by Blake Pierce
She cleared her throat, trying not to glance toward Agent Paige. The woman didn’t intimidate her, but she did make it uncomfortable. “My name is Adele Sharp. I’m working with the DGSI on Marion’s case. I’m very sorry for your loss.”
“You are DGSI?” said the blond, square-jawed fellow. “Was this a terrorist?”
The other man in the group, a dark-skinned young man with high cheekbones, shook his head. “I knew it was terrorists. Didn’t I say; I told you, no one would want to hurt her. She was too kind. It had to have been some sort of—”
“Quiet, Antoni,” snapped the dark-haired girl who was clutching her hands as if she were praying. “She didn’t say it was a terrorist. Why do you always think—”
“—it was, though, wasn’t it?” said Antoni, glancing up toward Adele. “It’s okay. You can tell us.”
Adele sighed and placed one hand on the cold metal table, leaning in toward the four friends who were now all watching her.
Instead of answering them, though, Adele resigned herself to the unpleasant task at hand, and glanced over the friends’ heads. “Sophie,” Adele said, nodding to her old supervisor with a curt jerk of her head.
At the reluctant greeting, Agent Paige’s expression only further soured. “We’ve been waiting for nearly half an hour,” she said, frowning. Agent Paige spoke in a quick, clipped way, the sort of voice oft-burdened by impatience.
The unmet greeting hung in the air between them, stretching the atmosphere and breeding an uncomfortable tension which descended on the group in the daytime bar.
Adele kept her back stiff, her shoulders squared, as she nodded a greeting to Sophie’s round, balding partner, which he returned with an equally stiff, uncomfortable motion.
She could feel John behind her, watching, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of a glance back.
“Apologies for the delay,” said Adele. “We came as quickly as we were called.”
“I’m sure you did,” said Agent Paige. She pushed off from the wall and Adele noticed a slight limp to her step as she maneuvered closer to the table. “Jet lag takes its toll on even the best of us, I imagine.”
Adele shook her head, moving past the comment without unpacking it. “I’m sorry for making you wait.” This she addressed the four friends. “As for the case particulars, I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to discuss much, but any information you provide could prove helpful.”
The one named Antoni met her gaze and shook his head. Serious eyes peered from a solemn face. “No one would want to hurt Marion,” he said. “We’ve been telling them; we don’t know who did this.”
Adele glanced back up to Agent Paige. “You’ve already interviewed them?”
Behind her, John growled. “Our case, our lead. You should’ve waited.”
Paige shook her head. She adjusted her stance, wincing as she did, limping slightly. Her partner reached out quickly, trying to steady her, but she shook him off with a scowl and snapped, “We didn’t interview them. We prepped them for questioning. This isn’t America anymore,” she said, addressing John’s question, but staring at Adele. “Things aren’t done the same way. Here, we don’t allow bureaucracy to prevent us from doing our jobs.”
Adele nodded, tugging at her sleeves. “I remember. It’s fine.” She glanced back toward the four friends. “I’m sorry if you’ll repeat yourselves, but for Marion’s sake, I want to make sure we go over everything.”
“Christ,” John muttered behind her, “this is a waste of time. They said they didn’t know anything.”
Adele inhaled deeply, steadying herself. She felt assailed on all sides. John, her would-be partner, seemed disinterested in the case, and she hadn’t even realized Agent Paige would be there. Adele chewed the corner of her lip, her hands still pressed against the cool surface of the aluminum table. For a vague moment, she wondered about the story behind Sophie’s demotion from supervisor back to agent. She sincerely hoped it didn’t have anything to do with what had transpired between them six years ago. But she wouldn’t bet on it.
Still, Adele wasn’t the sort to allow her emotions to control. She suppressed the wriggling mass of roiling guilt, worry, and anxiety, pushing it from her chest into her stomach with a quick swallow and a slow, elongated breath. She inhaled softly, keeping her eyes open, attentive, refusing to betray her nerves. She stepped around the side of the table, circling behind the girl with the dark hair. Next to her, the handsome, dark-skinned man with the high cheekbones studied Adele’s movements. The fourth person at the table, who looked like the youngest of the group, an impossibly pretty girl, was still staring at her hands. Every so often, the young woman would glance out the window, looking through the small gap in the thick crimson curtains behind Agent Paige.
