BLOODY BELL

by Jeremy Waldron

  “And why is that?” Lieutenant asked.

  “Because of her recent birth. It’s the same story with Cameron Dee and the Browns’ daughter, Tracey.” King’s gaze rounded the circle of men. “They were all about the same age, and all assumed to be pregnant.”

  “Tracey Brown is pregnant?” Campbell sounded surprised.

  “We found a bottle of prenatal vitamins in the car we recovered earlier.”

  “What are you suggesting, King?” Lieutenant interrupted. “That this is about the babies?”

  King turned to Campbell. “How far along is Cameron Dee?”

  Campbell’s brow furrowed. “Thirty-eight weeks.”

  Lieutenant exhaled a hot breath and scrubbed one hand over his mouth. “Which means the clock is ticking.” He turned to Campbell. “Where are you at in your investigation with Cameron Dee?”

  “Working a couple leads, but the trail goes cold just as I think I’m close to finding out what’s happening. Kate vanished without a trace, and, so far, it seems Cameron did, too.”

  King stood there thinking about Tracey. Gone without a trace. Disappeared into the night, never to be seen again. He was frustrated with Campbell’s lack of progress. He wondered why he seemed to be one step ahead of Campbell when tackling each missing person’s case—and why he wasn’t treating this like a crime had been committed. Because of Campbell’s incompetence, King blamed Campbell personally for Kate Wilson’s death. If only Campbell would have put in the extra hours the case deserved—if only he took the call seriously—than maybe Kate’s story would have been written differently.

  “The examiner has ruled the Browns’ deaths a homicide,” King said when locking eyes with his commanding officer.

  “I heard.” Lieutenant sighed and sounded annoyed by the conclusion. “And you know what that means.”

  King lowered his brow and nodded. “I believe I do, Sir.”

  “In case you don’t, let me break it down for you. I need you to dig deep, Alex. Find out everything you know about who might have wanted the Browns dead. Learn who their friends were, if they had enemies, and everyone the couple socialized with. Not just anyone can get their hands on fentanyl. Someone targeted them. Either a bad batch of heroin or a lethal dose of fentanyl.”

  “You can count on me, L.T.”

  “I’m serious. Leave no stone unturned. Look into their work life and file through their financials. When you’re finished, report back to me when you learn who might have benefited from their deaths. I don’t have to make a case for murder on a low-level street thug for peddling fentanyl. We need them off the streets.”

  King understood crystal clear. And he knew just where to start.

  “And, while you’re at it, let me know who might have also had their eye on Tracey and if the young woman was worth killing for.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Tracey Brown’s eyes popped wide open in a moment of sudden panic. Her lungs expelled short wheezy breaths of air as she listened to her heart drum against her chest. The room was pitch black. It was impossible to see anything other than the little green and red lights flashing like stars on a moonless night.

  Propping herself up on both elbows, her sweaty back peeled off the bed sheets as her memory slowly came back to her. She couldn’t be sure if she had been dreaming or if her nightmare was real.

  She remembered receiving the call. Being told where to meet. Getting picked up by the clinic’s nurse before being taken here—to a new location she had never been before.

  Tracey reached for the television remote and flicked the screen on. Instantly, its light flooded her small room and provided the visual to calm her dark imagination.

  Her hand pressed against her womb. A little smile sprouted on her lips at the thought of her baby. She had lost track of time. There were no clocks in the room, no windows either.

  Tracey’s thoughts soon traveled to the outside world.

  She thought about her friends, work and what her boss would say when she didn’t show up for the dinner rush. Most of all, she wondered why her parents hadn’t come to visit.

  Tracey wanted to go home. Get out of this cramped room that smelled as sterile as it felt.

  The parallels between her baby confined to her womb and herself trapped inside this small room were ironic.

  The endless cycle of TV and movies wouldn’t be enough to keep her entertained for the next two-plus months while the doctor who referred to himself as Cherub monitored her pregnancy. But Tracey didn’t want to lose the baby. She had changed everything since learning she was pregnant. Her diet, her lifestyle, and she was even taking the prenatal vitamins she was instructed to consume religiously.

