Walking The Edge: A Romantic Suspense/Espionage Thriller (Corpus Brides Trilogy Book 1) (5 page)

The girl blinked. Probably wondering if this well-dressed chick were a loon or something.

“I’ll trade you my clothes for yours,” she continued.

If someone came looking for her, he’d be searching for a woman in a classy suit. Not for a gal dressed in hip, teenage fashion.

“What’s the catch?” the girl asked.

Hmm, tough one, that chick. She’d have to cook up a plausible excuse. “There’s none. Listen, I’m on my way to France to meet with the man I love. I—” She paused and sighed dramatically. “I ran away from my house and the husband who beats me to be with him.”

The girls had drawn closer and seemed all ears.

“I’m afraid he’ll come looking for me,” she added.

“And if you’re wearing our clothes, he won’t get you before you reach your man,” one of the girls said.

She nodded, careful not to wince when they all squealed.

One of the girls took her hand. “Come on, then. This is so romantic!” They engulfed her and led her to the restrooms.

“My jeans will fit you,” one of the girls said, and she proceeded to strip and hand the trousers over.

“Take my sweater,” another added.

One by one, they each took off some piece of clothing and traded with her.

“Thanks so much. You have no idea how much this means to me.” Genuine warmth filled her voice when she addressed them, and a smile touched her lips at their solicitude.

“Oh my God!” the black-and-pink-haired girl exclaimed. “He did this to you?”

They all stared at the darkening bruise on her upper arm, clearly visible while she changed. “Yeah.”

“What a bastard,” one girl said, and they all shook their heads.

“Oh, wait, you can’t go out like this,” another added, whipping out a pot of hair gel from her bag. “Your hair will give you away.”

Another girl opened a makeup case.

“The sad arse who dared hit you won’t recognize you when we’re finished,” the group leader said.

By the time they were done—minutes, really, but what had seemed like an eternity of babbling and over-enthusiastic females—even she didn’t recognize herself in the mirror. They had spiked her hair and done an expert rendition of smoky eyes and nude lips on her. Her cheekbones could cut glass so much they’d been emphasized.

The call for their train echoed over the loudspeakers, and the girls crushed her in their throng as they led her out and back to the platform.

Just before they got onto the train, the girls all hugged her, one after the other.

“We hope you find him, the man you love,” the black-and-pink-haired girl said, “and that he’ll treat you right, the way a woman deserves to be loved.”

Inside, she winced. Deceit did not agree with her, it seemed... While she may be technically going to see her lover, the situation wasn’t exactly as she’d depicted it. Still, she hoped so, too—that she’d find him—and she smiled, really smiled, as she hugged each of the girls. Who knew good people still existed in the big, bad world?

Once on, she slid into her seat, the girls riding in another compartment, and closed her eyes, wishing upon every second that passed that the train would tug out of the station as soon as possible.

After a while, they reached cruising speed, and the vehicle entered the tunnel she’d come to think of as a gateway. A gateway to the world where she’d find the answers she needed. Only then did she allow herself to breathe, and her heart slowed to a normal rate.

She would find Gerard Besson, and hoped he held the answers she craved. She also left Peter Jamison and all the questions he stirred up. And somewhere along the line, she’d figure out how the man she had escaped at the mall, a man who had targeted her for some reason, fit into everything.

One question lurked at the forefront of her mind—what hell revolved around her existence?

Briefly, she wondered what Peter would do when he found out she was gone, but then, she shifted the focus of her thoughts away from him. More important matters loomed ahead of her. She had to concentrate on the future and on what Marseille held in store.

***

London. Walthamstow

Friday, December 14. 2:11 p.m.

Peter found himself in a dingy council flat on the other side of London that afternoon, pleased with himself.
She
was meeting with him. Again. How he craved to possess her, to lose himself in the red-hot wave of her brimming-to-overflow passion. Oh, yes, his woman met all his needs, and she allowed him to burn off all the resentment and disgust he felt towards Amelia.

He grunted. Her name wasn’t even Amelia, but she didn’t know it. She didn’t
need
to know this. According to his lover, they needed nothing more than to convince the blonde, blue-eyed ‘innocent’ currently battling amnesia at the Hampstead Heath house that she was going crazy. Sensory deprivation wouldn’t work, given how she had no memory—a blank mind could not be influenced. He could, however, influence her frame of reference, manipulate her so she lost even the little bearing she did have.

He had to admit that, though the game proved straining and took a hard toll on him, he enjoyed toying with her. The look on her face the night before, when he’d accused her of infidelity—priceless. Then she had hit him, and damn if the little bitch didn’t pack a wallop in that delicate-looking hand of hers.

