Left to Kill (Adele Sharp #4) - Blake Pierce Page 0,12
anything Executive Foucault hadn’t already told them: someone, according to the girl, had others in jeopardy. The girl had seemed upset, for obvious reasons. She had been covered in small cuts and bruises from running through the forest. Besides that, the truck driver had nothing to add.
Adele thanked him quietly and pushed up from the table. John hounded her with questions in French, but she ignored him and said to Marshall, as they exited the interview room, “Where’s that hospital?”
Marshall looked at Adele. “You want to speak with her yourself?”
“By the sound of things that’s not going to be possible.”
Marshall shook her head. “She’s in a coma. But I can take you to the hospital if you want.”
Adele nodded. “Maybe the doctors found something they missed at first. The truck driver is not going to be much help anyway.”
Adele could feel something worming in her gut. Executive Foucault’s seeming premonition came back to her. This was a bad one. Something about this case felt off, eerie. Adele was beginning to feel a similar sensation. She wasn’t sure why. But somehow, she wasn’t sure she wanted to witness the culmination of this investigation. Her stomach twisted as they exited the police station and made their way back to the car, preparing to head to the hospital.
CHAPTER SIX
“This time, I’m not fetching coffee,” John said, sternly.
Adele shook her head as she took the steps up to the front of the hospital.
Agent Marshall was already standing next to rotating glass doors. She smiled politely and gestured for Adele and John to follow. The three agents entered the hospital lobby, confronted by the sickly sweet smell of cleaning fluids and disinfectant. Adele felt a sudden itch at the back of her neck. She shook her head. Something about hospitals always gave her the creeps. Secretly, she hoped if ever she got too sick, people would be kind enough to leave her in peace to die in her bed, rather than dragging her off to a horrible place like this. She didn’t particularly like doctors either.
John strode across toward the front desk and said, in French. “Mademoiselle. Do you have any French-speaking doctors who have treated Amanda Johnson?”
The woman behind the counter just stared up at him, hesitant. She glanced at one of her partners, but the young man just shrugged back.
Agent Marshall approached, gently touching John on the elbow. She spoke quietly and quickly with the nurses, and eventually they were redirected to an elevator at the far end of the large atrium. They passed a couple of faux potted plants. Again, Adele was reminded how much she hated hospitals.
“Are you all right?” John asked, as the elevator doors dinged open and they stepped in.
“Fine,” she replied, curtly.
“You’re sweating,” he said. “It’s cold. Why are you sweating?”
“I’m not sweating, shut up.” Adele turned away, but when John returned his attention to Marshall, chatting up the young agent as the elevator dinged up the floors, Adele quickly reached up and wiped her forehead. Damp. She was sweating. Damn. She would have to get her emotions in check, even in a place like this.
They stepped off the elevator and were confronted by another long hall with glass windows on either side. She could hear distant beeping sounds. Another noise as grating to her as bones on a chalkboard.
“You sure you’re all right?” John murmured in her ear.
“I’m fine, let’s go see if we can find this doctor.”
Marshall, hearing this, said politely, “The head doctor in charge of Amanda’s case can speak English. I requested for him to meet us outside her room. This way.”
Marshall led them past three closed doors. Two of them had curtains, but one was open, with three nurses inside, wearing green scrubs, trying to lift an old, frail man onto a sliding table.
The scene, the scents, the beeping, all of it, sent Adele into another spasm of existential dread. For some reason, she thought of Robert. She thought of his coughing, his age. Perhaps she should run an extra couple hours tomorrow. Yes, that would help clear her mind.
They finally came to a stop in front of an open glass door. A man was waiting for them. He had a stethoscope jammed unceremoniously into the pocket of his blue scrubs, and had a name tag pinned to his chest.
“Dr. Samuel,” said Agent Marshall, “we spoke on the phone earlier.”
The doctor was an older fellow, with a pure white beard and crinkling eyes. But where the truck driver’s eyes had lines from smiling,