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“Thank you, Mr. Kirkpatrick,” she waited for him to clear the doorway, then she locked it and reset the security code.

  “It’s Kirk F. Patrick,” he said with a bit of a grin. “Everyone gets it wrong. Castello calls me Kirk F. You can, too.”

  “Okay, Kirk F. Why did Marshal Castello send you?”

  “He didn’t tell you I was coming? No, of course he didn’t. That man just issues orders and expects everyone to be able to read his mind. You got somewhere I can set this down?”

  She led him into the kitchen area and he slid the box onto the island’s granite countertop. Then he thrust the envelope to her. “This is from Castello.” Then he opened the box to find a cherry pie. “And that’s from my Nana. She says homemade pie is good for healing the soul.”

  “That’s very kind of her,” she said, fighting back the tears that someone she’d never met before cared enough to send her something they’d made from scratch.

  “Yeah, Nana’s like that,” Kirk F said as he pulled out his phone and punched a number. “Castello, you was supposed to tell Ms. Matthews I was coming.”

  He paused, listening to the Marshal, but rolling his eyes and making a face. “You just lucky she didn’t shoot me.”

  While he talked, she opened the envelope to find a letter and a file. The letter explained that Castello had hired Kirk F to be her personal escort and driver. He was to help her with heavy lifting while she healed from her wounds and her surgeries. He would also be sleeping in her spare room until the court case against the sex traffickers were completely finished. Kirk F was unarmed and was not a bodyguard, the Marshal’s service would be providing that. However, he would report to Frank any possible suspicious characters he thought might be a threat to her. He would also run errands for her as she needed. Then Castello said, “The kid’s yours until you don’t fear being alone.”

  “Castello said the letter explained it all,” he said, pocketing his phone.

  “Yes, you’re like my walking security blanket.”

  “Yep, except on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights.”

  She slipped the letter inside the envelope and laid the file on the counter. It was the itinerary for her deposition and the names of the Marshals who were coming to guard her and their rotation schedule. “What happens on Sundays and Wednesdays?”

  He shrugged. “I take Nana to church on Sundays and bingo on Wednesdays.”

  From that moment on, she trusted the young man. He might try to look like a tough street-smart kid with his black hoodie and baggy clothes, but he worked for Castello, cared for his grandmother and as she learned, had plans to go to college to study criminology. He stayed with her for six months.

  “Since he started his classes at the community college, Kirk F has been helping me with some investigation work on the side. He can get into places I can’t.”

  “So, you want him to come stay with Paula?”

  Aaron looked her straight in the eyes, his green ones void of humor. “Unless you want to. Which, given your barely controlled breathing and pallor since we entered the ER suggests you’d end up in the bed next to your friend before the night is out, I doubt that’s a good choice.”

  Damn. He was right. God, she hated feeling weak. “You’re right. I want to get out of here as soon as possible, but I’m not sure how comfortable Paula will be with a young man she hardly knows sleeping in her hospital room.”

  “We both know him and trust him. That should help her feel better about it. We’ll see how it goes once he gets here. In the meantime, we have a bigger problem.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “And what’s that?”

  “We’re going to need some sort of description of her friend Art, unless she has one on her phone.” He glanced in the door. “Looks like the respiratory guy is done.”

  An idea popped into her head. “You go in, I’ll be right there.” Leaving him looking a little bemused, she headed for the nurse’s station.

  “May I help you?” the salt and pepper-haired nurse looked up over the rims of her glasses.

  Brianna smiled her most, I-mean-you-no-harm smile. “Do you happen to have some printer paper? I need only one or two pieces. And maybe a pencil?”

  “Of course,” the nurse said and reached in the printer to pull out a couple of sheets, then snatched a pencil from the pencil holder on the desk. “Anything else?”

  “No, this is just perfect. Thank you.” Brianna headed back to Paula’s room. It had been years since she’d sketched a person’s face. Probably back when she was still at the orphanage with Abby. She’d been pretty good at it, so maybe if Paula gave her the homeless man’s description, she could come up with a useable image for her and Aaron to use.