He touched the healing cut on his lip. All he wanted to do was hurt her, make her pay for what she had dared inflict upon him, for how she had dared to turn her back on him for all these years. Oh, yes, his acquaintanceship with her went a long way back, and thank goodness, she didn’t know what part he had played in her life. Yet, she had recalled ‘him’ with longer hair.

At this thought, a dam burst inside his mind, and anger flowed freely like poison into his bloodstream. Of course, she’d remember ‘him’ with long hair. The bitch.

His mobile rang on the rickety bed table, and he cursed at the caller identification.
Nathaniel
. Why would he be calling? Bloody hell, it surely had to do with Amelia. What, though? The bloke he had assigned to watch her every move had sent a text message some three hours earlier, saying he was taking her shopping. Her whole life revolved around shopping and haunting the malls lately. Peter snorted. What a far cry from the life she had led before the accident; she had no idea how much of a mundane existence she lived today.

“What?” he barked in greeting.

“She’s gone.”

The air left his lungs, his chest squeezing with oppressive force. “Is this your idea of a sick, fucking joke?”

“I lost her.”

“What? How?” Sweat beaded on his back, making his shirt stick to his skin. How could this have happened? “You are a trained man, for bollocks’ sake.”

“I never saw it coming, sir,” Nathaniel replied. “I think she slipped something from the shops into one of the bags. Security stopped me at checkout, and then they found I had a gun on me.”

Bloody hell.
He was a dead man. “And you lost her.”

“In the commotion, she disappeared, sir. I couldn’t go after her, and it’s only now that security has let me go.”

“How did she do this?” Peter swore. She had orchestrated her escape. No other explanation for it. Damn it, she must know something brewed.

Could her memory be coming back?

“Sir?” Nathaniel prompted from the other end of the line.

“Oh, bloody piss off, you useless piece of shit!” He clapped the phone shut and threw it across the room.

He. Was. A. Dead. Man.

The door opened, and in stepped the woman who’d masterminded the whole plan. One look at his furious countenance as he paced the room and she frowned. “What?”

He had to bite the bullet and say it. “She’s escaped.”

“She’s what?”

“Dodged Nathaniel’s surveillance at a mall and disappeared.”

“Stop fucking me, Max.”

She’d used his real name, a sure sign she got seriously pissed off. “I am definitely not fucking you, however much I want to.” Bloody hell, how could he be thinking of sexual release when his life was on the line? “You underestimated her.”

She flung her bag onto the floor. “I did no such thing. She has amnesia, for God’s sake! She shouldn’t recall anything.”

“You think she has remembered?”

“It better not be the case,” she said, before she fell into a heap on the sagging bed. “Come on, she cannot be far. She can’t have recovered her memory all of a sudden. She’s bound to trip somehow.”

“You’re thinking of the money trail?”

“All her cards can be traced. We’ll start there. She’s got to use one at some point.”

“We better pray you’re right,” he replied. Otherwise, all their hard work would have gone down the drain, and the consequences could be dire, indeed.

Chapter Three

Marseille.
Gare Ste Charles

Friday, December 14. 10:55 p.m.

The hands on her watch indicated five minutes to ten when she stepped out of the
Train à Grande Vitesse
that connected inland cities in France. The clock in the main reception hall of
Gare Ste Charles
in Marseille stated close to eleven. One hour ahead of London time. She adjusted her watch under the too-long sleeve of her borrowed sweater and set out on her way.

Even at night, a hubbub of activity hummed and droned in the town. She stopped first at a money exchange booth on the perimeter of the station, where she exchanged some pounds for Euros.

Standing outside the exit of the building, at the top of a massive stone stairway descending to the road below, she gazed around at the panoramic view of the old Mediterranean town. From her vantage point, it seemed to her the place didn’t sleep. Lights twinkled everywhere, suggesting a dynamic nightlife buzzed in this part of the world.

A few men accosted her, asking if she needed a ride. She understood their French and smiled at their broken English when she didn’t reply to their native tongue. She could decipher their words perfectly, further reassuring her French was a language she had mastered competently.

She started down the steps, and once on the pavement, searched for a taxi with the driver behind the wheel. Something told her she could trust these men more than the ones who wanted to coax her into accepting a ride with them.
Anyone overeager for clients should not be trusted
, her gut said.

She found a cab with an old, weathered fellow in the driver’s seat and knocked on his window.

