Nurse Blood (The Organ Harvester Series Book 1)

by Rebecca Besser

  She opened her eyes, nodded, and continued.

  “After we were all drunk, he convinced them to let him tie them both up, telling me it was just a game, for fun. He said we were just going to show them what we did at parties and then let them go, so I went along with it.”

  She stopped speaking and stood suddenly, startling both the men; Lloyd didn’t let her go in time and almost got dragged off the couch.

  “I need a drink,” she said, heading around the couch and toward the archway leading to the dining room and kitchen. “Do you guys want anything?”

  “Sure, I could use a drink,” Lloyd said, frowning and looking at Roger.

  Roger shrugged. “I’ll take one too, I guess.”

  They both stood and moved to follow her, but she came back into the room with a bottle of whiskey and three glasses.

  Lloyd smiled and took two of the glasses from her; he knew she didn’t drink often, which meant whatever was coming next in the story was serious.

  Everyone sat down again and Sonya poured them each a drink. They sat quietly, sipping their whiskey, waiting for her to continue.

  She tucked her legs under herself, leaned her head against Lloyd’s shoulder when he wrapped his arm around her, and looked down into her glass while she swirled the amber liquid around in small circles.

  “I played with them first, doing all kinds of kinky stuff to them while removing their clothes—they loved it,” she said, and took a sip of her drink. “Butch loved it too—he was really turned on when it was his turn with them. He started out gentle, but eventually he started to get rough. I tried to stop him, but he hit me, and while I was half out of it, he tied me up too.”

  Lloyd took a large gulp of his whiskey, almost draining his glass. Right then he wanted to gut Butch for ever raising a hand to Sonya and he vowed he would make the bastard pay someday, somehow.

  Roger watched Lloyd and Sonya, noting how distressed she was getting and how angry he became as she spoke; he suddenly wished he hadn’t let Butch rile him so much, and that he hadn’t insisted on needing to know everything.

  “I remember hearing them scream, which kept me conscious,” she said softly. “I fought hard to get free, to help them, but I couldn’t.” Tears rolled down her cheeks as she continued to stare down into her drink. “He beat them really hard—until they were bleeding—grinning and laughing the entire time. I begged him to stop, but he wouldn’t. He just kept getting more and more violent, and eventually their screaming stopped—he’d killed them.”

  “Damn,” Roger said, drinking down the last of the whiskey in his glass. “I had no fucking idea. That dumb fuck made it sound like it was all your idea and you were some twisted bitch.”

  Sonya laughed, sniffled, and took a sip of her drink.

  “I was a twisted bitch,” she said with a half-smile. “I still am, I guess.”

  Lloyd chuckled.

  “Anyway,” Sonya said, looking sideways at Lloyd and smiling, “I moved away after that, and cut all ties with Butch.”

  “Did he hurt you?” Lloyd asked, looking down at her calmly while seething inside, ready to kill at a moment’s notice.

  She shook her head.

  “Despite what he’d done to them, he never hurt me, other than that one time he hit me,” she said. “He did get mad when I wouldn’t fuck him that night…I managed to get away after he untied me, before he could make me…”

  “He’s a sick fucker,” Roger said. “I’m sorry about all this…I should have trusted you. I should never have believed what he said about you.”

  Sonya smiled at Roger. “It’s okay. Nothing is your fault, and besides, I feel better now that you both know.” She looked up at Lloyd and smiled; he leaned forward and kissed her.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before,” she whispered when he pulled away. “I should have and then we wouldn’t be here right now, in this fucked up situation.”

  Lloyd smiled and caressed her cheek tenderly. “I’m glad you told me. Now I have an even bigger reason to make sure that bastard dies.”

  “I’m with you on that one,” Roger said, standing. “You need anything, you call me—I’m in.” He set his empty glass down on the coffee table and headed for the front door, but turned back and frowned at the couple. “Why are you dressed up, Sonya? And why did you park out front, Lloyd?”

  They laughed, realizing that they hadn’t told him about their day and the money they’d stolen back.

  “I think you need to sit back down,” Sonya teased, wiping the last of her tears from her face as she poured him another drink.

  “Okay…” he said, and came back over to sit down. “Is this going to be more bad news? Because I don’t think I can handle much more right now.”

  “It’s good news,” Lloyd said. “Very good news.”

  They told Roger about their trip to the bank and the money they’d taken from Jennings’ bank accounts. The news of their plunder raised his spirits, and they drank to the beginning success of their plan.

  ***

  Butch sat in his motel room, drinking beer he’d picked up from a convenience store. He couldn’t help but wonder how Roger was doing, and if he was still stewing about what he’d fed him in the truck. He knew Roger wasn’t gay, but he’d enjoyed pissing the other man off—all the stuff about Sonya had been a bonus.

  “Pull the strings and watch the puppets dance,” he muttered, and chuckled.

  He almost jumped out of his skin when his cell phone rang. Cursing, he dug it out of his pocket and frowned when he noticed it was Jennings.

  “What does the old bastard want now?” he muttered, and answered the call. “Hello?”

