“No!”
Plunging down the embankment, Lionel rushed to the tarpaulin. Several of the crime scene investigators turned to block him, but he shoved them out of the way.
His heart in his mouth, Lionel grabbed the edge of the tarpaulin and ripped it back to reveal Arlo’s ruined face, staring vacantly up at him.
He stiffened, then staggered.
“Arlo,” he gasped.
Whittaker and Scott came up beside Lionel. Whittaker held up his hand to an investigator who had just picked herself up off the ground and was coming towards them.
“Who did this?” Lionel choked.
Whittaker blinked at him.
“Well…we’re guessing it was Casey,” he started.
Lionel flung the tarpaulin to the ground in disgust.
“Rubbish,” he snarled, turning and marching back up the hillside. “Casey has never owned a weapon of any sort in her life. She hates guns.”
“I’m sorry, Lionel, but until we can find her…” Whittaker responded grimly.
Lionel fished his phone from his pocket, bringing up Casey’s number and dialling it.
“I spoke to her when she was at the house. Her line went dead.”
Keying her number, he listened as the ringer sounded over and over.
No answer.
A police constable jogged up to them from the far end of the roadway.
“Whittaker,” he called urgently. “You better come and take a look at this.”
Whittaker hesitated as Lionel and Scott looked at one another. The three of them followed the constables. A group of police investigators were gathered together on the bitumen, a few feet away from the cordon. They were examining the road surface.
“What is it?” Whittaker barked.
One of the investigators stepped forward.
“Sir, take a look,” he said pointing at the road. “The rain has affected it a bit but we’ve got fresh tread. Someone left here in a big hurry and it was definitely within the last hour.”
A solid pair of skid marks extended roughly twenty feet away towards the overpass from where they stood.
“A third car?”
The investigator nodded. “We’ve ruled out the Volkswagen and the BMW. The distance between these marks is too wide for either car. This was something bigger.”
“Jesus,” Lionel wheezed. “She was taken.”
His legs buckled. Scott reacted swiftly, grabbing him around his waist.
Whittaker turned to Lionel. His face was ashen.
“We’ll get a patrol on this right away. It’s not much to go on though. We need something.”
Scott steered Lionel away from the group and walked him over to the van. He opened the side door and sat him down in the opening.
Whittaker and the constable followed closely.
“You said you were on the phone with Casey before she disconnected. Did she say anything?”
Lionel shook his head in frustration.
“Have you checked in with Prishna? At the house?” he asked shakily. “She said they found a lot of evidence—papers from a firm called Elyria Medical Services.”
Whittaker nodded at the constable who turned away and unclipped his radio from his belt.
Lionel tried to calm himself and remember what Casey had said to him before the line went dead.
He looked up at Scott.
“At the house, when I was on the phone with her, Casey mentioned a name,” Lionel stammered, clutching his forehead. “Something Sonmez. It was definitely Sonmez.”
Whittaker took out his smartphone and tapped out the name on the screen. He showed it to Lionel. “Is this right?”
Lionel shrugged. “I can only guess.”
The constable turned to face them while still talking into the handset. Whittaker signalled him and handed him the phone.
“Run that name. Pair it with Francis Arlo’s and see if it turns up anything. Quickly!”
He turned back to Lionel and dropped to his haunches.
“Is there anyone else who might have known about what Casey was doing? Anyone from among her circle?”
“No one knew she was looking into this. Except you and me and Prishna.”
The constable jogged briskly towards them, holding the radio up. His expression was plagued with urgency.
“Sir. Central just ran the name. They said nothing showed up between Arlo and Sonmez.”
Whittaker grimaced and scratched his head. The constable tapped him urgently on the shoulder.
“But it did show up something else.”
The constable hesitated as he handed a piece of paper to Whittaker who snatched from him and examined it.
He paled visibly. He worked his jaw while Lionel and Scott glared at him.
It was Scott who spoke up. “What is it?”
Lionel sprang to his feet and grabbed the sheet of paper from Whittaker. He looked down at the information and choked audibly. Scott leaned across to see.
Whittaker turned to the constable. “Get onto this,” he ordered. “I want special operations at this address now!”
As Whittaker turned back to face Lionel, Scott had turned on his heel and climbed up through the open side door into the cabin. He started the van and turned in his seat.
“C’mon, Mr. Broadbent, we’re going!”
Whittaker gasped and stepped toward the van as Lionel climbed up into it.
“Jesus Christ, Lionel,” Whittaker barked, as Lionel slammed the door in his face.
Lionel took up his position in the passenger seat as Scott revved the engine hard and Whittaker tripped sideways as he lunged towards Lionel’s door. He grabbed the edge of the window.
“What the bloody hell do you think you’re going to do?”
“I’m going to get her. And him.”
Lionel grabbed Whittaker’s fingers and peeled them from the door frame as Scott shoved the van into gear. The van leapt forward and circled around. Various police officers scrambled to get clear as it leapt over the median strip and roared away towards the city.
CHAPTER 34.
A swirling pall of darkness.
No light.
No sound.
