by John A. Daly
Sean’s eyes detached from the door and immediately spotted a pair of red curtains hanging along the opposite wall. They were moving with a draft from outside.
He quickly sidestepped the edge of the small, empty bed and yanked the curtains open. His eyes widened at the sight of a broad pane of glass instead of more wooden boards. At the moment, a wide view outside of heavy, swirling snow was no less appealing than that of a sunny beach in Acapulco.
He was higher off the ground than he had expected: about a nine-foot drop, he guessed. Below was what looked like an alley with a smaller building sitting on the other side of it, behind a short fence. He knew he could take the drop down to the ground. He slid the gun into the back of his pants and reached for the lower sash of the window where he found a metal latch.
When he unsnapped it, he cringed at the louder than expected noise. Almost instantly, he caught movement in the corner of his eye—a reflection in the window of something behind him. He gasped and reached for his gun, dropping to a knee as he spun around.
He took aim at the back corner of the room where a floor lamp glowed at a dim setting. In that illumination was a vision so surreal that his arms trembled in horror that he had nearly pulled the trigger.
It was a child; a totally bald child who appeared no older than six.
At first, Sean believed he’d seen a boy. When he saw the pink fleece pajamas hanging from her shoulders, however, he realized the child was a girl.
A white crocheted blanket was wrapped around her petite body. Her skin was just dark enough to make him suspect she was Hispanic. Her eyes were closed and she appeared to be asleep as she sat curled up on what looked like a rocking chair. His eyes traced the outline of her delicate features and then her body. That’s when he saw something large wedged in between her and the chair.
It was of a flannel material and Sean followed it up to the shoulders of a figure behind the girl. Air spewed from Sean’s mouth and his arms tightened, the gun still pointed at the hidden face belonging to the shoulders.
“Wait!” a man’s weak voice wheezed out.
His hand jetted out from beside the girl, palm up in a plea for calmness. A large, opened children’s book fell from beside the girl to the floor.
Sean’s heart pounded mercilessly in his chest. He couldn’t wrap his head around what he was seeing until his eyes finally identified the full contour of the man in the near dark. He was sitting in the rocking chair with the girl curled on his lap, still fast asleep.
“Don’t shoot,” his voice came again.
“Stop talking!” Sean ordered curtly, doing his best to subdue his own voice. He pointed the gun at the man’s head.
The man abided, remaining perfectly still.
“Let me see your other hand,” Sean instructed.
The man whispered in reply. “I can barely move it, Sean.”
Sean’s gut clenched when he heard his own name spoken.
“You’re Sean, aren’t you?” the man muttered.
“Quiet,” warned Sean. “Slowly, lift your right hand up and turn that lamp on brighter. I want to see you.”
The man’s hand slowly rose to under the lampshade beside him. Sean noticed a wince tighten across the man’s face, as if the motion caused him pain.
The bulb quickly went black for a moment before sparking back on brightly. The man’s face lit up.
Below a matted mane of dishwater-blond hair was the pasty rendition of someone Sean had first seen in the photograph only days earlier, when it was displayed on the computer screen in front of Jessica as she wept.
Andrew Carson.
Sean was speechless. His legs trembled and his chest tightened. How could what he was seeing be real? The scene felt like an abstract image from a dream.
“Take it easy, Sean,” Carson said softly. “I know what must be running through your mind right now.”
Sean’s left eye twitched. His mouth was dry. “You have no Goddamned idea what’s going through my mind right now.”
Carson swallowed but said nothing. His eyes looked dreary, as if he had just awoken, and his complexion was pale. He seemed thinner than in his picture, but it was unmistakably him. He finally spoke as his gaze slowly lowered to the gun. “Can you put that away? You’re pointing it right at this little girl.”
“No, I’m not,” Sean said, keeping his gun drawn. “I’m pointing it at you. What in the hell are you doing here, Carson? Are you a prisoner?”
Carson’s gaze fell to the floor. He glanced at the book lying wide open before him. A Fish Out of Water, it was titled. When he lifted his gaze back to Sean, he looked as though he’d decided to disregard an impulsive notion to offer a dishonest answer.
“Not exactly,” he stated, seemingly out of breath.
Sean’s face twisted in confusion and then into anger. Before he could respond, Carson spoke again.
“It’s a very complicated story, Sean—one that you’re owed. I understand that you’ve been trying to help. Jessica told me.”
“What is this?” Sean hissed. “Some sick hoax? Did you fake your own death? Was that even your blood in your driveway?”
Carson scowled. “It sure as hell wasn’t a hoax, Sean. That blood was mine.”
