BLOODY BELL

by Jeremy Waldron

  “Hurry up,” the doctor said. “We don’t have much time.”

  Scared he might take her life, or do something much worse while she was alive, Tracey slowly stood and removed her hospital gown. With her back turned to him, she stood on trembling legs and slipped her feet through the grey sweat pants Dr. Cherub provided and pushed her arms through the navy blue hoodie.

  Dr. Cherub stood and watched with a glint in his eye that made Tracey nervous. Once she was fully clothed and had her shoes laced up, he clamped a strong hand around her arm and tugged her into the hallway.

  “Where are you taking me?” Tracey asked, turning her body into dead weight.

  Dr. Cherub dragged her heels across the floor and marched forward without responding.

  Tracey could see the determined look in his eye. It was different than any other expression he’d worn. What happened to make him so angry? But, more importantly, what could she say to make him relax?

  They passed one open door after another. Each room was set up exactly like hers, but were empty. “Where did the other women go?” she asked.

  The doctor tugged on her arm and grunted.

  Tracey’s eyes lit up when she heard a baby begin to cry.

  Dr. Cherub squeezed tighter and the baby’s cries grew louder. When they turned the corner, Tracey found herself staring into the eyes of a man she had never seen before. The stranger turned, bringing the crying child to his chest. Confused to what was going on, Tracey looked to Dr. Cherub and she swore she could see recognition flashing over his eyes as he grinned at the other man staring back at him.

  “Dr. Wu,” Dr. Cherub said. “I was wondering when you would decide to show up.”

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  I’d wanted to stay with Cameron but had to keep going. The security officer—realizing I wasn’t the person he should be removing—agreed to stay with her until the police arrived and I’d left to find Erin. I hoped Campbell would be back within minutes of my departure. Every second counted.

  I raced to the elevators and found Erin jogging toward me. “Sam, I didn’t see Wu anywhere.”

  “He’s not here,” I said, jabbing the button with my finger.

  Erin looked stunned by my statement. “What happened? What did I miss?”

  I caught Erin up to speed. “Wu isn’t Dr. Cherub. At least not the Dr. Cherub that Cameron was familiar with.”

  Erin placed a hand to her forehead and turned to glance over her shoulder as if needing to see it to believe it.

  “Cameron had never seen Wu in her life,” I added.

  “But that doesn’t mean that Andrews and Wu aren’t still working together.” Erin locked her eyes on mine. “We can’t leave. Not until we can be sure Cameron’s life isn’t in any kind of danger.”

  The elevator doors opened and I stepped inside. Erin remained in the hallway with a confused look pinching her forehead. The doors tried to close and I stopped them before they could. I heard my teeth grind with sudden impatience. We didn’t have time to play spin the bottle on whose life was in more danger.

  “Wu isn’t coming here,” I held up one hand and pleaded. “We would have seen him if he was.”

  “If he’s not coming here, then where is he going?”

  “The Guardian Angel clinic.” I kept one hand on the doors to keep them from closing. “I don’t have proof that what I’m saying is right, but it makes sense. We already know Wu and Andrews know each other. If Wu got nervous after speaking with King, what would you do if you were him?”

  “Assuming I’m not a killer and didn’t want to silence the only witness who I knew was talking to the cops?” Erin raised her eyebrows as sarcasm soaked her words. “I would cover my tracks.”

  The elevator alarm buzzed.

  “Exactly. Now c’mon.” I reached for Erin’s hand and yanked her inside the metal box. “If Tracey is still alive—and my god, I hope she is—Wu will want to make sure she doesn’t become another material witness like Cameron. But, more importantly, he’ll want to protect his investment.”

  “Which is?”

  “The baby he has growing inside of her.”

  “Sam, we have to warn King,” Erin said as soon as my cell started ringing from my hip. “There are still two babies unaccounted for that we can’t forget about.”

  Surprised I had service inside the elevator, I answered the call from my angry editor.

  “Samantha, where the hell have you been?” Dawson barked into my ear. “I was expecting a story from you and I have nothing.”