“Excuse me, miss,” said Adele, “do you mind telling me your name?”
The pretty girl rubbed her fingers along the back of her arms in turns, and shot a furtive glance toward Antoni, almost as if seeking permission. He gave the barest of nods, and then the girl said, “I’m Sarah. And it’s like they said; no one would’ve hurt Marion. She was far too nice. Ask Tomas—he knew her best.”
She inclined her head toward the blond boy, then returned to rubbing at her arms, a sadness in her eyes that went deeper than Adele had first thought.
Adele kept her tone gentle. “Can you tell me if she came here the night she went missing?”
“You mean the night she was killed?” said Tomas. “They’re not telling us what happened exactly. Did she suffer?”
Adele looked at the blond boy and gave the faintest shake of her head. “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to release those details just yet.”
Agent Paige cleared her throat, gaining the attention of the group. “Actually, I think we’re cleared to discuss the case.” Once more, she was leaning against the crimson curtains, still crossing her arms over her chest, and still, clearly, favoring her left leg.
Adele gritted her teeth, but refused to meet Paige’s gaze. “Perhaps it would be best to avoid discussing the details just now.”
Inwardly, she seethed. It was one thing to hold a personal grudge, but it was another to bring it to a case. Adele had known she was permitted to discuss what had happened to Marion. But how would that help the girl’s friends? Adele needed them open, willing to talk. Fear and horror did not compel people to answer personal questions. Then again, perhaps John was right. This did seem to be a giant waste of time. Marion was killed by a stranger. That much, she would’ve bet money on. But still, any detail, any clue…
“She didn’t come here,” said the young man with the high cheekbones. “She was on her way. I texted her, asking her where she was.” He trailed off, gnawing on his lower lip. The next words came slow, quiet, a serpentine quality in the way they slithered across the aluminum table and reached Adele’s ears. “But she never arrived. We didn’t know what happened, well, until later.”
Adele nodded sympathetically. She rounded the table again, and this time placed herself between Paige and the four friends, blocking the other agent from view in as subtle a posture as possible. The glower on her former supervisor’s face was putting the young women and men on guard. Adele needed Marion’s friends to think, to focus. Bad blood and unaired tension wouldn’t help.
Adele tapped her fingers against the table. “Did she give any sign of having a stalker? Someone who might have caused her trouble?”
All four of the friends shook their heads. The pretty girl, Sarah, hesitated, then said, “Nothing unusual. There are always people hitting on her at bars. She quite liked the attention, though.”
“But nothing out of the ordinary? No one following her home or anything like that?”
Again, all four friends shook their heads.
“American Princess,” said John, his words causing her to glance back, “we are wasting our time. They don’t know anything. How could they?”
Adele examined her tall partner and held up a finger. “One more question,” s
he said. She turned back toward the friends. “Did she tell you anything about someone with red hair?”
At this, everyone, including John, examined her with puzzled expressions.
Tomas broke the silence first. “Is that who killed her? Someone with red hair?”
“I’m not saying that,” said Adele. I’m not not saying that either, she thought. “I just need to ask. Well?”
She waited, hope spinning through her, causing her heart to pound. But, before she could receive an answer, Agent Paige cleared her throat and stepped forward.
“Can I get anything for anyone to drink?” she asked in an innocent tone. She sidestepped in front of Adele, cutting off her view from the table.
The four friends shook their heads quickly, and Agent Paige shouldered past Adele, moving toward the bar, the limp in her gait more apparent than ever.
A surge of guilt at Paige’s limp gave way to frustration at the interference. “We’re on the job,” Adele snapped.
“Welcome to Paris,” retorted Paige, without looking back.
