Shadows May Fall

by Corcoran, Mell

  The undercover officer got out of the pT Cruiser and walked to the front door with his official looking envelope but before he could ring the bell the front door opened. A small Asian man wearing a proper black Tang suit whipped the door open, scowled then stuck his hand out for the package.

  “This is for Miss Vanessa Sturn.” The undercover officer told the man.

  “I’ll take it.” The little guy’s Australian accent was a sharp contrast to his appearance.

  “I was given strict instructions to deliver this directly to Miss Sturn and I need her signature.” The mock courier informed him. “Sorry dude but you don’t look like your name is Vanessa Sturn.”

  The little man grimaced and pursed his lips. “Wait.” He shouted then slammed the door closed.

  Assuming he was being watched or otherwise monitored, the undercover officer didn’t risk communicating directly, so he got creative and mocked the closed door. “You got it! I’ll wait, Crocodile Dumbass.” Then flipped the door off. Surely no one watching would think someone who was acting so juvenile could be anyone threatening. As they had hoped, less than a minute later he could hear the clapping of high heels approaching from behind the door. “Finally!” He spoke to give the teams listening a heads up. When the door opened again, the undercover officer’s jaw dropped. The woman standing before him was shockingly beautiful. Her perfect five foot, ten inch frame was wrapped in a skin tight shiny leather catsuit and thigh high stiletto boots. Her glossy raven black hair was fastened up on the sides while the rest spilled down her shoulders and back in loose curls. He fixated on her perfect blood red lips and didn’t even realize when she smirked at him.

  “See something you like?” She asked as she leaned seductively in the doorway.

  “Uh...” The undercover officer snapped out of it. “Sorry, ma’am.”

  “Don’t be sorry.” She purred. “A girl likes to be noticed.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He stammered. “Uh, I mean, Miss Vanessa Sturn?” He finally managed to ask.

  “That’s me.” She smirked again. “You got something for me, sugar?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He scrambled for his clipboard. “Can you sign here for me, please?”

  The woman stepped out onto the porch and took the pen from him, stepping a little closer than she needed for dramatic effect. “Anything else I can do for you?” She spoke with more breath than necessary and licked her lips as she looked at him. The woman was a master at seduction even with the little things.

  “Well...” He smiled at her as he handed her the envelope. “If you wouldn’t mind...” The hand-off of the package was the cue. “could you please put your hands behind your back?” He winked at her as the doors of the pT Cruiser flew open and four tactical officers jumped from the vehicle with their guns trained on the woman, issuing orders for her to freeze.

  The flash of rage in Vanessa Sturn’s eyes was instantaneous. As soon as she realized what was going on, she whipped her head back around to the fake courier and hissed at him. “You’ll pay for this.” Her voice decidedly less seductive this time.

  As soon as Lou heard the undercover ask Vanessa to put her hands behind her back she and the others stormed the house from the rear while the other teams made entry from their respective locations. Each had their assignments on where to go, which areas to clear, secure then report. Lou and Dillon broke off from their team and made their way through the kitchen to the alcove that the blueprints indicated would lead to the basement. Their hearts in their throats as to what they would find. When they reached a large steel security door, Dillon wasted no time in kicking it in. Enhanced muscle mass and bone density as a turned Sanguinostri had some serious advantages. Lou signaled for him to take the lead as they proceeded through the hall and headed down the stairs to the basement. What they saw when they reached the bottom was nothing that either of them had expected.

  “Sheriff’s Department, everyone stay right where you are!” Dillon shouted.

  “Hands up!” Lou followed up. “We need back-up in the basement.” She announced over the comms.

