Walking The Edge: A Romantic Suspense/Espionage Thriller (Corpus Brides Trilogy Book 1) (21 page)

He clenched his jaw even more, this time with pain flaring along his cheek.

“Find her, and get her to join us. If she doesn’t agree, get rid of her. We have no more time to lose.”

“Easy for you to order me around, isn’t it?”

“Oh, fuck off, will you, Max? We both know who’ll be at the head of the new cell when it’s set up, and it’s not gonna be you if you continue fucking up like you’ve done so far.”

“
Fine
,” he said before he cut the call.
Fuck you, and fuck that bitch, Fey, too.
He’d never have thought she’d cause them so many problems. She’d seemed like a quiet, docile little thing when she’d been working under Scott’s orders. They surely hadn’t expected her to turn out to be such a hellion. What about Scott had managed to keep her in line?

He had no time to ponder this question, though. He had to find her, quick. Reaching into his suit pocket, he fingered the photo of her he’d use to ask around if anyone had seen her. He’d start with the hotels on the
corniche
. She’d grown used to luxury; he couldn’t believe she’d recovered her memory so much that she could survive in dire living conditions. He’d find her, convince her to join them, and then he, too, would rise to lofty heights in the new, superior
Corpus
.

He smirked as he walked to his car.

***

Marseille.
Quartier de Saint Giniez
in the
8ème arrondissement

Wednesday December 19. 8:51 a.m.

Gerard tore himself out of deep, restless slumber. He’d found sleep only when the sun had come up, thoughts of Mirka or Fey or whoever she could be crowding his mind and refusing to let him escape the memory of her. The insistent ring of his mobile rattled like screeching nails inside his head.

He glanced at the screen. Rashid.

“What?” he mumbled, his mouth and brain feeling like dense cotton.

“Remind me again,” Rashid said. “The man you brought in. He’s still supposed to be out cold at the hospital, right?”

“As far as I know, yes.” The cotton started to clear, leaving the place for a raging headache to settle in.

“Get this. His body double just walked out of here, armed with your address.”

All fogginess left his brain, replaced by sharp perception.
Putain
, it must be that man, Peter. The one who’d kept Fey in the dark and who’d been toying with her mind.

“How did he get this information?” he asked.

“Played the front desk man, made him think he was from Interpol,” Rashid replied with a snort.

He cursed. “Who’s working the desk today?”

“Duperré.”

“Duperré? He’s a lieutenant, not an unseasoned
bleu
!”

“Tell me about it.” Rashid sighed. “He’s going back to directing traffic the minute I get my hands on his file. But Duperré’s not the priority right now. What do we do about the man who just left?

Peter was coming here, then.

No, not Peter. Max
, he recalled Scott saying at the hospital.

He brought his hand up, running it over his face. He should’ve let the man talk. Now they had no idea who they dealt with. He’d thought they had time. He hadn’t imagined things could spiral out of control so quickly.

“That guy,” Rashid said, “spells danger with a big D. Get out of there, quickly,” he said before cutting the call.

Gerard dashed to the garage door and threw it open. He pulled the car out, closed the door, and set out for the
commissariat
. He needed some clarifications about what Max wanted.

But what the desk officer told him and Rashid didn’t make sense. Peter had asked for the person in charge, not for Gerard especially. Actually, it seemed like he hadn’t even known Gerard must be the man he looked for.

Something didn’t click, and Gerard cursed, again feeling the urge to break something to alleviate the bristling tension inside him. Nothing made sense. If Peter, or whoever he really was, had come in and asked for the person responsible for the Stepanovic case, he would’ve had a working lead. Everything lay connected to that case, so why hadn’t the man said anything indicating thus?

What if Peter is in Marseille because of Fey?

He froze at the thought. Peter couldn’t know she’d come here, but what if he did?

Fey. He hadn’t thought of her, wrongly assuming she’d be safe in the relative anonymity of the hotel.

Reaching for the desk phone, he punched in the number for the hotel and asked to be put through to room 327.

The extension on her end rang and rang and no one picked up. Maybe she’d gone out.

He could be kidding himself, though. A very good chance existed that Peter knew she’d come here. Peter, or Max, who probably belonged to the
Corpus
, too, and who worked stealthily like the agent he must be.

Putain de merde!
He had to go find her.

***

Marseille.
Corniche
JF Kennedy

Wednesday, December 19. 10:34 a.m.

Max walked into the marble-tiled lobby of yet another hotel on the
corniche,
growing more miffed. His impatience soared, as his visits to the previous five establishments had borne no positive results. He would blow his top if this one, too, proved unfruitful. And to think he’d need to scour all the hotels in the damn town to get his hands on her. Bloody nuisance she’d turned out to be, instead of the weapon in their human arsenal.

Shelving his irritation away, he put himself back into the persona of the frantic man searching for his wife.

“Welcome to
Le Chaland
. May I help you, sir?” the pretty blonde receptionist asked.

She had been chatting with a friend when he’d come in, but now appeared all business and professional.

He retrieved the picture from his pocket and placed it on the marble counter. “Have you seen this woman?”

Recognition dawned on her features—in the way her eyes widened—but she pasted on an indifferent mask and shook her head. “I’m afraid I cannot help you, sir.”

“Please,” he said, infusing desperation in his tone.

