Left To Die

Adele paused, considering it, her mind racing. Robert often had a way of bringing out the best in her. He would phrase things in such a way that made sense, and would help spark her own deductive process. He watched her, a strange look on his face, not unlike the proud smile of a father toward his child. At last, though, Adele nodded, her teeth set. “I was closer than I thought. I almost caught him. That has to be it. I didn’t think I was making any headway back in the States. But he’s obsessed with time. A young man, at least young enough to have his normal hair color, who is obsessed with the passage of time. He would have loathed the idea of wasting time. It would have eaten at his core to have wasted the time it took to flee the US and come to France. He killed as soon as he could, and that means he had to have left the US because he needed to flee. Because he thought that was the only option.”

Robert was nodding now, his lips pursed, his serious face even more solemn with plucked eyebrows curved over his dark eyes.

“That’s the only explanation,” said Adele. “Barring some personal issue, which I doubt would make someone like this flee, the only thing that explains the interruption of this pattern, this trip to France, is that I was getting closer than I thought. Something I did, something I said, someone I talked to, had him spooked.”

“He was scared. Perhaps you need to give yourself more credit.”

Adele shrugged, tilting her head until she was staring up at the ceiling once more. “Thank you,” she said, softly, but her voice trailed off as her thoughts took over, carrying her into a series of considerations that flitted through her mind.

She tried to think back: when would she have spooked this killer? She thought of the interviews she had, the people she spoke to. She thought of the houses they had warrants for, searching. Dead ends, all of them. No one red-haired. No one mentioning anything about a red-haired killer.

Yet, somehow, the knowledge alone that she was getting close was enough to revitalize her, if only a little. She glanced back toward the door and Robert was gone.

He often did this, leaving without so much as a farewell. Robert was the sort who hated goodbyes. Adele, over the years, had grown numb to them. But perhaps she wouldn’t have to this time.

She glanced around the room and looked out toward the skies beyond. The rain was slowing somewhat, and the sound of tapping against the windows was starting to fade. The DGSI was quite like she remembered. There was more freedom in operations than back with the FBI; there was often harder sentiment toward agency overreach from the locals. But also, the agency had resources; they were a smaller nation, with less to keep track of, and so they had resources and time like she wasn’t always accustomed to.

She shook her head slowly, scratching absentmindedly at the back of her knuckles. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to come back here. France wasn’t far from being her home. She had spent most of her teen years and her time at university in this country.

Still, something else was niggling at her thoughts.

She lowered her feet off the desk and got up, frowning. She wanted to check the status of the APB, to see if any reports of been filed. Red-haired tourists couldn’t be that common. Especially those who had arrived sometime within the last month. But, if it was true she was getting close, and if it was true that this was a man obsessed with the passage of time, obsessed with age, and his victims, then he was also the sort of man who would try to make up for lost time. In the past, he had killed once every two weeks.

Now, though, Adele shook her head, clenching her teeth. Now—she could feel it—he wouldn’t wait so long this time. He would kill and kill soon.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Adele strolled along the boulevard that led to Marion’s tall apartment building. He had stalked her here. She had died within screaming distance. Adele glanced up at the safety lights—now off during the day—lining the sidewalk.

She sighed softly, her shoes patting with wet little slaps against the sodden concrete. The streets were still mostly empty as it was a workday, mid-afternoon. The rain also served to rapidly usher pedestrians and drivers quickly on their way. Adele preferred the solitude. She needed to think, to clear her mind. There had to be some clue she was missing. Something she’d read, or spotted, something that would just make sense if she could focus. Adele smiled as a couple of sparrows chattered at each other in the safety of a small decorative tree. The trees were stationed every ten feet or so and had been part of an effort by the French government to bring green back to Paris.

Adele stepped under the trees and winced as cold droplets of water fell from the leaves and tapped against her neck.