He lowered the glass, gave her a long, thorough look, and cocked his head. “
Pour aller où, ma p’tite?
”

She smiled at him. “
Corniche JF Kennedy
.” He’d called her
ma petite
, probably taking her for a really young gal. Paternal solicitude hung heavy in his tone and mannerisms.

“
Un hôtel?
”

She nodded.

He gave her another appraising look before he disabled the central lock and threw open the back door. She slid in as he asked, “
Et vos baggages?
”

It must have been surprising to find a woman travelling without any luggage, unless he thought her a runaway teen. She shook her head in reply.

Slowly, he eased the car out of the space and onto the road. She focused her attention on the window, all the while furtively keeping an eye on him. Although he threw glances her way in the rear view mirror, he didn’t initiate further talk, and she welcomed the silence.

After a rather lengthy drive down a long road bordered by the sea, he pulled into the carriage driveway of a luxurious hotel. The stone and gleaming bronze plate at the entrance read
Le Chaland
.

She caught his glance in the mirror, as if he asked if the location suited her. Instead of answering and risking her French, she pointed at the meter on the dashboard.

“
Petite, vous êtes sûre que ça va?
”

He asked if all was okay, and she nodded. Good people again. Maybe she had some karma to thank for the fact that she was meeting with the diamonds of the world instead of the scum and trash. Maybe this became her reward for sticking with Peter.

After paying him, she stepped out of the car and walked up the steps into a grand foyer redolent with luxury and status. Authentic Persian rugs lay scattered on the polished, black marble floor. Stone and marble colonnades rose around the room, and the centre of the lobby culminated in a three-storey glass and metal dome.

Booking a room proved speedy, despite the furtive glances from the front office staff. Her clothes—her whole appearance—looked out of place in such a posh setting, but, as long as she had the money to pay, they couldn’t throw her out, could they? She might look like a ragtag street urchin but the moolah in her purse wiped out that perception.

Shortly after, she stood on the terrace of her room that overlooked the beaches of the Prado. The soft sound of the waves caressing the shore a few metres away settled like a gentle lull around her, and she allowed herself to breathe out a sigh of relief.

The first leg of her hastily put-together plan had gone off without a hitch. The second would prove harder. She needed to find Gerard Besson and, even trickier, get him to acknowledge who he was to her.

All of which she had no hope of doing tonight. The best she could do amounted to resting for the long day ahead of her.

But without the aid of the drugs, sleep eluded her. She tossed and turned, restless and harried, and dawn had pulled up by the time deep sleep settled in to soothe her ragged body and mind.

When she awoke, brilliant light swathed the room, the shards of brightness hurting her eyes as she emerged from the bottomless pits of abysmal slumber. Her head hurt, blood pounding at her temples. She stumbled into the bathroom, where she splashed cold water on her face. When she glanced into the mirror, a raccoon stared back. She had forgotten to remove the eye makeup, and it had bled onto her face. A soft gasp of pleased surprise escaped her—the complimentary amenities included waterproof makeup remover. Scrubbing the caked colour off, she watched her features come back to their former likeness. Still, a stranger reflected back.

Cursing when she checked her watch—two p.m. already—she jumped into the shower and afterwards, changed into the complimentary robe on the bathroom door peg. She’d need proper clothes, but would attend to that later. Or she could buy a long coat somewhere along the way. She’d already let too much of the day drift by and had to make the most of the time she had left. First, she needed to grab some food and then she’d head out to find the
commissaire
.

Room service delivered a hearty brunch of coffee, croissants, and an omelette even in the middle of the afternoon. She downed the food while seated on her sun-filled terrace. No one here would guess Christmas was just a few days away, not with such a brilliant sun and mild temperatures. Her meal over, she changed out of the terry cloth robe and into her jeans and sweater, before dashing down to the hotel store where she got a white cotton camisole and a cherry-red, tweed long coat. The colour proved very flashy, but better that than the oversize, dirty sweater she’d worn till now. Taking a taxi into town, she headed to the area of the
Vieux Port
where the police station Gerard Besson worked at would be located.

Her first instinct had been to look for a
gendarmerie
, because everyone knew policemen were called
gendarmes
in France. She’d been wrong in her assumption, though. The person who’d answered at directory assistance had patiently informed her that the
gendarmeries
were primarily responsible for security in rural and peri-rural areas. The
Police Nationale
—and actual policemen and not
gendarmes
—took care of urban areas. The
Police Nationale
also worked in vast areas such as illegal immigration, urban violence, organized crime, drugs and drug trafficking, counter-terrorism, and maintaining law and order. The
Gendarmerie Nationale
, on the other hand, operated more in judicial, administrative, and occasionally, military police interventions and missions. Blessed be French people for their chauvinism; she’d gotten an informative lesson through that call.

