by Snow, Nicole
Again, she’s right.
It’s time to act normal. Not scar them more with my relief.
She takes the bags from Shane. “Oof, they’re heavy! This is a ton of lemons.”
Shane nods.
Laying a hand on each of their backs, I guide them to the table.
“How much did you spend on these?” Gwen asks, hauling the huge bags to the counter.
“Thirty-one bucks plus tax,” Shane says meekly, plopping down in his usual chair.
“From the money you both made finding golf balls?” Gwen puts her hands on her hips, adorably confused.
Shane nods first. Lauren joins him, bowing her head shyly when Gwen looks at her.
Then it’s my turn. I get her green eyes, conflicted and staring, wondering if I have any clue what this means.
I’m as lost as her. Sitting next to Shane, I finally ask, “Why so many lemons? What in the world were you planning to do?”
“Make lemonade and sell it to the golfers,” Shane says, his voice small, unsure. “If I sold them drinks for a buck or two a glass, that way I’d be making plenty. And if they bought it and told their friends I had the best lemonade ever...maybe it’d all spread by word of mouth. Maybe I’d make so much we wouldn’t have to worry anymore.”
He certainly put thought into this. That makes part of me proud. It also makes me worry what the hell got in his head to make him do it in the first place.
“Son, if you’re worried about our cash running out, we’re good. I told you before we left home, I’ve got plenty. Enough to start over.”
“What makes you think golfers would buy lemonade?” Gwen asks him.
Shane looks up at her, then at me. “Well...I saw this girl in a golf cart sell them cans of pop, so I figured they must get thirsty out there playing golf. Especially with hotter weather coming and all.”
I want to tell him most of those golfers were probably buying beer, not pop, but instead ask him, “What’s got you so interested in making money? I told you, we’re okay financially.”
He cringes slightly and looks at Lauren.
She shrugs, then nods, her eyes saying tell them.
I’ve seen them do that often, communicate without speaking, especially when they were little.
Shane dips his head, staring at the table. “Max told us before we left...he said bad guys hurt Keith, and that’s why they were leaving town. When we left, we figured they were after us, too.”
Shit.
I should’ve known they knew more than I ever let on. They’re growing up too fast and they’ve got damn good instincts.
From the time we left, they’d been angels, agreeable to almost everything. It truly went beyond good behavior. Now I see why.
Even when I told them we were meeting a woman who was going to pretend to be their mother so we could fly overseas, they never questioned it. Just went with the flow.
“Dad, everybody knows the only thing bad guys ever really want is money. So we just figured if we could make a bunch of it, we could pay them off, and they’d leave us alone. Then we could stay here. With Gwen.”
Children’s minds certainly aren’t simple.
They’re complex. Too complicated for their own parents sometimes.
“That’s not a bad plan for making money,” Gwen says softly, “except for one very important thing.” She kneels down between Lauren and Shane. “Leaving, without telling anyone where you’re going, should never be part of any plan. You scared us, guys.”
“I...I’m sorry. I thought I’d be back before anybody noticed, before the pizza arrived.” He lets out a frustrated sigh. “I would’ve been, too, but it took me several trips to carry all the lemons to the counter. I couldn’t find a basket.”
“Tell you what, Shane.” I fold my arms, trying to soften my gaze. “I’ll let you decide like usual what you think should happen.”
“I know, Dad. I know.”
Since early on, whenever they’ve done something bad, I let them decide their punishment. It helps instill responsibility, fairness, self-reflection.
“You think about it while we eat pizza.” Gwen might think that’s a cop-out on my part, but it’s not. I consider not glancing at her, but I can’t help it.
She merely smiles her caring, sexy-as-hell grin, then saunters into the kitchen.
A sense of normalcy finally returns as we eat pizza and drink lemonade. Then, without being asked, the children clear the table and load the dishwasher. Slowly, but surely trying to make up for what happened.
