Nurse Blood (The Organ Harvester Series Book 1)

by Rebecca Besser

  “Not that I’m aware of,” she said. “Have you talked to Detective Jones?”

  “She’s heading home to take a shower and change clothes too,” David said, smiling ironically. “I’m supposed to call her if I hear anything, and likewise. I’m guessing no news is good news.”

  “If they didn’t take anyone, how are they supposed to get organs?” Croce asked. “Do you think they took people a couple of days ago and are holding them somewhere? Or do you think we’re early and have another day?”

  “If they’re still in the area…” David said, “…and we haven’t found any evidence of a holding cell type area in the building they were operating in, I think the chance of them holding people is very low.”

  “So, maybe they’ll snag people tonight and do something tomorrow if they’re still around?” Croce asked, moving onto her coffee now that she’d consumed her food.

  “I wish I knew,” David said. “They could have left the city and we could be spinning our wheels for nothing. We have nothing new to go on. We have nothing to tell us what their next move will be.”

  Croce sighed. “I guess we’ll just sit tight and keep going with showers, ’cause you could really use one.” She wrinkled her nose to tease him. “And we’ll go tell the widow she’s a widow. Maybe there’s something she can tell us that she didn’t think of before that will help us.”

  David shrugged. “She wasn’t helpful when I interviewed her before, but now that I know who we’re dealing with and what they do, maybe I can ask more targeted questions that might help her remember something pertinent.”

  “It’s worth a try,” Croce said, and smiled.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Butch arrived at the building right after Jennings and waited for Roger to show up. Sonya was going to go straight to Jan’s house, and he and Roger were supposed to show up shortly after. Jennings was to be ready and waiting at the building when they returned with their “cargo.” Butch didn’t know what Lloyd was supposed to do.

  He was tense with pent-up excitement, even though he knew he wouldn’t really be assisting too much with the harvest; Sonya and Jennings were handling that work. What was getting his thrill level up were the plans he had for Lloyd and Roger after…

  If everything went according to his plans, he would be shedding a lot of blood after getting paid. Then he would reap an even bigger payday from Jennings. To him, there was no downside.

  The chill of the early morning air invigorated him as it blew in through his open truck window while he dialed the number he had for his contact—the one who’d be buying human parts from him after the harvest.

  “Hello,” he said when a man answered on the other end. “I’ll have parts in a couple hours. Will that work for you?”

  “Yes, just let me know the place and time for the transaction,” his contact responded.

  He nodded to Roger as he drove onto the cracked pavement of the parking lot.

  “Okay,” he said as he climbed out of the truck, “I’ll call you later.”

  Butch ended the call and slid his phone into his pocket.

  Roger parked, and they both headed to the truck Jennings had rented for the “move.” They climbed in.

  “Who were you calling?” Roger asked.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Butch snarled, still pissed about the beating.

  “You fuck this up and I’m going to beat your ass again,” Roger threatened.

  “Shut the fuck up and drive,” Butch retorted—the thought of torturing Roger later kept his anger in check, but just barely. He hated that the other man had bested him, and he was going to make sure he knew it…later. Currently, they had a job to do and needed to remain relatively civil toward each other to get it done.

  Neither of them spoke during the drive to Jan’s house. They kept their eyes on the world outside the truck, pretending the other didn’t exist.

  ***

  Sonya pulled up outside Jan’s house, turned off the engine of her car, took a deep breath, and climbed out. She was ready for everything to be over. She’d staked out the house for twenty minutes before making her final approach. She’d again wanted to make sure Miles hadn’t said anything and the FBI weren’t watching the house—she’d seen nothing to indicate that they were. The plan was to drug the family and load them into the moving truck. She’d brought a thermos full of fruit punch to “share” during the move that was laced with a drug that would put them all to sleep. The challenge would be to make sure each had enough to knock them out. And that was if Jan hadn’t heard about Sonya on the news―she had a couple of syringes in her pocket in case she had to move faster than the fruit punch would allow.

  She trudged up the walkway, put her hand in her pocket, wrapped her fingers around a syringe to have it ready―just in case―and knocked on the door. She was somewhat taken aback when the door swung open to reveal a young man she’d never seen before.

  “Hi,” he said, looking her over appreciatively. “You must be Sonya…Jan told me you’d be coming. You look familiar…”

  “Hi,” Sonya replied, stepping into the house, pulling the syringe out of her pocket and holding it close to her side so he couldn’t see it. “Oh? I don’t think we’ve met before. What’s your name?”

  He frowned and stepped back to allow her entrance. “I’m Jan’s younger brother Hanson.” He moved to hold his hand out in welcome, but stopped himself as he realized why she was familiar. “You’re that woman on the news.” He turned to flee deeper into the house.

  Sonya ripped the cover off the needle of the syringe, lunged forward, grabbed his arm, and stabbed him in the neck with the needle.

  “Yes, I am. Nice to meet you,” she said in a hushed, breathless voice as he sank to the floor—she held onto his arm so he wouldn’t fall hard and make noise.

