“There are others,” she said, desperate. “He keeps us locked away, hidden, no one can find us. I barely got away. Please. I’ve been there—I don’t know how long. Please, he’s going to kill them!”
The trembling, horrible feeling pawing at his spine only increased. Herman stared at her and swallowed. “Who?”
She stared back and said, “Please, please don’t let him take me back.”
Herman shushed her, quietly, his hand fumbling into his pocket, then realizing his phone was still back in the truck.
He gestured at her and quickly said, “Come, hurry. I need to take you to a hospital. Please, you’ll be safe. Let’s get off the road.”
It took some convincing, and patience, gesturing with his hand, but at last, the girl followed, stumbling after him and leaving bloody footprints behind her, leading away from the center of the highway, toward his truck. The speckled droplets of blood scattered across the damp ground. The blue light, flickering and sputtering behind them, suddenly stopped, dying as Herman stared.
Each step was one ventured in darkness. The trees loomed around them, the forest and the solitude oppressive.
“Come, hurry,” Herman said.
He helped her into the truck, gently, doing his best not to touch her. Every time he did, she seemed to flinch.
Then he raced around the truck, got into the cabin, and, without waiting, pulled away from the bent light post. He would have a mechanic look at the vehicle in the morning. For now, he wanted to get off this cursed highway, away from the flickering lights, and away from this desolate forest.
“Where are you taking me?” she said, softly, her eyes rolling in her skull.
“Hospital,” he said. “The police can meet us there. It’s going to be fine. I promise you. Whoever hurt you, they’re not here anymore. You’re safe.”
The girl let out a quivering sob, her chest heaving, her eyes fixed on the road and then closing, her eyelids fluttering. As exhaustion took its toll, and she bled, staining the seat next to him, she murmured, “The others aren’t safe. He’s going to hurt them. He’s going to kill them for what I did.”
CHAPTER TWO
No elevator in her new apartment, but Adele didn’t mind the stairs. Her hand trailed along the lacquered wood banister. Her mind cast back, sifting through memories. She remembered skipping down these marble steps. She remembered pausing and glancing at the door across from the post boxes. Apartment 1A. The peeling silver letters had been replaced. In fact, the entire apartment had been renovated. Even the lights above were no longer flickering and dim, but provided a stream of illumination to the hall and stairwell. Adele took the last step, pausing at the bottom of the stairs and gathering herself.
Back in France. She never saw that coming.
She passed a hand through her shoulder-length blonde hair and smiled. Less than a month since the last time she’d seen her father. That business at the ski resort had ended strangely. Adele had wanted to visit her father for Christmas, now that she had relocated to Europe. But the small apartment in France was far enough away from his home in Germany that the snowstorm two weeks ago had prevented travel. So she’d spent the week with Robert, celebrating Christmas at his mansion.
She reached up and delicately touched the teardrop diamond earrings he’d bought her. Adele wasn’t normally one for jewelry, but from Robert, it always meant something special. She frowned, lowering her hand and staring toward the front of the apartment door. Robert didn’t seem well. Whenever she asked, he would deny it, but he would break into fits of coughing, and sometimes even excused himself from the room.
She shook her head, wishing she had broached the subject more aggressively last time she’d seen him. But Christmas celebrations hadn’t seemed the time.
And now, not only was she back in France, she was back in the apartment she used to live in with her mother. Fate had aligned—the unit had gone up only a week after Adele had started apartment hunting in Paris. Perhaps not just fate… perhaps something closer to inevitability…
Adele fished a small, worn, brown leather notebook from her pocket and thumbed through the pages, her mood darkening. She leaned against the banister, facing 1A while scanning the notebook.
Every clue, every possible lead, and some, she was certain, the police hadn’t even known. Her father had been hunting Elise’s killer for years. And now he’d given the notebook to her, effectively passing the baton.
Adele had been combing through the notebook for the last three weeks in between moves and Christmas celebrations. Three weeks of time sifting through her father’s notes, cataloging them, memorizing them. She had multiple files on her computer she used to sort through the notes. Eventually, she would find something.
Returning to this apartment? Not the same unit—but the same building she’d once shared with her mother. Not nostalgia—it had a purpose. Adele wasn’t someone who considered herself a particularly nostalgic person.
She was a bloodhound with a scent. Page thirty-seven.
She thumbed through it again and reread the lines now seared into her mind.
“Someone is switching notes… handwritten. Funny?”
Adele shook her head. She’d already asked her father about it, but he hadn’t been able to make much sense of it either. It had simply been a memory of a conversation he had with his ex-wife. The first time he’d suspected something might have been awry in France. His ex-wife had called him, and had seemed flustered. She mentioned someone had been switching something or other. Adele gritted her teeth. Her father had never been great at listening. At least he’d written it down before he’d forgotten completely. Someone had been switching notes, handwritten, funny…
So someone had been switching notes. What did that mean exactly?
Adele tapped the notebook against her hand and stared at the mailboxes.
She’d already spoken with the mailman. A young fellow, no older than thirty. Certainly didn’t fit the bill. She had tried to extort him for information of who had delivered mail to this building nearly ten years ago. He hadn’t known. Couldn’t say—confidential.
If someone had been switching her mother’s mail out, and leaving notes, perhaps he’d been a stalker. Someone interested in her. Perhaps the killer himself?
But the mailboxes were locked. Not sending notes… switching them. That’s what the message said. That’s what her father remembered. He’d been adamant about that part. On the phone call, from all those years ago, her mother had been upset that someone had been switching notes.
But for that to happen, someone would need a key to the mailbox. Not even the landlord had one. Adele had already tried to call the post office a few times but they refused to relinquish the information over the phone. She thought to use her credentials, but without an active case, it would be a breach in protocol and grounds for termination. This was only her second week working as a correspondent for the DGSI, in between cases for Interpol. Using credentials without permission might not be the best tactic.
But Adele now had a new idea.
She moved along the corridor and approached the door to 1A, raised her hand, and tapped delicately.
A shuffling sound from inside, then quiet. She tapped a bit louder. More sound, then footsteps.