Dejected, he kicked a pebble across the pavement. His head turned up when a door slammed a few hundred yards away. He squinted. No, it couldn’t be Jen…and was that Rachel with her?
Tires squealed and he had to jump out of the way as Dr. Butler sped by, not even slowing at having almost run him over. She screeched to a stop and stepped out. She said something to Jen and—oh God.
Peter flinched as Jen leveled a gun and shot her. He darted behind a parked car, not wanting Jen to see him. He didn’t have a weapon of his own. If he confronted her, she would shoot him, too.
Glancing around, he spotted Jen’s car and crawled to it. He eased the door open and slipped in the back floorboard, praying she didn’t look back there. He would deal with the consequences if she did, but he needed to catch her off guard.
He held himself very still as she opened the door and shoved Rachel inside. She climbed in without looking in the back. He was safe…for now.
He would wait until she stopped at a light and jump her from behind. Even if she managed to shoot him, Rachel would be able to escape.
Jen started the car, backed up and slammed on the brakes.
Peter’s head crashed into the metal seat support and his world went black.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Rachel woke gradually, her muscles weak, her vision blurry. Pain throbbed in her head, making her long for the oblivion of unconsciousness. But she needed to wake up.
Her life depended on it.
She had no idea how long she slept, but she had hoped the unsettling images of Jen and her murder spree existed only in the safety of a macabre nightmare. The movement of the car and low feminine humming drifting from the driver’s seat told her that it wasn’t a dream.
Drowsy, her lids wafted shut, only to snap open when the car ground to a halt.
"Back with me?" Jen questioned.
She couldn’t keep her eyes open, the pull too great.
"Oh, wake up. I didn’t inject you with enough sedative," Jen scolded. "You've only been out ten minutes."
The passenger door jerked open. Jen made quick work of the seat belt and dragged her out. Self-preservation kicked in and she forced her eyes open. Jen prodded her towards a large, white house and she stumbled up a set of brick steps. They stopped on the wide porch as Jen fumbled with a key. She stuck it in the lock and propelled Rachel inside.
"Who are you? What are you doing here?"
Jen spun around at the unexpected voice. Rachel would have but the gun shoved against her back and the effects of the drug made her reactions too slow. She almost tripped as Jen angled her around to stand between her and the woman who spoke.
She blinked to clear her vision. The woman looked familiar.
"You aren’t supposed to be here," Jen snapped.
"This is my house," the woman screeched in outrage. Her green eyes rounded in horror at the sight of the gun.
"I’ve been waiting to do this for a long time," Jen said eagerly.
She squeezed the trigger.
The woman staggered, her round eyes moving from Jen to the rapidly expanding stain on her white blouse before she crumpled to the floor.
If the drug hadn’t dulled her senses, Rachel would have screamed. Another person killed in cold blood.
Jen shoved her to a staircase and forced her to climb. Leading her to a closed door, Jen unlocked it and propelled her inside, the scent of rubbing alcohol almost overwhelming.
The room appeared to be an office but instead of a desk, a surgery table took center stage. Jen heaved her on it and secured binds around her hands.
Pacing the room, Jen jostled the curtain aside to peer out the window. "Where the hell is he?" she muttered.
Yanking open a drawer, she took out candles and began lighting them around the room. "I hate that doctor’s office smell, don’t you?"
The effects of the drug wore off and Rachel’s strength returned. She worked on the binds. If she could keep Jen talking, she might have a chance to escape.
"Why did you do it, Jen? Those people trusted you."
Jen fumbled around in a cabinet and extracted several vials. "What? You mean the mental patients?" She gave a dismissive wave. "I prefer to think of it as ridding the world of the unnecessaries…the homeless, the wackos." She arranged the bottles on a metal tray. "I’m sure you are wondering why I spared you, why I didn’t kill you earlier." Rachel didn’t respond but Jen didn’t care. "You my dear, are my ticket to everlasting wealth, a gold mine if you will."
