Inserting the key in the lock, he punched in the six digit code on the touchpad. When the light switched from red to green, he twisted the handle. Hot air burst out, choking them. Waves of heat engulfed them as they stepped inside. When he closed the door, it felt like they entered into the fiery depths of hell.
The stench of smoldering debris scorched a path up their noses and Rachel pinched hers shut. "Wow, it’s hot in here and it stinks."
He didn’t disagree. The unusual odor turned his stomach. He flashed the light around the area. Iron doors to the incinerator were propped open, the interior glowing red with burning embers. A large shovel, several barrels and fire-proof gloves were the only items in the space.
He made quick work of checking for any hidden doors and again came up empty. Moving closer to the oven, he trained the beam over the smoldering debris. He blinked and moved closer.
Donning one of the fireproof gloves, he reached inside and grabbed a handful of the fragments, blowing softly to speed up the cooling process. He brushed at the pile in his hand, ashes drifting lazily to the floor.
No way. It couldn’t be.
"What? What did you find?"
He met her gaze.
"I’m not positive, but I think it’s a bone. A human bone."
Chapter Twenty-Three
Peter closed the door to his room and dropped into a chair in front of the computer. "They moved another girl in with April this afternoon." Tapping keys, he pulled the security camera feeds up on the screen.
Good news and bad news. The bad news was another patient meant another potential victim. And if they took another one this soon, then they were really ramping up the abductions. Ben raked a hand down his face. They needed to stop this before anyone else disappeared. The good news was they might be able to track her and stop the people responsible.
Frustrated, Ben tossed his cell to the desk, having just filled Jake in on what they had discovered. He hadn’t been able to locate Arthur Michaels in two days. Peter, the computer genius, hacked into his financial files and found millions of dollars stashed in banks all across the Caribbean. He ran into roadblocks trying to trace the source. He probably could have found it, but that would have meant breaking a few more laws and Ben didn’t want to get him in trouble. Jake took down the information, promising to corral an agent from the computer crimes division to investigate.
Jake also volunteered to drive by Michaels’ house and check up on him.
"What’s that?" he asked, motioning to the screen.
"One of your GPS trackers," Peter explained.
"From one of the vehicles?"
Peter shook his head and grinned. He held up a needle dangling a tail of blue thread. "April knows how to sew. She stitched it into a seam on the new girl’s gown. If they don’t take her tonight, April will remove it before the nurse arrives in the morning.
He stared at Peter.
Peter’s smile slipped.
"You are brilliant, Pete."
The grin returned. "Really?"
Ben started to ask him what he thought about working for a security company when the computer beeped.
They both swiveled around to face the screen.
"We’ve got activity."
Peter shrank the GPS screen and brought the two interior cameras from the elevator into focus. The doors slid open and a figure wheeled a gurney inside and pushed the basement button with a gloved hand. They really were ramping up the abductions to almost one a night.
Ben cursed. "It definitely looks like a male, but his face is covered." The person wore a hat pulled low over the face. A hood covered the rest of the head, effectively blocking the entire head from view.
"Not the right height for Frederick," he decided. "Could be Michaels or Oscar."
The man pulled a long black stick from the gurney and inserted it into a tiny crevice in the corner of the ceiling. The back panel slid open.
"So that’s how it works," he mused.
Peter switched to the camera facing the opening. The person pushed the gurney through the opening into a gloomy, narrow hallway that appeared to go on forever.
"Wow," Peter remarked.
All too soon, the doors slid closed, blocking their view. Peter punched some buttons and a still-shot of the opening appeared. He tried to zoom in but they couldn’t see anything in the shadowy corridor.
"Check the GPS," he instructed.
Peter brought the tracker up on the screen and frowned. He punched a couple of other buttons and frowned harder.
"It’s not moving."
"Maybe they stripped the patient and left the gown in the room," he guessed.
Peter shook his head. "They haven’t done that before, I don’t know why they would start now."
"Can you bring up a shot from the ceiling camera and zoom in on the patient?"
Peter’s hands flew over the keyboard as he honored Ben’s request. The shot came into view and he panned in tight.
Ben uttered a harsh curse, Peter’s ingenuity and April’s stitching skills wasted. "They didn’t take the girl. Go back to the shot where they entered the elevator.”
Peter found the footage and zoomed in on the gurney.
Pillows and blankets. The stretcher was empty.
#
"Let them take me," Rachel suggested. "Then you can wire me and see where the tunnel leads."
"Absolutely no way in hell." Ben stood with his arms crossed, glaring at her as she leaned against the headboard. April sat cross legged at the end of the bed and Peter stood alongside Ben, mimicking his stance. They had stormed in a few minutes ago and woken her up from a deep sleep.
Her heart rate just now settled back into place.
When she voiced her concern that they could all be caught in her room, Peter chuckled and said Ben took care of it. She could tell from Ben’s teasing smile that he had locked the amorous Dan and Tia in the padded room again.
"We don’t have much time," she assumed.
Ben shrugged a muscular shoulder and drawled, "Dan’s a pretty thorough guy."
Heat shot through her. Ben had also proven to be a very thorough guy. He shifted uncomfortably and she knew he was thinking the exact same thing.
