A foxy tale: Episode 13

A collaborative serial by Jessica Perini and Catherin J Pascal Dunk

Wait up—did you miss Episode 1 / Episode 2 / Episode 3 / Episode 4 / Episode 5 / Episode 6 / Episode 7 / Episode 8 / Episode 9 / Episode 10 / Episode 11 / Episode 12 ? Like to catch up first?

Episode 13

The next time Marguerite Bagué wakes, she’s startled to find herself face to face with none other than pyjama model Jambeau Renard — and his luminous teeth. He appears to be kneeling by her bed, his gormless face mere inches from her own.

“Wha-?” she cries, staring at Jam’s recently chipped tooth, the only fault in that once-perfect mouth.

“Pardonnez-moi,” Jam tries for formality, while informally being in the journalist’s home space, having broken into her apartment.

Marguerite takes in a deep breath, preparing to scream, but Jam covers her mouth. “No, no, please don’t scream. I am ere to help.” 

“Celeste, Celeste, please can you hear me?” Marguerite communicates through her brain chip, calling her sister for assistance. 

But Celeste is curiously silent.  Scarily not there.

*

Marguerite’s heart pounds as she’s driven through the Parixian streets. She is blindfolded, but counts the lights, the stops, the turns. Being a native, she calculates swiftly — they are in the now vacant Saint-Ambroise neighbourhood of the 11th arrondissement. But why here? In this abandoned, torched neighbourhood, home to only street cats. Why? 

Perhaps this is the perfect place for her dispatchment.

But why murder her, and why this broken-toothed imbecile? She knows so little. Only that Javier — the witless fashionist — has been arrested, and that the presumed ashes of the missing Solomon Fishner have been found in the guts of Javier’s bean bag baby. And what has happened to Brandon de Bras? The last she saw of him, she questioned their relations. Had they … ? Did they … ? And where was he now?

… TO BE CONTINUED …

Image from Pexels Free Photos.