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Left To Die
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Pick a card, my friend, any card,” he said, his voice purring through teeth stretched in a Cheshire grin. The man reached up, adjusting his wool cap over his red hair. Now was not the time for conspicuous behavior.
He met the smiling face of a fellow with olive skin, and he winked. The young Parisian frowned in confusion and turned back toward his friends, sipping on a beer.
Sometimes, one simply couldn’t help themselves. The man kept his grin fixed across his face, studying the group of locals before him. This was a larger bar than the last one, and the opposite side of town. What had that one been called? Genna’s. That time, he’d taken it slow—followed the girl home, kept an eye on her routine. Tonight, though… Tonight he couldn’t afford the wasted time.
People were laughing and milling around. This bar was packed, partly due to the rain, which had inserted itself over the city intermittently throughout the day. But also partly due to some sports match. The man didn’t follow sports, and he couldn’t have named any of the local teams if he had been bothered to. The man had more particular interests.
He smiled at the small group of customers he’d enticed around the jutting edge of the counter.
An easy way to meet friends: magic tricks. Especially in the college bars. The man performed the sorts of tricks one could learn watching videos online, coupled with only a little practice. He was an amateur, even in the most generous of descriptions, but he wasn’t here in search of money or praise.
The young man in front of the small gathering of a half-drunk audience watched the amateur magician, waiting as he continued to chatter, fanning the cards.
“And what is your name again?” the magician said, still smiling.
“Amir,” the Parisian replied, hesitantly pulling at one of the soft cards, then suspiciously glancing up and moving his hand along to a different part of the deck. Of course, it didn’t matter which card he chose. The deck was rigged. The decision, the outcome, was already clear.
“And Amir, memorize your card. Show it to your friends.”
A combination of tourists and locals had crowded around for the spectacle, as they often did. The man in the wool cap reached up with his free hand, tugging the hat a bit lower past his bangs, the hem of the wool pressing against his forehead. His smile faltered just a little as his fingernail on his thumb brushed against his ear, eliciting a small amount of pain. The man hated pain.
His lips twisted for a moment, forming into the beginning of a frown. Just as quickly, he readdressed the expression and adopted a smile once more. People loved spectacle.
The man waited for Amir to show his friends the card, and then watched, impatiently, as they shielded the card with their hands so he couldn’t see it. The bar’s customers waited expectantly for the trick to continue. So many of them were so young. Their flesh was smooth, their eyes clear and bright…
He felt a stirring in his stomach.
“I need to think—think very hard,” the magician said, interjecting each word with a playful chuckle or another wry grin. The smile was obviously an act. They all knew it, and he knew it. But the point wasn’t to dupe them. The smile had nothing to do with it. They were watching his hands as closely as possible, studying his fingers.
The smile had other uses: it displayed something around his mouth, something so obvious that no one looked too closely. Tucked inside his cheek, the second, duplicate card rested against his molars and his gums. He didn’t have a particularly large mouth, but had deposited the trick card before even entering the bar. Any good magician had to do their work before the audience was even watching. The card itself was sprayed with trick adhesive which would keep it from growing soggy in his mouth. Optics were a huge part of it.
Pulling forth a soggy card would immediately tell the audience he’d stowed it long before. But pulling a card that looked new, fresh, gave the illusion that it had been placed there only moments before.
It gave him no small amount of satisfaction to know he could dupe so many people at once. All eyes were on him, everyone was staring, and yet, still, they would fall for it. Amir and his friends waited expectantly, watching him. They were younger, much younger than he was. They didn’t value their youth; the young never did. That girl from only a few nights ago, she had been a lively one. He’d enjoyed their time together beneath the bridge.
“Is your card… the three of diamonds?” he said.
Amir’s eyes widened, and then his lips curled into a smirk. “No,” he replied.
The man inhaled in mock surprise. Of course, this too was part of the trick. Every good hero had to fail at least once before they succeeded. Now, the audience would relax. They would think the trick was over. They would think they had duped the magician—this foolish tourist who had come into their bar and demanded their attention. Their eyes would wander from his hands…
And it was in that moment, the man stowed the deck of cards, placing it quickly in his black jacket pocket. Then, just as quickly, he withdrew what looked to be the exact same deck. But this deck didn’t have the forced cards with the glue adhesive on the back. Once he did the reveal, they always asked to see the deck. Predictable.
People were similar in their predictability. Be it in France or Indiana. The man’s expression soured somewhat at the memory of fleeing the United States. The FBI had gotten too close. The female agent—he’d seen her on the news asking for clues. Little did she know that she’d interviewed his host family the night before he’d fled. She hadn’t known he’d been renting a room in their basement, and they hadn’t volunteered the information, wanting to avoid any hassle about renter’s insurance. They hadn’t known who he was.
