Blood Trade: A Sean Coleman Thriller (30 page)

“I turned off my headlights once we left the highway. Just followed their taillights
from a distance. Avoided using my brakes. Did some coasting. It’s a great way to
conserve gas, you know.”

Martinez laughed at himself and leaned back in his seat.

Lumbergh stared intently ahead.

Chapter 26

“D
id you give him the last of the propofol?” asked the voice on the other end of
the small phone Sean held firmly in his hand.

The sound cut in and out a couple of times, probably from the weather. The fact that
any signal was getting through at all meant that Sean was likely no longer near Winston.
Cellphones hardly ever worked there. He kept his eyes and his gun pointed at the
open doorway of the small room.

“It’s done,” he calmly and quietly answered, having no idea what propofol was or
who it was meant for. Still, he sensed it was the kind of response that this Dr.
Phil wanted to hear. He was intent on running out the clock on the call with short,
direct answers. He believed it would keep his identity from being questioned. It
was a tip he had picked up from an old episode of
Nero Wolfe
.

“Good. I was worried he’d begin to stir again with us having to stretch out the dosage.
What you gave him should last us at least until I get there. I’ll be back soon with
the replacement stock for what he knocked out of Jessica’s hands. No worries. He
won’t be giving anyone else a bruisin’.”

“Okay,” replied Sean, thinking of the black eye that Jessica wore when he’d seen
her in the parking lot.

“Did the wanker in the basement give you any more shite?”

Sean had no idea what a “wanker” was, but he assumed it was something other than
a term of endearment. “No,” he answered. “Sleeping.”

“The big bugger wore himself out, eh? Good. If he acts up again, you think about
what I told you. Make it look like he came at you and that you had no choice. Him
or you—that kind of shite. The others will buy it. Remember . . . we’ve come too
far to turn back now.”

Sean let the man’s words sink into his gut. “I will. Bye,” he said soberly.

The line went silent for a moment, which made Sean nervous. He began to wonder if
the reception had given out, or if the man had simply hung up. He nearly hung up
when the voice suddenly returned.

“Are you okay?”

Sean winced. “Yeah. Just tired.”

More seconds of silence floated painfully by. It went against Sean’s better instincts
to stay on the line, but he knew he had somehow aroused the man’s suspicions. He
had backed himself into a corner with his indecisions, both figuratively and literally.
He carefully lowered the phone from his mouth and examined its face. His eyes slid
across each row of buttons until he spotted a red one with a white circle and a vertical
line stabbed through its center.

“Who is this?” the voice suddenly asked in a blunt tone.

Sean’s heart stopped. He bit his lip and pressed the red button, cutting off the
conversation. He held it down until the display light went off. “Shit.”

The man on the other end had said that he’d be back
soon
. Sean didn’t know if that
meant twenty minutes or two minutes. Either way, it was time to leave while he could,
put some distance between him and the building, and then use the phone to call in
the cavalry.

With guarded movements, he briskly negotiated his way down the dark hallway. Hearing
no sounds other than that of his own breathing and the discreet scuffing of his boots
along the floor, he considered that it was possible that no one else was in the building.
Still, there was no way to know for sure. He kept his gun pointed straight ahead.

There was only one door on the left side of the corridor. That meant that a large
room was on the other side of that wall, one he hoped would lead to the outside.
He twisted its knob carefully and found it unlocked. When he opened it, dim light
edged the door’s frame.

He peeked through the narrow opening and saw a wide area with several wooden tables
staggered out across a thin, multi-colored carpet. Wooden chairs were turned upside-down
across the round tops of the tables. Large, flowery portraits decorated the pale-yellow
walls and some fake plants hung from hooks along the ceiling. It appeared to be the
dining room of a restaurant.

A single light along the far wall, probably positioned to illuminate some now-missing
wall décor, let Sean see a thick layer of dust covering the tables and much of the
floor. Though shoe prints of multiple sizes spotted parts of the carpet, it had clearly
been a long time since the room had been used to serve patrons.

