Left to Kill (Adele Sharp #4) - Blake Pierce Page 0,21

crackle of the speaker being turned off. The front door of the squad car slammed, and the microphone was pushed back through the open window.

Groups then began to move, following the grid pattern set out to them by their squad leaders.

Adele watched as the lead group, the college-age kids, led by the young man with the brown hair and sleek glasses, took to the trees with quick, surefooted steps, eyes on the ground, spread out in a line, arm’s-width apart, moving in sweeping patterns as they began to step through the forest.

“Adele,” John said, hesitantly.

“What? It can’t be called off at this point,” she said. “Evidence or not, I doubt they’ll trample it. Just trust—”

“No,” he said, “it’s not that. Look, is that your dad?”

Adele frowned and turned. She spotted a squat man with a walrus mustache and thick arms. The only one in the group who wasn’t wearing a jacket. He had a white T-shirt on, and a thin vest over it.

Adele stared. Her father glanced over at her and gave a brief nod of recognition. Then he turned, a whistle in hand, and gestured at the nine others behind him to follow as he stepped foot into the forest.

Adele shook her head, blinking at the abrupt departure.

“Guess he’s volunteering,” said John.

She swallowed. “He lives about an hour from here. I bet you he didn’t know I was on the case.”

John snorted. “You didn’t tell him?”

“I mean, didn’t really come up.” She trailed off, swallowed, and said, “To be honest with you, he’s kind of been dodging my calls since I missed Christmas. I don’t think he was thrilled that I stayed in France during that snowstorm.”

John winced sympathetically and turned to look toward the trees where the Sergeant and his group had disappeared, their orange vests fading between the thick, brown trunks.

“Well,” said Adele, “I guess now isn’t the time for chitchat anyway.” With a sour taste in her mouth, she turned from the portion of forest where her father had disappeared without so much as a hello, and ducked under the caution tape, moving toward the cordoned off section of highway.

John followed. “I suppose covering thousands of square kilometers is going to take some time, huh?”

“Let’s see if we can help them narrow it down, shall we,” she murmured. She spoke quietly, but somewhat inattentively. When Adele was at a crime scene, only half of her mind could be used for conversation. The rest, without fail, was already cataloging, analyzing, looking. She scanned the grated asphalt, her eyes flicking to the bent light post above the barrier on the edge of the caution tape line. Three officers stood, making sure none of the volunteers crossed the boundary. A few of them nodded to Adele as she and John moved, and another ignored them completely, his eyes on the trees.

Adele moved over to the most obvious portion of the crime scene. Bloodstains. Bloody footprints, to be exact, in the center of the highway. The snow hadn’t settled on the asphalt the way it had in the forest. Only a thin snowfall, but it had melted on the road. The blood, though, as it had touched the asphalt the night before, had frozen in place. Two stains, no larger than the girl’s feet, had collected the most blood. But there were trickles of droplets leading over to one edge of the forest, and then footsteps, from the accumulated blood, moving toward the bent light post.

John jerked his head. “She went that way with the truck driver.”

Adele murmured, “Means she came from that way,” she said, nodding toward the bloody footprints. “I’m sure the coordinator knows to keep the search localized.”

But John shook his head. “You heard the doctor, she was out here for hours. Could’ve covered an enormous distance. We don’t know if she walked in a straight line.”

Adele hesitated. She saw the sense in it, as much as she hated to admit it. “See this?” Adele said, pointing with the toe of her boot.

John looked, and then dropped into a crouch, his hands on his knees, his body hunched.

“How did you see that?” he said, softly.

“Probably just the girl’s hair,” said Adele.

John gestured at one of the officers at the barricade to bring over an evidence bag. The woman hurried over and helped extricate the single, long, curling brown hair Adele had found.

It was latched between the asphalt, like a trail of river water through dry ground. It had been stuck in place from the blood and frost.