by Blake Pierce
Adele turned to Marshall. “You have the phone number for the girl’s parents?”
Marshall didn’t miss a beat. “In the US? With the time difference, it’s late enough in the day that you should be able to get them on the phone.”
Adele nodded in gratitude, and waited as Marshall flipped through her notebook, looking for the appropriate details.
The doorway the doctor had been standing in was still swinging shut, slowed by a spring mechanism above the frame. As the door closed, it cut off the line of sight into the room with the ventilator, and Amanda Johnson.
“Let’s find a break room so I can make that call,” said Adele, her mouth in a grim line once more.
***
Adele heard the quiet ringing of the phone. It felt strangely soothing—the cool metal pressed against her cheek, the quiet chirp like a nursery rhyme. She sat with one of her knees bumping against John’s long leg. He slouched in his chair, arms crossed, his eyes fixed on her.
Agent Marshall was once again standing. Adele wondered if the young agent ever tired. Marshall had shut the break room’s door behind her and closed the blinds for privacy.
Adele listened to the ringing.
She glanced down toward the number beneath her folded arm, handwritten on the torn piece of paper Marshall had handed her. Correct number. Perhaps she’d gotten the time zone wrong.
Another ring. Adele was about to shut the phone, when there came an interruption of static, and then a voice on the other end said, “Hello, who is this?”
The voice was alert, urgent.
“Hello, my name is Agent Sharp, I’m with Interpol. Is this Mr. Johnson?”
She heard a faint voice now, as if the phone had been lowered for a moment. “Honey, it’s Interpol; they’re on the line. Yes, right now. Hurry.”
Then the voice became louder again. “Sorry about the delay. We were walking the dog. Any update? Well—” A pause, and the man cleared his throat. “I imagine you’re calling about our daughter.”
Adele caught herself before she nodded, and said, crisply, “Yes. I’m sorry if there’s been any delay on our part. Your daughter is still alive, I wanted to lead with that—”
Before she could continue, she heard a quiet gasp on the other end. The second, fainter voice she could barely make out said, “Thank you, God. Thank you, dear Jesus.”
The first voice, Mr. Johnson’s, said, “That’s good to hear. Last we heard, they weren’t sure she was going to make it.”
Adele wrinkled her nose. She hadn’t realized she’d been designated to be the sole deliverer of news to the Johnson family. She supposed because she was American, it made sense the Germans had left it to her. She quickly switched tack, trying to take this new role in stride. “It’s still early days,” Adele said quickly. “She’s not in a good way. I’m not going to lie to you. They’re still not sure she’s going to fully recover.”
As she spoke, Adele felt her voice quaver. A slight fragmentation of sound—but one that caught her off guard all the same. Though she kept the phone raised, her brow furrowed. A swell of strange emotions was rising in her chest. Adele closed her eyes, trying to focus—but though Mr. Johnson was replying to her on the other end, she found it difficult to attend to his words.
Bleeding… Bleeding… Always bleeding…
A flash of an image—a dream, or a snapshot from an old photo—Adele hardly remembered. It came to her at night, usually. Her mother, mutilated, lying in a French garden. Dead. She remembered flying back to Germany to be with her father immediately following. She remembered the phone calls… much like this. Phone calls from nations away. Phone calls picking apart the most harrowing experience of their lives, interviewing—questioning. And at the end of it?
Nothing. Her mother still dead. The killer gone.
This time, the story couldn’t end with nothing. This time, phone calls from nations away couldn’t simply be static—white noise against a backdrop of calamity. No. This time had to be different.
Adele swallowed back the bile rising in her throat. She closed her eyes against the sudden images lashing the insides of her eyelids. And then, exhaling, she did her best to listen.
Mr. Johnson was still speaking. “…anything at all? Is there any way we can help?”
