by Blake Pierce
L E F T
T O
D I E
(An Adele Sharp Mystery—Book One)
B L A K E P I E R C E
Blake Pierce
Blake Pierce is the USA Today bestselling author of the RILEY PAGE mystery series, which includes sixteen books (and counting). Blake Pierce is also the author of the MACKENZIE WHITE mystery series, comprising thirteen books (and counting); of the AVERY BLACK mystery series, comprising six books; of the KERI LOCKE mystery series, comprising five books; of the MAKING OF RILEY PAIGE mystery series, comprising five books (and counting); of the KATE WISE mystery series, comprising six books (and counting); of the CHLOE FINE psychological suspense mystery, comprising five books (and counting); of the JESSE HUNT psychological suspense thriller series, comprising five books (and counting); of the AU PAIR psychological suspense thriller series, comprising two books (and counting); of the ZOE PRIME mystery series, comprising two books (and counting); and of the new ADELE SHARP mystery series.
An avid reader and lifelong fan of the mystery and thriller genres, Blake loves to hear from you, so please feel free to visit www.blakepierceauthor.com to learn more and stay in touch.
Copyright © 2020 by Blake Pierce. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Jacket image Copyright Zadiraka Evgenii, used under license from Shutterstock.com.
BOOKS BY BLAKE PIERCE
ADELE SHARP MYSTERY SERIES
LEFT TO DIE (Book #1)
LEFT TO RUN (Book #2)
LEFT TO HIDE (Book #3)
THE AU PAIR SERIES
ALMOST GONE (Book#1)
ALMOST LOST (Book #2)
ALMOST DEAD (Book #3)
ZOE PRIME MYSTERY SERIES
FACE OF DEATH (Book#1)
FACE OF MURDER (Book #2)
FACE OF FEAR (Book #3)
A JESSIE HUNT PSYCHOLOGICAL SUSPENSE SERIES
THE PERFECT WIFE (Book #1)
THE PERFECT BLOCK (Book #2)
THE PERFECT HOUSE (Book #3)
THE PERFECT SMILE (Book #4)
THE PERFECT LIE (Book #5)
THE PERFECT LOOK (Book #6)
CHLOE FINE PSYCHOLOGICAL SUSPENSE SERIES
NEXT DOOR (Book #1)
A NEIGHBOR’S LIE (Book #2)
CUL DE SAC (Book #3)
SILENT NEIGHBOR (Book #4)
HOMECOMING (Book #5)
TINTED WINDOWS (Book #6)
KATE WISE MYSTERY SERIES
IF SHE KNEW (Book #1)
IF SHE SAW (Book #2)
IF SHE RAN (Book #3)
IF SHE HID (Book #4)
IF SHE FLED (Book #5)
IF SHE FEARED (Book #6)
IF SHE HEARD (Book #7)
THE MAKING OF RILEY PAIGE SERIES
WATCHING (Book #1)
WAITING (Book #2)
LURING (Book #3)
TAKING (Book #4)
STALKING (Book #5)
RILEY PAIGE MYSTERY SERIES
ONCE GONE (Book #1)
ONCE TAKEN (Book #2)
ONCE CRAVED (Book #3)
ONCE LURED (Book #4)
ONCE HUNTED (Book #5)
ONCE PINED (Book #6)
ONCE FORSAKEN (Book #7)
ONCE COLD (Book #8)
ONCE STALKED (Book #9)
ONCE LOST (Book #10)
ONCE BURIED (Book #11)
ONCE BOUND (Book #12)
ONCE TRAPPED (Book #13)
ONCE DORMANT (Book #14)
ONCE SHUNNED (Book #15)
ONCE MISSED (Book #16)
ONCE CHOSEN (Book #17)
MACKENZIE WHITE MYSTERY SERIES
BEFORE HE KILLS (Book #1)
BEFORE HE SEES (Book #2)
BEFORE HE COVETS (Book #3)
BEFORE HE TAKES (Book #4)
BEFORE HE NEEDS (Book #5)
BEFORE HE FEELS (Book #6)
BEFORE HE SINS (Book #7)
BEFORE HE HUNTS (Book #8)
BEFORE HE PREYS (Book #9)
BEFORE HE LONGS (Book #10)
BEFORE HE LAPSES (Book #11)
BEFORE HE ENVIES (Book #12)
BEFORE HE STALKS (Book #13)
BEFORE HE HARMS (Book #14)
AVERY BLACK MYSTERY SERIES
CAUSE TO KILL (Book #1)
CAUSE TO RUN (Book #2)
CAUSE TO HIDE (Book #3)
CAUSE TO FEAR (Book #4)
CAUSE TO SAVE (Book #5)
CAUSE TO DREAD (Book #6)
KERI LOCKE MYSTERY SERIES
A TRACE OF DEATH (Book #1)
A TRACE OF MUDER (Book #2)
A TRACE OF VICE (Book #3)
A TRACE OF CRIME (Book #4)
A TRACE OF HOPE (Book #5)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
CHAPTER ONE
Twenty-nine, twenty-eight, twenty-seven…
The numbers played through Adele’s mind like grains of hot sand slipping through an hourglass. She shifted uncomfortably, adjusting the neck pillow she’d purchased at the Central Wisconsin Airport. She pressed her forehead against the cold glass of the Boeing 737, her gaze tracing the jutting wing stabilizers and then flicking across the patches of clouds scattered across the otherwise blue horizon. How many times had she stared out of a plane window like this? Too many to count.
