She felt a hotflash of pain across her throat.
And then, shefelt nothing.
CHAPTER TEN
Adele sat by herdesk, facing Robert across the small office space. She fiddled with hernameplate, and every few seconds she refreshed her computer. Her email browserwas open, and tech had instructions to send any new information directly toher. Adele had decided Agent Paige wasn’t an ideal middleman for leads in thecase.
Adele continuedto click impatiently, watching her inbox refresh. But still, no news on thesocial media front. The account info had been approved by Foucault, but it wastaking some time to get what they needed. In France, there was no call forjudge’s warrants. But there was still a reasonable expectation of privacy andall sorts of red tape that often had commercial implications.
Adele continuedto hit the refresh button in near-perfect synchronization with the old clockRobert had on his wall.
Robert had ataste for old-fashioned things. He liked philosophy books and art and tea. Alot of his tastes were predictable, but others weren’t. He also enjoyedwoodwork; this particular clock he’d bought from a carpenter in the heart ofFrance. It never told the time properly, but it was quite beautiful to look atand, Adele had discovered over the last few hours sitting in the office, it wasalso very loud.
Tick, tick, tick. Tap. Tick,tick, tick. Tap.
The second handwould move, and eventually Adele’s fingers would follow, refreshing her email.
She sighed infrustration again as her inbox remained empty, culminating in grayed out words.Vaguely, Adele thought of her mother, allowing her absent-minded thoughts tomeander where they would. Would she have time to further look into her mother’scase? The words still haunted her. Funny that. Especially given whereyou worked…
Adele thoughtabout Agent Paige. It wasn’t unusual for DGSI operatives to have connectionswith all sorts. In Agent Paige’s circumstance, her boyfriend, whom she’d beenseeing while also married, had been investigated for the murder of aprostitute. And while he’d been cleared of charges, that didn’t mean all agencyconnections were aboveboard.
What if the manwho had killed her mother had ties to the police force? Or even the DGSIitself? But the more Adele thought about it, the more she considered thegreater possibility: the killer had been bullshitting her. He’d been amurderer. Why did she trust what he had to say?
Adele sighedheavily again and tapped the refresh button a few times.
Again, no newinformation.
She suppressed asurge of curse words bubbling to her lips. The thought of swearing made herconsider her father. Adele traced the edge of her desk. Perhaps she should callthe Sergeant. Maybe she’d even have time to visit him in Germany. She hadn’ttalked to him since the investigation had started. But the last time they’dspoken, her father hadn’t seemed to like the idea of her investigating hermother’s case. His exact words had been, “Stop wasting your time huntingghosts. You’ll only lose yourself.”
But Adele couldn’tlet it go. She wouldn’t.
She refreshedagain.
A line of blacktext appeared at the top of the inbox.
Adele felt herheart jolt. Further thoughts of her parents were chased from her mind, usheredaway by the ticking hand of the woodwork clock. Quickly, she clicked on theemail and scanned the contents.
She read themagain and called out, “Robert, are you seeing this?”
Her mentor alsosat before his computer, pretending to study the screen—and while he hadattempted to earlier in the day, Adele knew for the last few hours he’d beensecretly reading the paper files he’d had printed and squirreled away in hisdesk drawer.
His eyes flickedup from where he was looking into the desk drawer. Robert cleared his throatand flashed a toothy smile, revealing the two gaps in his pearly whites. “Yes,”he said instantly. “I mean, I am if you are. What exactly are we seeing?”
Adele sighed,got up, moved over to his computer, and noticed he wasn’t logged in. She loggedin for him, typing the password he used for everything for the last decade: 1234.And then she clicked on the email from the tech department.
“They found alink between the victims in the user info,” she said.
Robert gazed upat her, adjusting his mustache with quick and furtive gestures of his lefthand. “Users? Were they drug addicts?”
Adult studiedhim for a moment, raising an eyebrow.
He held up hishands. “Just joking,” he said.
She rolled hereyes. “Users from the online forum Yankees in Paris—the expat community.”
Robert nodded. “Whatconnection?”
Adele pointed,directing his attention toward the attached folder below the main body of theemail. She opened the folder and said, “See? Looks like both victims werespeaking to the same man.”
Some of theconfusion on Robert’s expression faded. The idea of a common connection betweenvictims wasn’t foreign to him. The internet talk and the technology frustratedhim, but when it came to old-fashioned detective work, there was none better.
“They had acontact in common?” he asked. “Is this his name? Sam?”
Adele shook herhead. “That’s the agent who sent the email. No, here, see? In these messagesthey had on their accounts. It’s a Gabriel Waters…” She paused. “GabrielWaters,” she repeated. “That name hasn’t come up, has it?”
Robert slipped apeek into the drawer beneath his desk. Then, with a resigned grunt, he pulledthe manila folders out and began rifling through. He ignored Adele’s pointedlook and finally he settled on opening a file and scanning the contents.
At last, heshook his head. “No one by that name.”
Adele continuedto scan the information over Robert’s shoulder, leaning against his chair andfurrowing her brow. “He’s also an American expat. See, look, here are themessages.”
Robert followedher finger, and after a few moments reading, he whistled. The screenshots fromthe messenger account painted a damning picture. “Dear Lord,” Robert said. “Hejust sent that, on the Internet? Doesn’t he have any shame?”
Adult chuckled. “Startingout, it was just friendly chatting, but down here,” she pointed to the end ofthe message chain and winced. “At least they pixelated it.”
Robert leanedin, peering at the photo, and then his eyebrows shot up. “Is that—is that a man’s…”He turned to Adele now, scandalized. “People actually upload private photos ofthemselves onto the Internet? Don’t they know
