Racing From Evil: A Nikki Latrelle Mystery Novella; The Prequel

by Sasscer Hill

  Mom had had trouble with sedatives. The doctors had told her she was a fast metabolizer, that her body processed some drugs so fast that . . . What was it she’d told me? Something about the drugs not reaching optimal blood levels. She’s said it was genetic and that I might need higher than normal doses, just like her.

  I heard the knob turn and a click as the lock on the other side released. They were coming. I lay perfectly still with my eyes closed, working to breathe slowly and evenly.

  “Man, you really knocked them out, Aunt Viv.”

  It was Bic talking. And then I heard the voice that had ordered him to hold me still as she’d shut my world down. Vivian.

  “The new girl will be out for a long time,” she said. “The other two will need a shot in a couple of hours. Help me change their ringers.”

  “What about Nikki? Aren’t you gonna stick an IV in her, too?”

  “She won’t be here long enough to need one. If I get the second phone call, we’ll be doing the surgeries tonight. You’re ready to make the run, right?”

  “I told you I was, Aunt Viv.”

  It took more will than I’d known I possessed to lie still. Surgeries? I clamped down on my terror. If Vivian knew I was awake, she’d put me to sleep forever.

  “So what are you gonna take?” His voice seemed to hold a sick eagerness.

  “I’ll know for sure when the call comes. Certainly all three hearts. And probably the kidneys.

  “And Uncle Bob is going to serve up what’s left to his pigs, right?”

  “You already know that, Bic. I find your interest in the details to be unattractively ghoulish.”

  “Me? I’m not the one cutting their hearts out.”

  “That’s enough! Hand me that ringer. Let’s get this done. I’ve got a lot to do before tonight.”

  After that it was quiet except for the sound of Vivian doing something with the plastic bags I’d seen attached to poles that stood by the two gurneys. Pedro and been hooked up for three days, and who knew how long the poor girl had been here.

  “You’ll be at Burrito all afternoon, right?” Vivian asked.

  “I already told you I got deliveries coming in. Where else would I be?”

  “Fine. You just make sure you get over here the minute I call you. The time between harvesting the organs and getting them to the hospital in New York is very limited.”

  “So,” Bic said, “if we get the three hearts and six kidneys, how much do I make?”

  “You’ll get your share. Come on, we’re done here.”

  I heard their footsteps, then the door closed, and I heard the lock click. Their steps receded, and the only sound in the room was the soft breathing of my drugged roommates.

  Frantically, I wriggled my arm again until I got my wrist and hand free of the strap. Raising up on my free elbow, I scanned the room. It was maybe ten by twelve feet. Beyond the girl, against the far wall, there were cabinets above a counter top that had drawers underneath. Next to that was a stack of red waste cartons labeled “biological hazard.” The sight of them made me sick with fear.

  Using my free hand, I unstrapped my other arm and went to work on my legs. The restraints must have been used to keep me from rolling off the gurney. Apparently Vivian was confident she didn’t need to lock us down, that her drugs would take care of that.

  If I hadn’t inherited Mom’s genes, I’d be dead. Fortunately, I had, and I was off that gurney in seconds.

  After hurrying to Pedro’s side, I touched his face and felt his wrist for a pulse. I didn’t really know how to read a pulse, but to me, it felt steady and strong. There was no time to check the girl. I had to get out!

  I ran to the door. Of course, it was locked. But a Baltimore schoolmate of questionable character had bragged to me once that if the lock was located in the door knob, he could simply knock the handle off the door and then open it. I remembered what he’d said.

  “Just kick the sucker off with your foot.”

  I wasn’t sure I could do that, and darted to the cabinets to look for something I could use, like a hammer. The first cabinet was filled with bandages, boxes of surgical thread, and packages containing rolls of gauze. I pulled open one of the drawers. It was like an expensive kitchen drawer with numerous sections for silverware, except instead of knives and forks there were scalpels.

  Seeing them, my knees sagged and I had to steady myself against the counter top.

  Find something to use, Nikki. Get out of here!

