Left to Lapse (An Adele Sharp Mystery—Book Seven)

by Blake Pierce

  In a whisper, he said, “Coroner got back.”

  “Executive,” Adele said, quickly, “I’m sorry, no, I’m really sorry, just one second.” She pressed the phone to her shoulder, muffling it, and looked at Agent Leoni, waiting.

  Faintly, Adele could hear a voice calling from the speaker, “Agent Sharp! Hello! Can you hear me!”

  She winced but waited for Leoni, and he spoke quickly, as if not wanting to intrude, but there was an urgency to his tone. “Look,” he said, holding up his phone.

  Adele stared, and saw a clear image of what looked like someone’s neck.

  “What am I looking at?”

  “Right there, see it?” He pointed, and she leaned in.

  “Here’s another picture—he circled it!” Agent Leoni flicked the phone’s image, and it moved to the same picture, but this time, a small, black circle had been drawn on it.

  The circle was around a tiny red area that looked no more significant than a pimple.

  “What am I looking at?”

  “The coroner thinks that’s an injection site,” said Agent Leoni. “Says they think this was where a toxin might have been administered.”

  Adele kept her own phone pressed to her shirt, staring, wide-eyed. “Are you serious?” she said.

  “As the grave,” Leoni returned.

  “Do we have results from the tox report?”

  “Not yet, but there’s a rush on it now. We should get those by the end of the day.”

  Adele nodded urgently, then raised her own phone again, and said, “Sir, the Italians just got back; the coroner thinks it’s a definite murder. Found an injection site. Toxicology report is running late, but it should be here soon.”

  “So, you want to keep the train on the move?” Foucault asked. “The Germans are getting restless, and I have to give them an answer now.”

  “Yes, yes sir, please, keep the train moving. This just confirms that it’s a serial killer. But, sir, while we can’t stop the train, could you ask them to slow it down a bit? That might help us to catch up with it, and to give us more time before the passengers get to the station.”

  “All right, I’m trusting you on this, Adele. Like I said, tread carefully.”

  “You have my word.”

  The Executive said something else, but Adele couldn’t hear it on account of the sudden whirring sound above.

  She looked up and then, at the top of her voice, called, “Sorry, sir, I have to call you later.” She hung up, gaping as a black and green helicopter moved over the train station, headed toward the circle of traffic cones. She stepped back to an even safer distance next to Agent Leoni as the helicopter descended, the blades spinning and whirring, and then coming to touchdown on the asphalt, with a deafening sound of chugging blades.

  She stared up toward the cockpit and spotted two men. In the passenger seat, with a grin on his face at the look of Adele’s surprise, John was giving a small, sarcastic wave.

  “Is that our ride?” Leoni asked.

  “I guess so,” Adele muttered. “Be careful and try not to throw up. John sometimes enjoys bumpy rides just for the sake of annoying his passengers.”

  Leoni gave a chuckle which was nearly lost in the swell of the wind, but the smile faded as he stared at her. “Are you being serious?”

  In answer, Adele sighed, then picked up her pace, approaching the helicopter. A third victim, a train on the move, a clock running out of time. They had to reach that train. And if the helicopter was the way to do it, she couldn’t say no.

  She reached the metal bird and pulled herself up by a steel rung into the back seat. Leoni followed after, and to her satisfaction, she noted John’s grin fade a little as he got a look at the Italian.

  Adele donned the headset John extended to her, and then into the microphone, shouted, “You got us a pilot?”

  “Pilot came with the chopper!” John shouted back, patting a hand on the shoulder of the man at the controls.

  Adele just shook her head in disbelief. John was resourceful if anything. “The Executive is having the train slowed down. German authorities are cooperating for now. But we’re on a clock!”

  The crackle of the speakers over her headset said, “Right—this is an old flying buddy of mine. Call him Casper. He’s a friendly ghost, and he’s gonna be the one bringing us in.”

