Hunted: A Suspense Collection

by J. L. Drake

  “No,” Sonya said, walking over toward her, “you’ve been drugged.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Jan asked, giving up on her attempt to stand; instead she plopped down on her butt to lean back against the cabinets and watched Sonya. “I don’t understand…”

  Sonya looked down at the woman and smiled.

  “When we killed Bill, we found out he had a rare blood type,” she said, and advanced toward Jan. “We’re hoping the kids have the same one—we could make a ‘killing.’” She laughed at her pun while the woman on the floor began to cry.

  “You? You were the one who…you killed Bill?” Jan asked, shocked. “I thought you were my friend.”

  With a sigh, Sonya squatted down beside Jan.

  “You shouldn’t be so sad about the loss of your husband,” she said. “Do you know how we got ahold of him? I picked him up in a bar…he was looking to get laid. He wasn’t the loving husband you thought he was.”

  Jan shook her head, which was more of her rolling it back and forth from shoulder to shoulder in her drugged state than actually shaking it.

  “Please don’t hurt my children,” Jan whimpered.

  “We’re going to kill your children,” Sonya said, prepping the other syringe she’d brought in with her, “and you. You better be worth the bullshit I had to go through too, pretending to be your friend and putting up with your whiny ass crap. God, you were annoying.”

  Attempting to do all she could, Jan tried to slap Sonya’s hands away and prevent her from injecting the drug; she also tried to sit forward and strike out at the woman who’d killed her husband and planned to kill her children.

  Sonya laughed and easily avoided Jan’s vain attempts to defend herself.

  “Pathetic,” she whispered as she stuck the needle into Jan’s leg and injected the drug that would put her to sleep; just as the last of the liquid drained from the syringe, there was a knock on the front door.

  ***

  David had called Croce on his way back to the Pittsburgh FBI office and she was waiting outside in the parking lot when he arrived.

  “Ready to go,” she said with a grin, hopping into the passenger’s seat as soon as he stopped.

  “Let me call Jones and find out where we need to be,” he said, picking up his phone and making the call.

  “The cell we were tracing has been turned off,” Jones informed him when she answered, not even bothering with a greeting or waiting for his question.

  David punched the steering wheel. “Tell me where it was the last time you had a fix on it.”

  Jones rattled off a street address.

  He relayed the address to Croce, because she knew the area.

  “That’s what? A block from the Housen residence?” Croce asked.

  “Is that a block away from the Housen’s house?” David asked, relaying Croce’s question to Jones.

  “Yes, it is, actually,” Jones confirmed.

  “Oh, gawd, I know where they’re going and what they’re going to do. They’re going after the Housen family.” He ended the call, threw down his phone, and sped back out of the parking lot.

  “The cell phone was traced close to the Housen’s home?” Croce asked, bracing herself as David picked up speed. “Do you know where you’re going?”

  “No,” David said, slowing down a little. “Do you want to give me directions or drive?”

  “Driving would probably be faster.”

  David nodded and pulled off to the side of the road; they hopped out and switched places.

  Croce quickly attached a magnetic light to the top of the car, flipped a couple switches David hadn’t noticed before, and took off like Satan himself were after them.

  ***

  “Open the fucking door, Sonya,” Roger muttered, looking up and down the street. He knew with the moving logo on the truck, they’d be relatively safe, but Lloyd’s order to turn off their cell phones was still burning in his brain, making his heart race.

  As if hearing him—even though there was no way she could have—she opened the door a crack, saw it was them, and opened the door wide.

  “There’s one here and the rest are in the kitchen—hurry,” she said. “I’m glad you already backed the truck up to the porch…that will make it so the neighbors see less.”

  “All business this morning?” Butch teased as he passed Sonya and followed Roger into the house.

  She shook her head and stepped outside to keep an eye on the movement in the neighborhood.

  “Body one, coming through,” Roger said moments later, pausing inside the door to wait for Sonya’s okay.

  “There’s someone driving by,” she muttered. “Just another second…okay, go!”

  Roger stepped out, carrying one of the children; Butch followed with another. They laid the small bodies in the back of the truck, pushed them as far forward as they could, turned, and went back in for more.

  In less than ten minutes, all of the unconscious bodies were loaded into the truck.

  “We’ll head straight to the building—you coming?” Roger asked, as he walked up to and opened the driver’s door of the moving truck.

  She nodded from the porch. “I’ll be heading that way in just a couple minutes. I’m going to rinse out the cups and wipe down anything I might have touched this morning.”

  He nodded, knowing she knew what she was doing, but he couldn’t help but warn her that trouble might be on the way. He almost told her it wasn’t worth the effort, since they already had her picture and name, but didn’t. Every precaution could help in the long run and the less evidence left behind was less the feds would have to go on to find them later.

  “Lloyd called and had us turn off our cell phones…” he said. “There might have been someone tracking us—get done as fast as you can and get the hell out of here.”