Besson being a
commissaire
in Marseille, it meant he worked for the
Police Nationale
.

The
commissariat
he headed turned out to be a grey, box-like setting in sharp concrete angles, at odds with the soft, pastel colours of the other buildings in Marseille. Completely foreboding and chilling in its exterior, she had a feeling the interior wouldn’t be any more joyous. Why did law and order have to be so grim? Was it because the reality they dealt with proved grim, too?

A young officer stood stationed behind the desk. She made her way to him and asked to speak to
Commissaire
Besson.

“Here on official business?” he asked.

With an inner chuckle, she reckoned the classy coat over the jeans probably made her look like a trendy fashionista lawyer.

“No, personal,” she replied. And no, she added that she didn’t want to give her name because she preferred talking to the
commissaire
directly.

He picked up the phone and dialled an extension.

*

The call travelled across the wide office but the handset in Besson’s office didn’t ring. Instead, the phone on another senior officer’s desk,
Capitaine
Rashid Nasri, rang. He picked up and listened to the desk officer inform him an English woman wanted to meet the
commissaire
and she refused to give her name, saying it was personal.

From where he stood in the open-plan office, Rashid had a clear view of the front desk. He zoomed in on her immediately. She seemed short, of petite build. Her red coat screamed money, yet, her face didn’t make one think of a rich woman. She had the looks for it, yes, but she seemed much too young.

Something else about her, maybe in the erect carriage of her back and shoulders, betrayed her. She looked too purposeful to pass easily for a laid-back, money-loaded sort.

The assessment sent warning bells ringing in his mind. Who could she be, and what did she want with Gerard?

He set the plan he and his senior officer had prepared for such cases into action. It had seemed far-fetched at the time, to imagine their enemies might send a woman after either of them, but better be safe than sorry. Today spelled the proof all too well. Unease skittered down his spine and he tensed up.

“Tell her he’s off today,” he said, before hanging up the phone. Without letting his gaze leave her, he moved to the front of the room and watched as the deskman delivered the message.

Who are you, and what do you want?

*

“Excuse me,
mademoiselle
,” the desk officer said, making her tear her gaze from the office and the hubbub of activity taking place in the station. “The
commissaire
is not here. Can I take a message?”

“No, thank you.” Despair seeped into her. She hadn’t thought further than this moment, figuring she’d find him at his work place. She bit her lip and turned to leave at the same moment a man emerged from the office and collided with her.

“
Désolé
,” he said. “
Ça va
?”

She nodded, peeking up into his face. She caught a glimpse of a big, handsome man with olive skin, dark eyes, and close-cropped black hair. He released her with a smile of excuse and went to the desk where he started chatting with the other officer.

As she took a few steps to the door, she could make out bits and pieces of their playful exchange. A word, more precisely a name, made her slow down.

The man who’d bumped into her raved about a football match they planned to watch that night at the
Bistro du Stade
and how they’d all collected bets against the
commissaire
. They needed to meet up and make Besson eat his words.

The two men laughed good-naturedly, and she exited the
commissariat
with elation bursting forth in her. She knew where Gerard would be later in the evening. She needed only to find the place.

***

Marseille. Outskirts of
Boulevard Michelet
& the
Stade Vélodrome

Saturday, December 15. 9:30 p.m.

Gerard Besson hadn’t been on duty that day, but he could be found in the field, nevertheless, as everyone expected. One of the perks of promotion to
commissaire
—the teams under his command took care of all the hands-on jobs, and he had only to order and monitor them. It allowed him more time to plan strategy and direct enquiries and busts as he deemed appropriate, but it also left him without the thrill and rush of being on the real crime turf. Not so long ago, he’d been the
commandant
, the one who led all the operations. He couldn’t reconcile himself yet with staying boxed up in an office all day.

So even on his off-duty days, he joined the team on the streets when he could. His superiors didn’t like his attitude—alive, he proved an asset, and he didn’t need to risk his life so hazardously, they said.

He’d snorted. Bureaucracy may have gotten the best of them, but it hadn’t been able to take the street cop out of him. He also did not intend to let that happen, knowing he needed to keep his reflexes and instincts in top shape. Rashid’s call turned into proof enough.

His friend had phoned earlier, warning him to be on the lookout. An English-speaking woman had come to ask for him at the
commissariat
, and according to his right-hand man and best friend, she probably wasn’t what she claimed to be. But the real problem amounted that she also didn’t claim to be anyone; they had no name and no purpose to apply to her.