The Sketcher's Mark (Lara McBride Thrillers Book 1) (2 page)

“I guess this is it, then...” she said, totally lost now as to what to do.  She was going to miss that plane and lose out on something else here, an adventure, a side street in her life she was genuinely intrigued to go down and explore.  Shit.  She hoped he would rise to the challenge she had passively laid down for him.  He seemed sharp enough to take the hint.  He looked at her and she knew he could read her.

“I have to drive past the airport.  If we leave now, I might just have you there in time.  No promises but I can try.  And I’d love to keep talking to you.  If you’re interested.”

“Yes.  I am. Shit, is this really happening right now?  Damnit!”

She laughed involuntarily and hated herself for it when she was trying to be sophisticated and aloof.  All those games and tricks she felt compelled to play back home in the dating scene were fast becoming infantile to her while she was in his presence.  So far, he had got everything right.  She really was in the hands of The Fates right now as he called it and she had no idea which direction they were going to take her.

“Where were you a week ago?”

“Biding my time.  We should leave now if we want to beat the traffic.”

“Ok.  Lead the way, sir.”

He walked beside her carrying the two folding chairs and the easel.  Together, they strolled through the square towards the church on the other side of the Pompidou Centre on Rue de Cloitre Saint Merri.  They passed by the fountain, where couples were talking close, kissing.  Janelle felt an ache of envy watching them.  On the brick wall behind them, a giant painting of a man’s head, his finger to his lips intoning a conspiratorial “shhh”.  She loved this city.

“Can I ask you something?” she said.

“Of course.”

“What happened?  With the scars, I mean.  You don’t have to tell me if I’m being too personal.”

“Not at all.  I’m not ashamed.  I was in  a car accident when I was a child.  I walked away, thankfully.  My parents weren’t… so lucky.”

“I’m so sorry.  I didn’t mean to drag it up.”

“I was very young.  I’ve had time to get over it.  I don’t remember them much at all.  I was taken in by my aunts afterwards.  That was worse.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.  We’re both orphans.”

“Can I ask what happened?  If I’m not being too personal?”

“I was very little.  I don’t remember seeing it.  There were two guys in a parking lot at the mall.  One of them had a gun.  I just remember my sister telling me in the hospital it was just us now.  She’s a lot older than me.  I was the miracle child they never thought they’d have.  I always felt bad for her because of that.  She had to give up a lot to look after me.  It can’t have been easy.” 

“How much older than you?”

“Ten years.  She was in college when it happened.  I’m sorry, I don’t even know why we’re talking about this.  It’s my fault.”

“Never apologize for speaking your mind.  I assume you have to do that a lot back home.”

“I do and, you know, it’s so freeing to not have to do that out here.  God, I love Paris!”

He led her to a large white Mercedes work van parked beside the church.  The street was small, cobbled on this end.  The church was to her left, running a little further down from the apartments on their right.  Cars were parked on both sides of the street.  Even though the Pompidou was a busy area, this side street was quiet, no foot traffic, just the two of them in the early evening air.  She looked at the windows of the apartments, saw televisions on inside, paintings hanging on walls, dining tables, people moving around inside preparing dinner.  There were no faces at the windows looking down on the street, everybody was too busy with their own lives.  That reminded her of home.

Guillotine set the folding chairs and easel down against the front bumper of the white van and fumbled the keys out of his pocket.  She walked around to the passenger side.  The van was so tall she couldn’t see over the top of it, the view of the apartments on the other side was completely blocked.  That meant they couldn’t see her, either.

Guillotine opened the driver’s door, tossed in his satchel and reached down under the seat for the rag he kept there and the small bottle of chloroform.  He popped open the cap and quickly doused it as she tried the door across from him. It was stuck.  Of course it was.  He’d disabled it for just this very purpose- it had always made for a great stalling tactic.

“I think I broke your door here,” she said, hoping he wasn’t going to get pissed off she’d broken his van.

Calmly, he walked around to the church side of the van, out of sight of the lovers in the square by the painting and the windows of the apartments.  It was no accident the van was positioned here.  It was where he always parked it.

“Sometimes, you just need to use force,” he smiled and then his arms snaked under hers from behind and he had the rag to her face as he lifted her off the ground.

Her boots flailed out, kicking the side of the vehicle and she tried to call out from beneath the rag, but the chemical was already shutting down her senses.

He held her tight and close until she stopped thrashing and went limp in his arms.  He could smell the shampoo she had used to wash her hair this morning in the hotel shower.  She smelled clean and young and her skin was smooth and soft to the touch when he pressed his cheek against hers.  He lowered the rag and held her like a rag doll as he slid open the loading door on this side of the van. 

The hatch inside was already open.  He had learned a long time ago that so much time could be burned if he wasn’t prepared to store his prey once he had them.  Gently, he lowered her down in to the hatch in the floor, a storage compartment beneath the van.  She fit inside in a fetal position.  Perfect.  He reached over for his workbox, a metal toolbox he had picked up years ago, scuffed and worn from years of abuse.  Flipping open the lid, he retrieved a fresh syringe and a vial of very powerful sedative he had acquired from one of the many unsavory characters who could get anything a man wanted if he had the money to pay for it.  Seconds later, he had finished injecting Janelle McBride with the powerful sedative and she would sleep well in to the night, giving him plenty of time to get her quietly out of Paris. 

He closed the hatch, secured the padlock on the handle that was inlaid in the flooring and then he covered it with the old rug he’d picked up in a charity shop in Provence, a ratty old thing that nobody would like twice at- exactly what had made him buy it.  He pulled the folding chairs and easel around from the front of the van and placed them on the rug, their weight keeping the rug in place to cover the hatch.  He rolled the door shut and walked around to the driver’s side.

