Left To Die (An Adele Sharp Mystery—Book One) Read online

  Adele cleared her throat. “You’re sure she was twenty-four?”

  Everyone turned toward Adele as if surprised she would interject. An unspoken rhythm governed conversations like these, where a sort of hierarchy dictated the pace of the conversation and permission to speak. But the last thing on Adele’s mind right now was office etiquette.

  “Yes,” Foucault replied. “Verified only hours ago.”

  Adele shook her head, adjusting her sleeves as she often did when upset or angry. “The killer—did anyone see him?”

  “Like I said, we’ll send the report over. It’s important we all—”

  “Did you find the body?”

  Foucault frowned at Adele. “Yes. He left it where he killed her. Beneath an underpass near the Pont d’Arcole.”

  Agent Lee raised a well-manicured eyebrow, her hand absentmindedly passing over the stain on her pocket. Often, Lee would spend full days at the office. She was a notorious insomniac who spent most of her time either working or thinking about work. She cleared her throat now, shooting a questioning glance toward her subordinate.

  “A bridge,” Adele explained. “In Paris. Cause of death?” This question she lobbed back toward the screen.

  “Exsanguination.” The same grim line creased Foucault’s mouth. “Small cuts, up and down the body. Missing her shoes and shirt. We believe he took those with him. Cuts between the webbing of her toes, along her arms, her cheeks, her breasts. It will all be included in the report.”

  Adele could hear her own breathing. The air in the office felt very cold all of a sudden and bumps stood up along her skin. “He let her bleed out.” She turned sharply toward Agent Lee. “The same MO as the Benjamin Killer.”

  “The body was found by a couple of tourists,” Foucault added.

  Adele gritted her teeth, shaking her head wildly. “I don’t get it. Why’s he in France all of a sudden?”

  “It’s been a month,” Agent Lee replied. “Maybe you were getting close.”

  “But I wasn’t!” Adele looked at the screen and shook her head. “We don’t have a clue who it is.”

  Grant stood framed against the window, standing next to the hook-nosed suit, glancing between Adele and Foucault. Grant said, “Maybe you got closer than you think. Maybe he got spooked some other way. Whatever the case, he could have fled the States for Paris.”

  “But to kill in another country? So soon after leaving? Most murderers need time to acclimate. He wouldn’t be comfortable in his surroundings yet. Why strike so soon?”

  Lee Grant tapped her teeth with her fingers. The still unnamed suit by the window glanced between the women, keeping quiet like a spectator at a tennis match.

  “It isn’t always hard to acclimate,” said Grant. “Vacationers can be ruthless. Remember the incident at the resort down in Tijuana?”

  Adele wrinkled her nose. “We don’t know it’s a vacationer, though. What if… What if he’s from Paris?” she said, slowly, savoring the thought. “What if he was in the US on vacation?”

  Grant pursed her lips, pressing her back against the tall window. “Interesting thought. Maybe. Either way, traveling to Paris gave him the impetus he needed to strike again.”

  “If that’s his mindset, then he’ll only get worse,” said Adele.

  Foucault had been sitting quietly, listening for the last couple of minutes. But at this last comment, he broke his peace. “Exactly. And this is the topic of the day, Agent Sharp.”

  This time, it was Adele’s turn to tilt an eyebrow in the direction of her supervisor. Agent Lee sighed. “I wanted to tell you in person. I know you had three days off—I know what the last month must have been like. I’m sure it’s been hard on you and Angus.” Her lips curved in a sympathetic way. “But you know everything about this bastard, Adele. He’s going to kill again. You know it, and so do I.”

  “What are you asking?”

  “They need you in Paris,” said Grant. “I’ve already discussed it with the department supervisors.”

  Adele was already shaking her head though, and turned her back on the screen, pacing the room before rounding on Foucault once more. Except now, she was watching Lee, framing her friend against the backdrop of the glowing screen.

  “No one knows this guy better than you, Adele,” said Grant. “The DGSI wants you on the ground. You have ties to both agencies, and with your dual citizenship—”

  “Triple,” Adele said, softly.

  “Come again?”

