Body Box: Adult Paranormal Romance (Supernatural Thriller) (Dark Suspense) (The Smoke & Fire Series Book 2)

by Michele Wesley

  She called him away from his targets.

  “Dr. Cox?”

  His gaze raked over her body.

  “Can we continue the interview later?”

  His voice was low and husky.

  “Sure thing, young lady. Pleasure looking at you.”

  She stifled a grin, wondering if Dr. Cox noticed—or even cared about—his slip.

  Yala exited the room swiftly and headed to the front of the hospital. It was a long shot, but she hoped to catch a glimpse of the one who’d dropped off the head. But, like before, the delivery was made and no one had seen a thing. A quick check of the surveillance footage didn’t turn up anything, either.

  Since it appeared a vehicle hadn’t dropped the box off, it likely came from someone within the hospital. The suspect could have also staked out the hospital parking lot overnight. There was also the nagging suspicion that the head had been in the exam room or the hospital the entire time.

  By the time Yala made it back to Dr. Hughes, he’d removed the head from a cardboard box. This time, the deranged psychopath hadn’t bothered to put the head in one of his fancy glass boxes. Yala snapped a few photos of the man’s face, while the doctor took x-rays. They hoped facial recognition software, or x-rays of his dental work, would provide an identity where other means had failed.

  Chapter 6

  Shifting into Disguise

  Two days later, Yala and Dr. Hughes had an identity. The victim was Juan Carlos De La Cruz, a twenty-eight-year-old Hispanic man. Based on his criminal record and gang affiliation, he’d been educated by the streets. Both his parents were listed as deceased, and a wife and son were also listed in Juan’s records.

  Yala visited Juan's last known address. And although Juan had moved, she caught a break. The new tenants of Juan’s old apartment claimed he and his family had come into some cash and moved away. Juan hadn’t shared where he’d gotten the money, but the tenants pointed Yala in the direction of the De La Cruz’s new residence.

  Sitting in the parking lot of the Oakwood Apartments, Yala noticed this new neighborhood was a drastic upgrade for Juan and his family.

  The front office gave Yala the apartment number after she flashed a badge. Wanda De La Cruz answered the door. She was not what Yala expected. She was a petite Hispanic woman, conservatively dressed and projected a naïve innocence. It was hard to believe she was the wife of an ex-gang member like Juan. Yala expected attitude, but Wanda appeared genuinely worried about her husband. She hadn’t bothered to ask for Yala’s credentials. A flash of one of several FBI badges Yala owned was enough.

  Wanda went on and on, nonstop, telling Yala her husband had been missing for a week and leaving without contacting her was something he’d never done. She had gone to the police station, twice; but no one was willing to assist her, not for a reformed gangbanger like her husband.

  This was the first time Yala faced notifying someone of a deceased family member. Her hand skimmed Wanda’s arm, to stop her chatter.

  “Ma’am, I have bad news. Juan passed away. He was in the hospital and died from his injuries. We weren’t able to identify him, until today, since he was found without identification. Otherwise, we would have contacted you sooner.”

  The story wasn’t entirely true, but it was the best Yala could come up with on the spot.

  Wanda sobbed, her anguish over her husband’s death was palpable. She sat stunned staring at Yala. Her eye flooded with sorrow before the tears fell. Yala didn’t know how to comfort her, so she held her hand and rubbed her arm and shoulder with unsure strokes.

  Yala took in the desperate look on the woman’s face and the continuous movement of her hands, like she wasn’t sure what to do with them. Tears leaked from eyes as if she'd lost control of her tear ducts.

  Yala sat uncomfortable, but her comfort didn't matter. She was in too deep and was determined to find justice for Juan and his family. She waited until Wanda settled down, before she started questioning her.

  “Ma’am, can you tell me about Juan’s job? Was there anyone he worked for, or with, that could have intended him harm?”

  Wanda wiped at her tears, struggling through her grief.

  “No. Not that I know of. How did he die? Was he shot?”

