Still no reply.
“Are there others?”
The doctorscowled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. But if I did, I’d say thatmedical students often have large loans. Not all of them can afford thoseloans.”
Adele stared,sick to her stomach. “Students are doing this with you? Why?”
The doctor justshook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I need something inwriting.”
Adele set herteeth. “I’ll get you your deal.” She hesitated, then looked up, her eyesnarrowed. “You and your accomplices have to know what you’re doing is wrongthough, don’t you? They pay off loans with the organs of homeless people? Don’tyou get how sick that is?”
The Germandoctor returned her glare. “Tomate,” he said, without flinching. “Theyvolunteered.”
“Fine,” saidAdele, attempting to hide her disgust. “Tell me, what hospital in Germany? Tellme that, and I’ll go get you a signature right now. I’ll talk to my executive;he’s in the interrogation room next door.”
“Look,” said theGerman. “Here.” Instead of answering, he reached into his pocket and pulled outa thin piece of paper. Adele frowned; normally possessions weren’t allowed inthe cells. She supposed whoever had frisked him had missed it. He was still inhis own clothes, minus the scrubs.
She glanced atthe paper and realized it was a business card. She accepted the paper andturned it over. “Berlin Medical Depot?” she said, reading the generic name. “Neverheard of it. This is where you work?”
The doctor juststared at her. “Where’s my deal?”
Adele waved thebusiness card. “Clarify this. What is it?”
The doctorhesitated, then said, “A facility in Germany. Near a hospital. Obviously… themain hub of the,” he cleared his throat and glanced away for a moment, unableto meet her gaze, “business,” he continued, “can’t take place in the hospitals.Too much oversight.”
Adele examinedthe business card again, then tucked it into her pocket. She turned and beganto march away.
“What about mydeal?” he called after her.
Adele grittedher teeth. Everything in her wanted to deny the man his deal. To leave himhopeless, like he left his victims bleeding, terrified, on the verge of death.She’d seen firsthand that he’d been about to operate on a man withoutanesthesia. He had hesitated, though. He had tried to reason with the Serbians.There’d been a glimmer of humanity, though not much.
“I’ll talk tothe executive,” she said. “But look at me,” she said, from across the hall. Hedid, staring through the bars. “You’re going to tell them everything. Whatmedical students are involved, where the Serbians work out of, every facility,every hospital. Everything you know. Understand?”
The man wincedand said, “No prison time, and I’ll give you everything.”
Adele felt asurge of disgust, but said nothing further as she turned and left the holdingcells, waiting for the metal door at the end of the hall to buzz and the greenlight to flash over the frame.
She pressed herhand against the pocket with the business card. They were headed back toGermany.
***
“Funny that,” said thevoice echoing in her mind. “Especially given where you worked.”
She stared intothe eyes of the man with a knife to her father’s throat. She heard thelaughter, the jeering tone. They’d locked gazes for a moment, then a gunshot.
Given where youworked.
Funny that.
A new sceneconfronted her, playing across her mind’s eye.
Three women,lifeless, their eyes vacant, their necks slit, all of them missing a kidney,standing naked before her in the black, staring out like ghouls in a graveyard.
“Funny,”the corpses kept repeating, “Funny that. Funny. Funny.”
Adele turnedaway, trying to hide her eyes from the gruesome sight, but her gaze onlyleveled on a fourth person. Another woman. Also young, also dead.
Her mother. Elise.
“Given where youworked,”her mother said, her voice crystal clear, exactly how Adele remembered it. Asoothing, gentle voice. Coming from dead lips above a tapestry of cuts andslits and scars and swirling patterns gouged in her mother’s flesh. A corpsewhittled from tortured remains.
Adele tried toclose her eyes, and it took her moment to realize she was sleeping. Anightmare. But still she couldn’t wake.
“Funny,” the voicekept echoing behind her.
Her mother hadbeen brutalized. A sadist had set to with a knife, a psychopath creating someform of hideous art on her mother’s flesh. She’d been left to die, bleeding outin the park.
But those threeother women, their throats had been slit clean. They had died quickly. There’dbeen no joy in it, no pleasure.
Adele grittedher teeth, and she heard the voices now, louder, coursing in her skull; atlast, she jerked away, trying to sprint free.
She heardsomeone in the darkness, drawing nearer. She couldn’t tell how she knew, butshe could hear ragged gasps. She glimpsed a flash of silver, of metal in thenight.
“Who is it?” sheshouted.
“Funny,”a voice whispered out at her, like tendrils of mist in a graveyard, creepingthrough her ears and sending chills across the back of her neck.
She jerkedupright, gasping.
The airplane.She was on the plane.
She continuedbreathing heavily, her head pressed against the slight incline of her headrest,her eyes fixed on the seat in front of her. She could feel a cool jet of airgusting down from the small nozzle vent above, and a glimmer of sunlightushered through the open shutter of the small, oval window to her left.
She struggled tocompose herself, inhaling the odor of peanuts and pretzels from the seat aheadof her, listening to the overly loud sound from the headphones of a passengerin the seat across the aisle. Ahead, near first class, she heard a stewardessoffering drinks, followed by the quiet clink of glass.
Adele kept herhead stiff, her eyes fixed ahead, her hand sliding into her suit pocket.
She pulled outthe thin piece of paper, struggling to push the nightmare fully from her mind.
The BerlinMedical Depot. She examined the business card again, listening to the sound ofthe engine. The plane inclined a bit, suggesting they were preparing to land.Some folk disliked landing, but to Adele, the noise of the engines was a welcomefamiliarity—an appeasing hum heralding their descent from the clouds. Shepeered out the window, across John’s chest, watching the great span of blue,then, eventually the patches of cottony white flit by.
Her weapon wasback on her hip. A comforting weight. At her side, John provided a similarcomfort, though a
