Heartless: a Derek Cole Mystery Suspense Thriller (Derek Cole Suspense Thriller Book 1) (28 page)

“When I spoke with Thomas O’Connell yesterday, I could hear a storm in the background. He said it was just a passing storm, but when I checked the radar on my phone, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky where he is supposed to be.”

“Smells like we have a family affair going on here.”

“If what I am thinking is accurate, they hired me to track down Mix, Lucietta, and Straus and not to protect anyone. Now that Lucietta is dead, and they have a lead on Straus, all they are concerned about is me finding and securing Mix.”

“Yup,” Ralph responded. “I bet you feel like you were used.”

“Sure do. But now I am going to finish this thing.”

“Heading to Hilburn, are you?”

“Damn straight.”

The NYPD detectives and officers searching for anything unusual on the Hilburn campus could find nothing. They walked every foot of the main hospital, entered every room that wasn’t locked, and inspected the outside of the main hospital looking for any signs that someone, or some people, could be hiding inside.

The steel reinforced door on the second floor was the only room that couldn’t be broken down or that the superintendent of the campus couldn’t locate a key for. The police pounded on the door and listened quietly for any noise coming from the other side of the steel door.

Nothing.

After two hours, the lead detective, Mark Smith, called off the investigation. He assigned a patrol car and two officers to “stay back and to watch the grounds closely for anything or anybody moving around.”

Workers, employed by one of the companies with offices on the Hilburn campus, began to filter out of their offices to see what the commotion was. After all the police cars had left, a few walked over to the patrol officers to see what was happening at the old hospital.

“Nothing to be concerned with,” an officer said dismissively. “But if you do see anyone trying to make access to this building, we need you to contact us right away.”

“Does this have anything to do with that doctor murdered yesterday?”

“Just precautions. Had reports that someone of interest may be holed up in this hospital. Again, if you should see anything peculiar, call us.”

Straus heard the footsteps, the voices, then the banging on the door. It took a few moments for his heart to calm when he realized it wasn’t danger knocking, but the police. He assumed that some police presence would remain behind, keeping a close eye on the hospital. He also knew that opening the door and letting them in would lead to his reputation, his career, and his life being dragged through the mud.

He had his own plan that had been working flawlessly up to this point and fully trusted that his cunning and sharp mind would keep him safe. Keep his name clean and respected.

The fact that police had arrived told Straus to expect Alexander and O’Connell to be arriving soon. Lucietta must have said something to someone or had left some evidence behind that led them to Hilburn. No matter. Worst case scenario and Plan C would eliminate the possibility of Alexander Black ending his life. And Plan B was still working just fine.

Straus sat silently on the bed where Alexander Black once rested, keeping absolutely still. He waited for well over an hour after hearing the footsteps move down the hall before he risked standing and walking to the door to capture a better listen. With his ear pressed to the cool, steel door, he heard nothing but an occasional scurry of a mouse moving about in the hallway.

Still, he stood, ear pressed to the door for ten minutes, believing that if anyone was standing outside, their resolve to keep quiet would end before his.

There was no sound.

He glanced towards his iPad, sitting on the desk in the “hub” room. Its battery was drained. He thought about his car, hidden brilliantly in the loading docks, and about the charger that was sitting on the passenger seat. He wondered if the police had somehow found his car, then dismissed the possibility.

“If they found my car,”
he thought,
“they wouldn’t have left. They would have broken this door down.”

But would taking the risk to get to his car and the all-important charger be worth possible exposure? He knew he was blind without his news stream and realized that the fact the police showed up told him that something significant must have happened.

“Get a decent charge on the iPad only,”
he thought.
“A shower and a pillow will have to wait.”

The locking mechanisms on Ward C’s door were far from quiet. The dead bolt slid noisily into its home. The steel bars screamed from lack of use as Straus twisted the handle that freed them from their locked position. The echoes of metal scraping metal reverberated down the hallway, scaring away whatever mice and rats that may have chosen the second floor south hallway as their home. But when he slowly opened the door and saw the fading stream of light trickling in through the window at the hallway’s end, Straus was relieved to see no welcoming party.

He closed the door behind him as he made his way down the hallway. The stairway that led down to the first floor and then to the old office of the loading dock supervisor was no more than fifty feet away. Again, he paused to listen and only heard faint sounds of voices and an idling car coming from outside. He moved quickly to the stairway door that, thanks to his cunning mind, had been left open to assist in a quicker escape if things came to that.

The stairway was dark, not graced by any window’s filtered light. When he had arrived back at Hilburn, Straus did his best to remove any large debris from the steps, being careful not to make it seem that the stairs were still being used. Slowly, he made the dark journey down the first flight and paused when his feet hit the landing.

Still no sounds.

He moved down the second flight with more confidence and when he reached the landing, he stuck his head out into the first floor hallway to see and to listen.

The hallway was empty and quiet except for discarded papers, broken glass, empty bottles of cheap liquor spilled carelessly about, and a few folded mattresses that he assumed were the resting place of the homeless who used the hospital as shelter during the cold Long Island winter days and nights.

There was nothing else to see or to be concerned about.