At Rachel’s perplexed expression, Jen scoffed, "Get over yourself. It’s not your looks. You have a rare blood type shared by only one percent of the population. Do you realize what kind of price I will get?" She shook her head sadly. "It’s really a shame," Jen murmured. "You would have had a lovely child. We’ll have to settle for your organs."
Rachel gagged at the extent of her evilness. "You would just take out my organs?"
"You wouldn’t believe what a healthy heart or liver will fetch on the black market. Throw in some retinas, lungs, well, the price is just staggering. Add to that your rare blood type and the numbers shoot through the roof." She sighed. "You will be my final harvest…though not my favorite. No, that distinction belongs to your dearly departed friend, Molly Miller."
Pain tightened Rachel’s chest like a steel band. She feared that Molly was dead, knew it was a real possibility, but hearing her worst fears confirmed in such a cold, calculating way proved almost unbearable.
"Why?" she choked.
Jen was accommodating. "Why did I kill Molly or why harvest the organs?" She arranged instruments on the tray.
Both, but most importantly, "Molly."
"Her fatal mistake was trying to run away. I wasn’t even going to use her, did you know that? She was a little too messed up for my tastes, abused her body with drugs. I do have standards you know."
Rachel kept working at the binds, feeling one give enough to slip a hand free.
Jen continued, "But that damn rutting beast Carl couldn’t keep his hands off her, got her pregnant. Well, what choice did we have? We had to take her. The bitch managed to escape, but not for long. Carl found her as she was making a call. He cut it off before she spilled her sorry guts. But for that alone, she had to die."
Rot in hell, Rachel thought. Though the pain of Molly’s death overwhelmed her, she needed to turn it around and use it to her advantage instead of wallowing in grief. She needed to escape. Jen seemed to like to brag, so she prodded her.
"How did you get started?"
Jen looked pleased that she asked. "Simple, really," she stated proudly. "It began innocently. I counseled a girl who was raped. She got pregnant but didn’t believe in abortion. She wanted to get rid of her baby. I made some calls, got lucky, managed to find a contact willing to part with big bucks. You wouldn’t believe the price a healthy baby fetches. Astronomical."
If Rachel hadn’t already emptied the contents of her stomach, she would have done so again. "So you what, impregnate innocent girls and sell their babies?"
"You make it sound so clinical," Jen chided. "But no, we didn’t ‘impregnate’ that many girls. Most of the babies we take are from the unwed mothers at the shelter."
Jen positioned several shiny implements side by side on the tray, thoroughly engrossed in her story. "The organ harvesting was a lucky break. One of the girls died giving birth. Young, healthy, it would have been a waste to just bury her. So I made more calls, amazed at how much a heart, liver, other organs were worth. Of course, we couldn’t use organs from the girl who died, they needed to be functioning. That’s when…let’s call it phase two…developed."
Good lord, how big was this operation? "How do you get the organs to the…buyers?"
"Ah, that’s the best part. We don’t have to worry about delivery. We simply provide the product. The buyer is responsible for getting it where it needs to go."
Product. What a chilling way to describe a vital part of a human being. As much as she wanted to cove
r her ears and pretend this wasn’t happening, she needed to keep her talking. "How did you get away with this…how could so many patients just disappear?"
"Oh that was easy," Jen bragged. "There aren’t enough nurses to keep track of everyone. We just mark that they left voluntarily and who can dispute it when the person is gone?"
She laughed. "I talked Oscar into building the shelter close by and then I had the underground rooms constructed. He never knew they existed."
So Oscar Bexley wasn’t involved? How could his brother hide this from him for so long? "Don’t you feel the least bit of remorse?"
Jen looked truly offended. "It’s not like these people die in vain. I mean what else do they have to look forward to in their pathetic lives? Living like a caged animal around other misfits? This way, we eliminate their suffering and allow the best part of them to live on in others. "She waved a hand dramatically. "Think of the happiness of a childless couple now having their own baby to love. We’re miracle workers."
"You murder these people for money," Rachel spat. "What you are is sick, twisted."
Rage darkened Jen’s face. She pushed too far.
