Page 62 of Ground Truth

Flint had leaned on Scarlett to persuade her to help. She wasn’t thrilled about it, but she agreed. Probably because he was still suffering residual effects from his concussion, and she didn’t want to be responsible for him cracking his head open again.

Whatever. He’d take what he could get at this point.

Gaspar had brought Scarlett up to speed and Drake had reported everything to Hanna. Hanna had caught a bug the day before and wasn’t strong enough to join them, either physically or emotionally. So Drake had left her back in the hotel room.

Flint walked into the conference room just as Drake mentioned Hanna was up to speed.

Scarlett glanced toward Flint and flashed a glare brighter than Houston’s noonday sun. Flint shrugged. “I’m feeling better, thanks for asking.”

Scarlett didn’t reply and she didn’t soften her steely frown, either.

Gaspar took the lead. “Now that we’re all up to speed, let me report what I learned while Flint and Drake were winging it back to Houston.”

Flint’s headache was improving. A big steak for dinner and a solid forty winks in his own bed helped. A gallon of strong black coffee helped, too.

He slid his open palm over his face and rubbed the back of his neck to ease the muscle tension. He glanced across the table and nodded pleasantly toward Scarlett.

She must itch to hassle him about the bones he took from the Marilyn Baker corpse, but Flint wasn’t ready to move on that issue yet.

He had known nothing about his mother for thirty-four years, and the ignorance hadn’t harmed him any.

The woman was long dead. No reason to rush the DNA now. No reason at all.

Despite what multitaskers claim, Flint worked more efficiently and effectively when he focused on one thing at a time. Even when he wasn’t suffering from a concussion.

When Flint tuned in, Gaspar was talking about Detective Dean Myer. “No new intel on her death. The feeling in her unit is that she was killed by a gangbanger.”

“That’s crap,” Drake said flatly.

“Agreed,” Flint said. “Myer was executed. Probably for something she knew or something she did. Could be unrelated to her giving us the murder book on Ella Belle Reed. But what are the odds?”

“Why does it matter? Solving Detective Myer’s murder isn’t our job. Wasting time on that murder will delay our search for Greta Campbell,” Scarlett said. “We all believe Ella Belle Reed’s murder is tied to her husband and that organ transplant surgery he did the next day. Let’s just use that as our working hypothesis and move on for now.”

Gaspar began to brief them on the recipient of Ella Belle’s heart. “The man was beyond wealthy. The kind of money greater than the GDP of third world countries. None of us in this room is ever likely to see that much wealth in our lifetime. He was the rich spoiled son of a rich spoiled father of a rich spoiled grandfather. Buying a human heart would not have seemed the least bit odd to him.”

“Man, that’s cold.” Drake shuddered like an evil spirit had walked across his grave. “Seems fair that he died soon after he got that new heart, doesn’t it?”

“Seems like a total waste of human life to me,” Flint replied. “Ella Belle Reed was a wonderful person, by all accounts.”

“Married to a total bastard, by all accounts,” Scarlett said angrily. “Why do women never see the truth about men like Phillip Reed until it’s too late?”

“You know, that’s a good question. Because Ella Belle and Greta Campbell had that in common, didn’t they?” Flint cocked his head. “Both were duped by Phillip Reed. What was it about him that caused two intelligent women to stand right in his scope of destruction?”

“Kind of like that lawyer in South Carolina who duped everybody he knew and finally killed his family, too,” Drake said. “It’s a pattern. Part of being a despicable human, I guess.”

“This photo was taken at his wedding to Ella Belle.” Gaspar flashed a photo of Phillip Reed on the screen. “The happy couple looks like aVanity Fairphoto shoot. Beautiful people. Up and coming. Talented. Successful. Going places. You know the type.”

“Yeah, there’re thousands of couples just like that here in Texas every week,” Scarlett said, shaking her head. “Without the murder and selling organs thing, of course.”

Flint sat up straighter and refilled his coffee. “That’s a good point, though. Murder is not that uncommon. But selling human organs certainly is.”

“That’s a whole new level of depravity,” Scarlett said, nodding.

“Yeah, but it’s a whole new level of difficulty, too.” Flint continued. “Think about it. There’re thousands of people in this country and around the world who need a heart transplant every day.”

“And there’re thousands of people who die every day, too. Every one of them has a beating heart right up until the moment it stops,” Scarlett said. “What’s your point?”

“Logistics,” Flint replied. “A heart is only viable for transplant for four to six hours after death. And transplanting a heart isn’t exactly a quick thing. Say a tissue match is found in a car accident victim in Los Angeles for a patient who needs a heart in New York. No way that heart makes it across the country in time for the surgery.”

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