  “Dawson, I’m still working the headline story. You’re going to need to give me more time.”

  “If you mean that open letter you wrote to Denver’s Most Wanted, I don’t want it. Are you out of your mind? I told you to stay off your blog this week.”

  Dawson wasn’t the only one asking himself if I was out of my mind. The further down this rabbit hole of conspiracy and murder I went, the more out of my mind I felt. I could be wrong, but something told me I wasn’t.

  “Dawson, these women were used as incubators to grow a doctor’s designer babies.” I could hear Dawson open and shut his mouth. “We’re on our way to the clinic now to find out if my story checks out.”

  “Jesus, Sam. Designer babies?” His tone was more disbelief than anger and I was happy to have him listening again.

  “You wanted a headline story. Well, this is it.”

  As soon as we jumped off the elevator, we sprinted to Erin’s car. Despite being parked in handicap, it hadn’t been touched. No ticket. No boot. No tow truck hooking it up to the back. We slammed our doors shut at the same time, considered ourselves lucky, and buckled ourselves inside. Erin punched the gas and drove like the car was stolen.

  Recalling my journey last night, I guided her the entire way, telling her where to turn and the quickest route to get to where we needed to go. When we finally came within sight of the building, I pointed over the dash and said, “There.”

  Erin dropped the gear and sped forward.

  We arrived to a full parking lot. Men and women were filing in and out of adjacent businesses but I didn’t see the white BMW from last night anywhere. When everywhere else was ripe with activity, the Guardian Angel’s clinic looked completely dead.

  I suggested Erin park off to the side but stay near the front. We needed to play this safe and calculate our risk. There was no telling what was waiting for us inside—if anything at all. But if Wu and Andrews were here, like I thought they were, there was no doubt in my mind the one who saw me last night would know I would be coming back for more.

  “Erin,” I whispered, “you go around back and I’ll go through the front.”

  “Shouldn’t you call King first?” She breathed heavily and I could feel her nerves zapping the air between us.

  “Yeah,” I breathed. Swiping my phone awake, I pulled up King’s contact and was about to hit the green call button when suddenly we heard shots ring out from inside the clinic.

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  I had tunnel vision as I sprinted toward the entrance, focused on making sure I not only came out alive, but also had Cameron’s baby and Tracey with me when I left. Everything was moving so fast it was a complete blur. We didn’t have time to debate options or sit around and wait for the police to arrive. Gun shots had already been fired. We were the first ones on scene.

  Erin edged around back to make sure we had all exits blocked in case someone was trying to flee. We didn’t have much of a plan—we were operating on adrenaline alone—but we knew we couldn’t let whoever was responsible for Kate’s death get away.

  The front door rattled on its hinges as I swung it open. The glass smashed as I passed the same empty desk I’d stared at last night and yanked open the wood door that brought me to the back of the clinic.

  My eyes were wide and I was on high alert as I moved swiftly down the hall like a commando on a mission to take out her target. Everything about this place reminded me of my own doctor’s office. The sterile smel
l. The bright lights and white walls. It didn’t seem like the scam I knew it was. Ironically, the further I moved inside, the more legit it felt.

  Walking on my toes, I heard a man groan. The noise wasn’t near, but loud enough for me to hear. My pulse ticked hard and fast in my neck as I continued clearing rooms. I wasn’t sure what I was about to find but I kept moving closer to the sound, thinking that Tracey couldn’t be far.

  When I reached the room the groans were coming from, I found Dr. Glenn Wu on the ground holding his neck where he had been shot. The pistol lay next to him.

  I reached for the doorframe and steadied my stance when a sudden wave of dizziness twirled my head. I wasn’t sure what I was looking at—other than that Wu was shot and had a serious, life threatening injury to his neck. He was still conscious as I tried to make sense of what could have happened.

  Too afraid to move, I raked my gaze over the dozens of documents scattered across the floor. In the far corner, a baby crib was set up beneath a mobile. In the opposite corner, another. I couldn’t believe I was standing at the entrance of a nursery. It seemed that Dr. Wu had come here—to his research facility—to kill himself, knowing King and the rest of the department were on to him.

