The door clicked open and made her jump. She opened her eyes to see Miles standing in the doorway.
“Were you asleep?” he asked, smiling awkwardly. “You look tired.”
“I am tired,” she said, standing and walking over to the doorway, “but no, I wasn’t asleep.”
“Okay…” he said, stepping back to allow her entrance to the morgue.
“You sounded…strange earlier,” she said, turning to him after the door had closed. “Is everything okay?”
“Uh…” he said, shifting back and forth and rubbing his now bare hands on his pants. “I’ve been thinking about this entire family thing.”
“And?” she asked when he didn’t continue.
“I don’t know if it’s possible,” he said, not looking at her.
“What do you mean you don’t know if it’s possible?” she asked a little harsher than she meant to.
He visibly cringed, and raised and clasped his hands in front of his chest in a pleading manner.
“I don’t mean to upset you,” he almost whined, “but I don’t know how we’re going to get them pushed through. The paperwork…” He shrugged, dropped his hands back down to his sides to fidget with his pants, and looked at the floor.
Sonya’s face was red and her hands were balled into fists. She wanted to hurt him, and hurt him bad. She took a couple of deep breaths and let her mind work for a moment, forcing herself to smile.
Finally, Miles chanced a glance up at her and was surprised to see she was smiling.
“You’re not mad at me?” he asked cautiously.
She sighed, tilted her head to the side, and looked at him like he was silly.
“No, darling,” she said softly. “I’m not mad. But I really need this to work. Is there any way you can get around these…issues?”
“Um…” he said, glancing around nervously and shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “I don’t know. I suppose I could check into it.”
She stepped forward, put her hands on his shoulders, and blinked her green eyes seductively.
“Would you do that? For me?” she asked, leaning forward to kiss him.
“I can try, but I don’t know that there’s anything I can do,” he said, gripping her hips in his clammy hands.
She kissed him again, flicking her tongue lightly against his lips and closing her eyes.
“I really need you to make this work for me…for us,” she whispered against his lips, relaxing her body against his.
He cleared his throat and croaked out: “Okay.”
She smiled and kissed him again, sliding her hands up his neck and into the hair on the back of his head. Grinding her hips against his, she moaned like she was enjoying herself and wanted him.
He clumsily slid his hands under the hem of her shirt and reached up to fondle her bra-covered breasts.
She whimpered and pulled back, looking up at him.
“Miles…” she whispered, “I don’t think this is a good idea. Someone could see us.”
“Please,” he moaned, planting wet, sloppy kisses on her jaw and neck. “I’ll do anything you want if you’ll let me have you.”
She closed her eyes tight and forced herself not to flinch away. For a few moments she battled within herself, unsure if she wanted to go that far for the job—she’d done it before, but she’d never liked it. She thought of Lloyd, knowing he would be pissed, but hoped he would understand as she made her decision. They would need Miles as a scapegoat and distraction.
“Okay, but we have to be careful,” she said, and clenched her jaw as he ground his hips against hers and she felt his arousal. She wanted to vomit.
“We can go over behind the cabinet…” he panted, grabbing her and squeezing her body randomly.
“Okay,” she said, and nodded stiffly.
He drew her back to the corner of the room where a large stand-alone cabinet blocked them from the windows. Kissing and licking at any part of her skin he could reach, Miles yanked her pants, slip-on rubber clogs, and panties off, then unbuckled his belt and unzipped his own pants, sliding them and his underwear down.
Before Sonya knew what was going on, he was shoving her up against the back wall of the room, thrusting roughly into her. She closed her eyes tight, pressed her face against his neck, and balled her fists in his shirt.
He grunted repeatedly as he pumped into her, pulling her legs higher up and around his waist with shaky, sweating hands.
Focusing on drawing into herself, she let her subconscious come forward and do the actions needed to perform the task at hand. She made noises, offered whispered encouragement, and prayed it would be over quickly—it was.
With a wild cry and a shudder, Miles reached his orgasm.
Sonya clenched her inner muscles around him and cried out as well, faking her climax.
“You’re amazing,” he panted as he leaned back and looked at her.
She smiled and said, “You are too.” She leaned forward and kissed him, slow and lingering.
A loud, long beep sounded from overhead.
Sonya jumped, startled.
“What was that?”
“Oh, shit,” Miles said, letting go of her legs and stepping back, severing their physical contact.
“Oh, shit, what?” she asked, looking around and up at the ceiling while gathering her clothes off the floor, putting them on.
“I left the recorder on,” he said flatly, zipping his fly and buckling his belt.
“You did what?” Sonya yelled.
“Calm down,” he said, glancing at her and then shuffling over to a small control panel. “I can record over it later.”
“Later? Can’t you just erase it now? How much did it pick up?”
He shrugged and rubbed the bald top of his head with one hand.
“The recorder picks up all noise in the room, so it probably got everything,” he said.
