The Wife of Riley (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book 6)

by A W Hartoin

  “Few,” he conceded. “Interesting notion. I took a look at your Angela Riley. There’s little difference between her and Corinne Sweet.”

  I glanced back at the fingerprints, the same person but not, at the same time. “But Angela did abandon her family,” I said.

  “She did,” Novak agreed with little interest.

  “But I can’t imagine why. It’s not like Corinne’s been a party girl for the last few years. She’s basically lived the same life she lived in St. Louis, unremarkable. What’s the point of leaving if nothing much changes except your city?” I asked.

  “Perhaps she hated her husband or her children.”

  “It doesn’t look that way. This was an elaborate plan that cost a bundle, but she has no one special here. How’d she even get the job at Gibert?”

  Novak tugged the rubber band out of his hair and it tumbled to his shoulders. He ran his fingers through the thick mop and his forehead creased in thought. “She had help, but I cannot find who gave her the help. She’s received no money unless it was cash. Perhaps your country’s witness protection program? She may have had something on the Fibonacci family.”

  “I don’t think so. She wasn’t involved with the business at all and nothing happened to the Fibonaccis. Not a single indictment. Nothing.”

  “A housewife doesn’t seem to be a good candidate,” said Novak.

  I glanced at the fingerprints again. “Did Angela fly into Paris?”

  “Not with her new name or her old one. She may have taken a train or car.”

  The Fibonacci phone buzzed in my purse and my chest constricted. Calpurnia hadn’t been bugging me and she was well overdue for an update. “Why did Angela do this? What was the point?”

  “That’s a mystery I suspect only she can solve for you,” said Novak.

  The phone stopped buzzing and I took a deep breath. “There has to be another way.”

  “Not from where I’m sitting. If you can find me a new lead, I can follow it.”

  “You need another name,” I said.

  “That would be helpful.”

  Aaron crumpled up his sandwich paper and smacked his lips. “You hungry?”

  My flatbread lay in my lap untasted. “Not really.”

  Aaron took it and started dissecting it like a scientist. Novak and I watched him for a minute before getting back on task. Novak seemed to accept the oddness without question, but then again he was fairly odd, so maybe it was easy to accept one of his own. I wanted to tell my partner to knock it off. I didn’t because it wouldn’t do any good, like telling Chuck to stop being tall. Not going to happen.

  “How good is the security on Corinne’s, I mean Angela’s, apartment building?” I asked.

  “Standard. Lock to enter the building and a lock on the door.”

  “Any idea what kind of lock?” I asked.

  “No,” said Novak. “You’ll have to go and see.”

  I sighed. “I doubt I’ll be able to pick her lock. I’m not that good and Parisian locks are a pain.”

  “They are, but there are other ways if you’re creative. Her building’s under construction, so she’s staying at a Novotel. You may be able to use that to your advantage.”

  I batted my lashes at him to see if I could get a reaction. Nope. “If you have any ideas, I’m all ears.”

  “I love your American expressions. But I have nothing to tell you, other than things you should already know. There will be workmen there and you are beautiful. You can talk your way in.” He raised an eyebrow. “If you wish.”

  “Why wouldn’t I wish to?”

  “It is my understanding that your job was to find this woman and confirm her identity. You have done that. You can tell your client and go back to your vacation.”

  I stayed quiet.

  “Unless you don’t want to,” he said.

  “I don’t know. This doesn’t feel right. Something is up, big time,” I said.

  “Does it have to as you say feel right? You did your job.”

  “No, I can’t reveal her without knowing why she left. There are other people to consider.” I turned to Aaron like an idiot to ask his opinion. I wanted him to say I was right, that I shouldn’t rock people’s worlds just because I owed Calpurnia Fibonacci a favor. “What do you think, Aaron?”

  “This bread is perfect.” He held up a shredded piece. “Look at the structure.”

  Ask a stupid question.

  “Never mind,” I said.

