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Left To Die
Adele still sat on the edge of the metal table, her legs crossed, her hands folded in her lap, her shoulder brushing against Lehman’s waving forearm as he gesticulated wildly, causing the chains to rattle back and forth and his hands to move up and down like a seesaw through the metal bracket holding him tight.
“Agent Sharp,” Marshall repeated again, waving with her phone.
Adele sighed, and finally glanced over at the young BKA agent.
“Yes?” she said.
Marshall winced apologetically. “He’s telling the truth,” she said, shaking her head. “BKA can’t find any record of credit card purchases or travel outside the country. And the officer sent to speak with his wife has her swearing up and down that he’s been home for the last five weeks, wallowing in it, in her words, but home.”
Adele felt a pit forming in her stomach. She stared at Agent Marshall. “You have to be kidding.”
The German agent winced again, shaking her head.
Adele glanced at Peter, who was hunched over now, crying, his forehead resting against his hands.
She turned to John, her expression grim. “There was no one else? No one in the employee records who worked on the project? Who requested absence? No one with red hair?”
John scowled. “Would you stop it with the red hair? He doesn’t have red hair.” He jabbed a finger toward Peter again. “He’s the killer!”
But Adele shook her head and translated what Marshall had told her as well as what Peter had said. As she relayed the facts, John’s expression morphed from one of anger to sheer contempt. He flung out a hand and grunted as if waving away everyone in the room. “He has to be the killer,” John said, mulishly. “He had the drug on him, in the suitcase. You saw!”
“He does have a ticket for Switzerland,” said Agent Marshall, once again waving her phone like a child raising their hand to catch the attention of a supply teacher.
John growled again and opened his mouth to protest, but Adele interrupted, “No credit cards or passport out of Germany, John. He’s been here.”
“Can anyone else vouch for his whereabouts?” John demanded.
Adele turned to Peter. “Can anyone else corroborate that you’ve been in Germany?”
Peter hesitated, but then nodded wildly. “Yes, of course! My team. We met up for drinks only two weeks ago after the project was officially canceled. It was a wake, a sendoff, if you will. There were nearly twenty people there. They’ll all be able to vouch for me. Please, just ask them!”
Adele felt her shoulders slump in defeat. “We’re going to need names,” she said softly. She reached out and patted Lehman on the shoulder, and then pushed off the table, turning toward the door to the interrogation room. “I need a breath,” she said. “I’ll be back.”
As Adele pushed out of the cramped space, the smell of iced tea and sweat was replaced by cheap cologne and scented air freshener. She kept her eyes ahead as she walked down the hall, mulling over the possibilities. Either Peter was an Oscar winner, or else the real killer was still out there. For all she knew, he was preparing for his next victim.
Adele paused in the doorway of the police station, letting a couple of officers past, both who glanced at her with mildly confused expressions. She ignored them as she stared out into the street. The same ominous shudder she’d felt back at the DGSI headquarters crept up her spine—the same sense of foreboding, like a gust of chill breeze.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
The man sat on the floor, leaning against the footrest of the grandfather chair, resting his head against the seat. He preferred the floor; chairs like this one were too comfortable. But he couldn’t give it up. It had once belonged to his aunt, and she’d been kind to him once upon a time.
Still, comfort was for the weak.
The man stared at the TV screen, watching the events unfold.
A shakily held cell phone captured the moment when the chemist was escorted from his house in handcuffs.
A very tall agent with burn marks just below his chin was glaring at everyone within sight. A special glare was reserved for whoever was holding the camera.
The seated man returned the glare on the TV screen.
Next to the tall agent, he recognized the woman in the neat suit with the pretty, blonde hair.
“Agent Sharp,” he murmured, tipping his head in mock greeting.
She was in Germany. The man kept his calm for a moment, counting in his head, but then his emotions bubbled over and he screamed, launching the remote at the glass cabinet across the room. He howled, cursing at the ceiling as the sound of shattered glass only further sparked his rage.
With heaving, huffing breaths, he managed to regain control of his temper, glaring toward the TV once more.
How had they followed him? He thought he’d been careful. Reaching the US had been easy enough. He’d traveled to Canada first, and then slipped through the border. It wasn’t his first time.
Avoiding detection in France had been even easier; a matter of false papers. The government thought they were so clever. Yet in Germany, the US, and France, teenagers with fake IDs could fool even the most attentive of bartenders.
