Left to Kill (Adele Sharp #4) - Blake Pierce Page 0,55
grin flashing past the length of his body from where he lay on the couch. “You know me,” he said. “I’m all about personality.”
Adele snorted in disgust. “Ms. Personality is probably following orders to distance herself from us. It’s not like the Germans have been keeping us in the loop on everything. Couldn’t help but notice we showed up at that crime scene a couple hours after BKA had already been through. Remember those threads from their uniforms contaminating the scene? They’d already stomped all over the place.”
John frowned. “Well, then that might explain this too.”
“The email?” she said, following his gaze.
“Yeah. That doctor’s report; the full, official file on Amanda Johnson. I just got it. But when I look at the date it was filed, and the forwarding information, it looks like it was sent out nearly thirteen hours ago.”
Adele actually rotated in her chair now, the wooden legs creaking against the floor. “Thirteen hours?” she snapped, her temper surging. “That’s half a day. They could’ve sent it to us yesterday. Are you sure you’re not reading the email late?”
John shook his head. “No, it was sent to me five minutes ago. Did you get it?”
Adele checked her phone, scrolling to her email. She slammed her phone against her leg, looking up again. “I didn’t even get it at all. Are you sure?”
“Yeah, five minutes ago. They didn’t even send it to you?”
Adele huffed a breath, her back to her laptop now. She could feel the blood pumping in her ears, her own frustrations mounting. She gritted her teeth and resisted the urge to throw her phone across the room. She paused for a moment, breathing, but then, exhaling through her nose, she looked at John from beneath hooded eyes. “They’re cutting us out of the loop is what they’re doing. The Germans are getting priority. BKA is protecting their own at this point. I think they can smell a storm coming.”
“Everyone’s going to get involved soon,” said John. “Sixteen names, eight different countries. Bunch of international students. Imagine eight agencies trying to coordinate. BKA can’t even coordinate with us, they’re already leaving us out of the loop.”
Adele gripped the armrests of her chair, feeling her knuckle strain.
For a moment, she felt like snapping the chair. Then she felt like kicking over the table. A sudden flash of anger surged through her, bright and hot. People were making it more difficult than it had to be. She had a job to do, but how could she do it if the team wouldn’t even play ball?
She breathed, inhaling, then exhaling longer than she’d inhaled. She tried to calm herself, focusing. She blinked a few times, and then, easing out a sigh, trying to relax, she said, “What does the medical report say?”
John shrugged a shoulder, the motion causing his laptop to tilt off his belly. “Pretty much what the doctor told us in person. Only thing I’m noticing is that you’re right about the MO. That blow that he saw on the back of her head was hard enough to knock her unconscious. So, yeah, our killer is a sneaky bastard.”
Adele leaned back, staring at the ceiling. “Tortures, knocks out kids, strips them half naked, and keeps them locked up somewhere where he can prey on them. Sneaky doesn’t do it justice.”
John sighed and glanced back at his laptop. “Thirty-two percent,” he said. “Let me get this straight. We’re looking for college-age kids, mostly international, visiting the Black Forest area, who went and stayed missing.”
“Yeah, same parameters as the three-year search.”
John shook his head. “You really think a ten-year search is going to help?”
“Can’t hurt. Ha Eun had been missing for three years. If he’s gone back that far, it’s possible he’s been working for longer.”
John narrowed his eyes. “Executive Foucault was right. This one’s bad. I’m half worried to see what we find.”
Adele glanced back at her own laptop screen. The compiler had reached forty-five percent.
“Look,” she said, “we’re going to have to tackle this from another direction. The missing people are our only witnesses. Individuals, backpackers, usually on their own out in the forests and woods. No one else is going to have seen what happened.”
“What about that kid that went missing with the search party? Has he come up yet?”
Adele shook her head. “Hasn’t technically been forty-eight hours yet. Can’t call it official. But let’s consider him a missing person as well.”
John grunted. “You don’t think the guy was unlucky enough to stumble on our killer, do