  “Triple citizenship. I’m German, too.”

  Grant nodded quickly. “Yes, of course. Triple citizenship. You’re uniquely positioned, Adele.”

  “Are you telling me?”

  Agent Lee immediately shook her head, causing her chestnut hair, which she always wore in a simple ponytail, to swish back and forth. “No. It’s your call. But if you agree, you’ll have to go now. There’s no time to wait. You’ll have to take your vacation some other time.”

  As static crackled the room, coming from the direction of the TV, Foucault’s lips were moving, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying.

  “Christ, Sam,” snapped Adele. “We’re the goddamn FBI. Think we could have a clean call?”

  The tall tech—who’d remained seated throughout all of this, quiet and watching—was already hurrying over, fiddling with buttons on the TV.

  After a moment, the static faded. Foucault tested the mic and then, peering across the room, his eyes slightly off-center—though Adele suspected on his screen, he was staring straight at her—he said, “Well, Agent Sharp? France will have you back. Will you come to Paris?”

  “No,” said Adele. Immediately, she felt a jolt of worry. The words had come unbidden to her lips, summoned from deep within her, the residue of past decisions bubbling to the surface.

  She couldn’t go to France. Not now. Not so soon after…

  She glanced around the room, realizing all eyes were on her. The lights above felt bright all of a sudden, her own breathing sounded loud to her ears. She reached up one hand, rubbing at an elbow but refusing to stare at the ground, though everything in her wanted to avert her gaze.

  Christ, Sharp, you’d really throw away a career just to avoid… Avoid what, exactly? Lee Grant said nothing, studying her subordinate with a compassionate expression. Foucault and the diplomat were frowning, but Adele glanced away, locking eyes with Lee.

  Of everyone in the room, Agent Lee had her back. But still, refusing a request like this from the higher-ups didn’t come without consequences.

  Adele set her jaw and straightened her posture. “I—I can’t go back. Not yet…” Why not, Cara? Come home.

  Adele shivered and shook her head even more adamantly. “No. I just can’t…I…” She trailed off, images from her dreams flashing through her mind. Memories of a childhood, of a life once lived, played like shadow puppets across her mind. She thought of Doug in security. Perhaps that was to be her fate: relegated to a metal detector with her own sign, Beware of Sharp: refuses to play nice.

  Career was one thing… But this… This was too close to home. She inhaled slowly, trying to clear her mind. It didn’t have to be like last time, did it? Her mother’s case was cold. She wouldn’t absorb herself in it. Not again. This was about the Benjamin Killer. This was about this girl, Marion, and whoever the next victim would be.

  Could she really say no? What was she staying for anyway? It wasn’t like Angus had stayed. Why should she?

  “Think about it,” said Foucault, studying her. “I’ll send the case file and the doctor’s report. Perhaps you’ll have insight we missed, hmm?”

  Adele nodded. She could read a report. Where was the harm in that? Just one lousy report.

  “Fine,” said Adele. “Sam, can you forward it to me?”

  One small, measly little case file. Perhaps there’d be a clue, after all. Adele puffed her cheeks, then blew softly, exhaling in an effort to steady her nerves.

  Why was he killing based on age alone? What did it al
l mean? Bleeding, bleeding, ever bleeding…

  Another crime scene, another killer, another murder. All of it flashed through Adele’s mind, leaving cold prickles across her skin as she stared resolutely out the tall glass windows. When would the Benjamin Killer stop? It was like a countdown—a challenge.

  He wouldn’t stop on his own. It was the wrong question. The real question echoed, unvoiced in Adele’s brain: when would someone catch him?

  She could feel the eyes in the room staring at her, watching, accusing, waiting…

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The airplane’s cabin echoed with the sound of the churning engines. Adele leaned back in her seat, savoring the comfort of first class. She stretched, arching her back as she clasped the armrests with her hands. She reached up and adjusted the small knob that turned on the air conditioning, and then brushed her hair aside as airflow wafted through the cabin. No sleazy lawyers this time.

  It had taken Lee all of five minutes to convince Adele to go to Paris.

  Her supervisor always knew what to say. And, in this particular case, she hadn’t said anything. At least, for the most part.

