Dark Harvest (A Holt Foundation Story Book 2)

by Chris Patchell

  “Why? Don’t I look okay?”

  She set her purse down on an empty lab stool and shook her head.

  “You look tired, like you haven’t slept in days.”

  She brushed the tips of her fingers gently along his temples where the first few gray hairs had started to sprout. Like his father, he was destined to age before his time. Gray hairs were the least of his worries. The only hope he had left lay in the samples safely stored in the liquid nitrogen freezer.

  The samples were gold. They were life.

  “Did you get what I asked?”

  She reached into her purse and pulled out a vial of pills. Like a greedy toddler, Xander snatched them from her grasp. He ripped the cap off and poured the contents into his hand. Adderal.

  “This is it?” He thrust the palm full of pills toward her. “A dozen?”

  The urge to throw the pills in her face overwhelmed him, but somehow Xander held back. Each pill was precious. Each represented a few solid hours where he could deeply focus on his research—something that was increasingly hard to do.

  Tory flushed at his anger. “I did what you said. I had to go through three different dorm rooms to find these.”

  “So? Forge a prescription.”

  “I can’t do that. If I get caught, I’ll get fired. Or worse.”

  “Or worse. Or worse,” he mocked, tipping his hand to the mouth of the vial and pouring the pills back in. “Find another college student to screw. You can’t swing a cat on a college campus without hitting a kid diagnosed with ADHD. They have bowls of them right next to their stash of roofies.”

  “Xander . . .” she said, mouth hanging open like she’d just been slapped. Tears surfaced in her eyes.

  “What?” he snapped.

  “I’m not screwing another college student.”

  “Why not? Was Johnny Football not good?”

  “I’m not your whore.” She covered her mouth with a shaking hand, like she was trying to stop herself from saying more. She turned away, and he knew at once that he had pushed too hard. He looped an arm around her waist and leaned close.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered in her ear.

  He needed her. None of this would be possible if she left him.

  “You know I’d do anything to help you,” she said. “I love . . .”

  She stopped herself from saying the words. She didn’t have to. He already knew how she felt about him. He kissed the nape of her neck. Tory melted against his chest, the way she always did when he touched her. She released a shuddering breath.

  “You’re the most brilliant doctor—man, I’ve ever met. I know you can do this. But you need to slow down. You need to rest. Sleep.”

  “Sleep?” Xander scoffed. He released his hold on Tory and dropped his hands to his sides. “You think sleep will make things better?”

  “I’m only trying to help.”

  “If you want to help, get more pills. I need them. To work.”

  The corners of Tory’s mouth drooped, and he could see a knot of frustration forming on her face.

  “I have a disease eating away at my brain like a parasite. If I do nothing, I will lose the ability to speak, to think, to feed myself, to do pretty much everything even the stupidest functional human being on the planet can do. I have bioengineering and medical degrees from Stanford. I’m a surgeon. You can’t expect me to sit idly by until my brain turns to mush and I’m breathing out of a tube.”

  “Why don’t you write your own damned prescription?”

  “And risk having my medical license revoked?”

  “It won’t come to that.”

  “You’re a nurse, Tory. You know every word I’m saying is true. Is that how you want to spend your days? Cleaning up my shit?”

  Tory winced at the image.

  “But, Xander, the things we’re doing . . . I don’t know if I can . . .”

  He knew what she was going to say. He could feel her resistance growing at every turn. Now that the reality of the situation was finally sinking in, she was getting squeamish. It was a luxury neither of them could afford.

  “There are other options. There are clinics . . .”

  Closing his eyes, he gathered his patience. He reached for her hands and pressed them to his chest, imploring her to understand.

  “Medical trials where I could let other people experiment on me like I’m a lab rat? Do you know how much a trial costs? Hundreds of thousands of dollars where I could be the control patient. Where my brain would continue to crumble to dust . . .”

  “Okay, maybe not a major trial. There are private clinics.”