Tomas, a clever look in his eyes, glanced between the two women, and a slight frown creased his expression.
“Well,” said Adele, muffling her emotions once more. She glanced back at the young friends. “Do you know anyone with red hair?”
“There’s Stephan,” said Sarah, who didn’t seem to have noticed the tension between the two agents. “He’s a few years younger than us, but was in school with us.”
“No; Stephan’s family moved,” said the girl with dark hair. “Besides, he’s not interested in women.”
Adele shook her head. “I think it would be someone older. Perhaps someone my age, or maybe even older than me. Like Agent Renee.”
John cleared his throat in indignation, but didn’t say anything, waiting for the kids to reply. Again, they all shook their heads.
“We don’t know anyone like that.” This came from Tomas, after glancing around at his friends and noting the blank expressions on their faces. “But… Marion was friendly to everyone. Even tourists.”
A couple of eye rolls from around the table met the word “tourists.”
Adele paused at this, feeling a jolt of sympathy for the murdered girl. Though she’d never met Marion, it mattered that she was friendly to foreigners—especially in a city that had an opposite reputation at times. Adele had spent most of her life moving from place to place, required to prove herself again and again to the locals. It had been a rare thing to have someone greet her with a kind word and a smile.
But had that friendliness killed Marion? The killer had fled the US. Perhaps he’d used his status as a tourist to lure Marion into a false sense of security. But if so, how had the man known the girl’s age? Had he stalked her?
Adele’s thoughts were interrupted by Tomas. “May we go now?” he said in a weary voice.
The other man with the high cheekbones held up a halting hand. “Hang on,” he said. “What happened exactly? If it is true you can tell us what happened, Agent Sharp, then why aren’t you?”
“It’s obvious,” said Sarah, full lips forming a thin line as she pressed them tight. “Something terrible happened.”
Tomas frowned. “Marion is dead. That’s terrible enough.” He ignored his friends and pressed on, determined. “Did she suffer?” Tomas demanded, glaring at Adele.
Adele resisted the urge to turn toward where Agent Paige was at the bar; she knew her old supervisor was intentionally going out of her way to make this difficult. Now Adele was in an impossible position. If Marion’s friends actually knew what had happened, it would haunt them. But Adele refused to lie. “It was bad. But she’s not suffering anymore. And I promise you, I promise,” she glanced to each of them in turn, locking eyes, “I’ll find who did this. And I’ll make them pay.”
The four friends slumped even lower in their seats. Then, with a great sigh of resignation, Tomas pushed himself up, stepping backward over his stool and retrieving a coat set on the table behind him. He gestured with a small jerk of his head at the others, and they quickly followed his retreat.
It would take Adele a little bit of time to re-acclimate to the way things were done at the DGSI. There were no checkouts for the interview room, no clerk to escort the interviewees out of the station. They were in a bar in the afternoon in Paris. The French agency often afforded more freedom and less red tape. But, as she glanced toward where Sophie Paige hung her head at the bar, holding a drink which she wasn’t sipping, it also allowed the worst sorts too much leeway sometimes.
“Farewell,” Paige called without looking back. Her words seem to propel the four friends even quicker out the door, and Adele could hear the scattered sound of their rapid footsteps as they hastened along the sidewalk outside, and then the sound faded with the dull thump of the shutting door.
Adele glared at the Paige’s back, frowning. Her hands tingled, her fingers tapping incessantly at her upper thigh.
John stepped forward, his elbow brushing against her shoulder. “Do we go now?” he asked, his voice low. “What is this about red hair?”
Adele ignored him, and she hurried forward, shoving past Paige’s partner and surging toward the seated woman at the bar.
“Sophie,” the round, balding man barked in warning.
Adele stormed forward, and Sophie Paige turned slowly, glancing over her shoulder and swiveling in her stool.
Adele found her fists were bunched at her sides, and she quickly unclenched them. It wouldn’t do to get into a fight in a bar the first day on the job.
“Can I ask what you think you’re doing?” Adele snapped.
