Left To Die

CHAPTER TWO

Stars winked down at Marion, coy twinkles of light witnessing the twenty-four-year-old woman’s progress from the small coffee shop out into the heart of the city’s night. The many odors of the Seine wafted on the air, confronting her with the scent of river musk and the residue of the bakeries which had closed until morning. The blare from the horns of impatient drivers replaced the usual sounds of bells which normally tolled across the city. She heard a low, buzzing noise. Listened for only a moment, then placed the sound as that of a tourist boat zipping by beneath the arching structure of the Pont d’Arcole.

Marion exhaled softly as she stepped from the coffee shop onto the sidewalk, taking it all in. This was her city. She’d lived here her whole life and had no intention of ever leaving. One could grow old and still not find all the adventures hidden within the historic place. She nodded in greeting at an elderly couple walking past, recognizing them from the intersection of their nighttime routines.

“Off into the night, I see?” said the old man in rasping, clipped French, speaking with the undertones of a fellow from the countryside. He winked as he passed and then winced as the accompanying madame tweaked his ear.

“As always, monsieur,” Marion called back, meeting his smile. “Out to meet some friends.”

She bid the couple farewell with a nod and a skip in her step. Then she strolled up the sidewalk, heading toward the river and turning on the corner. She often walked alone late at night—it had never bothered her. This part of the city was well lit, after all, wreathed in security lights and traffic beams which reflected off the glass of the many windows spotting the apartments and shops.

She moved along the sidewalk, turning down another street in the direction of the club where her friends would be waiting. She hotfooted along the illuminated walkways as she checked her phone, spotting an unopened message.

Before she could read the text, however, Marion heard a noise behind her, which distracted her from her phone for the moment. She glanced down the illuminated street, scanning the stone steps and stairwells of the many looming buildings. A stone’s throw away, a man limped along, holding a small bundle in one arm. A moment passed. Then the bundle emitted a crying sound, and the man ducked his head in embarrassment, making shushing noises and trying to calm the infant.

Marion smiled at the man and his baby, then returned her attention to her phone. She tapped the screen to read the message. But before she could…

“Hello, little woman, is all things good and well?”

She turned, startled by the broken French as much as the sudden proximity of the man and his child. He was now walking alongside her, making cooing noises toward the bundle in his arms every couple of steps. She frowned at him for a moment, gathering her nerve. Then she stowed her phone. The text would have to wait. She never wanted it said that Paris was as inhospitable as some of those in the tourist districts wished it were.

The man wore his smile like makeup and his eyes twinkled genially, reminding her of the sparse stars above which had managed to push their way through the city lights.

“All things are well,” she said, nodding. “How is your evening?”

The man shrugged, causing the wool cap on his head to shift a little. He reached up and tugged it off with his free hand, stowing it on top of the bundle in his arm.

This struck her as rather odd, and she said as much. It was as her mother always said: the women of Paris ought never fear their opinions.

“You will smother the child,” she said, pointing toward the hat.

The man nodded as if he agreed, but made no move to adjust the garment. He seemed, almost, to be waiting for something. He scratched at his red hair, which tumbled past his face in loose, sweaty strands.

After a moment, he caught her eye. “The child likes shade,” he said. His French still came on with a thick accent. “Say, do you know the course to—to—how do you say it—the water structure? No—hmm, the bridge!”

Marion shook her head in momentary confusion, but then smiled back at the man, meeting his pleasant expression with one of her own. “There are a few bridges. The nearest one is along this street, across the walk and down the stairs near the wharf.”

The man winced in confusion, shaking his head and tapping his ear. “What is this?”

She repeated the instructions, carefully. Obviously, this man was a lost tourist, though she couldn’t quite place his accent.

Again, the man winced, holding up his free hand apologetically and shaking his head once more.

Marion sighed. She glanced over her shoulder, back up the street in the direction of the club. Her friends would be waiting. Then she returned her attention to the man and his child, her eyes darting to his pleading expression, and she felt a surge of pity.

“I will show you, all right? It isn’t far. Follow me, sir.” She turned, heading back the way she had come. She suppressed all the bitter thoughts about tourists that half the city circulated in casual conversation. She quite liked tourists, even if they were a bit dense.