  Vanessa Sturn’s basement made Josh Rawlings’ playroom look like a monastery. It defied description. A circle was hollowed out of the ground and acted as a step-down playpen of sorts. Three women and one man froze in mid unknown sexual act while to the far left of the room a person of unidentifiable gender was suspended from the ceiling, completely encased in latex with only one open zipper over the mouth but no opening for their ears, eyes or nose. The person’s arms had been strapped a la straight jacket. Lou doubted highly they knew what was going on, but she supposed that was the point of the whole getup. As if that wasn’t bizarre enough, the far right wall had someone else suspended and sensory deprived, but in an entirely different position. They were hoisted with the assistance of some giant sling or swing. There was also an additional opening to this particular latex suit that left little debate for its purpose. Lou felt her stomach lurch but she managed to keep the bile down, that was until she saw the girl across the room. Lou kept her gun trained on the bodies piled on the cushions in the middle of the floor but turned sharply behind her to retch. Thankfully she hadn’t eaten anything all day, so nothing came up. Regaining her composure immediately, just as half a dozen Special Enforcement officers charged down the stairs, Lou raced across the basement to the girl strapped to the wall across the room. Arms and legs spread apart, the girl was blindfolded and had a ballgag strapped to her mouth. Lou knew what that blindfold and ballgag felt like. Albert von Massenbach had used them on her when he kidnapped her not long ago. That panic came back in a flash the second Lou saw her, eliciting a knee-jerk response. Lou needed to get the girl free, nothing else mattered until then. She unfastened the ballgag and threw it aside before anything else, not paying attention to what was going on in the rest of the room. Lou then tried to reach the hooks that had the girl’s arms hoisted in the air, but she was too short, so she unfastened the ones at the girl’s ankles. The young female was naked save for the ballgag, blindfold, and an overly cinched thick leather corset. The thing was so brutally tight it was cartoonish and Lou would not have been surprised if the girl’s ribs were broken or at the very least severely bruised. The way her legs flopped as soon as Lou unhooked them made her believe the girl was unconscious, at least she hoped that’s all she was. God only knew how long she had been hanging there, nearly lifeless. In a shot of optimism, Lou gently removed the blindfold then felt the girl’s neck for a pulse. Nothing. “Get a medic down here!” She shouted and looked for something to cover the girl with.

  “Let me get her down.” Dillon stepped up behind her, placing a hand on Lou’s shoulder. “I got her.”

  Lou nodded and ran around the room looking for something to cover the girl’s nakedness. She didn’t want to take in the rest of her surroundings, the myriad of torture devices, equipment and apparatuses she was tripping over to find something useable to cover the girl. Finally, she found a fur throw blanket in the playpen, she grabbed it then paused to look at what was happening in the room she had managed to tune out for the last forty seconds. The man from the playpen was being yanked up the stairs, not having been afforded the opportunity to put his pants on. The three girls that Lou had seen in the playpen with the man were sitting on the ground, hands cuffed behind their backs while someone was draping sheets over them for modesty. It looked to Lou like all three were drugged out of their minds. One of the girls was drooling all over herself. On both ends of the room, the suspended individuals were being taken down, very carefully, while a large box that Lou hadn’t noticed before was being opened. Lou looked just in time to see a bloody body fall out.

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” One of the Deputies cried out.

  “We need medics!” The S.W.A.T. Commander yelled. “He’s got a pulse!”

  “He?” Lou yelled at him. From her vantage point the body looked so slight and delicate she assumed it was another girl.

 
“Barely alive, emaciated, severely beaten male.” the Commander told her.

  “Lou!” Dillon’s voice rang out, and she spun around and headed back toward him with the blanket. “She’s barely breathing.” He told her.

  Lou hit the button on her comms “This is Donovan, we need immediate medical assistance! Multiple critical victims with extensive unknown injuries. Requesting at least two medivacs. We need anything you can give us here.”

  “Roger that Detective Donovan.” An unfamiliar voice came through her earpiece. “Sending any and all available medical assistance and transport to your location. Stand by.”

  “I’ve got her.” Pierce, Lou’s recent favorite medic raced up and immediately started tending to the girl. “Do not take that corset off of her!” He ordered Dillon to stop. “For all we know, that’s the only thing keeping her from bleeding out internally. Get to your people in the stables. There are more casualties there.” He gave Lou a stern look that made her heart thump even harder.

  “All suspects are contained, Detective.” The Commander informed her. “They are pulling them together, but you need to get to the stables, right now.”

