“I did some digging,” Adele said, abruptly. “Couldn’t sleep. But whatever it is, it’s clearly a dead end. I’m gonna have to spend days trying to get a warrant to figure out if these guys have an actual office or if they fly out of a local airfield. And even if I get a warrant, there’s no telling they have the information I need.” She paused, glancing across the desk. “Besides, the warrant itself might be difficult to get given all the commentary on the investigation.”
Agent Marshall didn’t reply at first but abruptly smoothed the front of her shirt. All of this, Adele suspected, was to give her time to gather her thoughts.
“If they’re flying, then they have a permit. And there are few airfields nearby, but only two of them cater to helicopters that have contracts with the resorts.”
Adele stared.
“I also have been doing some digging,” Agent Marshall said with a smile. “I want to find out who committed these crimes just as much as you.”
Adele looked over the top of her laptop lid and felt a flash of guilt. She’d underestimated Marshall. Perhaps even thought poorly of her, suspecting the woman of being there just to keep Adele’s hands tied.
“So there are only two airfields where they might fly helicopters out of?”
Marshall smiled. “Yes. They have bays there for storage and repairs. There are helicopter pads around the resorts, but these two hubs are where this company of yours will be operating from.”
“Does that help us?”
Agent Marshall nodded. “It should. Give me a second.”
Adele waited. Her laptop made a quiet clicking sound as she drummed against it, waiting for Marshall to look up again.
A couple of minutes passed, and then the younger agent snapped her fingers. “Prestige Entertainment?” she asked.
Adele felt her mouth dry, and she nodded once. “That’s right.”
“They’re operating out of the Three Lake Airport. It’s only twenty minutes from here. Their office,” she added, raising an eyebrow, “is in the airport itself. They have some buildings behind the hangars it looks like.”
Adele stared. “You’re sure? That information is available?”
Agent Marshall rotated her computer, displaying an old, defunct, out of date website. At the bottom of the screen, there were various names and mastheads with company logos. But beneath them, there were also addresses.
“In case you want to file a complaint,” she said. “Looks like Prestige Entertainment has been operating out of this place for nearly a decade.”
“Good job,” Adele said. “How long do you think it would take get a warrant?”
At this, Marshall winced. “A while. My guess, if I’m being perfectly honest with you… they’ll delay any of your requests in dockets, and then kick it completely. Hide it beneath a pile of paperwork.” Agent Marshall shrugged apologetically.
“It’s not your fault. Fine. Well, I’m going. Are you coming?”
Agent Marshall hesitated again. She sighed. “My orders are to help solve the case, but also to report back to my supervisors. All our movements.” She paused. “I won’t disobey my orders. But I can’t report if I don’t know our movements.” She waited, allowing Adele to fill in the blanks.
“I understand. Thank you,” Adele said. She turned away from the younger agent and hurried out of the room, down the corridor, practically jogging with her jacket looped over one arm.
The Three Lakes Airport. It couldn’t be hard to find. Prestige Entertainment had taken the Benevetis to one of the mountain peaks. Likely, the Swiss family had been treated to a similar expedition. They had to have been. It was the only lead left.
With a slight skip in her step, Adele circled the main atrium of the hotel below and hurried out the front. A golf cart wouldn’t do this time. She would have to grab the car from where they’d parked in the overnight structure behind the resort. This would take time. Time she wasn’t sure she had.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
Adele tapped her fingers against the closed door. After all the time around expense and luxury, it was a bit jarring to find herself in a stuffy office building behind a loud airport. The Three Lakes Airport was larger than she’d first anticipated. She knocked again on the glass. Peeling gold letters, at least a decade old themselves, read, Prestige Inc.…
“Hello?” she called out, knocking on the glass a third time.
In the distance, she could hear the buzz of helicopter blades against the sky, and the whir of small biplane engines. All of this competed in volume against the ancient heating system which was running now, spitting drafts of warmth throughout the corridor—far too hot in parts but then tapering off and leaving it too cold in others.
“Hello?” Adele called again.
She heard a series of footsteps, a quiet muttered conversation, and then a click of a door being unlocked. A second later, the old office door swung in.
Adele found herself facing a woman with a pleasant haircut and a face that would’ve been pretty if not for the two scars along the inside of her jaw.
“Hello?” the woman said politely. To Adele’s surprise, she spoke English without an accent.
“My name is Agent Sharp,” Adele said, flashing her credentials. “I need to speak with the owners of Prestige Entertainment.”
“Who is it, Margaret?” a voice called from inside, also in English.
Adele looked past the woman with the scars and spotted an old man, hobbling out from behind a desk, wearing a sweater with soup stains. For a moment, she felt a flash of discomfort, thinking of her own father.
“It’s fine, Uncle,” said the woman named Margaret. “An agent.”
“A customer?” the man asked, his voice rasping.
“No,” the woman said, loud this time. “An agent.”
A third face popped into view from one of the back rooms. This belonged to a young man, handsome. He had large muscles, a thick neck, and a shaved head. Immediately, Adele’s attention directed toward him, logging him as a threat.