  She smiled softly at his concern, and nodded. “He sent me a warning text.”

  “Bye, babe,” Butch taunted as he jogged down the steps. He opened the passenger door and climbed in, slamming it behind himself.

  She rolled her eyes. Roger grinned at her and winked before he climbed into the truck, started the engine, and took off.

  Sonya went back into the house to take care of fingerprints and the cups; she planned to lock the house up tight when she left. She hoped no one would know anything had happened for days.

  They’d all be long gone by then…in one way or another.

  Chapter 47

  Sonya shut the door of the Housen house and then checked to make sure it was locked by trying to twist the knob and open it again. She smiled when she couldn’t, pulled a tissue from her pocket, and wiped down the shiny gold metal she’d just touched.

  She turned, surveyed the neighborhood, and proceeded to walk down the steps of the small porch. The idea was to give the appearance of someone who was supposed to be there and wasn’t worried about being seen, while at the same time not be noticed. She’d perfected the art over the years, and smoothly turned her head or knelt down to do something to her shoe whenever a car passed by; they would see her, but people wouldn’t get a good look at her face.

  Gradually she made her way to her car that was parked at the curb, and paused to examine one of her fingernails before opening the driver’s door and climbing in. She then waited fifteen seconds before she started her car and pulled out into the street. At the end of the street, she stopped at the stop sign and glanced in her rearview mirror.

  A car—a dark sedan with federal plates and a flashing light and siren—turned onto the street as soon as she’d turned right and started to drive away from the four-way stop.

  “Oh, shit,” Sonya whispered. “That was close.”

  Her heart was racing from the close call and she wanted to press the gas pedal to the floor and speed away, but she knew if she did so, it would draw attention she didn’t need.

  The drive to the building would take her another ten minutes, so she tried to calm her whirling thoughts and focus on the traffic around
her. She was scared of getting in a wreck and getting caught by the police.

  ***

  McCoy and Croce didn’t speak for the rest of the drive. When they arrived at the Housen’s home they looked up and down the quiet street.

  “I don’t see anything strange,” Croce said. “Maybe we beat them here or this wasn’t their destination.”

  “Only one way to find out,” David said, climbing out of the car. He headed toward the front door of the Housen’s house and beat on the door with his fist.

  Croce stood at the end of the walkway with her hand on her service weapon, looking up and down the street.

  “No answer,” he said. “I don’t think they’re here.”

  “What should we do now?” Croce asked as he came back down the walkway from the house to stand beside her.

  He shrugged. “Let’s see if any of the neighbors saw anything. They might be able to tell us if anyone was here and maybe give us a license plate number if someone was.”

  Croce nodded. “Split up to cover more ground?”

  David nodded and headed to the house next door.

  ***

  Jennings was ready and waiting when Roger and Butch arrived.

  “That was faster than I expected,” he said to the two men as they carried in two small bodies; he glanced down at them. “Go ahead and get them ready—we’ll be starting as soon as Sonya arrives. You can unload the rest once we have these two prepped to start on.”

  The men nodded and began stripping the children of their clothes before hosing them down to make sure they were completely clean. They placed one of them on the surgical table in the tent and the other on a plastic covered table they’d set aside for that purpose—to keep a body ready so they could harvest them all quickly.

  After they did all they could, they went back outside to collect the rest of the unconscious people. They’d decided they would keep them in a small office off the main room of the building, where they could keep the door locked in case any of them woke up and tried to get away. It would be Butch’s job to man the door.

  They had everyone inside the building and Sonya still hadn’t arrived.

  “Where the hell is she?” Jennings wondered aloud, pacing back and forth in front of the main doorway. “If she doesn’t show up soon, I’m going to start by myself.”

  Roger and Butch said nothing. Roger was still on edge from Lloyd’s call, and Butch didn’t really care—he couldn’t stop thinking about how rich he would be after he was unleashed on a killing spree of his own later.

  ***

  Sonya sighed deeply—with relief—as she pulled up outside the building. They needed to get everything over with—fast. She was sure the FBI she’d seen pulling up outside the Housen house had figured out they’d kidnapped the family and were hot on her trail.

  “It’s about damn time!” Jennings all but screamed at her as she climbed out of her car after parking and cutting the engine. “I was about to start on my own.”

  She scowled and slammed her car door before marching straight up to the old man and getting in his face.

  “I got here as fast as I could, you bastard!” she yelled. “The fucking FBI was at the house just moments after I pulled away from the curb. If I would have sped away, they would have followed me.”

  He blinked a couple of times and took a step backwards.

  “Sorry,” he muttered. “I didn’t know. Why would they have gone to the house? How could they have known to look there?”

  “Lloyd called and told us to turn off our cell phones on the way there,” Roger said, standing from where he sat in the corner out of the way, and walking to the doorway where the two were arguing. “I think they were tracking one of our cell phones. We turned them off before we got there though.”

