Left To Run

She turned up the next set of steps. No elevators in this apartment. The buildings were too old. Cultured, she thought to herself.

She smiled again and took the stairs one at a time. There was no rush. The new arrival she was going to meet had said two o’clock. It was 1:58. Melissa paused at the top of the landing, glancing out the wide window into the city beyond. She hadn’t grown up in Paris, but the place was beautiful. She glimpsed the old, yellowed stone structures of buildings older than some countries. She noted the angled pattern of apartments and cafes and crisscrossing streets through the heart of the city.

With another contented sigh, Melissa reached the door on the third floor and politely extended her hand, tapping on the frame. A few moments passed.

No answer.

She continued to smile, still listening to the bells and then glancing back out the window. She could just see the low-peaked steeple of Sainte-Chapelle spiraling against the horizon.

“Amanda,” she called out, her voice pleasant.

She remembered the first time she’d come to Paris. It had all seemed overwhelming. Seven years ago, an expat from America, resituating in a new country, a new culture. Knocks on the door had been a welcome distraction at that time. Melissa knew many of her friends in the expat community had a difficult time adjusting to the city. It wasn’t always as friendly at first blush, especially not for Americans, or for college-age kids. She remembered her time on an American campus for the first two years. It was as if everyone had wanted to be her friend. In France, people were a bit more reserved. Which, of course, was why she helped organize the group.

Melissa smiled again and tapped on the door once more. “Amanda,” she repeated.

Again, there was no response. She hesitated, glancing up and down the hall. She reached into her pocket and fished out her phone. Smartphones were all well and good, but Melissa preferred a bit of an older style. She scanned the old flip phone and noted the time on the front screen. 2:02. She scrolled through the text messages and scanned Amanda’s last text.

“I’d be happy to meet you later today. Say, 2pm? Looking forward to the group. It’s been hard making friends in the city.”

Melissa’s smile faltered a bit. She remembered meeting Amanda—a chance encounter in a supermarket. They’d hit it off immediately. The bells seemed to fade in the distance now. On a whim, she reached out and felt for the door handle. She twisted and found that it turned. A click, and the door shifted open just a crack.

Melissa stared.

She would have to make sure Amanda knew about the dangers of leaving her door unlocked downtown. Even in a city like Paris, caution preceded safety. Melissa hesitated for a moment, caught in a crisis of conscience, but then, at last, she eased the door open completely with a gentle prod of her forefinger.

“Hello,” she called into the dark apartment. Perhaps Amanda was out shopping. Maybe she’d forgotten the appointment. “Hello, Amanda? It’s me, Melissa from the forum…”

No answer.

Melissa didn’t consider herself a particularly nosy sort. But when it came to Americans in Paris, she had a sense of kinship. Almost like they belonged to the same family. It didn’t feel so much like intruding as checking in on a little sister. She nodded to herself, justifying the decision in her mind before she stepped into the apartment of a woman she’d only met once before.

The door creaked again as her elbow brushed against the frame, causing it to shift open even more. She hesitated and thought she heard voices from down the hall. She popped her head back out and looked up the hallway toward the edge of the stairs.

A young couple moved along the banister, noted her, and instead of nodding or waving, continued on their merry way. Melissa sighed and moved back into the apartment—and then froze. The fridge was open. A strange slant of yellow light extended from the compartment across the kitchen floor.

Amanda was there. Sitting on the floor, facing the opposite wall. Her back was half against the cabinet, one shoulder blade pressed against the wood, the other extending past, her left arm resting on the floor.

“Did you spill something?” Melissa asked, stepping even further into the darkened room.

Wine puddled on the ground beneath Amanda’s left arm. Melissa took another few steps and turned to face Amanda, still smiling.

Her smile froze. Amanda’s dead eyes stared up at her, gaping over a thick slit in her neck. Cold blood stained the front of her shirt, spilling down to the floor where it had thickened against the linoleum.

Melissa didn’t scream, nor did she shout. She merely gasped, her fingers trembling as she struggled to fish out her inhaler. She stumbled toward the door, grabbing her inhaler with one hand and snagging her phone with the other.

After a few puffs of air, she loosed a gurgled groan and, with trembling fingers on her flip phone buttons, she tapped 1-7 for the police.

