Adele tried to track what he was saying, but whenever he started to philosophize it oftentimes went over her head. It wasn’t that she couldn’t understand, but more so that she didn’t think in such terms. Sometimes he would quote famous authors or wax poetic, and while there was a beauty to it, Adele was far more of a realist. Still, she held her silence and listened, waiting.
“The thing is,” Robert said, softly, “these killers could have been so much more. And the people they kill are so valuable. It’s like seeing a book burning or a painting destroyed for the sake of destruction. It saddens me.” He shrugged. “I don’t know if that answers your question.” His eyes seemed to refocus, and he noticed her expression. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to prattle on like that.”
But Adele quickly shook her head. “No; that’s beautiful. I was just thinking about something myself.”
“Well, you’re welcome to stay here as long as you want. But I do need to get some sleep. I’ve managed to whittle it down to only three to four hours a night.” He chuckled and shrugged.
“Thank you, but I should probably—”
Before she could finish, the phone in her pocket started to vibrate. Adele frowned and whipped out her device, pressing it to her ear. “Yes?” Adele listened, her eyes widening with each passing moment. “Tonight? In the park? You’re sure it was him?”
Another pause.
“I’ll be right there.”
Adele turned and began hurrying rapidly away from the kitchen and through the study, back toward the atrium. “What is it?” Robert called after her.
“The killer,” she shouted over her shoulder, pausing only for a moment. “He attacked someone in the park, and they survived. I need to get back to the hotel. I’ll talk to you later; have a good night!”
Adele sprinted out the front of the mansion and ran breakneck down the street, hurrying back in the direction of her hotel where she’d parked the car.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Her wheels jumped the curb, jolting Adele forward in her seat and causing her shoulder to slam into the edge of the steering wheel. She cursed, wishing she’d taken the time to buckle; but without correcting the parking, Adele flung open the borrowed car’s door and sprinted between the two gendarmerie vehicles flanking the entry of the park with flashing lights.
In the distance, she could see men milling about beneath the trees, guns saddled against their shoulders. The gendarmerie were technically a military branch, but they would often serve in keeping order among the citizenry.
Elsewhere, she spotted regular police officers searching through the park, flashlights at the ready, leashed hounds with black and brown fur leading the way.
The nighttime park, normally a quiet affair, echoed with barking, shouting, and urgent cries.
Adele frantically scanned the vehicles in front of the park, and she spotted the ambulance.
She sprinted toward the vehicle and managed to glimpse a limp foot on a stretcher just as the back door slammed shut with a metallic clang!
“I need to speak with him!” she shouted, hurrying over to the ambulance. She flashed her temporary DGSI credentials and brushed past one of the gendarmerie who reached out a hand to intercept her.
“Who’s in charge here?” Adele demanded, avoiding the insistent hand. “I need to speak with the victim!”
Before she could reach the ambulance, though, two police officers inserted themselves between her and the vehicle. One of them glared at her, his eyes stony beneath his blue and black hat. The other one held out both hands in a pleading gesture, and kept repeating, “You can’t; he’s unconscious. You can’t.”
Adele thought to push past the two of them, but then reconsidered and hesitated. “Are you in charge?” she asked, directing the question toward the scowling man.
He gave a brief shake of his head. “The captain is over there,” he said, curtly.
Adele glanced to where he was pointing, and spotted a group of officers milling around near a park bench upon which sat four kids. They couldn’t have much older than fourteen, and a couple of the smaller ones swung their legs over the edge of the bench. All of them shared the same nervous fidgeting gestures and sidelong glances.
“You’re sure he’s unconscious?” she demanded.
The pleading officer responded before the scowling one could reply. “He hasn’t been able to say a word. He responds to light, he’s alive, but we have to get to the hospital, now. We think he was drugged.”
Adele cursed, running a hand through her hair. With a sudden jolt of embarrassment, she realized she was still wearing her sweaty jogging headband. Great. So much for first impressions.
Reluctantly, she dragged herself away from the ambulance. If the victim couldn’t speak, then he wouldn’t be much use to her anyway. No doubt the killer had dosed him with the same substance he’d used on the other victims. But how had this one survived?
She spotted John talking to a gendarmerie near a cluster of trees in a particularly dark section of the park. But she ignored her partner for the moment and headed directly toward the kids sitting on the bench.
As she went striding beneath the trees, the park seemed cold all of a sudden, or perhaps stepping on the dirt trail only reminded her of the frigidity of another night in another park. There was a reason she didn’t take her morning runs within spitting distance of a park—not even stateside. She shifted past two officers with another flash of her credentials, and then hurried over to the bench.
“You interviewed them yet?” she asked, glancing toward the female officer standing by the kids. She could see now that all were teenagers: three boys and a girl. All of them stared wide-eyed at her. Two of them had the freckles and upturned noses suggesting they were brothers; one of them had darker skin, and the fourth, the girl, looked a little bit like Marion.
“Never mind,” Adele said, cutting off the officer’s response. “Were you here? Did you see what happened?”
The teens glanced uncomfortably from her to the officer next to them. The police officer gave a small nod and gestured encouragingly for them to answer the questions.
The girl shot a look at the others, then spoke first. “Furkan saw them first,” she said, her voice lower and raspier than Adele had expected. “We thought they were lovers.”
The freckle-faced boy on the far end of the bench giggled, but then quickly disguised the sound as a cough.
“We went to investigate,” said the one who Adele assumed was Furkan. He was taller than the others and had a baby face. “Called out at them. Something was off.”
“Looked like he was going to stab the guy on the ground,” said the girl. “We thought he was mugging him. Furkan here was mugged last week. They took his watch.”
The baby-faced, dark-skinned boy nodded in confirmation.
Now they seemed less nervous all of a sudden. Adele’s undivided attention propelled them forward. They still fidgeted and shared glances with each other, as kids only know how, but the information continued, and Adele slowly pieced together what the kids had seen.
“What did he look like?” she said once they’d finished recounting the events.
“He was just stiff,” said the girl, “lying on the ground, like a plank of wood.”
“I—no, not the victim, the attacker. Did he have red hair?”
Two of the children shrugged simultaneously. “The baby-faced boy said, “He was wearing a hat. A big jacket, too.”
Adele almost growled in frustration. “Was he tall? Short?”