  Wu lifted his head and coughed up blood.

  When my eyes landed on him, he was staring directly at me.

  “Call an ambulance,” he muttered through a wheezy breath.

  I blinked and couldn’t believe the words I was hearing.

  “I’m losing too much blood.”

  A spike of adrenaline had my phone out of my pocket and into my hand in a flash. “Where is Dr. Andrews?”

  “Put the phone down, Samantha,” a man’s calm voice said behind me.

  I turned slowly, hearing Wu continue to gurgle and choke on his own blood filling his throat. I found Dr. James Andrews pointing his gun directly at my head. “You ruined my plans.”

  “Are you sure it wasn’t him,” I nodded to Dr. Wu, “who ruined your plans?”

  “True.” Andrews’s head nodded. “But I was going to make it look like a suicide. Now how am I supposed to do that with you here?”

  Dr. Wu spat at Andrews. “Fuck you.”

  Andrews peeked over my shoulder and laughed. Then it hit me.

  “It was you,” I said, standing. “You killed the Browns.” And he was about to do the same to Dr. Wu.

  “No, fentanyl killed them.” Andrews sneered. “Prescribed by the doctor bleeding out behind you.”

  Wu gasped for air, his eyes popping open with each pulsating beat from the heart that was struggling to keep him alive. I wasn’t sure he was going to make it. He was in bad shape, and for what? Because his partner wanted to take the glory of what they’d created together for himself?

  “A look through these documents will prove it, too.” Andrews nudged the muzzle of his revolver and aimed it between my eyes.

  “What about Tracey? Where is she? I know you have her.”

  I could hear my own heart drumming loud in my chest. I was afraid that if I pushed Andrews too far, he wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger on me. With my palms pointing at Andrews like large stop signs directing traffic, I looked around the room for any signs of Tracey. I couldn’t see any, but my focus was distracted by what Andrews was planning to do next.

  “Did you kidnap her?” I asked.

  “If only it were that easy.” Andrews wiped the sweat beading off his upper lip with his free hand. “No, I had nothing against the Browns.”

  “Are you sure about that? Because the story of Phanes Biotechnology tells me you had every reason to want to kill them.” I turned and looked at Wu. “Both of you did.”

  Andrews waved his gun at me. “I knew when I saw you last night that you would be trouble.”

  Him. It was Andrews I saw. That bastard was cleaning up, knowing I would be coming back.

  “But it wasn’t me who was set to go to trial with them over a stupid breach of contract.” Andrews’s eyes went to Wu. “No, Tracey found her way to me when she showed up at Mile High Health Clinic and I mistakenly implanted one of my embryos inside of her.”

  “You mean when you seeded her with one of your designer babies.”

  “You’re smarter than you look, Samantha.” Andrews’s eyes narrowed. “After seeing the look in your eye last night, I knew you would be the one to figure this place out. I just didn’t think you would do it so soon.”

  “I get underestimated a lot.”

  “The irony of it all is that Wu had beef with the Browns. So when I learned of my mistake, several new opportunities opened up. They knew about Phanes Biotechnology so were too close to it all. And with Wu already involved in a civil suit with them because of his morals, it was just too easy to get rid of them and Wu at the same time.”

  “But you were in this together. The Guardian Angels of gene editing technology.”

  “We were in this together.”

  I gave him a questioning look.

  “He,” Andrews pointed his gun at Wu, “let his conscience get the best of him. As a result, he got sued over a stupid breach of contract after backing out on what he promised to give so many.”

  “And you never let it go.”

  “Designer babies was what it was always about. From the beginning, we set out to bring real change to the future of medicine. And you know what? I did it. You’re right,” he snapped his teeth. “I never let it go. And neither should he have.”

  “That’s why you shot him?”

  “He was going to turn me in. I had no choice.”