Gathering her thoughts, she tried again to convince him to use her. "It’s the perfect solution," she argued. "You would be watching the whole thing so I’d be completely safe." Really, it was a great plan.
Ben scoffed. "Do you think you can just hold up your hand like you do to a teacher and say ‘pick me, pick me’?"
She narrowed her eyes. She did not appreciate his sarcasm. "I do not appreciate your sarcasm," she snapped.
"Look, if they wanted you, they would have taken you by now," he pointed out.
"But I got assigned to solitary confinement," she argued weakly.
He shook his head. "Doesn’t matter, I already mapped out a strategy. I’m going in."
"And I’m going with him," Peter announced proudly.
"But, that’s dangerous," she argued.
"You can’t," April said at the same time.
The walkie-talkie strapped to Ben’s belt beeped.
"Dan must be losing his touch," he retorted as he thumbed the button and said, "Smith," into the receiver.
Static cracked and then Dan’s voice came across the line. "Uh, Benny?" A nervous chuckle. "You aren’t going to believe this."
Ben’s lips curved into an amused smile. "Let me guess…the padded room?"
More static and then an embarrassed laugh. "Uh, yeah."
"Be down in a minute," he said and switched the unit off.
"Peter and I are going in tonight. We can’t afford to let anyone else disappear."
She pushed to her knees. "Please let me go with you," she pleaded.
"No."
"At least call your friend at the FBI. Wait for backup," she implored.
"It would take too long. Besides, I’m a trained professional. I can handle it. And," he indicated Peter, "I’ve already got backup."
April whimpered.
He turned to Peter. "Get April back to her room and meet me downstairs. I’ll free the lovebirds from their nest."
Ben watched Peter rush April out of the room and then he faced her. He threaded his fingers under her hair and curled them around the back of her neck. "Get some rest," he said just before his lips claimed hers in a brief, powerful kiss.
She cupped his cheeks in her hands. "Please?"
He removed her hands and kissed each one. "Babe, if I had to worry about you, I couldn’t focus on the job. Someone could get hurt, even killed."
"I’ll be so worried I’ll never sleep."
"I’ll come back as soon as possible," he promised.
#
"Ready?"
Peter exhaled and nodded. The kid had the cajones to make a damn fine detective.
Ben carried the only gun between them. Until he could get Peter to a range and teach him how to shoot, he didn’t want him handling a loaded weapon.
Using a thin metal rod, he felt around for the release. The button was completely invisible to the naked eye, but he found the trigger and pushed, holding his breath as the doors whooshed open.
A long, narrow tunnel stretched on endlessly, blissfully empty. He motioned for Peter to follow. They carefully made their way along the dim passage, low-wattage wall sconces leading the way. They had no idea if there were security cameras watching their every move.
The concrete floor sloped gradually taking them deeper underground. The air turned cooler, the musty scent of damp earth filling the enclosed space. They walked almost a mile before the corridor abruptly ended at three windowless doors: one directly in front of them and two on opposite sides of the hall.
"Which one?" Peter asked.
The door in front obviously contained the nuts and bolts of the operation. A coded entry barred entrance. The two side doors opened with keys.
"I say we try one of these first," he guessed.
He tested the handle on the left. Locked.
"Here goes nothing."
He bent to pick the lock when he heard a clanging noise and soft voices. The sounds intensified, like someone descending metal stairs. Jerking his head, he indicated the opposite door.
Peter grabbed the handle. "Open," he said, amazed.
A blast of cold air slapped them in the face. Ben eased the thick, insulated door closed and flashed his pen light around the space.
The room was some kind of walk-in freezer, with shelves stacked high with boxes. He motioned Peter to a corner where he could duck behind a large, white container. He stayed close to the entry, listening as the angry voice grew louder, and then a door slammed. He couldn’t tell how many people were out there. A series of small beeps told him that the person punched a code on the keypad and entered the other room.
They were safe—for now.
He didn’t have time to sigh in relief. Peter’s softly whispered words spun him around.
"Oh, God."
"Peter?"
"Ben…look."
He followed the beam of Peter’s flashlight to the bold black letters printed on the side of a cooler.
Heart.
Swallowing hard, he stepped closer. "White male, 34 years of age, no history of heart disease," he read out loud.
The chill that raced down his spine had nothing to do with the frigid air.
"Oh my good God," he whispered, fumbling to snap on his light. There were hearts and kidneys and livers and retinas packed in coolers around the room. Bags of blood, plasma and even sperm lined the shelves. The harvest dates were all within the last two hours. He had seen some pretty sick things during his FBI tenure, but never anything this completely twisted. Lifting the lid of the giant white container, he peered inside.
"The Bexleys are murdering people and stealing their organs, aren’t they?"
Nausea rose in Ben’s throat and he choked it back. "Yeah, Pete," he said. "That’s what it looks like to me."
"We know Michaels is involved."
"Not anymore."
"What do you mean? We have him committing murder on video and what about all that money in his accounts?"
Ben indicated the container. Peter looked questioningly at him and then into the belly of the cooler.