  Tracey’s eyes slowly rolled to the wooden door.

  Doctor Cherub never came back after the sudden emergency that interrupted her initial evaluation. Tracey didn’t know how long ago that was, but she couldn’t stop the cries she heard coming through the walls. They lived on in her head.

  The temperature in the room plummeted to what felt like arctic levels.

  She continued to stare at the door, wishing she had her cell phone with her. They had taken it when she arrived, along with the clothes she was wearing. Now, she was wearing only underwear and a bra beneath her clinic issued gown. She felt completely naked. They gave her a blanket to keep warm, but it was nothing like the one she had at home.

  Her heart slowed to a hypnotic beat.

  The walls began speaking to her—coming back to life from the cries of a woman still echoing inside of them. The terror. The pain. The agony even Tracey could feel. It was all there as if a prologue for what was to come in her own life.

  When a shiver moved down her spine, Tracey lowered herself back down onto the bed and cradled her baby inside her hands, terrified of the plank she would soon be forced to walk.

  Her eyes watered and it didn’t take long for the first tear to fall.

  Loneliness consumed her. She felt abandoned by her own family and soon regretted not being a better daughter. Tracey blamed herself for bringing shame to the family. It was never her intention. She wished she could go back and make things right—change the course of her life by making one different decision. But she couldn’t, and that was the worst feeling of all.

  Soon, Tracey was in the fetal position with an endless stream of tears pouring out of her eyes. Her body shook and no one came to save her or comfort her from her own self-destruction. She had several weeks before she delivered her baby into this world. She wondered how she was ever going to make it to the end, or if she even wanted to.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Dr. Glenn Wu lowered the microphone away from his face and stepped to the side.

  Behind him, the large screen played a video of a couple—Bryan and Meghan Johnson—who had been part of his original clinical trials. It was meant to be the climax of the speech and Susan still had goosebumps on her arms.

  Susan’s spine was straight as an arrow and her mind was swimming with possibility. She listened intently and couldn’t wait to hear more. Dr. Wu had taken her on an incredible journey already, but now, here was proof that his research went beyond theory and was being applied to real world situations.

  The rows of spectators around Susan had also been silenced with disbelief and awe. They were equally as enthralled as Susan. So far, her expectations hadn’t only been met, they had been taken to the moon.

  Meghan Johnson was a thirty-six-year-old woman and spoke to the audience as if she was in the room with them. Holding her husband’s hand, she told the story of her difficult journey to becoming a mother. Miscarriages and complication after complication stole her best years from her. While they consulted with IVF clinics with hopes of eventually conceiving, Meghan’s own sister received the news of a gene in their family DNA that increased the risk for cancer in Meghan’s future children.

  “That’s when we first heard of Dr. Glenn Wu and what he was doing with CRISPR technology,” Bryan said into the camera.

>   “It was a simple decision.” Meghan turned to her husband and smiled. “We had already accepted that the only way to become parents was through in vitro fertilization, so when asked if we would like to get rid of the potentially cancerous gene,” her eyes glimmered with excitement as she nodded, “we said yes.”

  Susan turned to Benjamin. His eyes were narrow. She knew he was deep in thought, forming an opinion on the extremely powerful technology already being applied to a select few patients willing to accept the risks.

  “We allowed Dr. Wu and his amazing team of doctors to edit the DNA in our embryo with hopes of eliminating future suffering for our child.” A tear pooled in the corner of Meghan’s eyes as her little boy came running into her arms. They introduced him as Little Mikey, and Susan felt an empathetic lump form in her own throat. “Mikey here is about to finish first grade and there are still no signs he has the cancerous gene.” Meghan smiled, hugging her little boy. “All thanks to Dr. Wu.”

  The video faded out and Dr. Wu took center stage once again.

  The roar of applause shook the walls like a freight train passing by.