  Xander half laughed, half choked out a bitter snort. Tory extricated herself from his grasp and turned away.

  “Non-approved stem cell treatment centers without any data to back up their claims? How do I know the hack opening up my brain isn’t a plastic surgeon from Los Angeles sprinkling sheep cells onto my gray matter? I suppose you want me to fly to China and get treated by some moron who wouldn’t know a stem cell if it exploded in his face? We’ve been through this. There is no other way. I can do this. You’ll see. And not only will my research benefit me, imagine the millions of people we can save when I find a cure.”

  Tory pressed her fingers to her lips, and he could tell by the way she held her shoulders that she was trying not to cry.

  “If anyone can find a cure, Xander, it’s you. I want to help you. You know I do, but please get some sleep.”

  Xander popped the top off the vial, stuck a pill in his mouth, and washed it down with water from a nearby bottle.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” he said, with a half-cocked grin. “I’ll sleep plenty when I’m dead.”

  Xander skirted the metal table to the back of the lab where the samples were stored. He squatted down in front of the liquid nitrogen freezer. His heart gave a painful jolt. He blinked hard, not believing what he was seeing. It couldn’t be. But it was.

  The power light on the freezer was out.

  “No,” he moaned from between clenched teeth. He pounded his fist on the top of the freezer praying it was a simple malfunctioning LED, but when he checked the temperature gauge, he knew.

  “What?”

  Xander dropped his face into his hands, barely able to get the words out.

  “The freezer is dead.”

  Tory’s hand curled over his shoulder and he shook it off. Bolting to his feet, he paced the length of the room, his mind working at a furious pace, trying to solve the problem.

  “We need new samples.”

  “No, Xander,” Tory said, dread filling her voice. “We can’t. Not so soon.”

  “What choice do we have?” He gestured toward the broken freezer. “The samples are ruined. We’ll need to start over.”

  “We can’t risk it. You’ve seen the news. That girl, Rebecca Kincaid . . .”

  He pressed a finger to her lips, shushing her, as if she was a small child.

  “The police have done exactly what I thought they would do. They’ve got the boyfriend. They’re going to pin this thing on him, and that leaves us in the clear.”

  “Xander,” she moaned.

  He put his arms around her shoulders and drew her toward him. His nose buried in her hair, he whispered in her ear. “Come on, Tory, just one more. I need you.”

  She shivered. Goosebumps raised on her arms.

  “You want to help me, don’t you?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. “You know I do.”

  He nibbled on her ear, and she let out a breath.

  “Then do this for us.”

  Chapter 19

  Suzie Norwood tugged her top down over the bulge of her belly. She turned to view her side profile in the mirror and frowned. Stretched tight across her middle, the blue peasant top made her look like a beached whale.

  She stripped off the shirt and tossed it onto the growing pile on top of her bed. Nothing fit her. Nothing looked good. Every day the baby grew bigger—she grew bigger—and she worried that her o
nce-flat abs would never look the same again. She was destined to have a mom-bod, and she was decades away from being ready for that.

  She pulled a white top off a hanger in the closet and slipped it over her head. It was one of the only maternity tops she’d bought. Simple, with a crossover bodice, it showed a modest bit of cleavage while it skimmed over her belly and camouflaged the top of her hips.

  It would have to do. She wished she could afford to buy a few more clothes to see her through to the end of the pregnancy, but every dollar was precious, and she couldn’t afford to waste a penny on clothes she would never wear again.

  With a frown, Suzie traced the dark circles beneath her eyes, knowing they would only get worse. Once the baby was born, she would sleep even less than she did now. Her sunny, pretty looks had faded since her ex-boyfriend had dumped her. Jilted by the break-up, she’d thrown herself into her school work and hadn’t come up for air until spring break—the night of the fateful party. Not the kind of girl who typically drank, the margaritas hit her hard, and she staggered home having more than a hangover the next day.