Along the windows of what Sean assumed to be a front entrance, thick wooden planks
were secured, just like he had seen in the small room at the top of the stairs. If
he needed to, he’d find a way to pry them open. Because it would make for a long,
noisy escape though, he’d only try it as a last resort. He quietly closed the door.

He was nearly at the end of the hallway when he heard what sounded like another door
shutting somewhere ahead in the dark. It felt like it came from only a few yards
away. Sean froze.

The brushing soles of someone’s boots along a coarse mat and the loud clatter of
footsteps soon followed it. Sean couldn’t tell if they came from multiple people
or just one. The hallway’s overhead light suddenly flared on. Sean’s body clenched
with tension. He was totally exposed. There wasn’t a single thing to take cover behind
if the person or persons about to emerge from around the corner were armed.

He slid up against the wall beside him and felt the knob of another door press against
his leg. Without wasting another second,
he twisted it and felt the door release.
In one quick motion, he opened the door, slid inside the darkened room, and gently
closed the door behind him.

There was a single light source from somewhere inside the room and he caught a quick
glance at an empty, unmade bed with colorful blankets. He heard the ticking of a
clock somewhere in the room. He turned his attention back to the door. The light
from under it filtered around the moving shadow of a single person whose casual pace
meant it was someone other than Dr. Phil. This Phil would have surely burst through
the building in a panic to confirm his suspicions from the phone conversation. It
was someone else.

Sean gripped the doorknob, hoping to let the person walk on by before stepping back
out and taking them down from behind. With a gun pointed at their back, he could
quickly take control of the situation.

The person stopped right outside the door.

Two shadows from under the doorway, each from the person’s legs, held perfectly still.

Sean released the knob and backed away from the door, feeling carpet below his feet.
He hoped that the howling of the strong wind outside would cover up any noise his
movements made. He gripped the gun with both hands and pointed it toward the door.
Jaw tensing, his finger hugged the trigger.

The shadows suddenly changed directions and disappeared back the way they had come.
With the same casual stride as before, the footsteps echoed through the hallway,
growing fainter with each passing second. Sean let himself breathe.

When he returned to the door, he could hear what sounded like a faucet running somewhere
from down the corridor, as if a kitchen sink had been turned on. Pipes from under
the floorboards hummed with activity.

Sean’s eyes detached from the door and immediately spotted
a pair of red curtains
hanging along the opposite wall. They were moving with a draft from outside.

He quickly sidestepped the edge of the small, empty bed and yanked the curtains open.
His eyes widened at the sight of a broad pane of glass instead of more wooden boards.
At the moment, a wide view outside of heavy, swirling snow was no less appealing
than that of a sunny beach in Acapulco.

He was higher off the ground than he had expected: about a nine-foot drop, he guessed.
Below was what looked like an alley with a smaller building sitting on the other
side of it, behind a short fence. He knew he could take the drop down to the ground.
He slid the gun into the back of his pants and reached for the lower sash of the
window where he found a metal latch.

When he unsnapped it, he cringed at the louder than expected noise. Almost instantly,
he caught movement in the corner of his eye—a reflection in the window of something
behind him. He gasped and reached for his gun, dropping to a knee as he spun around.

He took aim at the back corner of the room where a floor lamp glowed at a dim setting.
In that illumination was a vision so surreal that his arms trembled in horror that
he had nearly pulled the trigger.

It was a child; a totally bald child who appeared no older than six.

At first, Sean believed he’d seen a boy. When he saw the pink fleece pajamas hanging
from her shoulders, however, he realized the child was a girl.

A white crocheted blanket was wrapped around her petite body. Her skin was just dark
enough to make him suspect she was Hispanic. Her eyes were closed and she appeared
to be asleep as she sat curled up on what looked like a rocking chair. His eyes traced
the outline of her delicate features and then her body. That’s when he saw something
large wedged in between her and the chair.

It was of a flannel material and Sean followed it up to the shoulders of a figure
behind the girl. Air spewed from Sean’s mouth and his arms tightened, the gun still
pointed at the hidden face belonging to the shoulders.