“We’re going to bed now, Dad,” Shane tells me. “Can we talk more about this in the morning?”
I nod, holding open my arms. They each give me a hug goodnight. The love I have for these two fills me so completely, I feel it in my bones.
Nothing in this world will ever snuff out that flame, no matter how bad it gets.
For them, for Gwen, for myself, I’ll be their man, their protector, and their rock.
* * *
My eyes never leave them as they walk over to the counter, giving Gwen a hug for good measure, before they head upstairs. The bags of lemons are still sitting there.
“Can’t believe a damn gas station had so many lemons on hand,” I growl, shaking my head.
“Cocktails, Miller. It’s a little mart connected to a liquor store,” Gwen says. “My guess is, lemons and limes are probably close to the only fruit they stock.”
I nod. “You’re probably right.” Then, because I owe it to her, I say, “Thanks for keeping your wits while mine went to shit. You were real calm, Gingersnap, and we needed it.”
She lets out an exaggerated laugh. “Calm? Is that how you saw me? Because, um, calm was the last thing on my mind. I thought they’d been taken.”
I hate how brutal that word sounds coming out of her mouth.
“Could’ve fooled me,” I whisper. “We got lucky.”
She picks up the lemons and carries a few to the fridge. “Yeah. I was faking it, keeping it together for their sake. And yours. But I guess I get it now...why you were creeping around the house, ready to tackle the pizza guy if he was someone else. It’s like being hunted.”
She isn’t wrong. And until all this ends, until I make it go away, there’s only so much I can do.
It’s bad enough the kids are freaked over the assholes tracking us. This is the first time I’ve heard Gingersnap truly scared, and that makes this primal roar build in my blood like rolling thunder.
I need a distraction.
For some inexplicable reason, I want to ask her if she was faking it in the hot tub back at her ma’s today. Even if I already know the answer.
Nobody comes that sweet for me without meaning it. I never had a woman go off with so many fireworks, pussy hot and slick as cream, whimpering against my tongue when we both came fire.
With everything else so fucked up in my life lately, that little moment counted.
Hell, I don’t even know how to explain it.
Not just sex. Not just pleasure.
Something raw, something real, something totally her.
It was like I had a real partner. Someone I could interface with on a different level than I can with the kids or anybody like Keith.
I haven’t had a woman to make me feel shitty over or feel shit for in over a decade.
Haven’t ever had one who makes me this crazy, wishing I could unravel her even now.
“Were you faking, too?” She opens the cupboard door above the fridge and pulls out a bottle of vodka and a drink shaker. “I saw the worry, but you were focused. In control.”
“I was damn scared,” I admit. No sense in hiding it. “Thought my worst nightmare came true. I don’t even want the kids to sleep alone tonight, but fuck.”
“Rightfully so.” She squeezes the juice from two lemons into the shaker, dumps in a good amount of vodka, then water, sugar, and a handful of ice.
After shaking the metal container, she pours the mixture into two martini glasses.
&nbs
p; “Here you go.” She hands one to me. “We both need this.”
The drink isn’t just refreshing, she’s dead right about needing it.
A swallow of booze could do wonders to take the edge off my still burning nerves. Neither of us speak till we’ve downed our drinks, given over to biting lemon and numbing vodka.
Gwen shakes up another batch after refilling our glasses, looks at me, and says, “Let’s go outside. We need to talk.”
No denying that.
So I walk to the patio door and hold it open for her to step out first.
She sits down on a chair. “This is Minnesota, in the summer, Miller. That means we’ve got about half an hour at best before the mosquitoes drive us back inside. So start talking fast.” She takes a long sip off her martini.
“Where the fuck do I even begin?” I growl, taking half my drink in one swallow.
“How about who’s after you? What do they want? We’ll get to Mother after that.”
I don’t want to tell her. Not because she doesn’t deserve to know, she’s earned the truth several times over.