Stuffed inside at an awkward angle was Arthur Michaels, his skin and lips blue, crystals of ice matted in his hair, a round black hole directly between his wide open eyes.
Chapter Twenty-Four
"Let’s get out of here," Ben said.
He didn’t have to tell Peter twice. He had never seen a dead body up close and personal. Until he watched Ben’s video, he had never witnessed a real murder before either. His supper threatened to reappear. Even if Michaels was one of the meanest men he ever met and he deserved what he got, his stomach didn’t care. He really didn’t want to be sick in front of Ben.
Ben was strong and composed and unfazed. He wanted to be just like him.
Ben eased the lid shut just as a shaft of light broke against the far wall and started spreading through the room. The door!
Ben shoved him behind the container right before the overhead bulb snapped on. He feared his pounding heartbeat would reveal their hiding place.
High pitched whistling echoed off the walls. He peeked around the side of the freezer. He could only see the lower half of a person as they lifted two coolers off the shelf and stuffed them into a canvas bag. The person slung the tote over a shoulder and exited, flipping off the light.
Ben waited a few beats before speaking. "Did you get a look at him?"
"No, but I think it might have been the same person from the elevator."
"Come-on, let’s follow."
Peter beat him to the door in his haste to get out of the unsettling room. He grasped the handle and turned. It didn’t budge. He tried again, jiggling it with more force. Nothing.
They were locked in.
"Let me see what I can do," Ben said.
He had no doubt Ben would get them out. Hopefully it would be before they turned into human popsicles. It had to be twenty below in here. He scrubbed his hands over his arms.
The lock looked pretty sophisticated to him, but Ben wasted little time jimmying it open. Ben cracked the door and scanned the hallway. He motioned for Peter to follow him to the other entry across the hall.
Ben was really good at this. He picked the second lock in ten seconds.
"Stairs."
"What’s that?" he asked, pointing to a flat metal plate four feet by six feet wide, attached to the corner walls. It had railing on one side, the end open.
"It’s a lift of some kind."
"So that’s how they get the bodies out."
"You make a damn fine detective, Pete." Ben thumped him on the back with masculine affection and indicated the stairs. "Let’s see where it leads."
They climbed the curving metal risers that seemed to have no end. "Damn, we are pretty far underground," Ben concluded.
The steps ended abruptly at a small landing. Ben wasn’t even breathing hard so Peter tried to gasp quietly. Ben approached the door and inched it open to reveal a small room filled with mops and buckets and cleaning supplies.
Peter stepped in front of him. "I know where we are. This is the janitor’s closet in the women’s shelter." He spun in a slow circle. "How could this be here the entire time and I never even noticed it?"
Ben closed the door behind him and any evidence of an opening effectively disappeared behind a rack holding mops and brooms.
"Wow," he said in awe.
"You would never know it was here," Ben agreed, fingering the strips of molding that covered the walls and hid any trace of an opening.
"How do you open it?"
"I’d say there is a trigger somewhere like the one in the elevator." Ben squinted at the ceiling. "It could be anywhere."
He indicated one of the two doors that opened off the room. "Where does that one lead?"
"Outside," Peter said. "The other leads into the shel
ter."
He had barely gotten the words out when the interior door burst open to reveal the angry face of Oscar Bexley.
#
Oscar Bexley’s brows slammed together. "Benny? Peter? What are you two doing here?"
Ben opened his mouth to answer but Peter beat him to the punch.
"I’m giving Mr. Smith a tour. Mrs. Inez asked him to come by and check out the locks. She thought they might need updating. We didn’t want to frighten the women so we were leaving out the back exit."
The words were rushed but well thought out and again, Peter impressed him.
The harsh lines in Oscar’s face relaxed. "Well, that was very thoughtful. You know how skittish some of the women are around strangers, especially men." Peeling off his glasses, he shook his head, tugged a handkerchief from his pocket and briskly wiped the lens. "Sad, really."
Ben’s turn to ask a question. "It’s awful early for you to be here, isn’t it, Doctor?"
Oscar’s eyes narrowed slightly. If Ben hadn’t been studying him intently, he might not have noticed.
"A new girl arrived at the shelter last night. Her husband threatened her and she was extremely distraught and agitated, unable to calm down."
Peter stepped up to the plate. "Isn’t Dr. Butler on call for emergencies?"
"She is," Oscar agreed easily. If the questions upset him, he showed no sign. "The aide on duty couldn’t locate her so she called me."
Settling his glasses on the bridge of his nose, he swiped a bottle from a nearby shelf and held it up. "I ran out of disinfectant hand soap. I’m a stickler against germs."
Plausible excuse, but Ben was suspicious. Now wasn’t the time to corner Bexley, however. He needed to get in touch with Jake and call in the troops. The harvested organs were more than enough to bring the FBI down on the Institute. They would have Oscar and his brother in custody in less than a few hours.
Ben and Peter said their goodbyes and headed outside. Darkness of night gave way to the first bloom of dawn breaking along the horizon. Early rising birds chirped a greeting from perches in branches high above the ground.
They circled the incinerator and Ben knew for certain the fragments he found in there were human bone. He held little hope that Donelle or Molly or any of the other patients would be found alive.
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