  “As you can see,” Dr. Wu spoke into the mic, “with this new technology, we are not only able to cure disease, but to stop it before it even has a chance to take root.”

  People stood and clapped, cheering for Dr. Wu as if he had just won the Super Bowl. Susan shot to her feet, her mind blown. CRISPR technology was going to revolutionize the world through advanced medicine. There was no doubt about it in her mind.

  Dr. Wu waved one last time and finally disappeared backstage.

  Susan, along with hundreds of others, continued to stand and clap—cheering as if demanding an encore to his performance.

  She felt optimistic about the future, like anything was possible after hearing what Dr. Wu was already able to accomplish. There was nothing to be feared, nothing that couldn’t be done.

  Benjamin turned to face Susan and she stole his hands inside of hers, thanking him once again for inviting her to this event.

  “It wasn’t anything like I imagined,” she said.

  But the look on Benjamin’s face told Susan he was feeling a little more reserved about what Dr. Wu was doing than she felt. He was looking into her eyes when suddenly he saw them round into large saucers of surprise.

  Benjamin turned and found Dr. James Andrews calling him over from the aisle.

  “You know him?” Susan threaded her fingers through his and latched onto his arm.

  “We’ve met once before.” Benjamin led Susan across the floor, keeping his eyes locked on Dr. Andrews’s unwavering gaze.

  “Doctor Firestone, I knew I had spotted you from the stage.” Dr. Andrews held his hand out and firmly grasped Benjamin’s. “Now, tell me, what is a surgeon like yourself doing at a biotech conference?”

  “Dr. Wu has made enough headlines this past year and a half for even me to want to come and see him.”

  Dr. Andrews threw his head back and laughed. “Yes. Yes. The press has been fantastic, haven’t they?”

  Benjamin introduced Susan, and Dr. Andrews shook her hand. “And what were your thoughts on the show, Ms. Young?”

  Susan’s face still beamed a candy apple red. “Incredible.”

  “Isn’t it, though?” Dr. Andrews leaned closer and lowered his voice so that only they could hear him. “But what you saw doesn’t even scratch the surface of what the technology is capable of doing.”

  Benjamin widened his stance and gave a small but fake smile that only Susan caught.

  “Would you like to meet with him?” Dr. Andrews swiveled his head back and forth on his skinny neck.

  Benjamin lowered his gaze to Susan. Her eyes sparkled with honor as she nodded in absolute pleasure. “If that wouldn’t be an inconvenience.” She smiled. “I would love to meet him.”

  Dr. Andrews’s laugh cracked the air between them. “Don’t be silly. Dr. Wu is always interested to know what others think about his work. He would be delighted to hear what you have to say. Who knows, maybe he could even help you or someone you know.”

  Suddenly, Dr. Andrews’s cell phone buzzed with a text message.

  Susan watched his face pinch as he dug out his phone and glance to the screen. After quickly reading the message, he swept his eyes back up and frowned.

  “I apologize, but I must make this call.” He pulled two VIP passes from his inside coat pocket and gave them to Benjamin. “Here, take these. If anyone asks, tell them I gave them to you.”

  Dr. Andrews closed Benjamin’s fingers around the tickets, patted his hand, and quickly ran off into the crowd, leaving Susan and Benjamin sharing a look of utter bewilderment.

  “We can’t accept these,” Benjamin told Susan as soon as Dr. Andrews was out of earshot.

  “Give me one good reason why,” she retorted back.

  “Because they are reserved for Dr. Wu’s donors.” Benjamin flapped the passes like a fan.

  Susan’s expression pinched. She cocked her head and stared with sudden confusion. “But I thought—”

  “And you would be right. But I don’t want anybody to get the wrong impression. This isn’t why I came.”

  Susan turned her head and stared at Dr. Andrews who was still busy talking on the phone. She couldn’t help but wonder if Benjamin had been purposely singled out as a publicity stunt. If he was, he was certainly not the only one.

