by Mark Pryor
“How do you know he’s gone?”
“Earlier today I went to talk to him and Lionel Colbert, at the hotel. Their room was cleaned out.”
“Oh, no, wait. That doesn’t mean he’s left,” Hugo said. “Jill just moved them to their own rooms.”
“That’s what Colbert told me, but it was the manager there today who just called me. He said Prehn sent him an e-mail saying he was quitting and going back to Germany.”
“Dammit. Did he say why?”
“Yes. He didn’t feel safe in Paris anymore.”
“I guess that’s possible,” Hugo said. “It’s certainly not impossible.”
“Except I expressly told him, told all of them, not to leave the city without my permission, without telling me even.”
“You think this is suspicious?”
“Of course it’s suspicious,” Lerens said. “How could it not be?”
“I guess he wasn’t on my radar as a likely candidate,” Hugo said. “And he told us once before that he was worried for his safety, so it’s consistent at least.”
“Peut-être.” Perhaps. “But I don’t like it. I’m going to see how far he’s made it, bring him back if I can.”
“OK, Camille, but remember what I just told you—he may be genuinely afraid.”
“I now have him and Jill Maxick out of my sight, Hugo, and I’m not looking to baby a grown man because he’s scared.” Her tone was sharp. “I’ll talk to you later.” She hung up without saying good-bye.
Hugo thanked the waiter on the way out of the café, his thoughts drifting away from the case and to Tom Green. He called his friend and left a message. “Tom, it’s Hugo. Checking in, seeing if you have any info. And to make sure you’re OK, not on the way to Amsterdam or anything silly. Call me.”
Hugo checked his watch. The timing was perfect, but he’d need to pick up the pace just a little bit.
At a newsstand on Rue de Vaugirard he dodged a Lycra-clad woman charging down the sidewalk with a stroller in front of her, oblivious to those around her and, Hugo thought, the safety of the child inside the arrow-shaped device. Since he was there, and a couple of minutes early, he bought a newspaper before crossing the street into the Luxembourg Garden. He could have read the news on his phone, and in English, but he hadn’t become fluent in French by taking the easy route. And he hated seeing people staring at their phones, no matter how valid the reason.
He wandered around for a few minutes, and at five to four he found a park bench that maximized his view of the park, and sat down to wait.
Michael Rice was, if anything, a prompt man. At one minute after four o’clock, he jogged into the park, his jaw set and eyes straight ahead, a determined runner if Hugo had ever seen one. He felt bad about waving to get the man’s attention, but Rice didn’t seem to mind. He pulled the ear buds out of his ears and plopped down next to Hugo, panting softly.
“Sorry to knock you out of your stride,” Hugo said.
“Oh, no problem. I detest running, to be honest. Back home I’m a member of a gym and do my workouts there. Swim, bike, anything but run. Here I can’t afford it, so I have to run or get fat, because I do like to eat.”
“You and me both,” Hugo said. “I just haven’t had a chance to talk to you lately, one-on-one.”
“I gave a statement to the police; you need something more from me?”
“Not so much more, just different.”
Rice cocked an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”
“It means I want to know how you feel about all of this. Particularly Silva’s death.”
“Oh, boy.” Rice sat forward, his hands clasped and his elbows on his knees. “The police said I was a suspect in his murder.” He glanced at Hugo. “Which is fucking ridiculous.”
“Tell me why.”
“Because I was mad at him for posting that video online, for humiliating Helen. And if I’m honest with myself, for him sleeping with her, trying to get that edge.” He shook his head. “I’m supposed to be the crass, commercially oriented one.”
“You haven’t slept with her, too, then?”
“Are you serious?”
Hugo smiled. “I’ve had more surprises this week than I’ve had all year, so I guess I am.”
“It never even crossed my mind. I’m all for exploiting her knowledge, if you want to put it that way.”
“You’re paying for it, though.”