  When she got back in the room, Aaron was seated in his chair, with Stanley at his feet. Paula was sound asleep, but her breathing sounded a little better to Brianna.

  “She drifted off as I came in the door,” Aaron quietly said, then looked questioningly to the paper in her hand. “Planning on writing something?”

  “I’m not an expert, but I used to sketch some. I thought…” Brianna gave a shrug.

  “Good idea. Way better than what I’d draw. My stick figures barely look like stick figures,” he said with a grin.

  “You two don’t…whisper too quietly,” Paula muttered from the bed.

  Brianna hurried over and took her hand. She felt cooler. “I’m sorry we woke you.”

  “Was just…dozing.” Paula finished, coughing hard once more. Brianna held her while she struggled to bring up more crud from her lungs and Aaron handed them the box of tissues. Finally, she relaxed back into the bed.

  “Do you think you can give me a description of Art? I’ll try to draw one of him.”

  Paula drew her brows down in confusion. “Why?”

  “We thought we’d see if we could go look for him,” Brianna said.

  “Unless you have one on your phone we can use?” Aaron asked.

  “No picture. Art didn’t…like them. But I can tell you…what he looks like.”

  “Good. While you two do that, I’ll take Stanley out to do some business. We don’t want him making any kind of mess in here and get us kicked out,” Aaron said, backing away from the bed with a wink.

  Brianna watched him saunter outside with Stanley in his arms.

  “Like I said, nice…and sexy,” Paula said behind her.

  With a dismissive shake of her head, Brianna pulled the bedside table over and perched herself on the end of the hospital bed. “Let’s focus on Art and not worry about whether I think the detective is sexy or not.”

  By the time Aaron returned with Stanley, Brianna and Paula had come up with a fairly workable sketch of Art—an elderly, thin man with a scraggly grey and black beard that covered his neck to his t-shirt collar, and a long face and nose. Brianna noted that Art had bright blue eyes on the side of the paper and he usually wore a black hoodie, but now had a new down-filled coat he’d gotten from one of the charity groups to wear overtop of it.

  Exhausted from the effort of describing her friend, Paula leaned back against the pillows. “Dang I feel so weak. It’s why I couldn’t…go looking for Art…last night.”

  “How long have you been looking for him?” Aaron asked, looking over Brianna’s shoulder at the sketch and nodding as if it would work.

  “Since last Thursday.” Paula paused to take some deep breaths. “When he didn’t show up…for dinner at the shelter. He always comes by then…to be sure Stanley has food for the weekend.” Again she paused, closing her eyes a few minutes as she gulped in air.

  Brianna shot a worried look at Aaron. Should they get help from the nurses? Reading her thoughts, he shook his head and held up his hand, telling her to wait.

  Finally, once she had her breathing under control, Paula opened her eyes. “When I found Stanley sitting…outside the shelter alone, I knew something…was wrong.”

  “Did you call the police?” Brianna asked, regretting it immediately when Paula exchang
ed a cynical look with Aaron. “What?”

  “People don’t call the police for missing homeless people,” Aaron said, and Paula nodded.

  Brianna made a no-duh sort of expression at her own stupidity. “Okay, I get it. No one looks for them because they’re pretty much missing from their lives and who is going to know if something’s happened to them or they’ve just wandered off. But you went looking for him, in the cold rain we’ve had for the past five days, didn’t you?” she asked Paula.

  “He loves Stanley,” she answered, patting the bed for the dog to join her once more and he happily obliged. “Art would never just…leave Stanley behind. Something’s happened to him…I have to get back out to look for him.”

  “And that’s just plain foolishness.”

  They all looked to see a medium-height, woman with a grey short afro cut hairdo and glasses perched on her nose, dressed in orange and brown sweatpants, a Cleveland Browns sweatshirt and heavy jacket, sneakers with sequence all over them and an over-stuffed bag in each hand.