  Novak cocked an eyebrow at me. “This is your partner?”

  “He’s more useful than he looks.”

  “I hope so.”

  I leaned forward, feeling a flame of anger in my chest. “Look, you don’t—”

  “Quiet.” Novak sat bolt upright and began typing furiously. The monitors all unscrambled and, in a second, they showed live feeds from around the building.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “We have a visitor or…no…” He looked at me, his eyes glittering. “You do.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Me?” I asked, jolting out of my chair. “What kind of visitor?”

  Without pausing in his typing, Novak said, “Someone is trying to break through my firewall.” He shrugged one shoulder. “They’re not very good.”

  “What’s that got to do with me?”

  “They’re tracking your pings.”

  “Huh?”

  He stopped typing and held out his hand. “Give me your phone.”

  I handed over my regular phone after unlocking it. Novak gave me a look that said, “Like I need your help.” He examined my phone for about thirty seconds before putting it on the desk. “Give me your other phone.”

  My stomach went queasy. “Er…what other phone?”

  “The one in your little red bag.”

  I looked at my little red bag. “You think two phones would fit in there?”

  “I think this phone,” he pointed to my regular phone, “is entirely secure and encrypted, done by someone very good. Morton Van Der Hoof is my guess. He doesn’t know about your other device, does he?”

  “Well…I…”

  Aaron woke up and said, “Give it.”

  “Dammit, Aaron.”

  “Give him the phone.”

  I gave Novak my Fibonacci phone but not without a wave of nausea. That phone linked me to Calpurnia. I lived in fear that someone, namely Chuck, would get ahold of it. I gripped the edge of the desk, itching to get it back like some nutty teenage girl who just had to Instagram her entire life to strangers.

  “Relax,” said Novak, examining the phone with his thumbs in a blur. “I will take care of it.”

  “By doing what?”

  Novak answered by taking a hammer out of a drawer and smashing my Fibonacci phone to bits. I didn’t make a sound, not a peep.

  Oh god. I am so screwed. Calpurnia is going to be pissed.

  Novak swept the debris off his desk into a trash can.

  “We good?” asked Aaron.

  That got my vocal cords going. “No. We’re not good. How am I supposed to contact Calpurnia?”

  He shrugged. Very helpful.

  “I have her information,” said Novak. “The bigger problem is that man.” He pointed at a monitor, showing a grey building, fifth floor. I didn’t see anything.

  “What man?” I asked.

  “He’s in the right window, trying to reacquire you,” he said. “Now he can’t.”

  “No kidding. How’s he trying to reacquire me?”

  Novak tapped a few keys and the camera zoomed in on the window. There were lacy curtains and I could make out a figure and a glint of something metallic. “He’s using a Stingray to mimic a cell tower to get your location. My system noted the appearance of a new tower and alerted me.

  “You still don’t know it’s me,” I said.

  “Once he got you, he tried to access your phone through your carrier. He succeeded.”

  “Oh crap.”

  Novak gave me my re
gular phone back. “He got little data. I jammed him and wiped your texts.”

  “You can do that?”

  “That’s why I am who I am.”

  I wasn’t sure who he was, but it seemed to be a good thing. “What’s he doing now?”

  “Trying to break back in. Have you noticed anyone following you?” he asked.

  “No.” I turned to Aaron. “Have you seen anyone?”

  “When?” asked Aaron.

  “Whenever.”

  He shrugged.

  Novak rummaged around in his desk and came up with a phone and a stack of euros. He messed with the phone for a few minutes and then slid it across the desk to me. “Take this one. I’ll only communicate with you on it. I don’t want your uncle to know our connection. Calpurnia Fibonacci’s number is in there as well as mine. It’s clean and encrypted.”

  “By clean, you mean…”

  “No spyware, tracking software or anything else.”

  “You’re not going to track me?” I asked.

  “Why would I need to?”

  “Seems like something you’d do just because you can.”

  He grinned again. “It does, doesn’t it?”