  Adele glanced at the second man in the cockpit at the controls, but he was still staring out the windshield, as if equal parts bored and at ease. Judging by one of the tattoos on his right arms, he was ex-military.

  “Casper just has a helicopter lying around?”

  John frowned now. “Casper owes me three favors. You better believe he dropped everything to pay off at least one. Forget about that shit though, we need to get moving.”

  “How are we going to get onto the train?” Adele shouted, leaning forward a bit in the cushioned chair, though that did nothing to increase the volume of her mic.

  John turned in his seat, his own headset pressing against his headrest, and said, with a devilish smile, “We’re going to have to rappel down onto the moving train.” He gave a wink in Agent Leoni’s direction. “Hello there, my spaghetti-eating friend,” he called. “Hope you’re in the mood for a little bit of a fly.”

  In answer, Leoni shut the helicopter door and stared straight ahead. John chuckled, patted the pilot on the arm, and they began to lift, carried up by the chugging helicopter blades, in search of a moving train, and, in Adele’s opinion, an incredibly reckless attempt at boarding it.

  Then again, if it meant they could catch the killer, it just might be worth it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  The afternoon settled in hazy sunlight as the chopper blades cut through the sky, spinning the air in flurries around them. John’s pilot friend dipped low, scraping the hazier wisps of mist rising from the Black Forest. In the distance, Adele spotted the train, pulling along at a hampered pace per Foucault’s instructions. Still, her chest heaved as she stared, her eyes locked on the small trail of movement meandering through green slopes and over wooden bridges.

  “This is insane,” she muttered into her microphone, her hands clasped in her lap.

  John heard her over the headset, and he nodded in the front seat. She could just see the corner of his lip twisted in a smirk. “That’s one word for it,” he said, his eyes fixed through the windshield. He gave some indeterminable motion with his hand which seemed to prompt a response from the pilot. The helicopter dipped lower, scything above the trees and coming nearer and nearer to the train below.

  They were gaining. The train was moving at a snail’s pace—at least there was that mercy. Adele wasn’t interested in some action move scene, ending in a horrific helicopter crash, screaming agents, and a fiery blossom in the frame.

  Slow and easy. Then again, nothing with John seemed to be easy. This whole thing was his blasted idea anyway.

  As if reading her thoughts, John looked back, his dark eyes peering at her in the back of the helicopter. “You’re the one who said we had to catch the train before a station. Well… here it is. No roads lead to this part of the forest.”

  Adele shook her head, the headset shifting as she stared out the window, toward the quickly approaching locomotive. “Now what?” she said.

  John winked at her, and for a moment, it almost seemed like things were back to normal between them. Nothing like a little bit of high octane adrenaline to set priorities straight. As John moved, he reached out and accidentally pushed his hand roughly against Leoni’s chest. The Italian grunted, but then John moved between the front and back seats, sliding his lanky form in the spacious back compartment between Leoni and Adele.

  Then he pointed to three harnesses hooked on the back of the helicopter. His headset was now dangling over the front seat where he left it, so he mimed placing the harnesses over their heads. Adele reached out, snaring one of the grained fabric vests and passing it to Leoni. She passed another to John, then, still muttering darkly to herself, she
removed her headset, placed her own harness over her head, pulling her arms through the gaps in the crisscrossing straps and tightening the metal buckles across the front.

  “All right?” she shouted, moving her lips emphatically to help the two men read what she was saying despite the noise. “Now?”

  John pointed toward a metal loop attached to twin pulleys as thick as hubcaps by the sliding door of the helicopter. He then leaned across Adele, brushing against her, and snared a thick loop of black rope which lay on the ground, already attached by a metal hook to the safety hitch.

  Then like a rock-climbing instructor, John first looped the rope through his metal clasps on the front of his harness and then mimed to Adele, pointing at the simple clasp and showing her how to release her own.

  He pointed at his chest, held up a finger, then pointed at her and Leoni and mimed glasses.

  “Watch and learn? I get it,” she shouted back.

