Left To Die

John nodded, shifting uncomfortably again and causing the chair to creak precariously beneath him. “You really do have an ear for accents. A German killer in America and France.” John reached across the small coffee table next to him and pulled the manila folder they’d been copied in on, flipping it open to examine the contents once more. Adele had memorized the thing already when it had first arrived two hours ago—they’d gone directly to Executive Foucault with the results.

In the opposite room, Adele could still hear the chatter of urgent voices in the office.

Every train station, bus stop, airport, and border would be watched for red-haired German citizens trying to flee the country.

But it was too late.

She knew it in her bones. He had been one step ahead the entire time. Last time, in the US, when she’d gotten close, he had fled the next day.

After the debacle the previous night, with his victim escaping, surviving, there was no way he would have stayed in the country. He’d had ample time to get out. He wouldn’t have waited.

Too late. Always just a moment too late…

Adele shook her head firmly. “What’s taking them so long?”

John shrugged, scanning the folder once more. “You know how the BKA is,” he said. “Germans are official folk. Not like your FBI. Not like DGSI either. They have more red tape than both our agencies combined. Especially with Interpol presiding.”

Adele shook her head. “You’d think with Interpol’s help we could get something done.”

John shrugged. “It’s always been difficult tracking criminals across borders.” He sighed, puffing out his chest. “I doubt that’ll change now.”

Adele clenched her teeth. “But he’s killed in the US and France. For all we know he’s killed in Germany too. Everyone should want him caught.”

John shoved the manila folder beneath her nose, flapping it up and down and causing the sides to wiggle like butterfly wings. “He’s not identified. All we know is that the substance in the victim’s veins is from Lion Pharmaceutical in Hamburg.”

“Yes,” said Adele, keeping her tone patient. “But it was an unreleased substance. It didn’t meet approval standards.” Adele kept her gaze fixed on Foucault’s door. “Which means the only people with access to it would be working for the pharmaceutical company. That narrows down our suspects by a lot. How many of them do you think travel frequently to the US and France? How many of them do you think have red hair?”

“Could be a wig,” said John. “Think of that?”

Adele hesitated. She had thought of that. But Robert had seemed so confident in his deduction that the man wouldn’t have displayed red hair if it hadn’t naturally been his. A man of vanity, clinging onto his youth. That had been Robert’s prescription. And her old mentor was rarely wrong. Still, maybe he had lost a step. Time passed; he had aged. Maybe it was a wig.

Secretly, Adele hoped it wasn’t. Not only would red hair make it easier to track the killer down, but it would mean that Robert was right. That he was still one of the best investigators in France.

“One step at a time,” said John. “I don’t want to go to Germany anyway. What do the Germans have that we don’t in France?”

Adele rolled her eyes. This time she did look over at her tall, hunched partner. “We’re not going on a vacation. We need to find a killer; is that a good enough reason to take a sabbatical from your beloved Paris?”

John scratched his jaw, and shrugged with one shoulder. “Not really.”

Adele would’ve continued harassing her teammate in part good humor and part exasperation, but the glass door to Foucault’s office opened, nearly whacking John’s extended legs.

Adele’s partner jerked his feet back, and the door scraped across the thin carpet, revealing an older woman with pursed lips and intelligent eyes.

“The Interpol correspondent,” John whispered to Adele.

“I know; I was here before you.”

This time John rolled his eyes.

Behind the correspondent from Interpol, the executive was on the phone, the receiver pressed to his ear. He yammered away in accented English, but then his eyes flicked toward the open door, and he turned, shielding his mouth and lowering his voice.

The door shut, and the Interpol correspondent stepped over John’s extended legs.

John made no move to pull back a second time, allowing the neatly dressed older woman to primly step over him one leg at a time.

Adele jammed her elbow into her partner’s shoulder, but received only a grunt for her efforts. Renee kept his legs out, smirking after the lady from Interpol.

This wasn’t John’s lab friend. Rather, the woman had been sent to help coordinate between the BKA and the DGSI, serving essentially as moderator, a babysitter between the intelligence agencies of France and Germany.

“Well?” Adele called after the woman as she continued down the hall. The correspondent paused and glanced back.

“Do we have permission to enter Germany?” Adele called again, this time pushing off her chair and standing up. She moved after the agent and kicked John’s leg until he pulled it out of the way.