by West, Shay
“Don’t know. But when they do, I’ll ask about getting something to eat.”
“Are we going to tell them the truth?” Keena asked.
Tani slouched back in the chair, wishing his hands were free, so he could run them through his hair. For some reason, that always helped him think more clearly.
“I suppose we have to if we’re going to stop the Harvesters from killing more of them.”
“What if they won’t believe us?”
Tani met her eyes, wishing he could take her hand and squeeze it. “We’ll make them believe.”
***
Eli waited impatiently for Ava to return. He wanted to burst into the room and demand the pair tell him everything, that he would believe whatever they said. For the first time since taking on this bizarre case, Eli thought he and Ava might finally be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. If these two could tell them about the killings, he could close the book on this case and hopefully move on to one a little more normal.
Ava sauntered up holding a folder. She handed it to Eli without a word. He skimmed the pages and sighed in disgust.
“Satrick’s fine?”
“According to the experts he’s not delusional at all.”
“Wonder if they would change their tune of they could hear these two talk.”
“Did you see the last bit?” she asked pointing to the folder.
“Yeah, bastard passed a polygraph.”
“Passed a polygraph and admitted to killing twelve people.”
“At least he’ll be standing trial. I was afraid he’d avoid punishment by using an insanity plea.”
“If he’s sane, then so are these two. Wonder how many people they killed?” Ava asked, staring at them through the one-way glass.
“I have Charlie working on matching them with any footage we’ve got. Hopefully he’ll have an answer for us sometime in the next few days.”
“In the meantime, let’s get to work on these two.”
Eli opened the door to the interrogation room. Tani and Keena sat upright and stared at the table. Eli had seen frightened people plenty of times in his life and these two were definitely afraid.
Afraid of us or someone else?
“Have you two decided to talk to us?” Eli asked.
Eli didn’t miss the look Tani and Keena shared.
“Speaking to you goes against everything we’ve been taught. We’ve risked much to come here,” Tani said.
He wanted to push the young man into saying more, but Eli knew the best course of action was to remain silent and let him speak in his own time. Patience was not his strong suit, but rather than blow this chance, Eli forced himself to stand still.
“If we tell you what we know, will you guarantee our safety?”
“I can guarantee you won’t be hurt, but you must understand we can’t simply let you go. People have been killed and that means someone must be punished,” Eli said.
“Is Satrick going to be punished?”
“He is being held by the Feds and will go to trial eventually.”
“What is a feds?”
Eli blinked slowly. “The federal government.”
Tani shrugged. “They are another type of Enforcer, yes?”
“I suppose you could say that.”
“Your world is very strange.”
Eli’s heart raced and his palms began to sweat. He cleared his throat. “What do you mean ‘our world?’ ”
Tani frowned. “I thought you knew.” He pointed to him and Keena. “We’re not from this place.”
CHAPTER 24
ELI WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN more stunned if the man sitting in front of him had sprouted two heads. Tani had said it so matter-of-factly, as though this was something Eli should have known. How could we know?
Ava didn’t say a word, just sat and stared at the young couple. Eli was a good reader of body language, and it was clear that these two were close, closer than friends. I suppose killing brings people together.
“Will you explain what you mean by not being from here? You mean, not from the US?”
Again, the young man looked confused. “I mean not from your world. We come from somewhere far from here.”
“How far?”
Tani shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Eli held up his hands. “Wait, if you are not from here, then how can you speak the same language?”
“Again, I do not know. The priests never could explain how this was possible.”
“Priests?”
“Yes, the ones at the monastery.”
Eli waited for the young man to elaborate. When no more was forthcoming, he breathed deeply before speaking. “What monastery?”
“The one where the priests live.”
Ava reached out and grabbed his arm, knowing he was about to lose his temper. “Perhaps you should just tell us who you are, where you come from, and why you are killing people.”
Tani looked nervous as though aware of Eli’s growing anger and impatience. “There’s a lot to tell.”
“It’s okay, we have plenty of time,” she said.
Eli sat back with his notebook and pen at the ready. He didn’t want to miss a single detail of the interview. Though the proceedings would be recorded, he always liked to take notes himself. It helped him think of new questions to ask, spot holes in the testimony.
“Keena and I were chosen to be Harvesters—”
“What the heck is a harvester?” Eli asked. Ava shot him a glare. “Sorry for interrupting. Please, continue.”
“Harvesters are the name of the people who come here to take the organs.” Tani paused. When he noticed Eli wasn’t going to say anything, he continued.
“You must understand, being a Harvester is a duty of great importance. It means a place of high standing for us and our families, more money than we could spend in a lifetime, huge manor houses, prestige...” He shared a sad look with Keena.
Eli could read that look. It was full of regret. Before he knew it, his anger built to high levels.
“Let me get this straight. You came to our world, killed people, took their organs, and for what? A nice house and some cash?”
