There was enough room for them behind the shelving to hide, but the door had a keyed bolt. Even if he could pick it in the next few seconds, they still wouldn't be able to get out -- the door opened inward. And there definitely wasn't enough space to open the door.

They were stuck.

Jeannie's trembling body and soft gasp indicated she'd reached the same conclusions. Scott stroked her back to reassure her, then pushed her behind the shelves as far as he could. He followed, putting his body between her and whomever entered the lab. If someone did find them, he'd do what was necessary to protect her. Uncle Sam had trained him well.

Jeannie wriggled around to place her front against his back. Her hands grasped his shoulders. Her body was so close he could feel every wispy breath, every delicate shiver.

He reached up with one hand and patted hers. It was the only comfort he could offer.

The door to the storage room opened.

Scott shut his eyes to protect his night vision. Displaying a surprising instinct for surveillance technique, Jeannie buried her face in his back to do the same.

Whoever entered wasn't messing around. The man walked directly to the refrigerated units. His footsteps sounded like thunder in the hushed room. The unit door opened with a whoosh, and cold air escaped into the room. The screeching noise of the Styrofoam container on the shelf caused the hairs on Scott's arms to stand on end.

Small movements. The man checking the contents? The paperwork? Finally, the unit door closed with a thunk. The man shut off the light and left the room.

The breath Scott had unconsciously been holding left his body. Jeannie's soft sigh of relief barely reached his ears.

He edged his way from behind the shelving, then he turned and whispered, "Stay here."

Jeannie nodded.

He noiselessly moved to the door, and heard voices through the frosted glass.

"That the heart?" A deep bass voice asked.

"Yep, this is it." Monnier's voice answered.

Bingo. They were correct in their assumption that Monnier was in this up to his scrawny neck.

"You got the money, doc?"

The sound of a briefcase's dual locks opening reached Scott's ears. He could picture the stacks of money a child's heart might bring. A wealthy parent who needed an organ for his or her child would pay anything. No questions asked.

"You don't mind if I count it?" Monnier chuckled.

"It's all there," rasped the doctor. "Mr. Threlkeld is an honest man."

Threlkeld! Scott knew the name. The man owned half the gas leases in the

Manchac Swamp. He was a millionaire many times over. Yeah, Scott could see someone like him paying a lot on the black market to save his child. Threlkeld might be another link to breaking open this case.

"Looks like you're right, doc. It's all there." The case closed with two snaps of the locks. "Here's the heart. As close a match as you're gonna get, and less then 24 hours from the body."

Silence. Then the scrape of the cover on the cooler as it was removed.

"It looks perfect. Tell Lopez I need another heart. Same size, age. I'll e-mail

him the tissue and blood work-ups. Give him a heads-up -- the blood type is A-negative -- so he can start singling out his donors."

"Got it. Nice doing business with you."

Footsteps walking away and the sound of the outer door closing was

Monnier's only answer.

Then he, too, moved away from Scott's position.

Scott waited until the lights in the outer room went out and the door shut once

more. Then he waited a little while longer, to be on the safe side, before getting Jeannie.

"Scott?" Jeannie whispered. "Was it Monnier?"

"Shhh. We'll talk later. I want to make sure he's gone."

They stood there for another five minutes in the dark. In silence. Jeannie's breathing calmed to pace his, until they breathed in unison.

Finally, Scott spoke in low tones. "Let's go. Stay close behind me. Be ready to come back in here."

"Okay."

They left the storage area. The emergency lights and the light from the frosted pane in the outer door illuminated their silent trip.

At the doorway, Scott carefully cracked open the door. Monnier hadn't locked it. Scott would leave it the same way.

Opening it wider, he stuck his head out, then looked both ways. The coast

was clear. Motioning Jeannie ahead of him, they left the room.

Turning toward the door leading to the underground tunnel, Scott led them down and back the way they'd come only thirty minutes earlier.

He couldn't think about what he'd heard, what they'd found. His first job was to get Jeannie home and lock her in.

After Charles brought Little Bits home, then they could sit down, assess what they knew, what they still needed to know, and formulate a battle plan.

At least, they could until he had to go to work that evening.

'Damn.'

He hated the thought of asking Charles to stay with his girls, but with the deaths of Randolph and Sally and the discoveries he and Jeannie had made today, the stakes had gone up.

His Jeannie had become expendable as far as Rutherford was concerned. It wasn't a matter of if, but when he would make his move against her. He couldn't risk leaving her alone until this was over. That meant for the time being, until he could convince Jeannie to go to his Mama, he had to trust Charles.

'Damn.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.

Charles sat at Jeannie's table, his thin, aristocratic face set in lines of deep thought.