  “His neck was broken. The doctors did everything they could to save him but lost the battle. If it is okay with you, we would like to keep Juan’s body with us for a while longer, so we can find the person who hurt him.”

  Yala was used to talking, uncensored, about death with other agents; she couldn’t possibly tell Wanda her husband was decapitated, had been cut into three parts, and put into three separate boxes in some demented murderer’s science experiment. Civilians didn’t take the messiness of death well, so Yala lied to the woman.

  Deep sobs made Wanda’s body quake.

  “He worked as a janitor at the Mayflower Nursing Home. He told me he found a way to make extra money.”

  She did one of those paused hiccup cries, before continuing.

  “He said he was working with a scientist at a small lab, like where they test animals and such. He was being paid in cash, and all he had to do was let the scientist take his blood and run tests and stuff. I begged Juan not to do it, but he said he was being paid enough to get us out of our old neighborhood.

  “I didn’t care. I didn’t want him to do it, but he did it anyway. I don’t know what this scientist was doing to him, but Juan made enough to move us here. When it seemed that everything would be alright with the scientist, I stopped pestering Juan about it; and now, this.”

  Yala listened intently.

  “He left home one morning, over a week ago, and didn’t return. I couldn’t get through to his cell or anything.”

  Wanda broke down again; her shoulders quaked as she voiced her sorrow.

  Yala held her hand and rubbed the back of it with her free hand.

  As soon as Wanda recovered enough to talk, Yala probed the grieving woman for as much information as she could gather. Wanda disclosed that the scientist had also recruited one of Juan’s friends, who she only knew as Lennie.

  After nearly an hour of questions, Yala left Wanda to grieve.

  Her next step was to probe Juan’s old neighborhood for answers, and then pay a visit to the nursing home he worked for. She had the perfect way to fit into each atmosphere. After all, disguises were among her best and most valuable assets.

  She checked in briefly with Dr. Hughes. It pleased her to see him heed her advice to go home and rest. There wasn’t much more he could do with the body, except keep it secure and preserved.

  Chapter 7

  Assholes in Agony

  Loneliness flooded Kevin’s heart. Like a steady downpour, the nagging emotion washed away his positive thoughts. Work was the only medicine that kept the unwanted emotion at bay.

  Dusk started to blanket the day and darken his view of tightly compacted project buildings and littered streets teaming with people and fast moving cars. They all rushed and shouted at each other. Rudeness seemed to be an acceptable norm. Small business owners pulled security bars to safeguard their property. Kevin peered at the activity through a scope from his third-floor motel window.

  He kept tabs on a small band of drug dealers he’d tagged for infiltration. The group may be the key to getting into a much larger group he was gathering intel on—the Truleta Cartel.

  Over the years, Kevin had earned a reputation for his ability to infiltrate organizations deemed untouchable. His secret organization, Top, had labeled him one of their best trackers.

  As he observed the multiple bouts of action unfolding, the thugs that came into his sights were a new bunch of riffraff. Based on the group’s posture and body language, he got the sense that something sinister was about to take place in the alley nearest him. Since the alley was only a few blocks away from his cheap motel, his instincts urged him to check it out.

  Another peek showed the group of four, circling a smaller guy like a group of hungry vultures.
Kevin knew, from experience, the man was either about to get murdered, or beaten nearly to death as a part of his gang initiation. Whichever it was, he’d decided not to let it happen on his watch. The world had enough wrong with it.

  The first blow was delivered, as a wildly thrown punch that connected with the smaller man’s temple. The crack of the impact sent the man to his knees and the rest of the group closed in on him.

  Kevin rarely strayed away from his job, but he couldn’t sit there and allow a man to be beaten, possibly to death.

  He jumped into his black jumpsuit and jetted from his third-floor balcony like a superhero. He’d been an agent for nearly five years; and if there was one thing he learned, it was to have an alternate escape route in any situation. In less than a minute, he emerged in the alley.

  He placed his thumb and middle finger between his lips and released a shrill whistle that drew the group’s attention. All heads turned in his direction, including the little guy being beaten.