  “I’m pleased with the progress you and Roger have made with the building move,” Jennings said. “How much longer do you think it will take?”

  “We’ll be working on the rest in the morning,” Butch said, “and should have it all done sometime tomorrow.”

  “Will you two have everything done tomorrow for sure? Will everything be ready and operational so we can do the harvest on Saturday?”

  Butch rolled his eyes and took loud gulps of beer, not caring if he was overheard while he listened to Jennings’ questions.

  “All I know is that Roger said we’d meet at the old building at eight o’clock,” he said. “I don’t know about the rest. Why don’t you call him and ask?”

  “I tried him first, but couldn’t get ahold of him,” Jennings said.

  Butch frowned.

  “You don’t think the feds nabbed him, do ya?” he asked, pretending to be concerned. He laughed silently when Jennings got upset.

  “I certainly hope not,” Jennings said in a rush. “I’ll call Sonya and see if she has heard anything.”

  “Okay, you do that,” he said, trying not to laugh out loud. “I hope everything’s okay. Bye.”

  He bent over laughing at the speed with which Jennings ended the call and shook his head.

  “These people are stupid,” he said.

  He was just finishing his beer and standing up to get another one when his phone rang again. Frowning, he picked it up. The number displayed on its small, illuminated screen was unfamiliar. He held it and looked at it for a couple moments before he decided to answer it.

  “Hello,” he said tentatively.

  “Hey, this is Irvin,” a semi-familiar voice said. “We worked together on the Spencer job a couple years ago…”

  “Yeah, hey, man,” Butch said. “What can I do for you?”

  “I have a contact that’s looking for some fresh parts,” Irvin said. “I’ve already called everyone I could think of and ran across your number in my phone…do you know anyone who has any?”

  “I might,” he said, taking the phone with him while he retrieved another beer from the box on the dresser. “Can I call you back at this number?”

  “Nah, just call him direct,” Irvin said, and rattled off the phone number.

  Butch wrote the number down on the side of the beer box befor
e he ended the call.

  He cracked open the fresh beer and smiled at the pleasant hiss the opening can made; it was a sound that he never got tired of hearing and that always made him happy.

  He held his phone for a couple of minutes, staring at it, wondering if he should call Lloyd.

  “Ah, fuck it,” he said, coming to a decision; he dialed the phone number he had for Lloyd and waited for the little weasel to answer.

  “Hey, remember when I said about finding a contact to help move parts?” he asked.

  “Yes, I remember and was thinking it’s a good idea,” Lloyd said. “Why? You have a lead on someone who wants some?”

  Butch was a little bit shocked, but he didn’t let it show.

  “Irvin just called and gave me a phone number to contact if I had anything,” he said, glancing down at the number on the box; he couldn’t help but think maybe he could swindle a couple extra dollars out of being useful in a transaction.

  “Go ahead and set something up,” Lloyd said. “The harvest is going down Saturday as far as I know…”

  “Yeah, I just talked to Jennings and he said something about this weekend,” Butch said, pleased with himself for having another use to the team. “I’ll set something up and we’ll get this all handled.” He ended the call and returned to the bed to lounge against the headboard and watch TV.

  “Things are going pretty smooth right about now,” he said, and drank more beer.

  ***

  “Who was that?” Sonya asked Lloyd as he came back from the bathroom.

  “Butch,” he said, grinning.

  She raised an eyebrow at him and sat up on the couch—they’d been snuggling and talking since Roger had left and she was now calm.

  “You say that like it’s a good thing,” she teased, resting her chin on the arm of the couch and looking up at him.

  “It is,” he said, bending down to kiss the tip of her nose. “He just got himself linked up with the undercover fed on the black market. He’s going to hang himself.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Agents McCoy and Croce made it to more than half of the hospitals on the list before they decided to call it quits for the day. They’d found nothing suspicious in any of the morgue paperwork they’d looked at, although they did have copies of everything so they could look it all over more closely when they had time. Even the medical examiners had all seemed straight-laced; nothing about them had thrown up any red flags with the agents.

  “I wish that would have gone better,” Croce said as she climbed into the driver’s side of the car. “Hopefully we have better results tomorrow.”

  David didn’t say anything as he got in the passenger’s side. He was disappointed. He’d been sure they’d find something somewhere. And he hoped he wasn’t on the wrong track. Not only would be it be embarrassing to have derailed the investigation so badly, but he would be no closer to getting Daniel justice than he’d been before.

  “I hope so too,” he said as he buckled his seatbelt. “There are still quite a few hospitals—that’s a lot of possibilities.”

  Croce nodded. “Do you want to go back to the office? Or do you want me to drop you at your hotel?”

  “Just drop me at my hotel, please,” he said, having brought his belongings with him for the ride, in case he’d needed to check anything in the files or from his notes.

  “Okay,” she said, and backed out of the parking space of the last hospital they would visit for the day.

  They didn’t talk during the journey, each lost in their own thoughts.

  David was mired down by his self-doubt and disappointment.

  Just as they were pulling into the parking lot of the hotel, McCoy’s phone rang—he answered it.