The man seemed to understand her well enough this time and fell into step, cradling his child with the cap on top.

“You is a demon,” said the man, his tone filled with gratitude.

Marion frowned at this.

The man hesitated, then urgently amended, “No—I mean angel. So sorry. Not demon—you is angel!”

Marion laughed, shaking her head. With a wink of her own, she said, “Perhaps I am a bit demon, too, hmm?”

This time it was the man’s turn to laugh. The baby cried again beneath the hat and the man turned, whispering sweetly to his child.

They crossed the street and Marion led the man down the stairs by the wharf. Already, the bridge was in sight, but the man seemed so distracted with his child that Marion felt bad about abandoning him without taking him direct.

As they descended the stairs, dipping beneath a dank, stone overpass, the area became less illuminated. There were far fewer people around now.

“We are here,” said the man, his French markedly improved all of a sudden.

Marion glanced at him, then noticed something odd. The man noticed her gaze and then gave an apologetic shrug. He dropped the blanket. A small, toy baby—the type that would cry with their bellies pushed—was strapped to the man’s forearm. The baby’s plastic eyes peered out at Marion.

The man winked. “I told you he likes the shade.”

Marion wrinkled her brow in pleasant confusion.

A moment too late, she saw the surgeon’s scalpel in the man’s left hand. Then he shoved her, hard, the plastic doll crying quietly in the night.

CHAPTER THREE

Adele stood before the stone steps of the school, eyeing the crowd of children with the greatest of suspicion. She shook her head once, then glanced up at her mother. Her gaze didn’t have to travel far; already, Adele was taller than most of her classmates. She had hit a growth spurt when she still lived in Germany, with the Sergeant, and it hadn’t seemed to stop until this year.

Now fifteen, Adele found the boys in Paris paid more attention to her than the ones in Germany had. Still, as she stood studying the flow of students into the bilingual secondary school, she couldn’t help but feel a jolt of anxiety.

“What is it, my Cara?” her mother asked, smiling sweetly at her daughter.

Adele wrinkled her nose at the nickname, wiping her hands over the front of her school sweater and twisting the buttons on the cotton sleeves. Her mother had grown up in France, and had particular fondness for the Carambar caramels which were still popular in candy shops and gas stations. She often said the jokes written on the outside of the caramel’s wrappers were a lot like Adele: clever on the outside with a soft and sweet middle. The description made Adele gag.

Adele Sharp had her mother’s hair and good looks, but she often thought she had her father’s eyes and outlook.

“They are so noisy,” Adele replied in French, the words slow and clumsy on her tongue. The first twelve years of her life had been spent in Germany; re-acclimating to French was taking some time.

“They are children, my Cara. They are supposed to be noisy; you should try it.”

Adele frowned, shaking her head. The Sergeant had never approved of noisy children. Noise provided only distraction. It was the tool of fools and sluggish thinkers.

“It is the best school in Paris,” said her mother, reaching out a cool hand to cup her daughter’s cheek. “Give it a try, hmm?”

“Why can’t I homeschool like last year?”

“Because it is not good for you to stay trapped in that apartment with me—no, no.” Her mother clicked her tongue, making a tsking sound. “This is not good for you. You enjoyed swimming at your old school, didn’t you? Well, there is an excellent team here. I spoke with my friend Anna, and she says her daughter made tryouts the first year.”

Adele shrugged with a shoulder, smiling with one side of her mouth. She sighed and then dipped her head, trying not to stand out over the other children so much.

Her mother gave her a kiss on the cheek, which Adele returned halfheartedly. She turned to leave, hefting her school bag over one shoulder. As she trudged toward the school, the sound of the bell and milling children faded. The secondary school flashed and the walls turned gray.

Adele shook her head, confused. She turned back toward the curb. “Mother?” she said, her voice shaky. She was now in the park at night.

“Cara,” voices whispered around her from the looming, dark trees.

She stared. Twenty-two years old. It had all ended at twenty-two.

Her mother lay on the side of the bike trail, in the grass, bleeding, bleeding, bleeding…

Always bleeding.

Her dead eyes peered up at her daughter. Adele was no longer twenty-two. Now she was twenty-three, joining the DGSI, working her first case—the death of her mother. Then she was twenty-six, working for the FBI. Then thirty-two.