Straus drew his body back into the stairway, allowed his eyes to readjust to the dark, then proceeded down the next two flights of stairs. When he reached the lower level, he again paused to make sure that no one was where they shouldn’t be. After a minute, he walked towards the loading docks, using his hands to feel for familiar landmarks on the walls. When the walls opened into large area, he shuffled his feet, feeling for the three-foot drop that would lead to the storage and warehouse area of the docks.

His car was not as brilliantly hidden as he had thought but certainly concealed enough to avoid being spotted by a lazy flashlight. As he made his way to where he parked his BMW, Straus kicked a few empty bottles, sending them bouncing across the rough concrete floor.

There was no reaction to the noise.

“If that doesn’t alert someone, nothing will,” he said out loud.

He removed the boxes that he had stacked up around his car, opened the driver’s side door, and sat down. He had turned off the overhead light when he parked the car, again to aid in his concealment. He had also left the keys in the ignition and made certain that he had a straight shot out of the dock if he encountered an emergency situation.

His plan was working flawlessly.

He reached over, picked up the car charger, connected the it to his iPad. He then turned the key to “on,” plugged in the charger, and smiled as his iPad reported that it was receiving a charge.

“Fifteen minutes,” he said. “Twenty at the most. Just get the battery over ten percent.”

Five minutes after his iPad started to charge, its screen came to life; filling his car with a dull, gray light. Straus quickly held the iPad to his chest to cover the light, but the iPad’s illumination was present long enough for him to see the person sitting in his back seat through his rear-view mirror.

Derek wasn’t concerned about Captain Smith tracking him. He figured that Smith would be too busy trying to prevent another murder than to worry about some freelancing detective.

He searched for and found the address for Hilburn Business Center, plugged the address into the Google Maps app on his cell phone, and headed south. The computerized voice of the Google Maps told him he would arrive in just over four hours.

He dialed Thomas O’Connell’s cell number and listened as the ringing ended with Thomas’s voicemail message. Next, he dialed Ken O’Connell’s cell and again, heard his call answered by a voicemail message. His final call was to Ralph Fox.

“Well, hell, I just spoke with you. Now what do you want to ask?”

“Any way you can get Janet O’Connell’s cell number?”

“I suppose doing so is possible. What are you planning?” Ralph asked.

“I want to find out how many O’Connells are involved in this case.”

“Give me a bit to get her number. Your buddy Captain Smith ain’t been around, but he did leave his files behind.”

“Thanks, Ralph,” Derek said.

“Yup. You just make sure you don’t go running into any situations that are likely to get yourself all dead. Hear me?”

“Freelancing is tough work sometimes, but I’ll be smart.”

Ten minutes after hanging up with Ralph, Derek received a text message from Ralph with Janet O’Connell’s cell number. Derek dialed the number and hoped that he wouldn’t hear another voicemail message.

“Hello?”

“Janet O’Connell?” Derek asked.

“Yes. Who is this?”

“My name is Derek Cole. I’ve been hired by your son, Thomas, and your husband to assist in locating the doctors that perpetrated the crime against your family twenty-two years ago. Janet, I need to ask you some questions. Is that okay?”

“If you are referring to the doctors who told us that our son Alexander died after birth, then you can ask any question you want,” Janet said, her voice stern and crisp.

“I know this may be hard to understand, but I think Alexander Black is being assisted by your husband and your son. Have they told you anything that might lead you to believe that they are assisting Alexander in these murders?”

“They would never!” her voice assumed the tone of someone intentionally revealing their being offended. “How dare you suggest such a thing. My husband is paying you, isn’t he?”

“Yes, he is.”

“Then as his employee, you should be showing more respect. I can assure you that I will make my husband aware of your accusations and will see to it that whatever payment you are expecting is not sent.”

“I am not making accusations up from my imagination, ma’am. If you’ll listen to me. I am concerned that your husband and your son are in danger.”

“My son is on a boat out on Lake Michigan, being well looked after by my husband’s employees, and my husband is quite busy working with his lawyers in Chicago.”

“Neither are where you believe they are, ma’am.”

Her voice, hesitating, suggested doubt.
 
“And just how do you know that?”
 

Derek went on to explain everything that had happened from the time he met with Thomas in Grant Park to the last call he had with Ken O’Connell. He told Janet about what the police had found in Brian Lucietta’s office and how Ken told him that his resources had a good idea where to find Straus.

He told her about Stanley Mix and Michelle and how he had spoken with Michelle. He told her that he helped them remain hidden from her husband and how he would continue to keep them away from her husband for as long as he could.

He told her everything he knew as she listened in absolute silence.

Finally she spoke.
 
“Ken was furious when that Michelle Mix told him what the doctors in Chicago had done. I was too, but I was more heartbroken than angry. Imagine, all these years I’ve been grieving for a son that was still alive. I should have known.”

“Janet, what those doctors did was horrible. There’s no excuse for their actions. But now, Alexander Black is out in the world somewhere, and there are six people dead because of it. I need you to help me.”

Janet paused before speaking. “What do you need me to do?”

“Really, Doctor Straus, I thought it would be much harder to see you face to face again. I have only been waiting for you here in your luxurious automobile for less than two hours. I was expecting a much, much longer wait.”