Still, she remembered her interactions with Executive Foucault. The frown on his face when she requested Robert’s help. The agency was trying to whittle back personnel. Now, though, with his help on the Interpol attaché, she’d tied Foucault’s hands.
“I need you,” she said, simply. “You’re the best at what you do.”
Robert shook his head, sighing as he did. “I don’t know if that’s true, dear,” he said, his voice creaking all of a sudden.
“It is. Don’t worry about the computers; you’ll figure it out. I’m sure. We just need someone to touch base with, to coordinate from back here. I wouldn’t want anyone else.”
Robert nodded again, his expression still glum. “I’m old, Adele. I know I might not look it.” He ran his hand through his clearly dyed hair. “But this agency, this place, I think it’s for the younger folk now.”
Adele’s brow dipped. “Why are you saying these things?”
Robert waved a hand. “It’s not important. I’m grateful. Likely, if you hadn’t asked for me, I would’ve been out of the agency within the week.”
Now Adele’s frown turned to a scowl. “You heard that? Did someone say they were trying to get rid of you?”
Robert just shook his head. “I am an investigator. I’m not meant to be stuck behind a desk. Sometimes you just know these things.”
“You’re thinking too much. You’re invaluable—trust me. And besides, if you go, then I go.”
Robert smiled at this comment and tapped his fingers together. “Fair enough. Computers aren’t my forte, but I’ll try my best. But you still haven’t said, who did the executive pair you with? John?” His eyebrows flicked up ever so slightly. A small glimmer of a smile edged the corner of his lips, but Adele shook her head, quieting his expression.
“Agent Paige,” she said with the gravity of a judge’s gavel.
Robert stared at her.
She shrugged.
He continued to stare.
“I didn’t ask for it,” she said.
“Sophie Paige?”
Adele glanced back out the door, checking that the hall was clear, then nodded. “Looks like. She was about as happy as I was.”
“Doesn’t Foucault know your history?” said Robert, his voice rising.
“It’s fine,” Adele replied in a hushing voice. “I don’t know what the executive does or doesn’t know. But it is what it is.”
“And what about John?” Robert demanded.
Adele waved a hand airily, as if the thought hadn’t really crossed her mind. “You mean Agent Renee? Well, I think he’s working another case. That’s what Paige said.”
Robert’s manicured eyebrows hung low over his eyes like dark clouds threatening a storm. “Paige,” he said with a grunt. “Now I know why Foucault didn’t tell me.”
Adele hesitated. There was something in his tone she couldn’t quite place. “What do you mean?”
Robert was still frowning at his fingers, though, and Adele had to repeat the question. His eyes darted up at last. “Oh, I mean, nothing, or—except, he knows how I feel about you. And Paige hasn’t exactly been the warmest towards you since the incident.”
Adele paused, studying her old mentor. She knew Robert would take her side. But there’d been something more to his tone. Something behind his frown that she didn’t quite understand. “Have you had words with Paige since I left?” she asked, slowly.
“Words? No.” He trailed off as if preparing to add more, but then he seemed to decide against it and gave a quick shake of his head, latching his fingers together and folding his thumbs on top of each other. “No, nothing like that. I’m sure both of you can be professional though, yes?”
Adele shrugged. “I can if she can.”
“Magnifique,” he said. “I hope you slept on the plane, though. Foucault wanted to meet the moment you landed.”
Adele nodded, her lips pressed firmly together. “Agent Paige is already in his office,” she said. “We’re to start right away?”
Her old mentor nodded as he pushed out of his chair and moved with stiff motions around the edge of his desk. “Leave your suitcase here,” he said. “I’ll send someone to take it to my home. Come now.”
Robert took her by the arm, looping her hand through the crook of his elbow, and escorted her to the elevator. Robert was old-fashioned, and there were some who thought of him as pompous. But to Adele, his behavior only summoned a fond amusement.
They waited for the quiet ding of the elevator and stepped into the compartment. For the briefest moment, Adele’s finger hovered over the button for the second floor—John’s office would be there. Was he in? No—now wasn’t the time. There wasn’t a gap of three weeks between kills like the last time. Three days. That’s all that had passed between the killings. A rapid, startling pace. A pace that might only get worse.
Adele pressed the button for the top floor and, with Robert next to her still holding her elbow, she waited as the elevator carried them up and toward the office of the executive.
***
Paige sat by the window, a familiar comfort in the way she reclined in the office chair. Executive Foucault himself peered out from beneath a hawk-like brow, gnawing on one corner of his lip and shaking his head.
Adele and Robert stood, waiting, watching. Foucault’s eyes fixed on his computer screen and his expression only darkened. “This is it?” he asked, glancing up. “Nothing new?” His eyes darted to Agent Paige, whose own gaze bounced to Adele as if redirecting the executive’s ire.
Adele hesitated. Sunlight streamed through the open window of the executive’s large office—the gusting air ushered out some of the scent of cigarette smoke, but the odor still clung to the walls.
“I just arrived,” Adele said, hesitantly, unsure if she was being blamed for something. “I was planning to settle at Robert’s…” She trailed off at the look on Foucault’s face and then cleared her throat. “Honestly, I slept on the plane. We can start this afternoon. I’d like to see the crime scene of the second victim.”
Foucault nodded, waving a hand. “Yes,” he said, his thick eyebrows narrowed over his dark eyes. “That would be best. We don’t have time to wait on this one, hmm? No.” He nodded toward Paige. “You two have worked together before, yes?”
Paige continued to sit in silence by the window. She nodded once. Adele also nodded.
After a few moments of awkward silence, Robert intervened, clearing his throat. “A strange one, this,” he said, quietly.
Adele kept her eyes fixed on Foucault, but nodded in agreement.
Robert grunted as the attention in the room shifted from Adele to him. “The victims must have known the killer,” he said. “A friend? Maybe a family member?”
Adele turned her face slightly, rolling her head against her shoulders. “Maybe. Or maybe the killer snuck up on them. A landlord? With a key?”
Robert hesitated for a moment and silence reigned once more. At last, he said, “What do you make of the missing kidney?”