Derrick looked over at Hubble. If there was ever a man of few words, it was Hubble. He rarely said anything beyond what was needed. Derrick didn’t trust him.
He loosened his seat harness; it would be a long drive to Exit 40, which would take them to the coast and the town of Denton. He slid his hips out so he could slump into the seat and closed his eyes—not to sleep, but to try and figure out how he had gone from a respected anesthesiologist working at a clinic designated for donor organ extraction, to a murderer.
Simms, a doctor no one seemed to have heard of, had originally recruited him out of his internship at Medford General. It was to be a prestigious and lucrative position working in a private clinic. He was to assist, in his capacity as anesthesiologist, with the removal of organs from donors. He was told that some went directly to recipients, others to universities.
He opened his eyes and looked back over at Hubble, seat harness pulled tight, hands on the steering wheel precisely at twelve and three, back pressed into the seat, speed at exactly eighty-five miles an hour. Anal son-of-a-bitch.
Derrick closed his eyes again. He remembered how less than a week into his new job Hubble had been waiting to talk to him out side OR 13, after a heart extraction.
“Derrick I need a word. In my office in fifteen minutes.”
That was it, no greeting, no reason why, nothing.
He stared at Hubble knowing the man wouldn’t so much as turn his head. He always figured Hubble deserved his tiny office, bare of anything that might identify who he was, dominated by a large wooden desk framed by dark wood-paneled walls without so much as a picture frame.
When he walked in, Hubble was busy writing on a yellow legal pad. He looked up from whatever he was working on and smiled, the first smile he had seen from the man.
“Have a seat Derrick. I have someone I’d like you to meet.”
Derrick turned in his chair, scooting it a little to one side to see who was coming through the door. A stunning, statuesque brunette with breasts he couldn’t ignore entered. He’d only seen the person who hired him once, but Rosie Rehnquist wasn’t someone you easily forgot. She walked directly to where Hubble had been sitting, leaned over the desk and extended her hand. “Derrick, right?” She looked over at Hubble as if for conformation. “I’m Rosie Rehnquist.”
He stood and took her hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Have a seat and relax, I want to make sure you understand the nature of our business here at L & L.”
He looked from Rosie to Hubble, who was sitting on the edge of the desk. “I understand perfectly.”
Rosie smiled, running a thumb inside her blouse to adjust her bra strap. “Actually, I don’t think you do, and that’s why I’m here.”
As if on cue Hubble walked around and shut the door, then leaned against it. Derrick craned his neck to see where he’d gone, then looked back at Rosie.
“I’ll come right to the point,” Rosie paused, studying Derrick’s features. “L & L sells organs to the highest bidder through the black market.”
Derrick, concerned with the welfare of his patients, said, “What happens to the donors?”
“They die. But understand that because of your services as anesthesiologist they feel no pain.”
He was still trying to get his mind around what Rosie was saying. “What happens to the bodies?”
Rosie gave Derrick a weak smile. “Do you realize that what I’ve told you makes you an accomplice, and what you decide to do with this information will determine what we do with you?”
Derrick didn’t move, didn’t say a word.
“If you put in with us you’ll get rich, and if not, well.” Rosie gave a shrug, tilted her head and held her hands out at her sides.
Derrick smiled. “Being wealthy doesn’t seem so bad to me.”
Rosie sighed and Hubble returned to his place on the edge of the desk. “Great,” Rosie said. “In the days ahead you’ll be filled in on every aspect of L & L.”
Derrick continued sitting as Rosie and Hubble left the office, saying that he just needed some time alone.
The image of the meeting with Rosie and Hubble began to fade as the motion of the ambulance gently rocked him to sleep.
He was suddenly jolted awake, forcefully pulled forward against his seat harness. His eyes flew open and he was instantly alert. He watched as a doe and two fawns leapt from the shoulder of the road into some overgrowth. Hubble quickly brought the ambulance back to speed.
“Rest stop two miles ahead, you need to go?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“You having any problems with the extraction?” Hubble asked.
“You mean the murder? No, the guy probably had it coming. When I was brought into this, Simms assured me that all organs were extracted under clinical conditions. That if it was a live donor, it was my job to make sure they didn’t feel a thing. The guy who used to own that liver suffered, and that was anything but a clinical situation.”
Hubble didn’t say a word but glanced his way. Derrick began to wonder if he’d said too much but relaxed when Hubble focused back on the road.
But then Hubble said, “You know what we do. Sometimes people don’t understand. We can’t take the risk that some guilty individual will go to the police. I can only say that this guy was a doctor who should have been assisting Simms but changed his mind.”
“I see,” Derrick said. “So if I objected to our little extraction, as you so nicely put it, I could end up a donor?”
Hubble gave Derrick another glance. “Not likely, you’re too valuable to the company. Besides, your face is on hundreds of taped extractions, and I think Rosie actually likes you.”
Fat chance. He’d only met her twice and she didn’t seem to remember him. Derrick sat back into the seat, tightened his harness and closed his eyes. In a mater of minutes he was fast asleep.
He dreamed he was fully aroused lying on his bed. A woman walked into the room and began to undress. The more clothes she removed, the longer her hair became until all her clothes lay on the floor and her hair was down to her knees. As she leaned over to climb onto the bed, her hair dragged. The woman paused next to him, on her knees. Reaching around, she pulled her hair to one side as if she was going to fasten it out of the way. To Derrick’s horror, when she moved her hair, it revealed a hole in her side where her liver should have been. Then she leaned in for a kiss. Derrick couldn’t take his eyes off the hole in her side, and all the time she kept coming closer.
“Derrick!” The voice shattered his sleep. Hubble shoved him, hard. “Wake up.”
Derrick awoke with a jolt, suddenly aware of his surroundings. By the time he finally got the image of the nude woman with the hole in her side out of his head, Hubble was out of the cab, standing at the passenger side window with the ice chest in his hand.
“C’mon, we’ve got to get this into the walk-in.”
Derrick unfastened his harness and climbed out of the ambulance. “I’m coming.”
They entered through the rear of the clinic, went up the hall, turned into the second door on the right and walked to the back of the office where they stopped in front of a large, black door. Hubble turned and handed the ice chest to Derrick, took a key from his pocket, opened the big door and stared in. In the center of the room, he saw a body bag laying on a gurney. It was obviously occupied.
“Looks like a trip to the mine,” Hubble said.
When Simms purchased the property for his mansion and the clinic, he discovered an old mine less then a mile from the building site. It was Rosie’s idea to wire it up and install a giant walk-in cooler in one of the side tunnels. As often as three or four times a week, Derrick and Hubble would come to the clinic to retrieve a body and take it to the mine.