Page 17 of Shadow of Doubt

Straightening up, she withdrew her flashlight and opened the cabinet doors beneath the sink. It only took a moment to find it. Underneath the counter were the strips of duct tape that had been used to hold the weapon in place.

Jadot had obviously known he was in trouble, but whatever had gone down, he hadn’t been able to get the upper hand.

Examining the corpse, she saw the same tacky tape residue from thepistol where Jadot’s shirt met the top of his trousers. At some point, he must have tucked the revolver into his waistband.

After taking one last look around, Brunelle exited the kitchen. At the front of the apartment, she saw Vincent chatting with the evidence techs.

For a moment she thought about letting him know what she was up to, but then decided against it. The last thing she wanted was him trying to accompany her.

She took the stairs to the ground floor, crossed the vestibule, and pushed the electronic door release, which allowed her to step out onto the sidewalk. The moment she did, she was reminded why owning a car in Paris was such a pain in the ass. Parking, especially in some of the older neighborhoods like the Marais, was almost nonexistent.

Jadot’s street was too narrow for parking, so she’d have to try some of the wider streets nearby, like the Rue des Francs Bourgeois and the Rue des Archives. If she didn’t get lucky on any of the immediate streets, she’d have to google the neighborhood parking garages. To make things even more difficult, the break they had been granted in the weather was going to end soon. More rain would be moving in.

She was noting the position of security cameras outside the apartment building, wishing she’d packed an umbrella, when her phone chimed. It was a text from her colleague back at the DGSI. The vehicle registry search had been a bust. According to their records, Jean-Jacques Jadot didn’t own a car.

After texting back athank you,Brunelle made a mental list of possibilities. The most likely was that it was a rental or might belong to a friend. The lack of a plastic tag wired to the fob with the details of the rental agency made her lean toward the latter. Either way, she was going to have to walk up and down the streets, and in and out of parking garages, pressing the unlock button until she heard a chirp and saw a pair of headlights blink.

It would help if she at least knew what make of car she was searching for. Renault? Peugeot? Mercedes? Nissan?

Removing the fob from her pocket, she turned it over in her hand.That’s weird,she thought. There was no logo.

She didn’t own a car herself, but she had driven plenty of them.Automakers branded everything. She couldn’t recall ever seeing a fob without a car company’s logo.

Looking at it some more, she wondered if maybe it was a replacement—something from a third-party vendor. Taking her phone back out, she snapped a photo, opened her browser, and did a reverse image search. A fraction of a second later, the results loaded.

It turned out not to be a remote key fob at all. It was only designed to look like one. In reality it was a USB flash drive. She had a decision to make. It took her less than a second.

Since Vincent had already laid claim to Jadot’s phone, she had no qualms about “liberating” the fob. A healthy division of labor, she told herself, was good in any high-profile investigation.

While she understood that it was important that they share information, she also understood what kind of a man Vincent was. She’d be as forthcoming with him as he was with her. And she’d do it on her timetable.

The sooner she figured out who had murdered Jean-Jacques Jadot, the better. She just hoped Vincent was wrong. If the killing was related to the intelligence officer’s work, there was no telling what kind of a Pandora’s box they might be opening.

CHAPTER 8

OSLO

The safehouse was hidden in the middle of one of the city’s trendiest neighborhoods, Tjuvholmen.

Roughly translated, the word meant “isle of thieves,” which was exactly what it had been for hundreds of years—a small island where pirates, cutthroats, and other ne’er-do-wells set up shop in hopes of escaping the long arm of the law.

Now connected by a series of bridges, Tjuvholmen and the adjacent Aker Brygge area boasted some of Oslo’s hottest restaurants, bars, nightclubs, museums, boutiques, apartments, condos, and townhouses.

Wrapped within shimmering glass and steel structures, every commercial and residential space took advantage of unparalleled views across the sprawling Oslofjord.

One such waterfront apartment had been quietly leased by a fictitious British investment banking firm, allegedly as a corporate residence for its visiting executives. The true holder of the lease, however, was the Norwegian Intelligence Service.

The stunning unit had five bedrooms, five and a half baths, and three adjacent parking spots in the massive underground garage complex that served Tjuvholmen like a web of catacombs.

With its marble countertops, high-end fixtures, and gallery-level art, the apartment looked like something out ofArchitectural Digest.The icing on the cake would have been the vistas through the floor-to-ceiling windows, but all of the drapes had been pulled. What was happening insideneeded to stay inside. The debriefing of Leonid Grechko wasn’t meant for public consumption.

Sølvi looked at her watch. They had been at it for over five hours. It was long past time for a break.

The session had been taxing. The Russian spymaster had changed tactics and was no longer being forthright. He was playing games.

She wasn’t surprised. In fact, she had been expecting it. They were getting closer to the most valuable intelligence he had to offer. And the closer they got, the harder he was going to bargain. She was going to have to get much tougher with him. Before that, however, she needed a mental reset.

It had taken all of her professional strength to set aside everything Scot had told her back at her apartment and to focus solely on Grechko’s debriefing. Right now, that’s what mattered most.

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