“No problem. But the next time I see you, you better have a bottle of Scotch in your hand. You owe me.”
“Sure thing,” Beckett said as he left the morgue.
***
As darkness descended on New York City, Beckett found himself back at the halfway house. It was busier today, which bode well for him; easier to get lost in the crowd.
He kept his eyes trained on the door for several hours, and eventually, like yesterday, Grant returned. And once again, he was accompanied by a woman that Beckett didn’t recognize in the dim light.
He waited for them to enter and then stepped out of the car and followed.
Smoking man was there again, perched against the wall, a fresh cigarette dangling from between his lips.
Beckett tilted his head downward as he grabbed the front door and entered the New York City Renewed Life Center.
The first thing that struck him was the smell. Based on the clientele, Beckett half expected the place reek of body odor and urine, but he was pleasantly surprised.
It smelled clean—not hospital clean, but sanitary even though he thought he detected the scent of meatballs being fried somewhere to his left.
The main entrance hall that Beckett found himself in held several rows of metal tables that reminded him of his high school days.
Glancing around to catch his bearings, he noticed that the walls were mostly bare, aside from a cluster of photographs of smiling youths.
Those who made it out… alive, Beckett thought morbidly.
Beckett tucked his gloved hands into the front pocket of his sweatshirt and kept his head low as he passed a group of tattooed teenagers who were discussing last night’s Yankee game.
Looking up only long enough to confirm that neither Grant nor his partner were in this main room, he hurried toward a set of doors that had just swung closed off to the left.
The thick, double doors were marked Longterm Only, whatever that meant, but nobody appeared to care, or even notice, as Beckett walked toward them. They were unlocked, and Beckett opened one of them just wide enough to step through.
Rather than another room, the doors led to a staircase that extended in both directions. Below, Beckett spotted a red door that looked like it might lead to a boiler room of sorts. There was a second door beside the red one—also marked Employees Only—but this one had a thick padlock that would be nearly impossible to break.
Up it is, he thought, as he started to ascend. On the second step, he spotted a colorful pamphlet and bent to pick it up.
On the front was an image of the New York City Renewed Life Center, beneath which was a slogan written in bold type.
Home is where the heart is.
A smile crept onto Beckett’s lips as he hoisted himself up the stairs.
Yes, Grant was definitely guilty. Guilty of murder. And like the others — like Craig Sloan and Donnie DiMarco, Ray Reynolds, Bob Bumacher, Boris Brackovich, and Winston Trent — he was going to pay.
As Beckett took the final stairs that led to another door, this one, like the double doors, marked with the words Longterm Only, he felt his fingers start to tingle with a familiar feeling.
Chapter 45
Longterm Only evidently referred to sleeping quarters, but if it were up to Beckett, he might have dubbed them Jail Cells.
On either side of a long hallway that doubled-back over top of the main room below, were small, cell-like rooms containing just a table and a cot. The doors were made of some sort of Plexiglass, but they were so stained by greasy smudges that looking through them had a sort of funhouse effect.
And this is what they have to look forward to after they’re released from prison, Beckett thought.
He hurried past these rooms, his head still bowed. Most were unoccupied, but the few people he witnessed were either sleeping or engrossed in a game of cards with other shady-looking characters.
Beckett kept his focus trained on the door at the end, the one marked Employees Only. When he reached it, however, he was dismayed to find it locked. But after what had happened with Bob Bumacher, after nearly being strangled to death by the white hulk, he’d come prepared.
Beckett teased a small lock picking device from the leather case. The halfway house was old, as were the locks on the doors. After just a few seconds of playing with the locking device in the old tumbler lock, he heard the pins line up and the mechanism disengage.
He slid the device back into his pocket, looked around once more to confirm that he was alone, and then pulled the door open.
Beckett’s intention had been to quickly and discretely slip inside this room as he had the others, but he stopped short.
It was as if he’d opened the door to some sort of portal.
He was looking into an immaculately kept office that seemed so out of place in the dingy hallway, that he actually peered back to confirm that what he was seeing was real.
The desk facing the door was made of granite or some other precious stone, and on top of it rested a brand-new laptop computer. The desk lamp alone looked like it cost three figures, and that said nothing of the ornate pencil holder beside it.
“Well, this is interesting,” Beckett muttered as he stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
On either wall behind the desk, were two other doors.
