Croce brought the car to a halt behind where he’d indicated.
“What’s the plan?” she asked, unbuckling her seatbelt.
“Go in guns blazing and kill anyone who gives us any trouble,” he said, glancing at Croce. “Any objections? We have to be ready for anything. We don’t know what these people are capable of.”
She nodded, drew her side arm, and prepared to exit the car on his signal.
David nodded, and they jumped out and advanced toward the building cautiously.
***
Butch awoke with a low, deep moan; he tried to sit up and fell back to the floor as his head spun and pain shot from his chest out to his limbs. He lay with his eyes closed and tried to even out his breathing. In the distance he heard a car pull into the parking lot and stop. Nearby he heard something or someone moving around; this worried him more than the car. He didn’t know if Lloyd, Roger, or Sonya were still in the area and he didn’t want to be caught unaware again.
Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to move. He rolled onto his stomach and dragged himself toward the door of the small office they’d used as a holding room, pausing briefly to grab the scalpel Sonya had dropped.
Chapter Fifty
Jan heard a door open and shut, and then she heard labored breathing close-by. She didn’t know where she was or who it might be—the last thing she remembered was Sonya telling her that her children were going to die. That memory stirred a fire in her soul and she used that burning drive to rouse herself even though she was still extremely foggy from the drug that had been injected into her system.
She grunted and tried to push herself up into a sitting position, only to fall flat on her face again—hard. Blood gushed from her nose as the bone and cartilage was crushed against the hard cement floor. She whimpered pathetically and floundered to move to a position where she could at least breathe.
“Quiet, bitch,” a male voice snarled from a couple feet away.
She couldn’t place the voice and knew it wasn’t someone she’d ever met before. Raw fear quickly extinguished the burning determination she’d felt moments before. She was sure he was one of the people who’d kidnapped herself, her children, and probably her brother.
***
Butch tried to think, but his head was throbbing, his chest ached, he was bleeding, and his brain wouldn’t cooperate. He’d fled to the holding room hoping for a respite so he could get a handle on the situation. The woman inside had been moving around when he’d come in and even the slight noises she made would draw the attention of whoever had arrived. His first urge had been to kill the bitch and be done with her, but through the haze of pain he knew that would be a bad idea. He would need a hostage if the people outside were the authorities Lloyd had been ranting about, and the still unconscious pre-teen girl would be harder to manipulate than her conscious mother.
His one sharp command had quieted the woman and that gave him hope that she would be easily controlled.
He sat on the floor, completely still, and let his head fall back against the closed door. His breath came in labored gasps and he closed his eyes, again trying to get control over himself.
He jumped when a loud bang sounded on the other side of the door and he heard voices—a man and a woman talking in short, direct statements.
“Damn,” he breathed almost silently, opening his eyes.
He wasn’t ready for what he knew was coming, but he didn’t have a choice. He had to act and he had to do it as swiftly as possible.
***
“Clear!” Croce exclaimed as she moved through the large, bloody main room of the building; when she’d checked inside the tent made up of plastic sheeting hung from the ceiling, she’d had to block out the sights she’d seen to keep from crying out in horror.
“Let’s check the other rooms,” David said, having cleared the other half of the main area, not finding anyone alive. “I’ve found one body—it looks like it might be the doctor.” He nodded to an old man dressed in surgical attire lying on the floor.
“From the blood I saw in there,” Croce said, nodding toward the plastic sheeting, “he’s not the only dead one.”
David didn’t say anything. He knew they were too late and that the Housen family was probably all dead. Clenching his jaw, he pushed the thoughts of his failure to protect them aside and focused on the task at hand—clearing the building and collecting evidence that would lead him to the people who’d done the killing.
Together, with their guns held out in front of them at the ready, they moved toward the handful of doors that lined the one wall of the building. Across from them was a wall of windows that opened to the parking lot. Beyond the bank of windows they saw another car, one almost hidden behind the building on the opposite side, and that led them to believe there could possibly be another person somewhere in the area. The building itself was small and compact, leaving few hiding places.
The first three rooms were clear—there was nothing in them other than decaying, broken office furniture. That left three more rooms. They’d just started to advance on the next to last one when a muffled thud came from inside the last room. As they closed in on the door, they saw blood droplets on the floor and smears on the doorknob.
McCoy and Croce’s eyes met and they nodded in sync before moving toward the room the noise had come from. With another nod, David stepped forward, turned the blood-slicked knob, and flung the door open.
Croce advanced into the room, sweeping her gun from side to side. She spotted a man crouched in the corner with a nearly unconscious woman blocking most of him from view. She trained her gun on him.
“Let her go,” she said sternly.
In less than a second David was beside her, training his gun on the man as well.
The room was completely silent for a moment before the semi-conscious woman cried out in pain—that’s when they noticed the man was armed with a surgical scalpel, which he’d cut the woman’s ear with to cause her to make the noise.
