Page 166 of Girl Between

“I know what it’s like to have nothing left to live for, Levi,” Landry said. “I’ve done everything you asked. Just let her go.”

“You know she’ll die anyway. I can end her suffering now!” Monroe yelled.

“If you touch a single hair on that girl’s head …” Dana interrupted.

Amelia was trembling, silent tears spilling from her unseeing eyes. Monroe turned his venomous gaze on Dana. “Like you said, she’d be dead already if that’s what I wanted. Tell them, Amelia. Tell them I was helping you.”

Amelia nodded. “Y-you said you found me a donor.”

“He tried,” Landry cut in. “We both did, my angel. But your condition is so rare. Only a zero mismatch will do. Finding perfect compatibility in your case is difficult.”

“No, not difficult, impossible,” Monroe interjected. “That’s what your father should have told you. That’s what he should’ve told Rebecca. But he lies.”

“I didn’t lie to your sister,” Landry said. “She knew the risks. Just like Amelia knows the risks.”

Sister. Blood loss was making it hard for Dana to focus, but her mind made the connection. “The girl in the attic. She’s Rebecca. Your sister.”

Monroe’s chest heaved with anger. “The sister he stole from me.”

Landry had stopped crawling. He sat back on his haunches, one hand clutching his bloodied shoulder where the bullet must’ve caught him. “It’s how he convinced me to go down this road,” Landry said warily. “Sending him to the transplant support group was supposed to help him with his grief, not cause more.”

“It did help,” Monroe said. “It gave me the outlet I needed to hone my skills, to make the right connections. You wouldn’t believe how many people are seeking my harvests.”

“You mean stolen organs that you sell illegally on the black market,” Landry muttered. “I’m Xavier,” he admitted, slumping against a filthy mound of construction debris.

Dana’s mind spun as the final piece of the puzzle fell into place. Her gaze landed on Monroe. “You’re Vonegut5. As in Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five?”

She’d highlighted those names in her report after reading the analysts’ black market transcripts.

Monroe smiled, confirming her suspicions. “Always leagues ahead, Dr. Gray. Annoying, isn’t it? To always be the first to figure things out.”

Dana was at a loss for words. The implications were dizzying. Or maybe it was the blood loss. Landry and Monroe had been abducting women and selling their organs on the black market.

“How can you justify taking one life to save another?”

“Justice has nothing to do with it,” Monroe sneered.

“Then what?” she countered. “Revenge?”

“What else is there?” Monroe asked.

Dana looked around the space that had fallen eerily silent. It was filled with the promise of ghosts. Each of them locked in a standoff, their injuries pulling them closer to death. Dana imagined an hourglass on each of them, inching closer to an unsightly end, one grain of sand at a time.

An overwhelming sense of regret dragged Dana’s thoughts down the many roads not taken. And Jake.

Jake …

What she wouldn’t give for one more minute with him.

He was right. She should’ve left this case when she had the chance. Should’ve gone with him to D.C. to start the life he’d offered to share with her. The life she desperately wanted but thought she couldn’t have until she’d slayed her demons.

She’d foolishly stayed, not considering that maybe her demons would be doing the slaying. Choosing to stay was supposed to buy her freedom, an opportunity to right her wrongs, but she could feel the pendulum of fate change direction. It was no longer swinging in her favor.

All she’d wanted was to rid the world of one more monster. But it was becoming glaringly obvious she’d failed.

Dana closed her eyes, again picturing Jake. When she opened her eyes, for the briefest of seconds, she thought she saw him. The visionwas so real she could’ve sworn he was there, in the room with her. But she blinked and he was gone.

Perhaps it was just the wishful thinking of the dying. Or a hallucination. She was growing weaker; the edges of her vision starting to blur. She could feel the black out coming. She couldn’t wait any longer. She had to take the shot.