  “Hey, detective, Miss Brianna,” Kirk F came to stand next to the older lady. “This is Nana,” he said in way of introduction. “She’s come to stay with your friend.”

  “I don’t need…a babysitter,” Paula said and immediately started coughing.

  “Of course, you don’t,” Nana said, setting her bags in one chair, then coming over to push Aaron and Brianna out of the way. “And I’m no babysitter. I’m a nana. That means you’re gonna have someone here to make sure people let you rest, that you get good stuff to eat, and nobody does anything you don’t want them to.” She puffed up the extra pillow laying on the ledge of the cabinet next to the room’s sink and stuck it in behind Paula, scooted Stanley off the bed into Aaron’s arms and drew the blanket up to tuck it around Paula’s body. “So, these three and your four-legged friend are gonna go lookin’ for the missin’ man while you sleep and let your body get better.”

  “What are…you gonna do?” Paula asked, already drifting off to sleep.

  Nana pulled off her coat and set it in the chair holding her bags, reached in one bag and pulled out a big ball of yarn and a crochet hook. “I’m gonna work on a new afghan.” She snuggled into the vacant seat, looked over her glasses at the others in the room. “You best be gettin’ on with your search. And don’t forget to get me some hot chocolate on your way back, Kirk.”

  The trio, with Stanley securely tucked under Aaron’s arm, quickly left the room. Brianna stopped at the nurse’s station to explain that Mrs. Patrick was going to be staying with Paula even when they moved her to a hospital room. Aaron spoke with the house supervisor and requested a private room, assuring her he’d pay for the extra cost.

  “When I called you to come to the hospital, Kirk F,” he said as they exited the ER, “I meant for you to sit with Paula, not your grandmother.”

  “I know, but Nana was standing in the kitchen making cookies when you called and asked me what you wanted me to do. When I told her, she just went all grandma ninja on me—”

  “Grandma ninja?” Brianna asked, matching the two men stride for stride as they crossed the parking lot to her car.

  “You know,” Kirk F said, stopping next to the back passenger-side door. “Grabbed her crocheting stuff, boxed up two containers of her famous chocolate butterscotch cookies—and I’d only had three so far—telling me, I’d be the worst person to sit in a hospital room with someone who needed to rest. That the only one qualified to do that was her. And she marched me out to her big old Cadillac and said, let’s go.”

  “She’s right,” Aaron said, putting Stanley in the back with Kirk F and climbing into the driver’s seat.

  “Which shelter are we going to first?” Brianna asked, scrambling into the front passenger seat.

  Aaron pulled out of the parking lot. “We’re not.”

  “But you promised Paula we would look for her friend.”

  “And we are. But first we’re going to get something to eat. I’m starving. Then we’re going to go look in the place your friend hasn’t got access to search.”

  Brianna studied him. “And where’s that?”

  “The morgue.”

  6

  After placing the bags of blood in the cold storage container, he stared across the room at the carcass.

  A week.

  He’d only gotten a week out of it. The previous one lasted past ninety days and he’d harvested an extra pint of blood before its heart finally gave out. It had been younger than this one, with a healthier heart and kidneys. That was the key to maximizing his crop. He’d have to try and find young ones to use.

  Trouble was that the young ones were often riddled with drugs that had to be purged from their system in order to get acceptable product. And if they were working the streets for cash, the possibility of unusable blood tainted with AIDS or Hepatitis made the whole effort futile. Too bad he couldn’t screen them before he chose them. It was all part of the recycling process. You pick up the trash and then you sort through the mess to see what’s still useful.

  He walked over to the sink and scrubbed down his hands and arms before putting on the first layer of latex-free gloves. Over those he stretched on a pair of heavy yellow rubber cleaning gloves. Picking up the spray bottle of bleach water and a scrub brush, he started cleansing away any remnants of his possible DNA or fingerprints or stray hairs that might have escaped the previous hazmat suit he wore while harvesting. The one he had on now had come fresh from the package.

  It was his process.