  “I’ll take care of her, you two go.” Pierce told Lou and Dillon, so they headed upstairs. They raced though the house and out across the grounds, back to the stables where they had split off from the other deputies earlier. A cruiser had been driven up to provide some light until mobile floods could be set up.

  “Get some more lights on in here!” Lou demanded as she caught her breath.

  “Working on it!” Someone replied.

  As they entered the stables, Lou could see several officers moving in and out of the horse stalls. The air was stale and reeked of urine, human refuse and what Lou recognized instantly as the unmistakable odor of decaying human flesh. She wondered how they hadn’t noticed it before when they were setting up to breach the house. One deputy pushed past them and ran around the outside of the building and began to vomit.

  “What the hell?” Dillon asked as they came to the first open stall.

  “These ones have been gone a while.” A deputy standing at the far end of the stall informed them before Lou and Dillon could see what he was talking about. “Watch your step.” He warned them.

  There on floor of the horse stall they could see four bodies lined up side by side in the hay, all in various states of decomposition. In the weak light of the numerous flashlights, it was evident that the bodies had all suffered horribly before they died. Torn flesh, slashes and gashes as well as thick, prominent scarring from head to toe. It explained both the smell and the deputy being ill.

  “Detectives!” Another deputy yelled from another stall at the opposite end of the stable. “We’ve got live one’s on this end!”

  As Dillon and Lou ran through the stable, they caught a glimpse through the doors of the other stalls. Some were empty, but others were not. At the end was where Niko and the helicopter had gotten the heat signatures. The last four stalls. One was empty, and Lou assumed that was where Niko had pulled Mary Sheehan out. In the other three, there were girls shackled and chained, unresponsive and most notably, wearing the same type of nightgown that Hunny Trainer was found wearing. Lou would be willing to bet they were identical, perhaps a different floral pattern, but that would be the only difference.

  “We’ve got a volunteer coming in to airlift a couple of the victims.” Shippley told them as he approached.

  “A volunteer?” Dillon questioned.

  “Yeah.” Shippley looked away as the medics removed one of the girls from the stall on a gurney. “A volunteer search and rescue pilot was in the area and overheard our request for assistance. He’s just about to land in the back yard so be aware.”

  Lou knew immediately that was Max’s pilot that had been waiting in the wings, so to speak. She had never been more grateful for their help than she was right then. “How many can he take?” She asked.

  “Not sure until he lands but you need to come with me to the other stable.” Shippley informed her.

  “More victims?” Lou hoped not.

  “No. You’re going to have to see for yourself.” Shippley scratched his head. “I don’t know what to make of this.”

  Both Dillon and Lou’s hearts shot into their throats, again. Was it what they both feared? Crates of blood? A production set up? Lou couldn’t bring her feet to move for a brief moment. What the hell would she do? Dillon nudged her, and they made their way along the perimeter of the property while the volunteer helicopter touched down on the lawn as close to the house as he could. As lights popped on and washed over the property, Lou could see Pierce and another medic load one of the gurneys on to the helicopter, Pierce running back into the house as soon as the victim was secured and the chopper lifted off. As Lou and Dillon hiked up the dirt path to the other stables, they saw deputies pulling both of the large doors apart and the lights go on. There was some large vehicle inside, and Lou noted the prominent red cross on the back.

  “Shit.” Dillon muttered under his breath.

  “What the hell is this?” Lou asked, but she had already known.

  Inside the second stable building was a parked bloodmobile. At first glance the markings resembled that of a Red Cross mobile blood donation vehicle, it was a fraud. Dillon and Lou walked around the thirty-seven foot recreation type vehicle knowing full well what it meant, but both kept their mouths shut as if some solution would present itself.

  “Deputies made sure no one was inside, but I ordered them to stand down until we can get the Crime Lab over here.” Shippley told them.

  “I’m not getting it.” It was the only thing Lou could manage without saying something stupid that she couldn’t walk back.

  “Me either.” Shippley shrugged. “By the smell of it, I’m pretty sure forensics isn’t gonna get jack off this thing. It looks totally cleared out, if it was ever used.”