Honestly, it’s because I’ve never had to describe what I saw in those coolers back at the Mederva shipping center. I never wanted to touch it again unless it was in front of a judge or someone we could trust a hundred percent to make things right.
Right on cue, a little vampire bastard lands on my arm. I smack the mosquito into the stone age before it draws a drop of blood.
“See? Thing about this place is, that pond next to the golf course. It gets to be a breeding ground for them into summer, Miller, and when dusk hits...they’re out in force. That little nibble you just had will be nothing compared to the swarm in twenty minutes or so. Let’s hear it.”
Sighing, I set down my drink, staring into the night. “You remember before, right after we met, when I said the place we worked for was dealing with some real bad merchandise? That’s what Keith and I discovered. That’s why shit hit the fan. They want to shut us up.”
“Details, Miller. What merchandise?”
I turn around, my lip curled, shaking my head. “Believe me, babe, you don’t want the details. Not if you want to keep from puking up your drink.”
“Probably not, but it’s kinda important so...don’t mince words. Just tell me, Miller. Please.”
My eyes go to the dusky sky again, the night creeping in. There’s this blanket of darkness that suddenly feels downright suffocating.
Taking a deep breath, my balls crawl upward as I try to find the words. “It was body parts.”
“Body parts? What kind of parts do you mean?”
“Human, Gwen.”
“Well, yeah, I figured that much. That’s terrible, but...what were they? You mean organs? Hearts. Lungs. Kidneys? The kind you’d store for transplants?”
“Transplants. Research. You fucking name it.” My throat swells shut with rage before I form a fist, regaining control. “Every part there is.”
“Every part? That’s not even possible, I think. I’m no doctor but–”
“It fucking is. They were selling parts of children, Gwen. I saw toddlers dismembered with my own eyes, and not ones who’d died from natural causes.”
Gwen slaps a hand over her mouth and doubles over the second I turn.
Keith confirmed the worst from the records.
Somehow, they’d murdered these kids and put them on ice, then flown them in for every sick fucking prick who wanted to get their hands on the remains.
The real vampires out here aren’t the damn mosquitoes.
They’re the demons among us who bend the knee to the almighty dollar, sacrificing these poor kids to the highest bidder. Whatever shark-infested bio-research firm wants to pay good money and turn a blind eye to where they source their specimens.
Even now, it gets me madder than a warhead.
I have to dig my fists into my sides, physically fighting the urge to pick up my chair and hurl it into the night.
A second later, I’m at her side, grabbing her arm, knowing full well the horror, the revulsion erupting inside her.
The flashes of what I saw are still in my mind, and I hope that by talking about it, I can keep them from overwhelming me. “I saw them myself. Little coffins stuffed with ice. Some kids whole, and some in pieces.”
“Oh, my God, Miller. Oh my God!”
I want to rip her up into my arms. But I know if I move her too fast, she truly might get sick.
“They’re being sent all over the map. Some for private buyers here at home, willing to do anything to get organs for their own kids. Mostly, though, they’re being sold to a company helping supply research facilities with specimens for experimental treatments. Drugs. Any old thing involving young, healthy tissue.”
“God!” she whispers again, pressing a hand to her forehead. “I...I heard something about that in the news a while ago. The black market organ trade, but Jesus, kids?”
“It’s true,” I growl. “And it gets worse.”
“Worse? How?”
There’s no simple way to summarize all the shit we found, and why we couldn’t go straight to the Feds. So I run a hand through my hair, trying to break it down.
“Ultimately,” I say, trying to find a way to explain a cluster of a situation. “A lot of these places get government grants. They’re Frankenstein public-private entities, with plenty of bigshots who lost their moral compasses a long time ago leeching the benefits. Whenever a new drug gets perfected and sold, the kickbacks to the insiders tally in the billions. Lucrative as hell for anyone in the know – especially the ones helping fund it.”
She frowns, but I see the wheels turning in her head. “You’re saying...it’s the government behind it?”
