Blood Trade: A Sean Coleman Thriller (32 page)

“How the hell would I know your brother?” Sean yelled.

“The man from your house, dammit! The guy you beat up. What did you do to him?”

Anna peered up at Sean through large, drained eyes and asked, “Did you hurt my Uncle
Adam?”

The innocent tone of her voice again pulled guilt from Sean’s heart. He recalled
the broken coffee mug on the floor of the other room.
“Best Uncle Ever.”
It was likely
a gift from an adoring niece.

“He’ll be fine, honey,” he answered with a reassuring wink. He offered her a cordial,
calming grin and added, “He’s just taking a nap. Probably dreaming of tasers.”

Jessica censured Sean through narrowed eyes.

“Is anyone else inside this building?” he asked again, this time in a more restrained
tone.

“Just us and Adam,” she replied.

Sean raised a brow and asked, “And not the man of the hour, Norman Booth?”

Jessica’s eyes shifted to her daughter as Carson shook his head sourly. Anna questioned
her mother with a confused look, the name clearly foreign to the little girl. Sean
could see she likely had no idea that a man was being held against his will somewhere
nearby.

“No. Not here,” Jessica muttered in answer to Sean. She raised her finger to her
mouth to pre-empt the barrage of questions she anticipated coming from her daughter.

“Is that who gave you the shiner?” Sean asked, eying the bruise she still wore on
her face. “He woke up, didn’t he?”

She didn’t answer.

Carson did. “He got an arm loose. Wacked her good.”

“Someone hit you, Mommy?” asked Anna, her eyes flowing with concern. “You said you
fell down.”

“It was just an accident, Peanut.”

Jessica turned to Carson and asked him if he was okay. When he nodded, she queried,
“Did he drag you in here?” She nodded toward Sean.

“No,” replied Carson. “Anna couldn’t sleep because of the wind. I had finished reading
to her when
he
came in.”

“Let’s save all the chitchat for the next barbecue,” said Sean, reciting a line he’d
once heard Telly Savalas speak on an old episode of
Kojak.
He’d always liked the
quip. He turned to Jessica. “Why didn’t you just leave me at my house last night?
Why did you bring me here?”

“Because you knew who I was,” she quickly answered, visibly uncomfortable that the
sensitive conversation was taking place in front of her daughter. “You would have
told the police about my connection to Andy’s disappearance. We needed you out of
the way for a few days.”

“Until this was over,” Carson broke in. “Then you and I would
both
go home.”

Sean’s eyes leapt to Carson. “Are you sure about that?” he asked, holding his stare.

Carson’s face tightened. “What do you mean?”

“Who’s Dr. Phil?” Sean asked the room before turning his attention back to Jessica.

Carson and Jessica exchanged anxious glances.

“Come on. Who is he?” badgered Sean.

“From
Oprah
, Mommy?” asked Anna in a whisper.

Sean fought back an impulsive smirk.

Jessica ignored Sean and replied directly to her daughter. “He’s talking about Uncle
Phillip, Peanut,” said Jessica.

“Another uncle?” asked Sean.

“
My
uncle,” Jessica reluctantly responded. “My father’s half-brother. He’s a doctor—an
extremely good one. A specialist. He came halfway around the world to save her, a
little girl he had never even met before. He’s
going
to save her. He’s convinced
us that he can.”

Sean lowered his gaze to Anna, watching her delicate face stiffen as she struggled
to wrap her young mind around the words being spoken by the adults around her.

“If you’ll let us,” Jessica added.

Her pleading eyes pulled at Sean’s heart, but he didn’t let her see a hint of emotion.
He kept his gun drawn. He understood how desperate the family was to save their little
girl’s life. A million thoughts spun through his head.

Jessica’s reaction outside the GSL parking lot a day earlier now made sense. When
Sean had approached her there, claiming to know about her
uncle
, she wasn’t thinking
of Andrew Carson. The panic in her eyes came from the belief that Sean knew about
Dr. Phil—
her real uncle—and the connection he had to Carson’s disappearance.

