They took in Adele’s suit and John’s attire. They looked them up and down and both fell silent, listening to the running sound of water.
As Adele stood in the dust amid splotches of mud created by errant droplets from the spigot, she felt like she had perched herself on shaky ground. To her surprise, she found herself missing the concrete, the glass, the rigid structure of the buildings back in Paris and San Francisco. The trees around her, the dust at her feet, the haphazard campgrounds circling the old cabin, brought with them a sense of uncertainty. A lack of roots. If anything, Adele thought this should appeal to her. It was something John had once accused her of. He’d said she was someone who didn’t like roots, who moved often. These folk and their RVs, with their water containers and their casual conversations out beneath the open sky, should have felt like birds of a feather. And yet Adele felt isolated, alone. A strange sensation. She couldn’t trace it, and now wasn’t really the time. But as she acknowledged the two campers by the water spigot, she couldn’t help but feel that out here, in the woods, there was a lack of structure. A lack of substance, of something beneath the surface, a vitality, a rigidity. The law, where she worked, it served as a backbone for society. Here, on shaky, dusty ground, her badge, her job, was a liability. A threat of authority. She could sense the distrust emanating from these two, like heat from a furnace.
The woman’s water jug was overflowing. Streams of liquid seeped past her hand and splattered on the ground, creating more mud.
The young man nudged her and muttered something. The woman quickly looked down, blushed, and pulled her jug away, replacing it with a second, smaller container,
The drumming sound of water in the bottom of the echoing plastic stretched the silence between them, until the young man looked at John, and said, “Can we help you, Officer?”
John raised an eyebrow to Adele.
“I’m sorry,” she said in German. “He doesn’t speak German.”
The young man’s eyebrows rose even higher. He shared a knowing look with the girl next to him. If anything, if possible, their postures became even more defensive. They seemed to lean closer together, or at the very least further away from John and Adele.
“Is he American?” said the young man with a tone of scorn.
The young woman chuckled beneath her breath, but the sound was drowned out by the tumbling water.
“No,” Adele said. “He’s French. Are you two German?”
The young man nodded once. The woman glanced at John again, taking in his tall, handsome form, and seemed to like what she saw. She smiled at John and then glanced bashfully toward the RV, and hesitated. A second woman had appeared in the frame of the RV, glancing toward them. Adele turned her attention back to the young woman still eyeing John.
“Might I have your name?”
Instantly, the woman frowned. She said, “I haven’t done anything wrong.”
Adele held out her hands in a placating gesture. “I wasn’t implying you had. Sorry. Let me start over. We’re here on missing persons case. A girl, a few years younger than you two. We found her a couple nights ago, wandering the highway. There’s a manhunt searching for who might’ve taken her.”
The young man frowned. “Taken her?”
Adele said, “Yes. She went missing five months ago. Spent some time in this area, the Black Forest.”
Now the woman in the doorway of the RV was starting to approach, a peculiar look on her face. She seemed caught somewhere between curiosity and distrust. Her two friends were both glancing back at her, and Adele caught the faintest shake of the head from the boy. This stopped the second woman in her tracks for a moment, and she hesitated between two trees leading from the campsite. But then she seemed to find her own will and pressed on, approaching them.
Adele glanced back at the nearest campers. “Look, we don’t mean any harm. We’re not here to cause trouble.”
“We paid for the campground,” the young man said quickly. “You can ask the governor.” He nodded toward the cabin.
“The governor? Is that what you call the campgrounds director?”
“His name is Mr. Rosenbaum,” said the girl, quickly. “He knows we’re here. We paid.”
“I don’t doubt you,” Adele said. “Seriously, I’m here about Amanda Johnson. There are a few other names I was wondering if you’d mind telling me if you’ve heard of them.”
By now,