  “It could have been the cell phones, they could have broken Miles, or it was a lucky guess,” Sonya said with a shrug, still scowling. “It really doesn’t matter now, since we have the family and we aren’t going back to the house.”

  “We need to get this done and over with so we can get the hell out of here,” Jennings said.

  Roger nodded and watched Sonya.

  She took a deep breath and closed her eyes briefly, before she too nodded.

  It was time to take care of business.

  Chapter 48

  “Apparently the Housen family wasn’t that friendly with their neighbors,” Croce said, sighing as she walked back over to stand in front of the Housen’s house. “But the neighbors did notice a moving truck sitting in the yard a little while ago when they came out to get their morning paper.”

  “You would think if they were moving they would have come back for another load by now,” David said. He frowned and glanced up at the large Housen house as they walked back toward the car. He knew there was no way they could have moved everything for such a big house in one load, even if they’d rented a large moving truck.

  “I agree,” she said. “Maybe you should call and see if they’ve had any luck with the traffic cams.”

  He nodded and withdrew his phone from his pocket to make the call, and as he did so, it rang.

  “Hello?” he asked, and waited while the person on the other end spoke. “You found what?” His entire countenance changed in an instant—he was on high alert.

  “What?” Croce asked, sensing and seeing the change in him.

  He held the phone off his ear slightly and snapped, “Get in the car!” He rushed to do the same.

  ***

  Sonya and Jennings quickly got to work on the first child—the little boy with diabetes. They didn’t speak to each other while they worked, bleeding their victim and harvesting the organs; it took less time than they thought it would, since the body was drastically smaller than the ones they were used to handling.

  Roger took the leftovers and dumped them in the woods while they cleaned the table and equipment quickly. Butch brought over the next child for them to harvest—one of the female twins.

  “This is going good,” Jennings said as they began the second harvest. “If we can keep up this pace we’ll be done hours sooner than we’d planned.”

  Sonya nodded. “Yes. That would be great.” She wanted to get everything done and get the hell out of there. The FBI being so close was really freaking her out. She didn’t want to go to prison. She had plans for her life with Lloyd. After all, they’d gone through the trouble of stealing Jennings’ money to make it possible, or rather, stealing back their money from him with interest.

  Jennings grunted, and they again got to work. This time it took longer because the girl was older and bigger.

  While they were pulling out bloody organs and bagging them, Butch retrieved Jan’s little brother from the holding room and prepped him for surgery; by the time he was done, Roger was back.

  “This is going pretty fast,” Butch said as he prepared to move the brother to the table as they finished up with the girl. “Should I call my contact and tell them I’ll have stuff for them sooner than planned?”

  Jennings glanced into the cooler and frowned.

  “That might not be a bad idea,” he said. “These need to be moved fast.” He looked at Sonya. “You’ll want to call Lloyd too. You might as well do it now before we start on this one, that way he’ll be on his way to pick things up.”

  Sonya nodded, turned away, pulled her cell phone out of her pocket, and called Lloyd.

  “You’re giving all this to Lloyd?” Butch asked, motioning to the cooler that was almost two thirds of the way full with plastic bags containing various small organs—all coated with bright red blood.

  “Yes,” Jennings said. “He can take care of it while we harvest the other three—you can have them to sell. Now, get out of the tent so Sonya and I can get to work.”

  Sonya ended her call and turned back just as Butch was dismissed. She smiled slightly.

  “I don’t think he was pleased with that,” she muttered, and got ready to start on Hanson.

  “I really don
’t care,” Jennings said.

  Sonya laughed, shook her head, and got to work.

  ***

  Lloyd got the call from Sonya he’d been waiting on and climbed into his car to drive away from the abandoned housing development. He had his laptop on in the passenger’s seat and he knew the moment Butch turned his cell phone back on.

  “What the fuck is he doing?” he muttered. “Doesn’t he ever fucking listen?”

  Driving at breakneck speed because he was pissed off and scared Butch would draw the feds to Sonya, he dialed Roger on his cell phone—there was no answer.

  Apparently Roger had taken the warning seriously, because his phone was still off. He hoped Roger would get Butch to turn his phone off again, but he knew it was too late. The signal had been sent and it was being traced.

  The building and team had been compromised.

  ***

  “Where are we headed?” Croce asked, buckling her seatbelt and starting the engine.

  David buckled up too and told her what was going on.

  “The cell phone trace has gone live again, across town. Limmon said to head east and he would text us the address where the phone is—its sitting still.”

  Neither of them said anything, not wanting to jinx things. They’d been close before and lost their targets. They hoped silently in their hearts that this time they would be able to get the sick bastards off the street and save lives.

  Chapter 49

  Sonya and Jennings had just started on Hanson when Lloyd arrived.

  “Turn your fucking phone off, you stupid bastard!” he screamed at Butch as he came through the door, startling everyone.

  “Fuck you!” Butch hollered back in reaction.

  “The authorities are tracing it so they know where we are,” Lloyd snarled. “We all have to get out of here, now!”