I nod. “Parts of it, at least. Specific senators and Congress-shits and insiders with fancy titles behind their names. Assholes who help it along, reap the rewards, and then hush it up.”
“But haven’t there been crackdowns? Investigations? I swear I saw a documentary about this once and–”
“Babe, no. There’re too many soulless players getting rich. There’s never been a widescale, national sweep of the organ trade, and plenty of loose oversights at these facilities. Anybody who’d want to stop this shit in its tracks doesn’t even know it’s going down.”
Her eyes go wide, and I hate it. Absolutely loathe her look as the full horror sets in.
She rubs her arms with both hands crossed, chilled to the bone, like it’s thirty degrees out here instead of seventy.
“This has to be totally illegal. I don’t get why no one slips up, how these...shipments even get anywhere without people noticing.”
It guts me, but I nod. “Mederva Therapeutics is enormous. They supply millions of legitimate medical devices every year. These shipments are mixed into everything else, the normal distribution pipeline, hidden inside the company budgets. Keith and I sifted through the data and traced their suppliers to foreign sources, mostly. But nothing ever gets done to stop it if that info can’t make it to the right people.”
“That’s why you need to get it out of the country, then?”
I nod. “Yeah. This is bigger than just Mederva, probably crosses national lines. Once I’m in a different country, somewhere safe, we can do a controlled burn. Get what we know out there some way it’ll find the right journalists, and the right folks inside the Federal agencies who still aren’t corrupted.”
The plan sounds ridiculous even to me. Impossible. The severity of this thing hits me all over again.
I don’t know if we can even pull it off.
Still, we have to try.
“Holy hell,” she whispers, rubbing her eyes. “It’s so wrong. On so many levels.”
“Yeah.”
“I knew it was bad, worse than I ever imagined when I saw your face after Shane went missing. Whatever you brought here, whatever you were running from, had to be true evil.”
“Now you know. Hope you also see why I couldn’t just walk away, why I’m
paying a terrible fucking price.”
Her gaze ignites with compassion as she looks at me. “You invested everything you have trying to stop this. That’s–”
“Heroic? I’m no hero, Gwen. Don’t even say it. Not unless I can end this while keeping my family safe.” I pause, looking at her as she shakes her head. “And you.”
She’s quiet for a long while before asking, “Does Mother know about this? All of it?” She swallows. “The body parts?”
I shake my head. “She’s good, and so’s the guy she hired to look into me. Knows plenty from her snooping, but she hasn’t filled in the deepest details. No one knows what I just told you except for me and Keith, and of course the bastards at Mederva running the show.”
“The people after you...wanting to make sure you don’t leak their secrets.”
Again, I have to swallow hard while I nod. Damn.
She doesn’t have a clue how many are involved. Far too many now.
It started out with just Keith and I, and it should’ve stayed that way.
Now it’s our families, her, May and her people...
“So what’s the plan?” Gwen asks. “You said the airports aren’t safe.”
“They aren’t. Not anymore.” I fully believe Keith’s warning.
What I’m having a harder time with is J.T. The guy is good, don’t get me wrong – within hours he’d uncovered more than enough to convince me he knows his stuff – however, I’m not sold on his suggestions.
The kids staying with May, for one. I have a feeling she’s behind that more than anyone else. Well-intentioned, maybe, but after tonight, I don’t trust anyone with their lives.
Being separated from them is too dangerous. I need to know where they’re at all the time to keep them safe.
“So do you know if you’ve been followed?” she asks. “If someone really could come here and just take Shane and Lauren or...”
Me. That’s what she wants to say. And the slightest possibility anyone could makes me see blood.
Fuck. I’m not sure of anything anymore.
I’ve reached a place I’ve never been and never expected to be.
I’d spent the evening online before Shane gave us a scare, researching anyone who may have any connections to this, and anyone who could be safe to contact. J.T. gave me tips on beefing up my encryption on this machine so even the toughest hackers can’t break through and find us.