“Right. I guess that’s what I mean. I’m taking advantage of her, but not unfairly. Don’t get me wrong, she can sleep with whomever she wants. I just didn’t get the sense that he was doing anything but looking out for himself. It wasn’t like he liked her that way, as far as I knew. He certainly never said anything to me.”
“Did he like Buzzy that way?”
“Seemed to. I actually thought they knew each other already, the way they were thick as thieves. I was surprised they didn’t get a place together.”
“They’d only met and chatted online, I think,” Hugo said. “How do you feel about his death?”
“Honestly, I can’t fucking believe it. Even if he was a manipulative jerk, jeez . . . I mean, maybe a punch in the gut or something. But who shoots someone? In Paris? It’s all beyond me.”
“Do you have anyone in mind?”
“No. I don’t know many people here, of course, but neither of those. Buzzy or Helen. No way.”
“Buzzy has a temper though, right?” Hugo prodded.
“Yeah, sure. A door slammer and, maybe, a face slapper. But a woman with a temper in a city where she barely speaks the language would have to also be pretty ice-cold to get mad, then go find a gun, lure Silva to that bridge, and murder him.”
And maybe try to make it look like suicide, Hugo thought.
“Also,” Rice was saying, “where the hell do you get a gun in Paris? I suppose she could manage in the States, but Paris?” He shook his head again. “No, you want my opinion, whoever shot him, it was either a robbery or . . . someone cold and calculated.”
“I tend to agree, but it wasn’t robbery; we know that much.”
“So you don’t think Buzzy did it?”
“Do you know Lionel Colbert or Thomas Prehn?”
“They work at the hotel, right?”
“Correct,” Hugo said. “Andrew Baxter’s roommates.”
“I know Leo, didn’t know his last name, though. Nice guy the couple of times I talked to him.”
“About what?”
“Just chitchat while I waited for Helen. We’ve lived in some of the same places; he’s an interesting guy.”
Hugo gave a wry smile. “Not one for authority, was my impression.”
“That’s not so unusual.”
“What about Prehn?”
“The German guy, right? Efficient, polite, not overly friendly.” Rice frowned. “Seems like he doesn’t like Americans, but I’m not sure if that was my impression or if someone told me that. I know a few days ago, shoot, maybe a week, Buzzy was being loud in the main lobby, just herself, nothing obnoxious, but he got all huffy.”
“Ever see Silva interact with either of them?”
“Nope, can’t say I did.”
Hugo scuffed the gravel with his heel, frustrated. “OK, thanks.”
“Trying to find a connection between all these people?”
“Right,” Hugo said. “And not succeeding yet, which is getting a little frustrating.”
“Maybe there isn’t one.” Rice suggested.
“There is. With these particular deaths and such a closed circle, the connection is there; I just have to find it. Anyway, not your problem.” Hugo felt like he was giving too much away, so he changed the subject. “How was the writing session, productive?”
Mike sighed. “You were wrong, you know.”
“About what?”
“All that red ink. Most of it wasn’t very complimentary.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Hugo said.
“No, it’s fine. I like her honesty. Anything else would
be much less useful.”
“So she’s been helpful overall?”
“Oh, for sure. I’m actually starting to appreciate the writing itself more, the creating and telling of the story. Imagine that—there’s more to writing books than making money.”
“I’ve heard that,” Hugo said with a smile.
“That said, we met with her French editor yesterday, one-on-one, which was cool. Good to know how the process works once a writer turns a book in.”
“I’m surprised her editor took time to do that.”
“Oh really? She seemed happy to do it, had nothing but praise for Helen. Talked about the new book, when that’s coming out over here, the process. Bestselling author and all that, I’m sure she’d bend over backward to help her.”
“True enough,” Hugo said. “Well, I won’t hold you up any longer, thanks for the time. And you have my card, so if anything comes to mind, call me.”
“Will do.” Rice shook his hand and then stood, stretching his back. “I’d prefer you delay me another hour or two so I can avoid torturing myself. But I’ll just think about the pastries this’ll let me eat.”