  The dark alley was sparsely illuminated by layers of light, shining in patches, from the moon and streetlights. The cold January air pressed against Kevin’s clothes, like tiny frozen fingers, as alley-stench tweaked his nose hairs. A lone dumpster and piles of trash, grime, and dirt decorated the dark alley. The alley was the valley between the back of low income apartment buildings.

  Using the darkness as his camouflage, Kevin purposely stood in the shadows. In all black, the group had trouble seeing who had so rudely disturbed their party.

  Kevin received the reaction he’d sought, reading confusion in the group’s defensive postures. Their faces were just visible enough for him to catch their irritated frowns.

  His appearance, or lack thereof, didn’t stop the four men from approaching. All drew weapons; one pointed a gun, while the others wielded knives and a few other unidentified objects.

  Kevin regretted that he hadn’t holstered a gun before leaving his room; therefore, his first objective was to disarm the man with the gun. With only a metal baton, the odds were stacked against him, but Kevin possessed another weapon that couldn’t be seen—his agent’s mentality.

  He rocked his head from side to side and flexed his arm and leg muscles, preparing for battle. He hadn’t practiced his hand-to-hand combat in a while, and this scenario was the perfect opportunity to keep his skills fresh.

  He stood in place and allowed the man with the gun to approach first. The cold metal of the gun kissed Kevin’s temple. The gunmen stood close.

  Kevin returned the kiss by letting his baton kiss the back of the man’s gun hand and then the side of man’s head with two hard whacks. The sound of the man’s toe-curling scream froze his gang of friends in place. The licks echoed into the night and mingled with the noise on the streets. The gun clanked against the pavement and skidded into the darkness.

  Ducking in time, an electrical charge whizzed by Kevin’s head. Someone had discharged a Taser. Kevin hammered the baton over his opponent’s hand, striking the man hard enough that the baton vibrated in his hand as the crunch of bone registered.

  The remaining men jumped Kevin. One went stumbling into the darkness after he delivered an uppercut to the man’s face. One-on-one with the last guy, he sent a spinning elbow to the man’s jaw and continued to hit him about the head with the baton, to ensure he stayed down.

  The man who shot the Taser apparently didn’t have enough good sense to stay put; he ran towards Kevin, full force while yelling his agitation. Kevin used the man’s own momentum against him, as he sent a roundhouse kick to the man’s face.

  Sweet dreams.

  Kevin paused when he noticed the little guy, the victim, climb the wall like a human spider, before he executed an acrobatic jump over to the knife wielder. He planted a swift kick to the man’s face, executed a flip into the air and faded into the darkness like a floating shadow.

  Kevin lost interest in the would-be bad guys. He was more concerned with how the victim in all this had climbed the wall and gotten to the knife wielder so quickly. The victim's actions left his head on a constant swivel.

  Instead of disappearing, the little guy could have at least been grateful. It wasn’t lost on Kevin that the victim possessed skills he should have used against the gang.

  Did he want to be in a gang that bad?

  What a waste.

  Kevin left the alley without a backwards glance. Hearing the bad guys groan in agony made him smile. The sound of assholes in agony was music to his ears. He thought, Assholes in Agony, wouldn’t that be a good title for a song?

  Like something from Star Trek, the victim and speedy little wall climber appeared next to Kevin. He was thrown off guard by the man’s sudden arrival. His head pivoted on his shoulders, before he glared at the man walking next to him.

  The streets provided enough light to give him a better look at the guy. Bruises and scrapes were visible from his encounter with the would-be bad guys: Assholes in Agony.

  The guy was young; he couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen.

  Kevin glared at him. “What did you do to make them want to kick your ass? And please, don’t tell me you wanted into that piece of shit gang of theirs.”

  As the young man walked, Kevin caught glimpses of more bruises and lacerations about his head and neck.

  The guy’s angry tone wasn’t hard to miss.

  “I didn’t need your help. I could have taken care of myself.”