Twenty-six, twenty-five…
Why had he stopped at twenty-five?
Adele closed her eyes again, trying to push the thoughts from her like pus from a wound. She needed her sleep. Angus would be waiting for her back home; it wouldn’t do to show up baggy-eyed and frazzled, especially not with what she guessed he had planned for tonight.
The thought of her boyfriend drove some of the worries from her and a small smile teased its way from her lips, hovering in a lopsided fashion. She half glanced through hooded eyes down at her left hand. Adele wasn’t much one for jewelry, but her fingers seemed particularly bare. At thirty-two, she had half hoped, in a small, concealed part of her, that at least her ring fin
ger would have been occupied by now.
Soon. If Jessica’s texts were to be believed, and the cryptic nature of Angus’s last call—soon her hand wouldn’t be so bare.
She smiled again.
Why had he stopped at twenty-five?
Her smile became fixed as the thought interjected itself once more. She almost reached for the briefcase she had stowed under her seat, but then exhaled deeply through her nose, her nostrils flaring as she attempted to calm herself. She needed sleep now. The case could wait.
But could it really? He’d stopped at twenty-five. The Benjamin Killer was what they were calling him, after the story of Benjamin Button—a crass, gauche moniker for a vicious murderer. He killed them based on age. Gender, looks, ethnicity didn’t matter to him. He had started with that twenty-nine-year-old man—a middle-school coach only a few years younger than Adele. The next was a woman with blonde hair and green eyes, just like Adele. It had stuck with Adele when she’d first seen the woman’s photographs.
She’d worked with the FBI for nearly six years now, and she had thought she was good at her job. Until now. The Benjamin Killer was taunting them. For the last three weeks, Adele had visited the residences of the victims, looking for a lead, for anything that might point her to the bastard. Every two weeks, another body dropped, yet she wasn’t any closer to identifying a likely suspect.
Then, last month, the pattern ceased. The killings had stopped. Adele’s weeks of work traveling from Wisconsin to Ohio to Indiana, trying to put together a pattern, had turned up squat. They were at the deadest of ends.
Three weeks wasted, dwelling on the sick thoughts of a psychopath. Sometimes Adele wondered why she had joined the Bureau at all.
The FBI had contacted her directly out of college, but she had wanted to consider her options. Of course, given her three citizenships—German, French, and US—it had been a near inevitability, she supposed. Her sense of duty, her loyalty to the law, had only been further fanned into flame by her father. He’d never managed to rise higher than the rank of staff sergeant over the course of his long and dignified career, but he exemplified everything Adele admired of those in the service. Her father was a bit of a romantic. He’d been stationed in Bamberg, Germany, and married her French mother, who had given birth to Adele on a trip to the US. Thus the triple citizenship, and a daughter for whom the thought of staying put in anything smaller than a country brought on a serious case of cabin fever.
Some people called it wanderlust. But “wander” implied no direction. Adele always had a direction; it just wasn’t always obvious to those looking in from the outside.
She reached up and brushed her blonde hair out of her eyes. In the reflection of the glass window, she spotted someone staring at her over her shoulder.
The lawyer sitting in 33F. He’d been ogling her since she’d gotten on the plane.
She turned lazily, like a cat stretching in a beam of sunlight, and peered across the ample belly of the middle-aged man sleeping next to her and contributing a light dusting of snores to the ambience of the cabin.
She gave a small, sarcastic wave to the lawyer. He wasn’t bad-looking, but he had a good twenty years on her and the eyes of a predator. Not all psychopaths engaged in bloody deeds in the dead of night. Some of them lived cushy lives protected by their profession and prestige.
And yet, Adele had a nose for them, like a bloodhound with a scent.
The lawyer winked at her, but didn’t look away, his gaze lingering on her face for a moment, then sliding down her suit and traveling across her long legs. Adele’s French-American heritage had its perks when it came to the sort of attractiveness that men often described as “exotic,” but it came with downsides too.
In this case, a fifty-year-old downside in a cheap suit and even cheaper cologne. She would have guessed, based on his briefcase alone, that he was a lawyer, even if he hadn’t dropped his business card “accidentally” when he’d spotted her sliding past him into her seat.
“Want my nuts?” he said, smiling at her with crocodile teeth. He waved a small blue bag of almonds in her direction.
She stared him coolly in the eyes. “We’ve been in the air for an hour, and that’s what you came up with?”