Tick-tock. Bleeding.

Elise Romei was missing three fingers on each hand; her eyes had been pierced. Cuts laced up and down her cheeks in curious, beautiful patterns as if gouged into felt, glistening red.

Tick-tock. Adele screamed as the blood pooled around her mother, filling the bike trail, flooding the grass and the dirt, threatening to consume her, to overwhelm her…

Adele jerked awake, gasping, her teeth clenched around the edge of her blanket, biting hard to stop the scream bubbling in her throat.

She sat there in her bed, in her and Angus’s small apartment, staring across the darkened room, breathing rapidly. It was all right; it was over. She was fine.

She reached out, groping for the comforting warmth of Angus, but her fingertips brushed only cool sheets. Then she remembered the previous night.

Adele clenched her teeth, closing her eyes for a moment. The air felt chilly all of a sudden. She reached up and brushed back her hair. Every bone in her wanted to lie back down, to return to the warmth and safety of her covers. Sleep frightened her sometimes, but her bed was always a welcome shelter.

She forced her eyes open, clenching one fist and bunching it around her pajamas beneath the covers.

Safety and warmth bred weakness. The Sergeant had often said, when she was growing up, that the difference between sluggards and winners was their first decision in the morning. Those who put their heads back to the pillow would never amount to much in life.

And while she was no longer a six-year-old little girl, Adele still swung her legs over the side of the bed, kicking off her covers. slapping her feet against the vinyl floor. With practiced and deft motions she made her bed, arranging her sheets and tucking the corners of the blankets beneath the mattress.

She moved across the room toward where the turtle sat in her glass display case. She and Angus had argued about the gender of the creature—they still weren’t sure. Angus thought of him as a boy, yet to Adele, the turtle was clearly a girl. The thought of Angus sent a jolt of discomfort through her, and she swallowed, pushing back the surge of emotion.

Using the provided spoon, she measured the turtle’s food into its aquarium, watching the creature meander slowly around the habitat of small stones and faux leaves. Gregory had woken up before her—how embarrassing.

She glanced at the red numbers on the digital clock by her bedside. 4:25 a.m. Perfect. She’d woken before the alarm had gone off. The start to any good routine required an attuned body.

Adele quickly dressed into her jogging clothes and left her apartment. There was no sense in waking early unless she put her time to good use, so 4:30 to 6:00 every morning was the slot for her morning run. Some people listened to music while they exercised, but Adele found that it distracted her. Effort and discomfort required attention.

When she returned from her jog, Adele went directly to the cupboard over the stove, dragging out a box of Chocapic. She wiped sweat from her forehead and focused on her breathing as she poured herself a bowl of the chocolate cereal. She ordered it from France—a small luxury, but a childhood favorite. They didn’t make cereal the same way in the US.

Adele grabbed her cereal and a spoon, then hurried to the shower. Small habits compounded through time. Minutes wasted in the morning led to minutes wasted in the day. Angus had often teased her about eating cereal in the shower, especially that time when she’d accidentally swallowed soap, but it was another habit of hers she refused to give up. The secret to success lay in routine.

It was as she stepped out of the shower, toweling her hair with one hand and carrying an empty bowl in the other, that Adele heard her phone chirp from the other room.

She glanced at the digital clock beneath the steamed mirror, frowning. She kept a clock in every room. 6:12 a.m.

Strange. Who would be calling her this early?

Adele quickly dried off and got dressed, pulling her shirt on as she hurried out the bathroom door and stumbled into the kitchen.

“Hello?” she said, lifting the phone to her ear.

“Agent Sharp?” said the voice on the other end.

“Yes?”

“It’s Sam. We need you to come in.”

Adele frowned, lowering her faded, plastic Mickey Mouse bowl into the sink. “As in now?”

“As in an hour ago. You better hurry.”

“You sure? I was told I had three days.”

There was a sigh on the other end and the sound of voices in the background.

“Vacation is going to have to wait, Sharp.”

“Can I ask why?”

“The Benjamin Killer dropped another body last night. How soon can you—”

“I’m on my way.”

Adele didn’t even clean her bowl—normally a sacrilege in her house—before rushing to don her work clothes, shoes, and jacket and racing out the door.

Twenty-six. Twenty-five. Twenty-four.