His tastes weren’t so predictable as a teenager in search of a buzz, but fake papers on a train from France to Germany were far easier to procure with the right connections. The man rarely traveled by plane if he could help it.
The man leaned back again, resting his head against the cushioned footrest.
The US had been a delightful vacation, but future sojourns would be relegated to Europe. The man nodded, settling the matter in that moment with the simple bob of his head. The options were far better in Europe: bus, train, hitching a ride, driving…
The US border was too difficult to cross and getting more and more difficult with each passing month. No, his vacation had been cut short.
The man crossed his legs and pulled up the hem of his shirt, glancing down at his stomach and flexing his abdomen.
He couldn’t quite make out the ridge of his muscles, and with a flare of annoyance, he quickly swiveled, placing his feet under the edge of the grandfather chair as he began to do sit-ups, grunting with each one and flexing his abdomen at the peak, holding the position until pain set in, and then releasing it and lowering down.
He listened as the news continued to announce the arrest of the chemist from Lion Pharmaceutical.
Of course, he knew all about the company.
They were closing in. This Agent Sharp was better than he’d thought. She couldn’t have possibly tracked him by papers, so how had she found him in Germany?
“She hasn’t,” he said out loud, answering his own thought. He grunted again as he reached the pinnacle of his sit up, then lowered back once more. He shot off another twenty rapid sit-ups—then thirty—then forty.
He could feel a sweat breaking across his forehead and limbs, but he pushed himself, straining.
Youth required sacrifice. Longevity required commitment. Youth was wasted on the young. But it was a currency he would spend wisely.
He’d avoided vacationing in Germany; it was too close to home. But perhaps he could make an exception just this once. For a special person.
He reached his morning hundred, then stopped the exercise. Gasping, sweating, he pushed off his chair and went over to the kitchen table, retrieving his laptop from where he’d placed it on a counter. It took him a moment to boot up the thing, but then he stared at the blank screen displaying the search engine.
Everything was available on the internet nowadays.
That chemist’s arrest had been captured by some neighbor’s dinky camera. People fancied themselves reporters, though, really, they were in it for a buck.
The man sneered, wrinkling his nose in disgust. How many times had he seen videos of someone being beaten up, while fifty people surrounded them, instead of helping, videotaping the whole ordeal.
Humans were revolting.
This new one, this Agent Sharp… she was pretty. Not that it mattered. She was young, but not young enough.
Twenty-three was where he’d left off, and twenty-three was where he would need to start again.
He quivered in delight at the thought: how young could he go?
He’d never thought of exerting his routine over a teenager…Even a child? The possibilities were endless. But he could feel his strength rising. Every time one of them perished at his feet, bleeding out, he could feel part of them enter him. He didn’t believe in immortality, but with the advances in science and medicine, he planned to make it to at least two hundred. And that required sacrifice.
Agent Sharp had to go. She was too close, too clever for her own good.
Anything could be found online.
He typed in her name, scanning articles. He paused for a moment, struggling to remember what his host family had mentioned back in the US.
He grunted in satisfaction as the memory clicked. “Adele,” he said, quietly. He licked his lips and kissed the air. He typed “Adele Sharp” into the search engine and pressed enter. A split second later, he scanned the results and then stopped.
A German article, an interview, conducted with a Joseph Sharp. But what did that have to do with—
He froze as he scanned the article. Some bullshit thing honoring police veterans interviewed about their lives. Joseph Sharp worked for the police in Germany. The article was from more than a decade ago. His French daughter had won some sort of track and field meet in college, and there were rumors that she was planning on joining the German police. At least, that’s what it sounded like Joseph Sharp expected.
He continued to scan the article. Joseph was still working in Germany. In fact, he wasn’t far from here.
“Adele Sharp,” the man said, quietly. “You wish to hunt me in my home?”
The old article still had a picture of Mr. Sharp, and had printed his address in the article. Ten years ago, people weren’t so careful on the internet.
The article was nearly a decade old, but the information, would it still prove useful?
The man smiled, slowly lowering his hands from the computer. Perhaps it was time he paid Adele Sharp’s father a visit.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
It had been a long walk from the bus stop, but Adele was sick of vehicles. Planes, limousines, cars, she was starting to feel like Robert.
