Nurse Blood (The Organ Harvester Series Book 1)

by Rebecca Besser

  David advanced toward the desk, and the woman behind it, without saying a word. He took time to assess the woman. He admired her level of focus. He assumed she got a lot done and got a lot out of the agents she directed.

  When Agent Mallory finally looked up from her computer, she frowned.

  “And you are?” she asked, raising an eyebrow in question as she looked him over, baggage and all.

  “I’m Agent David McCoy from the LA office,” he said. “Agent Harmon called to let you know I was coming…”

  “Did he?” she asked, staring at him.

  He figured it was a test, so he stood his ground. “Yes, he did. I need access to the missing persons database, the DMV records for possibly four states, and access to video surveillance and social media platforms. In other words…I need access to a lot of information. I could use the help of someone who knows their way around computers, if you could spare them.”

  The woman stared at him, just blinking for almost a full minute.

  “I spoke to Agent Harmon, but he didn’t tell me you would need an assistant to help you while you were here,” she said flatly.

  “I assumed I would be a given a…chaperone,” he said. “No one just lets someone walk around their house unsupervised now, do they?”

  With that, he got a smile from Agent Mallory.

  She nodded and said, “No, we don’t just let people walk around our house without a host. I suppose you can have Agent Limmon. He’s the one you followed in. He’s my best with a computer.”

  “Thank you,” David said, turning toward the door.

  “How long are you going to be here?” she asked his back.

  He looked back at her.

  “Just until this afternoon,” he said with a smile. “One of my searches in the missing persons database got a hit on a new lead.”

  She nodded. “Good luck. I hope you find what you’re looking for. Please keep me informed in case I can help you in any way. And I’d like a list of the files you’re looking into from Nashville—I want to check them over myself.”

  “Will do,” he said.

  As David left Agent Mallory’s office, he decided she was more stern than mean or intimidating. But he could see how a lesser man would have buckled under her testing.

  ***

  Agent Limmon was a great asset to David’s investigation. There wasn’t a single thing asked of him that he didn’t do with enthusiasm. He even set up an all access pass to the information they were collecting so David could keep up with everything once he got to Pittsburgh. All he had to do was log into the system and he’d have access to all the information collected from their various searches. It would also allow him to give other people access, like the next office he was in, if they wanted to search too in order to make the information gathering go faster.

  After all the searches were set up in the system, they brainstormed other ways they might be able to find the woman’s picture. If they could find the woman, they would know for sure which way to go with the investigation—human traffickers or organ harvesters.

  As David headed to the airport, he felt better about how things were going for the investigation. He was determined to find the woman, and once that was done, he would find out what had happened to Daniel.

  The woman was the key. If they found her, she would unlock all the mysteries.

  Chapter Twenty

  Although Sonya drove home slower than normal, she was still there before she wanted to be. As she pulled into her garage, she bit her bottom lip and worried it between her teeth. She sat in her car until the door was closed behind her and then some.

  Lloyd opened the door leading from the house to the garage, frowning when he saw she was still in the car and looked upset. He rushed forward and opened her door for her.

  “What’s wrong, babe?”

  Her eyes filled with tears, she shook her head, and she looked down at the floor as she stood.

  He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tight against his warm body. She relaxed against him with a whimper and a shaky sigh.

  “Was it Jack?”

  Sonya stiffened and pulled back slightly to look up at him, sniffling.

  “Jack? No, it wasn’t Jack,” she snapped. “Why would you even think that? I wouldn’t have sex with that bastard for anything.”

  Lloyd scowled. “Have sex? Who’d you have sex with then?” He let her go and stepped back. She instantly missed his closeness.

  Wrapping her arms around herself, she closed her eyes and let the story of her exchange with Miles gush from her mouth. When she opened her eyes and chanced a glance at Lloyd, his face was blank.

  “Please don’t be mad,” she pleaded. “I did it for the job—we have to have the money from the family harvest to make our plan work. And we need someone to distract the cops if they get close. I did it for us, and I hated every second of it.” She raised one of her hands, took a small step forward, and touched his cheek. “Please don’t be mad,” she whispered again.

  He turned his face away from her hand and looked out the back window of the garage.

  She choked back a sob, pulled back her hand like it had been burned, and ignored the tears rolling down her cheeks.

  He shook his head, looked at her, and sighed.

  “I just…” He paused, and dragged his hands through his hair. “I can’t deal with this right now. I have the whole Jack thing running through my head, and now you’ve gone and fucked that morgue geek.” He sighed and headed for the door leading from the garage to the backyard. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  She nodded and looked at the floor in front of her, but her head shot up when he opened the door, as some of the words he’d spoken sank into her brain.

  “Wait!” she called.

  He paused and turned back, lifting one of his eyebrows quizzically.

  “What Jack thing? What are you talking about?” she asked, wiping tears from her face.

  “Oh, not much, other than he’s been staking out your house and tried to follow me home last night,” he said. He shrugged and walked out, shutting the door behind himself.

