In the Shadow of Vengeance (2 page)

God, oh God
.

She couldn't pull away from the gruesome scene in front of her. She had seen surgery performed before. This wasn't it. This was—

Blood. The migrant worker they treated at the clinic, unconscious. The ventilator. Spencer's surgical assistant with his hands covered in blood. The kicker, the one thing that slammed Elizabeth's heart into her gut, was the familiar white container with the international symbol for live organ donor plastered on all sides.

Spencer was harvesting organs.

Her arms went around Erin as she backed out of the room. Spencer's muffled angry voice called out to the others in the room, but all she could hear was her heart drumming between her ears.

Nothing in Elizabeth's world made sense. All she knew was she had to get out of there. If Spencer was capable of—whatever the hell this was, she had to protect Erin and the new baby.

Keeping an arm over Erin, she sprinted out the door and around the side of the building to her car. In record time, she had the infant in her car seat and was backing out of the space as Spencer, still in his surgical garb, raced out of the building. The man with him pulled out a handgun and aimed it at her car. Spencer shoved his elbow into the man's gut before running to his own Jaguar.

Elizabeth didn't wait around for introductions but sped out of the lot onto the service road. Erin began to squirm. Any minute, she would let loose how she felt about being jarred awake from her nap, making this nightmare even more difficult. Since there was too much traffic coming toward her to return the way Elizabeth came, she turned south, pressed down hard on the accelerator, and drove.

Humming a tune that usually helped relax her daughter, she glared into the rearview mirror as Spencer's Jaguar pulled behind her. Not waiting for the light to change to green, she spun right again onto a four-lane road. She had no idea where she was going. Her strategy was to place as much distance between her and her husband as possible until she could figure out a better plan.

The car movement must have rocked Erin back to sleep. Thank God for small miracles. The four-lane road turned into two lanes on the outskirts of town and headed out of Omaha. Elizabeth couldn't decide if she should take the next turnoff and return the way she came, or keep driving.

Did she really see what she thought she saw? The man on the table had been seen at the clinic a couple of times for a sprained wrist. She remembered taking his vital signs and hearing about his wife and son. He worked the farms in the area, saving money to send back to his family. He couldn't be more than twenty-five years old.

She wiped the back of her hand across her eyes, clearing away the moisture so she could see. Shit, what was Spencer involved in? There had to be an explanation for the white organ donor case and the man with the gun.

She couldn't even remember the young immigrant worker's name. If they were harvesting his organs, that meant Spencer—the man she fell in love with, had two children with—was a monster.

She choked back a sob as she searched Erin's diaper bag in the seat next to her for her cell phone. Her father would know what to do. He and her mom were probably sitting down for lunch.

The last couple of cars turned off and Spencer pulled right behind her again. Bone-deep fear raced through her as she searched out the front window. Any hope of losing him failed. All signs of the city disappeared as the landscape turned to rolling hills and farmland. Neat rows of corn that seem to go on for miles grew on both sides of the road. While their stalk height obstructed her view from seeing any signs of a town in the distance, she couldn't miss the low threatening storm clouds right in front of her.

Spencer increased his speed until he was right on her back bumper. He signaled with his hand for her to pull over. When she ignored him, he tapped her bumper with his car, jerking her forward.

She shot him a glare and shook her head. “Not just no, you sick bastard, but no way in hell am I going to get stuck out here in the boonies alone with you and your hit man.”

The expression on the face of the man who sat next to Spencer wasn't hard to read, even at the speed she was driving. If he had his way, she would have never left the parking lot of the outpatient surgery center.

She dug deeper into the bag but still couldn't feel her phone. A vivid list of cuss words slid across her tongue. Not knowing what else to do, she pressed down on the accelerator and hugged the middle of the road. If she couldn't hide from him or outrun him, she could keep him from passing and cutting her off.

As she searched above the corn stalks for signs of another town, the sky turned a grayish black, casting deep shadows over the landscape as a hard gust of wind whipped around her, making it difficult to control her car. She clutched the steering wheel with both hands. The jagged lightning bolts that seemed to strike the road ahead jolted her. When bulky stalks of corn hit her window, Elizabeth almost jumped out of her seat.

