Tess Gerritsen: Harvest

"Please, just go! Let's get out of here."

As Tarasoff pulled away from the kerb, she glanced back to see if anyone was following them. The road behind them was dark. "Do you see any cars?" he asked. "No. I think we're OK."

Tarasoft released a shaky breath. "I'm not very good at this. I don't even like to watch crime shows."

"You're doing fine. Just get us to the police station. We can call Vivian to meet us there."

Tarasoft glanced nervously in the rearview mirror. "I think I just saw a car."

"What?" Abby looked back, but saw nothing. "I'm going to turn here. Let's see what happens."

"Go ahead. I'll keep watching."

As they rounded the corner, Abby kept her gaze focused on the road behind them. She saw no headlights, no other cars at all. Only when they slowed to a stop did she turn and face forward. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong." Tarasoff cut the headlights. "Why are you…" Abby's words froze in her throat. Tarasoft had just pressed the lock release button.

She glanced right in panic as her door swung open. A gust of wind swept in. Suddenly hands reached in and she was being dragged out into the night. Her hair fell across her eyes, obscuring her vision. She fought blindly against her captors but could not succeed in loosening their grips. Her hands were yanked behind her back and the wrists bound together. Her mouth was taped.

Then she was lifted and thrust into the trunk of a nearby car. The hood slammed shut, trapping her in darkness. They were moving.

She rolled onto her back and kicked upwards. Again and again she slammed her feet against the trunk lid, kicking until her thighs ached, until she could scarcely lift her legs. It was useless; no one could hear her.

Exhausted, she curled up on her side and forced herself to think. Tarasoft. How i Tarasoft involved?

Slowly the puzzle came together, piece by piece. Lying in the cramped darkness, with the road rumbling beneath her, she began to understand. Tarasoft was chief of one of the most respected cardiac transplant teams on the East Coast. His reputation attracted desperately ill patients from around the world, patients with the money and the wherewithal to go to any surgeon they chose. They demanded the best, and they could afford to pay for it.

What they could not buy, what the system would never allow them to buy, was what they needed to stay alive: Hearts. Human hearts.

That's what the Bayside transplant team could provide. She remembered what Tarasoft had once said: "I refer patients to Bayside all the time."

He was Bayside's go-between. He was their matchmaker.

She felt the car brake and turn. The tyres rolled across gravel then stopped. There was a distant roar, a sound she recognized as a jet taking off. She knew exactly where they were.

The trunk hood opened. She was lifted out, into a buffeting wind that smelled of diesel fuel and the sea. They half-carried, half-dragged her down the pier and up the gangplank. Her screams were muffled by the tape over her mouth and lost in the thunder of the jet's take-oft. She caught only a glimpse of the freighter deck, of shifting blackness and geometric shadows, and then she was dragged below, down steps that rattled and clanged. One flight, then another.

A door screeched open and she was thrust inside, into darkness. Her hands were still bound behind her back; she could not break her fall. Her chin slammed to the metal floor and the impact was blinding. She was too stunned to move, to utter even a whimper as pain drove like a stake through her skull.

Another set of footsteps clanged down the stairway. Dimly she heard Tarasoft say: "At least it's not a total waste. Take the tape off her mouth. We can't have her suffocating."

She rolled onto her back and struggled to focus. She could make out Tarasoff's silhouette, standing in the faintly lit doorway. She flinched as one of the men bent down and ripped off the tape.

"Why?" she whispered. It was the only question she could think of. ' Why?"

The silhouette gave a faint shrug, as though her question was irrelevant. The other two men backed out of the room. They were preparing to shut her inside.

"Is it the money?" she cried. "Is it that simple an answer?"

"Money means nothing," Tarasoft said, 'if it can't buy you what you need."

"Like a heart?"

"Like the life of your own child. Or your own wife, your own sister or brother. You, of all people, should understand that, Dr. DiMatteo. We know all about little Pete and his accident. Only ten years old, wasn't he?We know you've lived through your own private tragedy. Think, doctor, what would you have given to have saved your brother's life?"

She said nothing. By her silence, he knew her answer. "Wouldn't you have given anything? Done everything?"

Yes, she thought, and that admission took no reflection at all. Yes. "Imagine what it's like," he said, 'to watch your own child dying. To have all the money in the world and know that she still has to wait her turn in line. Behind the alcoholics and the drug abusers. And the mentally incompetent. And the welfare cheats who haven't worked a single day in their lives." He paused. And said, softly, "Imagine."

The door swung shut. The latch squealed into place.

She was lying in pitch darkness. She heard the rattle of the stairway as the three men climbed back to deck level, heard the faint thud of a hatch closing. Then, for a time, she heard only the wind and the groan of the ship straining at its lines.

Imagine.

She closed her eyes and tried not to think of Pete. But there he was standing in front of her, proudly dressed in his Cub Scout uniform. She thought of what he'd said when he was five: that Abby was the only girl he wanted to marry. And she thought of how upset he'd been to learn that he could not marry his own sister…

What would I have done to save you? Anything. Everything.

In the darkness, something rustled.

Abby froze. She heard it again, the barest whisper of movement. Rats.

She squirmed away from the sound and managed to rise up onto her knees. She could see nothing, could only imagine giant rodents scurrying on the floor all around her. She struggled to her feet.

There was a soft click.

The sudden flare of light flooded her retinas. She jerked backwards. A bare bulb swung overhead, clinking softly against the dangling pull-chain.

It was not a rat she had heard moving in the darkness. It was a boy.

They stared at each other, neither one of them saying a word. Though he stood very still, she could see the wariness in his eyes. His legs, thin and bare beneath shorts, were tensed for flight. But there was nowhere to run.

He looked about ten, very pale and very blond, his hair almost silver under the swaying lightbulb. She noticed a bluish smudge on his cheek, and realized with a sudden start of outrage that the smudge was not dirt, but a bruise. His deep-set eyes were like two more bruises in his white face.

She took a step towards him. At once he backed away. "I won't hurt you," she said. '! just want to talk to you."

A frown flickered across his forehead. He shook his head.

"I promise. I won't hurt you."

The boy said something, but his answer was incomprehensible to her. Now it was her turn to frown and shake her head.

They looked at each other in shared bewilderment.

Suddenly they both glanced upwards. The ship's engines had just started up.

Abby tensed, listening to the rattle of chain, the squeal of hydraulics. Moments later, she felt the rocking of the hull as it cut through the water. They had left the dock and were now underway.

Even if I get out of these bonds, out of this room, there's nowhere for me to run.

In despair, she looked back at the boy.

He ',was no longer paying any attention to the sound of the engines. Instead, his gaze had dropped to her waist. Slowly he edged sideways and stared at her bound wrists, tucked close to her back. He looked down at his own arm. Only then did Abby see that his left hand was missing, that his forearm ended in a stump. He had held it close to his body, concealing the deformity from her view. Now he seemed to be studying it.