“Sir, I’m sorry—”

“You don’t understand. She left home a few days ago. I have no idea where she is, or if she might’ve hurt herself in the meantime. You have to help me.” He paused, looking at the picture with what he knew would pass for extreme despondency. “I love my wife, and she is sick. She left home without her medication... Please, if you know where she is...”

He saw the moment when she gobbled the story. How could she not believe, though? The picture showed him and Fey on their ‘wedding day.’ He snickered inside. What couldn’t they do with picture editing software nowadays?

“Listen to me,” he continued, grave voice full of despair. “She’s bipolar, and left on her own without her medication, she could hurt herself, or hurt someone else. Please...”

The receptionist exchanged a glance with the girl she’d been talking to. The cute, dark-haired young woman with a glinting diamond stud on her nose stood near the counter, and he turned to her.

“Please,” he said. “You have to tell me. My life is empty...I am nothing without her! I love my wife, and I don’t want any harm to befall her.”

She blinked, hesitated, her head slightly lowered. Then she seemed to make up her mind and looked up into his face.

“Your wife is in room 327,” she said. “I don’t think she’s all right, because she cries a lot, looks depressed.”

Point people in a direction and watch them take that road.
Fey was nothing if not in perfect health, but the conjecture of his suggestion made this girl think Fey might indeed be sick.

He reached for her hands, which he clasped. “Thank you. Do you know if she’s here now?”

“She went up a little while ago, and I don’t think she came down again.”

He brought her hands to his lips, kissed them effusively before he let a relieved sigh escape him. He released her, grasped the picture, and he dashed to the lift where he punched the ‘up’ button with the effervescence of a white knight on the quest to save his princess.

He became all cold business in the closed confines of the elevator. After stepping into the corridor, he ambled to the door of room 327 and knocked.

The panel swung open, and there she stood.

He grinned. “Missed me?”

*

She froze at the sight of him. She’d thought Gerard had come back, and had heeded no caution when the knock came. How could she not have looked through the peep hole?

Peter. No.
Max.
That’s what Scott had said.

“So, did you miss me?” he again asked with another of those fake smiles not touching his eyes.

Bit full of himself, wasn’t he? As if she’d ever want to return anywhere close to a cold monster like him.

She had to regain the upper hand, show him she would never cower.

“Max,” she stated with her chin high.

His face contorted into an ugly, hard mask. “So you’ve remembered, after all.”

Despite her brain firing into overdrive, she couldn’t move, surprise and terror paralyzing her body. And not even a scream escaped from her suddenly cut vocal chords when he swooped down on her with the speed of a stealthy feline and a needle pricked her neck.

The view distorted before her eyes, morphing into abstract renditions of garbled colour. She remained aware, but unable to move, when he pulled her to him and half-dragged her to the lift.

Everything spun, and she vaguely realized they were leaving the hotel, him leading her while it must look like she leaned into her lover’s side.

He pushed her into a car, and everything went black.

***

Marseille.
Corniche
JF Kennedy

Wednesday, December 19. 11:27 a.m.

Gerard stormed into the grand foyer and went straight for the lift. He cursed and wished he’d taken the stairs as the damn
ascenseur
worked its way up at what felt to him like a snail’s pace. He stormed into the corridor, ran to the door of her room, and started pounding on it.

When he got no reply, he fished into the pockets of his jacket, hoping he still had the key card with him. He wrapped his seeking fingers around the plastic square, withdrew it from his pocket, and slid it through the mechanism. The lock clicked and he threw the door open, only to encounter an empty room.

Dread balled up inside him when he found no trace of her. The sheets looked bloody—had she been hurt? In the bathroom, he found the opened box of tampons, and this reduced some of his fear.

Her handbag still sat on the table, but she was nowhere to be found. Could she have gone downstairs?

He left the room in a mad dash, took the stairs down to release some of the pent-up energy and anxiety in him, and stalked to the reception desk.

“Is Marcel here?” he asked the girl behind the counter.

“I’m sorry,
monsieur
. It’s his day off today.”

Just his luck. “The woman in room 327. Petite, very beautiful, short honey-blonde hair. Have you seen her come down?”

The receptionist paled, and her expression alerted him.
What does she know?

“I’m afraid this is information I cannot give you,
monsieur
.”

“It’s not
monsieur
, it’s
Commissaire
,” he said as he slapped his badge down on the marble surface. “Do you know where she is?”

“She...she left with her husband a little while ago.”

“Her husband?”
Putain
. Max had gotten to her.

“He showed us a wedding picture of them, said she was sick and off her medication.” She paused, her eyes growing wide. “Is she...in danger?”

“You don’t know the half of it. She could be dead right now!”

She gasped. “But they left here looking so cosy together. She was leaning against him.”

“Are you sure she willingly left with him? Or did he threaten her? He also could’ve drugged her.”

Gerard had no more time to waste waiting for the stricken girl to answer. He stormed out of the hotel and into his car.

He jammed his foot hard on the accelerator, even going as far as putting on the flashing beacon of blue light and police siren as he made his way to the hospital.

The only person who could help them was there, and
merde
if he refused to cooperate. Gerard would make sure he did, by any means necessary.

He walked into the ICU and went to the nurses’ station where he grabbed hold of the head nurse’s arm and walked her into Scott’s room, despite her protests and questioning.