by Chris Mooney
“How much?” Sebastian asked.
“Excuse me?”
“How much money do you want? That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
“You think I came so I can extort you?” Paul chuckled, shook his head. “I could have done that over the phone—could have done that months ago, if I’d wanted.”
Paul’s smile felt like a knife.
“I don’t want to take money from you, Sebastian. I want to make it for you. I’m talking the kind of money that builds empires.” Paul poured a drink, his expression serious now, all business. “All that charity work you love to do, so you look like a pillar of the community? You can fund any charity you want, a whole stable of ’em, for eternity. They’ll name buildings after you, parks and streets. You’ll be immortal.”
“And then what?”
“What do you mean?”
“After you make me immortal, then what? What else are you offering?”
“Whatever you want, my man.” Again with the cutting smile. “Whatever you want.”
You mean whatever you want, Sebastian wanted to say, glancing at the little gold crown on the table. Men like Paul were never content with their current status. Make them a prince, and they’d want to be a king. And when they finally managed to take the throne—always by force, by blood and deception—then they’d want to be a god, and even that wouldn’t be enough, because with men like Paul the wanting never stopped. Their bellies were never full, their egos never satisfied.
Paul took a sip of his drink. He closed his eyes as he swallowed.
“Wow,” he said. “You really, really need to try this.”
Paul poured the second drink.
“Alex and Jolie,” Sebastian said.
“Yeah,” Paul sighed. “That was unfortunate.”
“That’s what you call executing two kids? Unfortunate?”
“It had to be done.” Paul put down the bottle. “If they’d lived, they would have told the cops everything.”
Only they hadn’t known anything. Sebastian took great measures to keep the salient details from his donors in the event one of them somehow escaped. It had never happened.
He didn’t need to share any of this with Paul. Sebastian said, “Your only job today was to keep an eye on them, make sure things went smoothly. Instead, you brought the cops—”
“No, sir, I did not. They just showed up out of the blue. Why? Because someone in our organization must’ve tipped them off.”
Our organization. Sebastian wanted to reach across the table with his fist, punch that smirk all the way back to the center of Paul’s sick brain.
“Vargas’s dog got out of the yard,” Sebastian said.
Paul narrowed his eyes at him.
“One of the kids let it out of the yard, and the cops found it—and a message,” Sebastian said, pleased by how calm and reasonable he sounded. He needed to stay that way if he was going to get Paul to go with him to Long Beach. “Someone, either Alex or Jolie, wrote a message on the dog tag. It said, ‘Help us.’ That happened under your watch.”
Paul stared down at his flat, hard stomach.
“Then,” Sebastian said, “I come to find out that you took blood from Jolie. Only you know she’s not allowed to give blood because she’s pregnant. Because it’s not safe, places her at risk of anemia. Because it could kill—”
“Her blood is different from all the others.”
“Different how?” The words jumped out of Sebastian’s mouth before he could stop to consider them.
“With Pandora,” Paul said, confidence creeping back into his voice, “I know a lot of people get super horny after a transfusion—a full-body transfusion. But if you take the blood from a pregnant carrier, it’s insane how potent this shit is. Think of it as Pandora on steroids. Pandora makes you look five to ten years younger? My shit makes you feel like a god. And the best thing is that it only takes a few units to get the results I’m talking about.”
“Too bad you killed the golden goose.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“Jolie,” Sebastian said. “You killed her.”
Paul opened his mouth, about to speak when he snapped it shut. His face brightened. “Oh, I see. Forget Jolie. I’ll replace her with one of my donors.” Paul caught his expression and said, “I found some of my own carriers—for testing purposes, you understand. I wanted—”
“The stickman at Vargas’s house. He’s one of Anton’s.”
“I borrowed him, to do me a favor. He’s not a part of this. Anton. No one is. I’ve been doing the testing on my own, and on my own time. You’re the only person I’ve shared this with—the only one I wanted to share this with.” Paul frowned. “Wipe that look off your face. I had to get some of my own carriers to test out my theory. I didn’t want to approach you with some half-baked concept—and it’s not. My product is rock-solid. Let’s call it Pandora two point oh. Together, we can—”
“What are you mixing it with?”
“Are you asking me to share my secret recipe?” Paul shot him a sly grin. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
“How many donors do you have?”
“Three.” Paul frowned, then said, “No, two. One of them lost the kid. She’s not back in rotation yet. I’ve got to give her some time to, you know, heal up before I breed her again.”
Breed her.
Sebastian didn’t harbor any illusions about what he did for a living. When you boiled it down to its core, he abducted carriers—young kids and teenagers, more often than not—and stole their blood and sold it. He took only carriers who came from broken and shitty homes and gave them not only a better life but a safe one, where they would never be hunted or abused. He was as good to them as he knew how to be, given the circumstances—not out of guilt but because it was the right thing to do.
But what Paul was talking about—it was unthinkable.