  “Nothing inside?” Dillon asked and prayed all at the same time. “They checked the cabinets to make sure no one was hiding inside, but it’s clean as a whistle. No supplies you’d expect to find on something like this. The plates are totally bogus but nicely made, as are the stickers. It’s brand spankin’ new from what I can tell. Tires are barely worn.”

  “So it rolled off a lot somewhere and wound up here?” Lou went with Dillon’s play dumb plan. “What the hell for?”

  “That would be the question of the day, Detective.” Shippley grumbled. “I’ve got a couple of my guys bringing in a bunch of clean suits and shoe covers. We’re closing up the perimeter, and I’m clearing out all non-essential personnel. The Coroner is on the way. I’m gonna send out for a truckload of coffee. It’s gonna be one long night.”

  “You got that right.” Lou agreed. “I’m gonna call and see if Caroline is coming out. She’s gonna need a lot of help if she is.”

  “I’m gonna grab us some energy bars out of the SUV.” Dillon knew Lou was running on fumes before the raid. She needed something to get her a tenth wind.

  “You don’t happen to have a few extras?” Shippley asked him. “I’ll bring the case.” Dillon smirked.

  Lou headed down the path to the property line for some privacy. She felt herself start to hyperventilate as she tried to think of a way to explain the bloodmobile away then started to imagine what the hell Vanessa Sturn was going to blab to one of the other deputies. Were the other girls the ones missing off Amanda Franklin’s list? Who were the other girls and what sort of hell did they have to endure and for how long? Shippley had been right; it was going to be a very long night. They had barely scratched the surface of the place. What had been going on there? Who else was involved in this with Vanessa Sturn? Surely she couldn’t be the head of this snake alone, could she? Was one woman capable of this kind of evil? There had to be at least two heads on this hydra, maybe more.

  As Lou slumped to the ground, leaning against the fence, she had no idea what the hell she was
supposed to do. She took a deep breath, pulled out her phone and dialed.

  The phone barely had a chance to ring before Max answered. “Detective.” He said.

  “I’m in way over my head here.” Lou’s voice sounded so small. “No, you are not.” He reassured her. “First of all breathe and tell me how you are?”

  “I’m trying to breathe!” She said as tears welled in her eyes. “I don’t know how I am! What the shit am I supposed to do here? Do you know what they found in the other stable?”

  “Yes, I know.” Max had been listening to everything through Dillon’s communications feature on his watch.

  “How do I explain this truck?” Lou asked him.

  “You don’t!” Max advised in no uncertain terms. “Listen to me, Tallulah...” He used her full name that would normally instill rage coming from anyone other than her mother or uncle, but somehow from him, it was a comfort. “... You have some of our agents in there with you, and we’ve got more on the way with the Crime Lab, so you have backup other than Dillon.”

  “Yeah, Pierce is here, and you have no idea how good it was to see his face.” Lou exhaled, and some of the panic started to subside. “I can’t keep any of these other investigators from jumping down the rabbit hole this truck just opened up!”

  “Right, but we can control where that hole leads.” Max explained.

  They all had been listening in to the feed from Dillon’s watch and had a pretty good idea of what had transpired. Abby got to work instantly activating every agent they could feasibly get filtered to the scene, and Connor was on the phone with Dillon as Max spoke with Lou. Connor was getting every bit of detail he could on the bloodmobile so they could have a head start on tracking down it’s origins and fudging whatever documentation they could, if necessary. The one thing they all had agreed upon before Lou called in was that there was more than just that one truck roaming out there. It was a perfect cover and a brilliant idea. Unwitting subjects were donating their blood for what they thought was a worthy cause. All the while it was being repackaged and sold on the black market to an entirely different clientele for far different reasons. Whoever had set up the scheme was a genius with some semblance of a conscience. Regardless, they were breaking sacred Sanguinostri laws. This was all assuming the bloodmobile was part of the Black Blood operation. The possibility of it being for anything else was slim to none. Right now they had to come up with a plausible alternative for Lou’s official record.