The Mentor

by Monticelli, Rita Carla Francesca

  “What are you doing on my computer?” she demanded, her voice little more than a whisper. She seemed perplexed, but there was a vaguely accusatory tone in her voice. Her hand tightened on her weapon while her eyes searched Eric.

  Detective Shaw sighed. The moment had come. “I remember that day, last January, when you came to visit me in my office.”

  He’d heard a knock on the door, and then it opened. The first thing he’d seen was her brown hair, shining faintly auburn in the sunlight streaming in through the window. And her beautiful green eyes.

  “Good morning, boss. Can I talk to you for a couple of minutes?”

  “Adele Pennington, right?”

  She’d been assigned to his team merely two days earlier. He’d met her briefly, but they hadn’t started working together yet.

  Adele nodded.

  “Please, come on in. Make yourself comfortable.” Eric, sitting at his desk, waved to the chairs set up on the other side.

  “I think I’ll stand, thanks.”

  “What can I do for you, Miss Pennington?”

  The woman had smiled. That was the first time he’d noticed her smile. He remembered thinking she really was beautiful, more striking than any of his colleagues. But maybe that was just because she was so young. How old was she? Twenty-six, twenty-seven at most.

  Adele hesitated for a moment, apparently embarrassed. “I just felt I should tell you, before we start working together, that we’ve already met. But I’m sure you don’t recognize me now.”

  Eric furrowed his brow and stared at her, interested. They already knew each other? He doubted it. He would never have forgotten a woman like this. “To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever met an Adele Pennington in my life. But it’s true that this job puts me into contact with lots of different people, and sometimes I don’t recognize them when I should.” He felt bad that he didn’t recognize her.

  The young woman smiled. “No, it’s been a long time. I was just a young girl. When we met I had another name.” She paused, and the tension between them grew. She had the detective’s complete attention. “Adelmine Fontaine.”

  In a fraction of a second Eric saw the image of that young girl he’d found at the scene of the crime twenty years earlier materializing in his mind. She had the same eyes that he now saw in the young woman standing in front of him. “Mina . . . ,” murmured Eric, incredulous.

  Back at the apartment, he must have spoken out loud, because Adele nodded.

  “I was sure you’d figure it out sooner or later, reading the file. I just thought I should be the one to tell you.” Adele’s fingers danced along the hilt of her gun. She didn’t appear to have any intention of putting it down.

  “You only did so because, if I’d discovered on my own by chance, you thought I wouldn’t have appreciated it.” Eric kept his eyes on her hand, but he couldn’t help the stern tone in his voice. “What’s more, you did everything you could to make sure I’d notice. I have to admit you did a good job.”

  Ever since he’d been aware that this woman was the same little girl he’d found in the most gruesome case he’d ever worked on, he couldn’t help but feel curious about her. What had she been doing all these years? Against his better judgment, this curiosity had evolved into an even deeper interest in her as a woman, an interest that made Eric deeply uncomfortable. It seemed inappropriate somehow to feel that way about a person he’d met when she was just a seven-year-old girl. The worst part was that the more he admitted his feelings, the more attracted to her he felt.

  “I don’t usually go digging around in my colleagues’ pasts, but of course I would have noted the coincidence in the names. Adelmine isn’t exactly a household name, but that wouldn’t have been enough to make me think you were the same person. The last name is different.”

  The woman smiled faintly. “You’re an intelligent man. Sooner or later you would have figured it out.”

  He still hadn’t accused her of anything, but they were already laying their cards out on the table. This worried him, because Adele was the one holding a gun in her hand.

  “Of course I didn’t think you were married. Back then I guess I just assumed they had adopted you.”

  “I grew up with my maternal grandparents here in London. They raised me, but I kept my last name.”

  “That’s why you couldn’t wait to get a new one, and why you kept the new one even after your divorce.” Eric was only now realizing that this woman had spent the last twenty years planning and organizing her life in such a way that she could get to him and the men who had murdered her family. Every decision, every choice she’d made, had been directed to that end.

  Adele’s face darkened. “I thought of Danny as my family!” she exclaimed, raising her voice a little. Then she took a deep breath and regained control of herself. “He lived in the house next door to my grandparents. He was my first friend, the first friend I made after I moved there. My only friend. I spent more time over at his house than anywhere else.” Her eyes reddened and a tear trickled down her left cheek. She reached up and nervously rubbed her free hand across her face to dry it. “I envied him a little because he still had his parents. I wanted to be his sister. I wanted his parents to become my parents.” Her words were choked with emotion. It was almost as if she felt guilty for things she’d felt as a young girl. “But I really, truly loved him. And he loved me.”

  “Enough to become your accomplice,” he said. Now was the time to strike, while she was weak. “I imagine you told him what happened to you, back when you were still kids. And he promised you he would help you take revenge for your family.” Eric gave a short, bitter laugh. “I’ll bet you were already a talented manipulator back then. And your skills only improved with practice.” He shook his head, still incredulous despite the evidence lying before him. “You even managed to manipulate me. You started the day we met, and you never stopped since, not even for a moment. You’re still trying to manipulate me even now!”