  Weeks later, Suzie stared horror-struck at the pink plus sign on the pregnancy test stick. She went through three boxes until she finally gave up. She’d thought about getting an abortion, even went to a clinic, but God . . .

  This baby shouldn’t have to pay for her bad decisions. She’d thought about adoption too, but couldn’t imagine spending the rest of her life wondering where her baby was, if he was happy, waiting for him to show up at her house one day asking her why she’d didn’t want him.

  She was going to raise her son.

  In the end, she’d lied to her friends, told them the baby was her ex-boyfriend’s because the truth was too humiliating to admit. She had no idea whose baby she carried. She’d gone to a party, drank way too much, woke up in a room full of naked people and had left.

  Thirty-five weeks later, here she was with a baby on the way.

  She didn’t dare tell her parents she was pregnant. She was too ashamed. They were a good Mormon family with strong morals and she didn’t know what to say.

  Lately she’d been fantasizing about showing up at their house with the baby on her hip. How, when they saw their grandchild for the first time, they’d accept what had happened and forgive her.

  She prayed they would. She needed them.

  Suzie ran her hand over her belly. She felt the baby move and smiled. It was so freaky, having something alive and shifting inside her, and she thought about a book her mother used to read her when she was little: One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. Maybe she’d call the baby Finn.

  Her cell phone beeped, and she checked the time. The woman from the contest would arrive in fifteen minutes.

  She picked the dirty dishes off the rickety coffee table and stacked them in the kitchen sink. She was usually neat, but with the baby taking over her body, she tired more easily now, the energy boost in her second trimester having fizzled out weeks ago.

  There. That was better. At least the place would look presentable when the woman came.

  She still couldn’t believe her luck. She’d put her name in the ballot box, never expecting she would win. A year of free diapers and formula was a godsend on her tight budget.

  Someone knocked on the door, and Suzie frowned. It was early. She hoped it wasn’t her landlady or worse, her creepy son. Seemed like he was always hanging around. Leering. Asking her if she needed help when all he really wanted to do was stare at her chest.

  Suzie glanced through the peek hole.

  A pretty woman with red hair stood out in the hall. She held a case full of diapers in her hands. Surprised, Suzie pulled the door open.

  Chapter 20

  Garcia didn’t knock. She thundered into Seth’s office, Latin fire spitting from her eyes. Before he could say a word, she barreled ahead.

  “Tell me how you found out.” She planted her feet in a wide stance and crossed her arms, glaring down at him. “I swear to God, if someone on our side leaked the info, I’ll personally see to it that they’re fired.”

  “Whoa, back up two steps,” Seth said. Linda’s anger was palpable. He had no doubt she meant what she said, but he hadn’t done anything that he could recall to incur her wrath. At least not yet. The day was still young.

  He glanced over at Henry to see if there was something more he should know, but Henry looked as baffled as Seth.

  “I’m in no mood for games, Crawford, so don’t play dumb. Who told you?”

  “Told me what?”

  The string of epithets that issued from her mouth would have made a trucker blush. Seth stood and met her glare head-on, half expecting Evan Holt to come bursting into the office just to see what the hell was going on.

  “This isn’t the Parker case. You don’t get to do whatever you think is—”

  “Is what, Linda? Right?”

  That knocked the wind from her sails. Garcia struggled to regain her composure.

  “I’ve got him,” she said.

  “Him?”

  “Maddox. We found Becky’s shirt with her blood in his dorm room. I’ve got him, Crawford. So despite what you might think, there is no way the Suzie Norwood disappearance is linked.”

  Seth glanced at Henry, who was furiously typing. He gestured toward the flat screen monitor at the other end of the room behind Garcia, and Seth read the headline. Another missing pregnant girl.

  “Has Maddox confessed?” Seth asked. She ground her teeth, looking vexed.

  “That’s not the point.”

  “Have you found Becky’s body?”

  “Stop changing the goddamned subject. I want to know how you knew.”

  “What makes you think I knew?”

  She jabbed her finger at his chest.