Hugo watched him jog off into the park, slow but steady progress through the trees and out of sight. Hugo sat back and closed his eyes for a moment, letting the breeze wash over his face as something Rice had said percolated in his mind. Interesting, he thought. Very interesting indeed.
He opened his eyes when his phone rang, and sat up when he saw Tom Green’s name on the screen. “Hey, where are you?”
“Have a guess.”
“Are you right behind me?” Hugo asked. “Maybe in that trash can beside the homeless guy. Is he poking you right now?”
“Shut up, Hugo. You guessed it, I’m in Amsterdam.”
Hugo slowly sat back into the bench and closed his eyes again.
Just sometimes, he thought to himself, I really do hate being right.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Fifteen years previously.
1500 hours, Houston, Texas.
Hugo Marston turned the black FBI vehicle into the parking lot and looked for a spot in the shade, one with a good view of the bank’s entrance.
Beside him, Tom fidgeted. “This is so stupid,” he said.
“Maybe. Maybe not,” Hugo said. In front of them, the parking lot baked in the Houston sun, not a tree or other shade in sight. Which meant he’d have to leave the engine running for the air-conditioning, not ideal when they were trying to be surreptitious. “They’ve got to hit one of those banks.”
“So you say.”
“So the profile says.”
“Your profile, Hugo, unless I’m much mistaken.”
“Well, makes sense that it would be; I’ve been tracking these guys since last December.”
“Tell me again why they’re wasting a profiler on a couple of bank robbers,” Tom said. “You guys have your specialty, and it’s killers not thieves.”
“No clue,” Hugo said. “Although I suspect someone down here pulled a string in Washington. Or it could be that eight similar bank robberies going unsolved makes the local cops and FBI look bad. I just do as I’m told, go where they want me, and the sooner we can snag these guys the sooner I can get back to DC.”
Hugo had been with the Behavioral Analysis Unit for eight years, rising quickly in the estimation of his superiors. He’d actually wondered why they chose him for this assignment. Usually a more junior agent would be sent off to help with something like this, something that didn’t involve murder. Maybe that was why. They certainly wanted to catch these two before someone did get killed, which was inevitable given how aggressive they’d been.
The MO was the same each time: Two white men, possibly brothers because they looked so alike, saunter into a bank and once inside they pull out two handguns apiece, one covering the lobby and the other demanding cash. Any customers inside are made to lie facedown on the floor and get a hard kick in the ribs if they move or even look up. In and out in three minutes or less, quick enough that the eyewitness descriptions had mentioned the similarities but otherwise been vague on other details. No one knew what the getaway car looked like, or even if a third person was driving it.
With so little to go on, someone in the bureau had obviously decided that an agent from the BAU would be able to help. Hugo hadn’t minded; it meant he got to see his best friend, Tom Green, catch up on old times, and maybe needle him a little. Tom lived with his sister, Christen, in her house about three miles from the bank they were surveilling, and she was everything Tom wasn’t. Beautiful, refined, kind, and responsible. She was five feet five inches, with pretty blue eyes and naturally dark hair that she’d dyed red since middle school.
She’d lived alone in Houston until Tom had come to the house, her security taking the form of a German shepherd named Maddie, who took great delight in chewing up the newcomer’s shoes whenever she could, just to show who was boss. Christen and Hugo had come close to dating a few years back but, after one awkward kiss, had decided to stay close as friends, for their sakes as well as for her brother’s. That one kiss was perhaps the only secret Hugo had ever kept from Tom.
Before he’d even arrived at the Houston field office for this trip, Hugo requested the two men be able to work together on the case, and he’d swung by Christen’s house to pick up his friend twenty minutes ago. She’d not been there, had left for work hours before, and Hugo was disappointed not to see her. But he quickly focused on the job at hand. On the way to the bank they’d gone over some of the plan but chatted about other things, too, like how after this case Hugo was looking forward to being in DC again.