  Adele could still feel her supervisor’s gaze boring holes into the side of her skull. Her own mind had done the persuading. Far too many people were given a pass for the sake of someone else’s comfort. Killers escaped because of lazy law enforcement. These murderers, these monsters, didn’t deserve Adele’s complacency. She wouldn’t permit them her exhaustion. Nor would she allow them, ever, her fear of her past.

  It had been a while since she’d been in France. And, if she was perfectly honest, she missed it.

  She blended in well enough, and could speak the language to a degree few people suspected her of being a tourist.

  Adele shifted, readjusting her position against the headrest. She steadied herself, breathing softly, inhaling for seven seconds, then exhaling for eight. A small breathing exercise her psychologist boyfriend had once taught her. The same boyfriend she’d come back stateside with.

  That relationship had plummeted in a fiery crash. Adele had never been great at dealing with other people’s character flaws. Some thought of her as self-righteous, but she considered herself determined.

  And when the psych had cheated on her with a mutual friend, she’d decided the relationship had run its course.

  Adele reached beneath her seat, pulling out her briefcase and fumbling for the laptop.

  Sam had downloaded the report and the files from DGSI before she left. She hadn’t wanted to look at them in the car, on the way to the airport. She’d been permitted to pack a small suitcase, which had taken her all of twenty minutes. She didn’t travel with much luxury; besides the few changes of clothes and toiletries, Adele had only packed her plastic cereal bowl and a spoon.

  She felt her fingers trembling a bit as she clicked the latch to her laptop and opened the computer. She shifted, turning the screen toward the window and away from the aisle. Her eyes flicked up and spotted a couple of children sitting in business class six rows back. It wouldn’t do for them to see the screen, and so she shielded it with her body and turned the lid even further.

  Of course, she hadn’t wasted the drive to the airport. Going over the files of the previous victims had been no enjoyable task, but it had been a necessary one. The killer seemed to have no particular taste Adele could spot. He chose his victims at random, except for their ages.

  Her head pounded, and Adele closed her eyes, loath to witness what she knew she’d find. Images played on repeat across the insides of her eyelids. Angus had accused her of being married to the job.

  He was only half right.

  She was married to the ghosts of victims past. Wed in sheer will to those whose voiceless lips cried for justice.

  Jeremy Benthen. Twenty-nine. Father of two. The Benjamin Killer had rushed this time—his first kill. At least, the first that Adele could trace to him. She could see, in her mind, as clear as if a video were playing before her: Jeremy’s body on the ground, shoved between the middle-school gym and the dumpster. He was the head coach of the junior basketball team. Two gloves discarded near a fire hydrant. The lab had failed to pull prints.

  Jeremy had been cut along his chest and groin, and one of his eyes had been slashed. Shaky cuts—adrenaline from the killer’s first. None of the wounds were enough to kill the middle-school coach. Rather, the killer would incapacitate his victims. He was using a substance, but the toxicology reports still weren’t clear. It wasn’t chloroform, and it wasn’t Rohypnol. Whatever he was administering was a combination of sorts, a home brew.

  Then, when he had his victims incapacitated, he would go to work.

  The second victim. Tasha Hunt. That’s when Adele had determined the killer was using a scalpel. His cuts had become steadier, more confident. Rehearsed. Though, with the single mother from Indiana, he had also used a machete.

  Adele gritted her teeth as the memories cycled through her mind. Local enforcement had initially thought the killer was overpowering his victims through other means. But he’d taken off his gloves.

  Those gloves by the fire hydrant. A mistake. An oversight—the unforced error of a rookie in his first big game. Except they hadn’t been the killer’s gloves. She’d determined they’d belonged to the victim, to Jeremy. So why had the killer removed Jeremy’s gloves? Such a strange choice. He hadn’t cut Jeremy’s fingers…

  Between the fingers, nearly imperceptible—that’s where she’d found the injection mark. She’d once dated a guy who hid his drug habit by injecting between the toes and fingers. She’d missed it with her boyfriend, all those years ago.

  But she hadn’t missed it this time. The Benjamin Killer was careful, calculated… But not perfect. No killers were.

