Killing Me Softly - Teenage Assassin - aka Young Love Murder

KILLING ME SOFTLY - Teenage Assassin - Chapter 20

CHAPTER 20:

GABRIEL'S POV:

Instead of going with Steven to search Paris for clues Anna, I tell him to that I'm going to stay at the hotel and go over the places that we've been so far.

I scour through the files that Steven has compiled. There isn't much here that's useful. A list of madams in Paris. We've already gone to all of them. None of them knew an Anna Walker, or someone who could be her.

Thoughts of our 'encounter' earlier today keep flashing through my head. Even after all these months and all my anger, I still want her. She's like a disease that there's no cure for. At least not yet. The only cure that I can foresee is her death.

Such a shame that such a beautiful girl is full of such malicious evil.

As I'm staring at the same papers for the tenth time in the past hour, my cell phone rings. I don't recognize the number on the caller id. Then the thought enters my head that it's Anna.

"Hello?"

"Gabriel Sanchez," a female voice, with a French accent inquires.

"That's me," I say expectantly.

"You need to come see me," the silky sounding French woman says.

"I don't know who you are."

"Marie Perrot, of course."

Then it all clicks together. "You're Anna's madam friend, aren't you?"

"Oui."

"When I came to see you before, why did you say that you didn't know her?"

"Because I didn't know you."

"And now you do?"

"I believe so," she sounds amused.

"I'll be there in one half hour."

"I will be waiting, Mr. Sanchez."

I click on the 'end' button to hang up and grab my suit jacket. This is our first real lead. My heart is racing as I rush to the elevator. I pace back and forth in the elevator, impatient to be off it. I steal a taxi from another man before he can get inside of it. He curses at me in French. At least I assume that he's cursing at me. I don't understand a bit of French.

I pay the taxi driver extra to speed. I am at Marie Perrot's door fifteen minutes later. I ring her buzzer and the same big older man from last week answers. "Follow me, Mr. Sanchez."

I follow him through the ornate foyer to a small sitting room, where Marie is sitting in a cocktail dress and fur wrap. She was wearing a white designer business suit the last time that I was here. Maybe she's going out for the evening after I leave.

She looks me up and down. I look down at what I'm wearing, checking to see if I forgot to zip or something. "What?" I ask, baffled by her perusal.

She waves her hand through the air in front of her, with an aloof expression on her face, "I was simply getting a good look at the man who stole my Annabelle's heart."

I laugh humorlessly before realizing what she just said, "Annabelle . . ."

Her eyes go wide and she covers her mouth in an 'uh-oh' gesture. However, something tells me that that was no slip. I get the impression from this woman, that everything she does is intentional.

When she doesn't say anything, I ask, "Annabelle Claire Blanc?"

"I have said too much already," she says with a look of dismay on her face.