First Blood (22 page)

“Who took you home?”

“It’s not my fault,” she said.

“I don’t understand,” Vauvert said. “What do you mean?”

“Arnaud Levy is mean. He needs to understand that. Something has to happen to him.”

“But he didn’t really try to assault you, did he?”

She shook her head.

“I need a straight answer. I think you are falsifying a crime, which is punishable by law. Are you sure you want to continue? You may not realize it, but your case will be heard by a judge, and I can assure you that he won’t have any pity for you if he realizes that your testimony is fake. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes,” she said.

“So do you really want to file charges?”

She took a deep breath, folded her hands in her lap, and then unfolded them. She put her sunglasses back on.

“You’re all the same. My boyfriend is going to kill me when I tell him.”

“Is he the reason you said the doctor tried to assault you—so he wouldn’t think that you cheated on him?

This was not the first time he had seen this kind of thing. Sometimes married women had affairs and then accused their lovers of rape so their husbands would not leave them. Sometimes a woman would feel terribly guilty about a sexual encounter and then try to convince herself and everyone else that it was rape. Some women were just looking for attention.

Certainly there was more to this young woman’s story than she was letting on.

“Is your boyfriend behind this?” Vauvert asked.

“You can’t understand,” Jeanne Bonnet said as she stood up. “You’re cruel.”

“There’s is one more thing,” Vauvert said.

“What’s that?”

“Tell the door that did that to you to never to do it again,” he said, tapping his own cheekbone.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

He hated to admit it, but Virginie had been right.
For once.

Paris

Eva had pinned pictures on her office wall of Jonathan Reich, Madeleine Reich, Ismael Constantin, and Amina Constanin. It was an old habit that helped her think, just like the maps of France and Paris that were tacked to the opposite wall. Eva was visual. She needed to “see” the case as a whole. When she did that, she was able to get into the minds of killers and literally see through their eyes.

Sometimes.

She swiveled her chair around and examined the faces in the photos.

“How do you know each other? What connects you? How does that poor murdered child fit in?”

It was all because of the baby,
Amina Constantin had said.

But why?

Had they killed him together? Was it some sort of horrific human sacrifice? Her blood ran cold at the idea. She knew that there were dozens of infanticides across the country every year. Farmers who turned their rifles on their whole families—including the babies—before killing themselves. Mothers who tossed their children off balconies or down trash shoots. Each time she read about one of these slayings, she shriveled inside, deep down, where her soul was vulnerable.

She swiveled around again to face her computer screen.

She opened another case.

Her
case.

She couldn’t help herself.

She needed her daily ritual. Like people with obsessive-compulsive disorder who had to wash their hands repeatedly.

She was no different. She was feeding the part of her that hurt, opening the wound each time. She knew it would swallow her up someday.

She looked through the documents, the testimonies, the graphs, and the pictures.

She focused on the photo.

That photo.

The one with two white-haired, ruby-eyed girls.

Her and her sister, Justyna Svärta. Her head was turned to the right, and Justyna’s was turned to the left. Nobody would have been able to tell the difference between them.

It had been taken twenty-five years before. That was an entire lifetime, without her, without her sister, her double, a part of her soul.

Every time she looked at that picture, she felt her gut tighten until it hurt.
She saw herself in that basement, huddled with her sister. They were six. She heard the ogre coming for them. He wanted their blood.

She felt around her drawer for her bottle of amphetamines.

A very distant voice interrupted her.

“Don’t be so sad.”

Eva did not turn around. She felt the air around her ripple ever so slightly.

It had been a long time since that had happened. She thought her hallucinations had gone away.

“It’s been a long time since you came to see me,” she whispered.

Then she turned around slowly.

Her six-year-old sister was sitting cross-legged in front of the door. She was wearing a pale pink dress and white sneakers.

She looked so real, it rattled Eva.

Those were the clothes Justyna was wearing the day the ogre found them.
The day the ogre found them hiding in the basement and too Justyna in his arms.

“Why?” she said.

“Because you are losing yourself,”
Justyna said in her little-girl voice.

A shiver climbed up Eva’s spine.
Am I totally crazy? Am I talking to myself?

“Justyna.”

The girl smiled.

“Don’t think about me. Think about him. He knows you are looking for him.”

Eva swallowed hard.

“Is he still alive?”

“Of course. But you’ve always known that, haven’t you?”

The image in front of her trembled, and the girl vaporized in the shadows. A minute later, she was next to Eva. The ghost—the hallucination—was hugging Eva, who felt her little arms around her.

She closed her eyes. She was shaking. She smelled a whiff of vanilla and something else, like very old dust. The girl leaned in, and her hair brushed Eva’s chin. The world was spinning.

“You have a rare skill,”
the ghost said.
“It is in your blood. There’s nothing you can do about it.”

Eva shook her head. She was speechless.

“The first blood was spilled. You know it now. You, more than anyone, know it. Remember what she said. Protect yourself.”

Eva opened her eyes.

“What?”

Justyna had disappeared, along with the smell of vanilla. Had she really been there? Or was it all in her head, in her memories?

Eva, alone in her narrow office, felt tears gathering.

She turned to her computer and stared at the picture of the two innocent smiling girls from a former life. The girls they had been, Justyna and she, inseparable sisters who were brutally separated in a time that no longer existed. Now Eva had only her dreams. She was alone. She had to face life alone.

Protect yourself.

She cradled her head in her arms for a long time.

She was trying to calm her heartbeat.

The puppy is attached to a rope.

It is terrified. Helpless, it cries and trembles. Its animal instinct tells it what a horrible fate these human beings have reserved for it. It cannot escape.