Paul looked at him with those boyish, innocent eyes. “It doesn’t matter who knocks ’em up—Jolie proved that to me today. Although, I’ve got to say, with her I needed to use less blood for some reason. Maybe it’s because another carrier impregnated her, makes the blood a bit more potent. Maybe we should shoot for that down the road—carriers breeding with other carriers. For right now, though, anyone can— Where are you going?”
Sebastian had gotten to his feet. “I want to see it,” he told Paul, masking his disgust and anger.
“See what?”
“Your farm.”
“It’s not really a blood farm. It’s more like a holding pen, and a crappy one at that.”
“Still, I’d like to view your operation. How you harvest the blood, how you store it, the medications you’re using, et cetera.” And once you take me there, Sebastian added privately, I’m going to blow your brains out.
“So we’ve got a deal?” Paul asked.
“What you’ve got is my interest. After I see everything with my own eyes, we’ll sit down with Frank and discuss terms.”
“Then a toast.” Paul slid the second glass across the table.
Sebastian didn’t take it, his mind seized on a string of questions: Have any of his carriers carried a baby to full term? What did he do to the kids? What does he want to do to the kids? No, don’t ask.
“Just one sip,” Paul said. “You can do that, right? Just take one sip?”
Sebastian felt his lunch sloshing around in his stomach. “Get up and get dressed.”
Paul remained seated, squinting up at him. “You do realize what I’m offering you.”
“And you realize what I’m offering you.”
“Capital and infrastructure.”
And that, Sebastian believed, was the leverage he had over Paul. If Paul had wanted to launch his own operation, he would have put something together already. But undertaking such an operation took a tremendous
amount of capital. Paul didn’t have that, or an infrastructure, which was why he was here. Paul needed him in order to produce his ungodly product.
Which was never going to happen. After he killed Paul, he’d take in Paul’s carriers and give them a good life, treat them properly.
“After the farm,” Sebastian said, “we’ll go to Long Beach and—”
“Why go all the way to Long Beach? Frank didn’t say.”
“We got a house there where you’ll be safe until things cool down.”
“I’ve got my own place. I can—”
“We purchased this place in the event something happened and we needed to lay low. It’s got state-of-the-art security and, in case cops or anyone else decides to come snooping around, a well-hidden panic room. You’ll be safe there. No, don’t argue with me on this. One step at a time, okay? That’s how I work—how you need to work if you want to go into business together.”
Paul considered him. Sebastian saw traces of the kid buried in the man, the boy who, when his mother had asked him to finish his vegetables or to put away the cookies, would stare back at her as if to say, Make me—I dare you. Paul was staring at him that way right now.
His face suddenly relaxed. “You’re right,” Paul said. Sighing, he got to his feet, his muscles flexing as he walked over to his clothes.
Sebastian stood several feet away, near the table, his hands in his pockets. His right hand gripped the gun, just in case Paul tried something. Paul seemed relaxed—too relaxed, Sebastian thought. It bothered him. Put him on edge.
Paul slid into his sneakers. “I’ve got to be honest, Sebastian. You’re not showing the level of excitement I expected.”
“Lot of shit went down today. I’m still trying to process everything.”
Paul worked his T-shirt over his head. “What if I say no to Long Beach and taking you to the farm?”
“Then no deal.”
Paul sighed. “What I thought.” He shook his head and stared off in the distance. “I know what you do there, you know. At Long Beach.” His eyes cut back to Sebastian. “I know everything about you, Frank, and your operation.”
An inner voice urged Sebastian to pull the gun, put him down now. It was the right thing to do, no question—and he could make up a story. He could spin it for the police. Spin it in a way it wouldn’t come back to bite him in the ass. Do it now, before he—
“I was going to make you an emperor,” Paul said sadly, extending his arm above his head and performing the kind of hand signal Sebastian associated with SWAT and military special operations commands. Paul was giving a command to someone, but to whom? And to do what?
Sebastian caught a wink of light coming from the house on the hill. One of the windows facing him was now cracked open, the mesh screen gone, the sun reflecting off the glass lens of what he was sure was a sniper scope. He turned as the report of a rifle echoed through the air, the round slamming into his chest and knocking him off his feet and sending him tumbling backward, over the edge of the pool.
Sebastian sank through the cool water, grabbing his chest and thinking only one thing: Ava.
CHAPTER 8
ELLIE WAS SENT straight to the hospital—not that she had asked, and not that there was any need. Physically, she was okay, everything in working order. What she needed was to go home, take a long, hot shower, and then change into comfortable clothes, go sit out on the back deck with a glass of Irish whiskey, and enjoy the peace and quiet, take some time to process everything that had happened. No more talking, and answering the same questions over and over again.
Her plans, though, would have to wait until later. The procedures in place after a shooting were specific and nonnegotiable: she had to go to the hospital whether she wanted to or not, and get a full examination, everything documented in writing so she couldn’t turn around later and try to milk a disability claim, maybe even sue the department down the road for some injury she suffered while on the job.
Riding shotgun in the patrol car, she stared out the side window and wondered if there had ever been a time in human history when people had simply done their jobs without trying to game the system.
“We’re here,” the patrolwoman said, pulling into the parking lot of St. Michael’s Hospital. Her name was Toni Vickers. She was somewhere in her fifties and had white hair and smooth brown skin and a round, comforting face.