“If you know what’s good for you, you won’t do that again,” David snapped, training his gun right between the crouching man’s eyes. “Let her go and we’ll talk.”
The hiding man laughed.
“Oh, we’ll be talking all right,” he said, and paused to cough. “We’ll be talking about a lot of things.”
“Let the woman go,” Croce insisted again, hoping the man would do it. She wanted to shoot the man with all of her being—she hated men like him: men who would hurt innocents to get what they wanted.
The man shook his head and sliced the woman he was holding again, causing her to scream loudly as her ear was severed from her body and dark blood ran freely down the side of her face and neck. The pain caused her to become more aware of reality and she started to panic and try to get away.
“Quiet, bitch! Stay still,” the man commanded, shaking the woman violently and pressing the sharp, small blade to her throat. He smirked at the agents in front of him. “First we negotiate. If you give me what I want, I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
***
David almost pulled the trigger on his gun when the bastard sliced the woman’s ear off—he recognized her as the Housen widow, even with blood all over her face.
“Why should I negotiate with you?” he asked the man, forcing himself to loosen the death grip he had on his firearm. “After what you just did to her,” he nodded toward Mrs. Housen, “why should we hesitate to take a shot and end your pathetic life?”
The man in the corner crouched further down, trying to hide more of himself from view so he would be an even smaller target.
“I know who you’re looking for…” the man said, almost sounding smug. “If you kill me you’ll never find them. They’ll change their names and disappear, and you’ll be fucked. If you talk to me and make me a deal, I can help you find them.”
David glanced sideways at Croce and noticed her knuckles were white from gripping her gun so tightly. Her eyes were trained on the man and her e
ntire being was poured into the focus of her aim. He knew that if she decided to fire, she’d end the man’s life.
“Let the woman go and we’ll talk,” David said, focusing on the man and woman in the corner again.
“How do I know you won’t just shoot me?” the man asked.
“Like you said, I’ll need you to lead me to the others,” David said reluctantly. “Let the woman go and we’ll set you up with a deal. You don’t have to talk about anything until we set up what you want, but you have to let the woman go.”
A few tense moments passed in silence.
“If you wait until backup gets here,” David warned, “I can’t guarantee you’ll get a deal. You’ll have to leave here in my custody if you’re even to have a chance at what you want.”
He knew that some of it was a bluff because he was in charge regardless of who cuffed the bastard, but the woman was losing a lot of blood and he didn’t want her to die while they haggled over terms.
“Fine,” the man finally sighed, shoving the woman away from him. She fell forward with a grunt and quickly climbed to her hands and knees and crawled to a young girl they hadn’t seen behind a shelf close to Croce.
David was shocked at the man’s size and his injuries as he sat in the corner, struggling for breath with his hands raised—he was baffled at how such a large man could have hidden behind the small woman he’d been using as a shield.
“Drop your weapon,” Croce snapped.
The man’s eyes darted to her and he smiled coldly as he opened his hand to release the scalpel.
“Put your hands behind your head,” she snapped again.
The man winked at her before he slowly did as he was told.
“I’ll cuff him,” David said, uncomfortable with how the man had reacted to Croce—something about it rubbed him the wrong way and he didn’t want Croce getting anywhere near the man before he was restrained. “Once I have him restrained, you help them.” He motioned to Mrs. Housen and the girl as he put away his gun and pulled out a pair of shiny, steel handcuffs.
He stepped up and cuffed the man to a metal radiator he was sitting beside and began reading him his rights. David heard sirens in the distance, growing closer by the second. He hoped there would be at least one ambulance among the vehicles heading their way.
Croce nodded to David from across the room where she knelt beside the injured woman and her daughter to let him know they were going to be okay.
Help was on the way, and with the assistance of the man now in custody, David felt he might still have the tools he needed to bring the organ harvesters to justice even though he hadn’t been able to save all the members of the Housen family.
Chapter Fifty-One
Lloyd and Roger made it to the arranged meeting place with no issues. Lloyd’s contact was waiting and the exchange went swiftly and smoothly; in less than ten minutes the parts had been taken and the money had been received.
“I guess this is goodbye,” Roger said quietly as they stood beside the van, watching the other vehicle drive away.
Lloyd sighed. “Yup, I guess it is. Did you get the money I wired to your account?”
Roger nodded.
“Here’s the rest,” Lloyd said, bending over slightly to lift one of the four cases of money sitting at their feet.
Roger took it and sighed. “I can’t believe it’s all over. I thought for sure we’d get caught.”
Lloyd frowned. “It’s not over yet. Get as far away from here as you can, as fast as you can. Change your appearance if you can too—I already have appointments for me and Sonya to have plastic surgery. When everything is done, we’ll no longer be recognizable as ourselves.”
“Good idea,” Roger said, and nodded. “Tell Sonya I said bye…”
Lloyd nodded and smiled. “Will do. Have a happy life.”
