Bree remembered that she’d told Marianne Le Tour that she wanted to keep Philippe Abelmar unaware of the investigation for the time being. But after studying the profiles of the judges, she’d decided to at least raise their anxiety levels a little. And if they contacted Abelmar? So much the better.
By a quarter to seven, the unusual heat that had gripped Paris was easing, and Bree was considering the possibility that judges didn’t use the main entrance to leave at the end of the day. She should go back to her hotel, get changed, and—
A woman exited the main entrance of the courthouse carrying two briefcases. In her late forties with ash-blond hair, she wore a blue skirt and jacket, a cream blouse, and a red silk scarf. Before the woman started down the stairs to the courtyard, Bree had confirmed her ID.
Adele Marchant, you get to be the first contestant on the—
Two men in dark business suits came out of the doors behind Judge Marchant. The one on the left was older, in his sixties, and portly, with an embarrassing shock of overly dyed black hair. His friend was taller, slighter, in his fifties, and bald. They were also carrying heavy attaché cases.
Bree thumbed for the photos and saw it was true — Judges Claude Alsace and Domenic Les Freres were leaving at the same time as Judge Marchant.
Judge Alsace, the portly one, was calling to Marchant now. She turned as he and Judge Les Freres climbed down the stairs to her, smiling and laughing.
Bree hadn’t considered what might happen if she could tap the paranoia of all three at once instead of doing it one by one, the slow build. But the idea instantly appealed to her. She thumbed back to her note app, copied what she’d written, and went to WhatsApp.
After glancing up to make sure the trio of judges were still there, Bree selected their private cell numbers, made them a group, pasted her message, then looked up again.
The judges were no longer together. All three were walking to their separate cars parked in the courtyard.
Perfect, Bree thought and thumbed the Send button. She watched anxiously, hoping that it went through before—
Judge Marchant set her attaché cases down by her car and got out her phone to look at it. By his car, Judge Alsace did the same. Only Judge Les Freres opened his car door and got in.
Even from across the boulevard, even looking through the iron-and-gilt fence, Bree saw Judge Alsace lean against his car as if he were suddenly unsteady. Judge Marchant went dead still and then hunched over, one hand across her mouth, looking at her phone and shaking her head.
Then the judge picked up her head and gazed around as if hunting for the sender. Three rows back in the crowded tables outside the café, Bree felt confident but turned in another direction for a full minute.
When she looked back, Judge Alsace and Judge Marchant both stood outside Judge Les Freres’s car and were speaking with him through the window. It was hard to see, but Bree was sure Les Freres also had his phone in his hand.
That got their attention, Bree thought. She got up and went into the café’s restroom. There, she pulled the battery and SIM card from the burn phone, pocketed them, then broke the phone and dumped it in the trash beneath used paper towels. She would dispose of the battery and the SIM elsewhere.
By the time she returned to her table, the judges and their cars were gone. She wasn’t worried. She had a better than decent hunch about where they might all be going.
And it wasn’t home.
Chapter 24
Washington, DC
Early that afternoon on the East Coast, Sampson entered the DC Office of the Chief Medical Examiner on E Street and asked at the front counter for Lauren Pickett, an assistant ME he’d known for years.
While he waited, he kept returning to Billie’s church in his mind, kept seeing Hayden Brooker, his arms folded, legs crossed at the ankles, leaning against a tree, and staring at Sampson in amusement until a delivery van rolled to a stop, blocking his view. When it moved, Brooker had vanished.
But it was him. Sampson had no doubt about it. Same facial structure, same shaggy haircut, same I hate the world and want to kill it expression.
Did he want me to see him there at the church? Was he there to watch me and Willow? And why now? Why after all these years?
Before Sampson could further ponder Brooker’s reappearance in his life, Lauren Pickett appeared. “John Sampson, what a pleasant surprise.”
Dr. Pickett was a little older than Sampson, late forties, very attractive, and very smart. They’d worked together on multiple cases and he had always enjoyed her company.
“Sorry to come by without touching base first,” he said. “Is there somewhere private we can talk?”
“Absolutely,” Pickett said. “My office is free.”
She led him back through a warren of cubicles to her office, which had photographs on the wall of her many adventure trips. Sampson saw her on a fishing boat in Panama, on an elephant in India, and carrying a heavy backpack in spectacular mountain terrain.
“That’s the Bob Marshall Wilderness, isn’t it?” he said.
Dr. Pickett smiled. “One of the most awe-inspiring places I have ever been. Really helped me heal.”
“I remember you saying that. Alex Cross and I were supposed to be in the Bob right now. We were going to go in on horses with all our gear and rafts and float out the South Fork of the Flathead River. Six-day trip, mostly self-guided.”
She sighed dreamily. “Sounds amazing. You had to postpone?”
“For a number of reasons,” he said, a little deflated as he sat in a chair across from her. “I’d been hoping to do some of that healing you’ve talked about.”
“How are you, John?” Pickett asked with sincere concern. “What’s it been, a year now?”
“Thirteen months,” Sampson said. “And I’m still working it out.”
“And I expect you will be for a while yet. I know when Don passed, it was a good two years before I could look at anything without the filter of his death. That trip to the Bob Marshall was at month twenty-four. I found peace in that wilderness.”
“If I’m going to find some of that peace, I’ll need your help.”
“Anything, John. You know that,” the assistant ME said and sat forward.
Sampson told her that he, Alex, and others in law enforcement had never made much noise about an unidentified criminal they’d known of for years, someone who often operated at the periphery of their investigations. Sending them messages. Taking false credit for heinous crimes. Claiming innocence in crimes he’d clearly committed. Taunting them about their lack of investigative skills.
“He calls himself M. I call him Mastermind. He wrote me yesterday.”
Sampson handed her his phone with the message from M up on the screen.
Pickett frowned, took it, sat back and began to read. Sampson kept looking from the assistant ME to that picture of her in the Bob, wondering anxiously if he was ever going to get to that place himself.
“What kind of human sends a message like this?” Dr. Pickett said, looking grim as she handed him back his phone.
“Alex says he’s a brilliant psychopath,” Sampson said. “We believe he’s been involved in mass murders, multiple kidnappings, and high-stakes rip-offs, among other crimes.”
“He claims he killed Billie. That she didn’t die of Lyme’s. You believe that?”
“That’s what I’m here to find out, Lauren. There wasn’t an autopsy because she’d been sick with Lyme’s and the heart condition it caused for so long. Remember?”
The ME took a deep breath and said softly, “You want Billie’s body exhumed, John? Is that what you’re here for? Is that what you want?”