“Who was that guy?” she asked, playing ignorant.
Adriana glanced over at her, still breathing a little heavy. Even though she was in tremendous shape, adrenaline-fueled events like that always picked up her heart rate. “I was hoping you could tell me.”
Allyson lied. “I have no idea. I’ve never seen him before.”
“Well, that was exhilarating,” Harry chimed in from the back. Allyson was thankful for the interruption.
“Exhilarating?” Lester whined. “We almost got killed! It was dumb luck we made it out of there in one piece!”
Adriana brought the group back to focus. “Harry, we’ll take your car to the train station. You can drop us off there. Lester, I assume you have someone who can fix up Harry’s car for him?” She motioned to the windshield and the spiderweb crack with a hole in the center.
“Why would I—?”
“Because at any minute, the police will be swarming the area. Your story is that you were out running errands with Harry. Someone must have shot up the house while you were gone. Understood?”
Lester nodded slowly. “Yeah. I understand. I have a friend who runs an auto repair shop near here. He can probably make the car look like new again. He owes me a favor.”
“Good.” She returned her attention to Harry as the light turned green and Allyson accelerated through the intersection. “I’m sorry for all this trouble, Harry. I’ll pay for the repairs to your home.”
The large man smiled broadly, the corners of his lips nearly stretching to his ears. “Are you kidding? This is the most excitement I’ve had in years. I feel more alive than ever! And don’t worry about the repairs. I have more than enough to fix that. The place was due for a little renovation anyway.”
Harry looked out the window and watched the Parisian landscape pass by. He let out a satisfied sigh as if he’d just eaten a big meal.
The two women weren’t so relaxed. Both continued to check the mirrors to make sure no one was following them. So far, the BMW hadn't made an appearance. But just to be safe, they would both need to be on even higher alert from here on out. Someone was trying to kill them, and until they knew who or why, their nerves would be on edge.
9
Two hours later, the Bentley pulled onto the street that passed by Harry’s home. Lester was behind the wheel and slowed the vehicle at the sight of all the police tape. A gendarme was guarding the perimeter and signaled for the driver to stop.
Lester did as told and halted the car fifteen feet short of the tape. He shifted the transmission into park and waited to see what the cop would say.
The uniformed policeman stepped up to the window. Lester was already in the process of rolling it down.
“What is going on?” Lester asked in terrible French. “My friend lives in that house over there.” He pointed to Harry’s mansion.
“We are investigating a homicide.” The policeman looked into the back at Harry. “How long have you been gone?”
Lester shrugged. “A few hours. I’m his driver. We were out running some errands.”
Harry interjected, speaking English proudly. “I had a bit of mail to drop off and had a craving for some croissants.”
A man in a black suit approached the vehicle. His head was shaved and his face marked with distinct, dark eyebrows. Underneath them were bottomless brown eyes that appeared more like black orbs set inside his sockets. He flashed a badge at Lester and told the guy in uniform to go back to the scene. The young cop obeyed and left the bald man with the Bentley and its occupants.
He spoke in plain English with an Eastern European accent. It was clear he wasn’t French, even though the man attempted to mask that fact by slurring a few syllables. “Are you the owner of this home?” he asked.
Harry nodded. “I am. What the devil is going on here?”
“A man was burned alive here less than two hours ago. His wounds must have been so severe that he put a gun to his head and ended his own life. Where were you for the last two hours?”
“Like I said,” Lester started to answer, but shaved head shut him down.
“I was talking to the man in the back.”
Harry was thrown off by the sudden rude approach, but he assumed the man was just doing his job. “Like my driver was about to say, we were off running some errands. Mail and such.”
Shaved head nodded. “That’s interesting. Because we have witnesses who say they saw this car leaving the scene as it all happened. They say there were two women in the car with you.”
“Two women?” Lester tried to play dumb.
“Where are they?”
“We don’t know anything about two women.”
Shaved head pulled a Glock out of his jacket and aimed it at Lester’s chest, shielding it with his body from the view of the other policemen. A second later, he removed a sound suppressor from another pocket and attached it to the end of the gun with a quick twist.
“I don’t have time for your lies right now. We need to know where the two women went.”
Harry’s eyes were like ice picks, stabbing at the man in the suit. He did not intend to sell the women out. Lester, however, was weak.
He nearly wet himself at the threat. When he answered, his voice trembled, full of cowardice. “Heidelberg,” he said. “They’re taking a train to Heidelberg, Germany.”
“You’re certain of this?” The man’s broad jaw and pale skin gave him an almost ghostly appearance.
Lester nodded. “We dropped them about an hour ago.” His breath quickened. “Are we in trouble? That guy over there, he shot at us. We were just in the house. It was self-defense. I don’t want to go to prison.” His words came like a fire hose on full blast.
Shaved head cocked his head to the side, staring at Lester with sinister amusement. “Prison? Oh, you aren’t going to prison.” With his free hand, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a compact 9mm pistol, and tossed it into Lester’s lap.
“What’s this?”
“A distraction for them.” He motioned to the other police with a sideways nod. The weapon in the man’s hand suddenly fired twice, sending a round into Lester’s head. Then he turned the barrel to the back and fired through the window at Harry, putting one bullet in his chest and another in his stomach.
Lester slumped over to the right as blood seeped through the holes in his chest, soaking his shirt. Harry toppled over in the seat, tilted back at an awkward angle as the side of his head came to a rest on the top of the seat.
Shaved head twisted his head and glanced back at the crime scene. A coroner’s vehicle, four police cars, and several authorities surrounded the black BMW. No one noticed what had just transpired with the Bentley. They were all preoccupied, some even gawking at the sight of the burned man. No one witnessed the man in the black suit as he walked away and disappeared around the corner.
10
The two women left the train station aboard one of the many local metro lines. Heidelberg was nestled along the Neckar River, which separated the main part of town from the foothills and small mountains in southwestern Germany. It was famous for its castle, sitting atop one of the nearby hills. The Heidelberg Schloss, like many castles, had been through renovations, partial destructions due to fire, followed by further renovations. One of the castle’s most interesting tourist features was its giant beer barrel. Weighing in at fifty-five thousand gallons, the barrel was touted as the largest in the world. It even had a staircase built around it so visitors could walk up to stand on top. One local legend claimed that one of the kings consumed so much beer on a regular basis that when he decided to do something different one day and drink some water, he ended up taking ill and died.