  That made me suspicious, but I figured I didn’t care. I needed the phone and he knew what I was up to in Paris anyway.

  “What’s with the cash?” I asked.

  “No using your credit or debit cards. Those have been accessed, too.”

  I slumped in my frigid chair and looked at the ceiling. “Fantastic.”

  “So have the cop’s,” he said.

  My eyes jerked to his. “Chuck’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who’s doing it? And when did you find out? In the last two minutes?”

  “I knew before you arrived. I checked you out.” His expression darkened and he ran his fingers through his hair again. “I didn’t expect this.” He pushed the cash over to me.

  The stack was high and hefty. Thousands, if I had to guess. “I can’t pay this back. Not any time soon.”

  Novak scowled at the monitors. “Don’t concern yourself. It’s my pleasure. He will pay me back.”

  “He?”

  “The interloper. I will find him and extract my payment.”

  A chill went down my back. It competed with the chair and won. I had no doubt that Novak would get his money and whoever that guy was, he’d regret trying to breach Novak’s system.

  Novak glanced at the laptop. “You better go. He’s on the move. It took him a while, but he knows we’re onto him. He won’t want to lose you now that he can’t track the phone. I’m not picking up any other surveillance. You can go out the back exit.”

  I made a face.

  “I would’ve thought from your background that you wouldn’t be bothered by filth,” said Novak.

  “Paper’s different than the real person.”

  “Like Angela Riley.”

  Novak stood up and led me to the door. “She can’t be what she seems. I’ll take a closer look.”

  “You’re not done?” I asked in surprise. Novak was obviously super pricey. I didn’t think a favor to Spidermonkey would stretch so far.

  “I finish what I start.” Novak towered over me, bent slightly, like a reed in the wind. “I believe you are the same.”

  “I am, but what about the apartment in the Marais?”

  “The apartment is on my list. It may be the source of the interest in you.”

  I looked back to see what was keeping Aaron and the little weirdo had gone to sleep in the chair, uncomfortable as it was. “That’s a lot of work to pay back Spidermonkey.”

  Novak grinned. “Then Spidermonkey will owe me. A useful exchange.”

  I tucked the cash in my purse “Works for me. When will you have something?”

  “Hard to say.” Novak slammed the door and Aaron jumped.

  “Huh?”

  “We’re leaving.”

  Novak led us down the hall into another apartment filled with rich fabrics and antiques of an exotic variety. Definitely not French. More like Turkish. An older woman, dressed completely in black, sat in an oversized armchair, knitting an afghan that could’ve covered a king-sized bed. She nodded at me as we passed through.

  “Who was that?” I asked.

  “My mother,” said Novak.

  “Do you own the whole building?”

  “And the ones on either side.”

  We went through multiple rooms, entering a different building, until we reached a heavy metal door with a keypad. Novak typed in a complicated code made of letters and numbers and had his thumb scanned before it opened to a staircase, a nice clean one.

  “Is it gross at the bottom of this?” I said.

  “Not at all. This is my brother’s domain. He wouldn’t have it so. You will go to the bottom of the stairs and take a left.” Novak continued with the directions. I was lost after the first left, but I didn’t want to look stupid, so I nodded and said, “I got it.”

  Aaron and I hoofed it down the stairs, made the left, and then my partner took over, following Novak’s directions with ease. We went out through an alley and ended up back on the same street three buildings down. Success.

  I checked out the street to see if anyone was interested in us. A few people were, but I think it was my heinous hair that they were looking at. Even Aaron noticed and bought me an adorable little fedora with the right shape and everything at the shop next to the exit and we headed off down the street, feeling safe as could be.

  It didn’t last long. I saw him when we crossed the street. A man with blond hair wearing a light grey plaid suit crossed the street a moment after we did. I noticed him immediately because of the suit. Not exactly stealthy. Nobody else in that neighborhood was wearing a 3000-dollar suit. I wouldn’t have noticed him in the first arrondissement or the seventh. Maybe that’s where he expected us to go.

