“Who are you?” he repeated. “You’re with EMA, aren’t you? Is this a trial run?”
Adele was beginning to lose her already malnourished patience. She knew she shouldn’t. She knew she was behaving erratically. But it didn’t matter. Why was he acting so stupid? “Answer my question!” she demanded.
He just continued to look at her with that helpless expression. For a moment, she was reminded of Angus, her old boyfriend. This only irritated her more.
She jammed a finger into his chest, and he took a couple of skipping steps back. One of his hands shot out, trying to brace himself against the conveyor belt. But it was still moving, and he fell, stumbling, jolted forward by the motion. A couple of the chocolate bars were knocked free, and scattered onto the ground.
“Careful!” the manager called. “That’s not protocol!”
“Why are you lying to me?” Adele shouted at Andrew. Images flashed in her mind; bleeding, bleeding… fingers missing, a mutilated body of a once beautiful woman, dumped on the side of the road. Switching notes… Funny?
“Stop playing dumb!” she shouted. “I know you were there! Why did you do it? If you don’t answer me, I’m going to make your life a living hell!”
The bearded fellow looked at her, his eyes wide, like a doe caught in headlights. He was shaking his head, his voice trembling. Now, he held his gloved hand and waved the clipboard as if fanning himself. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what I did. I can’t remember ten years ago. I delivered to a lot of shops.”
Adele could feel her rage simmering. But for a moment, she paused, then glanced around. She could feel eyes on her, staring. She looked one way, then the other, and swallow back a rising sense of fury in her chest. Many of the other assembly workers and conveyor belt operators were staring at her. The manager in the doorway had taken a couple of hobbling steps in, pointing at her, saying, “I’m calling your superiors!”
She sighed, deflating like a leaking balloon. She could feel the anger seeping from her; her frustration diminishing. “You don’t remember anything?” she said, in a quieter, defeated tone.
He just looked at her and continued to shake his head, still seemingly stunned.
She passed a weary hand over her sweaty face. Perhaps running for two hours on an empty stomach hadn’t been the smartest thing leading up to an interrogation. She could feel a headache that came from hunger and exhaustion. She still had an hour to run back to where her car waited, halfway between the factory and the city.
She muttered a quiet apology and dusted off Andrew’s shoulder, and then turned, striding quickly back out of the factory, past the manager, through the glass partition, and down the loading dock where she had entered.
She began to jog before she even reached the gate. Another hour of jogging. It wouldn’t clear her mind, though. Her mind was swimming, swirling, protesting. Her mind was on fire, and anger pulsed through her. An anger directed at nothing. At no one. A nameless, faceless void, taunting her from the shadows.
Adele’s hands curled into fists, and she broke into a sprint, hastening toward the gate. As she approached, she was grateful to see the guard had hit the button. The metal slid open as it had for the trucks. And though the same amount of dust wasn’t kicked up behind her, she felt she was faster than the vehicles had been. She exited the factory and moved back up the long road, one step, two steps, faster, faster.
CHAPTER THREE
Adele felt a flicker of annoyance as she pushed open this new gate. A much nicer, more ornate gate than the factory’s. The annoyance was directed toward the events from the morning, not toward what lay beyond. In front of her, one of the few oases in Paris awaited her. One of the few places she could relax. She approached Robert’s mansion, closing the gate behind her and hearing the electronic click, as the security lock reset from the code she’d entered. Robert always supplied her with the code, texting it to her. The most recent one had changed a week before.
Robert was very safety conscious, and normally, he changed it every few days. So it was a bit of a surprise a week had passed without another alteration.
Adele took the steps up to the mansion, rolling her shoulders as she did. At least now she wore more comfortable clothing. She had changed in her car, and though she could still smell sweat, and her hair was still grainy from the dust against her forehead, she felt a bit better to be out of her running clothes. She still hadn’t eaten anything, and hoped Robert would have the chocolate cereal he often kept for her.
She reached the front door, staring up at the black, reinforced glass; the doors were tall, stretching high above her. She steadied herself, standing on the marble steps, and then tapped her fingers against the deep wood, listening to the dull thunk.
The door swung open instantly, as if he’d been waiting for her just inside.
“My dear,” Robert said in delight. “Come in, darling.” He gestured at her, gallantly sweeping her toward the long hall and then giving her a slight bow.
She smiled as she looked at her old mentor, feeling a faint flicker of gratitude. “How are you doing?” she said, quietly.
When he looked up from his bow, some of her smile faded. His cheeks were gaunt, and his eyes were sunken. Not too much, but enough she noticed. His hair was immaculate, as always, and his mustache was curled and oiled. But his skin was a bit paler than she remembered, and he looked even thinner. She could see the very edge of his collar bone pressing against the skin beneath the loose collar of his poorly fitting shirt.
“Robert, are you okay?”
He kept smiling at her, but even the smile now seemed rather fixed. A second later, he began to cough, pressing a hand up against his mouth, and then gesturing with another for her to join him in the study.
“Robert, what’s wrong?”
“I’m fine, my dear—you’re the one who called. Come to the study. I started a fire and set aside a bowl of cereal. Why you eat that sugary nonsense, I’ll never know. But it’s yours.”
Adele felt a flicker of gratitude, but it was replaced just as quickly by worry. She moved after her old mentor, following Robert’s form down the hall and into the study. He clicked a button on the wall, and the front door closed behind them.
Adele heard the door click, and glimpsed a sliver of light cutting out as they were sealed in the mansion together.
Two leather chairs faced the fire, and Robert settled in the chair on the left, a pile of books on the little table next to his hand.
“Robert, what’s wrong?”
He began to answer, but broke into another fit of coughing. He held up a finger, as if to say, one moment.
Adele frowned, sitting in her own chair. She waited as Robert gathered himself. As she did, she could feel a flash of a hunger headache, and her stomach rumbled. Despite herself, and feeling a bit guilty, she reached for the chocolate cereal that he’d left for her on the table. A glass of milk sat next to it. She poured the milk into the bowl and gratefully began munching away.
After a few bites, and after Robert seemed to have recovered, she said, “You don’t look well.”
He snorted. “Adele, I’m fine. What did you want to talk about? You seemed upset on the phone.”