  One suit for harvesting. One suit for sanitizing. One for disposal.

  The more meticulous he was, the less likelihood he’d be caught. For months he’d been hunting down and draining his prey of their blood, carefully depositing the early attempts to perfect his technique where no one would accidentally find them and storing the special few remains until his collection was complete. Now it was time to show the world what true recycling looked like.

  * * *

  Squeezed into the booth between Aaron and the wall of the restaurant, Brianna, who was comfortably full from her meal, watched both him and Kirk F devour their second plate of fried chicken and waffles. Every so often one of them would pass a piece of food to Stanley who occupied the other booth with Kirk F. Somehow, Aaron had convinced the manager that the crazy-haired dog needed to be in the restaurant while they ate. Since it was almost closing time, the young man gave in.

  “He’s got better manners than some of our customers,” the little brunette waitress said with a grin at Kirk F as she filled their coffee mugs again. “Did you teach him that?”

  Kirk F swallowed the food in his mouth, shaking his head, but a brightness lit his dark eyes as he realized the girl was flirting with him. “Nah. He’s not mine.”

  Disappointed he hadn’t flirted back, the waitress turned to look at her and Aaron, assuming they were the dog’s owners.

  Brianna smiled at her. “We’re just watching Stanley for a friend who’s in the hospital.”

  “Oh, that’s awful cool of you,” she said, sliding the check onto the table. Focusing once more on Kirk F, she smiled and said. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

  The color in his cheeks had darkened with embarrassment, but he managed to nod at her. His eyes focused on her swaying hips as she walked away. Brianna almost laughed when he realized that she, Aaron and even Stanley were staring at him.

  “What? I’m a healthy straight nineteen-year-old male.” He slipped the last chunk of chicken on his plate to Stanley. “So why are we heading to the morgue?”

  “Because Stanley’s owner is missing,” Brianna said.

  “Wait?” Kirk F shot her a brow-lowered confused look. “I thought the girl in the bed Nana is watching is this guy’s owner?”

  “Her name is Paula and she was taking care of Stanley. His owner’s name is Art and he’s a homeless person. Paula got sick trying to find him.”

  “Ah, I get it.” He turned his focus on Aaron. “And yo
u think he might be in the morgue?”

  Aaron shrugged, wiped his mouth with his napkin and set it beside his plate. “I’m starting there as a process of elimination.”

  “The dude’s homeless. Could be he just disappeared.”

  Pulling out a credit card from his wallet, Aaron slipped it inside the black folder with the bill. Brianna wanted to argue with him that she could pay for her own meal, but she hesitated this time because he wasn’t just buying her dinner, he was paying for Kirk F’s too. She glanced up at him. If he was smiling because he’d finally gotten his way in their battle over meals, she’d kick him in the shin. He wasn’t. He’d fixed a very serious expression on their younger friend, shaking his head.

  “I don’t think so. My experience with homeless people is if they attach themselves to a dog, they’ll do whatever they can to provide for them. Often caring for them better than they do themselves. From what Paula told us, Art was that way with Stanley.”

  Kirk F leaned back in the booth and ran his hands over Stanley’s back. “So, if he isn’t around to take care of the pup, something bad must’ve happened to him.”

  “Right. We start by eliminating where he isn’t.”

  “Why the county morgue?” Brianna asked.

  Aaron waited for the waitress to take the bill and leave the vicinity before answering. “Any death not in a hospital or the person isn’t under a doctor’s care, like at home in hospice, is automatically considered suspicious. This goes for any John Does. The body is transported to the county morgue and an autopsy will be done.”

  “So, you think Art is dead and might be in the morgue as a John Doe?”

  Again, Aaron waited before answering as the waitress brought him back the bill and credit card, along with a travel cup of hot chocolate for Nana. Leaving a nice tip on the bill, he slipped his credit card back into his wallet and took a long drink of his coffee. “What I think is something has happened to Art. If he is dead and his body has been found, then we’ll find it at the morgue.”

  “And if it’s not?” Kirk F asked.