CHAPTER FOUR

Speed limits often felt like suggestions when new leads developed in a case. Still, Adele did her best not to rankle San Francisco’s finest—especially not this early in the day. The closer she got to the heart of the city, the more the traffic slowed.

She tapped her fingers against the wheel in frustration, berating the drivers around her silently in her head. As she glared out of the tinted window of her Ford sedan, Adele couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps Angus was right. Maybe she was married to the job.

A three-day vacation—that’s what they’d promised her. Yet, here she was, rushing into work the moment they snapped their fingers and whistled. Just like a good little girl.

Adele clenched her teeth, pushing the thought from her mind. It wouldn’t do to dwell on such things. Especially not with what was at stake.

Who had he killed? Would they be able to find new evidence?

“I’m coming for you, you bastard,” she murmured. “I’ll get you this time.” Adele had spent years trying to shed the accent developed over a life lived overseas. But when she got upset or angry, traces of her heritage would peek through, making themselves known in the lilt of her words. “Damn it,” she muttered, slowing her speech, flattening the vowels. “Damn it,” she repeated, more precise, more careful. No emotion. No accent. “Damn it,” a final time. Hours like this, in front of a mirror, had all but chased the reminders of her past from her speech.

She nodded in satisfaction, then glanced over and realized the woman in the lane next to her had her window down and was staring at Adele, her plucked eyebrows high on her fat-injected forehead.

Sheepishly, Adele rolled up her own window. She flashed a smile and a wave, then stared resolutely ahead for the rest of the slow, snail’s pace of a drive. She made one more stop just before reaching the office—pulling through a Starbucks drive-through and grabbing a large black, no sugar.

She reached the private lot for the San Francisco field office a half hour later. The two layers of security hadn’t caused trouble once she flashed her ID. She adjusted her jacket and doubled-checked the buttons as she hurried into the east branch through the elevator from the car park.

Another row of metal detectors and men in suits with bored expressions, who smelled like stale coffee and cigarettes, eventually gave way to a long, beige hallway.

“Agent Sharp,” said one of the older men, tipping an imaginary cap in her direction from where he squatted on a three-legged stool between the metal detectors.

“Hey, Doug,” she greeted him with a wave. She smiled at the man, admiring the neat press of his collar and the shine of his shoes. “Looking sharp as always.”

He chuckled, a low, rasping sound. Doug had been a field worker about twenty years ago, but had taken some shrapnel on his last assignment which had confined him to the office. His inability to make rank, however, had nothing to do with shrapnel and everything to do with a complete disdain for office politics. Some in the office thought the elevators needed a “Beware of Doug!” sign. He rarely played nice with others, yet had taken a fondness to Adele that had nothing to do with her gender or her looks. She extended the black, sugarless coffee on top of the X-ray machine, leaving the steaming liquid next to the security officer’s scarred hand—two fingers were missing, also courtesy of the car bomb that had claimed his career.

“Just how I like it?”

“Thick and bitter with a little bit of caffeine,” Adele said, stepping through the security checkpoint and retrieving her briefcase on the other side.

“Just like you, Doug,” said one of the other men with a snorting laugh.

“Shut your mouth, slick,” retorted the guard. His expression soured, but he turned so the other man couldn’t see and winked at Adele, a twinkle in his gaze.

She rolled her eyes. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m enabling you. Caffeine is a killer—mark my words. Give it fifteen years and the FDA is bound to—”

“Yada, yada,” Doug said, and then he tipped the coffee, downing half the cup in two gulps. “Feel free to enable me all you want. Anyway, don’t let us old fogeys keep you, sport. You got the shimmer.”

She turned to leave with a farewell wave, but then paused, heel half raised. “The shimmer?”

“In the eyes. Something’s brewing, right? No—don’t tell me. Might bump my head.”

“Not enough clearance. I get you. But you’re right. Something is up. I’ll see you fellas around—Doug, Steve.” She nodded to both men in turn and then hastened up the beige hallway, her shoes tapping against the marble floor and squeaking every few steps.

She took a turn past an old-fashioned water cooler and some potted plants, then hurried along a row of tight cubicles. The familiar sound of polite murmuring as folks went about their business, answering calls, printing, faxing, clicking away at their keyboards—all of it filled her with a nauseating sense of dread. There were those in the Bureau who wanted her behind a desk. The thought alone terrified her more than any bullet or case.