“Erase it,” she demanded, marching over to him as she adjusted the waistband of her pants and straightened her shirt.
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” he said defensively.
“For all I know you did,” she snapped. “Erase it!”
“I can’t.”
“What do you mean, you can’t?”
“I can’t just erase it, since I have most of the autopsy on the tape already,” he said calmly, like she was being unreasonable. “I have to tape over it when I continue.”
“Well, you’d better damn well tape over it, because that could get us both in serious trouble!”
He sighed, turned to her, and pulled her into his arms.
Sonya’s instinct was to fight him, but she reminded herself that she was supposed to be all loving since they’d just fucked. She sighed and relaxed into his embrace.
“Don’t worry—I’ll take care of it,” he whispered, and kissed her forehead. “I won’t let anyone hurt you or let anything happen to you, okay?”
She wanted to laugh hysterically at his stupid, misplaced promise, but she nodded and pretended she wasn’t as upset, while inside she was seething with anger.
“I have to go home,” she said. “I’m tired. You promise you’ll fix the tape?” She looked into his eyes, searching for whether he was telling the truth.
“Yes, my love,” he said, and kissed her. “I’ll take care of it. You go home and get some rest. I’ll call you later, okay?”
Again, his silly, lovesick endearments and promises made her want to laugh.
She nodded and headed for the door.
He rushed forward and opened it for her.
She stopped and kissed him gently before leaving, smiling sweetly and waving her fingers like a teenage girl as she exited.
She sauntered down the hall, swaying her hips, knowing he was watching her, but after she was inside the elevator and had pressed the button to go up, she doubled over and gagged, feeling filthy and violated.
Her phone vibrated and chirped in her pocket—twice, right in a row—making her jump and stand up straigh
t. She pulled it out and saw that Lloyd and Jennings had both texted her.
Lloyd: I’m at your place. Where are you?
Jennings: Meeting tonight. Usual place and time.
She sighed as the elevator ding resounded and the doors slid open because she wasn’t looking forward to facing Lloyd.
Heading toward the parking lot, she thought about what she would say to him…wondering how he would take the news of her recent actions.
Chapter Nineteen
David hadn’t slept well. Every time his eyes closed, his brain projected scenes of his brother being chopped up. The bloody images made him sick. He woke up multiple times in a cold sweat, shaking.
Finally he’d given up on resting and opted to make a list of what he wanted to look for when he went into the Memphis field office. He planned to follow both of his theories, just to cover his bases. He would look for human traffickers and for medical personnel.
He made two lists of things to look into—one for each. For the human traffickers, he would look for foreigners in the areas that had criminal records and were associated with gangs or mafias that could afford to export human cargo. For the medical team, he would look for new employees at local hospitals or new practices. He would look into any new hires’ references to see if they matched up with Nashville and Cleveland. Beyond that, he would try to get some feelers out to the black market to see how hard it would be to get human organs. For either aspect he would need help. He would need a couple of agents who were willing to go undercover to infiltrate both aspects. Or at least agents or cops from the area that might already have contacts.
He’d been excited when he’d gotten the new leads, but as he sat down and faced the work that needed to be done to move forward, his heart sank. Just from what he was putting down on paper, it looked like it would take six months to a year before he would have the information needed to find the people he was looking for. He hoped it wouldn’t, that he’d somehow figure something out, but things didn’t always work out the way he hoped.
With a lot on his mind and not being able to sleep, he decided to go down to the hotel’s gym and burn off some excess nervous energy while he let his mind process all the information it held. He’d always considered a treadmill a thinking machine.
***
By the time the sun was shining its light on the world, Agent McCoy’s muscles were tired and his mind was clear. He’d come up with multiple ways he could search for information on his theories. He would put them into action along with what he’d already written down once he made it into the Memphis office. Agent Harmon was supposed to have greased wheels for him so he would have access to all the information he needed.
He helped himself to the free continental breakfast provided by the hotel and then headed up to his room to take a shower. After his shower, he dressed, packed the few things he’d gotten out of his bags, and headed to check out of his room. He planned to go straight to the airport from the Memphis office.
“Checking out,” he said to the young woman behind the lobby desk as he dropped off his key.
She picked the key card up off the counter, smiled at him, and asked, “Did you enjoy your stay, sir? Is there anything else we can do for you?”
“Yes, my stay was fine,” he said. “Could you call me a cab, please?”
“Sure,” she replied, typing on a keyboard and checking the information on his room in the computer. “Should I charge the card you checked in with? Or would you like to use another form of payment?”
“That card is fine,” he said, studying the woman and her appearance. He couldn’t help but wonder, once again, what the woman who’d taken Daniel had looked like. No one had been able to give a good description of her since the nightclub had been dark.
“Can I see your ID, please, sir?”
“What?” he asked, brought back to the present by her question.
“I need to see your ID so I can confirm that your name matches the one on the card,” she said, smiling politely. “It’s standard procedure.”