  “Don’t you see what is going on here?” Benjamin whispered in Susan’s ear. “Dr. Wu brought us all under one roof to hear his big announcement. And now that he has us all here, it looks like we support what it is he is doing.”

  Susan turned to face Benjamin, whispering, “But I thought you did?”

  “I’m not sold yet,” Benjamin said just as Dr. Andrews came back.

  “Unfortunately, I have some bad news,” Dr. Andrews said. “It appears Dr. Wu had an emergency and had to leave before the meet and greet.”

  Susan’s shoulders sagged with disappointment. Her head was still spinning, trying to make sense of what Benjamin had just shared with her. She wondered if he was right, if it was just a big publicity stunt to drum up some free PR for Dr. Wu. But what was Benjamin seeing that she wasn’t?

  “It was very kind of you to offer.” Benjamin handed the passes back to Dr. Andrews. “Perhaps next time we’ll have better luck.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The television flickered in the living room. Mason was laid out on the couch watching the Colorado Avalanche game with Cooper curled up beside him. I was glad he was home, safe beneath my roof, but I was still fuming from the way King treated me earlier.

  Setting my pen down on my notepad, I leaned back from the table and turned my attention to the television. I kept waiting for Breaking News to interrupt the game and Nancy Jordan’s face to pop up on the screen to deliver the information King blocked me from hearing.

  My muscles were tense and I couldn’t stop wondering why he pushed me away. We had an understanding—a professional agreement—and he broke the vow.

  The Denver Police knew who I was—knew that they could trust me to deliver the facts straight without sensationalizing the story for my own gain. I’d been a trusted ally for long enough, but something changed—and I knew it wasn’t me.

  I felt my skin crawl as I tried to focus my thoughts on anything other than who the victim might have been. Until I knew, I vowed to continue marching ahead as if nothing had changed.

  The house was warm and there were still a couple slices of pizza left in the box. It was a cozy March night. And when I checked the time—7:38PM—I started thinking once again about the missing women whose stories we were trying to piece together.

  I cast my gaze to the note cards Erin and I had pinned up on the wall behind me. It was a timeline of events—who knew what, and when our victims were last seen. We still didn’t have a clear direction to travel, but we weren’t giving up.

  Suddenly, a feeling like I should have heard from my sister by now hit me. “M
ason, did Heather say where she was going?”

  “Just said she was going out,” Mason answered without looking.

  Heather’s stuff was everywhere. Two pairs of shoes by the door, a couple of coats hanging on the rack, and a pile of what I assumed to be dirty laundry tossed in the hallway outside the bathroom door. She was certainly making herself comfortable, I thought as I flicked my gaze to Erin.

  She looked up from her computer, tucking a loose blond bang behind her ear. “I should call her,” I murmured. “Just to make sure she’s okay.”

  “Yeah,” Erin breathed.

  With knots forming in my belly, I left the table and retrieved my cell phone from my work bag.

  Heather didn’t know Denver like I did, and I wasn’t sure she knew anyone besides me in the city. Where did she go? Was she looking for a job already? It was possible she had only gotten lost and was trying to get back home.

  I didn’t know what to expect.

  It wasn’t like we had talked about whether she should check in with me or how late she was going to stay out. I didn’t care, and certainly didn’t want to place any kind of rules on how she should live her life while visiting. It was these missing women that had me worried about Heather.

  I hit the call button and pressed the phone against my ear, suddenly remembering that I’d never called Dawson back. There was no way I could let him down for a second time in one day. I was betting on tomorrow bringing us both better luck than what we experienced today.

  The line continued to ring. I paced my way back to the table and peered over Erin’s shoulder.

  She was on her computer pouring over Tyler Lopez’s Instagram feed, cringing at the insensitive crap he posted. He was easy to track down thanks to the t-shirt he was wearing—@GetHighWithTy. A simple internet search and voilà.

  “What does any woman see in this guy?” Erin must have felt my presence because I knew she was talking to me.