“Crap! Now what?” She screamed as more debris slammed into her car. An instant later, the sky ripped open and hail pounded down onto her roof.

Spencer blasted his horn at her several times. Her eyes scanned the horizon for the funnel cloud. Living in Tornado Alley all her life, she didn't ignore the signs.

The wind became so unyielding, she slowed her car and pulled over to the side of the road. With a possible madman behind her and a funnel cloud somewhere above, she had no place to run. But the one thing her father had drilled into his children was to never try to outrun a tornado nor find shelter in a car. Both options were death traps.

She swung Erin's diaper bag over her shoulder and got out of the car. Spencer pulled behind her. Covering her head with one arm to protect against the golf ball-sized hail, she opened the back door and reached for the infant Snugli, putting it on like a backpack with the pouch in front.

Spencer stepped out of his car. “Elizabeth, what the hell are you—”

The roar of the wind took the rest of the sentence. He ducked down as stalks of corn struck him. She settled Erin in the front pouch and removed the thickest blanket from her bag. Wrapping it around Erin's head, she raced toward a low-lying ditch across the road.

A new calm settled over her the instant she held her daughter against her. It didn't matter what Spencer had done or who the man with the gun was. All that mattered at that moment was protecting Erin from the storm that raged overhead. There was only one safety net and Elizabeth had to find it fast. If this field was anything like her father's, there would be a narrow dirt road. And where that dirt road intersected the paved road, there should be a storm drain.

As if her very thoughts summoned it to her, her hand landed on a raised mound. She quickly turned and searched the road for Spencer, but the sky opened the floodgates and sheets of rain pounded down on top of her. She couldn't have seen her own hand in front of her face, and the howl of the wind was deafening. With one hand shielding Erin's head, she felt for the cemented half-circle opening, and crawled into the dark, wet drain. Settling her back against the side, she removed the soaked blanket and tried to calm her screaming infant.

She didn't have a clue how long she hid in the storm drain, but one minute, the heavens were raining terror down on her and the next, everything was completely calm. The wind died down and the rain turned to a drizzle. She hugged her daughter and slowly eased out of the drain.

She stumbled backward at her first glance at her surroundings. The road was so completely covered in debris, she couldn't see the asphalt. Rows of corn were flattened to the ground.

She climbed the wet slope to the road. Where was her car? Spencer and his gun-happy friend were nowhere in sight. Taking in a shaky breath, she wrapped both arms around Erin, who had finally stopped screaming.

She remembered every sickening event that led her to this place, but her mind couldn't focus on what she was supposed to do next. Placing one foot in front of the other, she headed down the center of the road.

This must be what shock feels like
.

Time stilled as she cradled Erin. The closeness seemed to calm both of them. She followed the sounds of sirens that grew louder the closer she got to a small, one-road town. Wandering down the center of what had to be Main Street, she wanted to scream out to turn that damn siren off, but she couldn't muster up the energy.

The few people in the street had the same dazed look on their faces Elizabeth assumed was on hers. The tornado had done a number on the buildings. Very few stood upright. Fragments of the drywall, glass, twisted lumber, and trash covered the road and sidewalks.

A woman approached. “Dear, are you all right?”

She wasn't sure how she found her voice, but Elizabeth answered. “Yes, ma'am. My daughter and I are fine.”

The woman glanced around her. “It came up out of nowhere. I was in my garden and barely had time to get into the basement.”

She didn't know what to say to that. Instead, she asked the only question on her mind. “How close is the interstate from here?” She didn't care where she was, only how to get back home.

The stranger placed a hand on Elizabeth's arm. “It's about three miles down the road. I need to go check on my husband. He runs the boot shop there,” she said, pointing across the street. Her voice cracked as she said, “You are welcome to wait on my porch. My home, by God's grace, wasn't hit.”