  I opened another cabinet to find a collection of electric saws. One was solid metal and shaped like a big hair dryer, except where the blower would be there was a blade. I grabbed the handle, rushed to the door, and pressed my ear against it. Nothing. If Vivian or Bic were nearby, I couldn’t hear them.

  Using the heavy casing around the saw’s electric motor, I smashed the door handle, terrified someone would hear the noise. It took three tries before the knob fell off, and the impact hurt my hand and ran up my arm to my shoulder. I didn’t care. If I couldn’t get out, I’d be dead.

  Staring at the opening I’d made in the door, I found the spindle was still inside. I pushed it through with my fingers and it fell to the floor on the opposite side, taking the other knob with it. I stared into the hole. A horizontal bolt remained. It connected to the latch still holding the door shut. I grasped the metal with a finger and thumb and pulled it back. The door opened.

  I leaned out and listened. Nothing. Before me was a long hallway. At the far end a lighted sign indicated an exit. I ran down the hall past what I thought were examining rooms on either side. A nurse emerged from one of them as I streaked by.

  “Can I help you?”

  “No. I was just leaving.”

  “Did you have an appointment?”

  I kept running, finally reaching the door at the end of the hall. Any sense of caution was gone. Bursting through it, I found myself in a waiting room with soft lighting and swanky looking furniture. Women were reading magazines and fiddling with smart phones and iPads. A receptionist called out to me, and the nurse from the hallway started to chase me as I crashed through the waiting room, swung the exit door open, and fled into the main lobby. I erupted through the glass exit doors and ran from the building, heading toward 198.

  It may have stopped snowing, but running was still treacherous. My feet slid out from under me and I went down hard onto the snow-covered sidewalk. Rolling to my hands and knees, I stood.

  The sound of pounding feet made me whirl. Bic! He’d come from the lobby, was running after me, and closing ground fast.

  13

  I stared at the angry red splotches on his otherwise bloodless cheeks as he ran toward me. He got so close, he stretched his hands out to grab me.

  I took off again, and behind me I heard him fall and curse. Seeing a gas station with a food mart, I ran past the pumps and darted inside. Ducking low so Bic wouldn’t be able to see me in the minimart’s aisles, I zipped through a couple of them and out the door on the far side.

  Just ahead, a guy of about twenty was climbing into his car next to a gas pump. I yanked open the passengers’ door and plunged inside.

  “You have to help me! Please!” I pointed to where Bic had already come through the door of the minimart and was running toward us. “He’s trying to hurt me! Please. Get out of here!”

  He took one look at Bic and said, “Shit!”

  He cranked his engine and we fishtailed out of the gas station and pulled onto 198. He drove about two blocks, turned into a lot outside a Laundromat, and stopped his car.

  “What the hell was that about,” he asked. He had scruffy hair, and a beard, but his steady eyes reassured me.

  “I have to call the police. There’s a guy and a girl in trouble. They need help!”

  “What are you, a drama queen?” Glancing at my expression, he said, “Forget I asked. Here.” In his hand was a cell phone.

  I called 911 and a dispatcher came on the line. I tried to explain what had happened. T
he guy next to me shook his head like he’d never heard anything so farfetched in his life.

  The dispatcher wanted my name. I couldn’t tell her, the police were looking for me.

  “Nikki Bernstein.” I said, somehow coming up with the name of the Pimlico guy who’d split his bet with me.

  I made it through the call with the dispatcher without tripping any landmines, but at some point, I’d have to come up with an explanation for my connection to Bic. I could hardly say I’d been buying false ID.

  The dispatcher kept me on the phone while we waited for a police cruiser to show up. Glancing at the clock on the dash, I was surprised to see it was just past three. I hadn’t been knocked out for long, but that it had happened at all left me shaken.

  When a squad car pulled up next to us, I was glad to see two fully armed Anne Arundel County officers climb out, at least until they started questioning me.

  My rescuer, who said his name was Mike, listened to the story I told the cops like it was the greatest entertainment he’d had all year.

  “Yeah,” he said, when they asked him, “this crazy looking guy was chasing her. Creeped me out, man.”

  When I realized they had called an ambulance for me, I got mad.

  “I don’t need a stupid ambulance. I want to go back to the clinic! Have the police even gone there yet?”