Adele swallowed again. Her voice sounded raspy in her ears, and for a moment, she felt Marshall’s eyes on her, watching. At last, she croaked out, “Some of the best doctors in the world are here. They’re doing what they can. And… And so will I…” She bit off this last sentence. The urgency—the need to promise. To settle the fears, the terrors swirling through Amanda’s family. Adele knew the fear, but to her, it had been laden with grief. For now, the Johnsons were spared this particularly bitter barb. But eventually, if the doctors didn’t come through… they too would partake.
“Honey,” said the second voice, a gentler, smoother voice. “Honey, it’s going to be okay. Have faith. It’s going to be okay.”
She heard a pause, and another whispered conversation between kind voices, not contentious. Adele felt a small glimmer of relief. In her experience, there were two reactions to bad news like this. It would either draw families closer together, or tear them apart completely, leaving only rubble. At least for now, the Johnsons were taking it in their stride. They would need each other in the coming days.
Adele said, “I’m sure we’ll be able to update you as soon as we know anything new. One way or the other.”
This time Mr. Johnson spoke. “Our Amanda is a tough girl. She’ll cover. She will. Trust me.”
Adele cracked a small, sad smile. But it faded as the same emotions from before contended for her attention. Bleeding… Always bleeding… “I certainly hope so. She is strong. You’re not wrong about that.” Adele thought of the doctor’s comments. Running for hours in the forests, the cold, her feet bleeding, cut. A dislocated elbow, reset. Bruises all up and down her body. The girl had suffered something horrible. The same way Elise had suffered. At least Amanda had come out alive.
“If there’s anyone I would bet on, sir, it would be her. But look.” Adele again maintained a professional tone despite the sudden ambushing of her thoughts. A practiced skill—but one that didn’t come lightly. “I need to know, was it usual for your daughter to travel with friends?”
This time, the female voice answered over the phone. “Inspector, sir,” said the voice, suggesting Adele hadn’t been on speakerphone.
“Yes, Mrs. Johnson?” she said, inflecting the question.
“Oh, yes. Sorry. Miss.”
Adele kept her tone gentle, entirely free of rebuke. “My name is Agent Sharp.”
“Agent Sharp. Our daughter would do these trips all the time with her friends. They would sometimes split up and head off and explore for a while on their own, before joining up again.”
“And this is when she disappeared? When she split off?”
“Yes,” said the woman’s voice, cracking for a second, but then warbling and continuing. “As best as we can guess.”
“Was there anything strange at the time? Any phone calls? Anyone who had been bothering her? Perhaps even one of her friends?”
“Nothing. Nothing like that. Amanda was overjoyed for that trip. All her phone calls were filled with laughter as she told us of the things she’d seen. She loved traveling. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Mr. Johnson?” said Adele.
“I just said nothing,” said Mrs. Johnson’s voice.
There was another fumbling sound, and Mr. Johnson’s voice came on. “I’m sure she didn’t mean anything offensive by it, dear. She just wants to get all the facts.” Louder now, he said, “Nothing. Just like my wife says. Amanda was happy. Excited. Who would do something like this to her? Was she…was she herself? When we were first contacted, German police said they’d found her. Did someone speak to her? Do you have any suspects?”
Adele hated this part. The necessary, but painful veil between loved ones and the investigation. S
he did her best to handle it by saying, “Eventually, we hope to find out everything. For that to happen, I’m going to have to take some time though. I hope you’ll allow that. From what I saw and heard, your daughter is a very strong girl. I would focus my thoughts on that. Leave the rest up to me, okay?”
Some heavy breathing, but then, “All right. Thank you Agent Sharp.”
“One other thing,” Adele said. “If you could do me a favor, and I know it’s a big ask, but it will help; could you write out, to the best of your knowledge, your daughter’s itinerary? From the moment she left the US, to when she went missing. Anything you can think of. Where she might’ve traveled to with her friends, any emails she sent from the different places you visited. Hotels, motels, B&Bs. Like I said, I know it’s a lot, but it would help. I’ll have the agent who first contacted you give you my email. You can send it directly to me.”