Elizabeth nodded her thanks and watched as the woman made her way to her husband. Instead of settling on the porch, however, she headed toward the car in the driveway. It hadn't been touched either. Looking inside the driver's side window, she spotted the keys in the ignition. Before she could talk herself out of what would be the second stupidest thing she did that day, she opened the car door and got behind the wheel. Wrapping the seat belt around her and Erin, she pulled out of the driveway and drove back the way she had come. The words
just borrowing the car
seeped across her consciousness. She never glanced back as she headed toward the highway.

Even though the road was covered in cornstalks and wreckage, she made it to the interstate and headed toward Omaha. The closer she got to the city, the less storm damage there was.

Elizabeth had a choice to make. She could take the beltway around the city and head due east toward her childhood home. Her parents would know what to do, and she had never needed them more than at that moment. But at the turnoff, instead of taking the exit east, the fear of bringing this nightmare to her parents' door compelled her to take the exit for downtown instead. She drove several blocks and slowed when she reached a ten-story white building she had always been curious about but never had any reason to visit. Entering the short driveway, she drove up to the guarded gate. Behind the iron gates was a large insignia that hung on the side of the building: Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Elizabeth turned off the car and unbuckled her seatbelt. Glancing down at her soiled, wet clothing, she ran a hand over her hair and tried not to look like she felt: unbalanced. The guard approached her as she got out of the car.

“Ma'am, you need to stay in the car.”

She cleared her throat as she zoomed in on the guard's hand moving toward the handgun at his side. “Tornado … not sure where,” she blared out in a strained whisper. “I had to borrow this car. It's not mine. I don't know what happened to my car.”

“Ma'am, are you hurt? The baby you're holding …?”

Elizabeth touched her lips to the top of her child's head. “Erin's my daughter. I need to talk to someone. There's been a murder.” She sucked in a deep breath. “I think it's a murder, not sure … I'm not sure of anything.”

Thirteen years later

Fells Point, Baltimore

How did he always get himself drawn into other people's messes? Noah McNeil had his own problems and this wasn't one of them. If thirteen-year-old Danny Merlot was acting out, then let his mother deal with it.

While that logic made perfect sense to him, his nosy sister-in-law had other ideas. How she always got him into this crap bugged the hell out of him. All Jennie McKenzie McNeil, his twin brother Jared's wife, had to do was put on that schoolteacher face, promise Noah a batch of homemade chocolate-chip cookies, and he was her puppet. Today, she wanted him to check on one of her former students. And since he and Danny had a little history, maybe Danny would open up to Noah when he didn't seem to be talking to anyone else.

Danny Merlot was a McNeil problem. It had been more than three years since Elías Mendoza's enforcer kidnapped the kid from inside Jennie's elementary school. Mendoza's personal vendetta against Jennie and the McNeil family should have never landed on Danny's young shoulders. Mendoza chose Danny out of Jennie's students because he knew she had a soft spot in her heart for the boy—the perfect leverage.

Noah leaned his long frame against the side of his truck and scanned the block. Since Jennie married Jared three years ago, this section of Fells Point was almost home to him more than his own place. He glanced at his watch. An instant later, the sound of St. Luke's church bells echoed through the neighborhood. The bells were followed by his stomach grumbling. The aroma of garlicky, well-seasoned tomato sauce and pizza dough cooking on an open brick oven that wafted across the street from the Italian bistro always made his mouth water. If he didn't expect Danny to be walking past on the way home from school, he would grab a slice.

“Hey,
amigo
. Are you going to lean there all afternoon holding up your truck, or are you coming in?” Raúl Ibarra yelled from the doorway of his flower shop.

Noah couldn't help smiling at one of his best friends. Raúl Ibarra had semi-retired from the FBI three years ago and bought Jennie's landlord's brownstone, turning it into a flower shop. He had spent years working undercover as one of Mendoza's top lieutenants. When Danny disappeared, he broke cover and tried to protect the kid. His sacrifice failed. He was captured and tortured. Even from where Noah stood, he could make out the deep facial scar carved into Raúl's skin. There were others beneath his T-shirt, the same scars Jared carried with him.