Page 63 of Ground Truth

“Right. That’s one reason it’s hard to get a heart transplant and why so many people are on the waiting list. So?” Scarlett asked.

“This is all so much worse than you’re thinking, Scarlett, because you’re not a psychopath,” Gaspar said easily. “What’s the most reliable way to make sure that the sick man gets his transplanted heart within the viability window after the accident victim dies?”

Silence settled on the room as Flint and Gaspar waited for Drake and Scarlett to come to the only logical answer.

Almost instantly, Scarlett narrowed her flashing eyes and flared her nostrils like an outraged bull. “The bastard.”

Drake took another couple of seconds to figure it out. “You’re saying they killed Ella Belle right at that time for the purpose of taking her heart and transplanting it? Like a murder for hire?”

Flint looked at the carpet and shielded his eyes from the strobe effect of the computer screen. “With a sick, perverse purpose. Not the usual motives for murder, like revenge, jealousy, rage.”

“Money,” Scarlett said flatly. “Murder for organs is about money. Greed.”

“And probably leverage.” Flint pointed out.

“Leverage?” Drake asked.

“Wealthy guy buys a heart and someone is killed so he can have that heart,” Gaspar said with a shrug. “That stupid schmuck will be a blackmail target for as long as he lives.”

Flint said, “And I’m betting Greta found out about Ella Belle’s murder and the motive for it. Somehow she discovered what Phillip had done and probably confronted him.”

“And then he had to kill her,” Scarlett said quietly. “Because he’d be lucky to go to prison for the rest of his life when Greta revealed his crimes. Georgia has the death penalty. So does Florida. Either way, the scumbag dies.”

“Unless he kills Greta to keep her quiet before she has the chance to turn him in,” Flint said.

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Chapter 32

Before Flint finished speaking, Drake’s heavy brown eyebrows dipped low over the bridge of his nose. Combined with his size and the combat skills he carried in his powerful arms and shoulders, he looked like a vicious brawler.

“My mama always says a leopard doesn’t change spots,” Drake growled. “What if Phillip Reed killed Greta for the same reason he killed Ella Belle?”

“To steal her heart and sell it, you mean?” Scarlett asked, incredulous.

“Why not? He did it once. He’d do it again. Everything’s easier the second time,” Drake replied gruffly.

“Before or after he dropped her into the Gulf for the shark food?” Scarlett said, shaking her head as if the story didn’t track and she didn’t want it to. “How’d he get away after the boat sank with the two of them in it?”

“Same way we did.” Flint agreed, having already thought it through. “Somebody came and picked him up.”

“Somebody?Somebodypicked him up but not her?” Scarlett asked, nostrils flaring. “So Greta’s death was a sick premeditated murder?”

“It’s looking that way, isn’t it?” Drake said.

Gaspar shrugged. “Maybe both Greta and her husband were picked up by the same guy who killed Ella Belle in the home invasion. Or another goon hired by the same guy who paid the invader.”

“You’re suggesting a massive criminal enterprise, which is wildly expensive to pull off,” Flint said with no trace of incredulity. “Phillip Reed doesn’t have that kind of money, does he?”

Gaspar shook his head. “He was worth a few million at one point. But at the time he and Greta disappeared, his bank accounts were empty.”

“A few million is not nothing,” Drake stated.

“How did a few million just disappear? No trace of the money?” Scarlett asked.

“Seventeen million dollars from Phillip Reed’s bank accounts was transferred to the Caymans. The transfers happened over a period of several months. Installments. To keep under the legal transfer reporting limits,” Gaspar explained. “But the money’s no longer there. It was transferred out again. Long before Greta disappeared.”

“Transferred where?” Drake asked.

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