It was a beautiful evening.  He could smell honeysuckle from the plant pots on one of the apartment windows drifting over to him.  He closed the door, secured his seatbelt and turned on the stereo.  Saint-Saens’ “Samson and Delilah” washed over him from the speakers and he felt a soothing calm.  He looked in the rearview mirror and saw the black silhouettes kneeling over the hatch.  Black figures clothed in funeral attire, black veils over their faces.  Two women.  His Aunts, Madeline and Marie.

He readjusted the mirror so he couldn’t see them any more.

“No.  You will not ruin this for me.”

Guillotine put the van in gear and eased out of the quiet street, melting in to the busy Paris traffic, just another white van in the city.  Nobody paid him much attention.  He liked it that way.  It served his purpose.  But soon, they would pay attention to him.  The entire world would.

Chapter Two

Koreatown, Los Angeles

Lara McBride did not look like a typical Detective on the LAPD’s Homicide Division.  She was intense, athletic, her hair cut short because she did not indulge in the vanities she saw in the women she moved past every day.  She liked to think her style, everything about her, was functional, which was her taste.  She did not dress elaborately or for attention, nor did she make a point of dressing down to appear less feminine.  She was striking, but it was the intensity of her eyes that gave her real presence.  She could walk past people in the street and they would never notice her if she didn’t want them to because even though she walked with purpose, she did not crave the attention of those around her. She could move undetected, slip by like a ghost and nobody would ever know she was there unless she chose to make herself known.  She found that skill to be able to choose to blend in or stand out came in very handy for her work and in general as a woman in Los Angeles.  When she did make herself known, it was an experience most people never forgot.

When one found oneself in the presence of Lara McBride, once those inquisitive eyes focused on them, the rest of the world melted away in a blur and all that existed was her.  She could see beneath the masks people wore to hide their true selves.  Her gaze penetrated beyond the surface to hungrily seek out and identify the insecurities, strengths, weaknesses, guilt and innocence most people tried so hard to hide.  She was, in essence, a rare creature and to look back at her with similar eyes would be to see a woman who was in a constant struggle with the burden of this gift she had been born with- which was to see the evil in people.

She stopped the Nissan Maxima just outside the Police Crime Scene tape that was blocking off the sidewalk outside a large house that had been built during the post War boom of the 1940’s, once a regal place that signified wealth and success, but now had security bars across the windows as the money and people who had it moved further west towards the ocean.  She turned off the engine and sat there for a moment, absorbing the scene.  Police cruisers, EMTs and a couple of news vans were already on the scene.  Uniformed Officers were keeping the perimeter secure, corralling the reporters and the cameramen to the other side of the street.  She looked over and saw the neighbors were watching. They stood huddled in groups, gossiping, speculating.  A couple of uniformed Officers were taking statements from them. They were a typical ethnic mix for this part of town, which was just a few blocks off busy Normandie Avenue.  Koreans, Armenians, mid-Western white people, some good looking young men and women in their twenties, probably service industry and wannabe actors who had come to Los Angeles to live the dream and now found themselves living across the street from a nightmare.  Nobody in the crowd looked to her like a suspect hanging around to watch the show.  She got out.

The air smelled warm and carried the scent of rotting garbage mixed with some kind of spice wafting over from the restaurants a block over.  She showed her Detective badge to the uniformed Officer on guard at the foot of the steps leading up to the two level yellow house.  Waiting in the doorway at the top of the steps was a man in his late forties, stocky, buzzcut, looked like he’d have been at home in the 1940’s himself- and would have still been a cop. 

“Detective Hoyt,” she greeted.  Hoyt smiled and held out his hand.  She shook it.

“Lara, great to have you back.  I missed that smile.  Am I gonna see it any time soon?”

“Depends what kind of horror show you’ve got for me in here.”

She walked inside.  Stained beige carpet in the hallway, running all the way down to the back of the house.  Bathroom on the right, bedroom in back.  Stairs ahead leading up to the master bedroom and another bathroom.  She knew the layout, been in plenty of places made with the same blueprint.  They’d all been built the same way and this wasn’t her first crime scene inside one.  Detective Hoyt led her in to the living room, the kitchen and back door beyond. 

A Forensics crew were taking pictures of the crime scene, gathering fibers from the carpet, table, sofa and chairs.  The room was a clutter.  They were hoarders.  Newspapers, magazines, unopened mail, flyers.  Disgusting to most, but Lara saw it as a mental affliction, not a hygienic choice.  The carpet looked like it hadn’t been vacuumed in a long time.  That was good, more chance for the Forensics team to get DNA samples.  There were photos on the wall of the owners, a Korean couple in their fifties.  Pictures of the two of them together, maybe twenty of them covering one wall, all placed at crooked angles.  They hadn’t cared enough to mount the pictures properly.  That suggested they didn’t care much about the memories the photographs displayed.  She looked closer, saw the couple looked bored in most of the pictures, at someone else’s wedding, someone else’s party, someone else’s happier life.  The couple were smiling in the older pictures so it hadn’t always been miserable, just as they got older.  Happier when they were younger, the spark had just gone over time and the smiles disappeared.  Same old sad story.

“How long have they been married?” she asked.

“Twenty three years,” Hoyt replied, thumbing through a small notebook he always carried with him.  His wife had bought him his first one when he made Detective and she continued to buy him the same brand every year on his birthday.  Lara counted the pictures on the wall.  There were twenty three. 

“There’s a picture for every year. They hung these for someone else.  Mother in law probably expected great things.  Any kids?”