Left To Die

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Adele turned up the final street, her arms straight at her side, her brow crumpled over glaring eyes. If the APB didn’t get a hit soon, he could leave Paris. He could kill and escape.

She turned the corner, facing the side of the street where she had parked her loaner. There, sitting on the hood of the Nissan sedan, the lanky form of John waited, his arms crossed, a look of impatience on his face.

He reached up and adjusted the collar of his shirt over the burn mark which stretched down his throat and across his neck. He muttered a few choice words, which Adele couldn’t hear. John passed a hand through his hair, pushing it back and adjusting stray bangs behind his ears. DGSI had a dress code, but it was considered more suggestion than coercion. And John, with his military cut sides, messy bangs, and unkempt stubble seemed particularly averse to persuasion.

Adele could still feel her frustration swirling inside her, trying to lay claim to her thoughts. The killer couldn’t escape.

She muttered to herself and stomped forward, approaching her sedan. A surge of annoyance twisted through her at the sight of John sitting on the car, leaning against the windshield as if he owned the thing. While it wasn’t hers, it didn’t hurt to treat government property with a bit of respect.

“There you are,” John said, noticing her for the first time. If he knew his posture would frustrate her, he made no move to alter it. He shifted a little, causing the hood to protest with a metallic groan, suggesting he could easily put a dent in the thing.

“Could you get off,” Adele said in a patient voice, though she didn’t feel like it.

John raised his hands in mock surrender, peering with dark eyes down his pronounced Roman nose. “It’s all right, American Princess. How come I couldn’t reach you?”

She shook her head, then tapped at her pockets and pushed a sigh skyward. “Dammit. Must’ve left the phone in the car.”

She stepped past John and peered through the windshield, noting the phone sitting in the cup holder through the tinted window.

“I just needed to clear my head,” she said, glancing at her partner. “I’m serious, get off. You’ll put a dent in the thing.”

John nodded, adopting a look of sincerity. “Oh, of course. I’m sorry.”

He made no move to rise. “Maybe, just a suggestion, in the future you shouldn’t leave yourself completely without any mode of communication.” He shifted again, the heels of his shoes at the end of his long legs tapping against the metal rim of the front right tire.

“Could you stop,” Adele snapped, feeling the annoyance rising in her like bile in the back of her throat. “I’m not in the mood.”

He smirked. “Any new leads?”

“I’m serious. Get off the car—Christ, you’re like a teenage boy.”

“You know what your problem is?” he said, still making no move. “You think the world owes you. You think you’re entitled. Well, I’m here to tell you you’re not owed anything. This city is my city. American princesses can’t just come here and—”

“—Stop calling me that. Get off the damned hood.”

The frustration in her chest was now turning to anger, which, aided by John fanning the flames, was quickly turning into rage. She didn’t like that he had this effect on her. He was behaving like a child. This attitude never would’ve been permitted at the FBI. She vaguely wondered about his story. He didn’t seem like a very good agent. He was bored half the time, sarcastic the other half, and angry throughout it all. So why had they hired him? And, most importantly, why was he still sitting on her car with that enraging smirk?

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.