Adele wasn’t frustrated. No, she had passed frustration weeks ago. They were in a holding pattern once more. The BKA had reluctantly agreed to investigate the other members of Peter Lehman’s team; double-checking their alibis and whereabouts. But Adele wasn’t hopeful it would pay off.
She stared at the houses at the end of the cul-de-sac, her hands jammed in her pockets for warmth as she surveyed the yards. Her dad’s house wasn’t large, but it was just a bit larger than the other houses on the block. It wasn’t particularly clean, but it was just a fraction cleaner than the other homes. He did have a white picket fence—the remnants of the American dream.
Her father had been born in the US, and had been deployed to Germany with the army. He’d stayed in Germany for Adele’s mother at first. He didn’t have any family back stateside. Part of Adele had often thought her father had fled something back home. He’d never returned to the US, not even on vacation after leaving the military and gaining his German citizenship. Now, very little of his American loyalty remained. Still, he couldn’t resist showing up his German neighbors.
Even the grass, in the lawn, though it may have just been Adele’s imagination, was a half inch taller after trimming than the other houses on the cul-de-sac. Her father did the yard work himself and painted the house himself. He didn’t believe in hiring people to do something he could do. Of course, after eight hours on a job, coming home only to pick up more projects had left little room for time with the wife and kid once upon a time.
Adele twisted at her sleeves and stalked up the sidewalk, passing a fire hydrant and nodding toward someone peering at her through the window of a neighbor’s home. She sighed in nervous little puffs of breath. She hadn’t necessarily wanted to visit her father. It had been a few years since she’d actually seen him in person.
But if he found out from his law enforcement buddies that she’d been in Germany and hadn’t visited him, she’d never hear the end of it.
“The ever doting father,” Adele murmured to herself, jamming her hands back into her pockets as she strode toward the two-story, stone veneer house at the end of the block.
She could hear the neighbor’s dogs yelping and barking, and vaguely thought of a childhood without pets. Her father hadn’t wanted to clean up after them. Adele had gotten the turtle with Angus more out of spite than any actual desire to own the poor creature.
Already, bitter thoughts circled her head, and Adele felt like she was back to being twelve all over again.
She strode up the sidewalk, took the patio steps, and knocked politely on the front door.
The Sergeant hated it when people rang the bell. There were a lot of things that annoyed her father, and Adele had a memorized list. Walking on eggshells around Joseph Sharp wasn’t only a necessity, it was a practiced skill. And of everyone Adele knew, she’d practiced best.
Still, though, she wasn’t looking forward to the visit. She knocked again, politely, and heard a voice call from inside, in German, “I’m coming—hold on!”
Adele waited, and the door clicked as locks shifted and bolts rattled as chains were removed.
Her father was safety conscious. He didn’t trust security cameras, but he had more locks on the windows and doors than most banks. And the collection of firearms permitted to him, thanks to his job, also served to provide him peace of mind.
The door swung open, revealing a bald man with an enormous mustache. He had a bit of a belly, but the arms of someone who spent a good amount of time in the weight room.
He had no tattoos, nor any sort of piercing. He was wearing a T-shirt with a stain down the front, and the smell of soup wafted in from the kitchen, gusting past him.
“Hey, Dad,” said Adele, fidgeting and smiling nervously. She also spoke in German. Her father had been born in the States, but he’d lived in Germany now for most his life. She wasn’t sure why, but he hated it when she tried to speak to him in English or French. Secretly, she suspected it reminded him of her mother.
Christ, she was thirty-two. Why was she acting like a ten-year-old all of a sudden? The Sergeant studied her, his bristling mustache twitching more than his lips. If she’d expected a smile in return, she’d been sorely mistaken.
It took her father all of two seconds to recover his wits, and then he nodded at her in turn. “Sharp,” he said.
Her father had referred to her by their last name since she was five. At one point, she’d thought he’d done it to infuriate her mother, but after his ex-wife had died, Joseph had continued calling her by her last name. She supposed it was an old habit from police buddies; he’d always wanted a boy after all.
“It’s good to see you,” she said, still smiling. “I brought a gift.” She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out the can of condensed cream of broccoli she had picked up from the store on the way.
Her father’s eyebrows shifted, and he reached out and took the soup from her, then turned and entered the house again. “Welcome,” he called as an afterthought. “Come in if you want.”
Her father liked soup. Especially if it came in a can. He’d been preparing for the Third World War for the last forty years, and he had turned the basement into a bunker.
