“That has to be our link then,” Alex said. “Lacey and I will track down DeYoung. Remy and Max, you follow Pettine. Brooks, you take McDonald. One of these guys has to lead us to wherever they’re hiding the girls.” He looked around the room, his gaze meeting each of his teammates. “Whoever finds something first, call the rest of us for backup. We get those girls out and deal with the fallout afterward.”
Chapter 16
Lacey and Alex found DeYoung a lot more easily than she anticipated. They simply went to the research facility where he worked and waited in the parking lot until he came out and got into a lime-green Honda Accord. She practically bounced in her seat when they pulled onto the road and followed him, sure he was going to lead them straight to Kelsey and the other girls, but all he did was pick up paperwork from one research facility, then drive across town to deliver it to another.
As the adrenaline rush she’d gotten at the possibility of finding Kelsey began to fade, Lacey found herself thinking about the conversation she’d had with Jayna. If someone had told her a month ago that she’d meet a guy and fall in love with him in two weeks, she would have said they were off their meds. Then again, if someone had told her a month ago that guy and practically all his friends were werewolves, she would have said they were off their meds too.
So much for meds.
As crazy as it seemed, Jayna’s words made sense. Alex made Lacey feel things she’d never felt with another man. Things she’d never imagined feeling with any man. But could she really be in love with him?
Lacey always thought she’d never fall in love because she was broken when it came to that most basic of human emotions. Part of her wanted to stop thinking and simply go with it, to believe in the fairy-tale magic and accept that she and Alex were meant to be together. But there was another part—a bigger, pragmatic part—that warned her to slow down, take a step back, and consider that what she probably felt for Alex was nothing more than extreme gratitude. After all, the guy was risking his career to help find her sister. This thing with Kelsey had her caught up in a storm that was threatening to tear her apart. It wasn’t too much of a leap to think that maybe she was simply grabbing hold of the only stable thing she could find to keep her grounded. Kind of like wrapping your arms around an oak tree in the middle of a tornado.
She glanced at Alex as he drove, wishing she could simply talk to him about how she felt so she could get some idea of what he was thinking. But how the heck did you start a conversation like that?
Hey, Alex. It seems that I’m The One for you and vice versa. Care to discuss your thoughts on the subject?
But before she could say anything, his phone rang.
Alex pulled it out of his pocket and thumbed the green button. “You’re on speaker, Becker. Go ahead.”
“Hey, guys. I dug up some more stuff on DeYoung. Considering he was making meth, it’s not surprising that he was a chemistry major before transferring over to premed. After getting involved with McDonald, he did his internship at a research center that specializes in drug addiction and recovery. And get this—his intern project focused on the addictive effects of newer synthetic opiates.”
“He could definitely be the guy making fireball, then,” Alex said.
“It gets better—or worse—depending on your POV,” Becker said. “The guy also volunteers at the clinic where Kelsey and the other missing girls got their birth control pills. He helps out Dr. Pettine.”
Alex glanced at Lacey. “Now we have our link between the missing girls, Pettine, the drugs, and McDonald.” He started to say something else, but his phone beeped. “Hold on a second, Becker. The ME is calling. Stand by.” He thumbed a button. “This is Trevino.”
“It’s Samantha Mills at the medical examiner’s. We got the toxicology report back. While there wasn’t any heroin in Nicole Arend’s system, there was a cocktail of other drugs, the most significant ones being propofol and hyoscyamine.”
Alex asked the medical examiner what they were, but Lacey barely heard him. She was too busy hyperventilating. Propofol was a general anesthetic. There was only one reason to give those to a person.
“Despite what the killer did to try to disguise it, Nicole Arend’s kidneys and heart were surgically removed,” the ME was telling Alex, even though Lacey was doing everything short of slapping her hands over her ears to keep from hearing. “All the other damage was done postmortem to cover that up. This was an organ harvest, pure and simple. The only surprise is that you found the girl’s body to begin with. Typically, bodies of victims like this are never seen again.”
Alex cursed under his breath. “Thanks, Doc. I owe you one.” Thumbing a button on the phone, he quickly brought Becker up to speed, then disconnected the call.
Lacey clenched her hands together in her lap in an effort to keep from going insane with panic. Kelsey and the other girls had been kidnapped to harvest their organs. It was like something out of a horror movie, only real. All Lacey could do was sit there and think about that mutilated girl. Was that going to be her baby sister too? Had it already happened?
Alex reached over and placed his big hand on both of hers. “We’re going to find Kelsey, I promise. Just hold it together a little while longer.”
* * *
Alex was so furious that his claws dug into the steering wheel as they followed DeYoung off the I-20 belt loop and headed south on Interstate 45. He had no idea where the asshole was heading, but if he didn’t get there soon, Alex was going to ram him from the road and start tearing off important body parts until the man told him what he wanted to know. He probably would have done it already if DeYoung hadn’t abruptly changed his routine at the last small lab facility where he’d stopped, loading the backseat of his Honda with five big cardboard boxes instead of the normal folders he’d been ferrying back and forth all over the city.
Alex had no idea what was in those boxes, but the furtive look that came over DeYoung’s face as the man loaded his car convinced him the son of a bitch was definitely up to something. As they drove farther away from the center of the city, Alex hoped that maybe they were going to the place the girls were being held.
“It’s getting dark,” Lacey said nervously. “Shouldn’t you get closer so you don’t lose him?”
Alex glanced at her. She was still pale, but at least she wasn’t shaking as much as she’d been earlier. “I won’t lose him. I can see in the dark.”
Lacey nodded but didn’t say anything.
A few minutes later, the Honda turned off the highway and onto a narrow two-lane road. Alex slowed down and let the other car get farther ahead of him. There weren’t many people on this road, and he didn’t want DeYoung figuring out he was being followed.
Up ahead, DeYoung pulled into a gravel driveway that led to a large metal building with tall roll-up doors—like the kind of place big trucks were taken for maintenance work. Alex continued past the driveway, then did a U-turn when he was out of sight. Flipping off his lights, he crept back the way he’d come until he could just make out the front of the building. Then he pulled into the trees at the side of the road. Besides DeYoung’s Honda, there were three other cars and more than a dozen motorcycles. In the distance, Alex could hear dogs barking.
