Left To Die

She paused at the corner of the street, glancing to her right. Marion’s apartment rested within sight now—tall, brown, boasting curving black railings every twenty feet beneath windows—and she could trace the path the girl must have taken the very last time she’d come this way.

Adele turned, heading back toward Marion’s apartment, preparing to trace the girl’s steps once more. But then she hesitated. She recognized the street.

She turned to the left now, scanning the mailboxes, the benches, and the bus stops lining the gray curb.

She chewed on the corner of her lip, a look of discomfort spreading over her features.

“No,” she said, quietly. “Not today.”

She turned to the right again and began marching purposefully toward Marion’s apartment. But again, before she stepped off the sidewalk into the crossing, she pulled up once more.

Her hands balled at her sides. John was still keeping track of reports of redheaded tourists. So far, the APB had turned up nothing, but Adele held hope. The clue was specific. Specific enough to matter.

She sighed again, huffing slightly. And then she turned sharply; she began striding rapidly up the sidewalk, away from Marion’s apartment, away from the crime scene, away from the path the poor young girl had taken before she’d been drugged and bled to death. Away from it all.

As she walked, for a moment, she fell in lockstep with the killer.

She felt like she too was descending in age. Memories from a past life—twenty-eight, twenty-seven, twenty-six… Eighteen, seventeen, sixteen… memories from her youth flooded her mind. She could remember walking these streets before. She turned up one sidewalk, then down another street, cutting between large, looming buildings on either side, the bricks stained red, the windows glinting dully, protected by curtains on the inside.

Adele continued to walk. She missed the city.

She missed the bells tolling in the distance, the smell of the river on the air, the sound of the nightlife, even in the tourist districts. Marion’s friends had said she was far too kind to tourists. Far more compassionate than anyone else would normally be.

A girl like that didn’t deserve to end up like this.

Adele allowed her own thoughts to propel her further and deeper into the city, walking like a mechanical construct, without tiring, without lagging, and without hesitating.

At long last, she pulled up short.

Adele faced a small store, little more than a curio shop. She stepped inside, and the bell jangled overhead. It didn’t take her long to spot the candies she knew would be offered in a place like this. She pointed them out and fished a couple of dollars from her pocket. Then she cursed beneath her breath. Not everyone accepted US currency in France; she waved the dollars toward the man behind the counter. He had olive skin and a soft smile. He nodded once, noting her chagrined look, and graciously bowed his head in her direction.

He wore prayer beads around one wrist, and a red vest with gold lace along the trim. He had kind eyes that studied her, before he reached over and took the dollar bills from her hand.

Marion hesitated, wondering if she should wait for change, but then thought better of it. She nodded her thanks, took the candies, and headed out the door.

She could feel the crinkling of the wrapper in her hand, around the toffee of the Carambars.

Cara. That’s what her mother had often called her. Cara—sweet on the inside, witty on the outside. A description that had made her blush as a child.

She didn’t blush anymore, though.

Adele took two more streets and then came to a stop in the park. Slow, creeping dread tickled her spine, crawling up toward the nape of her neck with pinpricks of motion.

She shivered, trembling, the air cool but not cold. A few couples were making their rounds along the red cobblestone paths, their arms looped together, their umbrellas protruding skyward. Adele waited for one such couple to pass, rounding behind a series of uniform trees and neatly kept brush.

Then she too stepped into the park, moving past the fountains, along the circular trails around twin ponds, one larger than the other. Some called it the figure eight. To Adele, that path had always looked more like a noose.

She went deeper into the park, toward the back. She knew youngsters would often make out on the picnic tables in the distance, beneath the low-hanging yellow and orange leaves of the park trees. She headed along the bicycle path, the candy bars crinkling in her right hand, her left hand balled into a fist. Then, at long last, she pulled up short.

No one was in sight. She could hear birds still chirping around her, calling to each other, indicating the rain had passed.

And yet, an even deeper, more wretched gloom had settled on her shoulders like a weight.

She stood at the trail head, staring at dirt and mud and patches of dust that had been protected by overhanging branches from the rain.