Earthbound : A gripping crime thriller full of twists and supernatural suspense Fynn Perry (if you liked this book TXT) 📖

Meanwhile, she read his message. Not only had he found the fulfillment center and seen one of the armed guards in black combat gear that John had told her about, but he had also witnessed a change of shift at the center at around midnight. As the daytime shift went off-duty, he had followed two busloads of what looked like illegal immigrant workers to a gated housing village in a remote location about fifteen miles from the center.

He had targeted one of the workers and noted in which house she lived, hoping to interview her at home later that morning, figuring she would start work again early afternoon based on the shift change he had seen last night.

He also wrote that he didn’t have any contacts at Hargreave Merciful Hospital where the organ harvesting was allegedly taking place, but he had a friend who was an ER nurse at another large hospital in Manhattan, St. Stephens. Thanks to her, he was able to get access to patient records at St. Stephens and to find drug-related cases.

The files had shown an increasing trend over the last month in the number of patients being admitted with signs of brain-death. A large number were linked to the taking of the Spider’s Bite pill. Tox screens had shown the presence of pure heroin combined with a drug similar to PCP and a pharmaceutical drug known as Tiroflen. There was also a rapidly increasing number of non-fatal cases attributable to taking of the Spider’s Bite pills. The symptoms were consistent with those of overdosing on a mixture of heroin and cocaine. There were no traces of any other drugs present in the tox screens of those patients.

Jennifer was impressed. Hamilton did excellent research.

With the downloading of the album still incomplete, she went back to her room to get her portable hard drive. By habit, she kept all her photos on a portable hard drive so as not to use up valuable memory on her laptop.

John was awake now, and she filled him in on Hamilton’s email, whispering so as not to wake her father, before beckoning for him to follow her down the stairs to the kitchen. The file transfer had finished and the tab of the minimized download window was flashing. She opened the folder and saw a screen full of JPEG file icons. One by one, they gradually turned into thumbnails of photos: the fulfillment center in fading daylight; night-vision images of the center showing the arrival of two buses and the change in shift; images of the workers disembarking at the housing village; headshots of the workers; and photos of documents which she guessed were medical records.

The pictures were large files, each one around ten megabytes. She used her mouse to draw a box around the thumbnails, highlighting them, and then dragged them to her portable drive. A progress bar appeared on her screen, which she minimized, so they could enlarge and view each of the photos one by one.

“This is fantastic!” John exclaimed. “He’s even got night-vision photos! So, what are his next steps?”

“Let’s go outside. Dad’s asleep, and I don’t want to wake him. He’s going in late to work today. He has had a lot to deal with after last night!” Jennifer whispered.

Out in the yard, the morning sun was bright and slowly drying the morning dew.

“Hamilton needs a source in order to run the story,” Jennifer said. “Nobody will print a story without one. Spirit witnesses don’t count, John,” she said, smiling.

“What other witnesses could there be? Someone from the Mexican workforce? They’ll never talk.”

“He wrote that he’s planning to talk to one of them this morning.”

John shook his head. “Why can’t he publish with an undisclosed source?”

“He can, in theory. There is a shield law protecting journalists, and it applies in New York and New Jersey. I already checked. But clearly, he doesn’t want to put his career at risk without his own, named source.”

Jennifer took out her mobile phone and called Hamilton. He answered after a few rings. Slightly breathless, he explained he had approached one of the Mexican workers, but she had been too scared to talk and he had been escorted out of the housing village at gunpoint. He said he would try again but warned that until he had a source of his own or from Jennifer, he didn’t have enough yet for a story. That wasn’t to say he was giving up. He had made contact with a colleague who had spent twenty years tracing organ-harvesting operations across the world. Retired now, and back home in New York, she’d said she would use her old contacts to confirm the suspected source of any new ‘product’ entering the black market. At that point, he said he had to get to a meeting and hung up, promising to call back later.

“This is hopeless,” Jennifer said to John, exasperated.

David appeared at the door with a look of concern. “What’s going on?” He paused and added, “Is John here?” He had a manner of slightly lowering and cocking his head to one side when asking an awkward question.

“He is, Dad, and we have a problem. Hamilton won’t run any story without meeting the source or getting his own witness. He obviously can’t meet John.” She went to fetch her laptop and placed it on the kitchen island. David started reading Hamilton’s email.

“He tried to get information from one of the workers at the fulfillment center but failed.”

David paused as he reached the end of the message. “Paul told me several times about a big crime story in the city that he worked on with help from a police detective. I can’t remember his name right now, but Paul will definitely have his details. Let me call him. I’ll ask if he’s spoken to the guy and if he thinks he can help.”

David took out his phone. He tried to call Hamilton, but there was no response. He left a message for him to call back.

“That’s strange,