Fear No Evil

Chapter 11

The next afternoon, as Bree was changing to go out for a run along the Seine, her phone buzzed, alerting her to a text from Marianne Le Tour that told her to check her Bluestone e-mail account and to use a VPN to cover her tracks.

Bree did just that on her laptop, opening an app Ali had shown her called TunnelBear that would keep her location and the IP address of her laptop disguised. Then she signed into her Bluestone account and found an e-mail from Le Tour that included a forwarded message from an address she did not recognize.

Bree glanced at her running shoes, told herself she’d run along the Seine tomorrow morning after the files self-destructed, got a Coke from the minibar, and clicked on the zip file at the bottom of the e-mail. After the file downloaded, she opened it to reveal twelve smaller files, each identified by a last name and a date. Anna Tuttle was there. So was Cassie Dane. But Bree started with the oldest file, from nearly twelve years before.

Three hours later, Bree finished screenshotting the file from the most recent complaint against Philippe Abelmar sealed by the French courts.

She felt dirtied by the overall experience and was appalled by the behavior described; her eyes burned from angry tears. If the statements contained in the complaints were true, Abelmar was as cunning, twisted, and repulsive a villain as any Alex had come across in his days with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit.

She also suspected that the billionaire was buying off judges inside the French courts to cover his actions. Three of the judges had sealed two or more of the complaints and subsequent settlements, all of which featured gag orders and payments of between two and four hundred thousand euros to the young women whom the chairman of Pegasus had allegedly abused at various locations throughout France.

Another common denominator was a specific bistro in Batignolles, the quiet, village-like neighborhood in Paris’s seventeenth arrondissement where Abelmar lived. He owned a sprawling penthouse that had undergone extensive renovations in the six years since he’d purchased it.

According to every one of the complaints, the founder of Pegasus often took his victims to Canard de Flaque, or Puddle Duck, his favorite local restaurant. He ate there three or four times a week when he was in Paris. Several of the women believed they’d been drugged at the bistro, then escorted to his nearby home, where they lost all memory and their nightmares began.

What don’t I know? Bree typed in a separate document. She often asked that question during an investigation. It helped her focus on where she wanted to look next.

She typed, The judges and what Abelmar has on them? Layout of A’s apartment?

Bree stopped, went to her secure in-house Bluestone e-mail account, and sent a message to Marianne Le Tour asking for any and all information on the three judges who’d done most of the sealing. She also asked for a copy of whatever plans Abelmar had filed with the city regarding the renovation of his apartment.

After Bree sent her e-mail, she returned to her list, only to have her stomach growl. She checked her watch. Five after eight. She should eat.

She thought of the cases she’d read and realized she knew just the spot for her second night out in the City of Light.