“I think we may need to bring in Theresa and her pals,” Annie said. “But we can finalize those details once we find out what is behind that door.”
Annie touched the key card to the electronic pad. It buzzed open. They halted and listened. It was quiet. In front of them was a flight of stairs, and to the side was a very large elevator to accommodate gurneys. They scrambled down the stairs and entered a large room identical to the one Myra, Maggie, Yoko, and Izzie had discovered.
Kathryn went to the first door of the vault and yanked it open. Inside were the remains of a very old man. “Yikes!” she gasped. “What in the …?”
Annie grabbed another door and did the same. This time it was a very old woman. “Gadzooks! What in the heck is going on here?” She and Kathryn continued to open the drawers and found a total of eight cadavers.
“So, this is what Theresa’s crew saw. They were removing a body,” Annie surmised.
“This is really gross.” Kathryn’s face was twisted in disgust.
“You can say that again,” Annie replied. “Okay, now we gotta get out of here.” She spotted an exit sign. “Come on.”
The two women darted out the door and ran to the vehicle.
Kathryn was heaving. “That was a horror show.”
“You got that right.” Annie buckled herself in. “Floor it, Lucas. We’ve got to get everyone on a call. It doesn’t matter what time it is on the East Coast. This is major.”
Kathryn and Annie sat at the dining room table and powered up their laptops. Some bleary eyes blinked back at them. It was two in the morning for everyone else.
Annie launched into a recap of the evening. When she got to the cadaver part, faces went from shock to horror to disbelief. Suddenly everyone was talking and asking questions at once. Charles finally gave one of his whistles, which lowered the fracas.
“Today we discovered a lot of activity at the banks we could track. Senator Spencer Gerber transferred a very large sum of money into his personal account. According to Lizzie’s contact in Washington, Congressman Hawthorne pulled his funding bill as per the request of Congressman Hannah. There is an investigation into proper licensing, and, by the by, Sunnydale’s has expired.”
Myra rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “There seem to be a lot of moving parts to this.”
“Dead bodies, for one,” Kathryn spewed. “Although they’re not really moving.”
“My suggestion is to use the next two days to get all of our ducks in a row,” Charles spoke.
“Let’s review,” Annie said, and began to list the necessary steps: “Rescue Aunt Dottie. According to her medical records, she was in there for rehab from a hip replacement. They probably have kept her drugged up. Let’s get Theresa and her pals on that. Kathryn, you meet them there and let them in. We’ll ask Henry to drive. That might have to wait a day or two until we can connect the dots between Gerber and Sunnydale, as to who else is involved.
“Maggie, you have to speak to Jeremy again. Nikki is confident she will get the charges dropped. There were no fingerprints on the vial, so it could have been on the ground before the accident. Also, the paint chips from the bumper of the Sunnydale dump truck match Sykes’s vehicle.
“Izzie and Yoko gave us the names of people who we have to help get out from under Sunnydale. There’s Regina, Jeremy, and Danny. Danny will want to bring his girlfriend, who is a paralegal. It shouldn’t be difficult to find her a job. Nikki can work on that. According to Izzie, Regina has shown interest in gardening. Yoko, find a place where Regina and Danny can set up shop. He can oversee the business end. Placing Jeremy in a pharmacist position shouldn’t be a problem. Let’s try to keep it close to where we send Regina and Jeremy. They can be each other’s support group.”
Charles took it from there. “As soon as we extract Aunt Dottie, we’ll notify the Board of Health about their storage facility.” He cleared his throat. “Then we’ll notify the SEC and Hannah about the misdoings of Senator Gerber, and whomever else is involved.”
It was Fergus’s turn. “There’s more homework to be done on our end. Everyone sit tight for the next forty-eight hours.”
“What about the promissory note and Annie’s check? They will bounce on Monday,” Myra noted.
“But not until after the Sunnydale offices close,” Charles added. “If necessary, you and Annie can leave Sunnydale and register at hotels under your real names and without your disguises. That will give us until Tuesday before Sunnydale discovers they’ve been mugged off.”
Myra spoke next. “We have to decide the punishment.”
Yoko chimed in, “I have an idea. They are injected with organophosphate pesticides causing sensory and motor neuropathy with permanent paralysis. They are conscious but cannot move ever again. Pearl can ship their limp bodies to an asylum in an undeveloped part of the world.”
“Oh, I like that,” Annie said, grinning. “What about Turner and Clayton?”
“Turner, yes. Not sure about Clayton. Anybody have an opinion?”
“We didn’t find any dead bodies on the premises in Florida, but that doesn’t mean there hadn’t been, or they weren’t gearing up for it,” Izzie said.
“The women have been trading rubbish, regardless,” Fergus reminded them.
“I still can’t wrap my head around how people could stomach it.” Kathryn made another face.
