First Blood by Susan Sizemore & Erin McCarthy & Chris Marie Green & Meljean Brook

Author:Susan Sizemore & Erin McCarthy & Chris Marie Green & Meljean Brook [Sizemore, Susan & McCarthy, Erin & Green, Chris Marie & Brook, Meljean]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Fiction, Romance, General, Anthologies, Paranormal, Love Stories, Werewolves, Anthologies (Multiple Authors), Vampires, Occult Fiction; American, Love Stories; American, Short Stories; American
ISBN: 9780425224007
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 2008-08-05T05:00:00+00:00

35

Toulouse

“What are you doing?” Detective Thibaut Brodin asked when he saw the inspector sitting alone in the office. Everyone else had left for lunch.

“I’m taking advantage of the calm to go through the reports,” Vauvert said without looking away from his computer. He was scrolling through pictures, maps, and reports. Everything from the Loisel case was in the database.

Brodin sat down next to Vauvert and watched the moving collage. The inspector went from one to the other in chronological order. The documents sped by on the screen.

“Are you looking for something in particular?” Brodin asked.

“I wanted to go over everything we have on the Loisel case. It will help me get everything straight in my head.”

The detective nodded. He was sporting a jacket that paid homage to Kiss and had not shaved in a while. His hair was a mess.

“You’re right. My mind is reeling too. We need to get the big picture. I was there when we searched his home. I can tell you that it was spick-and-span. I’ve never seen a house so clean. What leads do we have left? You think it’s an accident? Murder? Could it be like the Agnes Le Roux case? She was that heir to that casino fortune in Nice. They never found her body.”

“That’s a lot of possibilities,” Vauvert said, still absorbed in the pictures on the screen.

“Give me your theory then,” Brodin said. “I know you have one. You always have one.”

“Okay.”

He clicked on a file. The picture of a pretty young woman with red hair and mint-green eyes flashed on the screen.

“Who is she? Doesn’t she work for Loisel?”

“No,” Vauvert said. “I just added her picture. The woman you are looking at is Amandine Beaumont, his ex-wife. I went to see her parents yesterday to talk about her.”

“Oh, yeah. The accident with her baby. That was weird.”

“More than you think, Thibaut. His wife and his child died shortly before Loisel founded his first company. It grew like wildfire. The following year, he sold that business and bought two more.”

“Where are you going with this? Do you think there is some connection between his wife’s death and his first business? Did she have money?”

“No, nothing like that. I’m simply asking questions. I’m putting the facts together and lining them up. The fact is, the Loisel empire took root a few weeks, maybe even a few days after his wife and child died. That is rather unusual. And here we are, ten years later, and Loisel is at the top of his game. He pays a routine visit to one of his factories in Saint Gaudens. It’s this one.”

He clicked on another picture. It showed buildings that looked like hangars and a parking lot full of dump trucks. Behind the buildings were huge mounds of plastic containers. A sign at the entrance to the complex read “Loisel Corp. P.E.T.”

“They recycle plastic bottles. Loisel spent the day there, as he did on a regular basis, according to witnesses. He left the complex at the end of his visit, and then he vanished.