"You want to know why I do this?" she asked as she violently stabbed a syringe in one of the vials and filled the plunger. Rachel knew if she managed to shoot that into her, she would sleep–permanently.
"I had only honorable intentions starting out in this business. I became a counselor because I knew the life, knew what these women faced. I grew up in shelter after shelter, my mother never strong enough to leave my father for very long. He’d beg her forgiveness, promise never to hurt us again. We’d go back, he’d beat us, we’d sneak out in the middle of the night, and so went the cycle of my childhood.
"Abuse was rampant in many of the shelters. I grew up fast. But dammit, I overcame it, worked hard, put myself through school. I wanted to make a difference. But you know what I discovered? I didn’t make one damn bit of difference. Those women still went back to their husbands or boyfriends. I had no power, no influence over their decisions."
Both of Rachel’s hands were free. She needed Jen to come closer.
"But you know what gave me power? Money. The more money, the more power. And you know what? I liked it. A lot. So a few people had to die. What did they have to look forward to anyway? A life locked away inside a mental prison? A succession of never-ending abuse? I freed them, and in the process, I became a very powerful woman."
Jen drew nearer.
Rachel launched off the table.
#
"I’ll be right there."
Ben disconnected the call from Jake and jogged down the long corridor, leaving the team combing the inside of the surprisingly sophisticated operating room. They found no live bodies, but they did find files of all the patients murdered for their body parts, including Molly Miller and Donelle Bendershott.
He dodged a member of the local critical care team as she removed a cooler from the freezer. A few of the recently harvested organs were being prepared for transport to ascertain their viability.
Obviously the masterminds behind the grotesque operation did not want any records available of their involvement. Though the patient charts had been detailed and thorough, any personal correspondence had been notably absent except for one small piece of paper stuck to the back of a file.
As soon as he saw Jennifer Palmer’s name, a sliver of unease snaked down his spine. The feeling unsettled him enough to send Peter upstairs to stay with the women. Even though he locked them inside the room, he didn’t for a minute believe they would stay put. Peter would make sure they did.
Stepping through the propped-open doors of the service elevator, he took the stairs two at a time to the second floor. He rapped once and entered Oscar Bexley’s office where both brothers sat side by side with armed agents guarding them, identical masks of shock and sadness marring their faces. Oscar looked at least ten years older and he had never seen Frederick rumpled and wrinkled.
Jake stood before the men, grilling them with questions. He indicated another agent to take over when he spotted Ben.
Standing next to him, Jake crossed his arms and lowered his voice. "Both adamantly deny any knowledge of the missing patients, the rooms in the basement or the organs," he said never taking his eyes off the brothers. "We are checking their alibis now, but I have to tell you, they sound credible." He met Ben’s gaze. "I don’t think they are involved."
Ben scoffed. They had to be. Who else could have instigated a plot this intensive? Jen could not have managed it alone. He started to speak when a knock sounded and the door opened.
"Agent Kincaid, we have an agent down."
Ben and Jake whirled around to face the guard who spoke.
"What happened," Jake demanded.
"Two bullet holes in the head." The uniformed officer pointed. "Stairwell, down this hall."
The knot of dread in Ben’s stomach tightened. He pushed past the cop and sprinted out the door.
"Ben, wait."
He didn’t pause. Panic spurred him forward.
Almost afraid to test the handle to Rachel’s room, he knew with alarming certainty it would be unlocked. It was.
The first thing he noticed was the blood smear on the far wall. His heart stopped as he followed the trail to the ground. Ah, damn. Tia.
Not wanting to get caught in an ambush, he carefully eased inside. His eyes canvassed the room, stopping when he spotted the woman struggling on the bed.
"April."
Hurrying forward, his foot landed in a wet spot on the floor and he slid, quickly righting himself. He eased the tape from her mouth. She gulped in air.
"It’s Jen," she wheezed. "She killed Tia and took Rachel."
Blinding fear washed over him.
Jake entered the room and checked Tia. He gently closed her eyes and called for backup.
