Tess Gerritsen - In Their Footsteps

The guards merely stared at him. The other two prisoners regarded Jordan with new respect and backed away to the far side of the cell.

“Let me look at him!” demanded Jordan. He pushed past the guards and knelt by François. One glance at the body and he knew they were right. François was dead.

Jordan shook his head. “I don’t understand…”

“ Monsieur, you come with us,” said one of the guards.

“I couldn’t have killed him!”

“But you see for yourself he is dead.”

Jordan suddenly focused on a fine line of blood trickling down François’s cheek. He bent closer. Only then did he spot the needle-thin dart impaled in the dead man’s scalp. It was almost invisible among the salt-and-pepper hairs of his temple.

“What in blazes…?” muttered Jordan. Swiftly he glanced around the floor for a syringe, a dart gun-whatever might have injected that needle point. He saw nothing on the floor or on the bed. Then he looked down at the dead man’s hand and saw something clutched in his left fist. He pried open the frozen fingers and the object slid out and landed on the bedcovers.

A ballpoint pen.

At once he was hauled back and shoved toward the cell door. “Go,” said the guard. “Walk!”

“Where?”

“Where you can hurt no one.” The guard directed Jordan into the corridor and locked the cell door. Jordan caught a fleeting glimpse of his cellmates, watching him in awe, and then he was hustled down the hallway and into a private cell, this one obviously reserved for the most dangerous prisoners. Double-barred, no windows, no furniture, only a concrete slab on which to lie. And a light blazing down relentlessly from the ceiling.

Jordan sank onto the slab and waited. For what? he wondered. Another attack? Another crisis? How could this nightmare possibly get any worse?

An hour passed. He couldn’t sleep, not with that light shining overhead. Footsteps and the clank of keys alerted him to a visitor. He looked up to see a guard and a well-dressed gentleman with a briefcase.

“M. Tavistock?” said the gentleman.

“Since there’s no one else here,” muttered Jordan, rising to his feet, “I’m afraid that must be me.”

The door was unlocked, and the man with the briefcase entered. He glanced around in dismay at the Spartan cell. “These conditions…Outrageous,” he said.

“Yes. And I owe it all to my wonderful attorney,” said Jordan.

“But I am your attorney.” The man held out his hand in greeting. “Henri Laurent. I would have come sooner, but I was attending the opera. I received M. Vane’s message only an hour ago. He said it was an emergency.”

Jordan shook his head in confusion. “Vane? Reggie Vane sent you?”

“Yes. Your sister requested my immediate services. And M. Vane-”

“Beryl hired you? Then who the hell was…” Jordan paused as the bizarre events suddenly made sense. Horrifying sense. “M. Laurent,” said Jordan, “a few hours ago, there was a lawyer here to see me. A M. Jarre.”

Laurent frowned. “But I was not told of another attorney.”

“He claimed my sister hired him.”

“But I spoke to M. Vane. He told me Mlle Tavistock requested my services. What did you say was the other attorney’s name?”

“Jarre.”

Laurent shook his head. “I am not familiar with any such criminal attorney.”

Jordan sat for a moment in stunned silence. Slowly he raised his head and looked at Laurent. “I think you’d better contact Reggie Vane. At once.”

“But why?”

“They’ve already tried to kill me once tonight.” Jordan shook his head. “If this keeps up, M. Laurent, by morning I may be quite dead.”

They were following her again. Black hounds, trotting across the dead leaves of the forest. She heard them rustle through the underbrush and knew they were moving closer.

She gripped Froggie’s bridle, struggled to calm her, but the mare panicked. Suddenly Froggie yanked free of Beryl’s grasp and reared up.

The hounds attacked.

Instantly they were at the horse’s throat, ripping, tearing with their razor teeth. Froggie screamed, a human scream, shrill with terror. Have to save her, thought Beryl. Have to beat them away. But her feet seemed rooted to the ground. She could only stand and watch in horror as Froggie dropped to her knees and collapsed to the forest floor.

The hounds, mouths bloodied, turned and looked at Beryl.

She awakened, gasping for breath, her hands clawing at the darkness. Only as her panic faded did she hear Richard calling her name.

She turned and saw him standing in the doorway. A lamp was shining in the room behind him, and the light gleamed faintly on his bare shoulders.

“Beryl?” he said again.

She took a deep breath, still trying to shake off the last threads of the nightmare. “I’m awake,” she said.

“I think you’d better get up.”

“What time is it?”

“Four a.m. Claude just phoned.”

“Why?”

“He wants us to meet him at the police station. As soon as possible.”

“The police station?” She sat up sharply as a terrible thought came to mind. “Is it Jordan? Has something happened to him?”

Through the shadows, she saw Richard nod. “Someone tried to kill him.”

“An ingenious device,” said Claude Daumier, gingerly laying the ballpoint pen on the table. “A hypodermic needle, a pressurized syringe. One stab, and the drug would be injected into the victim.”

“Which drug?” asked Beryl.

“It is still being analyzed. The autopsy will be performed in the morning. But it seems clear that this drug, whatever it was, was the cause of death. There is not enough trauma on the body to explain otherwise.”

“Then Jordan won’t be blamed for this?” said Beryl in relief.

“Hardly. He will be placed in isolation, no other prisoners, a double guard. There should be no further incidents.”

The conference room door opened. Jordan appeared, escorted by two guards. Dear Lord, he looks terrible, thought Beryl as she rose from her chair and went to hug him. Never had she seen her brother so disheveled. The beginnings of a thick blond beard had sprouted on his jaw, and his prison clothes were mapped with wrinkles. But as they pulled apart, she gazed in his eyes and saw that the old Jordan was still there, good-humored and ironic as ever.

“You’re not hurt?” she asked.

“Not a scratch,” he answered. “Well, perhaps a few,” he amended, frowning down at his bruised fist. “It’s murder on the old manicure.”

“ Jordan, I swear I never hired any lawyer named Jarre. The man was a fraud.”

“I suspected as much.”

“The man I did hire, M. Laurent, Reggie swears he’s the best there is.”

“I’m afraid even the best won’t get me out of this fix,” Jordan observed disconsolately. “I seem destined to be a long-term resident of this fine establishment. Unless the food kills me first.”

“Will you be serious for once?”

“Oh, but you haven’t tasted the goulash.”

Beryl turned in exasperation to Daumier. “What about the dead man? Who was he?”

“According to the arrest record,” said Daumier, “his name was François Parmentier, a janitor. He was charged with disorderly conduct.”

“How did he end up in Jordan ’s cell?” asked Richard.

“It seems that his attorney, Jarre, made a special request for both his clients to be housed in the same cell.”

“Not just a request,” amended Richard. “It must’ve been a bribe. Jarre and the dead man were a team.”

“Working on whose behalf?” asked Jordan.

“The same party who tried to kill Beryl,” said Richard.