The Mentor (15 page)

Okay, he expected that. He knew she’d probably insist on misinterpreting his gesture. Eric himself wondered if he didn’t have ulterior motives, but it was true that she needed to be taken care of. He laughed too. “I’m not trying to seduce you,” he said, raising both hands. “I swear! I’m just worried about you.”

She smiled. Maybe she was considering his offer.

Outside, he opened the door to the black SUV like a true gentleman, which seemed to make an impression on her. Or at least that was the reaction Adele chose to reveal.

The rain had stopped. A wash of blue crossed the sky, ending in a glimmer of freshly revealed sunlight that brightened the entire Monday.

The doctor had discharged her in the late afternoon, and in the end she gave in to Eric, but insisted it would not be for more than a couple of days. “So you
do
have a car!” she exclaimed, climbing into the passenger seat.

Eric closed the door behind her, then walked around the car and got into the driver’s seat. Glancing at her, he could see that she was staring at him, waiting for an answer. “Well, yeah,” he said. “I have a car. And as I’m sure you can see, it’s not exactly the best vehicle in the world for moving around a crowded city.” Not to mention the fact that it took him far less time to get to Scotland Yard in the tube, even though he had his own reserved parking space in the department lot. Whenever he drove anywhere else, however, he couldn’t count on such a privilege.

“I hope you take it out and use it every once in a while. It would be a shame to leave a beauty like this rotting away in the garage.”

Eric turned the key, making the engine roar and getting Adele to laugh. “Oh, I use it all right.”

“When? You’re always working!”

They slowly pulled out of the hospital parking lot, then got on a minor highway.

“Whenever I can, I get away and go to my country cottage. It’s one of the few things my ex left me.”

“A country cottage . . .” Adele lingered over those words. “Sounds romantic,” she added, giving him a sensual wink.

“Remarkably romantic,” said Eric. He was struggling to keep his eyes on the road.

That morning she had discovered that her ex-husband was dead, and now here she was flirting with Eric. It was hard to say just how reliable Adele was. She seemed to change moods and ideas from one moment to the next, forcing Shaw to keep on his toes.

They crossed through the city without saying much else, making it all the way to Dorset Street in silence. Eric pulled over near the entrance to Adele’s apartment building.

“I’m going to go up and grab a few things,” she said, about to open the door. But then she stopped. “Just a minute. My car is still parked at the crime scene. My kit is inside too.” Then she looked around, alarmed. “Where’s my gun? I had it with me!”

“Don’t worry. Your kit and pistol are in the trunk.” He jerked his thumb toward the back. “I had someone bring that beater you’re driving here.” He took her keys out of his pocket and used them to point ahead. A red Ford sat parked at the end of the road. Just then he remembered that she’d said it belonged to her sister-in-law. “Hold on, the sister-in-law you talked about, the owner of that car . . . is she Daniel’s sister?”

Adele shook her head. “She’s the sister of Daniel’s ex-boyfriend. Seeing as how everybody thought I was his sister . . .” She didn’t finish the sentence because her meaning was clear. “I should call her, tell her what’s happened.”

“You can take care of that later.”

She nodded, taking her keys from his hand and getting out of the SUV.

Eric watched her walk away until she’d entered her building, then sighed and relaxed in his seat. His eyes wandered around, passing across the rearview mirror. A dark car had pulled in and parked right behind his. The driver was still in the car and appeared to have no intention of getting out.

He turned around to take a better look. Even though the man was wearing a pair of dark sunglasses that prevented Eric from seeing his eyes, Shaw had the distinct impression he was being watched.

A moment later the engine turned over and the car moved. When it passed his SUV, Eric saw that the car was an old, dark-blue Volkswagen. He had the feeling he’d seen it before, but he couldn’t remember where.

Twenty minutes after she’d gone in, Adele reappeared outside the building. She opened the rear door and tossed in a big black bag, then climbed into the front passenger seat. “Did it,” she said, pulling on her seat belt.

Still thoughtful, Eric turned his car on.

“You can set yourself up in here.” Eric put Adele’s bag on the queen-sized bed while she watched, perplexed, from the doorway. She was still holding her kit and gun.

