Beckett paused and he stared at the line of blood that seeped from the incision.
‘I never said I was better than you, Winston. But you know who was better than both of us?’
‘Don’t do this, please,’ Winston pleaded, tears in his eyes. ‘I’m begging you.’
‘Little Bentley Thomas, that’s who. He was better than both of us.’
“Looks like that asshole got what he deserved,” Suzan offered.
Beckett shook his head and handed the paper back to Delores.
“I’m going to have to side with Suzan on this one; he most definitely got what he deserved.”
Delores shook her head.
“But imagine what would have happened to him if he went to prison? A child rapist and murderer? That is what he deserved.”
“Welp, happy Monday,” Beckett said as he backed away from the desk. “Have a good one, Delores.”
“You too, Dr. Campbell.”
***
“Well? Are you going to open it?” Suzan asked.
Beckett looked at the large cardboard box on his desk.
“No, not with you here. What if it’s some racy negligée from one of my other lovers?”
Suzan nearly choked on her iced coffee.
“Well, even if I can overlook your use of the disgusting term ‘lovers’, I’d say that no one is willing to put up with your shit. Except for me… but that’s only because I’m too young and naïve to know better.”
Beckett nodded; she had a point.
“What the hell,” he said as he tore the tape off the top of the box. Suzan was pretending not to be interested, but Beckett knew better; she was far too focused on the forensic pathology course outline that she herself had created.
Turning the unboxing into a charade, Beckett started peeling the top back slowly while making exaggerated facial expressions, but when he saw what was inside, his brow furrowed.
“It’s a little early for drinks, even for me,” he said to himself as he stared at a white vinyl cooler.
He pulled it out and then used his elbow to push the cardboard box off to one side.
The cooler was cold to the touch.
Confused, Beckett frowned and unzipped the top.
“What the hell?” he whispered.
The cooler was cold because it was nearly filled to the top with dry ice. But this wasn’t what gave Beckett pause, it was what was lying atop the dry ice that did that: a thick plastic bag adorned with a biohazard symbol. Inside the bag, which was filled with a peach-colored liquid, was something dark red roughly the size of a dinner plate.
“What is it?” Suzan asked, rising from the chair.
Beckett didn’t answer; he was transfixed on the item in the bag. He was so focused on it, in fact, that he barely noticed a yellow piece of paper stuck to the side of the cooler.
He grabbed the bag with both hands and held it up to the light.
“Is that… is that what I think it is?” Suzan asked, trepidation creeping into her voice.
Beckett sloshed the bag around.
“It looks like someone thinks I’ve been drinking a little too much lately — it’s a liver,” he said matter-of-factly. It was then that Beckett noticed a second bag that had been buried beneath the first. He picked this one up, too. “It’s been a while since I took an anatomy class, but I’m pretty sure this is a heart and this is a liver. The real question is, what the fuck are they doing on my desk?”
Chapter 3
“I called the transplant department and they’re not missing any organs,” Suzan said, staring at the heart and liver in their respective biohazard bags.
“Well that’s something you don’t hear every day,” Beckett grumbled. “You sure? I mean, with the new wing opening, maybe…”
Suzan shrugged.
“I called the transplant department, the morgue, even the lab — everyone I could think of. They aren’t missing any organs, Beckett.”
“Well, somebody sure as hell is.”
Suzan leaned in close.
“You sure there’s no requisition form in there?”
“Only this,” Beckett said, grabbing the yellow note off the side of the vinyl cooler. “Home is where the heart is.”
Suzan raised an eyebrow.
“Really? Isn’t that a country song? What the hell is this, Beckett? Some weird game between pathologists? A whodunit for organs?”
That was Beckett’s turn to shrug; he had no clue what this was all about.
“Think you can do me a favor, Suze?” Beckett said as he put the note down and zipped the cooler closed. “Can you take the cooler to the new transplant wing? You know how people are with this shit… all defensive and whatnot. Nobody wants to admit that something as valuable as a heart and liver was misplaced. I bet if you take it in person, they’ll give you some lame excuse, but in the end, they’ll make sure that the heart finds a new home. Get it?”
Suzan didn’t appreciate the joke and looked as if she were about to protest.
“Please, Suze.”
“Fine,” she replied. “But when I’m gone, you have to take a look at the course outline… make sure that everything you want the residents to learn this semester is on there.”
Beckett smiled.
“It’s a deal.”
With that, Suzan picked the cooler up by the handle and left the office.
Only after she was gone and the door was closed behind her, did Beckett look at the note more closely.
There was something about it, something that was off… something that was more off than receiving a random heart and liver in an organ transplant cooler.
Even as Senior Medical Examiner for the state of New York, this was a new one for Beckett.
“Home is where the heart is,” he read out lead. It was written in black ink in all capital letters. He flipped it over, expecting more, but that’s all there was: HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS. Beckett held the paper up to the light and noticed that even though the words were written with a soft marker — a Sharpie, maybe — there were indentations behind those letters, behind the words, as if someone had written on the pad with a pencil before tearing this sheet off.
Chewing the inside of his lip, Beckett went to his desk and scanned the piece of paper. After an image of the note appeared on his computer monitor, he went about enhancing the pencil indentations. He half expected it to be nonsense, a grocery list, perhaps, but anything might help him figure out who had sent the box.
He managed to delete HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS and by messing around with the contrast, words started to appear.
Beckett’s breath suddenly caught in his throat and his heart thumped in his chest.
It wasn’t nonsense, far from it: the indentations made a simple sentence, not that much unlike the message proclaimed in black ink.
And Beckett knew without a doubt that this message was intended for him and that the organs hadn’t accidentally ended up on his desk.
Someone had sent them to him on purpose.
“I know what you are,” Beckett whispered, his eyes locked on the computer screen.
To keep reading, grab your copy of ORGAN DONOR today!
Other Books by Patrick Logan
Detective Damien Drake
Butterfly Kisses (feat. Chase Adams, Dr. Beckett Campbell)
Cause of Death (feat. Chase Adams, Dr. Beckett Campbell)
Download Murder (feat. Chase Adams, Dr. Beckett Campbell)
Skeleton King (feat. Dr. Beckett Campbell)
Human Traffic (feat. Dr. Beckett Campbell)
Drug Lord: Part I
Chase Adams FBI Thrillers
Frozen Stiff
Shadow Suspect
Drawing Dead
Amber Alert
Dr. Beckett Campbell, Medical Examiner
Bitter End
Organ Donor
Injecting Faith (feat. Chase Adams)
Don’t forget to drop by my Facebook group and say hi! https://www.facebook.com/group
s/LogansInsatiableReaders/
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents in this book are either entirely imaginary or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or of places, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © Patrick Logan 2018
Interior design: © Patrick Logan 2018
All rights reserved.
This book, or parts thereof, cannot be reproduced, scanned, or disseminated in any print or electronic form.
Third Edition: July 2018
Bitter End Page 11