It was a wonder she didn’t have a heart attack at that very moment, believing for
a few seconds that Sean had somehow figured out
everything
. By the time Sean had
finished explaining himself that day, she had come to understand that her secret
was still safe. Posing as Carson’s niece was a good way to pacify any suspicions
Sean may have had from their conversation, or so she thought. She couldn’t have envisioned
that he would further pursue Carson’s disappearance, meet Carson’s family, and discover
that she wasn’t who she said she was.

Just why she was at Carson’s house and helping with the search for his body that
day the newspaper photo was taken was still unclear. Maybe she was trying to determine
how much the police and family knew about Carson’s disappearance, and if they had
linked him to Norman Booth. Maybe she was trying to clean up some evidence left behind
from the night they snatched the two men. Or maybe she was just curious about the
people whose lives had been affected from what she and her family had done. The empathy
she felt for Carson’s daughter was clearly what drew tears from her eyes the night
Sean confronted her in that back room at GSL.

He thought of Norman Booth—a lifelong violent criminal who viewed life as cheap,
stabbing a stranger for getting in the way of something he wanted. What was
his
life
worth? Could Booth ever
willingly
give a gift more positive and meaningful to the
world than the one he could give to Anna—even if that gift came at the expense of
his own free will and, also, his life?

Sean wondered what kinds of terrible things he could somehow convince himself to
do if it meant saving the life of someone he loved. What would
he
do to a man like
Norman Booth if it meant he could bring Uncle Zed back from the grave? Sean had been
taught throughout his life, growing up in a rural mountain town, that the sanctity
of life was a precious thing, and it was something he truly believed. He had trouble
at that very moment, however, determining which argument that belief more accurately
favored: Booth’s life or Anna’s life.

He had only been around the girl for mere minutes, but he read nothing but innocence
and reverence in her eyes. It was clear that Carson had grown tight with her in a
relatively short period of time.
He seemed to look upon her like a daughter, perhaps
longing for the old relationship he once had in happier times with his own daughter.

It was possible that Carson was right about Booth. Maybe the thug would recover from
the dangerous quantities of plasma being drained from his body. Perhaps as Carson
and Sean had each been promised, he’d be dumped on a roadside somewhere and go on
to live the rest of his life however he saw fit.

That scenario, however, seemed like pure fantasy to Sean. He couldn’t envision Booth
remaining silent about what happened to him. Booth knew his captors and could put
every one of them in jail by simply pointing a finger. That was the best-case scenario.
With Booth having his own troubles with the law, he’d more likely choose to settle
the score himself.

Either way, a freed Norman Booth could easily result in Anna being left without any
family—possibly even losing her life as well, depending on how sick of a man Booth
was. Sean was convinced the family would never let that happen, especially not Dr.
Phil, who was fine with taking out the one guy who was an innocent party to the whole
mess. In all likelihood, Booth would never make it out of that building alive. Sean
glanced at the man in the rocking chair.

Carson seemed he had some doubts about his own fate. “What did you mean by that?
When you said, ‘
Are you sure about that?’
”

Sean glared at him. “Good old Phil wanted good old Adam to kill me if I didn’t behave
myself down there in the basement. These people aren’t as harmless and noble as you
think they are, Carson.”

“That’s not true!” Jessica said angrily. “Those were empty threats! Adam only made
them to scare you!”

“It wasn’t Adam who made them!” Sean snapped, spinning his head toward Jessica. “They
came right out of the doctor’s British ass.”

“Australian,” corrected Carson.

“Who gives a shit?” Sean dug his fingers into his front pocket and held up the cellphone
for her to see.

Jessica was speechless. Her daughter watched her face, shaking her head in the confusion
of it all. Seconds dragged by without anyone speaking.

“He could be right,” said Carson to Jessica. “The things Phil’s said. How angry he
was when Adam wanted to bring me here. Phil’s the doctor, yet Adam was the one desperate
to keep me alive that night. Part of me’s been wondering if Phil . . . if Phil would
have preferred that I died on my driveway. Anna’s life might be the only one he values
in this at all.”

Jessica closed her eyes, seemingly trying to dislodge Carson’s words from her head
before they could sink into her psyche. When her eyes opened, their intensity burned
a hole through Carson. He looked away, making him look like a child who was being
scolded by a parent. She focused the same glare on Sean.

