Brandon had demanded that they postpone the trip to go after James Weeks. It was too soon, he'd said. Marie had tried to soothe his paranoia by reminding him - again - of the facts. The man who had showed up on Theresa's front doorstep, the private investigator or whatever he was, was dead; she'd shot him twice in the chest. She'd fled through the back of the house and disappeared into the woods; nobody had seen her, and no one had followed her. Theresa Herrera was dead and the Birkin bag sitting on the foot of the bed had killed Dr Herrera. There were no survivors, no
witnesses. Everything was fine. There was no reason
not
to head to Pennsylvania.
Brandon had wanted the dust to settle. He had wanted to wait at least three months.
Marie had no intention of waiting that long. She intended to take James Weeks, with or without Brandon's help. He had relented, but not without a fight.
Her anger began to soften when her thoughts turned to all the obstacles she and Brandon had overcome. Together.
She needed to show Brandon how much she appreciated him. Maybe order a takeout from that Italian restaurant he loved, then settle down in front of their big LED-screen TV and watch the video she'd taken of Theresa Herrera.
Marie made it to Baltimore in two hours flat.
The building for the defunct printing press had a long, wide bay that could accommodate a tractor-trailer. She pulled inside and parked at the far end. Then she got out and went to work.
Everything was set up and ready when Brandon arrived nearly an hour later, sitting in the passenger seat of a champagne-coloured Toyota Camry. The driver was bundled in a wool navy-blue pea coat. Marie saw the craggy face and thick, bulbous nose, and smiled. Gary Corrigan, tall and in his early fifties, had devoted the past two years to bodybuilding. Whenever Marie hugged him, as she did now, it felt like she was wrapping her arms around a cloth sack stuffed with smooth
boulders. Corrigan kissed her on the cheek and then scurried away to leave them to it.
Marie already had the casket gurney pushed up against the back of the hearse. The coffin was too heavy for her to lift by herself. With Brandon's help, they grabbed the bars and pushed the coffin across the gurney's sturdy rollers. He refused her offer to help him carry Jimmy Weeks downstairs.
She followed him, glancing at the small refrigerator set up on a grimy corner desk. She was about to go to it when she remembered she had already tucked the bottle of Gatorade inside her pocket.
Brandon placed the teenager face first against the operating table. The sedative had started to wear off; James Weeks moaned as they removed his clothing. He flinched slightly when the scalpel cut a two-inch incision between his shoulder blades. His eyes fluttered open under the bright operating lights.
While Brandon shaved off the boy's hair with a pair of electric clippers - head lice were a constant problem down here - Marie picked up a flashlight and made her way back towards the stairwell. She moved past it, her trainers whisper-quiet against the concrete floor, and unlocked the door at the far end of the short hall.
Lying near the back of the small room and curled into a foetal position on the concrete floor was a bone-thin teenaged boy dressed in torn jeans and a threadbare T-shirt several sizes too small. Barefoot and shivering, he held up a shaky hand to shield his eyes from the bright beam of light.
The smell, as always, was atrocious. Breathing through her mouth, she moved closer, careful of the slop bucket. When she leaned forward, placing her hands on her knees, the boy didn't try to move away.
'Are you ready to see your mother, Rico?'
20
Rico Herrera broke down, sobbing in relief. Being mildly dehydrated, he could produce only a few tears.
Marie smiled. 'I brought you something to drink,' she said, and placed the bottle of Gatorade on the floor, directly in his line of vision. 'Look.'
She stepped back, shining the beam of the flashlight on the bottle. Rico stared at it. He swallowed dryly several times, but didn't dare move without permission.
'Go ahead, honey. You've suffered enough.'
Rico rolled on to his stomach. Having little food and almost no water for the past three days, he crawled to conserve his strength.
Marie smiled when his grimy, shaky hand clutched the bottle. He nearly cried out in triumph.
Rico cracked open the cap. He had started to roll on to his back when she said, 'You need to sit up and drink it ... Here, let me help you ... There, isn't that better? Now drink it slowly, or you'll throw it up ... That's better. Take your time.'