  I stopped, grabbing Aaron’s arm and looking at my phone like I was lost. The suit stopped, too, and pretended to look at a butcher’s window with goat legs hanging from the ceiling.

  “We’re being followed.”

  “Yeah,” said Aaron.

  “There’s a bulge in his waistband and I don’t think he’s just happy to see us.”

  “Huh?”

  I pointed down the street in the opposite direction from the metro stop. Aaron shook his head and pointed to a corner café. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the suit take note. Aaron dragged a protesting me into a café. We wove through the tables as fast as possible, knocking into people sipping cafés and watching the world go by.

  A waitress saw us and called out, “Arrêtez!”

  We didn’t arrêtez. Aaron let out a stream of French so rapid it seemed like one long word. He tossed fifty euros on the last table and said something like, “For your trouble.”

  Aaron grabbed my arm and wheeled me into an alley. We dashed through a warren of narrow back streets and came out, to my surprise, at République, another metro stop.

  We ran down the stairs and through a series of fast turns ended up on Platform Eleven exactly one minute before the train was due. There were only seven other people heading South and none were wearing suits or were remotely interested in us. Such was the politeness or perhaps disinterest of the Parisians. I totally would’ve been interested in us. I was panting and sweat dripped off Aaron’s chin, staining the front of his tee. My partner swayed and I grasped his shoulders. “Aaron, are you okay?”

  “It’s here,” he said.

  The train zipped in and a prickle of fear went up my spine. The doors ratcheted open and I glanced back in time to see a pair of shiny shoes come into view on the stairs and another pair directly behind them. The kind of shoes you wear with snazzy suits.

  Aaron started for the nearest door, but I grabbed his hand, dragging him to the last car. “Come on.” We slipped through the doors a second before they closed and I caught the tiniest glimpse of grey plaid going in another car.

  We squeezed in and I
found my required armpit, this time an older gentleman that inexplicably smelled of fresh-cut grass and carried a cello. The doors closed and I whispered to Aaron, “He’s on the train. Could be two.”

  Aaron nodded.

  “Off at Châtelet. It’s big. We can lose them.”

  In theory.

  “We’ll have to be fast off the mark,” I said.

  Aaron stared out the window, disinterested at best. My stomach felt like I’d been forced to eat andouillette. The cello man jostled me and he really shouldn’t have. The mere thought of intestine sausage was enough to make me hurl.

  The train stopped at Arts et Métiers and I squeezed the pole so hard my hands hurt, but nothing happened. People piled in, creating a protective barrier between us and him if he chose to get in. He didn’t show his face and by the time the doors closed I was panting again.

  At Rambuteau, half our car emptied out in a rush and he was there. The suit forced his way through the exiting passengers without politely waiting, getting him many angry looks. He didn’t notice. His intense green eyes were on me. A tourist with an enormous black backpack rammed him, yanking open his jacket. The black butt of a compact handgun was visible for a second as he rushed to the doors. The door buzzed to signal closing and he dove between two women. I spun around my pole and kicked him in the lower intestines. I was aiming for his junk, but it still worked.

  “Ahhh!” He stumbled backward and my red flat flew past his head. The doors closed and he was gone.

  “Mademoiselle,” exclaimed the cello man, inching away from me.

  “Ex-mari,” I said, making a face.

  He nodded sagely, like kicking one’s ex-husband was a reasonable idea. I’d never had one. Maybe it was.

  The train rolled through the next stop without incident and I began to relax. I was pretty good. Too bad Dad wasn’t there to see it. All those years of self-defense were finally paying off. But then again, he’d probably critique my performance. Points off for missing the junk and losing my shoe. Never mind. No witness was good. Aaron didn’t count. I nudged him. “Did you see that? I nailed him.”

  “Huh?”

  “What do you mean, ‘huh?’ I saved us.”

  “There’s a second one,” he said without blinking.