Sean didn’t look away.

“What are you going to do, Sean?” she asked somberly. “You’re the one holding the
gun. You’re calling the shots. You can either let us finish what we’ve started or
you can end it all right now by blowing the whistle on us. If your decision is the
latter, I want you to look into my daughter’s eyes and tell her that you’ve made
the decision to sign her death warrant.”

He stared bitterly at Jessica. The notion that he was being put in the position of
a judge over blood rights—deciding who lived and who died, whose blood would be traded
or sacrificed for whose life—infuriated him. His eyes soon dropped to Anna, whose
aura of innocence now tugged at his soul like a magnet. The girl didn’t understand
any of what was being said. She couldn’t possibly understand. Her wide eyes and her
slightly opened mouth made that painfully apparent.

There was no fairness in the situation for anyone. Not an ounce. There was no fair
trade for life-saving blood.

Sean felt his blood boil under his skin. He was angry at himself for ever pursuing
the path that had ultimately brought him there. That path began with what he thought
was a harmless crush on someone he hardly knew and was fuelled by a lust to honor
his uncle’s life.

Now he found himself sitting on a jury of one. He, the man who stood before Anna—the
man who she now looked up at with heartbreaking fear—was the sole decider of her
very fate.

If Norman Booth had been a willing participant in what Dr. Phil was doing, the decision
would have been easy, even if laws had been broken. But he was far from a willing
participant. For Anna to live—or even have a shot at living—Booth had to die. Maybe
it would be from his body shutting down. Maybe it would be from a bullet to the head.

Anna swallowed and turned. “Mommy?” she said.

“Don’t look at me, Peanut,” Jessica answered, keeping her eyes on Sean. “Look at
him.”

Anna did, and Sean’s gut tightened as his gaze traced her bald head. She had to have
already been through so much. Chemotherapy. Long hours in hospital beds, undergoing
tests. Probably surgeries. The emotional turmoil alone had to be unbearable, not
just for her, but clearly her entire family.

His gaze fell from her head to her damp eyes. They glistened from the lights above
and penetrated his conscience. Despite the chemo, her skin looked as soft and pure
as any other child her age. Her small nightgown hung from her petite shoulders and
went down to her knees. She looked like a doll that a healthy girl her age might
play with. Sean’s gaze dropped to the floor, much the same way Carson’s had only
seconds earlier.

“Tell her, Sean,” Jessica persisted relentlessly.

He wondered if it was the same technique that had been used to turn Carson to the
family’s line of thinking. He understood that guilt could be just as effective of
a weapon as a gun or knife, and
Jessica was wielding it with precision. She had no
other choice. Her daughter’s life was on the line.

However, he did have a choice. If he walked away and never spoke a word of what he
knew to anyone, Anna might live, though there would certainly be no guarantees. Norman
Booth, however, would assuredly die. As bad of a person as Booth undeniably was,
wasn’t only God Almighty justified in making such a decision? Did they have a claim
to serve as his executioners?

Sean pondered again what he would have done to save his uncle’s life if he could
have. But when he thought of Uncle Zed, he remembered a phrase he’d heard him utter
a few times over the years. The words spoke to him just then as if the old man was
standing right beside him, whispering them in his ear.

“The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality
in times of moral crisis.”

He was sure his uncle wasn’t the originator of the quote. It likely came from the
mouth of some historical figure or perhaps some self-help guru with a dozen books
under his belt. But Zed never spoke of things he didn’t believe. It was that quality
that earned him integrity in the eyes of every single person who’d ever met him.

Those words repeated themselves in Sean’s skull. He had already spent years of his
life immersed in his own personal hell. He had no intention of returning. And walking
away from the present situation sure seemed liked a clear act of neutrality.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered aloud. “I can’t let his happen. There has to be another
way.”

When he lifted his head to meet Jessica, he expected to watch her crumble to the
floor and hear the sound of her bellowing in despair. Instead, he found dryness in
her face, as if the intense expression was chiseled in rock. Only her eyes were animated,
darting back and forth neurotically between him and Carson. It was if she hadn’t
heard a word he had just said and was instead engaging in some covert communication
that she didn’t want him privy to.