Besides, how could his host family have known that the vehicle traced back to their home had belonged to him? He’d made sure to ditch the jalopy—he’d paid in cash for it anyway.
Agent Sharp. That had been her name. She’d gotten too close—far too close for comfort. But he was still on vacation. First the US, then France. It wasn’t yet time to return home… There was still so much more fun to be had.
The magician smiled at his audience and then clicked his tongue. He could feel the card wedged into the back of his mouth. He extended his hand, beckoning toward Amir, then took the card. He waved it a couple times in a big show, and then snapped his fingers. The card erupted in flame, disappearing as quickly as flash paper could—bought for less than a pound in magician stores around the world.
And yet, the reaction of his small audience sent shivers through the man. Magic was almost as fun as his other activities. It wasn’t the same, but it was nearly the same. The awe, the spectacle, the complete domination of his audience as they didn’t know what would come next. All of it intoxicated him and brought him the satisfaction of knowing what he had always known: he was smarter than them. All of them.
Everyone was staring at his hands now, awed by the disappearing card. Then he made a choking sound and looped his tongue beneath the stowed card; he pushed the card into his mouth and made a big show of puffing his cheeks, turning red in the face and placing his hands against his stomach as if he were about to throw up. Finally, with a gagging sound, he opened his mouth, and the card fell into his hand, slowly curling open. He had to pull the final fold to reveal the jack of spades.
“Is this your card?” he said, grinning at the audience.
The two tables at the bar erupted in applause, all of them staring in awe at the strange tourist and his tricks.
The jack of spades had been intentional, of course. A hero of his, who’d been named “The Spade Killer,” had been known for creating late-night art in the park districts, adopting the guise of a gardener when hunting his victims. Such interesting monickers the news outlets would come up with, labeling people like the magician as if they were superheroes. The Spade Killer had operated in France only a decade ago. He would carve up his victims with shallow cuts, creating beautiful patterns on human skin.
The man shivered in delight at the memory, recollecting his first time reading about the attacks in the newspaper back home. It had been better than porn. There had been an artistry to the Spade Killer’s work. The artist had never been caught, but photos of his work and his masterpieces could still be found online for those with discerning taste.
“How do you do that?” said Amir, snapping the man’s attention back to the moment.
The magician paused, gathering himself, then he simply shook his head, and smiled. “Would you like to see another one?” he asked.
Another one. He needed another one. It had taken so long, stalling, when that FBI agent had gotten too close. She’d asked the wrong questions in Indiana. It had been time to leave. He still wasn’t sure how much she knew. At least that was behind him. The agents in France would have to start from scratch to catch him. That gave him a good amount of time to enjoy this new playground. Like the Spade Killer, he too wouldn’t be caught.
But he couldn’t wait another couple of weeks. No, he needed to catch up. Time was of the essence. Always ticking, time. He swallowed, and his smile faltered just a little.
“Would you like to see another trick?” he asked, louder this time, glancing around at those clustered near the counter, trying to regain their attention from their bottles and half-filled glasses.
“Yes!” someone said, “Do me!”
He turned, eyeing an old, silver-haired woman smiling at him, pearl earrings glinting beneath the low light of the bar. She wouldn’t do.
He turned away from her and smiled his crocodile grin and said, “I need a little information first. This trick will only work on certain people.” They were in a bar behind the college, after all. The clientele was far younger than usual. “What are your birthdays? Year and month—it’s important. I have a sense; tell me, is anyone here twenty-three?” He said it innocuously, casually, but with enough flair and gusto to arouse curiosity. He glanced around at the few spectators seated at the bar.
“My friend,” someone said at last. The magician glanced over to a young man with a scraggly goatee. He had the look of some sort of starving artist, complete with an artisan’s cap and a black shirt which read “Rock & Roll.” The magician tried not to allow his distaste to show. Music was like wine; when treated with indifference, it could only give someone a stomachache.
“Yes?” said the magician. “Are they here?”
Scraggly-beard nodded quickly, and he hurried over toward another table at the back.
The magician’s French wasn’t great, but it wasn’t as bad as he often pretended. And he could understand the conversation well enough. Even over the din of the bar, he heard the man with the scraggly beard saying, “Come, he has a trick to show us.”
The friend seemed reluctant, but at the insistent pulls on his arm, got slowly to his feet and allowed himself to be guided over.
