Page 59 of Wicked Love
Lindell just gave me a baleful look. “I don’t know what else to tell you. That’s just how things work in this business.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE
Logan
As I watched Doom’s Seed’s lieutenant answer Beckett’s questions, the uncomfortable sense crept over me that none of this was really adding up.
Why would Maddie’s father have been investigating standard criminal activities? It wasn’t as if he’d been some kind of law enforcement. What would even have drawn his attention to a random crime?
But if there was something more to it, something unusual that did connect to his medical work, Lindell should have known that. And he was refusing to admit it.
I didn’t see why Lindell would have gone to such lengths to make Evan Silver’s death look like an illness either. That would have been difficult to pull off. Why not just shoot him and make it look like a mugging?
And the most important question of all: was the guy in front of us really responsible for Evan’s murder, the mastermind behind everything we’d uncovered and faced during our investigation? Or was he still protecting his boss by taking all the blame?
I shifted my weight from one foot to the other restlessly, itching to grab Lindell by the front of his shirt and shake real answers out of him. But I could already tell that wouldn’t get us any farther than we’d already gotten.
Beckett had come up with real leverage, enough for Lindell to confess to the parts of the story it was hardest to brush off. But now that he’d given us a full explanation that addressed all of our questions, how could we push him harder? I didn’t want to start killing the guy’s kids to see if he’d spill something else, and I doubted that Beckett did either.
His threat wasn’t going to work as leverage any more if we weren’t willing to act on it.
“What about the Baldwin file?” Slade asked, crossing his arms over his chest. “How does that fit into your boss’s business?”
Lindell gave him a blank look that despite myself, I believed. “I don’t know anything about that. Honestly.”
That was totally possible. We only knew about it because of Evan’s notes. It might have been something he’d seen at the hospital, something that hadn’t actually been connected to Doom’s Seed after all.
As the others continued to toss more questions at the lieutenant, I moved away, prowling through the strange room. Lindell had made it sound as if this place was only used for passing around deliveries, but the medical equipment was an odd choice. Was that just part of selling the front, or did they actually use it for some purpose he hadn’t wanted to mention?
I moved through the area around the exam table, opening the cabinets and scanning the counters. There wasn’t much in the storage space other than basic supplies like latex gloves, gauze, and antiseptic cleaner. Nothing that hinted at any specific activities.
I moved onward to the door Dexter had peeked through earlier. Stepping over the threshold, I flicked on the light.
There on the threshold, I paused to take in the scene that had come into focus in front of me. This was more than an exam room. It was obviously set up as an operating theater, with big circular lights mounted over a sturdy medical table, a sink in the corner, monitors off to the side connected to computer equipment too specialized for me to know what to do with.
A full row of cabinets lined the far wall, and a few smaller storage units stood around the electronic equipment. Everything was starkly white. The smell of the cleaner itched at my nose, bringing me back to the many hospital exams I’d endured since my own operation.
My skin prickled with apprehension. Why the hell would this nondescript, empty facility have a full-out operating room in it? Why would they have gone to this much trouble to stage the place if it wasn’t being used? There were easier fronts they could have picked.
I pulled open the drawers on the storage units. At first I only found more of the basics, as well as sets of tools like scalpels and medical scissors. Then a drawer at the bottom slid out with a rattle to reveal several resealable plastic baggies full of pills.
My apprehension crept deeper into me with a chill that touched my bones. I pawed through the bags. They were unlabeled, but… I recognized the color and shape of a couple of them, along with the letters etched in their surface.
One of those types was the same kind I gulped down every day. The other I recognized was one I’d had in my regimen for years until the doctors had let me taper off. I could remember seeing it in the pill container Dad had made me use for organization, morning after morning.
What the hell was going on here?
Those medications could be used for other things, of course. One of them was a pretty standard antibiotic. I didn’t recognize the other types of medication in the drawer.
Taking a page out of Dexter’s book, I shoved down my growing uneasiness and snapped pictures of the bags with my phone so we could look them up later.
The cabinets at the back held medical gowns and face masks, more operating tools, and, crumpled in a corner behind other supplies as if it’d been accidentally forgotten there instead of getting thrown out, an empty bag with a label on the front. I tugged it out and smoothed the surface so I could read it.
Kidney Perfusion Solution.
The bottom dropped out of my stomach. For a second, I thought I might vomit. I dropped the bag and stepped away, the sharply sour smell of the place flooding my lungs.
Too many pieces were fitting together. Too much adding up… and making me wonder what else might be part of that equation.
