She sighed and then dipped her head, trying not to stand out over the other children so much.
Her mother gave her a kiss on the cheek, which Adele returned halfheartedly. She turned to leave, hefting her school bag over one shoulder. As she trudged toward the school, the sound of the bell and milling children faded. The secondary school flashed and the walls turned gray.
Adele shook her head, confused. She turned back toward the curb. “Mother?” she said, her voice shaky. She was now in the park at night.
“Cara,” voices whispered around her from the looming, dark trees.
She stared. Twenty-two years old. It had all ended at twenty-two.
Her mother lay on the side of the bike trail, in the grass, bleeding, bleeding, bleeding…
Always bleeding.
Her dead eyes peered up at her daughter. Adele was no longer twenty-two. Now she was twenty-three, joining the DGSI, working her first case—the death of her mother. Then she was twenty-six, working for the FBI. Then thirty-two.
Tick-tock. Bleeding.
Elise Romei was missing three fingers on each hand; her eyes had been pierced. Cuts laced up and down her cheeks in curious, beautiful patterns as if gouged into felt, glistening red.
Tick-tock. Adele screamed as the blood pooled around her mother, filling the bike trail, flooding the grass and the dirt, threatening to consume her, to overwhelm her…
Adele jerked awake, gasping, her teeth clenched around the edge of her blanket, biting hard to stop the scream bubbling in her throat.
She sat there in her bed, in her and Angus’s small apartment, staring across the darkened room, breathing rapidly. It was all right; it was over. She was fine.
She reached out, groping for the comforting warmth of Angus, but her fingertips brushed only cool sheets. Then she remembered the previous night.
Adele clenched her teeth, closing her eyes for a moment. The air felt chilly all of a sudden. She reached up and brushed back her hair. Every bone in her wanted to lie back down, to return to the warmth and safety of her covers. Sleep frightened her sometimes, but her bed was always a welcome shelter.
She forced her eyes open, clenching one fist and bunching it around her pajamas beneath the covers.
Safety and warmth bred weakness. The Sergeant had often said, when she was growing up, that the difference between sluggards and winners was their first decision in the morning. Those who put their heads back to the pillow would never amount to much in life.
And while she was no longer a six-year-old little girl, Adele still swung her legs over the side of the bed, kicking off her covers. slapping her feet against the vinyl floor. With practiced and deft motions she made her bed, arranging her sheets and tucking the corners of the blankets beneath the mattress.
She moved across the room toward where the turtle sat in her glass display case. She and Angus had argued about the gender of the creature—they still weren’t sure. Angus thought of him as a boy, yet to Adele, the turtle was clearly a girl. The thought of Angus sent a jolt of discomfort through her, and she swallowed, pushing back the surge of emotion.
Using the provided spoon, she measured the turtle’s food into its aquarium, watching the creature meander slowly around the habitat of small stones and faux leaves. Gregory had woken up before her—how embarrassing.
She glanced at the red numbers on the digital clock by her bedside. 4:25 a.m. Perfect. She’d woken before the alarm had gone off. The start to any good routine required an attuned body.
Adele quickly dressed into her jogging clothes and left her apartment. There was no sense in waking early unless she put her time to good use, so 4:30 to 6:00 every morning was the slot for her morning run. Some people listened to music while they exercised, but Adele found that it distracted her. Effort and discomfort required attention.
When she returned from her jog, Adele went directly to the cupboard over the stove, dragging out a box of Chocapic. She wiped sweat from her forehead and focused on her breathing as she poured herself a bowl of the chocolate cereal. She ordered it from France—a small luxury, but a childhood favorite. They didn’t make cereal the same way in the US.
Adele grabbed her cereal and a spoon, then hurried to the shower. Small habits compounded through time. Minutes wasted in the morning led to minutes wasted in the day. Angus had often teased her about eating cereal in the shower, especially that time when she’d accidentally swallowed soap, but it was another habit of hers she refused to give up. The secret to success lay in routine.
It was as she stepped out of the shower, toweling her hair with one hand and carrying an empty bowl in the other, that Adele heard her phone chirp from the other room.
She glanced at the digital clock beneath the steamed mirror, frowning. She kept a clock in every room. 6:12 a.m.
Strange. Who would be calling her this early?
Adele quickly dried off and got dressed, pulling her shirt on as she hurried out the bathroom door and stumbled into the kitchen.
“Hello?” she said, lifting the phone to her ear.
“Agent Sharp?” said the voice on the other end.
“Yes?”
“It’s Sam. We need you to come in.”
Adele frowned, lowering her faded, plastic Mickey Mouse bowl into the sink. “As in now?”
“As in an hour ago. You better hurry.”
“You sure? I was told I had three days.”
There was a sigh on the other end and the sound of voices in the background.
“Vacation is going to have to wait, Sharp.”
“Can I ask why?”
“The Benjamin Killer dropped another body last night. How soon can you—”
“I’m on my way.”
Adele didn’t even clean her bowl—normally a sacrilege in her house—before rushing to don her work clothes, shoes, and jacket and racing out the door.
Twenty-six. Twenty-five. Twenty-four.
CHAPTER FOUR
Speed limits often felt like suggestions when new leads developed in a case. Still, Adele did her best not to rankle San Francisco’s finest—especially not this early in the day. The closer she got to the heart of the city, the more the traffic slowed.
She tapped her fingers against the wheel in frustration, berating the drivers around her silently in her head. As she glared out of the tinted window of her Ford sedan, Adele couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps Angus was right. Maybe she was married to the job.
A three-day vacation—that’s what they’d promised her. Yet, here she was, rushing into work the moment they snapped their fingers and whistled. Just like a good little girl.
Adele clenched her teeth, pushing the thought from her mind. It wouldn’t do to dwell on such things. Especially not with what was at stake.
Who