“Happy to,” said Mr. Johnson, a slight strain to his voice.
For a moment, silence reigned. Then Adele bit her lip and, before she could stop herself, a spurt of what she was feeling internally made itself known to the room. “I’ll find who did this. I promise you,” she said, her voice strained all of a sudden. “I’ll find who did this. Your daughter deserves that… At the very least—I’ll figure it out. All right? I know it’s scary, being far away. Feeling like you can’t help. But just know, I… I’ve been there. And I’ll find them. I promise.”
This sudden leak in the dam of emotions seemed to prompt a similar reaction on the other end of the phone. Adele heard someone crying quietly in the background before Mr. Johnson spoke in a gruff voice. “A bold promise, Agent Sharp. I half believe you mean it.”
“I do.”
“Good evening, Agent. Godspeed.”
They bid their farewells, and Adele lowered her phone, allowing the grieving couple to shut the line first and end the call.
“Anything?” John asked. He’d grabbed a bag of chips from the vending machine, but mercifully had waited to open the packet before the phone call ended. Now, though, before Adele answered, her phone downturned, he opened the crinkling bag.
“Nothing,” she said, over the sound of munching chips. She breathed through her nose, calming herself as best she could. Then refocused. The case came first. Promises meant nothing without procedure. “Nothing new, at least. It was usual for them to split up from each other. I don’t know. We may have to speak with some of her friends. We’ll see.”
“Usual for her to go missing for five months?” said John. “Something happened—something out of the ordinary. But what?”
Adele nodded. “That’s where we come in.”
She pocketed her phone, adjusted her sleeves, and then move toward the door.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Adele sat at the small table in her airport motel room. John was across from her, his eyes fixed on the laptop screen, sifting through the files open on his computer. He’d taken his sweater off and wore only a tight, black T-shirt. It introduced itself in interesting ways across his muscled form. Adele far preferred watching him than the content on her screen.
“Anything?” she asked, still watching him. John looked over, and she glanced sharply away, swallowing as she did and pretending she’d simply been scanning the little kitchen.
She dutifully returned her attention to her screen and her eyes glazed as she flicked through the various files and records Agent Marshall had given them access to. For now, the young agent was helping organize a manhunt in the Black Forest. But Adele had wanted to first look into other missing persons.
“Surprising amount,” John said. “Here’s a fellow named Henry Walker. Went missing two years ago. Another one, Cynthia Davis, missing last year. Both of them Americans.” He raised his eyebrows significantly. He continued, “Another one named Pierre Costa. French fellow. Went missing three years ago. Two more girls, went missing at the same time. Both last year.”
“How many of them were found again?” Adele asked, glancing over the lip of her laptop. This time, she didn’t examine the tight shirt or his long, proportioned form. John’s eyes found hers, and he held her gaze. His next words jarred all thoughts of her partner from her mind. “Three of them were found. Two with bullets in the back of their head. One at the bottom of a ravine, looks like a hiking accident.”
Adele gnawed on the corner of her lip. “We’re not looking for anyone who’s been found. Just focus on the ones who are missing. Tell me how many you see.”
John sniffed, and there was a rapid clicking sound. He continued to cycle through the files. For her part, Adele paid closer attention to the details of the few names she’d already found in the database. All of them in the Black Forest. Six in total so far. All of them college age. All of them, seemingly, foreign.
She tapped her fingers against the base of her computer, enjoying the sensation of drumming her hands. She leaned back in her chair, feeling the sturdy metal not give an inch beneath her. Part of her wanted to go for her regular run. It had been a few days since she’d managed to exercise. She was growing tired of sitting all the time. If for nothing more than to change her posture, she got to her feet and began walking around the table. Partly, as she drummed her fingers against her thigh, she knew she was antsy from their visit to the hospital. She hated hospitals. But partly, she could feel the sense of foreboding descending on her. Executive Foucault’s premonitions gnawed at her mind. Why in particular did Foucault think this case was ominous?