“The Texan wanting out of Texas so soon?” Tom unbuckled his seatbelt, settling in. “For shame.”
“I’m from Austin, which isn’t quite the same,” Hugo reminded him.
“There’s an understatement.” He nodded to the bank. “So why this one in particular?”
“Because it’s the closest one to my hotel.”
“Seriously, you were going to tell me,” Tom insisted.
“They never hit the same part of town twice in a row. I mapped each bank they robbed, and they bounce around, in a pattern. I wouldn’t be surprised if the ringleader has some sort of compulsive disorder.”
“How come?”
“They hit north, then south, then east, then west. Then they started filling in the gaps, but always opposite the last one. It’s like they’re trying to be random but can’t quite manage it.”
“How many banks are there in this part of town, though?” Tom asked.
“A lot. There are more than a thousand in the city, so, depending on where you start drawing lines, a lot.” Hugo adjusted his visor to keep the sun out of his eyes. Even with the air-conditioning on, the bright sun burned its way into the car. “But they choose smaller banks with no cameras, though I fail to understand why there’s any bank in the country that doesn’t have a camera in this day and age.”
“No shit,” Tom said.
“They also hit banks that have open teller counters, which is most of them.”
“Also not smart.”
“From a security perspective, sure,” Hugo agreed. “I can see why they don’t, though. Customer service is important, that face-to-face transaction. And most banks have a policy that even if you have protective glass, if someone points a gun at a teller, they’re supposed to hand over the cash.”
“And God knows if those things are as bulletproof as they claim.”
“Exactly,” Hugo said.
“So what else?”
“Well, they hit mid- to late-afternoon, when a lot of cash deposits are in. Between three and closing time. Also, each bank hit so far has been within half a mile of a major road, with easy access to it,” Hugo said. “In other words, they’re not making themselves turn left across traffic to get to the freeway.”
“Smart, I guess.”
“We’ll see. I came up with four banks in this general area that fit the description. Wilson and R
odriguez are watching one, city police the other two.”
“Great, one in four chance,” Tom said grumpily. “More to the point, three in four that we sit here like chumps for two hours.”
“Three hours,” Hugo said lightly. “They close at six.”
“Do I have time for a nap?”
“Feel free, as long as you don’t mind me putting it in the report.”
“And as long as you write the report,” Tom said, “you can put whatever the hell you like in there, I don’t care.”
Hugo ignored that. “I don’t like that we have to keep the engine running. I have no idea whether they case the place beforehand or not.”
“You could’ve picked a more subtle car. I mean, a black SUV, really?”
“I didn’t choose; I was given,” Hugo said.
They settled down to wait, and Hugo glanced over at his friend every few minutes to make sure he wasn’t taking that nap. Every time, Tom’s eyes were open and fixed on the doors of the bank, or scanning the parking lot.
“You can stop checking on me,” Tom said eventually.
“Sorry, all that talk of naps . . .”
But Tom was peering through the windshield, seeing the same thing Hugo was: two men in jeans and T-shirts who’d pulled into a parking space way to the agents’ left, giving the men access to the front and back doors of the bank. They were standing by their car, watching the building, occasionally looking around as if for cops.
“You see any guns?” Hugo asked.
“Nope. Baggy T-shirts though.”
The man by the passenger’s side of the car reached into the open window and pulled out what looked to be an empty duffel bag. Adrenaline shot through Hugo’s body as the two men moved forward in unison, their body language purposeful, determined.
“That’s gotta be them,” Hugo said.
“You wanna call it in?”
Hugo hesitated. “I’ll have Houston PD stand by, but we don’t want the cavalry here yet. Let’s get close, make sure. But if it is them, we won’t have much time.” He flipped open the computer that sat between them and was about to type a quick message to the coordinating agent back in the office when Tom grabbed his arm.
“Oh, my God, Hugo. Look who’s going in right behind them.”