“That’s Jeffrey,” said Margaret, noticing Adele’s attention. “One of our charter pilots. He’s on call.”
Adele nodded. “Do you have more than one pilot?”
Margaret pressed her fingers together, still standing in the doorway, not quite stepping back, nor allowing Adele further entrance into the room. “Do you have a warrant?”
“Why is an agent here?” the old man asked.
Instead of ignoring her uncle, Margaret turned back, and patiently—not with an air of patience, but actually patiently—she explained, “I’m not sure, Uncle. I’ll let you know in a second.”
With the same polite, patient expression, she returned her attention to Adele.
“I can get a warrant,” Adele lied.
Margaret bobbed her head. “We’re a small family business. Catering to a very few, choice clientele.”
“Oh, I bet. I know the sorts of clients you serve.”
Margaret smiled. “Uncle had a lot of connections from back in his business days.”
Adele glanced toward the old man in the soup-stained sweater. “Another rich oil guy?”
“Close. Lawyer,” and Margaret, with a good-natured laugh. “He made a lot of connections, though with the sorts you describe. Pleasant folk. At least, some of them. Humans are humans.”
“I don’t disagree. But I’m looking into a murder. Two, actually. You can’t tell me if you have more than one pilot?”
“We have a few pilots, actually,” and Margaret.
“This is Prestige Entertainment?” Adele peered past the woman. Inside, the office looked just as dusty and old as the door had. She wouldn’t have been surprised to see typewriters instead of computers. She glanced at the name on the door again, just to make sure she had the right place.
“Yes, that’s us. We keep things discreet. When clients come, we don’t meet them here, obviously.”
“All right,” said Adele. “So you have a few pilots in your employ?”
&nbs
p; “A few, and some tour guides, and some other entertainers.”
Adele raised an eyebrow. “What sorts of entertainers?”
“I’m afraid, Agent Sharp, you might need that warrant.” Margaret didn’t start to shut the door, but she didn’t open it fully either. It was clear she wanted Adele to leave.
But Adele couldn’t. Agent Marshall had made it clear that obtaining a warrant might be impossible. Which meant Adele had to press her luck. “Look,” she said, patiently, “I’m trying to do my job here. People’s lives are on the line. Your clients, at least two of them, were murdered. Do you understand?”
Margaret, who seemed to have been bracing one of her hands against the door, relaxed a bit, allowing the door to swing. “Murdered? Not those two they found up at the resort?”
“One and the same. I can’t help but notice that your airport is only an hour helicopter flight from the French resort too.”
“More like two hours,” said Margaret. “But we do serve quite a few of the resorts. Why?”
“Because another couple, the Haneses, were also murdered.”
At this, Margaret pushed the door open fully. “The Haneses? So you must be with him.”
“Him?” Adele asked.
“It isn’t often we have two agents investigating us on the same day.” Margaret sighed. “Perhaps it’s best if you come in.”
Still confused, Adele stepped further into the office. A second later, the muscular man at the back stepped aside, allowing a fourth figure to enter the room.
“Helicopter looks fine,” this new person said in English tinged with a heavy French accent. “But I’m still going to need to see those records.”
This person was taller than everyone else in the room. He was handsome, and had scars up the underside of his chin and down along his chest. Adele stared. “John?” she said.
Agent Renee pulled up. He gave a small little wave. “Adele, Fancy seeing you here.” He smirked.
She tried not to betray her surprise, keeping her expression as neutral as possible. “What are you doing here?”
Margaret glanced between the two of them. “Do you know each other?”
Margaret’s uncle leaned in, straining to hear, but wincing as if he were finding it difficult. The air heating vents started up again, churning and howling with rusted fans.
“Helicopter,” said John. “I pressed the concierge a little bit more. He mentioned this place might have more answers; told me where it was.” He shrugged. “Robert wasn’t there at the time. Figured I’d keep this solo.”
“Yeah, same, I guess.”
For a strange moment, Adele stared across at John. He stared back. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to say, yet this was certainly not the time. Already, their prolonged eye contact was bordering on unprofessional, if not indecency.
She’d missed him. She knew that immediately. A weight seemed to have lifted from her shoulders, if not completely, then enough to suggest maybe he’d shouldered some of the burden. For the first time in a long time, she felt like she had backup she could actually count on. Perhaps she’d been harsh to Agent Marshall, but it wasn’t the same. She had a history with John. She knew she could trust him.
“So the Hanes family chartered out of here?” she said.
John nodded. “Yup. Both families are connected. They’re being a little stingy on the files. Sounds like they have three charters out already today.” John nodded toward the muscled pilot that Margaret had indicated earlier.
Margaret shot a scathing look toward the man, but he just shrugged, dipped his head, then moved back to the door John had emerged from, which Adele guessed led to the hangar.
“Hang on,” Adele said. “There are three charters already out? Did one of those pilots take the Benevetis and the Haneses?”
John jerked a thumb toward Margaret. “That’s what I was asking. She keeps going on about a warrant.”