All the while Rico sipped it, crying, Marie knelt behind him, rubbing his bony back and reassuring him that his mother was waiting upstairs to take him home. When Rico tilted his head back to drain the last of the liquid, she wrapped a rope around his throat.
Rico didn't have the strength to mount a fight. When his arms went limp, she kept twisting the rope. She had to make sure his brain was deprived of oxygen for just a few more seconds.
Marie had no intention of killing him. She just needed him unconscious. Strangling required more effort, but it was much easier than trying to administer an injection. She had tried that with the first few, and every time they saw the needle it triggered some sort of adrenalin reserve. They fought back and screamed. She wanted them to sit still; too much of the sedative in their weakened condition could potentially stop the heart.
Finally, Rico slumped to the floor. She didn't require Brandon's help with this part; she could easily lift Rico herself.
Cradling Rico in her arms, Marie stood and carried him out of the room, the length of rope tapping against her thigh.
21
Gary Corrigan had changed into medical scrubs and wore green neoprene surgical gloves that ran all the way up his forearms. A clear plastic shield protected his face.
Marie placed Rico on the operating table. She removed the rope, along with his clothing, and stepped back to give Corrigan room to work.
Corrigan rubbed a swab of surgical spirit against the crook of Rico Herrera's elbow. Next he inserted the IV, taped the line down and then began scrubbing and washing away the filth and grime covering the teenager's bare chest. Water sluiced over the edges of the operating table and ran into the floor drains.
Next came the Betatine. Corrigan swabbed the iodine-coloured liquid over Rico's chest, picked up a scalpel and made what he called a 'midline incision'. It started at the suprasternal notch and ended at the pubis. Corrigan had studied a new and rapid technique for multiple organ harvesting that allowed the organs to be cooled
in situ
using cold intra-aortic and intraportal infusates. The surgery would take no longer than sixty minutes.
Marie found it difficult to stand still. A fevered rush always gripped her at this stage. There was so much to
do, so many decisions to make. She needed to maintain patience and calm in the midst of this exciting yet draining emotional storm.
Harvesting organs to fund their operation had been Brandon's brainchild. He had come up with the idea early on, when their financial resources were extremely limited, back when they were storing the children in the small basement of their home. With the families scattered all over the country, they could afford to take only one child at a time. Driving to a particular state and staying at hotels, the endless days spent watching the family and waiting for the perfect moment to abduct the child and disappear without getting caught - all of this required a significant investment of capital, and it had to be paid in cash because money didn't leave a visible trail.
And the costs didn't end once the child was locked away. There was the constant feeding for months and sometimes years at a time. The vitamins, fruit and vegetables needed to keep the child reasonably healthy. The constant monitoring to make sure the child didn't escape, the unexpected illnesses that always cropped up - colds and stomach flus that required trips to the drugstore; infections that demanded antibiotics. The third child they abducted, Anthony Jacobs, had a life-threatening asthma condition that necessitated using the Internet to purchase enough inhalers to last an entire year.
Then came the return trips to abduct the parent.
More costs, more time spent having to save up money, the maddening and seemingly endless waiting ... until Brandon told her how they could sell organs to fund their operation. Unbeknownst to her, Brandon had been methodically researching the idea - and he had already made contact with an 'organ broker'. This man was part of a global network consisting of other organ brokers who represented people who either wanted or needed to bypass the traditional organ waiting lists. Buyers were lined up all over the world, and they were willing to pay a premium, in cash - especially for young, healthy organs.
Brandon's idea had proved to be extremely lucrative. They purchased the building of a former printing press, which allowed them to abduct and store
multiple
children and their parents for long periods of time. They paid off the loan for Washington Memorial Park, and Brandon lavished her with gifts. They could afford to do anything they wanted, anything in the world.
Marie inspected the coolers. There were five. Each one would house a separate organ - heart, lungs, liver, kidneys and pancreas. The Custodiol HTK solutions were ready. Everything appeared to be in order.
