though. I just saw it missing—”
Sophie snorted and waved a hand at Adele. “Not everything has to be catered toward precious little Adele,” Paige snapped. “Not everything is about you.”
Adele ground her teeth, and she wanted to protest further, but the words wouldn’t come. The situation had been a bad one. Agent Paige had been lucky to keep her job. Her relationship with Matthew, an accountant with the DGSI, hadn’t been public knowledge at the time. Adele hadn’t known her supervisor was dating a suspect in the death of a prostitute. In the end, Matthew had been cleared. But Paige had blamed Adele for reporting the missing evidence. It had turned out Paige was trying to cover for her boyfriend; in the end, though, it had come to light that Matthew had been sleeping with the prostitute. Adele suspected Paige hadn’t known this when she’d hidden receipts and documents suggesting Matthew’s involvement.
Adele had seen the evidence missing, though, and had immediately reported the vanished files. After that, Sophie Paige had been investigated as well as Matthew. Her boyfriend had been cleared of murder charges, but had been fired from the DGSI. Paige would have been fired, but Foucault—for some reason Adele didn’t understand—had gone to bat for her and kept her on, demoting her in the process.
“I don’t like you,” Paige said, simply, all pretenses gone now, her expression once more a scowling, stony one. “I’m not ever going to like you. I didn’t ask for this assignment. I have to bear it. As do you. Now how about you stop wasting my time by dragging me to crime scenes that have already been investigated? Did you find anything new?” she demanded.
Adele hesitated, glancing back toward the kitchen; she was loath to admit she hadn’t. So instead, she said, “When’s the witness coming?”
“You’re insufferable,” Sophie snapped. She turned back to the window and stared out into the city. Adele, her hands trembling from anger, moved to the door and into the hallway, preferring to wait outside for the witness to arrive, rather than spend another moment with Agent Paige.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Adele was startled from her reverie by an officer in uniform tapping her shoulder. She glanced back, turning from the window in the hallway outside the victim’s apartment.
“Excuse me,” the officer said, quietly.
Adele raised an eyebrow to show she’d heard.
The officer cleared his throat and smoothed his mustache. “The witness refuses to come inside. She says she’d rather talk on the sidewalk. Is that all right?”
Adele glanced at the man, then toward the open door to the apartment. For a brief moment, she was tempted to leave Agent Paige and go talk to Ms. Robinson on her own. But at last, she sighed and nodded. She pointed toward the open door. “Would you mind telling my partner?”
The police officer nodded once, then circled the banister, heading for the door. He gave a polite wave toward where the landlord still waited at the end of the hall, keys in hand. For all Adele cared, he could wait all day. They wouldn’t be renting out the place anytime soon. Not yet at least.
She moved back down the stairs, taking them two at a time, hoping to have a couple of moments to speak with the witness without Agent Paige’s presence clouding her thoughts.
She reached the ground floor, pushed open the door to the apartment building, and noticed a third car, this time a police vehicle, waiting at the curb. Adele glanced at the front of the vehicle, where a second officer sat on the hood. She had a cigarette in her hand and looked to be lighting it, but when she spotted Adele, she quickly tucked her lighter back in her pocket and flicked the cigarette toward the grate beneath the car’s front wheel.
The officer pushed off the hood just as quickly and nodded toward the back seat of the vehicle.
“She refuses to get out,” the officer said. “I can make her, if you’d like—”
“Of course not,” Adele retorted. “She’s not a suspect.” She moved toward the rear of the vehicle and peered inside. A dimple-faced young woman with curly brown hair sat in the back. She couldn’t have been older than Adele. Perhaps early thirties.
Adele tapped on the door and looked toward the officer expectantly. The officer waved apologetically and then reached into her pocket and clicked her key.
The police car lights flickered; there was a quiet ticking sound of the locks. Adele tugged on the handle and opened the door. She peered inside the cabin, ducking low and meeting the eyes of the American woman.
“You’re Melissa Robinson?” she asked.
The curly-haired woman nodded once. “Yes, I am,” she replied in accented French.
“English or French?” Adele said. The woman hesitated, frowning, and began to speak, but Adele interrupted and said, “How about English? Easier for both of us I’d imagine.”
The seamless way Adele switched from nearly perfect French to flawless English seemed to take the woman with the curly hair back a bit. “Are you—” she began.
Adele said, “On assignment. It’s a long story.” Normally people didn’t understand what it was to be American, German, and French. The idea of having three citizenships was lost on most and Adele didn’t want to get into it.
She heard footsteps behind her, and with a weary collapse of her shoulders, she glanced back to notice Paige approaching, glaring in her direction.
Adele returned her attention to the police vehicle once more. She still didn’t enter the vehicle, figuring it might be perceived as threatening, so instead she leaned forward, her arms pressed on the top of the door, in a sort of sheltering posture, hoping the way she positioned herself would communicate protectiveness to the woman within.
Adele cleared her throat and said, “I’m very sorry you had to come back here, and I’m sorry that we wanted to bring you back upstairs. That was my oversight.”
Melissa Robinson nodded, smiling in a small, sad way as if accepting the apology. Adele felt a bit of weight lift from her chest at the American’s expression as she continued, “But I was wondering if perhaps you could tell me anything about the victim. Her name was Amanda, is that right?”
“Yes,” Melissa said, her voice quavering.
Adele continued to lean in, but she could now hear more footsteps, and could feel Agent Paige coming even closer.
Melissa’s gaze flicked from Adele, over her shoulder toward the approaching agent.
“You mind giving us a moment?” Adele said, tight-lipped, to her partner.
Agent Paige leaned against the front of the vehicle, though, peering into the back without greeting the witness. “Go right ahead,” she said. Paige made no move to leave. The two officers watched the agents, but stayed where they were on the sidewalk.
With a frustrated sigh, Adele turned back, keeping her expression as pleasant as possible. “Is there anything else you might be able to tell us about Amanda?”
Melissa shook her head almost immediately. “Nothing,” she said, stammering a bit. “I barely knew her. We were going to meet for the second time today.”
Adele frowned. “Today?”
“I’m sorry, I mean yesterday.