“Half the state’s looking for you,” said Sean. “That includes your daughter. She’s about ready to write your obituary. If you’re not being held against your will, why haven’t you reached out to her or the police?”
Carson’s eyes closed and his face shriveled into what looked to Sean to be genuine heartache. His eyes welled up with moisture.
“I k-know,” he stuttered out. “I’ll return to Katelyn—my little girl—soon, but what’s happening right now is more important. I’m a part of something here. There’s a lot that you don’t know about.”
“Then why don’t you tell me what I don’t know about?”
The girl sitting on Carson’s lap stirred for a moment. She nestled the side of her bronze head against his arm. Both men said nothing until she stopped moving. Her eyes remained shut above the gentle features of her face.
“Who’s the girl?” Sean asked.
“Can you put down the gun first?”
“No. Who’s the girl?”
Carson took a deep breath. “She’s an angel, Sean. A victim of an unfair world, and these people are trying to make things right for her.”
Sean shook his head in irritation at the cryptic statement. “By doing what? Snatching people from their homes?”
Carson shook his head. “They didn’t kidnap me, Sean. They saved my life.”
“What are you talking about?”
“There was a man. A very bad, dangerous man who attacked me at my house. He plunged a knife into my gut and stared into my eyes as I suffered and struggled to breathe—all because he wanted to elude the police by stealing my car.” There was clear bitterness in Carson’s eyes as he told the story. “He would have killed me if it wasn’t for them. They brought me here and stabilized me. They kept me alive so I’ll be able to see my daughter again.”
“Who are they? And why didn’t they jus
t take you to a hospital?”
“They couldn’t! I had seen their faces!” Carson blurted out in frustration, his voice raised.
“Keep your voice down!” Sean threatened.
Carson controlled his breathing and let out a muffled cough before he continued. “They couldn’t because they needed the man. The one who stabbed me. They had been following him for some time. He’s important to them.”
“Why?”
“He’s got something in his blood, something that most people don’t have. Something that can save this little girl’s life.”
The cylinders in Sean’s head began to fire up. His eyes drifted to the wall and his mouth gaped open as he silently lipped some of the thoughts that were rushing through his mind. He turned his attention back to Carson. “There’s a man strapped to a bed somewhere in this building. Is that him? The one who stabbed you?”
Carson nodded. “He’s not in this building, but he’s close by.”
Sean recalled seeing the smaller building on the other side of the alley when he looked out the window—likely where the man was being held. “They’re drawing blood plasma from him. Plasma isn’t rare at all. Everyone has it!”
“Not the kind he has,” Carson answered quickly. “Very few have the kind he has. One in a million, they said.”
“How do they know?” asked Sean. “How do they know this guy’s got bionic plasma or whatever it is?”
Carson hesitated for a moment before answering. “At Jessica’s work, they do tests when someone becomes a donor. They draw blood, and run tests, and they look for certain things.”
Sean understood exactly to what Carson was referring. He’d been through the same process himself. “He was a donor? At GSL?”
“Almost. He came in one night, several months ago. I think it was back in the summer. He was turned away because drugs showed up in his system. However, he also tested positive for what Jessica and the others had been looking for. Some antibody.”
Sean listened on.
“They approached him—privately. They told him about Anna, and they asked him to help. All he’d have to do is stay clean for a few weeks while they put him through a series of injections. The injections were supposed to enrich his platelets; I think that’s the term they used. Then they’d draw out his plasma the same way they did at Jessica’s work. He told them to go fuck themselves.”
“Why?” Sean asked.
“He thought they were nuts. Accused them of being part of some cult. He called them vampires. When they showed him a picture of her, and he saw that she was Hispanic, he got angry. Told them there was no way in hell.”
“Why would he care if she’s Hispanic?”
“He’s got a swastika tattoo on his arm. You figure it out. Even after they offered to pay him every last cent they had, he laughed them off. He lost his job at a casino and moved out of Lakeland soon after.”
“He’s Norman Booth, isn’t he?” Sean broke in. “The police’s prime suspect in your disappearance.” He hadn’t needed to ask the question. He knew the answer was yes. It explained why the man in the freezer became so alarmed when Sean brought up Booth’s name. Until that moment, the captor had no way of knowing that the police even had Booth on their radar. It wasn’t until Sean suggested that Booth was an active participant in Carson’s disappearance that the man relaxed, realizing that Booth was viewed by the police as a suspect and not as another kidnap victim. “So Booth’s the real prisoner. They’ve got him doped up and tied down, and they’re sucking him dry. I saw the full containers in a fridge down the hallway.”
“And they need more time to finish doing it,” said Carson with coldness in his eyes. “They’re out of other options. Give them that time.”
