Chương 13
“So everybody had excellent reasons.”
“No.”
“Did Adrian know your reason?”
“Yes.”
“And afterward?”
“I gave him money and documents.”
“You helped him leave.”
“Yes.”
“How much money?”
“Enough to start over.”
Claire’s expression shifted from suspicion to confusion.
“Then why would he spend seventeen years trying to destroy you?”
“I don’t know.”
Mercier returned with two officers.
His face was grim.
“The cashier identified Valère.”
Claire’s fingers closed around Elias’s sleeve.
Mercier continued.
“He says Pauline appeared frightened but entered Valère’s vehicle voluntarily.”
“What vehicle?”
“Black sedan.”
“Plate?”
“Camera captured part of it.”
“Direction?”
“North.”
Claire looked toward the road.
“Paris?”
“Possibly.”
Elias’s phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
One message.
He opened it.
There was no text.
Only a photograph.
Pauline sat in the passenger seat of a car.
Her lip was bleeding.
Her eyes were open.
In her lap rested a white adhesive label.
One word had been written across it.
KING.
Claire saw the image.
Her grip tightened.
Another message arrived.
This one contained text.
You kept the wrong promise.
Elias read it twice.
Claire whispered, “What promise?”
He looked toward the road.
Seventeen years ago, Adrian had not asked only for protection.
He had made Elias promise something else.
If Marcel’s world ever reached him again, Elias was supposed to leave him out of it.
Elias had kept that promise.
Until now.
His phone rang from the same unknown number.
Mercier raised a hand.
“Do not answer.”
Claire looked at Elias.
Elias watched the screen vibrate.
Then the call stopped.
A voicemail notification appeared.
Mercier took the phone carefully and activated the message on speaker.
Adrian’s voice was older than Elias remembered, but the cadence was unmistakable.
“You should have stayed dead, Ghost.”
There was a pause.
Then Pauline cried out somewhere in the background.
Adrian continued calmly.
“Come to Paris alone, or your wife loses the last sister she has.”
Claire stared at the phone in Mercier’s hand.
For a moment, fear emptied her face of everything else.
Then she looked at Elias.
“You’re not going alone.”
Mercier said, “He is not going anywhere until we know what this is.”
Elias kept his eyes on the road north.
“Adrian expects me to disobey that.”
Mercier’s jaw tightened.
“That doesn’t make him clever.”
“No.”
“It makes him predictable.”
Claire pulled Elias’s coat closer around herself.
“Then use that.”
Mercier looked at her.
She pointed toward the phone.
“He wants Elias moving toward Paris.”
“Yes.”
“He wants him frightened enough to stop thinking.”
Elias glanced at her.
Claire’s eyes stayed on Mercier.
“So don’t give him the version of Elias he remembers.”
The lieutenant nodded slowly.
“That is considerably more useful than going alone.”
Elias looked at Claire.
“You trust the police now?”
“I trust them more than your instinct to walk into traps.”
“That is an unfairly low bar.”
“It remains a bar.”
Mercier almost smiled.
Then he became serious again.
“We trace the call, the vehicle, traffic cameras, tolls, anything available.”
Elias said, “He may be using cloned plates.”
“Then we work around it.”
“He’ll expect Northbridge systems to be watched too.”
Mercier looked at him.
“Can you keep your people out of operational contact?”
“Yes.”
“Do it.”
Elias called Matteo.
“Stand everyone down from physical intervention.”
Matteo went silent.
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“Information only?”
“Information only.”
Claire watched Elias carefully.
Matteo said, “All right.”
Elias added, “And Matteo.”
“Yes?”
“If anyone disobeys, fire them.”
“That will upset several sentimental old men.”
“They’ll survive.”
Claire said quietly, “Good.”
Within twenty minutes, police had the partial plate connected to three possible sedans.
One was in Lyon.
One had been scrapped.
The third belonged to a leasing company in Paris and had been rented two days earlier using identification in the name Adrian Valère.
Mercier stared at the screen.
“He wants us to find him.”
Elias nodded.
“Or wants us to find the car.”
Claire said, “Not necessarily him.”
The toll camera north of Orléans captured the sedan at 7:03.
Pauline was visible in the passenger seat.
Another camera forty minutes later showed the car leaving the motorway.
Then it vanished.
Mercier’s team began checking secondary roads.
Elias’s phone rang again.
Unknown number.
This time Mercier answered on speaker.
Adrian said, “You brought police.”
Elias looked at Mercier.
“Hello, Adrian.”
A quiet laugh came through the speaker.
“Still calm.”
“Pauline alive?”
“You always did begin with inventory.”
Claire flinched.
Elias ignored the insult.
“Let me hear her.”
There was movement.
Then Pauline’s voice.
“Claire?”
Claire stepped forward.
“I’m here.”
Pauline began crying immediately.
“I’m sorry.”
“Not now.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Pauline, listen to me.”
Claire’s voice trembled but held.
“Are you hurt?”
“My mouth.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“Can you see where you are?”
Adrian returned to the call.
“That was enough.”
Claire said, “You sound less impressive than I expected.”
Mercier looked at her sharply.
Elias almost did too.
Adrian laughed again.
“So Claire Delcourt finally grows teeth.”
“My sister already tried removing them.”
The line went quiet.
Elias understood what she was doing.
Keeping Adrian talking.
Mercier was already gesturing toward the technician beside him.
Adrian said, “Your mother is a remarkable woman.”
Claire’s face hardened.
“You used her.”
“She was already using everyone.”
“Did she know who you were?”
“Eventually.”
“Did Vanel?”
“Yes.”
“Bernier?”
“Yes.”
Elias said, “And Arden?”
Adrian’s tone changed slightly.
“Ah.”
“Pauline was never the real beneficiary.”
“No.”
Claire’s eyes closed.
Adrian continued.
“She was the clean face.”
Pauline cried somewhere in the background.
Claire said, “She wasn’t clean after last night.”
“No.”
For the first time, Adrian sounded almost regretful.
“Your mother panicked.”
Elias asked, “You expected Claire to sign.”
“I expected Viviane to persuade her.”
“With violence?”
“No.”
That answer landed differently.
Claire looked at Elias.
Adrian continued.
“Viviane was supposed to frighten her with insolvency.”
“So why the snow?” Elias asked.
“Because people become primitive when plans collapse.”
Mercier wrote something on a pad and turned it toward Elias.
May you like
KEEP HIM TALKING.
Elias said, “What did you want from me?”