“Don’t worry,” said Eric. “I’m sleeping in Brian’s room.”

The woman frowned and walked into the room, suspicious.

“Brian’s my son. Sometimes he comes over to spend the weekend here with me.”

“Ah, right. Your son.” Now she seemed to relax a little. She put her things down on the nightstand and turned her attention to the big bag, digging out her laptop.

“I’ll make some room for you in the closet,” said Eric, moving things around.

Adele put the computer down on the little table by the window and moved the bag onto the floor. Then she took off her shoes and stretched out on the bed to relax. Eric turned around every once in a while to look at her.

She was so beautiful. He had to summon all his strength to keep from being overtly distracted. He emptied two drawers and moved his clothing to one side of the closet. Now there was a little more room.

When he turned around again, he found her staring back at him, her head tilted to one side and an astute smile on her face. She was incredibly seductive. He told himself she must still be in shock, and that’s why she was behaving so strangely. She wasn’t trying to provoke him, even though it sure seemed like she was.

“Okay,” said Eric, satisfied with himself. “Now you can put your stuff away.”

“You’re a really handsome man, do you know that?”

Adele’s comment left Eric speechless for a moment. “Thanks,” he managed finally, finding nothing better to say. “You’re not bad yourself.”

She laughed. “I know you’d like to jump all over me right now.”

Was it that obvious? No, nonsense. She was doing it on purpose just to needle him. She had a very peculiar way of dealing with bereavement.

“Is it just me, or weren’t you the one who said we have to take things slow?”

“You didn’t exactly agree, if I remember correctly.” Adele’s expression changed to vague boredom. She got up and went over to the bathroom, but didn’t go in. She simply stood in the doorway and looked around. She seemed like someone visiting a museum.

Eric felt all his self-imposed restraint come crashing down around him in an instant. Gripped by an unexpected resoluteness, he walked quickly across the room to her, taking Adele by the shoulders and spinning her around. “You have to stop playing with me, little lady.”

She stared up at him, startled. There seemed to be a tenuous light of possibility deep in her eyes.

But before Adele could say anything, Eric grabbed her and kissed her. He didn’t stop, not even when Adele seemed indifferent, unwilling to kiss him back. But she didn’t stay that way for long.

Suddenly they were both fighting off their clothing, struggling to be free.

He hadn’t felt this good in a long, long time. He couldn’t even remember the last time. It all felt impossible, hard to believe it was real. But there she was, stretched out alongside him, her face still flushed, her expression relaxed and her beautiful hair splayed out across the pillows. She stared into his eyes, her finger tracing an imaginary path through his hair, then down his neck and across his chest. She had a little tattoo of a lotus flower on one wrist. Who knew what story lay behind that small symbol?

“You’re a surprising man.”

“Handsome and surprising. You’re all compliments today,” said Eric. He took her hand and brought it to his mouth for a kiss.

Adele threw her head back and laughed.

Eric turned toward her, and the two stared into one another’s eyes for a while. “Should I feel guilty I’ve just slept with a
girl
?” he asked in a joking tone, then tilted his head and rolled his eyes back and forth, pretending to consider the question honestly. Finally he shook his head violently. “No, not even a little bit.”

“I’m a woman, not a girl,” she protested, but she smiled as she said it and gave him a light punch in the shoulder.

“Definitely not,” said Eric, his eyes opening wide in pretend shock. “Girls don’t know how to do certain things.”

Adele laughed again.

“But maybe,” continued Eric in the same playful tone of voice as before, “I should feel guilty because I’m also your boss?” Then he shook his head again. “Definitely not!”

“Hmm . . . Maybe I should sue you for sexual harassment.”

“You’d better not,” he said, reaching out for her body and tickling her sides.

“No, no, please! No torture! I’ll confess to anything you want. It’s all my fault!” Then she dissolved into giggling.

Suddenly a ray of sunlight broke through the clouds, shone through the window, and filled the room with golden light. It was so beautiful and surprising that the couple stopped fooling around and turned to look out the window. Dancing ribbons of light played across the bedsheets.