Was this the dream?
Casey became aware of an intense throbbing in her head. As she emerged from unconsciousness, her head started to spin sickeningly.
She knew she wasn’t dreaming.
Her body swayed as though she were rolling on an ocean and her stomach lurched violently. Even though she was only partially aware, her body shook and she vomited over herself.
Shaking her head, she forced her eyelids open. With great effort, her left eye fluttered open. She noted immediately that something was preventing the right eye from following suit. Confused and angry, she exerted as much effort as she could to move it.
Then she remembered.
A lightning flash. A shard of a memory.
The final blow before the world went dark. The swing of an arm whose hand was clutching cold, hard steel.
From the memory, pain blossomed into the present and she could feel its intensity in the deep cut over her right eye. Congealed blood streamed from it and it had hardened to a thick crust.
With her functioning eye, all she could see was a blinding light that dazzled her; a kaleidoscope of colour through an intense backwash of white.
As she attempted to lift her hand to block out the light, she felt a firm grip around her wrist that prevented her from moving it. She tensed her arms against the bonds that held her. They were stretched out on either side of her body and had been secured to some kind of hard surface.
Her skin prickled. The air was cold and she realised that her clothes had been removed. With the exception of her briefs, she was naked.
Her breath quickened. Her pulse throbbed in her temples.
She attempted to shift her legs but realised that they also were immobilised. Craning her neck, Casey looked down to see that three thick straps had been passed over her chest and hips and pulle
d tight.
Further down, looking past her bare legs and feet, Casey saw that she was in fact not laying down but had been angled into a semi-upright position: a modern day version of the crucifixion.
The surgical bed on which she lay wasn’t so much a bed but an elaborate examination table, the kind one would expect to see in a hospital operating theatre.
She was utterly trapped.
Holding her breath to block out the putrid smell of her own vomit, Casey recruited as much strength as she could, channelling it into her mind and her muscles. She bucked against the leather, crying out angrily.
The heart thumped so violently it felt as though it would burst from her. Dizziness overwhelmed her again and resistance left her. The light began to fade. She wanted to crawl back into the darkness.
Casey! A disembodied voice screamed in her mind. Wake up!
With a supreme effort, she fought to stop the world from spinning. Conscious thoughts began to flow.
Where am I?
Casey blinked against the light and, for a brief moment she wondered if she had been brought to the psychiatric unit but she quickly dismissed this. Not even they would restrain her like this.
She became aware of a soft and steady beeping that came from behind her. The subtle hum of a fluorescent light from somewhere above. The mechanised breath of a ventilator beside her.
Casey blinked and scanned her surroundings. She was in a room, a chamber of some kind. There were no windows or, as far as she could tell, doors. She could make out a long, white cabinet and bench along one wall that was overflowing with medical items: surgical tools, fluid bags, equipment. The cupboards were stocked with bottles and boxes of varying sizes, indicative of medicines.
Sitting on top of these cupboards was a collection of large glass jars containing dark gelatinous objects that appeared to be floating in fluid. As her eyes further adjusted, Casey realised they were specimen jars; the objects within them were organs. Human organs.
She felt the urge to retch yet again. In one jar, there was a set of lungs. In another, a bean-shaped pair of kidneys. And another, the bulbous mass of a liver.
She recoiled in disgust and, as she blinked, she looked down past her feet to a stainless steel trolley that stood several feet away from her bed. On it sat a jar that was much smaller than the others on the cabinet. Floating in a yellow liquid was a heart. It was dark and swollen, diseased looking. From the thick vessels that crowned the organ, thin filaments erupted like a hundred stringy fingers reaching into the air in silent desperation.
A worm infested heart.
Casey had read about the worms in textbooks and online medical articles that she had explored after her transplant in an effort to understand what had happened to her.
Could this be her own heart?
Her mind reeled and she pulled her eyes away.
An empty examination bed stood to her left, identical to the one on which she lay. Beyond that, she identified a trio of large cylinders with medical gas labels printed on them. Above her head, Casey noted a vital signs monitor. Waveforms snaked their way across the screen, accompanied by numbers that flicked up and down randomly.
Her vital signs.
Casey followed a thick band of cables down from the monitor until they passed out of view and then reappeared beside her right shoulder where it split into three smaller cables of red, black and white. These were attached to her.
This is it. The chamber mentioned in the notes at the house.
The place where it all happened.
The pain in her chest had returned. She steeled herself against it but, this time, the pain did not subside. It remained, like a hand equipped with razor blades that was pushing down into her chest.
From somewhere inside the walls, Casey became aware of a new sound. A soft, mechanical hum that descended from above. It rose in volume and shifted until it was coming from somewhere ahead. Blinking against the light, she strained to focus.
The wall at the far end of the chamber split apart; a thickening shard of light bled from it as a pair of lift doors slid open. A figure stepped forward.
She couldn’t see him, but she could smell him.
The fragrance of his aftershave was unmistakable.
Even in her terror, Casey refused to believe it was true.
“Ah, you’re awake.”