  She heard raised voices in the kitchen: children squealing and giggling, and an adult female voice trying to get them under control.

  Sonya closed the front door and headed that way, dreading the chaos she knew she was about to walk into. When she rounded the corner, she wasn’t disappointed. What she’d assumed was happening was: Jan was trying to pack the last of the kitchen and the kids were being total brats.

  “Mom, I’m thirsty,” one of the kids whined.

  “Get a cup of water,” Jan snapped.

  “I don’t want water,” the child persisted; Sonya couldn’t tell which one was speaking because the room was a mass of mayhem and movement.

  “I don’t have anything else!” Jan screamed before dragging her hands through her hair, standing by the counter where she’d been removing dishes from the cabinets and putting them into cardboard boxes.

  Suddenly coming back to her senses after her moment of shock at the activity in the room, Sonya stepped forward, pulled the thermos from her shoulder bag, and held it up for everyone to see.

  “I brought some fruit punch!” she hollered.

  Everyone froze and looked at her.

  She smiled and wiggled the thermos in midair, showing it off.

  “Thank you,” Jan said with a smile and a sigh. “I didn’t hear you arrive.”

  “Hanson let me in,” Sonya said.

  “Oh?” Jan asked, looking past Sonya out into the hall.

  “I sent him out to my car to grab some extra boxes I brought in case you needed them,” Sonya said with a shrug. “Do you have cups?”

  “There are some plastic cups over on the table,” Jan said, and nodded in that direction.

  Sonya headed that way.

  The children watched her with wide eyes, suddenly completely silent—the change unnerved Sonya. She’d never been good with children and didn’t know what to say to them. She counted out the cups to make sure Jan and each of the kids would get one. She then poured the contents of the thermos into them, making sure to give Jan more than the children.

  ***

  David was just rinsing out his hair in the shower, almost done, when his cell phone started ringing. He manag
ed to step out of the shower and answer his cell phone on speaker without falling and hurting himself. He was glad he’d thought to bring it into the bathroom with him.

  “Hello,” he said loudly to be heard over the shower.

  “This is Detective Jones,” she said. “The undercover agent has been contacted. The organs will be available in a couple hours.”

  “Did they happen to get a location?” he asked.

  “No location has been mentioned yet, but we’ve started a trace on the cell phone.”

  “Great job,” David said. “Keep me posted. I’m going to finish my shower. I’ll call you back after I pick up Croce so you can tell us where to go.”

  They ended the call and he hopped back into the shower to finish rinsing off. He was out again and dressed in record time. He was out of his hotel room and heading downstairs just fifteen minutes after Jones’ call; it was five-fifty.

  ***

  Lloyd was loading the last of his equipment into his car when his laptop—sitting on the hood—started beeping like crazy. He hurriedly shoved at the stuff in the trunk and slammed the lid shut before running around to see what had set off the alarm of his tracking program. He frowned as he read the information rolling up the screen at a tremendous speed.

  “Fuck me!” he exclaimed, and dragged his hands through his hair in frustration.

  The program was one he’d written himself and it was specifically designed to use cell phones and their signals as tracking beacons. One of the special features that his program had that other programs didn’t was that he could also back trace a trace put on any of the numbers/phones he was already watching, although it had never happened before; it was happening today.

  After a couple of deep breaths, and a few swift key strokes, he figured out which number was being traced. He laughed out loud when he realized whose phone it was―Butch’s.

  “Hell yeah!” he yelled, and slammed both his hands down on the hood on either side of the laptop. “The damn contact was an undercover agent. You’re going to get hung by your balls tonight, Butch, babe.”

  Seconds passed while he looked over the information his laptop was acquiring, and while his excitement grew in one way, in another way a cold snake of fear crawled through his system to lie heavily in the bottom of his stomach. The plan to have Butch hang himself was going well, but the authorities were closing in fast.

  He ceased his tapping on the keyboard and pulled out his cell phone to call Roger. He waited anxiously for the other man to answer.

  “Hello?”

  “I want both of you to turn off your cell phones now,” he commanded as soon as he heard Roger’s greeting.

  “Why?” Roger asked.

  “Just fucking do it now,” Lloyd ordered, and then hung up his phone.

  For the next few minutes he watched the screen of his laptop, and he knew the exact moment Butch turned off his cell phone—the feed instantly stopped. But he was already at Jan’s house. He hoped things were going well and the team would be out of the area before the cops arrived.

  Just to be sure things were hurried along, he texted Sonya.

  Lloyd: Move fast, babe. They know where we are.

  “You’re not going to catch us that easily,” Lloyd said, grinning as he sent the message. “We’re smarter than you think we are.”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  In just minutes Jan was lying on the floor, but she was still conscious; the children were all out cold.

  “What’s going on?” Jan murmured, trying to pull herself up by holding onto the counter. “Is there a gas leak or something?”

  “No,” Sonya said, walking over toward her, “you’ve been drugged.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Jan asked, giving up on her attempt to stand; instead she plopped down on her butt to lean back against the cabinets and watched Sonya. “I don’t understand…”

  Sonya looked down at the woman and smiled.

