It had somehow come to be nearly seven in the evening by the time they arrived in the small town of Montlune, where it seemed Thomas Stone had decided to call home. Vivian was curious how he’d gone undetected. It was a very small town, more of a rustic village than anything else, and was perfect for hiding. Nestled amidst rolling hills and verdant fields, Montlune was a picturesque haven just forty minutes away from Paris.
But to stay off records of any kind—electric, phone, medical and so forth—Stone would have to have been extremely careful. She even wondered if he’d been going by an alias these last few months.
“Well, it sure is the right sort of place to hide away from the rest of the world,” Sterling said as they entered the town. The homes were sporadically located, with the exception of what appeared to be a small subdivision of homes that resembled rustic cabins.
The address Mary had given them headed off in the opposite direction of this collection of homes, though. Instead, Sterling drove them to a residence that looked very similar to the home Thomas had once shared with Mary, right down to the little gravel track that led to the small strip of green front yard.
Unlike Mary’s house, there were no other cars in the drive, though. In the grand scheme of things, it was a minor obstacle. They had the address of a man who’d been little more than a ghost for nearly two years. No one being home wasn’t going to stop them.
“Might as well try knocking anyway,” Sterling said as he opened the car door.
Vivian knew that the victory of finding the residence would mean nothing if they walked away empty-handed once again. She followed Sterling to the front door and knocked. There was no porch, so they simply stood on the small plate of pavers that sat in front of the door. After a few more moments, Sterling tried the doorknob and they were unsurprised to find it locked.
When there was no answer, Sterling looked at Vivian. “Go ahead,” he said. “I know you want to say it.”
She smirked as she reached into the inner pocket of her jacket. “I’m sorry, Agent Sterling, I have no idea what you mean.”
She withdrew her trusty lock-pick set and knelt in front of the door. She pulled out the tools needed for the job, still not quite sure that this was really the only trained skill she had bought with her to the job when Director Garnett had forcibly recruited her. The tumblers yielded to her skill as if she was using a magic wand instead of a pick. It was an older lock, which made it trickier than usual, but she still got the job done in under thirty seconds. After a resonating click of victory, she turned the knob and the door swung open. Sterling stepped in right away.
"No quibble about my lock-picking this time?” Vivian joked. “I'm starting to think you enjoy the thrill of bending rules with me."
Sterling's mouth quirked upward, a brief flicker of amusement in the solemnity of their task. "Let's just say I've come to appreciate certain unconventional approaches."
Vivian followed behind him and could tell at once that the place was lived in. She could smell the faint scent of a recently cooked meal and the faint aroma of a strong tea with floral notes. As she stepped further inside, she saw a small table near the door. It held a vase and a small, decorative bowl.
She peered ahead and saw that Sterling had come to a stop. When she stepped up beside him, she saw why. Ahead of them and slightly to the left, was what appeared to be the living room. But there was no TV and only a small bookcase. The rest of the area was taken up by two different easels—one rather large and the other small. The large one was currently holding a freshly painted pastoral scene.
A chill crept down her spine; all of their cases had been art related but sometimes the similarity in the scenes became eerie.
“Mary said he used to be a painter,” Sterling pointed out.
“Looks like he’s taken it back up,” Vivian replied as she stepped closer to the painting. “And he’s pretty good.”
They moved through the living space, silence enveloping them like a cloak. The house was sparsely furnished but meticulously kept. The paint he’d used for his latest creation was all laid out on a table but properly capped, and the tubes and plates were clean. Everything was orderly; there were no scattered papers, no misplaced belongings to suggest a life lived in haste or chaos.
The living area and adjoined foyer revealed nothing of its owner. The walls, bereft of personal photos, held only generic prints of landscapes and abstract shapes—nothing to suggest a killer. Yet Vivian felt the hidden importance of what lay beneath the surface, something sinister that lurked just beyond their reach.
"Too tidy," she murmured, more to herself than to Sterling. "It doesn't feel lived in, but I know it is."
“That’s the sign of someone who would be very good at covering their tracks,” Sterling commented.
Together, they continued their silent procession through Thomas Stone's house. The atmosphere hung heavy around them, charged with the unspoken tension of a thousand possibilities. Though the house was tidy and clean, it was also very poorly decorated. She began to notice that the space was a mix of thrift store finds and flea market bargains—either because of penny-pinching or a simple lack of taste was anyone’s guess.