Scott shoved the dessert he hadn't wanted around on his plate.

Jeannie pleated a napkin, unfolded it, then pleated it again.

They were waiting to hear what Charles thought, afraid he would say they

didn't have anything to take to the police. Or the feds.

"Momma?" Little Bits stood in the doorway to the small dining area off the

kitchen. She clasped a large Raggedy Ann doll he'd bought her to her chest. "I can't sleep. Read me a story, please?"

Jeannie's sigh sounded like one of relief. Scott knew how she felt. Reading

Little Bits a story was far better than sitting and staring at a man who might tell you that the end to the fear, the chaos in their lives, was not in sight.

Jeannie hurried from the room.

Charles looked up from the Customs paperwork they'd copied.

"I'm not saying your conclusions are correct, but if SRP and One World are moving body parts into the country from third world countries like Brazil illegally, then we might be able to involve the United Nations and the World Court. The Bellagio Task Force was appointed by the UN to look into the trafficking of body parts and propose ways to contain it."

Charles pushed his reading glasses back into position. "Of course, the UN can't force any member country to make laws to stop this. But sanctions by other member countries or maybe even a trial in the World Court if a treaty was involved could be possible actions."

"That's it?"

"Yes." Charles sounded as exasperated as Scott felt. "Scott, let's say Brazil had such a law on the books or had signed a treaty to such effect and still turned a blind eye toward Lopez's and Rutherford's operation. We don't have enough evidence to go to anybody. If I even knew to whom to take it."

Scott pushed himself away from the table, got up and started to pace.

"What do we need? I mean, exactly what kind of evidence do we need to prove they are killing people for body parts? God, Charles." He stopped pacing, then slammed his fist against the wall. "I heard that son-of-a-bitch doctor order another child's heart. We have to stop them. If I don't, they'll kill more children -- and Jeannie -- possibly Little Bits -- or even us."

"I hear you, and I agree they must be stopped."

Charles sat staring out the opened French doors.

After a few minutes, he turned to Scott. "We need first-hand evidence from the other end. We need to know how they obtain their body parts and document it. We have to figure out who in the host country is working with and covering for them and nullify them. And finally, we need to establish how they get the organs through both sets of Customs, or more likely who they are paying to look the other way."

"Jesus, is that all?" Scott slapped the wall. "We need a miracle to stop Rutherford is what you're saying."

"No. We just need time. The good news is we can cause Rutherford enough legal trouble and bad press to keep the heat on him while we get the really damning evidence. Maybe he'll be so busy covering his ass, he won't be aware of what we're doing on the other end of his operation."

"How?"

Charles smiled for the first time that evening. He waved his hand over the papers spread out on the table. "We've got enough here. First of all, we know about the accounts with the obscenely huge amounts of money. That will get the IRS and various other departments in Treasury looking into Rutherford's finances."

"That's how they got Capone."

"Yeah," Charles said. His smile turned almost wicked. "Plus, we have Threlkeld. We could turn the screws on him. Hint that we know what was done in order to get a heart for his child. We could offer him immunity for his testimony. We may never get any of the others, unless you recognized the voice of that doc ordering the heart, because I don't imagine they issue receipts for the cash they are taking in."

Scott shook his head. "I didn't recognize the man's voice, but he had to be a cardiovascular transplant surgeon. I'll definitely be listening."

"Don't bother. He probably wouldn't cave even if we confronted him. He has a lot more to lose than Threlkeld. We need to cut off his source for body-parts-to-order."

Charles picked up a file he'd brought with him. "And last, but not least, we have the paper connections between SRP and One World. That raises a big question mark. We'll nail Lopez for sure -- he is One World. What we don't have is Rutherford on record saying to his friend, Lopez, 'how is our body-part trafficking business going?'"

"What about Rutherford's ownership of SRP? Can't we use that against him? After all, we have the shipping papers showing that One World shipped the body parts to SRP. We have SRP selling body parts to the Epi Study at inflated prices, a violation of self-interest laws."

"Yes, as Jeanette so astutely pointed out over dinner, that would get his project axed and his medical license suspended. But that's just a slap on the hands; I thought you wanted more than that."

"Okay, I see what you're saying. He'd slide."

"Right. Or, go somewhere else and set up shop again. State licensing boards do not communicate well with one another." Charles sipped his coffee. "Another angle is the medical malpractice we kicked around earlier. Jeanette has enough data here to prove the study stats were skewed to show good-to-excellent results for the Epi procedure. She knows that there are patients who have been harmed physically. We need to find them and convince them to pursue legal action against Rutherford."

"That's still only a civil matter. That's money damages and a suspended medical license. We need to get him off the streets before he kills again."