Left to Lapse (An Adele Sharp Mystery—Book Seven) by Blake Pierce (book club suggestions txt) 📗

Lea’s.Normandie Express boasted a perfect blend of traditional comfort and modernamenities. On the inside of the car, it felt like something out of an old-fashionedmovie, with a historic flair from the maps in the dining hall framed on thewalls, to the tasseled throw pillows of pure cotton in the lounging area.

Across from Lea, an obviouslywealthy lady was sipping from a steaming mug of some sort, muttering about theweather and causing the pearls encircling her neck to clack and shift as shefluffed her fur collar.

“Bonjour,” Lea said, noddingand smiling. The woman had to be three times her age, but it didn’t hurt tomake conversation.

The rich older lady didn’t reply.Instead, she turned slowly, her features moving like molasses finally settlingin a pan. She inched a nearly nonexistent eyebrow up over a well-wrinkled eye, andthen turned once again to peer out the window displaying French countryside tothe north—mostly soft hills, green flatland, and a coastal vision of theEnglish channel.

“It’s a new train, you know,” Leasaid, quoting the engineering student again if only to make an impression. “Itjust looks old.”

The woman sighed as if she couldn’tquite be bothered to spare words, but managed to eke out, “Quite,” in acreaking voice like an old chestnut cabinet. Then she turned away again and Leawas left sitting in silence.

Lea sighed, but tried not to takeit too personally. She had known it would take a day or two to make friends onthe cross-country trip along Northern France into West Germany, then throughPoland and Romania. Perhaps the engineering student was still back in thesleeping compartment.

She got to her feet, againsurprised at how steady her stance was beneath her. She’d been on trainsbefore, but never one this smooth. The floor itself was even carpeted with aTurkish rug.

She sent a forced little smiletoward the standoffish older woman, then began to move toward the dining car,which would lead to the sleeping compartment. She pushed a hand against thedoor, but before she could press through, it swung inward, toward her, nearlyknocking her from her feet.

“Sorry,” came the flustered,muttered voice of a man in a black raincoat. He dipped his head apologetically,and she couldn’t quite meet his eyes as he hurried past her.

She caught her balance against anornamental trim circling the windows, and then, adjusting her sweater andshooting a reproachful glance back toward the woman who’d ignored her and theman who’d nearly bowled her over, she marched, chin high, through thecompartment into the dining hall.

The ornate, hand-carved oakfurniture alone would have been spectacle enough, but what really did it wasthe row after row of immaculate china—now set in a locked glass cabinet pressedto the far wall, but brought out for every mealtime.

Lea smiled as she moved along,nodding to a young Swedish couple from business class who were sitting in thedining car with one of their college-age friends.

As she maneuvered through thedining car, though, Lea froze, barely resisting the urge to curse. Her handdarted toward her elbow on instinct, feeling for the strap of her small clutchpurse. Nothing. She glanced down and confirmed.

“Merde,” she muttered,quiet enough so the others couldn’t hear. She did an about-face, then marchedback toward the compartment she’d just left to retrieve her forgottenbelongings.

As she moved along, pushing backthrough the glass partition into the lounging area, she frowned. The old womanwas still sitting in her pearls and silks on the chesterfield facing thelargest window. But the man in the black raincoat had somehow vanished. Shepeered past the woman toward one of the windows, now open and letting a breezethrough, accompanied by the chugging sound of the train.

Leah shook her head and moved towhere she spotted her small brown purse resting against the arm of one of therecliners. She winced apologetically at the older woman, as if expecting her tosigh in frustration at the return of a nuisance.

But as Lea neared, the woman inquestion looked anything but annoyed.

The older woman’s eyes werebugged; in one hand she gripped the coffee mug she’d been sipping. A secondlater, the mug fell, smashing on the ground and sending steaming liquid andfragments of porcelain every which way.

Leah blinked, her heart jarred,and she stammered, “Are you okay?”

And then, as if jolted byelectricity, the older woman catapulted forward, lunging, as if spasming fromthe seat. She didn’t make it far as her frail legs didn’t have the strength,but one hand reached out, grasping desperately toward Leah. The older woman’sfingers scrambled against Leah’s arm, desperately trying to grip her, and Leahlet out a soft scream.

The woman’s mouth was half open,her eyes gaping like those of a fish.

“Oh,” the older woman said. Andthen her hand, which had been pressing against Leah’s, fell and pushed to herchest. “Oh,” she repeated. And then she keeled over, collapsing to the ground,foaming from the mouth, and after shaking another couple of times, the olderwoman fell still, her circlet of pearls stained by strands of vomit.

Leah stared for a moment longer,and then, as if suddenly plunged into icy water, the reality of the situationstruck her. She raised her voice, and at the top of her lungs, screamed in theold-fashioned train car, her clutch purse momentarily forgotten where it satagainst the armrest.

CHAPTER TWO

“So what did you want to tell me?”said the Sergeant, raising a thick eyebrow and running a finger through hiswalrus mustache. Adele’s father was wearing his trademark white T-shirt insteadof a proper sweater. At least this time they weren’t in the Alps, testing hisability to stave off the nip of cold on willpower alone.

Now, though, a familiar frown hadcrossed the Sergeant’s countenance.

Adele wasn’t sure if her father was more frustrated withreturning to France, or because he’d traveled overnight at her insistentrequest. Now, in Adele’s apartment, standingnext to the large floor-to-ceiling window that led onto the small terrace andoverlooked the city of Paris, Adele wasn’t sure where to start.

Her own mind whirred, spinning in frustration at how shemight broach the news. He wouldn’t take it well. One way or another, she knewher father, and he wasn’t going to like what she had to say. But what else wasthere to do except tell him?

“We came across Mom’s killer,” Adele