  “A reporter called me this morning asking if we had any evidence the crimes were linked. This smacks of the same tactic your foundation used during the Parker case.”

  “And we were right.”

  “Again, Crawford, you’re missing the point.”

  The temptation to tell her that it was actually she who seemed to be missing the point was strong, but continuing to escalate her anger served no purpose. Instead, he took the high road.

  “It wasn’t me, Linda. I swear.”

  Garcia absorbed this in silence.

  “If it wasn’t you, then who?”

  He shook his head.

  “I don’t know.”

  She backed up a step and swung her gaze wide, for the first time acknowledging Henry’s presence.

  “This wasn’t you, was it?” she asked.

  With all the innocence of an altar boy, Henry shook his head.

  “First I’ve heard of it,” he said, “but Suzie Norwood does share a similar profile to Becky. Late teens. Pregnant. Both flirting with the poverty line. They live less than fifteen miles apart.”

  The remark further inflamed Garcia, who rolled her eyes and pursed her lips.

  “Not you too. Don’t go making connections where none exist. If the media starts running this as a serial kidnapping of pregnant women, you’re going to have the whole city in a state of panic.”

  Seth let a few beats of silence pass, giving Linda’s emotions time to dissipate.

  “You know there are no coincidences in police work, right?” he asked, repeating a line his first lieutenant on the force used to say all the time. She flinched like he knew she would.

  “We’ve got Maddox nailed.”

  Though her tone sounded tough, Seth could see she was wavering. He continued to press.

  “You think you’ve got him nailed, but what if this thing is bigger?”

  “This is not the Parker case,” she repeated, a hint of desperation in her voice.

  “I’m just saying we’d be stupid to ignore the similarities.”

  Linda crossed her arms and fell stubbornly silent.

  “You agree?” Seth finally asked. The sharp jerk of her chin was the only outward sign of acquiescence. She
drifted toward the whiteboard behind Seth’s desk and studied the team’s notes.

  “Who the hell is Rico Pham?” she snapped.

  “He used to work at Jimmy Mac’s, and he had a key to Becky’s place.”

  “Why is his uncle relevant?” Garcia asked, her gaze laser focused on the image of an older Filipino man.

  “I think he’s running a human trafficking ring. Prostituting out kids to his network of sickos.”

  “Grim fucking world out there. Makes me glad I don’t have kids,” she said.

  Broad statements like Linda’s were a luxury only those without children could afford to make. Especially true for people that saw the kinds of things cops saw every day. Even with the kind of hell Marissa and her girls had been through, he was certain that if she had to do it all over again, Marissa would never regret having kids.

  “He’s been importing his family members from the Philippines with the promise of a better life.”

  “Some life,” Linda snorted. “How many kids are we talking?”

  “Thirteen,” Henry answered.

  “Jesus,” she swore softly. “Sick, I agree, but what does this have to do with the case?”

  Seth had been wondering the same thing. Linda’s words jarred something loose for him, like the shifting of tectonic plates causing a fissure to reveal something new. He spun away from the board and paced the length of the room.

  “What if that’s it?”

  “You lost me,” Henry said.

  “Illegal adoption. Rico said that if his cousins get pregnant, the kids are adopted.” Seth stopped in the center of the room. Linda opened her mouth to object, but he held up a finger. “Do you know how hard it is, let alone how expensive it is, to adopt a kid?”

  “But he’s running a prostitution ring. Why would he want to branch out into illegal adoption? No way. I’m not buying it,” Garcia said.

  “Diversification. His sources are drying up. He needs a fresh source of income.”

  “Come on, Crawford, even if I was buying your theory, which I’m not, how would he even find these girls?”

  “Rico found Becky. What if Becky knows Suzie? Henry, start looking for a link between the two girls.” Seth paused for a moment, going over a checklist in his mind. “Oh, and Henry, we’re going to need to make a missing-persons flyer up on Suzie. I’ll distribute them later.”