Agent Paige gave a half smile, presenting the sort of leer that belonged on the mouth of a shark. “You may ask whatever you want. Hells, do what you want. You always have.” Page spoke in French, rapidly, as if she were trying to shake Adele off the scent of a trail.
But Adele’s French was coming back to her, and she replied just as quickly, “Do we need to talk?”
Paige glared. “The time for talking was six years ago, don’t you think? Before you knifed me in the back!”
“I didn’t—”
“Go deal with your case and get out of my face.”
“I never intended for you to get in trouble,” said Adele. “I didn’t know you had been demoted.”
Agent Paige’s left hand tightened around the filled glass, and she spun around sharply, tossing the contents at Adele.
John and Paige’s partner rushed forward, but Adele stood her ground, allowing the alcohol to seep down her face and stain her clothing. It dripped from her chin against the faux floorboards with rhythmic taps.
She could feel all eyes on her, including a couple of the daytime customers and the barkeep behind the counter. She inhaled shakily through her nostrils, smelling the whiskey on her chest.
“You’re a mess,” said Agent Paige. “Clean yourself up.” She grabbed a dirty towel from behind the counter and flung it at Adele. Then, without paying, she shoved off the stool and strode away from the bar, toward the door. Her partner quickly fell into step.
Adele found that her left hand was bunched up against her pants, holding her trousers tight.
“I didn’t realize it was that bad,” said John, his shadow falling over her, cast by the glowing lights in the square fixtures above.
Adele shook her head, causing sticky liquid to slip along her face and continue to drip down her chin. “I knew she was going to be trouble.”
“You weren’t lovers, were you?”
Adele glanced up at John and shook her head, noting his coy smile and the slight wiggle of his eyebrows. “Get your mind out of the gutter.”
“That would’ve been incredible,” John said, smiling fondly, looking off into the distance. Then he glanced back at Adele and sighed softly. “Come, you should clean yourself up. There are bathrooms in the back; I saw a sign.”
He pressed gently on her shoulder, guiding her toward the back of the bar, but Adele shrugged off the helpi
ng hand and stomped away, her legs stiff, her arms straight at her sides.
She couldn’t let past grudges affect this case. Sophie Paige still worked for the DGSI. That couldn’t be helped, but that didn’t mean Adele would let the older woman and their shared history ruin the investigation.
Adele stormed into the bar’s bathroom and stared at herself over the mirror, her eyebrows flicking down in a furrow at the sight of her drenched collar and jacket.
She wiped the alcohol from her face, trying to rid herself of the odor of whiskey. She used foam soap on her chin, scraping the smell away.
As she did, she mulled over the next step. She still had a new clue. The killer had red hair. And he had recently come from the US. How many redheaded tourists could have arrived in the last week? Not many. She would’ve bet it wasn’t many at all.
They would have to place an APB. Perhaps get in touch with the airports. The DGSI had access to more files than much of the FBI. Interpol often shared their own intel. If the Patriot Act in the US was an agency, it would look eerily similar to the DGSI.
The amount of freedom it afforded could create the worst sorts of law enforcement out of people like Agent Paige. Though, perhaps that was just Adele’s bias showing.
She twisted the metal knob to the faucet and rinsed off her hands. Adele glanced back up into the mirror, meeting her own gaze. Clearly, the killer was smart. There was no rhyme or reason behind the victims he chose. Their nationalities were different, their genders were sometimes different; only their ages seemed to matter. What did it mean? Why was he so obsessed? Adele had gotten close. Back in Indiana, she was nearly certain she had gotten close… But how close? They’d had no concrete suspects. He’d escaped that time. Now, though, she wouldn’t let him escape again.
She flung droplets of water from her hands back into the sink, shaking her fingers, then turned sharply and stormed back out of the bathroom, drying her hands off on her already stained shirt. No time for those dinky little air dryers.
The red-haired bastard couldn’t be far. If she had to bet on it, she would guess he was still in the city.