  Sonya stood there for a few minutes, letting everything sink in. Finally she went into her house and closed the door. Lloyd had set two places on her dining room table, and food containers with some of her favorite foods—judging by the tantalizing aromas wafting to her nose—sat ready to be served.

  She sighed heavily and a new bout of tears came gushing free. With another sigh, she ignored the thoughtful supper Lloyd had brought for them and headed down the hall toward the bathroom. She planned to take a scalding hot shower to get the feeling of filth left on her skin from having sex with Miles washed away.

  ***

  Jack sat in his recliner in front of the TV, watching the screen but not paying attention to what was on it. His mind was full of jumbled thoughts and—he’d finally admitted to himself—fears. He didn’t know what to do. Lloyd had caught him in the act of spying on and following him, and though he hadn’t shown up to do anything, every noise from outside made Jack jump out of his skin.

  He’d received the text from Jennings about the meeting. He wanted nothing more than to text back and say he wasn’t going to be able to make it, but he didn’t want Jennings to know he was scared, especially after how the last meeting had ended. He couldn’t get why they were having so many damn meetings anyway. Meeting so often didn’t make sense to him when they were trying to keep a low profile.

  Absently, he reached over to the end table beside his chair and picked up his now room temperature beer. Not caring that it was no longer cold, he downed the entire bottle in three large swallows.

  Tossing the empty bottle on the floor, he stood and walked over to the fridge to get another one, but he paused with his hand halfway to the handle when someone knocked on his front door. He went to answer it, wishing there was a peep hole for him to see who was there. He thought about hollering out and asking who was outside, but he’d always thought the people w
ho did that on TV were idiots and he didn’t want to be an idiot.

  With an inner sigh and a quick glance around for a possible weapon choice if things went bad, he unlocked the deadbolt, turned the doorknob, and opened the door.

  Before he could focus his eyes against the afternoon sun shining behind his guest, a fist met his face with a loud smack and a jolt of pain radiated from his jaw to his neck as his head twisted to the side from the impact. He hit the floor hard with a loud thud.

  He looked up to see a man standing over him just before he was struck again and the world faded from sunshine to stars, and then to blackness as he slipped into unconsciousness.

  ***

  Sonya stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel off the rack by the bathtub. She proceeded to use it to roughly dry her bright red skin. The hot spray had made her feel marginally clean and had eased some of the tension from her neck and shoulders.

  Her mind was a swirling mess—she couldn’t help but think about her earlier actions and Lloyd’s reaction. He knew she’d had sex with people before to make things work out for the job, but this was the first time she’d done it while they were together—the other times had been before they’d started their relationship. But what kept pushing those thoughts aside was what Lloyd had said about Jack. She couldn’t believe the ass was stupid enough to keep provoking them. She knew something had to be done about him and soon, even if it did upset Jennings and his plans. He would just have to hire someone else.

  Tossing the now wet towel over the side of the bathtub, she grabbed a fresh one from the rack and wrapped it around her hair. Leaving the bathroom, she walked naked through the house and retrieved her cell phone from where she’d left it with her purse. She took it to her bedroom, flopped across her bed on her stomach, and stared at its shiny screen for a few seconds, wondering if she should even try to talk to Lloyd or if she should wait until later and give him time to cool off.

  With a shrug she decided it didn’t matter. She was never one to play it safe.

  She typed in a text and sent it to Lloyd.

  Sonya: What did you do to Jack? He needs taken out.

  Folding her arms, she laid her head down on them, facing the hand that held her phone. Her eyelids had started to droop when the device vibrated and chirped in her hand. Startled, she jumped and forced her eyes to stay open so she could read the reply message.

  Lloyd: Taken care of. See you at the meeting.

  She frowned.

  Sonya: Okay. See you there.

  She sat up, still frowning, wondering what Lloyd was up to. Glancing at the digital alarm clock on her nightstand, she shrugged, yawned, and crawled up the bed and under the covers to take a much needed nap before the meeting.

  ***

  Lloyd slid his cell phone back into his pants pocket as Jack started to regain consciousness.

  “Have a nice nap, asshole?” he jeered from where he stood by the window. He didn’t look at the man, but continued to watch the sunset, drinking a cold beer he’d taken from Jack’s fridge.

  Jack groaned. “Whaa…?”

  Lloyd smirked and took another long swig of beer; he held the bottle up after he swallowed.

  “You may be a low-class, dumb motherfucker, but you have good taste in beer.”

  “Fuc’ ’ou,” Jack said around the gag tied around his head.

  “You know…I really don’t need you to push me any further. This is already going to be much worse for you than you can imagine.”

  “’Iss m’ ass!” Jack retorted.

  Lloyd watched the man he’d duct taped to a wooden kitchen chair.

  Jack was still too weak and disoriented to hold his head up for more than a couple of seconds at a time, but he did manage to hold it steady and open his eyes wide enough to see that Lloyd was wearing white latex gloves.

  “W’at ’ou ’onna ’o t’ me?” he asked, scared for the first time since waking up. He tugged at his arms and legs only to find they were restrained. He knew he was going to die before Lloyd answered.

