Left to Kill (Adele Sharp #4) - Blake Pierce Page 0,11

returned her attention to Mr. Carmichael. “You found the girl?”

He passed a hand wearily over his face, his expression darkening. “Yes, unfortunately she was in a bad way. I was told that heating her too fast might have caused damage. Did I hurt her?”

Adele shook her head. “From what I was told, she was in a bad way before you found her. Leaving her out there would’ve been a death warrant. Waiting for an ambulance just the same. You did what you could, don’t trouble yourself about it.”

Mr. Carmichael breathed again, a bit more relaxed now. Some of the exhaustion creasing his face, introducing itself in lines next to his eyes and across his forehead, seemed to fade a bit at Adele’s words.

Adele cleared her throat. “Is there anything else you can tell me? Anything you’ve thought of since?”

The trucker ran a hand through his beard and shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve already told—”

Before he could finish, two people entered the room, the door clicking.

Adele stowed her annoyance, glancing over her shoulder. John had returned. Next to him, a woman in a suit had arrived as well, a small, white coffee cup held in a cardboard heating pad in her left hand. She didn’t wear the normal blues of a police officer, but she carried herself as one. Detective, Adele guessed. Homicide most likely.

“Hello,” the detective said in German. She extended the cup toward the man, and, before John could beat her to it, sidled into the chair next to Adele. “I’m Detective Klopp,” she said. “Precinct policy, but I’m required to be here for this interview.”

Agent Marshall remained quiet in the back of the room, her notebook out, her eyes flicking between the different participants in the room. Adele shifted a bit in her chair, her hands pressed against the cool surface of the metal table. She waited for Mr. Carmichael to take a drink from the steaming coffee. He smacked his lips, wincing against the heat.

“You’ve already interviewed him?” Adele glanced toward Detective Klopp.

“Ja. Just here to verify and help in any way I can.”

Adele gathered herself and indicated the truck driver. “Well, I was just asking him if he could think of anything else from that night.”

“And as I was saying,” Mr. Carmichael replied, quietly, “there’s nothing. No cars, no one else. Just the girl, with bloody footprints.”

“As you told us already,” said Detective Klopp, nodding. “And also the wild, far-fetched claims she made.”

The truck driver hesitated at this. “She said there were others,” he said, swallowing then raising a hand as if signaling a teacher in class. “Said someone had them captured, and was going to kill them all.”

Adele, though, looked over at the German detective. “You don’t think the girl’s comments are to be taken seriously?”

Detective Klopp was shaking her head. Her hair was pulled back in a neat bun, and she had the barest traces of makeup on her features. Her cheekbones were high, and her eyes searching as she studied Adele. “The girl was malnourished, starving, freezing, and in the middle of the forest,” she said. “Taking anything she said seriously, especially,” she cleared her throat and shifted a bit, “secondhand, might be inadvisable at this point.”

Adele glanced toward Agent Marshall, then back. “Is that the official position of this department?”

Detective Klopp smiled in a comforting sort of way toward Mr. Carmichael. She addressed Adele, but still had her eyes fixed on the truck driver. “It is. Herman,” she said, “tell her how the girl was behaving when you first encountered her.”

The truck driver shifted uncomfortably. “Well, like I was saying, she said there were others. But when I first came upon her, she didn’t say anything at all. In fact, it almost felt like she couldn’t see me. I drove my truck off the road trying to avoid her. She was standing in the middle of the highway. Not wearing any clothes.” He blushed a bit, clearing his throat and shaking his head. “Bad business. Bad business. Anyway, the fräulein was standing there; didn’t seem to see me until I was right upon her. I was even talking, but she just stared off in the distance.”

Detective Klopp waved a hand, as if displaying something in the air. “As I said,” she said, “might not be best to take the girl at her word.”

Adele dipped her head once to show she’d heard; she pressed the same line of questioning for another few minutes, but the truck driver failed to convey