Madeleine notices that she, too, is trembling.

Deep in her chest, where emotions are struggling, something tightens and feels ready to tear.

She is aware of their eyes on her back.

They are encouraging her.

They are impatient.

She holds the sacrificial knife in a hesitant hand.

The puppy barks once and then begins trembling again.

How did she come to this in so little time?

“You have to do it,” Ismael whispers. “Now.”

Madeleine nods. Yes, she knows how important this rite of passage is. It will seal everything they have done so far. They have done enough talking. She agreed from the beginning. They all promised to go through with it. And even in this moment of doubt, she is eager.

The last few months had gone by quickly. Studious days in class and more studious nights, with meetings and experiments. They had been preparing themselves, and she knew they were ready for the next step. They had developed the chants, spells, and gestures and had adjusted and memorized them. They alone could see the secrets hidden inside the common man. They had seen visions that would have petrified anyone else.

But of course, that is not enough. It is never enough.

Madeleine has to do it—as she promised—in front of the supernatural forces they have called up, which have been stronger and stronger every time.

“Go on.” Ismael is impatient.

“Do it,” Pierre cries out.

She swallows hard. She has the impression she is moving slowly toward the dog.

When she looks at the defenseless creature, she feels sick. Worse, she knows this damned dog. It belongs to old lady Herisson, her neighbor. She had climbed over her fence to steal the animal, which came to her without resistance.

Mrs. Herisson will never know what happened to her pet. That was almost too bad.

At the time, the thought had made her smile.

But now, things are different.

Madeleine sees black dots dance on the outskirts of her vision. It is the stress. She has a painful cramp in her gut. At the beginning, she had this symptom only after the invocations, when she manipulated the natural forces too long. But recently, just thinking about the sessions has been enough to bring on a cramp in her gut.

She stands over the frightened animal. It is cringing, and its large eyes seem to beg her. It wags its tail weakly.

“No, I can’t do it.”

She feels their eyes burning behind her. She can hear their hearts beating in pace with hers.

“It’s not any harder than a pigeon,” Ismael says.

He is right. She has already sacrificed pigeons. She has torn their guts with her teeth and bitten into their still-warm hearts. And she has felt the forces sleeping beyond the veil that suddenly stopped breathing and directed their attention to her, ready to listen to her demands.

This is different.

She cannot do it. It is too much for her.

“I’ve had enough.”

“A little willpower,” Pierre says, impatient. He is standing against the wall. “That’s all it takes. Pull yourself together.”

Madeleine turns around and faces them, not at all proud of herself. It is as if she were discovering their youthful yet hardened faces for the first time. They are children ready to become adults. Now, with blood and sacrifice. With folly and cruelty.

She realizes that it is time to open her eyes. If she continues, she is sure it will be too late. She is close to her limit now, and she is terrified of what she will find on the other side of the wall of shadows once she has crossed over.

“I’m stopping,” she says. “I’m finished.”

“You can’t turn back,” Pierre says. It is a thinly disguised threat. “You know that. We took an oath.”

She knows very well that she has taken an oath. They have sealed it with ashes and their own blood. They have pledged to open the forbidden doors.

It was a mistake.

“To hell with that damned oath,” she says. “I refuse to do it. You’ll have to make do.”

Their eyes fill with wordless anger. The dog cringes even more.

“Don’t drop us now,” Guillaume says. He has always been the overexcited one. “You know how important it is. You can’t just leave like that. You can’t leave at all.”

She turns to Ismael.

“Say something,” she begs. “You understand, don’t you?”

He shoots her a look, disappointment twisting his mouth. His contempt cuts through her like a red-hot blade. Physical pain is nothing, compared with the suffering she feels when she sees the look in Ismael’s eyes.

She drops the knife and heads for the door, breathing hard.

She needs some air, right away.

Toulouse

“What are you doing?” Detective Thibaut Brodin asked when he saw the inspector sitting alone in the office. Everyone else had left for lunch.

“I’m taking advantage of the calm to go through the reports,” Vauvert said without looking away from his computer. He was scrolling through pictures, maps, and reports. Everything from the Loisel case was in the database.

Brodin sat down next to Vauvert and watched the moving collage. The inspector went from one to the other in chronological order. The documents sped by on the screen.

“Are you looking for something in particular?” Brodin asked.

“I wanted to go over everything we have on the Loisel case. It will help me get everything straight in my head.”

The detective nodded. He was sporting a jacket that paid homage to Kiss and had not shaved in a while. His hair was a mess.

“You’re right. My mind is reeling too. We need to get the big picture. I was there when we searched his home. I can tell you that it was spick-and-span. I’ve never seen a house so clean. What leads do we have left? You think it’s an accident? Murder? Could it be like the Agnes Le Roux case? She was that heir to that casino fortune in Nice. They never found her body.”

“That’s a lot of possibilities,” Vauvert said, still absorbed in the pictures on the screen.

“Give me your theory then,” Brodin said. “I know you have one. You
always
have one.”

“Okay.”

He clicked on a file. The picture of a pretty young woman with red hair and mint-green eyes flashed on the screen.

“Who is she? Doesn’t she work for Loisel?”

“No,” Vauvert said. “I just added her picture. The woman you are looking at is Amandine Beaumont, his ex-wife. I went to see her parents yesterday to talk about her.”

“Oh, yeah. The accident with her baby. That was weird.”

“More than you think, Thibaut. His wife and his child died shortly before Loisel founded his first company. It grew like wildfire. The following year, he sold that business and bought two more.”

“Where are you going with this? Do you think there is some connection between his wife’s death and his first business? Did she have money?”