Left to Kill (Adele Sharp #4) - Blake Pierce Page 0,34
gaze, then chuckled. “My pleasure.”
Adele moved over to the window and reached up to push through the cardboard. There was a quiet scraping sound of duct tape peeling and then the cardboard cutout fell through. Adele wrinkled her nose, catching a whiff of sweat and old clothes and sour odors from within.
But then, steeling herself, she gestured at John, waiting for him to form a stirrup with his hands.
It was at that moment, as John crouched on a knee and Adele placed her foot in the stirrup of his hands, that she heard a loud voice from behind them shout, “You hoodlums! I told you, next time I’d put a bullet through you!”
There was the sound of gunfire.
John whirled around quickly, but not so quickly that he didn’t ease Adele’s foot to the ground first—careful for his partner’s safety. In the same motion his gun leapt to his hands, snapping to attention. In a crouch, he aimed and shouted, “Put it down or I’ll drop you. We’re not campers. DGSI!”
Adele turned as well, shivering, adrenaline coursing through her. She spotted a man with a dead animal draped in one hand. He had an old rifle in the other, pointed at the sky, smoke whispering from the barrel.
His eyes narrowed, focusing on John’s gun. His rifle twitched.
“Point that at us and it will be the last thing you do,” John said.
“John,” Adele muttered. “He can’t understand you.”
John kept his eyes narrowed, gun raised. “He understands. He might not know French, but he understands.” His gun didn’t move an inch.
The man had wild hair, and, by the looks of him, he smelled about the same as his bus. His clothes stuck to him in parts, suggesting sweat and filth and grease.
One of his eyes seemed to rotate lazily in his skull, not quite focusing where he was looking. The other, though, was fixed on John, his eyebrows lowered in a frown.
He had stubble along his chin, and his teeth were yellowish. He waved the dead rabbit, circling it, as if threatening to throw it at them.
“Get out of here,” he said. “This is private property.”
John glanced at Adele. “What’s he saying?”
“He says it is private property.” Adele, in German, called out, “Mr. Rosenbaum sent us. He said you’re not allowed here. We would like to ask you some questions.”
The man hesitated, his gun still hovering. “Where are you from again?” he asked. His gun inched even lower.
“Adele,” John said, serious as a grave, “tell him if that gun aims at us, I will put a bullet between his eyes.”
Adele quickly relayed the information. The trespasser glanced from John to Adele. His eyes narrowed again. “Interpol? What do you want with me?”
Adele said, “Just lower the gun, and we can talk about it.”
For his part, John maintained his aim, his posture rigid, his finger strained white against the trigger—but, true to his word, he didn’t fire. The trespasser’s rifle still aimed skyward.
The man took a moment to reach a decision. For a moment, Adele thought it would be a deadly one. His gun hovered. The rabbit draped from his hand. But then he seemed to see something in John’s gaze that he didn’t quite like, and, with a groan, he extended his hands, bent at the waist, and slowly placed his weapon and his dinner on the ground.
Before he even completed the motion, Adele was moving quickly across the ground, John at her side. John was yelling, incoherent sounds, controlling the suspect with noise alone.
Adele was saying, “On the ground! Remain on the ground!” Her handcuffs were already in her grip. She reached Heinrich and circled behind him, ignoring his insults and dark muttering. And, with John’s help, she cuffed him. John kicked the gun away, and the rabbit too, grunting in distaste.
Then, with Heinrich in cuffs, Adele dusted off his coat and said, “Sorry for the hassle. Tell me if the cuffs are uncomfortable. And please follow us.”
“Bugger off,” the man muttered in response.
They led him away from his bus, his dead rabbit, and his rifle.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The second time around in the Black Forest police station interrogation room, Adele felt prickles across the back of her arms. Interviewing the trucker in the same room had held an entirely different atmosphere. Now, tension thrummed on the air. Across from her, Heinrich sat, his hands cuffed in front of him. He moved his arms, and a quiet scrape of metal broke the silence.
Agent Renee had excused himself for this interview, and Adele secretly thought