Tani couldn’t meet his eyes. “It’s complicated. Please, try to understand. The priests have a lot of power, almost as much as the King. In some cases more than the King. This was one of those times. To defy the monastery carries the same punishment as high treason. We are the first, to our recollection, to have ever done so.”
Try as he might, Eli couldn’t summon even the tiniest bit of sympathy for these two. All he could see was the faces of the victims, hear the cries of their family members when they realized their loved ones were never coming home.
Someone knocked on the door. Captain Platt peeked into the room and motioned him and Ava out into the hallway.
Curious, Eli followed him around the corner, so they could watch the suspects through the one-way glass. His captain rarely interrupted an interrogation.
“What the hell do you two think you’re doing?”
Eli was taken aback by the anger in Platt’s voice. “Interrogating the suspects.”
“Sounds like you’re listening to a fairy tale.” Platt gestured to the window. “You’re not actually buying this bullshit are you?”
“What they are saying sounds crazy, I know, but—”
“No buts about it. They are completely off their rockers and I won’t have you wasting any more of the department’s time. Is there any evidence linking these two to any of the murders?”
“Charlie’s working on it.”
“Tell him to work faster. Either get a confession out of those two, or I’ll call Agent Dagget to come and pick them up. Maybe the Feds will have better luck.”
Eli stared at his captain’s back as he walked away.
“We can’t let them go,” Ava said.
“We won’t have any choice. Unless Charlie can find direct evidence, we won’t have enough to hold them.”
“Then w
e’ve got to get them to confess, give us specific details about the people they killed.”
“Part of me wants to hand them over to the Feds for a psych eval. Maybe if they see there are three of them, they’ll look harder to find out what’s wrong.”
“I’m not convinced there is something mentally wrong with them.”
Eli raised his eyebrows. “You actually believe them?”
“You don’t?” she countered.
“I think they believe it.” He watched the pair through the one-way glass.
“I may not have known you very long, but I think I know you well enough to know that you do believe them, at least a little.” She moved to block his view. “Your gut is telling you that there is something off about this case, has been from the beginning, and that these two have the answers. You’re just afraid because they aren’t conventional answers.”
“You saying you’re not afraid?”
“Of course I am. But that won’t stop me from going after the truth, even if it means thinking outside the box.”
Eli laughed. “We’re not talking outside the box here. Hell, we’re talking so far outside the damn box it’s not even funny.”
“If we turn them over to the Feds, we’ll never find out the truth.”
“We have our orders.”
“Surely we can question them a little more before we hand them over.”
Eli hesitated. He’d never gone against his captain’s orders before and he didn’t plan to start now. He had an impeccable record and he intended to keep it that way.
And yet every instinct he possessed told him there was more to this case than a bunch of mental patients running loose, stealing internal organs from unsuspecting victims. If there was even a slight chance that Tani and Keena were telling the truth about being from another world, Eli had to hear them out.
He grabbed Ava by the arm and led her back to the interrogation room. He positioned his chair so that he was nearly nose-to-nose with Tani.
“Listen and listen carefully. My boss doesn’t believe you are from another world; he thinks you have a disease.” He tapped his head, hoping Tani got the idea. “You have to tell us what we need to know, and quickly, or else we have orders to hand you over to the same people that have Satrick. If you confess everything to us, we can help you.”
“Tani, we have to tell them everything! Perhaps they can find a way to shut down the gateways,” Keena urged.
“Gateways?” Eli asked weakly.
“The priests on my world possess a machine that opens a doorway to this world. They are convinced it was sent by the gods for us to use for this very purpose: to Harvest organs to keep our own people alive.”
“Where are these doorways?” Ava asked.
“All over the place. However, the gateway stones allow us to travel back from anywhere.”
“So all we need are these stones to shut down the gateways?” Eli asked.
Tani shook his head. “It’s not that simple. Shutting down one gateway still leaves many more open all over the surface of your world. I don’t even know if it’s possible to use the stones to close a gateway. We’ve only ever used them to travel back home.”
That explains how they were able to travel between two places on opposite ends of the globe so quickly!
Eli stood and paced the room. His mind was whirling with this information. It was crazy and yet it made a strange sort of sense. The evidence matched with what these two had just told him, and yet his mind fought against the impossibility of it all. Gateways between worlds? Impossible!
“How do we stop your people from coming here?” Eli asked.
“It doesn’t matter now,” Tani said miserably.
“What doesn’t matter?”
“Even if there was a way to close one gateway, we don’t have the stones.”
“What happened to them?”
“In Keena’s pack. One of your Enforcers took it from us.”
They’d be in evidence by now.
“You’d have to destroy the machine back on my world. But once you did that, you couldn’t return. So we did it all for nothing,” he said.
“Eli, we have to get them out of here,” Ava said.
“The captain never said how much time we had to get a confession out of them. I’ll turn them over to the Feds only as a last resort...” he trailed off as she shook her head vehemently.