She reached an opaque glass door set behind a large, rectangular pillar, which nearly completely obscured the door from view. She swallowed, her hand reaching for the handle. For a moment, she paused, listening, gathering her thoughts. Who was this latest victim? Why had he taken a month-long break from his killing? She’d done good work, but he’d slipped through her fingers before. The bosses had to realize that, right?

From the room, she could hear a quiet murmur of voices—one of them soft, even-toned, the other fuzzy and diluted through the glass.

She turned the handle, tapped a courtesy knock with the hand carrying her briefcase, and then pushed into the room.

Three figures waited for her. One sat by the window, a balding man with a long nose, down which he peered into the street below. Another man, taller than average with a strong jaw and a pen behind one ear, sat by a desk, eyeing a large fifty-two-inch TV screen over a conference table.

The other woman in the room was also sitting, but on the edge of the table, her suit pants stained just over the pocket. All three of them, including the face on the TV, reacted to Adele’s entrance.

“Sharp,” said the tall man with a nod. “Glad you could make it.”

“Sam,” she said, returning the gesture of greeting. “What did I miss? And who’s the pixels?”

“Sharp,” said the woman seated at the table, turning slightly so she faced the door. Lee Grant was one of Adele’s few friends in the department, and though she kept her tone professional, there was a weight of concern behind her glance. “How was your flight?”

Adele shrugged. “Long, boring. Sleazy lawyer in business.”

Grant rolled her eyes. “The usual then?”

Adele chuckled softly. “About the sum of it.”

“Well,” said Agent Lee, “we were waiting for you to get started. The pixels, as you put it, belong to DGSI exec Thierry Foucault. I believe you two have a history.”

Adele’s eyebrows invaded the personal space of her hairline, and she circled the table, setting her briefcase down and turning for a better look at the screen. A hawk-faced man with thick eyebrows and even thicker cheekbones glared out from the screen, his eyes flicking around the room. “I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure,” she said, slowly, racking her brain for any memory of the man’s face.

“The young lady—this is Sharp?” said the face on the screen, still giving the appearance of scowling, though Adele was starting to suspect this had more to do with the arrangement of his features than of his current mood.

Adele tilted her head in a nod.

“I was still at the embassy when you worked for DGSI.” The speakers crackled for a moment, and Adele leaned in, straining to hear. The sound cleared a moment later as Foucault continued. “Four years? Five? A pity you left. France can always use talent like yours.”

Adele had no doubt her file sat in front of the executive, but she kept her smile polite. “It was four. I learned a lot in my position in Paris. I doubt the FBI would have recruited me without the experience.”

“This is the way of it, no?” said Foucault, smirking through the screen. “France creates the things most valued by America, hmm. It is no matter… I—I did wonder,” he said, slowly, his eyes flicking down for a moment, confirming Adele’s suspicion about the file. “Why was it you left, eh? Not the weather, I hope.”

Lee glanced toward Adele, then quickly interjected, “Perhaps now isn’t the best time to discuss it,” she said. “We ought to focus on the task at hand.”

But the man on the screen was already wagging his finger. “No, no. It is important DGSI knows who it is we work with. France is no jilted lover—it is important we know who we take back, hmm?”

Adele tried to conceal her frown. What did he mean take back? Agent Lee tried to interject again, but Adele cut her boss off.

“It’s really quite simple,” said Adele, hiding her frown behind pressed lips and an impassive stare. “I tracked a killer in France, and he didn’t turn out to be who I thought he was. I felt like it was time for a change.” Bleeding. Bleeding. Always bleeding. Adele shivered as her dream flashed through her mind, but she stowed the thought with a swallow and a proud tilt of her chin. She shrugged toward the screen, feeling her suit jacket slide across her shoulders.

Of course, she wasn’t mentioning the months of PTSD after tracking the killer and discovering he wasn’t the culprit behind her mother’s torturous murder. Nor did she feel it appropriate to mention the American forensic psychologist whom she’d traveled to the States with, hoping to set down roots. Chances were, Foucault had all of it in his little file, but as far as she was concerned, it was nobody’s business but hers.