She fired a warning shot at the kid, the round going high above his head.
“Drop it!” she screamed. “Don’t make me—”
But the words fell on deaf ears. The kid had the gun up and the safety off.
Ellie dropped to the ground, behind a waist-high wall made of blue-gray stone. The first rounds ricocheted off the stone and then more rounds cut across the grass behind her. She was trapped and she knew she had to deal with this; it was happening; it was full-on; she was in a gunfight, her first. She had to put both the kid and Gingerbread Man down. That was her only option. She said a quick prayer, begging God to keep her safe, and when she came up with her weapon, the backyard erupting in a hailstorm of bullets, she saw several rounds tearing into Danny’s chest.
CHAPTER 3
SEBASTIAN NEVER MET with his blood clients. Keeping his identity secret was paramount for his continued success, and besides, he had people for that. Still, he wouldn’t have minded saying a quick hello to the beautiful Italian woman in treatment room number 3, an actress he remembered fondly from his teenage years. Her name was Isabella Flores, and she had starred in a string of critically panned but monstrously successful action movies in which she played a demon hunter named Mistress Knight, who, with an old-fashioned .357 Magnum loaded with special bullets crafted by Lucifer himself, ran around at night collecting souls that had somehow managed to escape from hell. She had starred in the first nine films before committing the one cardinal sin Hollywood could never forgive, under any circumstances: she had gotten old.
Her real age, Sebastian had learned, was sixty-two, although her Wikipedia profile had it listed as fifty—and she could easily pass for fifty, maybe even for late forties. Based on what he could see, she didn’t appear to have had cosmetic work done, which didn’t come as much of a surprise. She filled out the black V-neck hospital smock and matching pants quite nicely, still had the thick black hair, perfect jawline, full lips, and fiery green eyes that had made her People magazine’s Most Beautiful Whatever for several years running, even when she turned forty-two. Well, fifty-four, in all honesty.
Sebastian stood on the other side of the one-way mirror, drinking his coffee and watching her pace across the room, this woman who had played the starring role in many of his teenage masturbatory fantasies. He didn’t normally hang around this long, evaluating his clients; he didn’t have time for that, had a number of other places he was actively needed. The reason he was watching her had more to do with the fact that she reminded him of a woman he had dated a long time ago and still remembered fondly. Perhaps too fondly, he thought. Ava Martinez. She had been the great love of his life.
Still was, really.
His business partner, and the owner of the dermatology and laser center, Dr. Maya Dawson, entered the hidden chamber off her private office. Her expression was stern—always was, reminding him of the Catholic nuns from his youth, dour-faced, humorless women. She didn’t dress like one, though—nuns didn’t favor Armani business wear—and what he enjoyed about this petite middle-aged woman with brown eyes and a maternal-looking bob hairstyle was the sense of comfort and serenity she radiated, Maya the kind of person who could solve all your problems. Nothing ever seemed to rattle her.
But something had rattled her this morning. He could see it in her face, the way she folded her hands behind her back and straightened, as if bracing for an argument.
“Good,” she said. “You’re still here.”
Sebastian always showed up on transfusion days. His clients paid a ridiculous premium for his product and he wanted to make sure everything ran smoothly. It was more out of habit now than necessity. He rarely encountered a problem, because he ran a tight operation but also because he chose his people well.
“Why isn’t she sedated?” Sebastian asked, nodding to Isabella Flores.
“She is,” Dawson replied wearily. “That’s her, sedated.”
That took Sebastian by surprise. When clients were picked up at their homes, before dawn, they were given anesthetic injections. Once they were out, they were loaded into a van and transported here, where they would be brought out of sedation and given breakfast before the transfusion, which took the better part of the day. They’d spend the night, the staff monitoring for any side effects, and once Dawson pronounced them good to go, they would be sedated again, loaded back into the van, and driven home, where they would wake up in their own beds, having no idea where they’d been. Phones and other electronic devices were left at home, and the clients were given special clothing to wear on the morning of their transfusion, Sebastian always concerned about an undercover cop or Fed posing as a client, wearing a hidden camera, microphone, or tracking device inside a belt or a button, the sole of a shoe. It had happened to his main competitors, the Armenians, too many times.
Right now Isabella Flores should have been acting like the other two clients: mellow or half-asleep and lounging in the surgical chair, mindlessly watching TV or listening to music as they waited for their transfusion to begin. Instead, she was frantic, pacing rapidly back and forth.
Dawson said, “She’s refusing the transfusion until she speaks to the man in charge—the one who runs the whole operation. The gangster, not the doctor.”
“The gangster?”
“Her words.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s an actress and she’s crazy?” Dawson sighed as she took off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “How would you like to handle this?”
“I’ll talk to her.”
Dawson blinked in surprise. “You never talk to the clients.”
“This is her first time getting a transfusion. It’s probably just nerves.”
“Or maybe she’s just another miserable narcissist who thinks the world revolves around her.”
“There’s that.”
Dawson shook her head. “Enjoy.”
The click of Maya’s heels faded behind him as Sebastian took a seat in front of the console. Facing him was one-way glass looking into Isabella Flores’s room. It took him a moment to find the switch for the microphone. He didn’t worry about disguising his voice; the mike already did that.
“Good morning, Miss Flores.”
Isabella Flores started at his voice. She looked up at the ceiling speaker directly above her.
“Can you hear me okay?” Sebastian asked. “Do I need to turn up the volume?”
The woman stepped directly in front of the one-way and straightened and squared her shoulders, looking like she was about to climb inside a boxing ring and knock someone out with one punch. Sebastian caught a whiff of fear behind her pose—the fear of being a onetime insanely popular item now kicked to the discount aisle, reduced for quick clearance.