Numbly, Ben worked on the knots securing April’s arms to the bed. "Where the hell is Peter," he demanded.
April blinked in confusion. "Isn’t he with you?"
He stilled. "I sent him up here over twenty minutes ago."
April jerked her head from side to side. "No, you couldn’t have…he never came."
With a harsh curse, he worked the last knot free. April sprung to her feet and rubbed her wrists. "You have to find Rachel before it's too late. She saved my life."
Coming to stand next to Ben, Jake asked, "How did she save your life?"
"Jen ordered her to inject me with that shot." She pointed to the used syringe on the floor. "Jen told her that if she didn’t do it, she would shoot me. Rachel turned her back quick enough to empty the contents on the floor." She indicated the puddle Ben had slipped on when he came to her aid. "Then she gave me the shot. I pretended like it worked and Jen mocked her, telling her she killed me. She risked her life for me, you have to find her." It was an order.
Jake’s cell buzzed and he answered immediately. He listened with narrowed eyes. "Get me the guard on duty at the gate," he ordered. Placing a palm over the receiver, he told Ben, "A Dr. Kathleen Butler has been shot in the parking lot. She’s alive but unconscious and–" He stopped, returning his attention to the phone. "You had orders not to let anyone leave," he snapped. "What happened?" Jake’s eyes swung to Ben and then away. He subtly turned his back. "What time?" He jerked a small notepad out of his pocket. "Make, model, and license plate number?" Scribbling the information down, he disconnected and handed the paper to another agent, instructing him to put an APB out on the car and send a team to Jen Palmer’s apartment.
"What is it?" Ben demanded impatiently, grabbing his friend’s shoulder and swinging him around. "Tell me, dammit."
Few men dared to talk to Jake Kincaid that way, let alone manhandle him. That Jake suffered Ben’s rude behavior in silence spoke volumes to the level of respect he had for his former partner.
"The guard said Rachel was banged up and bleeding. She moaned ‘help me,’ and since he knew Jennifer Palmer, he assumed she was taking her
to get treatment."
Ben spun away and shoved his hands though his hair, his frustration and fear spiking. If anything happened to her, it would be his fault. He hadn’t protected her, hadn’t made her leave when he knew the dangers of the situation. He slammed a fist into the wall in frustration. Burning pain radiated up his arm. Flexing his fingers, he relished the sting.
"Jennifer Palmer didn’t do this alone," Jake said, giving Ben the space he needed to calm his emotions. "Michaels is dead, Carl is dead. She’s a case worker, not a doctor. Someone had to take those organs out with enough knowledge to keep them alive for transport."
Ben latched on to that train of thought. "Frederick Bexley is a doctor, he would know."
Jake jerked his head to the door. "Let’s have another chat with Freddy."
Ben stormed out of the room, Jake on his heels. He made it two feet before crashing into another person and knocking them to the floor. Gary. He reached down to help the man to his feet.
"The bogeyman," Gary insisted adamantly, ignoring his hand to scramble to his feet.
Ben didn’t have time for the man’s insane mutterings. He started to brush around him when the look on Gary’s face stopped him cold. Gary pointed to the floor, his eyes wide with terror.
"The bogeyman," he reiterated.
Ben followed his gaze, realizing it wasn’t the cross Gary usually carried that fell from his grip when they collided.
"The bogeyman," Gary whispered.
"Oh my God."
Ben’s eyes shot to April at her startled outcry. All the blood had drained from her elfin face.
"That’s it! That’s what I overheard the night he had me committed…he was talking about harvesting organs."
"Who, April? Who was talking about harvesting organs?"
"Him," she whispered, pointing to the magazine on the floor. "My step-father."
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Rachel’s surprise attack startled Jen. The woman dropped the syringe and it rolled under the table.
Jen screamed and grabbed her by the hair. Rachel clamped onto the hand trying to rip off her scalp and kicked out Jen’s legs. Jen stumbled backwards, knocking over one of the candles she’d placed around the room. Fire caught the edge of the curtains and soon, flames licked up the drapes, erupting into a blazing inferno.
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