It seemed calculated, Adele thought to herself. There was something shrewd about it. Something that suggested whoever was behind Ms. Johnson’s disappearance, and subsequent abuse, had done so knowing full well the target he’d chosen. A foreigner. College age. Defenseless, with no connections in the area, which meant no one to miss her. Her parents were separated by an ocean. The killer had chosen his victim—it hadn’t been random.
“Anything?” she asked.
John looked up at her, frowning slightly. “Sixteen names, just in the last three years. All of them still missing. All of them except one are in their twenties.”
“College age,” said Adele. On a lark, she said, “And how many of them are foreigners?”
John scanned the list, looked up again. “More than half,” he said.
He turned his computer to show Adele the files he’d selected and separated. Adele read through the names, cycling through each of them. As John said, the disappearances went back for three years.
“Did you look back further?” Adele asked.
John shook his head. “The records were moved more than five years ago. I can find some, but the detailing isn’t as concise. It’ll take longer.”
Adele sighed. “Well, it’s a start. Potentially sixteen victims…” She winced. “What do you think he’s doing with them?” Her gaze burrowed into the side of John’s head.
He shrugged a shoulder. “I wish I knew.” He paused and wrinkled his nose. “Actually, I don’t think I do.”
“Do you think he’s been kidnapping the guys as well as the girls?” Adele said. “Half the names on my list are male. But also college age. And most of them foreign.”
“Black Forest is a popular tourist destination, especially for backpackers,” John said. “I was talking to Agent Marshall about it.”
“I think that’s the killer’s MO,” Adele said. “He’s preying upon young people who aren’t from around here. He knows they’re defenseless. He knows they’re easy targets.”
John winced. “So he has to have access to that information somehow.”
“It’s not that hard to get. Their ages are obvious, and the moment you talk to some of them, or even look at them, you can tell they’re from a different country.”
John began to ease down the lid of his laptop, crossing his arms. “So what does that tell us?”
“Tells us,” Adele said, quietly, “that this fellow is clever. He plans this out. He knows what he’s doing. He kept Amanda kidnapped, captured, for more than five months. Some of
these names go back three years. People have been disappearing in the Black Forest for ages. What if he’s been operating that entire time?”
A strange silence fell over the kitchen. They glanced at each other, and Adele shivered. John’s troubled expression seemed to darken further. It was John who changed the subject first; with a slight jolt, he shook his head and said, “The German authorities are organizing a manhunt to search the wilderness. Are we going to be a part of that?”
“We do need to examine the scene,” Adele said.
John scratched at the side of his chin. “Adele, I don’t like this one.”
“You and me both,” she said. “But if we’re going to find anything, the manhunt can help. From what Marshall was saying, they’re gathering more than a hundred people.”
John grumbled. “A hundred stupid people, trampling over the crime scene and disturbing evidence. Things like this more than likely will attract the killer himself.”
“Not killer.”
John raised an eyebrow.
“Amanda’s assailant—kidnapper—hasn’t killed anyone yet. Not that we know of. Something else is going on here.” Adele paused at her own unpleasant thoughts. Vaguely, she felt a chill along her arms. A kidnapper—with victims possibly ranging back years. She thought of Amanda—what the poor girl had suffered. What would the others be enduring this very moment? A second passed. Then another. Each one a reminder of the plight of the kidnapper’s victims. If they were even still alive… each served as a reminder of the scalpel of wasted time extracting each moment in a pound of pain.
“Well, if he’s not a killer, that means we have a chance of recovering these people that Amanda mentioned alive.”
Adele was still pacing the small kitchen, and she heard the rumbling sound of a jet engine overhead for the third time in the last half hour.
She crossed her arms and stared back at John, adopting a similar posture to his. “Do you think we can trust Amanda’s word? The detective back there seemed to think she was hallucinating.”