  Adele’s emotions seemed to disappear in an instant. She dropped her mask. Her gaze turned hard again, but she still didn’t say anything. She would never confess, he was sure of it. She was studying him, trying to figure out if he could hurt her, and in order to do that she would wait patiently to hear what he had to say next.

  “He was the figure dressed in black,” said Eric, referring to Daniel Pennington. “You used him to draw attention away from yourself. He was like a spotlight directed out into the audience, while you changed the scenery onstage.” He scrutinized the woman standing before him, but she didn’t so much as blink. “You wanted him to be noticed. You wanted us to figure out he was a man. That way you could lay the blame on Garnish.”

  This time he thought he could make out the tiniest bit of satisfaction in Adele’s expression, but it came and went too quickly for him to be sure. She couldn’t keep pretending she was indifferent forever.

  “I have proof you were there,” Eric added.

  Adele opened and closed her eyes repeatedly. That revelation appeared to surprise her. She was obviously wondering whether or not it was true. Maybe she was mentally reexamining her steps, trying to see where she’d slipped up. Then she smiled again. “You don’t have a thing,” she said, sounding completely sure of herself. She was convinced she hadn’t made any mistakes.

  “I saw you in the video.”

  She didn’t react but challenged him with her eyes.

  “Oh, your courier outfit was perfect. Not to mention the way you misled the video feed, walking out of the building right behind Daniel. Nobody noticed you, because we thought we’d already found a close-up of the killer.” He paused for a moment, studying her. Her jaw was tense. She seemed impatient to see where he was going with this. “That was, until I read your blog. In French, your father’s native language. That’s when I realized I should be looking for someone else in that video.” He said this all in a rush, then
went silent.

  He thought that the fact he’d discovered her blog would surprise her, but her reaction was unexpected. Adele seemed to relax, and smiled. She no longer seemed upset at all; in fact she looked relieved.

  Eric understood at once. “You wanted me to find it?” he murmured. “Of course you did,” he added, answering his own question. “Otherwise why leave it up online all this time?”

  “How did you recognize me in the video?” She was clearly calmer now, with no obvious signs of preoccupation.

  Her question diverted Eric from the line of reasoning he’d been following. “The tattoo on your wrist. You forgot to cover it up.”

  She raised the hand holding the gun and looked at the lotus flower tattooed on her left wrist. It seemed to amuse her. “What an idiot!” she said.

  Shaw didn’t know how he should interpret her behavior. She knew she’d been discovered and seemed ready to confess everything. She didn’t have anything left to lose, but she still had a gun in her hand. And Eric, the only one who had figured out her secret and had the evidence to prove it, was right there with her, alone. This woman had killed three people, four if you counted Dillon. She’d been there when Garnish died. There was no doubt in his mind that she hadn’t lifted a finger to help him. What difference would one more murder make?

  He’d made a serious mistake, confronting her like this without taking any precautions. Once again he’d been ingenuous when it came to Adele. He glanced at the door. He was fewer than six yards away from safety, but he’d be an easy target on his way there. He’d gone into her house without knocking in the middle of the night, and she’d thought he was a thief breaking in. She could easily claim she’d shot him a fraction of a second before realizing it was her boyfriend. She would probably get away with it.

  Eric knew he was a dead man. This knowledge must have been clear on his face, because Adele laughed mockingly. He had to play for time, get her to talk, distract her somehow. He had to get close to her and take her gun away.

  “Your plan really was perfect,” said Eric, showing as much admiration as he could possibly muster. “You got the investigators to believe the killer was a man for the first murder. You got that little boy, Sayyid, to notice the figure in black when he hadn’t even noticed you. Who knows how many couriers walk in and out of that building every day?” Eric said, attempting to compliment her intelligence. His ploy appeared to be working—Adele was clearly pleased to hear him say it. “But I still can’t figure out exactly how it happened. Did you kill him together?”

  Adele licked her lips before speaking. “No,” she murmured, shaking her head slightly. “I went in first and killed him.” She was calm, as if killing a man were an everyday affair. “Danny waited on the stairs. I sent him a message, and then he came into Thompson’s apartment. He helped me get rid of all the evidence. I hid it in the package I’d brought with me.” She smiled for a moment, apparently particularly proud of the way she’d managed the whole situation. “Then we waited until we heard movement in the hallway. I’d been watching that building for a long time. I knew there were people walking in and out of it day and night.”

  “You wanted to make sure someone saw a woman in black walk out of that apartment,” Eric said with a nod.

  “That’s right.” She nodded. “We heard the little boy playing in the hallway. Danny stuck his head out the door to look, and when he saw the boy turn the other way, he motioned for me to leave. I stopped and waited on the landing while Danny closed the door, making sure he made enough noise to attract Sayyid’s attention and ensure that the boy would see him.” She tilted her head to one side and examined an invisible spot somewhere on the wall. “Then we left,” she finished, not the least bit concerned that she’d just confessed to murder.

