His tastes weren’t so predictable as a teenager in search of a buzz, but fake papers on a train from France to Germany were far easier to procure with the right connections. The man rarely traveled by plane if he could help it.
The man leaned back again, resting his head against the cushioned footrest.
The US had been a delightful vacation, but future sojourns would be relegated to Europe. The man nodded, settling the matter in that moment with the simple bob of his head. The options were far better in Europe: bus, train, hitching a ride, driving…
The US border was too difficult to cross and getting more and more difficult with each passing month. No, his vacation had been cut short.
The man crossed his legs and pulled up the hem of his shirt, glancing down at his stomach and flexing his abdomen.
He couldn’t quite make out the ridge of his muscles, and with a flare of annoyance, he quickly swiveled, placing his feet under the edge of the grandfather chair as he began to do sit-ups, grunting with each one and flexing his abdomen at the peak, holding the position until pain set in, and then releasing it and lowering down.
He listened as the news continued to announce the arrest of the chemist from Lion Pharmaceutical.
Of course, he knew all about the company.
They were closing in. This Agent Sharp was better than he’d thought. She couldn’t have possibly tracked him by papers, so how had she found him in Germany?
“She hasn’t,” he said out loud, answering his own thought. He grunted again as he reached the pinnacle of his sit up, then lowered back once more. He shot off another twenty rapid sit-ups—then thirty—then forty.
He could feel a sweat breaking across his forehead and limbs, but he pushed himself, straining.
Youth required sacrifice. Longevity required commitment. Youth was wasted on the young. But it was a currency he would spend wisely.
He’d avoided vacationing in Germany; it was too close to home. But perhaps he could make an exception just this once. For a special person.
He reached his morning hundred, then stopped the exercise. Gasping, sweating, he pushed off his chair and went over to the kitchen table, retrieving his laptop from where he’d placed it on a counter. It took him a moment to boot up the thing, but then he stared at the blank screen displaying the search engine.
Everything was available on the internet nowadays.
That chemist’s arrest had been captured by some neighbor’s dinky camera. People fancied themselves reporters, though, really, they were in it for a buck.
The man sneered, wrinkling his nose in disgust. How many times had he seen videos of someone being beaten up, while fifty people surrounded them, instead of helping, videotaping the whole ordeal.
Humans were revolting.
This new one, this Agent Sharp… she was pretty. Not that it mattered. She was young, but not young enough.
Twenty-three was where he’d left off, and twenty-three was where he would need to start again.
He quivered in delight at the thought: how young could he go?
He’d never thought of exerting his routine over a teenager…Even a child? The possibilities were endless. But he could feel his strength rising. Every time one of them perished at his feet, bleeding out, he could feel part of them enter him. He didn’t believe in immortality, but with the advances in science and medicine, he planned to make it to at least two hundred. And that required sacrifice.
Agent Sharp had to go. She was too close, too clever for her own good.
Anything could be found online.
He typed in her name, scanning articles. He paused for a moment, struggling to remember what his host family had mentioned back in the US.
He grunted in satisfaction as the memory clicked. “Adele,” he said, quietly. He licked his lips and kissed the air. He typed “Adele Sharp” into the search engine and pressed enter. A split second later, he scanned the results and then stopped.
A German article, an interview, conducted with a Joseph Sharp. But what did that have to do with—
He froze as he scanned the article. Some bullshit thing honoring police veterans interviewed about their lives. Joseph Sharp worked for the police in Germany. The article was from more than a decade ago. His French daughter had won some sort of track and field meet in college, and there were rumors that she was planning on joining the German police. At least, that’s what it sounded like Joseph Sharp expected.
He continued to scan the article. Joseph was still working in Germany. In fact, he wasn’t far from here.
“Adele Sharp,” the man said, quietly. “You wish to hunt me in my home?”
The old article still had a picture of Mr. Sharp, and had printed his address in the article. Ten years ago, people weren’t so careful on the internet.
The article was nearly a decade old, but the information, would it still prove useful?
The man smiled, slowly lowering his hands from the computer. Perhaps it was time he paid Adele Sharp’s father a visit.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
It had been a long walk from the bus stop, but Adele was sick of vehicles. Planes, limousines, cars, she was starting to feel like Robert.
Adele wasn’t frustrated. No, she had passed frustration weeks ago. They were in a holding pattern once more. The BKA had reluctantly agreed to investigate the other members of Peter Lehman’s team; double-checking their alibis and whereabouts. But Adele wasn’t hopeful it would pay off.
She stared at the houses at the end of the cul-de-sac, her hands jammed in her pockets for warmth as she surveyed the yards. Her dad’s house wasn’t large, but it was just a bit larger than the other houses on the block. It wasn’t particularly clean, but it was just a fraction cleaner than the other homes. He did have a white picket fence—the remnants of the American dream.
Her father had been born in the US, and had been deployed to Germany with the army. He’d stayed in Germany for Adele’s mother at first. He didn’t have any family back stateside. Part of Adele had often thought her father had fled something back home. He’d never returned to the US, not even on vacation after leaving the military and gaining his German citizenship. Now, very little of his American loyalty remained. Still, he couldn’t resist showing up his German neighbors.
Even the grass, in the lawn, though it may have just been Adele’s imagination, was a half inch taller after trimming than the other houses on the cul-de-sac. Her father did the yard work himself and painted the house himself. He didn’t believe in hiring people to do something he could do. Of course, after eight hours on a job, coming home only to pick up more projects had left little room for time with the wife and kid once upon a time.
Adele twisted at her sleeves and stalked up the sidewalk, passing a fire hydrant and nodding toward someone peering at her through the window of a neighbor’s home. She sighed in nervous little puffs of breath. She hadn’t necessarily wanted to visit her father. It had been a few years since she’d actually seen him in person.
But if he found out from his law enforcement buddies that she’d been in Germany and hadn’t visited him, she’d never hear the end of it.
“The ever doting father,” Adele murmured to herself, jamming her hands back into her pockets as she strode toward the two-story, stone veneer house at the end of the block.
She could hear the neighbor’s dogs yelping and barking, and vaguely thought of a childhood without pets. Her father hadn’t wanted to clean up after them. Adele had gotten the turtle with Angus more out of spite than any actual desire to own the poor creature.
Already, bitter thoughts circled her head, and Adele felt like she was back to being twelve all over again.