The man smirked. “Is that a yes?”
“I’m flattered,” Adele said, though her tone suggested otherwise. “But I’m about to be engaged, thank you very much.”
The lawyer shrugged with his lips, turning the corners down in as noncommittal a gesture as likely to have ever graced a courtroom. “I don’t see a ring.”
“Tonight,” she said. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
“You’ve still got time. You want them?” He offered his almonds again.
Adele shook her head. “I don’t like that type. Too salty, small, and old—I’d check the expiration date if I were you.”
The man’s smirk became rather forced. “No need to be rude,” he muttered, beneath his breath. “Bitch,” he added as an afterthought.
“Maybe.” Adele turned away from the man, rolling her shoulders in just such a way that her suit jacket slid open, presenting the man with a perfect view of the 9mm Glock 17 strapped to her hip.
Immediately, the man turned pale, his eyes bugging in his head. He began to choke, trying to cough up an almond which had lodged in his throat.
Joining the FBI did come with its perks. Adele turned back, pressing her forehead against the window once more, trying, again, to drift off to sleep.
***
Her Uber driver pulled up outside the small apartment complex, coming to a squealing halt on the curb across from a large hub of mailboxes. Streetlights glowed on the gray sidewalk, illuminating the concrete and asphalt in the dark. Adele retrieved her suitcase and briefcase from the back seat, her arms heavy from the day of travel.
Three weeks since she’d seen Angus. Three weeks was a long time. She exhaled softly, tilting her head back so her chin practically pointed toward the night sky. She rolled her shoulders, stretching. She had managed to get a little sleep on the flight, but it had been at an odd angle and she could still feel the crick in her neck.
The Uber peeled away from the curb with another squeal and a screech as the driver rushed off in search of his next passenger. Adele watched it leave and then turned, marching beneath the tastefully placed palm trees that the landlord had planted the previous year. She peered up at the orange glow in the second window facing east.
Angus was still waiting up for her. It was only nine p.m., but Angus was a coder for a couple of start-ups in the city and he often kept strange hours. San Francisco: the hub of the gold rush of tech—or silicon rush as some were calling it.
Adele had never expected to be wealthy, but with the equity pay-offs Angus had received from his last company, things were about to change. And, judging by the words after his last phone call, Adele felt they might be changing very soon.
“I need to talk to you about something,” he’d said. “It’s important.”
And then her friend Jennifer, an old college roommate, had spotted Angus outside Preeve & Co. on Post Street. If anyone knew the jewelers in this city, it was Jennifer.
Adele approached the apartment and pressed the buzzer. Would he pop the question tonight? Of course, she’d say yes. As much as she loved travel—exploration and adventure were in her blood—she’d always wanted to find someone to travel with. Angus was perfect. He was kind, funny, rich, handsome. He checked every box Adele could think of. She had a rule about dating men at the Bureau—it had never worked out well in the past.
No, dating a civilian was much more her style.
As Adele took the elevator to the second floor, she couldn’t control the smile spreading across her face. This time, it wasn’t the lopsided, wry look of resigned amusement she’d had on the plane while trying to fall asleep. Rather, she could feel her cheeks stretching from the effort of trying to control her grin.
It was good to be back home. She passed apartments
twenty-three and twenty-five on the way to hers. For a moment, her smiled faltered. She glanced back at the golden numbers etched into the metal doors of the residences. Her gaze flicked from one digit to the next, her brow furrowing over her weary eyes.
She shook her head, dislodging her troubled thoughts once more, and turned her back firmly, facing apartment twenty-seven. Home.
Lightly, she knocked on the door and waited. She had her own key, but she was too tired to fish it out of her suitcase.
Would he pop the question in the doorway? Would he give her some time to settle?
She half reached for her phone, wondering if she should call the Sergeant before he went to bed. Her father would stay up long enough to catch the rerun of 8 out of 10 Cats, his favorite British game show, so there was still time to call him and tell him the good news.
Then again, perhaps she was getting a bit ahead of herself.
Just because Angus was spotted outside a jewelry store, didn’t mean that he’d already purchased the ring. Perhaps he was still looking.
Adele tried to control her excitement, calming herself with a small breathing exercise.
Then the door swung open.
Angus stared out at her, blinking owlishly from behind his thin-framed glasses. He had a thick jaw, like a football player, but the curling hair of a cupid ornament. Angus was taller than her by a few inches, which was impressive given Adele’s own height of five foot ten.
She stepped over the threshold, nearly tripping on something in the door, but then flung out her arms, wrapping Angus in an embrace. She leaned in, kissing him gently, closing her eyes for a moment and inhaling the familiar odor of citrus and herbal musk.
He pulled back, ever so slightly. Adele frowned, stiffening. She opened her eyes, peering up at Angus.
“Er, hey, Addie,” he said, calling her by the nickname he’d used when they’d first started dating. “Welcome back.” He scratched nervously at his chin, and Adele realized he had something strapped over his shoulder.