“Uh, sure,” he said, digging his wallet out of his pocket and extracting his driver’s license for her. As she looked it over and handed it back he got an idea. He wondered if he could find the woman by backtracking and seeing where she’d gotten her driver’s license. First, though, he would have to find a picture of her.
“Thank you, sir,” the woman said. “I’ve contacted the taxi service we use and they’ve sent someone to pick you up.”
“That was fast…” he said, “…I didn’t see you make the call.”
“I did it with the computer,” she said, pointing at the screen. “We use their app to make things faster for our guests. It also lets us know if all their cars are busy. If so, we switch to our second favorite taxi service.”
“Ah, yes, apps,” he said, laughing. “Everything seems to be run by those these days.”
“Have a good day, sir,” she said, smiling and nodding before she turned to answer the phone.
He figured with that, he was dismissed. He put his driver’s license back in his wallet and slid it into his pocket. He picked up his bags and turned toward the door. He planned to wait outside for his taxi.
He didn’t know if all his instant ideas were caused by the universe guiding him to what he’d wanted for so long or if he was laser focused on everything because of desperation.
The woman’s driver’s license photo had to be somewhere, even if she was a foreigner. But he suspected she wasn’t. He knew it would take some time, but if he could find a single image of the woman from a security or street camera in Cleveland or Nashville, he could use face recognition software to possibly track her down. He also knew if he could figure out a general time she’d been out kidnapping her victims, he could do a social media search to see if she’d been captured in someone’s “partying” images.
“IDs and apps,” he muttered to himself, and chuckled as his taxi pulled up to the curb to collect him.
He gave the driver the address of the Memphis field office and they were off. He was itching to start all the searches he needed to do. He was going to be a busy man and he hoped he could convince some of the agents he would meet to help him.
***
The building had multiple levels with mirrored glass windows that hugged trees between its V-shaped wings. Like most FBI field offices, it looked to be in fairly good and professional condition.
After paying the driver, David headed straight to the front entrance with his bags in tow. He knew they would be x-rayed. He knew he would be vetted. And he knew it would take at least a few minutes for all this to happen before he’d be allowed upstairs. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with protocol, but he knew the more he co-operated the faster it would go.
Upon entering the building, he put his bags on the electronic belt to be run through the x-ray machine. His service weapon was inside, so he expected it to be discovered. In anticipation of the discovery, he immediately pulled his badge from his pocket and held it at the ready to show the door guards. Their puzzled faces and alert stances relaxed as soon as he flashed his badge.
“I’m Agent David McCoy from the Los Angeles office,” he said, answering the questions he knew they were thinking but had yet to voice. “My boss, Agent Harmon, called to let them know I was coming—they’re expecting me upstairs.”
“Do you know what floor or who your boss spoke with?” the guard by the metal detector asked, while the one handling the x-ray machine picked up a clipboard and started looking for David’s name on a sheet of paper attached to it.
“I can call and check,” David said, trying to remember if Harmon had even told him. He pulled his cell phone out of his laptop bag that had come through the x-ray machine and turned it on.
“He’s going to the second floor to see Agent Mallory,” the guard checking the clipboard said. “Go ahead, Agent.” The man nodded at David.
“Thank you,” David said, collecting his things.
“Will you need a retur
n visitor’s pass?” the other guard asked as David moved past him.
“No,” David called back over his shoulder as he kept going. “I’m heading out to a new location this afternoon.”
They nodded and turned their attention to the next person coming through the door.
David used the elevator to get to the second floor. After that he was lost as to where to go. As the doors slid closed behind him, he looked around for anything that might indicate where he could find Agent Mallory.
While he was standing there a young man in a suit, carrying an armload of case files, happened past and noticed him.
“Are you lost…?” he asked.
“Yes,” David said. “Could you tell me where I can find Agent Mallory?”
The young man looked him over, shrugged, and said, “Follow me.” He then took off down the hall.
David did as he was told and followed the young man. They turned a corner in the hall and then passed through a doorway into a large room with multiple desks and agents; it wasn’t that much different from the LA office.
The young man headed toward what looked like a glass walled conference room and paused just before going in to nod toward a corner office.
“You’ll find Agent Mallory in there,” he said. “Good luck.” The young man smiled and went into the conference room where he dumped his load of files on the table and then started sorting them. Three other people joined him in the task, taking seats at the table as they did so.
David found the “good luck” part strange. With a mental shrug, he dismissed the young man’s parting words and headed toward the office indicated. “Special Agent Mallory” was emblazoned on the door in gold lettering, indicating he was indeed in the right place.
When he knocked on the door, he heard the word “enter” barked out by a middle-aged feminine voice.
He opened the door to find a plump, African-American woman in a dark suit sitting behind a large wooden desk, typing on a keyboard. Her eyes were trained on her computer monitor and she didn’t even take a moment to look his way as he closed the door.
Nurse Blood (The Organ Harvester Series Book 1) Page 12