devil,” Adele said, trailing off.