“No, Eli. We have to help them close all of the gateways. Don’t you see? If we give them over to the Feds, the murders will continue and it won’t matter how many of them we capture, they’ll just keep coming.” She looked to Tani, who nodded emphatically.
“Ava, we can’t go against orders. There’s got to be another way. Maybe if I talk to the captain, he’ll change his mind about turning them over to the Feds.”
“I doubt that. And even if he does, that doesn’t solve our problem. We have to get the stones from evidence and help these two stop the machine on their world.”
“We can’t just let them go, Ava. It will mean our badges and jail time. You really want to risk everything?”
Ava chewed her bottom lip. “Of course not, but I can’t just sit by while the Feds lock them up. If they are telling the truth, it will take something drastic to stop the murders.”
“She speaks the truth.” Tani said. “On my world, there is no shortage of people who want to become Harvesters. They will keep coming as long as the machine is working.”
“And what guarantee do we have that if we let you go, you won’t decide to go back to helping your friends?” Eli asked.
“We left our world to try to stop the priests. If we return, we will be put to death.” Tani hung his head.
Eli walked to the corner of the room, trying to shut out their voices. It was a crazy plan, letting the pair go. They would be recaptured quickly—they stuck out like sore thumbs in their clothing. Eli wanted to go back in time and pretend he had never heard what these two had to say. He felt bad that they had defected from their world, but at the same time, they had killed people, how many Eli didn’t know. He had to be the voice of victims on this world, not give up his career for a couple of people that were most likely crazy.
“You’re not seriously considering handing them over to the Feds, are you?”
He turned to face Ava. ”What else are we supposed to do? If we defy orders, we’ll be arrested, as will they in short order,” he said, waving his arm in Tani and Keena’s direction.
“Stop thinking like a cop, dammit! No one at the FBI will ever believe them. They’ll be locked up and probably sentenced to death, or to life in a mental ward. In the meantime, we’ll be stuck with dead bodies piling up. You say you want to speak for the victims? Then dammit, do it!”
“How can I speak for the victims if I’m in jail?” he snarled.
“If we help them, there won’t be any more victims.”
“And who will stand trial for the ones already dead?”
Ava looked away.
“That’s what I thought. We have more than seventy victims, Ava. Seventy!” He grabbed her arm for emphasis. “What about justice for them?”
“I know, I know, and I don’t have all the answers, but I do know that these kids are the best chance we have of preventing another seventy!” She wrenched her arm out of his grip.
Eli covered his face with his hands and groaned. Why did I have to get stuck with such a head-strong partner? His gut and his head were at war and the head looked like it was going to win out.
“We came here hoping to find someone to help us stop Master Kelhar. The gods sent us both a vision, a vision of you both, and the gateway machines on fire. Please, help us.” Tani’s eyes were frantic.
Eli looked between Tani and Keena. They were both younger than he and Ava by about a decade. He knew they wouldn’t fare well at the hands of the Feds. Does it matter? They killed people!
He shook his head, trying to shut up the voice. The victims’ faces paraded through his mind as though asking if lett
ing the two go would be fair to them. They had never asked to be assaulted and their organs removed. Eli had grown up knowing that there was right and wrong and wrong was to be punished at all costs, no exception. But here was Ava asking him to go against everything he held dear for the sake of two strangers who were most likely out of their minds.
For the first time that he could remember, Eli had no idea how to proceed with a case. And that scared him almost as much as the thought of another seventy victims.
CHAPTER 25
THE FEDS SAY Satrick isn’t crazy.
He had seen the official report all decked out in a manila folder: Satrick was in his right mind, and a polygraph showed that he spoke the truth about whatever it was they questioned him about.
Polygraph.
Eli walked up to Ava and stuck his finger right under her nose. “If they pass a polygraph, I’ll consider believing what they have to say.”
Ava threw up her hands. “We don’t have time for this—”
“Make. Time,” he said through clenched teeth. “If I’m not convinced they are telling the truth, I will either hammer them until I get a confession, or turn them over to the Feds.”
“How are you ever going to convince Platt to let us give them a polygraph?”
“Leave that to me.”
Eli left the office, forming a plan of action as he walked to Captain Platt’s office. His captain was no pushover, and once he made up his mind, it was usually a done deal. He glanced at the white board that contained the endless parade of victims. I hope those two are worth it. He knocked on Platt’s door, waited for the invite to enter, then opened the door slowly.
“Captain, I’d like to do a polygraph on the suspects to see how it matches up to the one the Feds did on Satrick.”
Captain Platt leaned back in his chair and steepled his hands under his chin. “Go on.”
“They are saying the same crazy stuff Satrick did. I just want to see if they do any differently on the test. If I can catch them in a lie, I can call them on it, rattle them a little.” Eli tried to appear nonchalant despite his thundering pulse.
Platt waved his hands. “Fine, just make sure you have your confession by the end of the day. Is that clear?”