“I just thought I’d stop by,” said Adele calling into the house, still standing on the porch in front of the open door.
“Shut the door or you’ll let the cold in!” he called back.
For a moment, the idea of turning and marching back down the patio steps and leaving her father was all too appealing, but Adele thought better of it, and with a quiet breath, she stepped into the house and closed the door behind her. She made sure to do it gently as her father had a pet peeve about slamming doors. She also followed her father into the kitchen, through the living room. Habitually, she flicked off the light near the entrance. A house rule: the last person to leave a room had to turn the lights off to conserve electricity.
Christ, she felt ten all over again.
Adele glanced back, half searching the ground for where she’d left her spine, but also checking to make sure she hadn’t tracked any mud in the house.
She took her shoes off at the door to the kitchen and stepped onto the cold tiled floor with her socks.
“Hungry?” her father asked, leaning over a pot and stirring it with a wooden spoon. He peered into the metal container as tendrils of steam drifted up toward him, and his left hand finagled with the heat knob on the stove.
“Not really,” said Adele.
Her father glanced back at her. “You should eat. You look horrible. Have you been sleeping?”
Adele sighed. “No, not much. I’m on a case.”
“Can’t solve the case if you can’t sleep. You should know that.”
Adele massaged the bridge of her nose and wearily collapsed in a seat at the kitchen table, leaning back, then quickly remembering how much her dad hated it when people rocked in his chairs; she leaned forward again, sitting upright, with her forearms on the table, but her elbows just off.
It was like a soldier rehearsing drills they’d learned when they first entered boot camp.
Her drill sergeant was still making soup.
“It’s clam chowder,” her father said, continuing in German. “Your favorite, right?”
Adele gave a half shrug. “I don’t really like soup.”
Her father made a clicking sound and poured a bowl, and then another.
“Soup is good for you. Comes in all sorts of flavors, and doesn’t have many calories. Do you know what calories are? I was just reading about them the other day.”
“I know what calories are, Dad,” said Adele.
Joseph Sharp nodded at this and came over carrying the soup. He placed the bowl in front of Adele, and then placed another one on a tray on the table.
“Careful, it’s hot. Don’t eat it yet.”
“I get it, Dad, why does everything you say have to sound like an order?”
He glanced at her, frowning slightly, and then reached up stroking at the edge of his mustache. “Just saying don’t burn yourself.”
Adele sighed once more and nodded again.
Coming here had been a mistake. Same old dad. Same old house.
He’d lived here for nearly thirty years.
She remembered growing up in this house. And, unsurprisingly, it was as clean and neat as she remembered. Her father took the tray with his soup and left the kitchen, strolling over to an old reclining chair facing a TV. He sat in the chair and set the tray on a coffee table.
Adele sat at the kitchen table, watching as her father ignored her and began sipping at his soup, staring at the TV, his profile outlined against a window at his side.
“I was hoping we could catch up,” she said, trying to keep her tone even, calling out from the kitchen.
“Sharp, please don’t shout. You know how it sets off the neighbor’s dogs.”
She got to her feet, leaving her soup, and went over to her father. “How have you been?”
He glanced over at her. “Working. Why? You don’t need money, do you?”
“Dammit, no, I don’t.”
He frowned at the curse word and shook his head. “All right, what do you want?”
“I wanted to stop by and say hi.”
“Do you need my help with a case?”
She tucked her tongue inside a cheek, counting quietly to ten in her head. Her father had never made it past desk sergeant with the German police force. He had always fancied himself a bit of an investigator, but his superiors hadn’t seen it the same way.
“No, Dad. I mean, I could use all the help I can get on this one. But I’m not sure there’s anything you can help me with.”
“You going to eat your soup?”
“It’s hot.”
“Well, if you just leave it there, it can condense; the water will stain the table. Could you at least put a napkin or two down?”
Adele wanted to protest, but she just didn’t have the energy. The exhaustion she’d felt over the last two days felt multiplied all of a sudden as she stood in the well-lit, cleanly kept house.
For the first time this week, she found herself missing John’s company. Agent Renee was downright pleasant compared to this.
She stomped back into the kitchen, intentionally slamming her feet into the ground, knowing it would bother her father, and then took the bowl of soup and dumped it in the sink.
“What was that?” her dad called through the open door.
“Dad, do you want to watch TV, or do you want to catch up? Because honestly, I could use some sleep if you’re not looking to talk.”
