Left to Kill (Adele Sharp #4) - Blake Pierce Page 0,54
just turned up now.”
Her father stared at her. “What do you mean she just turned up now?”
“I mean, whoever this guy is, he’s a sick fuck.”
“Language!”
“Yes. Well, he is. Had this girl locked up somewhere. Her wrists bound. Rope burns. Scars upon scars. He’s had her tied up for years. Tortured too. Just left her in the middle of the field, throat slit. She wasn’t killed here. But he brought her here. I think he wanted us to find the body. He’s taunting us.”
Her father’s face darkened on the other end of the line. “Another one dead?”
“Another? She’s the first victim…”
“Oh.” He cleared his throat and shook his head. “Yes, of course.”
“Yeah, well, there’s nothing we can—”
“I search all night, find nothing, and then someone ends up dead in the morning. Again. I fail, and they die. Every time.” His voice warbled, and for a moment, it didn’t really feel like he was speaking to her, more like he was speaking his own thoughts out loud. She saw, for a brief instance, a glimpse into her father’s mind. And it troubled her. She could sense rage, hurt, pain.
His voice was shaking now. “Adele, I’m going to have to call you back. Have a good day.”
“Dad, it’s not—”
Before she could finish, her father hung up.
Adele stood trembling, cold, but also exhausted against her car. She could hear quiet murmurs from the investigators in the crime scene behind her. She could hear the swish of the wind across the open fields and the frozen ground.
She could hear the strain in a memory of Ms. Jayne’s voice. The other agencies were going to want to get involved soon. Ha Eun had been an international student as well. Eventually, the bureaucracies would take over. And it would be too late to help anyone. Failure ended in bodies. And so, for Adele, failure couldn’t be an option.
It was too late for Ha Eun, but there were others still out there. She thought, briefly, of the boy who’d gone missing searching yesterday. There was still hope he had simply gone home, or was with a friend. But now, Adele could feel the urgency of it. For three years Ha Eun had been tortured and then killed. Who else was on the list? Sixteen names they’d found in the last three years that fit the MO. College age, missing. Three years. Of those sixteen, there were chances that many had gone missing for reasons unconnected to this case. But there was someone out there. Someone hunting the vulnerable. The same person who had taken Amanda Johnson five months ago. Taken Ha Eun three years ago. And what if they’d been active for longer? How much longer?
How many other names would they find? How many other victims?
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
John and Adele fell silent, waiting for the loud rumbling engines to pass overhead. They were once again at their airport motel.
John was no longer at the table, but preferred to lie back on the couch, his long frame stretched out. His laptop was on his stomach, his neck tilted, so he could read the files scrolling across the screen. Adele, for her part, had a compiler running on her own computer. She’d already issued the parameters. Extending the search not just within a three-year window, but five, and then ten.
She watched the list compile, various documents spinning through, their titles flashing across the gray bar.
Eleven percent, the bar read. Soon, they would have a broader list. Sixteen names in the last three years that fit the MO. Sixteen possible victims of this psychopath. Ha Eun was off the list now. Amanda in a hospital. Fourteen names, then, unaccounted for. Still missing. Some of them, Adele had no doubt, had nothing to do with the case. Gone, perhaps never to be heard from again. But others, she could feel it in her bones, were still out there, alive. There was still hope for them.
Another jet engine flew overhead. At least, there was hope as long as Adele could get herself in gear. She’d been swinging and missing the last couple of days. No longer. She had to find something. Had to.
John grunted from the couch, and Adele looked over. “Find something?” she said.
“Running the compiler,” John replied. “But I just got an email. From BKA. Our lovely Ms. Beatrice Marshall.”
“Yeah? What about?”
Instead of answering, though, John tilted his head. “Where is Agent Marshall? I’m starting to miss her.”
“Yeah,” said Adele. “I’m sure it’s for her vivid personality.”
John smirked, a crocodile