Beckett went to the one on the left first. There was a rectangular window embedded in the wooden door and he peered through. The inside was nearly identical to the Longterm quarters in the hallway, only there was no cot. Instead, there was a large table that took up most of the room.
Beckett didn’t need to see the leather straps on each corner to know what that table was for; four men had lost their hearts on that very surface.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” Beckett said up under his breath. “You’ve got a nice set up here, Grant.”
He pulled the handle, only to find the door locked. But instead of trying his hand at picking it, he turned his attention to the other door in the room. Unlike the first, this one had no window — it was a solid hunk of blue metal — which was more intriguing.
But Beckett’s enthusiasm was short-lived; it was securely fastened by a new padlock. After trying unsuccessfully to pop it open with his tool, he gave up and took a step backward, looking for another way in. The hinges were thick and sturdy, but with the right equipment, Beckett thought that he would have no problem removing the entire door.
But he hadn’t come prepared with an entire toolbox; he only had his rudimentary lock picking device and his killing implements.
I could come back…
Beckett immediately vanquished the idea.
Last time he’d decided to ‘come back’ another kid from the halfway house had lost his life.
I’m not leaving here without Grant McEwing’s heart in my hand.
Just as he came to this conclusion, Beckett heard the door behind him start to open.
Chapter 46
“Dr. Campbell?” Grant McEwing gasped. “What are you… what are you doing here?”
Beckett was equally as surprised to see Grant, but recovered quickly. He instinctively reached into his pocket and grabbed the lock picking tool and squeezing it in his palm. He preferred his scalpel, but the new blades were still tucked away in the leather case.
Beckett reached out and grabbed Grant by the collar and pressed the lock-picking tool against the man’s throat before he even knew what was happening.
“Hey!” Grant shouted as the door closed behind him.
“I know what you did,” Beckett hissed in his ear as he backed Grant up against the desk. He was staring directly into Grant’s eyes as he spoke.
“What are you talking talking about?”
Beckett didn’t say anything; he just readjusted his grip on the man’s collar and squeezed tightly. When it became clear that Grant wasn’t going to put up a fight, he released the man, but kept the lock-pick at the ready.
“I’m here… you called me out, and now I’m here. I know what you d
id. I know what you are.”
Beckett expected Grant’s eyes to harden then, to acquire the steely stare of a killer that he’d only been able to identify once he’d committed the act himself.
But it never came.
Beckett grabbed Grant’s collar again, this time pulling him forward until their faces were but inches apart.
“I know what you did,” Beckett accused again.
And then, Grant’s eyes did change, but not in the way that Beckett expected.
Inexplicably, they softened.
“Okay, okay,” Grant said in a quiet voice. Beckett relaxed his grip, but didn’t let go completely. “It’s true. It’s all true.”
His eyes started to water and Beckett leaned away.
This was not how he’d expected the man to react once confronted; after all, the hidden messages made it clear that he wanted Beckett to know who he was.
What he’d done.
But this… this was just confusing.
Or maybe it’s a ruse, Beckett thought as he slowly reached inside his pocket to retrieve the leather case.
“What did they do? What did they do to deserve to die?” Beckett demanded.
Grants eyes suddenly whipped up and focused on Beckett’s.
“Die? What you talking about? I just… I just lied on my forensic pathology application. I didn’t even go to medical school.”
Beckett was so stunned by this response that he took a step backward.
“You what?”
“Yeah, I know it was wrong and probably illegal, but I never went to medical school.”
Beckett’s eyes bulged.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I faked the transcripts, said I went to school in Montréal. Got a friend of my dad’s to write me a recommendation letter.”
Beckett shook his head.
“But… but that room,” he said under his breath, indicating the door with the window just behind Grant.
“This isn’t even my office,” Grant replied quickly.
Beckett’s mind was swimming now.
It had to be Grant.
He was the one who knew Suzan, the one who started residency the day this all began. Grant was at the ribbon-cutting ceremony, he was part of the foundation that funded this place… all things pointed at him as being the one who’d killed those kids.
And the cuts… the cuts on the heart were the same.
“It’s not?” Beckett asked in a strangled tone he didn’t recognize.
Grant shook his head.
“No… it’s my sister’s.”
Chapter 47
"Your… your sister?" Beckett stammered, moving further away from Grant.
"Flo-Ann," Grant said with a nod. "This is her office."
Beckett was reeling now. He remembered seeing her at the ceremony a few days prior and—
An image of Grant entering the halfway house with a woman at his side flashed in his mind.
