“No, please,” he said, weakly now. A bit more strength in his voice. Not much, but enough.
“Ah, so you can talk. Who was that? How are you involved?”
“I don’t know,” Andrew gasped.
“Not good enough!” John snapped, twisting one hand on a bandage threateningly.
Andrew whimpered. “Please…”
“No please. Tell me.”
A desperate gasp of air, then, his eyes flickering shut, Andrew said, “…Jokes…didn’t know… Just jokes…”
Then he passed out.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
Like a butterfly returning to a cocoon, Adele sat entrapped by glass and metal beneath a steady flow of cool air from the nozzles set in the ceiling above. A much smaller plane. But one that Leoni’s connection had agreed to loan them, pilot included.
Leoni sat in the cockpit, chatting away with an old friend. Which left Adele in the back, sitting in the first passenger’s seat, studying the sky through the window. They were headed to England. Stonehenge.
Defying Ms. Jayne, the Italians, the Greeks, DGSI—everyone. Defiance wasn’t natural to Adele, but she could play the part when it was most needed.
She felt a flicker of worry in her gut. She missed John. Missed her old partner.
But now wasn’t the time for hang-ups. Now she couldn’t afford a mistake. Night was coming quick and she’d gambled someone’s life. If she was wrong, and the killer struck somewhere else, then the death was hers to own.
She was the only one who seemed convinced they’d caught the wrong man. But she wasn’t as convinced with Stonehenge. It fit the riddle. It did. But… something Leoni had said bothered her.
She gnawed on her lip, sitting perked up, not leaning against the chair, nor leaning too far forward. Her legs weren’t crossed, but rather braced, set against the ground as if preparing for impact. She didn’t even realize her posture until her back began to cramp.
Adele huffed and leaned back now, glancing through the darkened window. Only a few hours left until midnight. Then, the killer would strike in the dead of night. At Stonehenge? Or somewhere else?
Why was she second-guessing? A lot was on the line. But also… something else.
What was it Leoni had said?
Stonehenge fit the bill, didn’t it? It fit her theory about religion and sacrifice, believed to have been a sacrificial spot for druids. But… Leoni had said it was a theory. Unconfirmed. People didn’t actually know Stonehenge’s use.
Why did that matter?
Because it mattered to the killer. It had to. This wasn’t a man playing fiction, nor was it a man playing in half-truths. A theory? Would a theory motivate someone like this? Everyone else operated under the assumption he was targeting tourists. But Adele wasn’t nearly so convinced.
She could hear voices talking from the front of the small plane, the cockpit door ajar so she could just see the back half of Leoni’s suited form. Even from this angle, he looked handsome. Stonehenge had been his guess. He was smart, brilliant, even. He knew more languages than her, had more connections, probably even a photographic memory.
So why did the guess bother her?
The killer wouldn’t desecrate his mission with a theory. That’s why. Leoni knew facts and information and language. He knew how to relate kindly and politely to decent folk.
But Adele knew the less-than-decent sorts. She knew people. Not normal people. Not good humans. She knew the twisted, nasty, broken sort. She’d been touched by such killers. She’d seen them face to face, again and again. She knew how they thought, a gift given to her nearly a decade ago.
She knew what they wanted.
And it wouldn’t be found in a theory.
Which meant what?
It meant the second thought she’d been considering bobbed to the surface of her mind. She had never visited Stonehenge as a child. A popular location, for sure. Her parents, desperate to keep her cultured, despite the family break, had taken her all over Europe. But never to Stonehenge.
However, her father had taken her, once upon a time, to place in Germany. Not nearly as well known. Not the sort that might arouse attention from a global set of gawkers. Not the sort that a tourist industry might fear disruption in.
There was another henge. She could remember it now. She’d been thirteen at the time. Back for a summer to visit her father, briefly. The Pömmelte Henge in Germany. A rather obscure place, sometimes called the “Stonehenge of Germany.”
Why did this matter? Why did she think this carried any weight?
“Because,” she said, speaking out loud to herself as if in an effort to convince her own mind. “That place isn’t a theory. They found more than fifty skeletons buried there.”
She nodded to herself, her eyes unblinking, once again sitting upright as she stared at the back of the open cockpit door.
Stonehenge was speculation. The religious implications were guessed. Not certain. Pömmelte, on the other hand, was certainly a sacrificial spot.
But it was obscure. No one really knew about this German Stonehenge. So were the bosses right? Was this a tourist angle? If so, the killer’s path was clear. The Stonehenge in England would be the obvious target. Everyone knew about it. Postcards, video games, online posts.
But if she was right… if this wasn’t about tourism, but about beliefs. About desecration. About something personal to the killer himself…
Then he wouldn’t care how many people knew the place. In fact, the riddles themselves suggested the killer liked being a step ahead. Liked subverting expectations. Liked unpredictability.
Which meant, if Adele was right, he wouldn’t be in England tonight. He would be in Pömmelte. No theories, actual skeletons. No legends, an actual history of buried corpses.
She shivered at the thought and reached up, shutting the nozzle to the air flow. Still, she continued to shiver, and wrapped her arms around her, leaning back in the seat. Adele sighed slowly. But maybe it was all in her head.
She’d fled Paris to Germany to avoid a case. Maybe her subconscious was betraying her, trying to avoid a conclusion to this case all the same. Maybe she didn’t want to catch the killer… If she could continue the chase, it would allow her to avoid what awaited her back home.
She gnawed on her lip. Ms. Jayne had told her not to be arrogant. And maybe the Interpol boss was right. Adele didn’t know everything. She couldn’t.
For a moment, she considered stepping to the cockpit, catching the attention of Leoni and his pilot friend, demanding they turn to Germany.
But then she puffed a breath, closed her eyes, and leaned back. Maybe it was all in her head. Ms. Jayne had been doing this sort of thing longer than Adele ever had. Everyone else seemed to think this was about tourism. About spectacle. They were calling him the Monument Killer, after all.
She breathed and then relaxed, settling in for the rest of the flight. Her mind was just playing tricks. He would be at Stonehenge. He would be in England. Everyone else was probably right.
And though she tried to soothe herself with such thoughts, Adele couldn’t help but shake the terrible sensation that they were making a mistake.
But still, she kept her mouth shut. She was too close to it. Too distracted. Maybe it was time to let someone else take the lead. At least in theory.