Left to Kill (Adele Sharp #4) - Blake Pierce Page 0,76

at Adele. He said, “I keep getting told it’s possible. But if you ask me, no. If you go through something like that, there’s no coming back.”

He scratched at the scar on the underside of his chin. For a moment, Adele thought of the speakeasy hidden in the DGSI basement. She thought of the photos on the wall of the military squadron. John’s friends. Friends she’d never met.

“I think you’re wrong,” Adele said, quietly. She picked at the steering wheel as she drove.

He sighed. “I hope you’re right.”

Both of them drifted off into quiet silence, driving away from the parking structure.

“Why do you think they did it?” John said, his voice still soft.

Adele swallowed. “The kids said something… Some of them weren’t lucid. A couple of them seemed to have been down there for years. But one of them, that fellow who went missing at the search party, he’s still there. Alive. Shaken but aware. By the sounds of things, the Kloses were trying to build a family.”

John looked at Adele. “A family?”

“Yeah, I don’t know the full story. But what I picked up on they had a kid of their own once, that baby seat. Kid died. Wife was unable to have any more children. After that, some sort of accident. I don’t know. But anyway, they moved out here ten years ago.”

“The woman give any more information up?”

Adele shook her head. “They’re still interviewing her. But honestly, I don’t think I care.”

“You want to know how many people were killed?”

“It’s a lot,” said Adele. “But no, I don’t want to know. The police can handle it. Some truths are best left undiscovered—at least for me.”

They dwindled off again.

“So those two sick twists were kidnapping kids to make some sort of weird family in the woods?”

Adele sighed. “Yeah. They would let their captives out once a month just to wander the vicinity of the garden. But if they ever stepped on any of the plants they were punished. It was all messed up, John. It’s just,” Adele trailed off, “just pure evil.”

He sighed and leaned his head against the glass as Adele drove them back to their motel.

More questions bubbled in Adele’s mind, but she couldn’t bring herself to utter them. For now, silence felt appropriate. The quiet felt comforting. John’s presence, as in the parking structure, as on the field, as in the hospital, as every time they went into danger, muted some of the terror, softened some of the pain, and protected her against some of her own anxiety swirling in her chest. Perhaps it wasn’t all up to her. Maybe, maybe, there were some people she could trust. Some people who were of some help.

***

It felt nice to be back on the plane, nowhere to go but up and across.

John was snoring softly next to her, his head once again pressed against the cool glass of the window. The small nozzle of air wafted into the cabin from above. Adele fidgeted, tapping her fingers against the edge of her armrest. The seat between her and John was empty and contained only her laptop bag. Part of her wanted to check to see if anything had come in from work, but another part of her was grateful for the quiet of the plane ride back to Paris.

For a moment, she spun her phone beneath her fingers on the upright tray. Perhaps she ought to call the Johnsons when they landed. She smiled at the thought. The fear they’d felt would be assuaged at last. The distance from their daughter would soon be over—they would be reunited. Not everyone was so lucky.

Adele felt her eyes turn suddenly wet. She could feel tears threatening against her cheeks. She stared at the back of the seat, still spinning her phone.

No, perhaps she wouldn’t call the Johnsons. Perhaps, now, it was best to give them time and space to recover and heal. Amanda’s fate had been different from Elise’s. Her mother had suffered horribly to the point it had perhaps been a mercy she hadn’t survived.

But one thing was similar in the two cases. One thing that Adele could cling to.

The cases were investigated by the same agent. She’d solved Amanda’s case… which meant, perhaps, she could solve her mother’s as well…

Adele shifted, leaning back now and lifting her hand from her phone.

As John snored, her mind whirred. She wasn’t sure exactly what had passed between them the previous night. She had been strained, angry. The events of the day had