“And you’re twenty-three?” the magician asked, glancing at the man with a curious look. He could feel his mouth go dry all of a sudden, but resisted the urge to wet his lips.
The newcomer nodded slowly, his eyes wide beneath dark hair. “Yes, my birthday was in July.”
The magician flashed his crocodile grin. “Count out twenty-three cards. Here.”
The newcomer hesitated, frowning. “Does this trick take very long? What is it?”
“Patience,” said the magician, still smiling. “I’m about to show you.”
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.
No more waiting. Backup would have to get here when it did. Adele jammed the key card into the door slot, and John shoved past as she turned the handle.
“Show me your hands!” he shouted, his booming voice filling the room.
Weapon raised, left arm bent, she followed John into the hotel suite, the sound of their footsteps muffled by thick carpet, but the sounds of their voices blaring forth, attempting to control the room with sheer volume, resonating in the large space.
The suite was at the top floor of the hotel, reserved for affluent clientele. There were ebony counters along a small area that served as an en suite kitchen; a chandelier dangled above the two agents, illuminating marble tiles on either side of the stretch of red carpet leading from the door, down two steps, and into a lounge area.
Adele was mediocre with firearms, but in surveying a crime scene, there were few better. She instantly cataloged three adjacent doorways in the suite. Two of them were shut, but one was propped open. Large, tinted windows circled a bulging, spherical wall, giving a view of the city below. And there, lying over the top of a mauve, cushioned sofa, a redheaded man had a woman pinned beneath him.
The man wore a strange black outfit. Beneath him, Adele could hear the quiet shouts and fearful cries of the woman.
The man’s hands jutted skyward, as he spun to face the two agents. “Please!” he shouted. “Please don’t shoot!”
John hurried over to the woman, keeping his gun trained on the man.
Adele couldn’t see any blood. Adrenaline laced through her body as she took quick stock of the man. He didn’t seem to be armed.
She felt a slight jolt of discomfort as she realized he was wearing black latex all up and down his body. Her gaze flicked to the woman and realized she was wearing a similar outfit. There were conspicuously cut holes in the body of the outfits, allowing no room for decency, but ample room for intimate access.
John had pulled up sharply, and clicked his tongue in a disapproving sound. “Christ, put that away, will you?”
The man hesitated, his cheeks turning the same color as his hair. He began to lower his hands to zip up his suit, but just as quickly, Adele barked, “No sudden movements!”
The woman also covered herself, trying to keep some modicum of decency by placing herself between the couch and the agents. No blood. No weapon. No injuries.
“Dammit,” Adele said. She lowered her gun, shaking her head in disgust. “Mademoiselle, are you hurt?” This, she directed toward the woman.
The woman shook her head wildly and pointed toward the man. “He’s a friend,” she said. “Purely a friend. We’re not doing anything illegal. I’m here for free!”
John’s gun also lowered, and he sighed. “Interesting comment to volunteer,” he said, with a wry shake of his head. Some of the burning wildfire in his gaze had faded now.
Adele could feel her frustration mounting, but John seemed to have found the humor in the situation. He winked at the woman and gave her a quick glance up and down. “What’s the going rate?” he said. “I might have some spare time tomorrow.”
Adele stared in shock at her partner, but then, when the woman didn’t react in outrage, she glanced back.
Agent Renee holstered his weapon and winked at the woman. “Pretty sure while this is outside of my jurisdiction, you’re not supposed to be paying for it. It’s not 2016 anymore, my friend.”
The man, who had, with slow, careful motions, managed to zip up his latex suit for some amount of decency, shook his head. Adele noticed a long, leather strap on the ground, as well as a riding crop. She noticed a couple of bruises on the exposed side of the woman’s hip. But nothing in the woman’s posture suggested she was afraid of the man next to her. If anything, she seemed embarrassed.
“It isn’t like that,” the man said, taking a shuddering breath. He continued to fidget nervously, his hands still down by his waist. His gaze flicked between Renee and Adele, the red hue of his cheeks now matching his hair. “Perfectly consensual. Tell them—well? Tell them!”
The woman glanced sidelong at him and hesitated for a moment, a shrewd look coming across her eyes. She considered the comment, and Adele could see the wheels turning in her brain as she seemed to mull over her options. At long last, though, she sighed, and said, “He’s right. Perfectly willing.”
The red-haired man sighed in relief.
Adele tried to suppress her frustration. Clearly, this wasn’t the Benjamin Killer. It couldn’t be. Could it?
John moved over to the couch and plopped down, leaning back and crossing his legs, tossing his feet onto a footstool. The lack of professionalism sent another jolt of annoyance through Adele. Their argument from earlier had faded to the back of her mind, but the cavalier way in which John conducted himself put her ill at ease.
