Total pages in book: 187
Estimated words: 174623 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 873(@200wpm)___ 698(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 174623 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 873(@200wpm)___ 698(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
"Unlikely," Signal answers. "Organ harvesting takes precision. Organs have such a small window of viability after extraction. They would've had to have recipients lined up. Surgical teams waiting for them to arrive. It had to have been a lot of people. If they didn't have someone waiting for each of those organs, I don't think that they would've been removed. It would've been wasted effort. The chance of this just being a fluke is highly unlikely."
"An organ trafficking ring?" Kincaid mutters. "Just fucking great."
"I can't identify the nurse," Max says. "I've run her face through their employee database, and she's not showing up."
"A traveling nurse?" Slick asks.
"Possibly," Max says. "But they have traveling nurses logged as well. Hold on."
Kincaid paces at the front of the room while waiting for the next piece of information.
"There's a gap between all the records from the date of hire, their first shift, and submission into the system for identification purposes."
"How many nurses are we talking about?" Shadow asks.
"Three that I can tell who have been hired recently but are using temporary access passes."
"Check the roster of nurses who helped with Traci's care that day," Signal suggests.
"Already on it," Max says. "Shit. All those nurses are accounted for with their information in the system."
"Could she be wearing a disguise? Looking different on that day from what she looked like when they could've put her in their system?" Signal asks.
"The only way for that to be possible," Max begins. "Is if she wore a prosthetic nose or chin or something like that. My facial recognition software is very high tech."
"But it isn't impossible?" Kincaid counters.
"Not impossible," Max answers.
"It's unlikely she would return to the hospital after what she did," Signal says.
"Unless she thinks they did enough to her and took her far enough away that she would never be identified," Max mutters. "The discovery of the victim hasn't made it to local news. Maybe she'll return if she thinks the place hasn't been burned."
We're all leaning in a little closer, paying more attention, and I know I can't be the only one who feels like this is more than a little personal.
"Without identifying the nurse, we'll hit a dead end," Recon says.
"Not necessarily," Signal offers. "They'd have to have a team of people for each organ. Somewhere to perform the transplant surgeries. You could do a search for doctors who have lost their license. I'd include surgical techs and operating room nurses. Those people may have enough knowledge through experience and assisting to operate with confidence."
"What the actual fuck," Max hisses, his fingers moving so fast over the keyboard that they seem like a blur. "Her file is gone."
"Whose?" Kincaid asks.
"Traci's," Max says. "It was just fucking here."
"So someone just wiped it?" Kincaid asks.
"It looks like it. Every note is gone. Her name has been expunged from the system."
"By who?" Shadow snaps. "Every edit is tracked."
"Not this time," Max says. "I can see that the edits were made in-house and not by someone who hacked their system, but it doesn't tell me where in the hospital it was or who made the changes. I'll go through all the video with this timestamp to see who was using the computers and compare them to the system notes, but I won't have video if anyone did this in a closed office."
"But it would tell us who it is or isn’t on a computer without their edits being tracked by them," Kincaid says.
"It's going to take some time," Max tells him, sounding a little disappointed that he can't just snap his fingers and give us everything we need to track down the motherfuckers who are so willing to end a life and steal twin babies.
"Any Safe Haven surrenders since she got on that bus?" Signal asks.
Silence swirls around the room, Max's fingers working over the keyboard the only noise.
"Not locally," Max tells him after a few seconds.
"So the babies are still gone," I mutter, sitting back in my chair and scraping my hands over my head. "Juliet is going to lose her fucking mind."
Several pairs of eyes shift to me.
"Juliet won't know," Kincaid says. "This is the shit we keep from our loved ones."
I lock eyes with him, part of me knowing that he's right. This shit doesn't need to be in their heads, but it also comes with a hint of feeling like not telling her is some form of betrayal.
"Understood?" he asks in a way I know is a command.
"Yes, sir," I say.
"So we have a rogue nurse," Kincaid continues.
"If she's a nurse at all," Signal mutters.
"We can't discount it," Kincaid says. "And we have someone in the hospital who's also involved on some level."
"That's what it looks like," Max says.
"If we can't track the nurse, we'll need to figure out who at the hospital is helping them," Kincaid says, and his eyes immediately go to Signal.