“There’s no room upstairs. Your old room is now my home office.”
“I wasn’t asking to stay here. We were given rooms at the motel across from the airport.”
“The airport? How’d you get here?”
“Bus, then walked. But seriously, you’re in good health?”
Joseph nodded, lifting his bowl of soup and drinking the rest of it, downing it in a couple of gulps. The bowl was still steaming, but the heat didn’t seem to bother him.
He wagged his finger toward the TV, chuckling as a cop channel displayed a foot chase with a couple of dogs biting into the leg of a fleeing suspect.
“Been seeing anyone?” said Adele. The moment the question left her lips, she kicked herself. She had just been looking for something to say, but she knew her dad wouldn’t take it well.
He turned at her, scowling. “How’s that your business?”
Adele threw her hands up in surrender. “Sorry. You don’t seem that interested in talking.”
He sighed, heavily, and with much show of grave sacrifice, he reached for the TV remote and clicked the button. He turned, swiveling his large chair so he was facing her.
“What do you want to talk about?” he said.
“I just wanted to see how you’re doing.” Adele could feel herself easing back toward the front door. It had been a mistake coming here. She’d shown up, she’d said hi. That was all that could be expected. Her dad was the same as he’d ever been. She was amazed her mother had ever lasted to begin with.
“Do you want me to ask if you’ve been seeing someone? Is this one of those female things? You’re not in poor health, are you?”
Adele just shook her head. “You know what, I can’t really stay long. I just wanted to stop by and say hi. Anything you need? I can swing by the store and drop it off later.”
Her dad waved away the offer and turned slowly back toward his TV, reaching for the remote. “Your German has gotten worse,” he added as an afterthought.
Adele hesitated in the door to the kitchen, glancing at her father’s profile. He was one of the few people who seemed happy in their discontent. And there was nothing she could do to change him. Stronger people than her had tried and failed.
“I’ll see you later, Dad,” she said.
The Sergeant nodded a couple of times. “See you, Sharp.”
For some reason, Adele thought of Robert coming to pick her up at the airport. She thought of him tearing up at the thought of her moving into her room in his mansion. She thought of the way he smiled whenever he greeted her, of staying up late at night, talking by the fire.
But people couldn’t choose their fathers. They couldn’t choose their families.
Adele began striding back toward the front door, wishing she hadn’t come to begin with.
“Sharp, make sure to clean your bowl. I’m tired of cleaning up other people’s messes! Also don’t splash the soup against the sink, the aluminum can rust.”
Adele bit her lip, but backtracked to the sink, turned on the water, and rinsed out the bowl she hadn’t asked for. She washed it with soap and water, listening to the hum and chatter from the TV room, and then turned to leave again.
A weight of sadness burdened her shoulders as she approached the front door. For some reason, unbidden, she thought perhaps she should go for a run in the morning. She didn’t want to miss a day. She hadn’t in years. Running always made her feel better.
As she contemplated the route she would jog, wondering if she could find a good trail nearby, she paused. A frown flitted across her features.
“Hang on,” she said, softly. “What was that you said?”
But her dad ignored her, and she thought she heard him turn the TV up.
Tired of cleaning up other people’s messes. Adele turned back toward the front door, heart hammering. The drug from Lion Pharmaceutical had been slated to be destroyed. But it was a highly controlled substance. There was no way they’d simply thrown it in the trash.
The samples that Peter Lehman had stolen were only part of the supplies destroyed.
So who had cleaned up the mess?
They would’ve had to hire a specialist. Adele’s footsteps quickened as she hurried toward the door, and she put on her shoes.
“Don’t run in the house! You’ll leave scuff marks!”
She ignored her father and raced out the door, making sure to slam it as hard as possible as she jogged down the patio steps.
Her phone was already in her hand as she broke into a brisk walk, hurrying back toward the bus stop.
“John, meet me at Lion Pharmaceutical. I’m serious. I don’t care who you’re having drinks with. No, now. Please.”
Adele closed her phone and jammed it back into her pocket.
Someone had to have cleaned up after the disposal of Project 132z. She needed to find out who was responsible for disposing of the samples. That, she was certain, had to be the key to everything. Whoever had disposed of the samples might have also known enough to steal some of them… And use them in America and France.
Adele quickened her pace until she was nearly jogging now, racing back toward the bus stop and away from her father’s house.