  Adele knew she hadn’t missed anything in the files. But, at Lee’s insistence, she had done her due diligence on the drive to the airport.

  In the past, she thought perhaps the killer was involved in the medical field, and the drug he used was some sort of dentist’s nitrous or some type of anesthetic. But those theories were quickly debunked by the lab. The scalpel was perhaps too obvious a weapon for a surgeon or anesthesiologist.

  Still, the most horrifying part: despite whatever substance the killer was using, though it incapacitated their bodies, the victims retained complete use of their minds. They could feel and sense everything done to them.

  The killer would cut them in a private setting, then watch. He would witness, for his own viewing pleasure, the slow exsanguination of the chosen target, and then he would leave, long before they were dead.

  He never struck a killing blow. He never struck any vital organs or veins or arteries that would allow the victims to bleed out quickly. A weak man? Adele wasn’t sure. A clever man? Certainly.

  He liked to take it slow. By the third victim, he’d perfected his craft: he’d bled Agatha Mencia for nearly four hours before she finally died.

  “Sick twist,” said Adele, muttering beneath her breath, her mild accent twisting the “i” sound into “ee.” Adele often tried to maintain professionalism. It was the only way to stay sane in a job like this. But every so often, she would come across killers, psychopaths, that beggared one’s ability to maintain sanity.

  Steadying her breathing once more, Adele flicked through the files on her download folder. Finally, wedged up against the window, blocking anyone behind her from seeing the pictures or content of the report, she clicked the newest file uploaded by Sam.

  She studied the pictures with cold, clinical calculations, refusing to miss anything. She cataloged as much of the information as she could, her eyes flicking from frame to frame, reading the doctor’s notes beneath each image.

  A young woman—shirtless, shoeless. The killer thought he was being clever. But the missing shoes weren’t a fetish. He’d injected her between the toes; Adele would have put money on it.

  She skimmed to an image of the scene—beneath a dark, dank bridge. Lonely, out of sight. Adele’s gaze
flitted back to the image of the girl. Not a streetwalker, nor a girl from a low-rent part of town. A nice girl—a city girl. How had the killer lured her beneath the bridge?

  Did she know him?

  Adele shook her head, her hair rubbing against the headrest of the airplane seat. Unlikely. The killer wouldn’t have risked traveling halfway around the world to kill someone he knew.

  Could the killer speak French? Maybe he’d lured her. Bundy used to pull a trick, pretending to be a cripple, or pretending to look for a lost pet. Preying on the compassion of his victims.

  Perhaps the Benjamin Killer was doing the same?

  The bridge underpass was dark in the pictures of the crime scene, and two rows of cement dividers shielded Marion’s corpse from view. Planned then, rehearsed. The killer knew where he was taking her.

  Just like with Jeremy. Like with Agatha. The murderer plotted his kills well in advance, choosing the perfect location, like a lover preparing for a first date.

  Adele stared at Marion’s crumpled body. She could see how he’d shoved her, and then he would have threatened her with a gun? No—she doubted it. Not in France. Though it was still a possibility.

  A knife would be enough. Maybe even the murder weapon. Then he would remove her shoes and prick her with the needle.

  The lighting was too poor to tell much beyond that. Perhaps this was a mercy.

  The killer’s handiwork was visible across the Parisian’s half naked corpse.

  Adele thought she could see the young woman’s eyes strained in their sockets, conveying a cry for help. Her pupils dilated, though she would have been unable to move. Adele gritted her teeth yet again; she could only imagine the fear, the pain, the sheer sense of loneliness and helplessness.

  Adele flipped through the notes and pictures a second time, refused to skip any of it. Any scene, any moment, any fragment of an instance could hold a clue.

  She shook her head, sighing softly. Then she read the report again. Nothing new, simply detailing what it was she’d already seen. Adele read the report once more, and then another time, and another. Each time her eyes perused the words on the screen, reading the horrific crime described in clinical detail, she scanned it for clues, keeping her eyes open, her mind attentive, cataloging every second, every pixel, every discarded cigarette butt and graffiti tag beneath the bridge.