  “Hello?” he said.

  “Hi, this is Detective Jones,” a feminine voice said.

  “Oh, Detective Jones, it’s good to hear from you. Were you able to get someone undercover for me?”

  “Yes, we got your man in, no problem…” she said.

  “That’s great news,” he said, and paused to listen as she continued.

  “…but there’s an issue. He just got a call from someone who said they’d have a sizeable amount of organs to unload this weekend.”

  “A sizeable amount of organs? I’m scared to know what that means.”

  He listened to Jones for a couple more moments before he ended the call. When he did he was smiling, but he wasn’t sure that was the appropriate response to have when he knew people were going to die if he didn’t figure things out fast.

  “What did you find out?” Croce asked.

  “Do you want the good news or the bad news first?”

  “Good,” she said.

  “Okay…” he said, “…the undercover officer who was putting out feelers for human organs was contacted by someone in the area that said they would have a ‘sizeable amount’ to handle this coming weekend.”

  Croce grinned broadly at the news and then frowned.

  “And the bad news is…?” she asked.

  “Oh, you know, if we don’t figure out who these people are in the next day or so, they’ll be killing a few people, apparently,” he said, frowning as well.

  “Damn,” Croce said. “No pressure…”

  David laughed bitterly. “Exactly. I guess we’ll just focus on the good—we’re on the right track. But we need to put all the pieces together as fast as we can. Hopefully Limmon will be here sometime tomorrow. If I don’t get an email I’ll call Agent Mallory at the Memphis office in a little while to find out when we should expect him.”

  “Is there anything I can do?” Croce asked.

  “Could you start going through the paperwork we’ve collected from the morgues?” he asked as he climbed out of the car. “I’ll take some of it with me too.” He opened the back door and took half of the paperwork they’d collected in an evidence box in the backseat.

  “Will do,” she said.

  “Oh, and we’ll need to start early tomorrow morning,” he added. “We have to get through the other hospitals tomorrow—we don’t have an option.”

  “I can pick you up here at seven,” Croce said. “Will that be early enough?”

  “Perfect—see you then,” David said before standing and shutting the car door. He waved as he headed into the building.

  Croce waved back and drove away.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  When Agent Croce arrived to collect him at the hotel the next morning, David and Agent Limmon were ready and waiting. He hadn’t found anything they’d missed the day before in the paperwork and he’d been pleased to find out Limmon was to arrive late in the night. The young agent had gotten a couple hours of sleep and was ready to help attack the investigation.

  When David had asked Limmon about Mallory’s willingness to lend him out, he’d told David that she’d wanted to help close the missing persons cases in Nashville. She felt they had a responsibility to help, since the perps had been in their backyard and gotten away. David could appreciate that.

  “Agent Limmon, meet Agent Croce,” David said, opening the passenger’s side door of the sedan so Limmon and Croce could see and talk to each other while he put the morgue files he had in the backseat with the rest. They both said hello.

  “Limmon is going to take a taxi to the field office and set up shop there,” David said, shutting the back door, “while we go and check out the rest of the hospitals on the list.”

  “Okay,” Croce said. She leaned over toward the open door so she could have a better sight line with Limmon. “Ask for Agent Miller—he’s the director. I’ve been keeping him up to speed on the case as we go. He’ll set you up with anything you need. Hopefully we’ll have something more to report this afternoon.”

  “Thank you,” Limmon said. “I’ll be sure to do that. I’m hoping to have a better picture of the woman—or at least have her license plate number—from the camera footage from the bar I plan to go through today.”

  “Keep us informed,” Cr
oce said, sitting back up as McCoy climbed into the car.

  “Thank you again for coming,” David said. “I hope you can find something. We’re under a tight timeline…”

  “I know,” Limmon said. He smiled and waved when David shut the car door and they headed off to the hospitals.

  A couple of minutes later his taxi arrived and he headed off to the Pittsburgh FBI office.

  ***

  “Did you find anything of interest in the paperwork?” Croce asked David as they pulled away from the hotel.

  “No,” he said with a sigh. “Did you?”

  She shook her head.

  “What are you hoping to find in the paperwork?” she asked, frowning as she negotiated the early morning traffic.

  “I don’t know,” David said. “Anything that would seem out of the ordinary, like organs when there was no death—something like that.”

  “They would have to be pretty stupid to try and pull something like that off,” she said. “Don’t hospitals have anything set in place to watch for those kinds of things themselves?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know,” David said, frowning. “I’ve never tackled a case like this before.”

  Croce was quiet for a couple of minutes. “Where do you think they take them?”

  David was confused, having been following his own train of thought along the lines of her previous questions.

  “Take them?” he asked.

  “Take the people they kidnap…” she said. “I mean, they couldn’t take them to the hospital to kill them and harvest their organs. That I know for sure. So, where would they do the operations? It would have to be somewhere close-by, I would think.”

  “I like where you’re going with this,” he said. “I’ve been so focused on the hospitals, I hadn’t gotten that far.” He paused to think. “You know the area pretty well—where do you think you would take someone to chop them into pieces without someone seeing you?”