***
Roger smiled, turned, opened the passenger door of the van, and set the case of money inside. He closed the door, turned, looked at Lloyd for a moment, waved, and walked around the van and climbed into the driver’s side. He started the engine and drove away, not looking back even once.
Lloyd stood in the empty parking lot for a couple of minutes, just breathing and looking around. Things had gone smoother than he’d expected and it made him even more worried. He’d stayed in the game for a long time being cautious and when things went good he became even more paranoid than normal.
Not wanting to stay in one place too long, he finally loaded the remainder of the money into his car’s backseat, climbed into the driver’s seat, and drove away. He didn’t know where to go because Sonya hadn’t given him any indication where she might be dumping her car—he knew it would be somewhere secluded and probably out of town, since she didn’t want to be seen or get caught.
He ended up driving around for almost an hour before he finally received her call.
“Where are you?” he asked as soon as he answered his cell phone.
He listened intently to the directions she gave him.
“I’ll be right there to get you, babe,” he said. “Throw your phone into the fire so it burns up. I already got you a new one.” He glanced down at the pair of brand new prepaid cell phones he had sitting on the passenger seat beside him—one for each of them.
He ended the call, not waiting to hear her response and started the forty mile drive to where she was.
***
Sonya stared into the growing flames that were inside her car—she knew that in just a few minutes the entire thing would be engulfed and black smoke would be rolling into the sky. She tossed in her cell phone—having just been instructed by Lloyd to do so—and slammed the door of the car. She picked up the two small bags that held her belongings, and turned and walked away.
She’d chosen an out of the way place to dump her car, but she knew that there were a few cabins on the other side of the lake where someone could see and report the smoke when it grew to the point of being noticeable. The couple of acres of tall trees on either side of the dirt road would shield the blaze for a little while, but eventually someone would notice and she wanted to be far away before that happened.
She’d scouted out and found the place when they’d first moved their operation to Pittsburgh, which was a norm for her. She always made sure she had an escape route in place if anything should go wrong. A lot had gone wrong this time…Jennings and Butch were dead, and Jan and one of the twin girls were still alive as far as she knew. But the harvest had gone smoothly, and since Lloyd hadn’t said anything went wrong on the phone, she assumed the drop went as planned. Things could have been better, but they could have been worse too.
Right at that moment, as she fast-walked through the woods toward the road she’d told Lloyd to pick her up on, her heart raced as she worried about getting caught by the authorities. She knew they weren’t likely to catch up with them, but she couldn’t help but be concerned that they’d find a way and show up out of nowhere. These thoughts made her paranoid and she kept glancing around herself whenever she thought she heard a noise. At one point she almost fell when she was looking behind her and started to run, only to stumble over a small, fallen tree trunk.
“You need to calm down,” she muttered to herself, trudging onward.
The walk took her a half hour, and by the time she reached the spot she’d selected for pick-up she was soaked with sweat and more worried than ever. She thought for sure Lloyd would be there waiting for her, but he wasn’t.
Every car that went by made her even more paranoid than she already was. She was contemplating stepping back into the woods and hiding when Lloyd finally pulled up.
She ran forward, ripped open the passenger side door, threw her bags in the backseat, and climbed in—she had to pause and dig the phones Lloyd had lying on the seat out from under her before she could close the door.
“Sorry,” she muttered, finally pulling the door closed. “What took you so long?”
Lloyd frowned at her. “You okay?”
&nbs
p; Sonya nodded and then spun in her seat to look through the rear window of the car.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said, spinning back around when she didn’t see anything suspicious.
“No one followed me,” Lloyd said, frowning. “Did you see something on the way here?” He glanced in his rearview mirror before pulling back out on the pretty much abandoned road.
“No,” she sighed, putting on her seatbelt. “I just can’t shake the feeling that everything went too smoothly and something is about to bite us in the ass.”
Lloyd chuckled. “I know what you mean.”
“Did everything go okay at the drop?” she asked, trying to calm her nerves.
“Went great,” Lloyd said, and reached over to caress her knee.
She jumped at his touch.
“You really are wound up, aren’t you?” he asked, frowning.
She nodded.
“Try to calm down—we’ll stick to the plan and everything will be fine,” Lloyd said. “I have our surgeries set up for the day after tomorrow.”
“Good,” Sonya said, finally relaxing back into her seat a little bit.
“Roger said bye, by the way,” Lloyd said.
“I’ll miss him,” she said with a sigh, “but it’s better for all of us this way.”
“Yes, it is.”
“How long until we reach the airstrip?” Sonya asked. “Did your friend confirm that the plane will be there?
“About…twenty minutes,” Lloyd said, and smiled at her. “And, yes, he did. We’ll be free for the rest of our lives, babe, so just calm down and enjoy the ride.”
She smiled. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” he said, and drove them to their getaway, to the beginning of the rest of their lives, leaving all their cares and sins behind.
Epilogue
Nurse Blood (The Organ Harvester Series Book 1) Page 31