“It stopped raining,” said Eric. He’d lost all sense of time. He hadn’t taken a day off in at least a year, and he wasn’t used to being home during the day in the middle of a workweek, even in the late afternoon—much less in the company of a woman.

He got up to move the curtains and let as much sunlight in as possible. Standing next to the window, he turned to look at Adele, who had sat up in bed. Her naked body practically sparkled in the sunlight. She was truly, incredibly beautiful. For a moment he was almost afraid of his depth of feeling for her. Everything had happened so quickly. He wasn’t sure he deserved all this, deserved her.

In order to hide the emotions he was feeling, Eric turned back around and stared out the window. There was the usual to-and-fro of pedestrians. Two kids were running along the sidewalk on the other side of the street. A woman was following them, shouting, and the two children stopped, but only because a boy with a big dog on a leash was bearing down on them from the other direction. Eric smiled. He remembered when Brian was little and how hard it was for him and Crystal to rein in their son’s exuberance.

Then, by chance, his eye was drawn farther down the street, to the right. A blue car was parked along the side of the road. He recognized it immediately. It was identical to the Volkswagen he’d seen near Adele’s house.

“What’s up?” asked Adele, sensing something was wrong. He heard her get up and come over to the window. She looked out in the same direction.

“That car,” said Eric. “The blue one. I saw one that looked just like it outside your house. When the driver realized I was looking at him, he turned the car on and drove away.”

She squinted at the car. “There’s somebody inside.”

The car was in shadow, and it wasn’t easy to see anything more.

“I don’t like it,” said Eric, turning to look for his phone.

“Wait,” said Adele, going over to her purse and taking out her smartphone. She went back to the window, then used the phone to zoom in on the car’s license plate and take a picture. “There. It’s pretty clear.”

“Send it to Stern.” Shaw took his cordless phone off the nightstand and called the desk where the criminologist usually sat.

“Hey, boss,” said Stern, displaying an easiness he didn’t actually possess.

“Stern, Adele’s about to send you a license plate number. Check it out and let me know who it belongs to, okay?”

“Okay, yes,” said Stern, his voice pitched too high with excitement. “Got the message. I’ll check right away.”

Eric hit the speakerphone button and put the cordless down on the bed. Adele was getting dressed, and he did too, keeping his eye on the car outside the window. It was still there, its driver still sitting patiently.

“Boss,” said the voice on the telephone. He seemed agitated. “The owner is Christopher Garnish, the guy we’re looking for!”

“Fuck!” exclaimed Eric, pulling on his shoes. “Send backup to my house immediately.”

“Immediately . . . to your house?” said the criminologist, but then Eric hung up, cutting him off.

“What do you want to do?” asked Adele.

Eric grabbed his holster and gun and put them on. Then he took another look out the window. “Arrest him,” he said.

Adele grabbed his arm, her mouth open in surprise. “Aren’t you going to wait for the backup?”

But Eric broke free from her grip and headed for the door.

“Wait!” she said, grabbing her own gun off the floor. “I’m coming with you!”

Together they left the apartment and went down into the lobby.

Shaw held the building door open just a crack to take a look around outside. The Volkswagen was still there. The man behind the wheel seemed to be watching a couple who was walking past on the sidewalk. When the driver turned his head toward the passenger seat, tracking the couple, Eric and Adele went outside and moved down the street. They held their guns hidden behind their backs and approached the car from behind so they wouldn’t be noticed.

The man in the blue car raised his head, his face turning to the rearview mirror. He was still wearing dark sunglasses, so it was impossible to see where he was focusing his gaze, but he had undoubtedly noticed them. The way he tensed and froze gave him away.

The detectives moved quickly, but the man started his car immediately. Eric ran to get in front of the car and block him from leaving. “Stop! Police!” But instead of stopping, the driver accelerated.

“Watch out!” cried Adele.

Shaw jumped out of the way just in time, barely avoiding being hit by the car.

“Son of a bitch!” Eric stared at the car racing away. He raised his arm toward the car, ready to shoot at it, but then stopped himself. It was already too far away. “Fuck . . . ,” he murmured to himself. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a set of keys.