  “So you waited until the murder was discovered before you committed the second murder, taking advantage of the figure in black again so that we would make an immediate connection between the two and keep focusing on an imaginary male assassin dressed in bizarre clothing.” Eric chuckled, feigning amusement. “Genius. Except it was you dressed in black for the second murder, wasn’t it?” His hilarity faded as he remembered the arm lifting up, the aiming and shooting he’d seen in the other surveillance video. The left hand. The killer was left-handed. “Of course it was you.” He hadn’t missed that detail, but somehow it had gotten lost in the course of events. Now Adele’s left hand was holding her police pistol. He’d seen her use that hand countless times—to write, to make a gesture, to caress his face—and yet he’d never made the connection before. No. That wasn’t right. He hadn’t wanted to make the connection.

  “I kept Danny out of the other murders. I didn’t want to get him any more involved than was absolutely necessary.”

  “That was sweet of you.” Shaw couldn’t hide his sarcasm, but it didn’t appear to bother Adele all that much. “After you killed the other two, you exchanged your pistol for Garnish’s nine-millimeter in the car, but you couldn’t have known he’d use that gun to kill Daniel.”

  Adele’s face contorted.

  Eric didn’t let himself be intimidated. “Garnish had already figured out you were behind those murders. He’s the one who attacked you outside Jane’s party, wasn’t he?”

  Tears began to run down the woman’s face, but she didn’t answer him. She didn’t need to.

  “He must have guessed Daniel was helping you. During the interrogation, he thought we were trying to frame him. But”—Eric raised his voice—“you should have known he would come to look for you at home, at your old address. But you didn’t think of it. And now Danny’s dead.” This time, he used her ex-husband’s nickname on purpose. “Dead because of you.”

  “Shut up!” shouted Adele, raising the pistol and pointing it at him.

  Eric raised his hands as if he were giving up. He knew it was a risk, but he had to force her to acknowledge her responsibility. Maybe he could confuse her enough that he’d be able to take control of the situation. “It’s the truth and you know it.” His tone was aggressive now. “You can murder me, right here and now, but that won’t bring Danny back to life. It won’t change the fact that if only you hadn’t been so egotistical, if only you had thought of something other than your own personal vendetta, Danny would still be alive right now.”

  “I had to!” she shouted, still keeping her gun trained on Eric. “You and your colleagues didn’t do a thing! My family died, and you couldn’t even figure out who killed them! And you had them right in your hands!” Her rage seemed overpowering, uncontrollable. “I saw all four of them, but I was only seven years old. Ah! You didn’t even dream of asking me what I’d seen. That goddamned crackpot shrink . . .” Adele kept turning the gun this way and that as she spoke. “He told you all that I was in shock, that it didn’t make any sense to interrogate me, and you were all too happy to let him have his way.”

  “I didn’t conduct the investigation!” protested Eric, shouting back. He took a small step toward her. “I was the last person to join that team. I couldn’t make any decisions. All I did was catalogue evidence and conduct analyses. It certainly wasn’t my fault Garnish slipped through our fingers!”

  Adele seemed to calm down again. “I know,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper. “I was never angry at you. You saved me.” She smiled through her tears. “Garnish and his gang killed me along with the rest of my family. You created a new me.”

  He could see the very real gratitude on the woman’s face. For the first time, Eric began to think that she didn’t actually mean to kill him.

  “Thanks to you I became a criminologist,” she continued. “I wanted to join the police force, to hunt down the men who’d killed my parents and nail them. I wanted them to pay for their crimes. I wanted to send them all to jail. That was the revenge, the vendetta I wanted.”

  Shaw was listening. Was she serious, or was she still trying to manipulate him? She s
eemed so sincere . . .

  “But I reexamined the entire case, all the evidence. I didn’t find any proof. It was just my word, the word of a little seven-year-old girl who’d waited almost twenty years to say her piece. Then, when I started working with you, I saw how things really work.”

  He could see where she was going with this, and a sense of dread rose inside of him.

  “I saw the things you did to make sure criminals got justice. That’s when I understood there was another way to achieve my goals. It was too late to make up some fake evidence, but I could still make sure those bastards got what was coming to them.”

  “No . . . ,” whispered Eric, shaking his head. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  “You are my mentor,” said Adele. Her tone was affectionate. “When you carried me out of that house, I was reborn. You created me. And everything I know, I’ve learned from you over these years. I kept an eye on you, because I considered you a member of my family. I followed your career, one success after another. I wanted to be like you, to fight criminals by your side. And I did.”

  Eric felt utterly powerless. He knew he should argue, but he didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t let her compare the things she’d done to the unorthodox ways he’d managed to pin guilt on some criminals. He couldn’t accept that she somehow considered him responsible for what she’d become.

  “But I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with you.” Her voice turned hesitant. “I wasn’t. But I did.”

  “No! I won’t let you do it!” exclaimed Eric suddenly. “I won’t let you put us both on the same level! I’ve twisted some evidence a little in order to send criminals I knew were guilty to prison. I did it because the system often fails us. I’ve never killed anyone! I would never dream of killing somebody!”

  “That’s just because you’ve never been a victim,” responded Adele, keeping her composure. “If you’d gone through what I experienced, you wouldn’t judge what I’ve done the same way.”