  “I’m going to kill you—slow and painful like.”

  Jack knew there was no point in pleading for his life—nothing he said would change Lloyd’s mind. The warnings Jennings had given him all came flooding back as Lloyd advanced toward him after picking up a knife from the many he’d laid out on the end table. He knew now he should have heeded those warnings, he should have stayed out of Sonya and Lloyd’s business. They were indeed dangerous.

  “’Ere’s ’Onya?” Jack asked, his eyes flashing around his small living room, making him dizzy as his head throbbed with pain.

  “Not here,” Lloyd said, and grinned. “I’m gonna handle you alone. She lost the privilege of being here to enjoy the treat of your screams.”

  For some reason Jack felt a little of the tension leave his body. She bothered and scared him more than Lloyd.

  Lloyd stood directly in front of Jack and raised the knife, holding it in his fist with the serrated blade pointing down and the sharp edge facing Jack. He raised it above his head and thrust it downward swiftly.

  Jack screamed as the blade sliced through his shirt—into the middle of his chest—and continued downward, cutting his stomach and the tip of his penis through his pants, before pinning the fabric to the chair. He gagged and whimpered, and his body shook in a fit of spasms, causing the knife to saw repeatedly at his glans.

  “’Op, ’ease!” he yelled, and flinched as every move he made caused the blade to cut deeper into his tender, sensitive flesh.

  Lloyd didn’t even look at Jack or acknowledge his plea as he perused the other knives on the stand. He selected another and turned back to the blood-soaked man.

  “This is going to take a while, so you should try to calm down,” he said with a smile on his face. He calmly slammed the new blade deep into Jack’s right thigh.

  He squealed like a pig, jerked, and cried out again as the first blade continued to saw its way deeper.

  “You know, if you’d hold still it wouldn’t hurt as much,” Lloyd said, and laughed, turning back to select yet another blade.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Sonya was startled awake when her cell phone rang; she glanced at her alarm clock and noted that she’d slept for less than a half hour. Groggy and irritated, she answered the phone with a mumbled, “’Ello?”

  “He’s missing!” a woman cried hysterically.

  “What?” Sonya asked, frowning and trying to make sense of the call. “Who is this?”

  “Jan…from the dry cleaners,” she choked out between sobs.

  “Oh, okay,” Sonya said, waking up a bit more. “Sorry, I was asleep.”

  “My husband—Bill—is definitely missing.”

  “Calm down,” Sonya said. “Who told you he was missing?”

  “I stopped at the police station after lunch yesterday and filled out a missing person report for Bill,” Jan gushed. “Since no one has seen him for days, and he’s not at a hospital, they’re going to start looking for him. They’ve already found his car at a local impound—it was towed from a bar parking lot.”

  “What was he doing at a bar?” Sonya asked, faking concern while yawning silently.

  “I don’t know…maybe he had a business meeting.”

  He was looking for a piece of ass, Sonya thought, finally forcing herself to sit up.

  “Hey, why don’t I come over so we can talk?” she asked, wishing she could go back to sleep instead.

  “Okay…” Jan said, sniffled, and then gave Sonya directions to her house.

  Sonya pretended to listen and even asked a couple of questions so it would seem like she didn’t know where the residence was located.

  After getting off the phone, Sonya reluctantly climbed out of her warm bed and got dressed. She soon left the house after grabbing a roll off the dining room table to silence her growling stomach.

  ***

  Lloyd stood looking down at Jack’s dead body; it was covered with blood and the dead man’s skin w
as tattered and sliced to the point he could no longer be recognized. Knives stuck out of the corpse at odd angles and Lloyd couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of his handiwork.

  Pulling his cell phone from his pocket, he held it up and took a picture of deceased Jack and sent it to Jennings.

  Lloyd: Jack retired. You need a new man.

  Darkness had fallen on the world so Lloyd didn’t worry too much about being seen as he turned and left the apartment, heading for his car. Jack had picked a low-cost, slum of an apartment building to live in. It had no outside lighting and was either deserted or the people living there kept to themselves. He was sure many crimes were committed on the grounds, so his hope was that Jack’s murder would be pinned on a local drug gang. He’d even gone to the extra trouble of tracking down and buying some of their drugs and planting them in Jack’s apartment before he’d regained consciousness for the main event: torture.

  Just as he was shutting his car door, he received a call from Jennings—he let it ring.

  “I don’t want to talk to you, you arrogant bastard,” he said to the phone, shaking his head as he tossed it into the passenger’s seat.

  Starting the engine, he took off into the night, heading home to take a hot shower and wash away the blood before the meeting.

  ***

  Sonya pulled to the curb in front of Jan’s house, took a deep breath, and climbed out of her car. She jogged up the walk and rushed to the door, ringing the doorbell and knocking urgently. She’d planned her “approach” strategy on the way there, to make sure she looked the part of the concerned friend.

  Jan opened the door and Sonya immediately hugged the woman.