The Paris Betrayal by James Hannibal (beach read .TXT) 📕

“Still considered missing back home. I spoke to the dockworkers and port security here. No one saw her. And the local police tell me she was not in the car when it went down.”

Duval considered this for a long moment. “Okay. Contact our liaisons in the Belgian, Dutch, and German police forces. Give them her description. Tell them to watch the morgues.”

“You think he killed her?”

“Fits his track record. Besides, she was deadweight.”

The sergeant regarded him for a long moment. “Sounds like you’d have done the same.”

“In his shoes, Sergeant. I’d have done the same in his shoes. If you want to catch a criminal like Calix, you have to think like him.”

“I see.”

“If you’re done questioning my methods, how about showing me your progress on the cottage, eh?”

This snapped Renard from his contemplative stare. He fumbled with a hardened police tablet—the unit’s mobile office—and brought up a file. The first page showed a business headshot of a striking blonde. “The owner is Gabrielle Leblanc, thirty-one years old. A corporate security consultant, working mostly from home.”

“So Calix knew she’d be inside.”

“Possibly. There are two homes. She has a flat in Meudon. The cottage is a recent acquisition. The neighbor’s caretaker told me he saw her and Calix there together once before. To him, they seemed a happy couple but . . .”

“But what?”

“The fire brigade found a body inside. Calix killed her. And if not Ms. Leblanc, then someone else.” Renard swiped to the next page, a coroner’s photo of a blackened corpse. “Female. The height, weight, and age match. But the fire destroyed her fingerprints, and our people found no dental or DNA records.”

“It’s her,” Duval said, taking the tablet. “Who else would it be?” He stared at the charred face until the weight of Renard’s discomfort became too great to bear. The man had always been squeamish. Duval flipped on through the file past her car registry, work history, birth certificate. He stopped when he came to a pair of side-by-side images—a candid shot of Leblanc harvested from a social media page and a police body-cam shot of Calix and his hostage at the Paris standoff. “What’s this?”

“A hunch. I was looking for similarities between the women he’s drawn to. I thought perhaps if I could find a pattern, we might—”

Duval lowered the tablet. “There is no pattern. Calix attacked the victim at his flat with chemicals, then lit the place on fire. He kidnapped Ms. Razny and made her watch while he blew up his girlfriend’s cottage. With the girlfriend still in it. He is a madman.” Duval opened the driver’s side door and motioned for Renard to get behind the wheel before heading around the hood to the passenger side. “Get in. We’re going.”

“Going where? We have nothing to guide us.”

“I told you. I have reason to believe Calix survived. I’m tired of following his footprints. And now a reliable source has given me a glimpse of his future—a time and a place. We have the opportunity to get there first.” He slapped the roof and dropped into the passenger seat. “Drive fast. We’re going to Zürich.”

37

Clara waited for Sensen in the chalet’s great room. She had no intention of being murdered in her sleep. Otto slept upstairs. When she’d returned from her eavesdropping, he’d given her worried looks, but Clara had settled him down again. And she’d snuck away as quietly as possible. She didn’t want him to see what came next.

She nodded off once, maybe twice. Hard to say, sitting up in Sensen’s leather chair, waiting for death. She had no illusions of besting a trained assassin, but she had skills—more than Sensen suspected for sure. And perhaps that gave her enough of an edge that she could make him suffer a little before she died at his hand. She only wished she could make his spymaster, Ben’s precious Director, suffer too. Not for herself, but for sacrificing Ben despite all his loyalty.

Sensen walked down the steps as the gray-green of early morning lit the room. First light. If nothing else, the man was precise.

He only looked at her for a moment, turning his attention to the hall closet as he descended the last few steps, yet she could feel him keeping tabs on her. “You’re up early,” he said. “Trouble sleeping?”

“You could say that.” Clara became aware of her posture. She had slumped in the chair more than she realized before he came down. She adjusted, trying not to be obvious, hoping he didn’t notice her hand sliding into the cushion beside her thigh. “Cold night. Maybe breakfast will warm me up.”

“You’re on your own, I’m afraid. I need to go out.”

“For the day?”

“For several.” Sensen drew a carbon-fiber rifle and a briefcase from the closet and laid them both on the credenza between the kitchen and the door. He broke the weapon down into parts that fit into the case’s custom foam.

“Going hunting?”

“Correct.”

The boldness of his answer shocked her—his actions too, checking the weapon’s scope before seating it in the foam. Had he no shame, no need to mask his intentions? She should kill him right now, no matter who he supposedly worked for. Her hand tightened around the revolver’s grip. “You’re hunting Ben.”

Sensen halted his work for a moment, but did not turn. “You should not listen uninvited at your host’s door. It is bad manners.”

Clara swallowed, but she said nothing. Did he know, or was he fishing?

“I don’t blame you. The situation is . . . difficult. And you succumbed to the Gastdruck.”

“I don’t speak German.”

He closed the case. “Yes, I know. Perhaps I should have switched to my native tongue when I heard you tromping like a small elephant in my hall.” Sensen set the case near the door and reentered the closet, appearing a moment later with a black leather jacket and a matching backpack. “Gastdruck is the exhaustive pressure of being a good houseguest. Do you Slovakians have