Fear No Evil

Chapter 23

Paris

Bree sat alone in the third row of crowded tables outside Les Deux Palais, a café across the boulevard from the tall iron-and-gilt fence and gates that protect the courtyard of the Palais de Justice de Paris.

The palace of justice, or couthouse, was heavily guarded. One police van idled on the sidewalk on the other side of the boulevard. A second van was parked behind the fence in the courtyard. Six armed officers with bulletproof vests manned the two gates.

It was hot for five thirty in the afternoon. Bree was drinking her third soda water with lime as employees began to stream out the courthouse gates.

She had an excellent view of them from her position. She checked the photos of the three judges on her burn phone against several of the employees leaving but saw none of them in the first big wave going home for the evening, which wasn’t terribly surprising. The judges might be corrupt, but they still had to keep up appearances.

Bree figured it would be sometime between six thirty and seven before she caught sight of any of them. Then again, one judge was all she needed for what she had in mind for the Three Musketeers, as she’d taken to calling them.

C’mon, guys. All for one and one for all.

Bree thumbed the screen on the burn phone and connected to the internet through a VPN. She called up WhatsApp and scrolled until she had the names of the three judges in front of her.

Eeny, meeny, miny, Bree thought. Who’s it going to be?

She opened her note-taking app, found the message she’d drafted earlier in the day, and read it for the tenth time, trying to gauge what its potential impact would be.

Bree remembered that she’d told Marianne Le Tour that she wanted to keep Philippe Abelmar unaware of the investigation for the time being. But after studying the profiles of the judges, she’d decided to at least raise their anxiety levels a little. And if they contacted Abelmar? So much the better.

By a quarter to seven, the unusual heat that had gripped Paris was easing, and Bree was considering the possibility that judges didn’t use the main entrance to leave at the end of the day. She should go back to her hotel, get changed, and—

A woman exited the main entrance of the courthouse carrying two briefcases. In her late forties with ash-blond hair, she wore a blue skirt and jacket, a cream blouse, and a red silk scarf. Before the woman started down the stairs to the courtyard, Bree had confirmed her ID.

Adele Marchant, you get to be the first contestant on the—

Two men in dark business suits came out of the doors behind Judge Marchant. The one on the left was older, in his sixties, and portly, with an embarrassing shock of overly dyed black hair. His friend was taller, slighter, in his fifties, and bald. They were also carrying heavy attaché cases.

Bree thumbed for the photos and saw it was true — Judges Claude Alsace and Domenic Les Freres were leaving at the same time as Judge Marchant.

Judge Alsace, the portly one, was calling to Marchant now. She turned as he and Judge Les Freres climbed down the stairs to her, smiling and laughing.

Bree hadn’t considered what might happen if she could tap the paranoia of all three at once instead of doing it one by one, the slow build. But the idea instantly appealed to her. She thumbed back to her note app, copied what she’d written, and went to WhatsApp.

After glancing up to make sure the trio of judges were still there, Bree selected their private cell numbers, made them a group, pasted her message, then looked up again.

The judges were no longer together. All three were walking to their separate cars parked in the courtyard.

Perfect, Bree thought and thumbed the Send button. She watched anxiously, hoping that it went through before—

Judge Marchant set her attaché cases down by her car and got out her phone to look at it. By his car, Judge Alsace did the same. Only Judge Les Freres opened his car door and got in.

Even from across the boulevard, even looking through the iron-and-gilt fence, Bree saw Judge Alsace lean against his car as if he were suddenly unsteady. Judge Marchant went dead still and then hunched over, one hand across her mouth, looking at her phone and shaking her head.

Then the judge picked up her head and gazed around as if hunting for the sender. Three rows back in the crowded tables outside the café, Bree felt confident but turned in another direction for a full minute.

When she looked back, Judge Alsace and Judge Marchant both stood outside Judge Les Freres’s car and were speaking with him through the window. It was hard to see, but Bree was sure Les Freres also had his phone in his hand.

That got their attention, Bree thought. She got up and went into the café’s restroom. There, she pulled the battery and SIM card from the burn phone, pocketed them, then broke the phone and dumped it in the trash beneath used paper towels. She would dispose of the battery and the SIM elsewhere.

By the time she returned to her table, the judges and their cars were gone. She wasn’t worried. She had a better than decent hunch about where they might all be going.

And it wasn’t home.