  Not one to hold his tongue, Kevin spoke his mind.

  “From the looks of things, it appeared that you were having your ass handed to you. Excuse the hell out of me for not standing by while you got your ass kicked or worse, killed.”

  The young man didn’t comment as their footfalls echoed off the pavement. The guy stepped closer to Kevin, craned his neck up for a quick glance at his face, and swiftly backed away.

  Kevin put his hand on his baton and glared at the guy, unsure of what to make of this strange young man.

  “I apologize, if I sound ungrateful; but, believe it or not, I was working,” he proclaimed, his tone now smooth.

  Kevin raised an eyebrow and tilted his head in doubt.

  “I don’t understand how getting your ass kicked constitutes working.”

  The young man continued.

  “I’m undercover. I do the same kind of work you do.”

  The young man's statement drew Kevin’s immediate attention. He glanced around, to see if anyone had heard the guy’s claims.

  “I don’t know who the hell you are and what you think you know; but I don’t know you, and you definitely don’t know me or anything about what I do.”

  The little guy glanced around the same as Kevin had.

  “I’m on assignment. Tango Bravo six-two-one-eight, which means you’re on the Tango Charlie assignment. They briefed that there would be another agent nearby, but I didn’t know we would be working damn near on top of each other.”

  Kevin immediately understood what the series of phonetic letters and numbers meant and scanned the man more thoroughly. They both glared at each other, for a moment, then they proceeded to walk further away from the alley before the gang scraped themselves up and made their way to the street.

  “You stepped on my assignment. I was getting initiated on purpose. Although those guys aren’t that bright, they don’t trust easily. I was hoping I could use my charm, to gain intel before taking an ass kicking, but it hadn’t worked out.”

  Guilt surfaced in Kevin’s expression as his head fell forward. He felt like shit.

  “I apologize. I will do whatever I need to, to ensure you get back on track with your assignment.”

  Accepting that the young man must be a fellow agent, Kevin understood better how the guy pulled off those amazing moves he’d displayed in the alley. In the agent world, they all possessed a set of skills; and this guy had moves.

  Kevin watched him stick his hands in his pockets and walk silently forward.

  “You don’t have to do anything special con
cerning my assignment. I have a backup plan,” he stated.

  It was shocking to hear how nonchalant the young man was about having his assignment messed up.

  Kevin’s face twisted in confusion.

  “You aren’t mad that I screwed up your job? How long have you been working on those guys? What do you go by anyway? I’m Kevin.”

  The guy hadn’t abandoned his nonchalant attitude.

  “I go by Kris, and this is day five on this case. Believe me, it is a bit of a puzzle. I’m usually doing wet work or breaking into and out of places, you know, a shooter, a lock picker, not an investigator. But, I have to be honest. I need the experience. I also just made my second year, so Top expects more from me now.”

  In the world of Top, two years was a lifetime. If you could survive two years as a Top agent, you were likely capable of surviving just about anything. And Top didn’t hold back, they threw you into the lion’s den and expected you to come out with the lion’s head.

  Kevin slowed his pace when he realized he was leading the guy towards his room.

  “Well, Kris. I have to be honest with you. If you had messed up my job, I would be mad as hell, and you would definitely be helping me find a solution.”

  He shrugged. “I should have come up with a better plan in the first place. I’m glad you stopped it; but if you want to help me out, I could use a little patching up. I may need a few stiches in my back.”

  Kevin stared at the battered man before answering.

  “Sure man. It’s the least I can do.”

  Kevin let Kris walk into his motel room first, still a bit skeptical about him. Kris took off his jacket and took a quick peek in the mirror. He rubbed his shoulder, then winced.

  “How good are you at stitching?”

  In their line of work, you often patched yourself up, continued the assignment, and sought medical attention later, if you needed it.

  Kevin shrugged. “I’m not an expert, but I have gotten some practice. If you’re worried about the cosmetics of it, I’m not your guy.”

  Kris shook his head and turned his lip up, attempting to be macho about it.