She glanced at her watch. It was almost noon. She checked Corrigan's progress. Another forty minutes and the harvest would be finished. She could meet the buyers at one thirty. They had flown in last night. Right now they were staying at hotels near the airport, waiting for her call. Marie took out her phone.
Brandon walked back into the room. He joined her and, noticing the phone in her hand, said, 'I already called the buyers.'
'When?'
'After I picked up Corrigan. Once he's finished, you can head to the office. I know you're anxious to get there.'
'What about Ted?' Ted Keller was the funeral home's assistant director.
'I sent Ted home for the day,' Brandon said. 'You'll have the place all to yourself.'
This was Brandon's way of apologizing for being such an idiot to her at the cemetery.
Tears stood in her eyes. Marie remembered her make-up and, not wanting the mascara to run, tilted her head back and blinked them away.
'Thank you.'
She kissed him. Deeply.
Then Marie hugged him fiercely. She could see Corrigan removing Rico's heart.
'I love you.'
'I love you too,' Brandon said. 'Come home as soon as you're done.'
22
Marie rolled the gurney across the funeral home's basement suite of dull white walls and grey linoleum flooring. The adrenalin rush from the past few hours had departed, leaving in its wake a bone-crushing exhaustion. Still, she felt relaxed. The funeral home was empty, and she had the rest of the afternoon to herself.
The crematorium had three separate ovens. She pushed the gurney up against the middle door. Rico's carcass had been wrapped and stored inside one of the long, cardboard boxes the funeral home used to put corpses awaiting cremation. She opened the door and slid the box inside the chamber. After she locked the door, she ignited the burners. The process would take thirty minutes.
Marie left for her office, aware of a new feeling worming its way through her: sorrow. She felt a sense of loss, always, at this stage. Each death brought her one step closer to the completion of her life's purpose - her life's mission.
Fortunately, she had discovered a way to remember each child and parent. To keep them alive in her heart and mind until the moment she gasped her last, dying breath.
She unlocked the office safe and from the top shelf
removed a large velvet jewellery box. It contained the necklace she'd worn while visiting Theresa Herrera. She never wore it here at work, just at home and when she visited the grieving parents.
The gold necklace was very elaborate, made up of eleven diamonds of various colours, each one a different shape and carat size. There were three empty settings. She wondered where she should put Rico.
The funeral-home business had brought her into contact with a vast array of companies offering specialized services for honouring the dead. The last decade had produced a rush of companies that created certified, high-quality diamonds from cremated remains, or a lock of hair. These lab-created diamonds had the same molecular identity, brilliance, lustre and hardness as the natural stones sold at any posh jewellery store. She had done business with several of these companies over the years, all under different names, and yet each and every time she visited their websites she was overwhelmed by the choice. There were cuts, degrees of clarity and sizes to consider - and colours. She had five to choose from: colourless, blue, red, yellow and green. Which colour was Rico?
The answer came to her immediately: red. It had taken a long time to break his fiery resolve - and that temper! He had fought her at nearly every turn.
Now she had to choose the cut and the clarity. She turned to her computer and logged on to one of the websites. She scrolled through the pages, thinking.
When she couldn't come to a decision, she checked
her watch. Twenty-two minutes had passed. She rose from her chair, and on her way back to the oven ducked inside a room to put on a face shield and apron to protect her from the intense heat.
Opening the crematorium door, she saw Rico's skull in the blaze of fire. She used a T-shaped iron rod to break it down into smaller fragments. She did the same with other, larger bones and then returned to the computer.
An hour passed and she still couldn't come to a decision.
No matter. The inspiration would come to her eventually. When it did, she would fill out the paperwork and put eight ounces of Rico's ashes, along with a money order, into the post. Another packet of ashes would be mailed out to the exciting new company she had just discovered. Sacred Ashes specialized in placing cremated remains inside rifle cartridges, shotgun shells and handgun ammunition, custom-made to any calibre.