Page 81 of Sin With Me

Chapter20

Kate

Eight months earlier

The night,full of mysterious shadows, awakened both my nerves and my instinct as I pulled up to an abandoned warehouse and parked. I tapped my fingers on my steering wheel and looked to the passenger seat, where a case full of money — three-quarters of a million dollars, to be exact — was supposed to be waiting.

Except there was no money.

I had failed at the most important task of my life: to save my mother’slife.

My road to hell had begun a week ago when I returned home from a week in Vegas — one last week of mother-daughter fun trip before the exchange and her surgery. Except we no longer had a home. Red and blue lights flashed as we pulled into our street, and an orange glow illuminated the night sky over our burning house. A few hours later, the only remains were ashes, along with a few stronger brick walls. The house was gone, and the money was gone aswell.

“Jack Pace,” my mother repeated in shock. They were the only two words she’d said since she saw our house burning down. The doctors had said it was due to trauma and they didn’t know whether it would return, but we were hopeful.

“Mom, you’re going to be fine. I promise.” I held her hand as she lay in a hotel bed that night, but I too struggled to believe my own promise.

She’d lost a lot of weight in the past month. Her appetite dwindled and her body weakened. Her time to get a healthy heart for a transplant was running out. The organ was failing, and her body became weaker every day. I’d spent every hour of my days searching for ways to increase her chances of survival. We had a better chance of finding a heart under the Christmas tree than waiting for a matching organ at the hospital. I felt like I was standing in a long line with a number, wondering when my mother’s name would be called out to meet the Grim Reaper. I needed to find a matching donor, and I needed onenow.

I didn’t find one; well, at least not a legalone.

With odds against us, I used my contacts at the precinct to find one of the most powerful cartels in the country and stuck a deal: seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars for a heart.

Except I didn’t have the money, and they had my mother’s heart. I pulled the black mask down from my forehead, covering myface.

Fuck them if they’re going to give my heart to someoneelse.

As soon as I asked for an extension, Aaron Cortez backed out of our deal. I took a chance coming here tonight and still I wasn’t sure if I was in the right place. They could have changed the original location of our meeting. They might not have a viable heart.

I turned off the ignition. I’d used the remaining cash in my bank to buy this unregistered car at a scrap yard. I opened the glove compartment and removed the little brown bag. When I reached inside, the cold metal gun handle felt just right, and I was glad that my training as a detective had given me that extra set of balls I’d need for tonight to pull off my plan. If the evening didn’t go well, tomorrow I could be looking at gun charges, kidnapping, and illegal organ trafficking, to name just a few. Or maybe someone would be writing my obituary.

I parked the car about half a mile away from the warehouse and did my first run around the complex, preparing my escape route, slashing the tires of parked cars and checking for a second exit if something went wrong. Much-needed adrenaline pumped through my veins. I opened the door and closed it gently before tiptoeing along the night’s darkest path toward the warehouse. A second glance at the parked expensive cars with deflated tires boosted my confidence.

When I reached the building, I could hear an argument brewing from within. I climbed up the discarded skid pieces, then on top of a garbage dump until I reached a rusted staircase. I rubbed my sleeve over the partially broken window glass to clear the dust and peeked through. Three men in black suits had their backs turned to me as they walked out a door into a different room. My gaze skidded to the left, where a man in a white coat with a cooler in his hand stood beside another man who was dressed in a suit. He was shorter and held a typical black doctor’s bag. I assumed he was a doctor hired to perform the surgery. The sight of a cigarette in his hand made me question his hygiene standards, and I wondered whether Fate had intervened when our house burnt down to save my mother’s life from a possible disaster. Now that I had a closer look, I was happy that a trustworthy friend had agreed to do the surgery. This guy didn’t appear to be someone I’d want to perform my heart transplant.

I made my way down the staircase. With my back pressed against the warehouse wall, I crept toward the door. The doctor was whispering something to the otherman.

My hands shook, and my heart drummed in my chest. I took a deep breath, removed the empty gun from the back of my jeans, and gave myself a little pep talk. “You can do this, Hope. It’s for your mother.”

I adjusted my ski mask, counted to three, and stepped out from behind the wall. With my arms out in front I approached with confidence, pointing the gun their way. They didn’t notice me until I was a dozen or so feet away. It was right about the same time that the smell of fuel hit me. Four open red containers were lined up near the trunk’s tank, and gas had leaked down the side of the vehicle’s body. Whomever had filled it up did a messyjob.

“Don’t make a sound or I’ll shoot. You answer me without talking, do you understand?”

They both nodded, glancing toward the door the other men had left through minutesago.

“Are you the doctor?” I asked the guy with the blackbag.

He moved his head up and down to acknowledge.

The other guy, the one holding onto the cooler, looked up from underneath his baseball cap. “You don’t have to do this, you know. You can still walk away before it’s too late and we won’t say anything.”

“Which part of no talking did you not understand, you asshole?” I said through gritted teeth. “Does that cooler have a heart?”

He nodded.

“Let me see the paperwork.”

He removed a folder from a briefcase that was hanging over his shoulder across his chest. I quickly scanned the details, the way my surgeon friend had instructed me. It was a match. The same heart my mother was supposed to have transplanted this evening was resting within my reach.

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