Left to Kill (Adele Sharp #4) - Blake Pierce Page 0,52

against the glass screen. His tone took on an edge. “Adele,” John said, his voice barely louder than a whisper.

“Yes?”

He swallowed. “Ha Eun, our friend here, she went missing three years ago.”

Adele turned sharply, glancing at John. She turned back to the corpse, her eyes flitting along the half-open eyes staring lifelessly at the sky down to the bruises and cuts along her body. Ha Eun was also half naked as the first girl had been. Only a thin layer for a T-shirt and boxers.

Adele felt a spasm of rage pulse in her chest. Through tight lips, she said, “She would have frozen if she tried to escape. You think that’s what happened here?”

“All I can tell is she’s been through hell. Look at her fingernails.”

Adele glanced and winced. Two of them had been ripped off completely. One of the fingers, the pinkie, was missing a knuckle. Though it seemed an old, healed wound.

She looked away in disgust and got back to her feet, shaking her head. Her eyes now scanned the ground, looking for a clue. Anything.

Adele noticed something and her hand darted forward. A piece of string. Blue. She hesitated, frowning, but then glanced toward the BKA agents. She held up the single piece of thread and realized it was an exact match for their uniforms.

She tossed it away in disgust, allowing it to drift on the breeze.

“You think they’d be more careful with the crime scene,” she muttered.

John, though, was still staring at his phone. He looked up, his eyes burning. “Adele, did you hear me? Three years. She’s been in this maniac’s grip for the last three years. She went missing, much like Amanda. Backpacking with friends. Disappeared, not in the summer, but the spring.”

Adele shook her head. “You don’t think it could be a coincidence? Maybe it has nothing to do with Amanda?”

“Come on,” John grunted, shaking his head. “That’s stupid. Of course it does. What are the odds?”

Adele shrugged. “She has some of the same bruisings, beatings. She’s in a similar state of undress. That wasn’t something the news picked up on. I mean… it’s probably our same guy. Which just means one thing, if he’s been active for at least three years…”

She trailed off. John looked down at her, and said, “This confirms it. He’s been active longer. We didn’t look at cases more than three years old. But Ha Eun—what are the odds she’s his first victim?”

“There will be more missing people, then,” Adele said. “Not all of them will tie to our kidnapper…” she swallowed, “killer. But some of them might. We need to check the records further back.”

“Did you see her wrists?” John said, his voice a soft growl.

Adele returned her attention, and winced. The girl’s small, slender wrists had deep, painful rashes around them. “Bound with rope,” she said. “He tortures them.”

“We’re going to have to check five years back.”

“Make it ten, to be safe,” Adele said.

They fell silent for a moment, and Adele felt a cold shiver across her shoulders.

“You think that’s possible?” John murmured. “Our killer has been operating in the forests for a decade? With no one finding out?”

“I think anything’s possible. Just do it, all right, I’ll help. But look, give me a second, I need to make a call.”

John muttered darkly to himself, standing in the middle of the crime scene, ignoring the looks from the BKA agents.

Adele moved, stepping out of the crime scene once more, a trembling hand rooting her phone from her pocket.

She walked stiff backed, straight postured, until she reached their parked car. And then she started trembling all over. She wanted to collapse. She stared at her phone, wondering who she would call.

Call someone—why had that seemed the thing to do? She wasn’t a child—she couldn’t run to someone for help when things got tough.

Still, she could feel tears threatening to spill from her eyes. That girl had been tortured. For three years. Dropped dead in a field. Why? Because Amanda had escaped. That’s what she had told the trucker. People were going to be punished, because Amanda had survived.

Adele knew what that was like. People around her died. People around her suffered. Her mother had died. Robert’s health was declining. Her father’s head was who knew where. And yet Adele always survived. Like a rat clinging to a piece of wood on a sinking ship.

They were accusing, harsh thoughts. Not valuable thoughts. And yet, they hounded her. She stood there, trembling, shielded from view from the others by