Georgia had to keep a tight rein on her emotions over the next hour. She hadn’t wanted to consider the possibility that Chad Coe and the baby-breeding operation included the sale of body organs. Who in their right mind would? The notion that people could profit from selling the parts of a person, dead or alive, was monstrous. People who perpetrated that horror were just pretending to be human.
Still, like a suspicious lump that is undiagnosed, she couldn’t ignore it. Georgia and Nyquist took the elevator to the hospital cafeteria in the basement and snagged a table in the back. Nyquist went through the line and brought back vegetable soup, a chopped salad, and three rolls with butter. Georgia had no appetite. Once Nyquist downed a few spoonfuls of soup, she seemed more relaxed.
“Look,” she said. “I don’t care what happens to me anymore, but Christy—that’s my daughter—is in danger. I need help.”
“Why don’t you start at the beginning,” Georgia said.
Nyquist sat back. Her expression was one of embarrassment, even humiliation. “Okay. Here it is. I have a drug problem. They’re prescription drugs. Oxy, Vicodin, stuff like that. At first I was getting them from someone in the hospital, but they got caught and were fired.”
Georgia had a feeling she knew what was coming next.
“So I hooked up with some other people. But they kept hiking their prices, and it got to the point where I couldn’t pay. And then Chad Coe shows up at the grocery store one night and tells me he’s got a way out.”
“He already knew about your habit? And your debts?”
Nyquist nodded. “He said he understood. And it wasn’t really my fault. Lots of people get dependent on the stuff and run up huge bills. But the people he was working with would forgive the bills if I helped him out. In fact, he said, they’d even pay me money once the debt was settled.”
“Sounds cushy.”
Nyquist threw her a glance. “It wasn’t that simple. They…” She bit her lip. “There was one condition.”
“Coe told you this?”
“No. It was a couple of days later. Someone else. Don’t know his name.”
“What was the condition?”
“They said if I ever thought about throwing in the towel or telling someone about it, they’d take her.”
“Christy.”
She nodded. “At first I thought it was just an empty threat. You know, to scare me. But after a few months—it was last summer—I told them I didn’t want to do it anymore. It was too dangerous. I mean, if I was caught…” She let her voice trail off and sniffed. She was close to tears. “Anyway, a few days later, Christy wasn’t there when I got home from work.”
“They kidnapped her?”
She nodded again. “Someone came to the apartment and convinced Mrs. McCune—she’s an idiot, by the way—that he was my ex’s brother and that they had a date to go to the Kohl Children’s Museum.”
“Was it Coe?”
“I never found out.”
“Didn’t Christy put up a fuss?”
“Not at all. She thought she was going to see her daddy. They told her they’d get her ice cream. She was only too happy to go with them.”
Georgia nodded. “What happened?”
“They dropped her off before dinner. They really did take her to the museum, it turned out. I have no idea how. But she was fine. Happy, even. After she was asleep, I got a call. Someone with an accent.”
“Accent?”
“Russian. Or something. Anyway, they told me not to try quitting again, or she wouldn’t be coming back.”
“Jesus.” Georgia let out a breath. “Are you still—on the drugs?”
Nyquist didn’t answer. Which was answer enough. “So you’re into them for drugs, and now they’ve got you for your daughter, too.”
Her eyes rimmed with tears. “Can you help protect Christy? I’m desperate. I just don’t know how it got this far,” she sobbed.
Georgia knew, but now was not the time to remind her. “I might be able to help, but I need to know more.”
Nyquist ran a sleeve across her nose as if she was trying to pull herself together. “What?”
“Let me get it straight. You’re involved in an illegal organ transplant business?”
Nyquist nodded, slathered a roll with butter, and bit into it.
“How does it work?”
“It’s actually pretty simple. There’s this organization called UNOS. It’s kind of a consortium. Online.”
“UNOS? What does it stand for?”
“The United Network for Organ Sharing.”
Georgia pulled out her tablet and looked it up. UNOS had a contract with the federal government to run the country’s organ transplant system. Any hospital could join the website, which, according to UNOS, was updated 24/7.
“Is that true? It’s updated all the time?”
Nyquist finished her first roll and buttered a second. “Absolutely,” she said around a mouthful of bread. “Member hospitals log on anytime they need to know what organs are available, who’s got them, and most important, how fresh they are.”
“Fresh?”
“See, the most important thing in this business is time. Most organs don’t last long outside the body. Like hearts and lungs. They only last about four to six hours. Kidneys and livers can make it for about twenty-four hours with these new organ boxes they have. But after that you’re asking for trouble.”
“So you’d log on and see who needed what?”
“Right.” Nyquist polished off the second roll. “There’s a huge demand for transplants. Especially in the US. It’s probably ten to one.”
“Ten to one?”
“Ten organs needed for every one that’s available.”
Georgia reeled back. “That many?”
Nyquist nodded. “Some organs are supplied by family members. But when that’s not possible and a hospital needs an organ, they post it on UNOS. I check it a few times a day, and if I find something, I let Chad know. He takes it from there.”