Extreme Danger (McClouds & Friends #5)(138)

“Nick, don’t. Don’t do this. I can’t let you—”

“You can’t do shit about it. I’ve placed the cuffs low enough so you can sit on the floor. You won’t be comfortable, but you’ll survive. I’ve FedExed your whereabouts to my ex-boss. Should be on her desk tomorrow. You won’t wait more than two days, max. They’ll come for you, and you can do your explaining to them, not to me. Because I don’t want to hear it.”

She turned her back. His footsteps receded. There was nothing more to say.

She looked at the two sets of handcuffs. The one cuffed directly to the scaffolding was placed at a height that enabled her to sit, with her arm fully extended upwards. If she sat, the other cuff that was attached to the long chain had just enough play so she could reach for the water and the bags of food, but not enough play so she could touch her other hand. Well planned, on the fly. But that was Nick for you.

Ironic, that her affair with him should both begin and end with handcuffs. One would think that detail might have given her an inkling of coming disaster, but no. Becca and her problematic taste in men.

She started shaking with something like laughter, but it died away abruptly at the sound of that door, scraping in its rusty gooves with a ponderous groan. The reverberating boom jolted her jittery bones as it slammed shut. The door blocked what light remained.

So the agonized wondering about Carrie and Josh and Nick was going to go on and on. Until someone opened a FedEx package, and took the trouble to come for her. She was all alone in the dark.

Or maybe not completely alone. She heard rustling, skittering, in the darkness. Her flesh crept. The other inhabitants of the warehouse were wondering who’d come to visit.

Chapter

30

N ick leaned on the truck, fighting the clammy faintness that threatened him. His heart thudded. Get out the f*cking smelling salts.

He was in his usual place, squarely between a rock and a hard place, and getting whacked. But it had never made him woozy before. He was on the verge of a full-blown anxiety attack.

He tried to do the right thing, but there was no right thing. He’d never had enough information to know what was the right thing.

One thing was for sure, though. This did not feel right. At all.

So f*ck it. When he got close to Cedar Mills, he’d call the McClouds. Tell one of them to go collect Becca, and deliver her to the authorities. Fail safe. You never knew with the FBI. She’d last until then. She was tough. She could deal.

That way he could make his appointment with death with a clear conscience. Which reminded him. He had to get in touch with Tam. He needed all the tricks he could fit up his sleeve, and she was the trickiest chick he knew. Aside from Becca, of course. Becca took the prize.

Not here, though. He got into the truck, put it in gear. He had to get some distance between himself and her. He could feel her despair, waves of it spreading out of that place, slopping over him, making him sick and shaky. He relocked the gate and took off with a squeal of tires. He hit the interstate, pulled off at the first rest stop.

First errand, lose the tag. He strolled by an eighteen-wheeler that was hauling livestock, and slid the GPS locator into one of the slots on the container. Let it get eaten by a pig or a sheep. That would lead those f*ckers on a fun chase. Second errand. He went back to the truck, put a small battery into the digital voice recorder, and pushed play as he pulled back out onto the highway.

“…subject number 100023, BD 021697,” said a low female voice, presumably Diana Evans. “The subject is an eleven-year-old male, poorly nourished. Pulse rate 81, blood pressure 65 over 115, temperature 98.2. Listless and vacant in appearance…”

The recorded voice droned, recording vital signs, noting bruises that suggested abuse and/or vitamin deficiency. An untreated rash, a slightly enlarged liver. She spoke of tissue typing, a buccal swab. She recommended blood screening to rule out viral infections, a urine culture to rule out bladder and kidney infections. In a detached way, she noted the subject’s hygiene and state of emaciation. She recommended reevaluation before harvest of this subject was considered.

Harvest? What the f*ck? She wanted to fatten this kid up for—

Oh, sweet holy Jesus. Realization clicked, like a round being chambered. Mathes was a cardiologist. Thoracic surgeon. Transplants.

Harvest. Organs. Lab tests, blood and urine samples. They were killing kids for their organs. Those filthy, ice-hearted sons of bitches.

Evans’s voice went on. Another numbered subject, ten years old. Same shit. Vital signs, dispassionate, doctorly observations about how scrawny and miserable he looked, but this kid had more spunk than the other, and didn’t like being poked and prodded and stuck with needles. He started to cry for his mama. In Ukrainian.

Evans persevered stubbornly, but her voice took on an edge, and finally, she said “shit,” fiercely. Click. The recording resumed, presumably some time later. The kid was whimpering more quietly now.

“Shut up and stop bothering the doctor, you piece of dogshit, or I’ll make you squeal like a stuck pig,” snarled an evil male voice. Ukrainian, also. The kid choked off his sniffles, and Evans’s voice continued with her report. But her voice had now begun to shake.

On and on. Child after child, number after number. The kids kept getting younger. All protested the needle. Some wept, some whimpered, some shrieked. Evans was breaking down. Her voice trembled, she stuttered, repeated herself, transposed words, got confused, had to run the tape back and start again. And if there was any ruckus, that voice was ready to intervene with his evil threats. It would have made Nick slit-his-wrists miserable even if he had not already been so.