“Christ.” Alves’s voice, coming from the bedroom.

Kelly joined him. Ellie didn’t follow. She could see well enough from the doorway.

The forensic techs had removed the white comforter and bedsheets. Someone—probably Alves—had pushed up Jolie’s tank top over her belly, revealing her stomach, the baby bump the size of a child’s basketball.

CHAPTER 6

SEBASTIAN CRAWLED ALONG the crowded freeway, listening to the all-news radio station, hoping to learn actual details about the shooting in Brentwood. Frank hadn’t had much in the way of specifics when he’d called earlier. He’d promised to call back when he did.

That was forty minutes ago.

The news was high on drama and low on facts. Very low. Police—who were in Brentwood in record numbers, according to one reporter—had confirmed that the owner of the home, Sophia Vargas, and an LAPD officer had been shot and killed in what one witness called a “gangland-style shoot-out,” but so far hadn’t offered up anything beyond that. A witness reported seeing a “black compact car with tinted windows” fleeing the scene. There was no other information.

But that didn’t mean the police hadn’t discovered things. Important, key things.

Paul owned a black BMW with tinted windows. Sebastian wondered if anyone had seen and perhaps memorized a plate number. Maybe a camera in a traffic light had recorded it. The thought made Sebastian feel sick all over.

The radio newscaster teased a possible breaking story. First, Sebastian had to listen to an interview with a witness—a hysterical neighborhood yenta who had been out walking her dog when she heard the gunshots. “It sounded like firecrackers—hundreds of firecrackers going off at the same time. And then came the screaming, the awful screaming.” The woman’s voice caught. “I can’t believe this happened,” she said, and began to sob. “I cannot believe this is happening here.”

Sebastian couldn’t believe it, either. He was having an out-of-body experience—the second of his life. The first one he had experienced years and years ago, when he was a teenager, after the judge sentenced him to life in prison.

Which was exactly what would happen to him again if he didn’t find Paul before the cops did.

Ever since Frank’s initial call, Sebastian had been choking on the thought of Paul already in police custody. Paul didn’t know the inner workings of Sebastian’s blood operation, but he knew enough to throw Sebastian to the wolves. Paul worked with a guy who managed stickmen and acquired carriers exclusively for Sebastian’s business, and Sebastian had allowed him to do some menial tasks like the one today—chauffeuring well-behaved carriers and playing babysitter. Paul knew nothing about the infrastructure or the treatment center, and he didn’t know the names of actual clients and had absolutely no idea of the locations where the donors lived.

Sebastian imagined Paul wearing a shit-eating grin while asking the LAPD if they would be interested in the person behind the elusive Pandora in exchange for a reduced sentence. Or maybe the slick lawyer he would hire would bypass the LAPD altogether and go straight to the Feds, see if they wanted the info in exchange for, say, placement in Witness Protection.