Left To Die

She reached forward and grabbed him by the arm, preparing to bodily drag Agent Renee from the hood. He tensed the moment she touched him, his eyes narrowing, his other hand dropping instinctively toward her chest with rapid speed.

He didn’t hit her, but it was a close thing, as if he’d been trained to react violently to physical contact.

“Don’t touch me,” he growled.

“Get off my car.”

He slammed a hand against the side of the metal, far too hard. “This car?”

“Jesus, John, maybe we better just go back and ask if they’ll set us up with different part—”

Before Adele could finish, she heard the quiet chirping sound of her phone, the ring tone drifting through the tinted windows.

A split second later, a louder ringing sound of some French rock song began playing from John’s suit pocket. He glanced at her, frowning, still tensed, the muscles in his neck straining like someone on the verge of action. But as the song played, he fished the phone from his pocket and began to relax. He pressed the speaker to his ear, still frowning at Adele, and snapped, “What?”

Adele waited, also frowning.

John continued to glare, but then something else crept into his expression. “You sure?” he demanded.

Adele couldn’t hear the reply on the other end, but she did hear indistinct sounds. In the distance, car horns blared. The rain had stopped, but a quiet dripping sound resonated as water fell from gutters and leaves and moved in slow spurts toward the sewer grates.

Adele leaned in closer to John, listening. He smelled like expensive cologne and gunpowder. It was a scent she recognized from her father. The gunpowder anyway. Her father never spent a dime on cologne. He would’ve thought it wasteful. But he spent enough time at the gun range that he always came home smelling just a little bit like smoke and metal. Adele’s least favorite part of the job was target practice—perhaps due to her father’s opposite influence.

“What is it?” Adele could feel goose pimples rising across the back of her arms.

John slid off the hood of the car and began hurrying over to a large black SUV parked behind her.

“A hit on the APB,” he said quickly. All signs of his bored, annoying personality had vanished, replaced by an excited air that propelled him quickly toward the side door of his car. “Red-haired tourist, the Hyatt Hotel downtown.”

Adele stared, stunned. “Is he there now?”

“Right now. He has a girl with him.”

Adele cursed and fumbled for her keys, racing around the hood of the car toward the driver’s seat. “I’ll follow you!” she shouted over her shoulder.

John was too busy gunning his own engine and turning away from the curb, ripping up the street. A second later a siren blared from the SUV, coupled with flashing red and blue lights.

Adele settled, didn’t bother to buckle, and tore after him, roaring through the French streets. She would get the bastard this time. This time, he wouldn’t escape.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The cold metal of her firearm pressed against her cheek. She kept it close, angled upward, out of the line of sight from the eyehole in the large metal door that led to the hotel suite. Red numbers: 57. A single eyehole, trimmed with bronze.

Behind her, she could feel the presence of the concierge who’d given them the key card and escorted them quickly to the room.

John flanked the other side of the door from where Adele pressed against the wall. She could feel the metal frame of some bland hotel art jutting against her shoulder. She breathed slowly, calming herself, waiting. She had never been particularly good with a firearm. It was the one area that she needed more practice in. John, though, seemed in his element. He was crouched low, his extraordinarily tall form somehow compact all of a sudden. The gun he held with as much skin gripping the metal as possible, putting Adele’s own teacup grip to shame; the Glock .22 seemed an extension of his hands.

A wildfire glinted in John’s eyes, and he nodded toward the door and mouthed the words, “Ready?”

She glanced back down the hall, toward the stairs. They hadn’t wanted to take the elevator. Grunting and low muttering resounded through the thick door to suite fifty-seven.

As they’d entered the lobby earlier, it had sounded like backup was at least three minutes away. Three minutes was a long time. A lot of pain.

The concierge had confirmed a girl was with the red-haired man. A victim.

For a moment, Adele hesitated. This didn’t seem like the killer’s MO. He didn’t take his prey back to some lair. He preferred to kill them in quiet, secluded places. Places that couldn’t be traced back to him. A new country, a new MO, perhaps? Whatever the case, she could hear the sounds growing louder through the door.

A second later, a woman screamed.

No more waiting. Backup would have to get here when it did. Adele jammed the key card into the door slot, and John shoved past as she turned the handle.

“Show me your hands!” he shouted, his booming voice filling the room.