  John was no longer grinning, though. He turned back toward the sliding door beneath the safety hitch. He had a strange light in his eyes which Adele had witnessed on more than one occasion. When things got heavy, bullets started flying, or the agents attempted some sort of life or death stunt, John always seemed in a sort of heightened state, his eyes wide, his nostrils flaring. A light didn’t spark behind his eyes so much as it died. As if he were switching off any sort of fear, empathy, desire. John was terrifying in that way if you were on the wrong side of the law. But if you were wearing the same uniform? Adele couldn’t think of any place safer.

  She knew John had a history with helicopters. He’d flown them before—once on the ski slopes in the Alps. But prior to that as well, while still serving his country overseas. She knew it had ended in tragedy. But it was just like John to refuse to allow past pain to claim prizes for current endeavors.

  She glanced at Leoni, who was still shifting uncomfortably.

  By now, John was signaling instructions to the pilot. The helicopter dipped, just a bit, and now Adele could see through the glass in the side door, the train below them. They began to slow as well, and the helicopter adjusted. Adele could almost hear the scrape of the chugging wheels beneath them now, over the sound of helicopter blades.

  She looked to Leoni, whose face had paled. He didn’t seem perturbed by the harness—and she reminded herself that Leoni had a pilot’s license of his own. Still, he looked worried. When he caught her watching, though, he flashed a quick thumbs-up, then pointed toward John, if only, perhaps, to redirect her attention.

  She felt a flicker of concern. Normally, Leoni was always calm, collected.

  “This is insane,” Adele muttered to herself.

  John made a spinning motion with his finger, the pilot pulled on the controls, and now the rotating blades above made a different sort of noise. Were they slowing? Falling?

  No… Adele realized. They were trying to fly directly over the train, so they could rappel down.

  “Insane,” she muttered again. “Batshit.”

  And then John flung open the side door. Wind blasted into the cabin, sweeping across John and ruffling his slicked back hair, sending it flying. Adele’s own eyes strained at the gusting wind. They were slowing, though, likely to match pace with the train.

  Adele’s heart jumped in her throat as she watched John, rope looped through his harness, reattached to the second pulley on the hitch. Then he looked at her, flashed a thumbs-up, and jumped off the side of the helicopter. Adele leaned forward, one hand out, bracing where she still sat strapped in her seat. She unstrapped, gripping a metal handle near the open door, and leaned forward, watching as John shimmied down the rope.

  The pilot seemed to be keeping them on a steady course, at least for now, guiding them along just above the train. She could see three compartments ahead of them. Thankfully, the train was going so slowly, it allowed the pilot to keep up with relative ease.

  John moved down the rope, expertly managing his pulley the way he’d indicated to Adele, using the clasp release to slow or speed his descent. For a moment, Adele wished she’d had a bit more time to acclimate. It seemed simple enough though.

  At last, still leaning and watching, she stared as John landed on the ceiling of one of the train compartments. He released his clasp at last, letting the black rope slide free, and it shot up all of a sudden, pulled in by a whirring motor on the pulley.

  Adele glanced to the pilot, who was still staring, fixed at the train in front, using it as a guiding post to keep them steady.

  She glanced at Leoni, then down at John. She swallowed, then looped the rope through her own harness how she’d seen John do.

  Batshit. All of it. But no time to hesitate. The whole point of this was to catch the killer before he had a chance to flee, to hide amidst a station of passengers, or slip off the train when it got near a crowd. No—now wasn’t the time for fear.

  She swallowed once, pulled a couple of times on her clasp, testing it, and then she turned back toward the open air, eyes fixed on the interior of the helicopter cabin. Leoni was watching her, still a bit pale, his eyes wide.

  She flashed a thumbs-up, then jumped.

  The pulley did its work. As she began to fall, her body weight counteracted the motor in the pulley and she descended, rapidly, but not too quickly. Still, she squeezed her clasp, slowing the descent. The wind seemed to carry her, knocking her about as she fell from the helicopter above, aiming for the slowly moving train below. She glanced between her feet where John was crouched low, one hand out, braced against the metal ceiling, one hand upraised, gesturing at her as if guiding in a landing plane.