Still gasping, back against the wall outside the open door to the apartment, she swallowed and waited for the operator to pick up. Behind her, she thought she could hear the vague, fading sound of liquid dripping against the floor.

Only then did she scream.

CHAPTER FOUR

Adele checked her smart watch, cycling through the different screens that kept an eye on her heart rate, movement, music… She inhaled through her nose where she stood in the doorway of her apartment and glanced up at the clock. Four AM exactly. Plenty of time to get in a two-hour run before work. She adjusted the sweatband holding back her hair and glanced over her shoulder toward the sink.

She had left her plastic Mickey Mouse bowl sitting on the metal partition between the sink and the counter. Normally, Adele cleaned up the moment she made a mess. But today, in the small, quiet apartment…

“It can wait,” she said to no one in particular. Which, of course, was part of the problem.

Last night had been one of fitful rest, sleep eluding her. Adele stood in the doorway as the digital watch ticked to 4:01. She glanced back at the sink, then muttered beneath her breath and reluctantly strode into the kitchen, grabbed her plastic bowl, and turned on the water with an irritated snap of her wrist. She rinsed out the milky residue in the bottom, placed the bowl in the dryer rack, and headed back toward the door.

Before she could turn the doorknob, though, a quiet chirping sound caught her attention. Adele’s eyes darted to the kitchen table. Her phone was vibrating.

She frowned. The only people who would call her this early were her father in Germany, or work.

And she had just spoken to her father a couple of days ago. It was little surprise, then, when she glanced down at the glowing blue green screen depicting a single word in white letters.

Office.

She picked up her phone as the buzzing noise faded. Adele read three simple words in black text flashing across her screen. Urgent. Come in.

Adele removed her sweatband and hurried back to her room to change into work clothes. The jog would have to wait.

***

From the parking lot, through the security checkpoints, Adele only paused once to drop off coffee to Doug, one of her friends on the security team. By the time she reached the fourth floor, and Supervising Agent Grant’s office, she could already hear voices through the opaque glass door.

Adele pushed in and pulled up short.

Two large TV monitors set in the wall depicted faces Adele recognized. On the left, over Grant’s desk, Executive Foucault, the DGSI supervisor. On the right, situated near a blue-tinted window with a view of the city, Adele spotted Ms. Jayne, a correspondent for Interpol who had first proposed the idea of a joint task force headed up by Adele.

Agent Lee Grant, who’d been named after the two generals in the Civil War, stood behind a metal standing desk, her fingertips steepled beneath her chin, a troubled expression on her face. She glanced up at Adele, waving her in with quick scattered gestures. Agent Grant’s office was sparse, with a yoga mat in one corner and a pile of workout DVDs hidden beneath a blue plastic binder next to her desk.

Agent Grant gestured to one of the empty stools in front of her standing desk and waited for Adele to sit. At last, she cleared her throat, regarding Adele with a nod, and said, “They need you back in France.”

Adele looked between the TV monitors. Ms. Jayne’s and Foucault’s gazes were just a bit off, each of them glancing at the various screens at their disposal rather than looking directly into their cameras. Still, Adele couldn’t help but search the gaze of Ms. Jayne and the DGSI executive, trying to discern their motives.

“Is it bad?” Adele asked, hesitantly.

Ms. Jayne cleared her throat, and in a clear, crisp voice, said, “Only two victims so far. I’ll let Foucault fill you in on the details.” Ms. Jayne was an older woman, with bright, intelligent eyes behind horn-rimmed glasses. She had silver hair and was a bit heavier than most field agents. She spoke without an accent, suggesting she’d mastered the English language, but it didn’t seem as if it were her native tongue.

On the other screen, Executive Foucault’s dark eyes narrowed over a hawkish nose; he shook his head and seemed to be glancing down off screen—there was the sound of rummaging papers.

“Yes, yes,” he said in heavily accented English. “Two dead. So far. Two Americans,” he added, glancing up at the screen. “Or, at least, were Americans.”

Adele frowned. “What do you mean?”

Foucault’s gaze flitted across the screen one way then the other, not quite lining up with anyone in the room, but suggesting that perhaps he was glancing between portions of his own computer screen.