Moving through the house, she noted the kitchen's cleanliness, every surface wiped down, dishes neatly stacked, an orderly array of spices lined up like soldiers. No takeaway boxes or hastily scrawled notes pinned with magnets to the freezer door.
Sterling had disappeared into what appeared to be Stone's bedroom. She followed, finding him standing amid a monastic setting. A simple bed, its covers drawn tight, sat unassumingly in the corner. The closet door was ajar, revealing a row of identical suits and shirts, all shades of gray and black, the attire of a man who wanted to blend into the background.
"Nothing here," Sterling announced, his voice flat as he flipped through a small stack of books on the nightstand—crime novels, mostly, with titles that promised intrigue and danger.
Tucked away in the corner was what appeared to be a very small office space, but that was too kind of a description. A small wooden desk was pushed against the wall. A sketchpad sat on top of it, a single pen clipped to the cover. There was only a single drawer on the desk, built under the surface. She opened it and found nothing but the mundane: bills, receipts, a collection of old business cards with Serenity Auctions on them.
There was no laptop, no desktop monitor. She didn’t even see chargers of any kind. She stepped back out of the room and did her best to slip into an artist’s mentality. It was clear that Thomas was actively painting again. And if that was the case, most of his time would be spent out in the living room, surrounded by his artwork and paints.
On a bit of instinct, Vivian headed back out to the canvases. She stood in front of the pastoral scene and took a look around the room. She saw the paints and the cleaning cloths, as well as the small bottle of turpentine for cleaning brushes. There was no mess of any kind, all the refuse placed into the small wastebasket it the corner of the room. It wasn’t a wastebin for the entire house, but just for the painting area.
She walked over to it and, using the handle end of a paintbrush from one of the easels, pushed aside a series of paint-smeared cleaning cloths. There was also a paintbrush with old, ruined bristles, and a series of Q-tips with some sort of stain on them. But then she saw a small, crumpled scrap of paper pressed against the side. She would have overlooked it completely, but she saw just enough to pique her interest. She saw: 9: It looked as if someone had written down a time.
She dug the crumpled paper out, unfolded it, and read the very brief message. She was sure it likely meant nothing, but it was perhaps the most interesting thing they'd found in the house.
“Sterling? I might have something here.”
He hurried over and looked at the paper. Vivian looked at it again as well. It read: Vucko’s – 9:15 – Thurs.
"Vucko's - 9:15," Sterling read aloud. “What the hell is that?”
“I don’t know. But I do know that this spells out 9:15 on Thursday specifically, and today is Thursday.”
Sterling turned to her and their eyes locked, a spark of anticipation passing between them.
"Let's find out what or who Vucko's is," Vivian said, pocketing the scrap. She dug out her cell phone and her fingers danced over the screen, the soft glow casting an eerie light across her focused face. She typed in Vucko’s and got their answer instantly.
"It's a lounge," she announced, eyes scanning the search results. "Specializes in martinis, of all things." A sharp edge crept into her voice, laced with the thrill of the chase. “In Paris.”
“Got an address?”
She tapped on the website for Vucko’s and found the address at the bottom of the screen. “Yeah. Right here.”
"Maybe he’s meeting someone there?” Sterling wondered out loud.
Vivian glanced at her watch, noting the hands fixed at 7:15, and felt the familiar rush of adrenaline. They had roughly two hours to intercept Stone if the note's time was anything to go by.
"I know it’s in the city and it’s likely less than forty-five minutes away,” Sterling said, “but we should move now. No sense in waiting.”
“Sounds good to me,” Vivian agreed.
They hurried out of the house with the most promising lead yet pulling them along. Outside, the air was charged with the light of an approaching dusk, the sky a deep indigo, ready to swallow the last remnants of daylight.
“Damn,” Sterling said. “I suddenly want a martini.”
“I say martinis all around if this pans out the way we’re hoping,” Vivian said.
“Deal.”
With that, they got into the car and pulled away from the house. The car swerved into the growing shadows of the little town’s evening bustle. And with the car pointed back toward the heartbeat of Paris, Vivian couldn’t help but feel that they were finally on the right track.