  One cop, whose muscular body and unrelenting manner reminded me of a bull dog, said, “Miss, you need to calm down and be seen by an EMT. Officers are handling the situation at the clinic. It’s not your problem.”

  When the ambulance arrived, the cop turned me over to the EMTs, and Mike watched as they shepherded me inside the ambulance.

  “Hey, Nikki,” he called, “good luck, okay?”

  I nodded.

  “Bernstein, right?” he asked.

  “Yeah, Nikki Bernstein.” I was such a liar.

  What seemed like hours later, I was still in the emergency section of Laurel Hospital, sitting on a gurney in one of those little curtained cubicles. They’d taken my clothes and made me wear a hospital gown that was impossible to fasten.

  A nurse had checked my vital signs to see if I’d retained any adverse effect from the drug Braygler had given me. Apparently I didn’t, but she’d still drawn blood for a toxicology report. Apparently the doctor I’d seen earlier had ordered the test.

  But no one had answered my questions about Pedro or the girl.

  The curtain drew back as the doctor reappeared. He had light brown skin, smooth black hair and badge that said Dr. Basu.

  “Miss Bernstein,” he said, “we’ll have to wait on the toxicology report, but you seem to have come through this quite well.”

  “Can I go?”

  “Do you have a parent or guardian who can take you home?”

  “Sure,” I said. “They’ll be here soon.”

  “That’s good, because you can’t be discharged until someone arrives to take you.”

  I planned to bolt the minute he left. A nurse had already asked me about insurance and payment. I’d lied and said my parents would take care of it.

  “But please,” I said to Doctor Basu, “can you tell me about the other kids that were with me in that plastic surgery clinic?” By now the lack of answers had frustrated me to the point that my voice was rising with anger. “I really need to hear that they are all right! They must here in this hospital.”

  He rubbed his eyes, and thought a moment. “Oh, yes. I did find out for you.”

  Had he ever planned on telling me?

  “The attending doctor thinks they should be fine. They have woken up and appear to be physically unharmed. I can’t speak to their emotional state.”

  “Can I see the boy, Pedro?”

  “No, I’m sorry. Only immediate family. His mother and father are with him.”

  Well, at least there was that. “What about the people that abducted us?”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know anything about that.” His lips thinned into a tight line as his stare became more penetrating. “Did your parents say when they’d be here?”

  I didn’t like the growing skepticism in his eyes. “Um, they just left word with the nurse that they’d be here soon.” I faked a smile.

  I exhaled with relief when as Basu left the cubicle. Seconds later, I stuck my head out to see him retreating down the hall in the distance. I found my clothes in a bag under the gurney. I pulled them out, got dressed, and stepped into the hall. The place was like a rabbit warren with long corridors going in all directions and I wasn’t sure I could find my way out. But I had to.

  If they discovered I had no identity, no money, and no family, they’d call the police or county social services for sure. Damn everything. I took a deep breath and headed in the opposite direction from where Doctor Basu had gone.

  By the time I got around the first corner and saw an exit sign in the distance, I’d started crying. I tried to stop the tears, but seemed to have lost my inner strength. I felt weak, alone, and afraid.

  The door beneath the red exit sign swung open and a man came through. He was tall, but stooped as if old.

  Ravinsky. Was he here to see the Pedrozas? Was it possible he’d come for me?

  I swiped at my tears and walked slowly toward him, feeling I was about to reach a crossroads.

  When we were a few feet apart, he looked at the tears still streaming down my face.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” he said. “I can’t have my stable help crying all the time.”

  The words “my stable help” were as sweet as anything I’d ever heard. I sniffed, and wiped the back of my hand across my nose. “Have you seen Maria or Pedro?”

  “Yes. They’re fine. They’ll be at the barn later.” He glanced at my hands which had started shaking. “Listen to me. The Brayglers are in police custody. They can’t hurt you, okay?”

  “She was going to kill us.”

  “I know,” he said, shaking his head as if he still couldn’t get his mind around it. He put a hand on my shoulder and gently pushed me toward the exit door.

  “Come on Nikki, let’s go home.”