Simeera Fedele’s caramel voice sounded as he entered the chamber and casually walked up to Casey’s bed.
She turned her head away and squeezed her eyes shut. Disbelief and grief collided within her.
A gentle hand cupped her chin, turning her head. She couldn’t resist. She opened her eye and looked up at him.
Fedele appeared serene. He looked down on her with the same compassion that she had always known. Releasing his grip, he returned both hands to his pockets. His expensive shirt was unbuttoned and still bore the blood spatters from their confrontation.
Casey began to shake. Her pupils dilated. Her nostrils flared.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, infusing his voice with genuine concern.
She remained silent.
Reaching across, Fedele examined the cut over her forehead. Casey flinched, jerking her head away from him but he ignored her. He pursed his lips sympathetically.
“That’s a nasty cut. I shall clean that up for you. I don’t want it to become infected.”
He turned to the bench behind him and began preparing a surgical tray, selecting medical supplies from the cupboards and placing them beside it. He transferred the tray to Casey’s bedside and sat down beside her, angling the examination light above them over her face.
“I hope you don’t mind but I went ahead and treated your shoulder. The bone is shattered, I’m afraid, but my first concern was the wound itself. It was quite dirty and you’ve lost a lot of blood.”
Her breathing was quick. She stared at him in disbelief and terror.
Fedele lifted a pair of stainless steel forceps in his gloved hand and clasped a square of gauze, dipping it into a chlorhexidine solution before bringing it down over Casey’s eye. He began to clean it gently, removing the crusted blood. Underneath, it had already begun to swell; the surrounding skin was turning dark.
As Fedele swabbed the wound, Casey shook even harder. He paused and looked down on her, his expression kind and reassuring.
“Casey, you must calm yourself,” he said softly. “I don’t want to cause more harm to the laceration. I’m sure you don’t either.” His eyes danced over the wound as he continued cleaning it. “It’s quite deep, almost—no—it is right down to the bone. I can see it.”
He hissed with concern, discarding the blood-soaked gauze into a bin before collecting a fresh one. Casey opened her right eye as best she could, just as Fedele turned back to her.
He smiled and clucked approvingly. “The bruising and swelling will likely worsen,” he said. “But the eye itself seems to be intact.”
He continued to work, his manner remaining utterly calm and professional. Her mind screamed as she tried to make sense of what was happening.
Satisfied with his work, Fedele switched tools, preparing suture material and opening a fresh pair of sterile forceps. He secured a small, hook-shaped needle into their jaws, then drew up an anaesthetic solution into a syringe, attaching a fine needle. He turned to Casey and smiled.
“I’m just going to inject some local into the skin around the laceration. These sutures can be quite painful.”
Casey winced as the needle pierced her skin. She could feel the anaesthetic infiltrating the tissues around the cut, numbing the area. The pain disappeared almost immediately.
Fedele took the forceps in his hand and lowered it towards Casey. She could feel the pressure of the needle entering her skin; the pull of the cotton through it as he worked steadily, methodically, bringing the edges of the laceration together. He was pleased with his work, pausing every so often to check it, before continuing.
“I’m afraid there will be a scar.
Not a prominent one, but it will be there,” he said, with a hint of sadness. “It is disappointing. I did not want this to be my last memory of you.”
Casey’s stomach plunged.
The timbre and gentleness of his voice shifted and, in that moment, she knew.
As Fedele completed the last suture, he snipped the end with a pair of scissors and withdrew, placing the equipment down on the tray. He took an adhesive dressing and applied it to the wound.
When he looked down on her, his expression had completely changed. Gone was the gentle, charismatic and sympathetic surgeon she had always known. His jaw had set. His eyes were dark and chilling. He looked upon her with something akin to disgust and hatred. But there was also disappointment and betrayal.
Ripping the gloves from his hands, he tossed them aside and leaned in close to her face.
“Casey, Casey,” he began with a whisper. “You have created such a mess.”
Despite her terror, Casey managed to furrow her brow in bewilderment.
“Me?” she croaked.
Fedele nodded.
“It is a well-documented policy—law even—that the recipient of a life-saving organ should not seek to find or make contact with their donor. But you…” His bellicose voice trailed away and he lifted his head toward the ceiling. “You had to know. You had to push. That is your nature isn’t it? To stretch the boundaries, go places you should not. I should have seen you coming a long time ago.”
Fedele’s hand drifted down to the strap holding her right wrist. Pushing his fingers underneath the leather, he grasped it tightly and yanked on it as hard as he could. A lightning bolt of pain shot up Casey’s arm.
“The question is how?” He gazed into her eyes, a flicker of predatory curiosity emerging from the hardened stone of his expression. “How did you do it?”
Casey gulped and blinked, forcing herself to think. “Every system has a v-vulnerability. A weak link,” she stammered, remembering a sentence from an old cryptography textbook. “All it takes is an algorithm robust enough—tenacious enough—to exploit it. Eventually the vulnerability will be exposed, drawn out and eliminated.”
Fedele nodded and allowed a bitter smile to form. “Arlo,” he said wistfully.