  “When we killed Bill, we found out he had a rare blood type,” she said, and advanced toward Jan. “We’re hoping the kids have the same one—we could make a ‘killing.’” She laughed at her pun while the woman on the floor began to cry.

  “You? You were the one who…you killed Bill?” Jan asked, shocked. “I thought you were my friend.”

  With a sigh, Sonya squatted down beside Jan.

  “You shouldn’t be so sad about the loss of your husband,” she said. “Do you know how we got ahold of him? I picked him up in a bar…he was looking to get laid. He wasn’t the loving husband you thought he was.”

  Jan shook her head, which was more of her rolling it back and forth from shoulder to shoulder in her drugged state than actually shaking it.

  “Please don’t hurt my children,” Jan whimpered.

  “We’re going to kill your children,” Sonya said, prepping the other syringe she’d brought in with her, “and you. You better be worth the bullshit I had to go through too, pretending to be your friend and putting up with your whiny ass crap. God, you were annoying.”

  Attempting to do all she could, Jan tried to slap Sonya’s hands away and prevent her from injecting the drug; she also tried to sit forward and strike out at the woman who’d killed her husband and planned to kill her children.

  Sonya laughed and easily avoided Jan’s vain attempts to defend herself.

  “Pathetic,” she whispered as she stuck the needle into Jan’s leg and injected the drug that would put her to sleep; just as the last of the liquid drained from the syringe, there was a knock on the front door.

  ***

  David had called Croce on his way back to the Pittsburgh FBI office and she was waiting outside in the parking lot when he arrived.

  “Ready to go,” she said with a grin, hopping into the passenger’s seat as soon as he stopped.

  “Let me call Jones and find out where we need to be,” he said, picking up his phone and making the call.

  “The cell we were tracing has been turned off,” Jones informed him when she answered, not even bothering with a greeting or waiting for his question.

  David punched the steering wheel. “Tell me where it was the last time you had a fix on it.”

  Jones rattled off a street address.

  He relayed the address to Croce, because she knew the area.

  “That’s what? A block from the Housen residence?” Croce asked.

  “Is that a block away from the Housen’s house?” David asked, relaying Croce’s question to Jones.

  “Yes, it is, actually,” Jones confirmed.

  “Oh, gawd, I know where they’re going and what they’re going to do. They’re going after the Housen family.” He ended the call, threw down his phone, and sped back out of the parking lot.

  “The cell phone was traced close to the Housen’s home?” Croce asked, bracing herself as David picked up speed. “Do you know where you’re going?”

  “No,” David said, slowing down a little. “Do you want to give me directions or drive?”

  “Driving would probably be faster.”

  David nodded and pulled off to the side of the road; they hopped out and switched places.

  Croce quickly attached a magnetic light to the top of the car, flipped a couple switches David hadn’t noticed before, and took off like Satan himself were after them.

  ***

  “Open the fucking door, Sonya,” Roger muttered, looking up and down the street. He knew with the moving logo on the truck, they’d be relatively safe, but Lloyd’s order to turn off their cell phones was still burning in his brain, making his heart race.

  As if hearing him—even though there was no way she could have—she opened the door a crack, saw it was them, and opened the door wide.

  “There’s one here and the rest are in the kitchen—hurry,” she said. “I’m glad you already backed the truck up to the porch…that will make it so the neighbors see less.”

  “All business this morning?” Butch teased as he passed Sonya and followed Roger into the house.
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br />   She shook her head and stepped outside to keep an eye on the movement in the neighborhood.

  “Body one, coming through,” Roger said moments later, pausing inside the door to wait for Sonya’s okay.

  “There’s someone driving by,” she muttered. “Just another second…okay, go!”

  Roger stepped out, carrying one of the children; Butch followed with another. They laid the small bodies in the back of the truck, pushed them as far forward as they could, turned, and went back in for more.

  In less than ten minutes, all of the unconscious bodies were loaded into the truck.

  “We’ll head straight to the building—you coming?” Roger asked, as he walked up to and opened the driver’s door of the moving truck.

  She nodded from the porch. “I’ll be heading that way in just a couple minutes. I’m going to rinse out the cups and wipe down anything I might have touched this morning.”

  He nodded, knowing she knew what she was doing, but he couldn’t help but warn her that trouble might be on the way. He almost told her it wasn’t worth the effort, since they already had her picture and name, but didn’t. Every precaution could help in the long run and the less evidence left behind was less the feds would have to go on to find them later.

  “Lloyd called and had us turn off our cell phones…” he said. “There might have been someone tracking us—get done as fast as you can and get the hell out of here.”

  She smiled softly at his concern, and nodded. “He sent me a warning text.”

  “Bye, babe,” Butch taunted as he jogged down the steps. He opened the passenger door and climbed in, slamming it behind himself.

  She rolled her eyes. Roger grinned at her and winked before he climbed into the truck, started the engine, and took off.

  Sonya went back into the house to take care of fingerprints and the cups; she planned to lock the house up tight when she left. She hoped no one would know anything had happened for days.