Adele turned her full attention to Margaret once more, though she was loath to look away from John. Still, she had a job to do. “You do realize we’re talking about a serial murderer here, right?”
Margaret shifted uncomfortably. “I know. But our private information is important. Our clients are very wealthy. They require confidentiality.”
“You think they might also require safety?” Adele insisted. “What do you think will happen if word gets out that four of your clients were murdered in the last couple of weeks? Think that will be good for business?”
John whistled in a mock sincerity. “Don’t test her, she will do it. She’ll sing it from the rooftops. That crazy investigator they’re going about on the news, the one who screwed everything up?” He nodded and pointed toward Adele. “That’s her.”
Adele had been ignoring the news as much as possible. By the sounds of things they were still going after her. No matter.
“I understand your concerns,” said Margaret with a sigh. “But I can’t just betray our clients’ trust.”
“Honorable,” said John. “Well, no matter. We’ll just notify the resorts, the managers, the press, that there’s a killer, and they’re tied to Prestige Entertainment. Won’t be a big deal. I respect that you want to keep your customers’ privacy. And I’ll help you keep their safety too. Just let them know that taking a flight with you guys might end in their gruesome death.”
John actually flipped open his phone and made as if to begin dialing numbers. Adele guessed he probably didn’t have any number saved, but at the same time, his bluff seemed to work.
“No,” Margaret said quickly, “hang on. Just a moment. Look, let me check. There’s a chance that there was no one in common anyway. We have a lot of charters, and a lot of flights. You’d be surprised at the number of people who want to take advantage of our services.”
“We’re in no rush,” said Adele. “Check what you have to.”
Muttering to herself, Margaret moved across to a series of paper files fastened to clipboards. The woman deftly sifted through the clipboards, scanning the papers as if for some sort of marking at the top.
“Hanes and Beneveti,” she said, “is that right?”
Adele nodded.
Margaret tucked her tongue inside her cheek and one of the scars looped around the bulge, giving Adele something to look at, but then she quickly glanced away in embarrassment as Margaret looked up. “Well,” she said, hesitantly, “they actually did have a contact point. The pilot. He took both of them.”
Adele felt her heart skip a beat. “The pilot’s name?”
“Brian Wolfe,” she said. “He’s worked for us for three years now. A reliable employee. No complaints that we’ve heard. Except, well…”
She trailed off.
“Brian?” said her uncle, still leaning in to hear the conversation. He cackled. “That tree hugger? Talk your ear off about the environment if you let him.” Her uncle continued to cackle and waved his hand dismissively as he turned back to a desk, and slowly, with a groan, eased himself into a chair.
Margaret winced apologetically, but nodded. “Brian is quite concerned with the environment,” she said. “It’s a passion of his. But he’s never let it interfere with his work before.”
John grunted. “You don’t see the irony?” he asked.
“Of what?”
“You hire a tree hugger up in those helicopters, flying rich people to disturb the mountain peaks. Shaving ice to make desserts, drinking champagne. Helicopter setting down on cracked snow. Think Mr. Wolfe might have an issue with that?”
Margaret shook her head. “No, I don’t believe he would. He’s a reasonable man.”
“Is he’s out today?” said Adele.
Margaret glanced back at the paper clipboards, sifting through them again, then puffed a breath. “In fact, he’s on a trip right now, yes.”
Adele stared at John, and they both regarded the woman. “Where to?”
She seemed hesitant again, glancing toward her uncle, then at the two agents. “I really can’t—”
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sp; “Look,” said John. “This was the same pilot who took four murdered people on trips with your company. At this point, you should be less worried about losing clients, and more worried about spending prison time for aiding and abetting.”
Margaret stiffened and gripped the clipboards with whitening fingers. She stood still, having a long look in John’s direction.
Adele knew this was a bluff, but she didn’t interrupt. They needed that information. Besides, John was probably right. If this pilot was the one killing the rich couples, there was no doubt that whoever he was with now could be in danger.
“Look, I can show you the coordinates. If that helps.”
“Perfect,” said Adele. “We need those right now.”
John came in closer and peered at the extended clipboard. “Adele, what are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking,” Adele said, “that the helicopter you came on was what—government?”
John nodded
“Did it come with a pilot?”
John smirked. “You’re looking at him.”
Adele supposed this shouldn’t surprise her. John had a lot of uses, usually involving his military. “All right. Perfect. Well, do you still have access to that chopper?”
“Yep. Two hangars down.”
“Perfect. Down for a little trip?”
John’s eyes flashed as he retrieved the paper printout of coordinates from Margaret, and his lips curled into a wolfish grin. “Would be my pleasure,” he said, starting for the back door.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
“Hold on, John, are you sure we’re supposed to be this close to the trees?”
Adele spoke into the receiver of her headset and glanced at Agent Renee, who had settled in the pilot seat like a hand in a glove. Again, Adele wondered what exactly he had done when working for the French military.
She heard a crackle, then a static-filled voice in her own headset. “This is half the fun,” he said. John’s lips moved in tandem with the words, but the audio came from Adele’s headphones. Much of it was lost to the loud staccato of the chopper blades against the wind.
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