“Well,” said John, addressing the red-haired man, “I’m going to guess that you aren’t French. I haven’t heard an accent like that since American Princess first spoke back at the office.”
This, Adele thought was entirely unfair. It was true that earlier it had taken her a couple of hours to get back into the stream of conversation, but this man spoke with a terribly thick accent. She couldn’t quite place it. It wasn’t American.
“British?” she said.
The man glanced sharply at her, worry wrinkling his face in rigid lines around his eyes. He began to reply, but then caught himself.
John chuckled, thoroughly enjoying himself. “Does the missus know you’re out and about, playing with the French toys, hmm?” John said. “It would be a pity for her to find—”
Before he could finish, the man let out a quiet yelp and bolted for it.
Adele snapped her gun up, and there was a brief window where she could have fired, but, though her finger stayed on the trigger, she didn’t squeeze. The man’s face was covered in sweat and streaks of red as he barreled into Adele, knocking her roughly to the side. He shouted incoherently and bolted toward the door.
Adele stumbled back, slamming into one of the couches, throwing out a hand to steady herself on a metal railing that led up the two steps.
She aimed at the man’s retreating form and shouted, “Stop or I’ll shoot!”
But he didn’t stop. In his black, skintight latex suit, the man bolted into the hallway and then disappeared from view, the sound of his thudding footsteps reaching them from the open doorway.
Adele hesitated for only a moment to glance back at John, raising an eyebrow in exasperation. “Gonna help?”
John leaned back, crossing his hands behind his head, and smirking in the direction of the prostitute against the wall. “I’ll cover her,” he said. “You can chase the one with the wood in the rubber suit.”
Adele huffed and resisted the urge to roll her eyes as she stowed her weapon, and then broke into a sprint, racing up the stairs along the red carpet and out into the hallway of the hotel.
She spotted the man pushing through the doorway that led to the stairs, his fingers shoving against the metal push bar, and the latex of his suit reflecting the red from the exit sign above.
Adele lowered her head, racing toward the man and covering the distance rapidly. They were at the top of the hotel, and the man hadn’t opted to wait for the elevator.
She reached the stairwell and could hear him a flight below her, cursing as he circled the stairs, sprinting down.
“Stop!” she shouted.
The retort of slapping footsteps indicated he had no desire to comply. She saved her breath and continued her pursuit without further comment. Adele took the stairs four at a time, leaping down the steps rapidly.
Just below her, she could hear the ragged gasps of the man as he continued to flee. Her own breathing was steady, calm. She could feel the way her body responded each time she pushed off one foot and rounded the banister, circling down the staircase one flight at a time. She spent most of her life running, training. Every morning, without fail, she would exercise for moments like these. The man had made a mistake in thinking he could outrun her.
Already, even though they’d only covered a few flights, she could tell the man was lagging. She was gaining now and reached the top of a flight of stairs as he reached the bottom. Another flight of stairs, and he was only halfway down. One more, and he was within grabbing distance.
Adele didn’t try to shout this time. The man was gasping, heaving, his breath coming in huffing puffs.
For her part, Adele’s breathing was elevated, her heart rate higher, but she could still keep this up.
The red-haired man could hear her approaching footsteps, and he turned, his eyes wide with panic. They widened even further as Adele launched through the air, tackling him from behind and bringing both of them slamming to the marble landing.
The man’s breath whooshed from his body as he thumped to the floor, cushioning her fall.
Adele tried to control her temper as she rolled the man over and pulled his hands sharply behind his back. Just another tourist who liked his French prostitutes and bondage games.
“I suspect you’re going to enjoy this,” she said, grimly. There was a slight squeak of his rubber outfit against the floor as she shifted him into a better position and then reached for her handcuffs, pulling them out and shackling his wrists.
“How long have you been in France?” she demanded once the man was secure. She kept her knee in the small of his back, crouched over him like some gargoyle above a hapless victim. Frustration and fury cycled through her body, carried by pulsing adrenaline and an elevated heartbeat.
She shook him roughly, pulling at the handcuffs until he loosed a painful grunt.
“How long have you been in France?” she repeated, speaking in English now.
The man sighed softly, deflating like a leaking balloon, and then, with a grunt, he said, “Only a week. You can check my tickets on my phone. Please—don’t hurt me.”
He had a British accent. London, by the sound of it.
“A week? How come you’re just now checking into the hotel?”
It took another shake of the man’s cuffed hands, but again he grunted, and, reluctantly, gasped out, “Third hotel. I switch after… After each one.”