Vickers had said something. Ellie couldn’t recall it. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“I asked if you’re okay to walk, or would you like assistance? I can go inside, wheel out a chair, and—”
“I walked into the car by myself,” Ellie snapped. “I sure as hell can walk out of it.”
Vickers nodded somberly, lips pressed tight.
“I’m sorry,” Ellie sighed. “You didn’t deserve that.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. It’s just that . . . I’m not the victim here. Everyone is talking to me in this patronizing way, acting like I’m going to explode into a million little pieces. That’s not going to happen, okay? I just want to get this over with.”
The ER waiting room was packed to capacity. When Vickers returned from the check-in area with a young, plump nurse with rosy, cherublike cheeks, the woman led them down a series of halls and into an exam room.
The nurse handed her a neatly folded dressing gown. Ellie stared at it, the fabric thin and rough against her fingers. While computers and medicine had advanced and kept making breakthroughs, some things never changed—remained a constant—like the drab examination smock a patient had to wear backward.
The nurse left, but the room felt claustrophobic because Vickers, by no means a small woman, with her ample hips, remained. She stood against the wall, underneath a pair of taped sheets of paper advocating the importance of the HPV vaccine and handwashing.
“Let’s bag your clothes,” Vickers said.
“My clothes?”
Vickers nodded. “We need to collect each item of clothing separately.”
“What? Why?”
“Honey,” Vickers said in a soothing voice, “you’re covered in blood.”
Ellie stared down at her clothes, as if seeing them for the first time. She was covered in blood—not hers, but Danny’s. It was smeared across the dark fabric of her pants and shirtsleeves. There were splashes on her chest.
“Strip down to your bra and panties,” Vickers said gently. “The doctor will collect those.”
Of course. I’m covered in blood, Ellie thought. She had performed CPR on Danny. Danny was dead—she had failed to find a pulse—but she had still kept blowing her breath down into his lungs, kept using her hands on his chest to get his dead heart to start beating.
“Don’t worry,” Vickers said. “I have someone bringing a fresh set of clothes from your locker.”
Ellie’s gaze drifted to the landline phone sitting on the counter.
“You can’t talk to anyone yet,” Vickers said. “But he knows. I spoke with Cody and assured him you were—”
“Samantha.”
Vickers, frowning, took out her pocket notebook and removed the pen threaded inside the spiral. “Is she a family member? Friend?”
“Danny’s mother. Her name is Samantha. Have you spoken to her yet?”
“I’m sure someone—”
“She won’t answer her phone unless Danny is calling. You can’t leave her a message saying what happened. You can’t do that to her.”
Vickers nodded in understanding, smiled patiently. “I can assure you that won’t happen. Why don’t—”
“Today’s Friday, right? Yes. Yes, it’s Friday.” Ellie felt clammy all over. Her mind raced and her heart banged so hard against her rib cage, she thought it might shoot out of her chest like a bullet. “Danny’s mother will be at her sister’s today—she spends every Friday with her, Danny to
ld me. I don’t know the phone number or the address, though.”
“Ellie,” Vickers began.
“If Danny had told me, I would have written down her number or put it in my phone. I should have asked. I should have been more prepared.”
Vickers stepped up next to her. Ellie felt the woman’s hand on her back.
“You’ve been through a terrible ordeal,” Vickers said.
Ellie kept her attention on the HPV poster but wasn’t really looking at it but through it, thinking of Danny zipped up inside a rubber bag and stuffed inside a refrigerated drawer while his mother was getting ready for her afternoon out with her sister, followed by the early-bird special at the Continental, the woman having no idea that her youngest child was dead.
“You’re going to go through a variety of emotions and mood swings,” Vickers said gently. “You may also experience survivor’s guilt. The important thing is to allow yourself to experience these feelings, to talk about them, because in these situations, victims—”
Vickers stopped talking when Ellie stepped away, straightening. She blinked back the tears and said, “Yes, you’re right—I need to deal with this.” She began unbuttoning her shirt, her hands trembling. “I understand,” she said. “I understand now.”
* * *
* * *
The vast majority of the LAPD—not the elite brass or the top-level pencil pushers and executives but the actual cops who worked the streets and cases—couldn’t afford to live in Los Angeles. Last year, almost 85 percent of the LAPD lived outside of the city. By the end of this year, that figure, Ellie had been told, would be closer to 90 percent, thanks to a salary cap and another round of budget cuts.
Which was why a lot of cops now lived in Simi Valley, in Ventura County. It was thirty miles from downtown LA, right next door to Santa Barbara, surrounded by the Santa Susana mountain range. The biggest selling point was that it was cheap. “You should check out the Clara Anna Woods Mobile Home Park,” one of her academy instructors had told her. “It’s real affordable.”
Ellie had lived her entire life in small, cramped apartments. Moving into a trailer wasn’t exactly a step up in the world. She had checked out several apartments in Simi Valley, and at the last minute decided to drive by the mobile home park. She was glad she did.