Shelby isn’t far from me, and I jog over to his side. To my surprise, he’s still alive. I crouch down and examine him closer. Under his many layers, he’s wearing a cheap bulletproof vest. The bullet meant for his ribs is half-buried in the protective equipment.
I grab the man’s jacket and pull him up, rage building with every breath. “You wore a vest?” I ask, my voice on the rise. “And you didn’t give me or Davis a warning as to what you were planning? You knew there would be danger! You knew that—”
“Pierce,” he interjects. “Check the van. Make sure they’re okay.”
Incredulous, I shake him by the collar, watching blood pump from the open bullet hole in his arm. “Are you even listening to me, old man? You better start talking!”
“The van….” Shelby grunts and grits his teeth. His legs shake right before they give out. I let him fall to the dirt. He’s in bad shape and starts coughing heavily into his hand. Phlegm and spittle coat his palm a few seconds into his outburst.
What a piece of shit. He’s the instrument of Davis’s death, and he almost killed me as well. What the fuck is in this van? Why does he care so much?
I turn on my heel and march over, anger once again masking my pain. It’s dark, but the van is left broken in a spot of moonlight. I hustle to the back and lift the shutter door up, intent on finishing this as soon as possible. The crates are thrown around the back from the crash, some cracked open. I climb up into the back and walk over to the first broken container. I rip up the lid and spot a large refrigerator. No wonder it took those guys so long to haul these crates around.
Curiosity gets the best of me. I reach down and pop the door of the fridge container, half expecting to find drugs. The moment I get an eyeful of the contents, I jump back, stunned.
I’ve seen all sorts of things smuggled and traded, but… the sight of two people catches me off guard.
They’re crammed in the container, eyes sunken in and their skin cold. There’s no ice, but the fridge unit seems to keep the temperature set low. Their soft intakes of breath and warm exhales of mist tell me they’re alive, but their weak posture and half-lidded expressions say they’re heavily sedated. They don’t acknowledge my presence.
I stare at the two jammed in the fridge and then pan my gaze around to the other crates. There are ten containers—do they have twenty people here? Goddamn sons of bitches.
They’re wearing nothing but tags secured around their arms. I squint to read that each tiny scrap of paper lists their age, blood type, and a short medical history. Despite the darkness of the van, I can see the discoloration of bruises across all visible areas of their flesh. The raw smell of copper hints at the fresh blood sliding along the bottom of the fridge.
The cruelty of man knows no bounds.
I’ve seen a lot of guys die, and a lot of terrible things happen to good people, but this is a whole new shade of darkness I hadn’t mentally prepared myself for. The tags tell me everything—the people are here to be harvested for organs or shipped off as sex things. It’s sick and vile, and my stomach churns.
I’ve never felt more relieved to hear the approach of sirens. The cops pull into the rail yard parking lot with their blue and red lights sweeping over the area. I hope they can help. Someone needs to bring these kids to a hospital, and fast.
Shelby’s actions suddenly make a strange amount of sense. But how did he know what was going down tonight?
CHAPTER TWO
LIKE A hospital or a morgue, it’s never a good sign to see a busy police station.
I glance around, nervous, and keep my hands deep inside my jacket pockets. The Joliet City Police Department swarms with uniformed officers, news reporters, and wide-eyed looky-loos who squeezed themselves into the front lobby. I stand behind the service counter, eyeing the front door and waiting like they told me to, but I’ll take any chance to leave that comes my way. No good can come from me being here.
A man pushes his way through the crowd and walks straight up to the main counter. I’d recognize Miles no matter what, even in his hasty morning dress of sweatpants and a black wifebeater. Seeing him takes some of the weight off my shoulders.
“Pierce,” he says the moment he spots me. “You’re okay!”
“Yeah,” I reply.
“I’ve been calling you for hours! I didn’t know which precinct they’d take you to. Why didn’t you answer?”
I don’t much care for phones. I pull mine out of my pocket and see thirty-one missed calls, three text messages, and ten voicemails. I give Miles a sardonic half smile. “I was a little busy.”
Without talking to the officer behind the counter, Miles effortlessly leaps over and closes the distance between us. Reporters protest and balk, and the officer in charge holds up a hand and shouts, “Hey!”
“He’s with us,” I say, giving him a dismissive wave of my hand. “From the PI firm.”
That’s not true, but I don’t care.
Miles wraps his arms around me in a tight embrace, catching me off guard and causing me to tense. We’re chest-to-chest, his chin resting on my shoulder, before I regain my senses enough to shove him away. The officer behind the front counter gives me a You lying sack of shit glance that punctuates the whole scene.
“Not here,” I growl, my volume low but my tone heated. “Not in the middle of all this.”
“I’ve been worried about you.”
“Everything is fine.”
“The reporters are calling you all heroes. They say you saved twenty people.”
Goddammit. I