  Now that I had Andrews talking, all I could think about was getting to the pistol lying next to Wu and hope it was loaded with at least five more bullets. Andrews circled around me and moved to Wu. When he stomped his foot, I snapped my focus back to him and kept my hands held high in the air.

  I watched as Andrews knelt next to Wu and stared into his fading eyes. He kept his gun pointed at the doctor and began to speak. “You stopped right when we were closing in on actually figuring it out.”

  Wu coughed up more blood.

  “We could have done this together. A healthy baby girl was born.” Andrews smiled through misty eyes. “The future is now, Dr. Cherub.” He reached for Wu’s forehead and set a hand on his head. Stroking Wu’s face, Andrews tilted his head to the side and continued speaking. “Your idea will now be my legacy.”

  In that split second, I saw my window of opportunity and lunged for the pistol near Wu’s head. The cold metal suctioned to my hand as I jumped back and pointed the gun at Andrews. “Where is Tracey?”

  Andrews slowly moved his hands away from Wu’s face, but remained kneeling. His eyes darkened as he stared up at me. “Don’t be a fool, Samantha. Put that gun down.”

  I squeezed my grip tighter and locked my elbows. “Where is she?”

  “My god, woman, don’t end up like him.” Andrews flicked his gaze to Wu and his words made me believe Tracey was still alive.

  “Tell me where she is, dammit.” I stepped around Wu and motioned for Andrews to stand up.

  Andrews slowly stood and stepped away from Wu. Giving me a pathetic sorry look, he shook his head and said, “What am I going to do with you?”

  I took one step forward and cornered him to the door.

  Suddenly, out of nowhere, a foot flew between his legs and slammed into his privates. Andrews’s fingers snapped open as he released the gun he was holding. I watched it drop to the floor in slow motion, praying it wouldn’t fire, when Erin laid another swift kick to Andrews’s torso and knocked him on his side.

  I kicked his gun away and held mine to his head. “You move and I’ll shoot you.”

  Andrews held his hands between his legs and moaned in agony.

  Then, as if hearing a call to prayer bellow out into the sky, I heard the sounds of sirens outside.

  It was over. We’d got him.

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Eventually, Dr. Andrews flopped to the side and curled into a small, patheti
c ball, having completely given up. There was a distant look in his eye that I couldn’t shake. It was one of despair, loss, and perhaps even regret that seemed to deepen the longer he lay on his side facing the two cribs that were meant to house his creations.

  I kept the gun pointing at his chest in case he tried to make one last stand, but he never did. I was thankful for him not forcing me into shooting him. The thought of him doing a death by cop suicide certainly crossed my mind.

  I didn’t feel bad for him. Not after what he’d done to Kate, Cameron, Tracey, and Wu. Everything he worked so hard to achieve was finished, and a part of me hoped that the idea of designer babies was, too.

  Erin was breathing heavily as she applied pressure to Dr. Wu’s neck wound. She kept telling him to keep his eyes open, that help was on the way. But we both knew that Wu was fading fast.

  An army of heavy boots filled the hallways as I heard the police storm through the building and work to clear each room on their way to us. Sweat scurried down my spine and I kept my gun on Andrews until I felt a half-dozen muzzles suddenly aim into my back.

  “Gun!” an officer shouted. “Police! Drop the gun!”

  Slowly, I raised my hands, removing my finger from the trigger, and dropped to my knees on the floor. Setting the gun on the ground next to me, the officers swooped inside the nursery and restrained my hands behind my back. They did the same to Erin and Andrews and called for EMTs to assist with Wu. EMTs rushed into the room and immediately began working on Wu’s injuries.

  As I sat there on my knees watching the final scene unfold, I started shaking. Soon, tears prickled my eyes when reality began to sink in.

  “Tracey Brown,” I said to one of the officers. “She might be here. Have you found her?”

  “And a baby, too,” Erin added.

  Our pleas to search for the missing victims fell on mostly deaf ears. Wu was a top priority, and the police didn’t know who was good and who was bad. And frankly, neither did I. I was sure most of them had no idea what kind of jackpot they had just stumbled upon.