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

“Calmdown,” Adele said, trying to keep her tone soothing, rather than exasperated.The first-class compartment was packed, it seemed, with nearly fifteenpassengers staring over Adele’s shoulder, toward where Renee and Leoni wereexamining the corpse. The train itself was high-end, but nothing like theNormandie Express. Instead of old-fashioned seats and wooden trim, this trainwas sleek and metal with comfortable, modern seating and flashing reading lightsabove personal television screens.

Adelestood in the doorway, trying to shoo the civilians back into their car. “Nothingto see,” she insisted. “Please, this is an ongoing investigation.”

“Andwho are you?” someone demanded.

Adelesighed, flashing her credentials and then stowing her wallet. “DGSI,” she said.“I’m working with Interpol and with the cooperation of the BKA. Everything isgoing to be fine.”

“Toldyou they weren’t bloody maintenance,” someone muttered.

“Howshould I know? They came through the ceiling,” another retorted.

Adelemassaged the bridge of her nose but then looked up again, alert, glancingaround. No time for tiredness. No time for an adrenaline crash. Someone on thistrain was a serial killer. Someone here? Watching her?

Hereyes landed on a woman in an expensive sweater with a scarf made of what lookedlike mink. She had perfectly manicured nails and a nose seemingly—andlikely—sculpted by surgeons. The woman stared at Adele, whispering to ahandsome man next to her beneath her breath. Another man, thickset with aquivering jaw, was talking loudly, trying to be heard over the others. “Why isBKA involved?” he was saying. “She had a heart attack, didn’t she? That’s whatyou said, Dr. Lawrence.” He glanced toward another woman, who was leaningagainst one of the cool windows displaying the slowly moving terrain.

Thewoman shook her head quickly and said, “It has the markers of it. But that’s acursory observation. I’m a general practitioner besides, it isn’t like—”

“Well?”said the young woman with the mink scarf. “Why are you here?”

Adeletried to keep track of all of it, but the flood of discussion was beginning togive her a headache. She gritted her teeth and said, “Please, back to yourseats, or recreations. No one should be within ten feet of this door,understand?”

Everyonestared blankly at her, eyes blinking like a bunch of owls. “I said get back!”Adele snapped.

Reluctantlysome of the passengers complied, but the rest of them continued to gawk. Adeleglanced helplessly over her shoulder. John, noting her expression, stepped awayfrom the body, his glare out in full force. The tall, scar-faced agent steppedinto the first-class compartment and in a booming voice he said, “Get the hellback before I make you, dammit! We might be on German soil, but unless you wanta French ass kicking start moving!”

Halfthe passengers, at least, likely didn’t understand the Frenchman’s tirade inhis native tongue, but his tone communicated more than enough, and the rest ofthe passengers quickly scarpered, following Adele’s directive and leaving theirgawking posts by the glass divider.

Adelesighed and gave a nod of gratitude toward John, before turning and rejoininghim in the bare, mid-remodel train car.

Sheshut the divider behind her, sliding it.

Fornow, at least, it didn’t seem as if so many eyes were fixed on her or thecorpse.

Leoni was still wincing where he stood on his injured ankle. John was gloweringat everything unfortunate enough to acquire his gaze and Adele passed a handthrough her hair, stepping off to the side so the passengers couldn’t view herfrom within the other compartment.

“Well?”she said, her voice low, quiet in the still car. “What now?”

Johnshrugged at her, still scowling. “I got us on the train. You’re the one who hadthe great idea to get us here before the station. It’s your show, Adele.”

Leonididn’t comment, but he looked at her as well, an expectant quality to his gaze.She frowned, nodding to herself. For a moment, as she stood over the bodydraped in the thin white fabric, she felt a familiar chill. The same sense she’dhad back in Foucault’s office when he’d first introduced the case…

Somethingwas off… something horrible.

Butwhy was she feeling it now? She shook her head and glanced from John to Leoni,trying to catch her bearings. She said, “All right, I think we split up. Wehave about an hour before the train reaches the nearest station. Then, notelling what German authorities will do. I don’t think most governments are inthe habit of sequestering a hundred citizens in order to catch a possible killer.We need to get this done before the culprit has a chance to slip away, or gethis alibi straight.”

“Whatdo you propose?” Leoni said, wincing as he did and favoring his right ankle.

Adelenodded determinedly, shoving aside the sense of foreboding rising in her gut. “Wesearch the train front to back. We question everyone. Hard. John, you startwith the sleeper cars, Leoni, you go to the last compartment.”

“Hangon,” John interjected. “I want the back.”

Adelefrowned. “What does it matter?”

Johnshrugged. “I don’t need a reason. Limpy here can have the sleeper cars.”

Adeleresisted the urge to roll her eyes. “All right, Leoni, you can take the sleepercars, John, you get the back. Sound good?”

“Great.And where are you going? Let me guess, with Casanova here.”

Adeleglared at John for a moment, but he shrugged off the comment with a snort andglanced toward the body again. Adele said, “I’ll be interviewing first classand see, once they’ve calmed down a bit, if they’ve seen anything untoward.”

“Bigword that,” John said. “Untoward. Think our Italian friend needs some help withthe French?”

Leonireplied in flawless French, “I understand. Let’s stop dawdling. We’re runningout of time.”

Adelegave a quick nod of agreement and then turned, splitting off toward first classand allowing John and Leoni to head toward the back compartment of the train inthe direction of the sleeper cars and the caboose.

***

Adelesat across from the beautiful young woman in the mink scarf and her arm-candyboyfriend. Both of them kept shooting glances at each other as if sharing aninside joke as Adele settled before them, across the table divider. Every sooften the woman’s eyebrows would twitch and the man would snort as if she’dtold a funny joke. Occasionally, she caught them glancing at her shoes, or atthe somewhat wrinkled sleeves of her suit.

Adelefrowned after this second eyebrow tilt, followed by not-so-hushed giggling.

“Allright,” she said, injecting a bit of