Was that… was that her? Could it have been her all along?
"Did she… did Flo-Ann go to medical school?" Beckett asked.
Grant nodded.
"But only for two years… I helped her every way I could, and when I couldn’t, dad stepped in. She just wasn’t… cut out for it.”
Beckett was floored.
That explained why the cuts were the same; Grant never had any formal training. What he’d learned in textbooks, he’d taught his sister. It made sense that their cuts would be nearly identical.
And that was also why Grant didn't have the look in his eyes of the other killers—because he wasn't one.
"Are you going to kick me out of the University? Call the cops?" Grant asked.
Beckett had to think about this for a moment, he had to go over everything he’d just said to Grant.
Did I implicate myself?
In the end, it didn’t matter; despite the potential consequences, Beckett was unwilling to break his moral code and hurt this kid, even if it meant saving himself.
“Get out of here,” Beckett hissed, deliberately avoiding the question. “Get out here, now!”
Grant took a moment to react, but when he did, he bolted for the door.
But before he left, Beckett thought of something.
“The keys… do you have the keys to this room?” he asked, pointing to thick blue one to the right.
Grant nodded and pulled a keyring out of his pocket.
“Give it to me,” he instructed.
The frightened man tossed the keys at Beckett and he caught them.
“Now leave!”
Grants, who looked like a deer caught in headlights, sprinted out of the room.
When he was alone again, Beckett made his way over to the thick metal door and started trying the keys one by one. On the fourth or fifth try, the padlock popped open.
After a deep breath, Beckett opened the door.
The first thing that struck him was the smell; the room reeked like meat left out on a hot summer day. The second thing he noticed was the buzz of the flies.
Blinking against the humid air to clear his vision, Beckett finally caught a glimpse of what was behind door number two.
And then he gasped.
Beckett was no stranger to death; and yet, the scene before him took his breath away.
There, at the back of the room covered haphazardly with a blue tarp was the outlines of three bodies. Whoever had covered them had done such a poor job that Beckett could make out a clump of dark brown hair matted with blood poking out of one corner. Holding his breath now, Beckett strode over to the tarp and pulled it back with one sharp yank.
Then he staggered, slipped on some indiscernible slime, and fell on his ass.
There weren’t three bodies beneath, but four.
And he recognized the fourth.
The man's mouth was open, frozen in fear, and his eyes were milked over. It was a snapshot of terror that shocked Beckett to his core.
It was Brent Taylor, the man who had broken into his house, Suzan’s friend who she claimed had hit his head in high school.
The same man that Beckett had pushed away.
It dawned on him then that Suzan might not be involved in any of this after all. If Grant lied about going to med school, and Diego couldn’t remember him, there was likely no connection between the two. And Beckett couldn’t fathom her doing something like this to her friend, especially not after their interaction back at his house.
Flo-Ann must have come across Brent and convinced the simple man to help her, to bring the boxes to his office. And then she had either grown sick of him, or she was worried that he would give her up and had made him her fourth victim.
But if the fourth heart I received was Brent’s, then who brought that one to my office?
Before he could think this over, however, Beckett heard the sound of footsteps approaching from down the hall. These weren’t the sounds of running shoes, either; these were high heels.
Still on his ass, Beckett scooted across the slippery floor, breathing through his mouth to avoid the stench of rotting flesh. And then he did the only thing he could think of in that moment. He curled up next to Brent's ravaged body and pulled the tarp on top of them.
Then Beckett waited.
Chapter 48
The stench was so bad beneath the tarp that Beckett's eyes started to water. He could hear the heels as they clacked on the hard cement ground when the woman entered the room, but then they stopped. Beckett assumed that Flo-Ann had just noticed that her kill room door was open.
As subtly as possible, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the leather case. Then, working blindly, he managed to tease out a pre-loaded syringe. As he adjusted his first and third fingers on the guards—something he was still getting used to without his middle finger—Flo-Ann muttered a curse under her breath.
A second later, he heard the clacks as she approached the blue door.
The pressure in the room suddenly changed and some of the reek o
f death wafted out as the door was pulled wide.
Beckett held his breath and waited as the slow clacks came closer… and closer… and closer…
The movement stopped and after a short pause, he heard the sound of the tarp crinkling as someone seized a corner.
Organ Donor: A Medical Thriller (Dr. Beckett Campbell, Medical Examiner Book 1) Page 15