Sean stared a hole through him, judging him with a black look that made him swallow and look away. “Time to do what? Kill him? When donors give plasma, they do it twice a week, for safety reasons. They’re pulling at least four containers out of him per day.”
“They tell me he’ll live,” said Carson as if the line had been rehearsed in his head.
“Oh yeah? That’s what they tell you? Carson, I don’t know what kind of sick bond you’ve formed with these assholes, but I don’t owe them a damn thing. I saw Booth’s rap sheet. I saw the blood he took from you. I know he’s the bad, bad man, but no one can do what these people are doing to him. It’s wrong.”
“You’re wrong!” Carson snapped back, wincing afterwards from the obvious pain the sudden movement caused to his body. “Booth had a choice to make something with his life and he chose a life of drugs, crime, and violence. The prick’s a skinhead, for Christ’s sake! This little girl was never given the choices he was. Don’t take the rest of her life away from her.”
“Keep your voice down, Carson!” Sean glared at him until he calmed. “This girl should be in a hospital if she needs help, not in some condemned building. Tell me you understand that.”
Carson exhaled and his shoulders deflated. The girl’s body drooped into his chest as he did. He looked down at her head. “There’s nothing more that the hospitals are going to do for her, Sean,” he said. “Rules, regulations, liabilities; they’ve handcuffed too many doctors. There are risks they can’t take. They can’t do what needs to be done, but I bet if it was their own daughter whose life was on the line, they’d figure out a way. That’s all this family is guilty of: figuring out another way.”
“Family?” Sean asked.
Carson glared at him. “Yes, Sean. Family. Why don’t you try looking them in their eyes and telling them that what they’re doing is wrong?”
Sean’s eyes narrowed.
“He’s in here!” Carson abruptly shouted out, his voice straining from the volume. “In Anna’s room!”
Eyes bulging, Sean lunged forward and placed his hand over Carson’s mouth. The girl on his lap stirred again, starting to wake. Adrenaline pumped through Sean’s body in rhythm with his racing heart as he frantically slid around to the side of Carson’s chair, knocking the lamp to the floor as he did. It crashed loudly and its bulb exploded. The room went dark.
“You stupid son of a bitch,” Sean growled.
With Carson’s chair positioned between him and the door, he went down to a knee and kept his hand pressed tightly to Carson’s face. Carson was too frail to put up much of a fight. Thunderous footsteps from down the hallway sprinted toward the room. Sean aimed his gun toward the door as the wind outside howled wickedly.
“Andy?” the little girl asked from the dark in a dainty, confused voice. “What’s happening?”
Sean felt Carson’s teeth sink into the flesh of his fingers. He absorbed the pain and kept his gun on the door, waiting for the quickly approaching moment when it would spring open.
Chapter 27
Lumbergh made his way across the off-ramp leaving the highway. He could barely see ten feet in front of him as he slowed down to about fifteen miles per hour. The mesmerizing, dizzying snow lit up by his headlights came down in sheets. Driving any faster would have surely sent the cruiser skidding off the shoulder and into a ditch. He carefully straightened out the wheel once he pulled onto a much narrower road, proceeding slowly and cautiously.
He switched back and forth between his high and low beams, hoping one setting would give him an advantage. Neither did. He was dealing with a virtual whiteout.
In the backseat, Martinez whistled a long, meandering tune that Lumbergh didn’t recognize. The intern seemed to be enjoying himself, eager to witness what he had come to see.
A single set of tire tracks was the only blemish on the snow-covered road. Someone had come through not much earlier, likely driving a truck or a van, based on the width of the tracks. The driver looked to have been in hurry with some of the wide, reckless corners it had taken.
“How much farther?” asked Lumbergh.
“Not much, Chief. Maybe another mile or two.”
The incline of the road grew progressively steeper and the cruiser’s tires began to struggle to find traction. They spun helplessly a couple of times, but some shifting of gears and some second attempts kept the cruiser moving in the right direction. The painfully slow pace Lumbergh was forced to travel frustrated him, but not half as much as the increasing volume of Martinez’s whistling.
Martinez abruptly stopped and began stomping his feet on the floorboard like an excited child on a school bus. “What are you going to do to them, Chief? Come on! Tell me!”
Lumbergh said nothing, trying to ignore the growing sense of sickness in his gut.
Martinez snickered. “Mi madre. She would be so pleased right now. The two of us working together. Me learning from the best. Once we get there, Chief, I’ll stay behind you. I won’t get in your way. I’ll just watch and learn. Right?”
Lumbergh forced himself to nod.
Chapter 28
“What is it? What’s wrong?” a woman’s panicked voice darted out from the corridor a half-second before the door flew open and the flip of a light switch chased away the darkness.