“Wait!” a man’s weak voice wheezed out.

His hand jetted out from beside the girl, palm up in a plea for calmness. A large,
opened children’s book fell from beside the girl to the floor.

Sean’s heart pounded mercilessly in his chest. He couldn’t wrap his head around what
he was seeing until his eyes finally identified the full contour of the man in the
near dark. He was sitting in the rocking chair with the girl curled on his lap, still
fast asleep.

“Don’t shoot,” his voice came again.

“Stop talking!” Sean ordered curtly, doing his best to subdue his own voice. He pointed
the gun at the man’s head.

The man abided, remaining perfectly still.

“Let me see your other hand,” Sean instructed.

The man whispered in reply. “I can barely move it, Sean.”

Sean’s gut clenched when he heard his own name spoken.

“You’re Sean, aren’t you?” the man muttered.

“Quiet,” warned Sean. “Slowly, lift your right hand up and turn that lamp on brighter.
I want to see you.”

The man’s hand slowly rose to under the lampshade beside him. Sean noticed a wince
tighten across the man’s face, as if the motion caused him pain.

The bulb quickly went black for a moment before sparking back on brightly. The man’s
face lit up.

Below a matted mane of dishwater-blond hair was the pasty rendition of someone Sean
had first seen in the photograph only days earlier, when it was displayed on the
computer screen in front of Jessica as she wept.

Andrew Carson.

Sean was speechless. His legs trembled and his chest tightened. How could what he
was seeing be real? The scene felt like an abstract image from a dream.

“Take it easy, Sean,” Carson said softly. “I know what must be running through your
mind right now.”

Sean’s left eye twitched. His mouth was dry. “You have no Goddamned idea what’s
going through my mind right now.”

Carson swallowed but said nothing. His eyes looked dreary, as if he had just awoken,
and his complexion was pale. He seemed thinner than in his picture, but it was unmistakably
him. He finally spoke as his gaze slowly lowered to the gun. “Can you put that away?
You’re pointing it right at this little girl.”

“No, I’m not,” Sean said, keeping his gun drawn. “I’m pointing it at you. What in
the hell are you doing here, Carson? Are you a prisoner?”

Carson’s gaze fell to the floor. He glanced at the book lying wide open before him.
A Fish Out of Water
, it was titled. When he lifted his gaze back to Sean, he looked
as though he’d decided to disregard an impulsive notion to offer a dishonest answer.

“Not exactly,” he stated, seemingly out of breath.

Sean’s face twisted in confusion and then into anger. Before he could respond, Carson
spoke again.

“It’s a very complicated story, Sean—one that you’re owed. I understand that you’ve
been trying to help. Jessica told me.”

“What is this?” Sean hissed. “Some sick hoax? Did you fake your own death? Was that
even your blood in your driveway?”

Carson scowled. “It sure as hell wasn’t a hoax, Sean. That blood was mine.”

“Half the state’s looking for you,” said Sean. “That includes your daughter. She’s
about ready to write your obituary. If you’re not being held against your will, why
haven’t you reached out to her or the police?”

Carson’s eyes closed and his face shriveled into what looked to Sean to be genuine
heartache. His eyes welled up with moisture.

“I k-know,” he stuttered out. “I’ll return to Katelyn—
my
little girl—soon, but what’s
happening right now is more important. I’m a part of something here. There’s a lot
that you don’t know about.”

“Then why don’t you tell me
what
I don’t know about?”

The girl sitting on Carson’s lap stirred for a moment. She nestled the side of her
bronze head against his arm. Both men said nothing until she stopped moving. Her
eyes remained shut above the gentle features of her face.

“Who’s the girl?” Sean asked.

“Can you put down the gun first?”

“No. Who’s the girl?”

Carson took a deep breath. “She’s an angel, Sean. A victim of an unfair world, and
these people are trying to make things right for her.”

Sean shook his head in irritation at the cryptic statement. “By doing what? Snatching
people from their homes?”