  She continued to descend, heart in her throat. For a moment, she noted a turn up ahead. The train began to maneuver, changing its course. Adele cursed as her feet suddenly swayed over the open terrain, passing across wilderness and the untended wild of the Black Forest. Suddenly, it didn’t seem like they were moving so slowly after all.

  Then, as she locked the clasp on her vest, keeping the rope from spilling through, and herself dangling in the air, the wind buffeting around her, the pilot above seemed to course correct. There was a sudden uncomfortable jolt in her harness as the helicopter readjusted on the train’s new course.

  Then, still swaying more comfortably than she would like, she released the clasp and descended the rest of the way.

  Her feet thumped into the metal ceiling of the compartment, and she felt John’s firm hand reach out, gripping her arm and steadying her where she rocked and swayed on the moving locomotive.

  She managed to duck, crouching low and reestablishing her center of gravity. Then, breathing heavily, her hands pressed to the cold metal roof, she released the clasp and the rope slipped out like spaghetti sucked through pursed lips.

  A few moments passed and she gathered herself, realizing now she was kneeling on the top of a train in motion. John knelt next to her, one hand braced against the roof for three points of stability.

  He grinned at her and said, over the sound of the train below and the helicopter above, “You okay?”

  “Yeah, think so,” she shouted back.

  “See, it wasn’t that bad,” he began to say. But then, a second later, he looked up and his eyes went wide. The blood seemed to suddenly drain from his face.

  Adele turned too, frowning, and she spotted Leoni descending. But he was moving far, far too quickly. She could hear him cursing in Italian as he plummeted, heading straight toward them at a breakneck pace.

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  “John!” Adele cried, reflexively. There wasn’t enough time for any more words.

  Agent Renee cursed and staggered to his feet, holding out a hand as if to try to catch and break Leoni’s fall, reacting, it seemed, on instinct alone. Leoni, though, seemed to jolt and jar for a moment, his hand feverishly working at the climbing vest’s clasp. There was a whistling sound of the rope going suddenly taut, and Leoni’s body bounced, jarring painfully.

  Now, though, he hung suspended nearly twenty feet above,
not moving at all. Below, John began to shout an instruction. But the train began to move again, turning down a mountain pass and now heading directly toward a tunnel in the side of the slope.

  “John!” Adele shouted, pointing.

  Agent Renee gritted his teeth and gestured at Leoni. “Release the second clasp!” he shouted. “It’s caught—the rope’s caught!”

  But his words were lost in the wild sounds and panic of the moment.

  Leoni descended another few feet, then got stuck completely. The helicopter above maintained course, but Adele realized it wouldn’t be able to for much longer, without slamming into the cliff face.

  “Christopher!” she shouted, one hand still braced against the roof of the locomotive, her eyes wide and peering up toward the Italian. “Drop! You have to drop!”

  He was nearly fifteen feet above the top of the car now, but still too high. It wouldn’t be safe. There was no other option, though.

  “Christopher!” she screamed.

  Agent Renee and Adele watched helplessly, braced against the metal roof of the train. The tunnel beyond was quickly approaching, despite the calm pace of the engine.

  Adele heard another curse as the Italian agent marked his trajectory. Then she glimpsed a flash of silver as his hand procured something sharp from within a pocket. Teeth gritted, he began sawing feverishly at the rope.

  The helicopter pilot above began to move, having left it until the last second. Now, he had to rise above the mountain slope or slam into it. There was no more time.

  Leoni’s body, still dangling from the rappel line began to sway as the helicopter did. With one last cry of extraordinary effort, Agent Leoni managed to saw through the rappelling line, in a puff of small black fabrics. Then, with a shout, he tumbled, falling from the sky and rushing toward the train, completely unsupported now.

  The helicopter veered away at last, completely, but it had altered trajectory in those last moments, causing Leoni to gain momentum and swing forward as he fell.