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

missed calls from David Miller. He would call back after he’d done some research on the Red Hook address. It didn’t take him long to find out from a few searches on the internet that a company called Green Container Port Services LLC had recently secured leases not only for the storage buildings along Portview Drive, but also for a section of waterfront and a dock-mounted crane at the cargo terminal.

If there were bodies in the container he had seen last night, then El Gordito had found a way to ship them out of the country—and the only reason for doing that would be to use them as mules to ship his product. Anger shuddered through Lazlo at this discovery. El Gordito had already taken his new business international.

He sat for a moment, pondering how he could prove El Gordito was behind the leases. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey had strict requirements for transparency in the ownership of any leaseholds and even the faintest odor of drug money would be a disqualifier. Green Container would probably stand up to scrutiny and he was still dead-ended regarding the owner of the medical research center, but he did have the name of the residential developer whose site was being used for clandestine access to it: SkyView Developments. He guessed it would probably also come up clean. Lazlo took out his phone and scrolled through his list of contacts to find the number of a person who, for a fee, had other means, not to be elaborated upon, at his disposal to find company information. As per established procedure, he didn’t call, he just texted the names of the companies he wanted to know more about:

Green Container Port Services LLC & SkyView Developments LLC.

In the space of a day, he would get everything he needed to know.

David Miller was relieved to hear Lazlo’s voice on the phone after the two days of agreed radio silence.

Lazlo tried to reassure him that the murder of Paul Hamilton, although upsetting, did not put his or his daughter’s life in danger. “You simply passed on information of suspicious activity that a client had made you aware of,” Lazlo said. “I’m only involving you in this investigation because you volunteered, and you might remember, or get, more key information from your source. But be sure that you can pull out anytime you want, Counselor, if you’re concerned about your and your family’s safety.”

David didn’t answer immediately. He hadn’t been at work for the last two days because he’d stayed home with his daughter––trying to deal with their shared stress and near hysteria over the fact that even the NYPD had insufficient evidence to shut down El Gordito’s drug manufacturing and were clearly reluctant to risk another costly false arrest. Their hopes that they could thwart El Gordito and thus end that particular narrative being played out, making Santiago’s possession of his host a failure, and so banishing his spirit from the Earth, had floundered. Instead, they now had to wait to hear from Lazlo to what extent he could gradually cripple El Gordito’s business. There was no guarantee, he thought bleakly, that those actions would be sufficiently annoying to distract Santiago’s spirit, at least temporarily, from coming after them.

Then there was John’s mounting exasperation, which David could only hear about through Jennifer. He could only try to persuade John, through her, not to take matters into his own hands and to give Lazlo a chance.

“I’m still on board,” David replied eventually. Then he asked Lazlo about his progress.

“Let’s not talk over the phone. Be at my place at six.”

As soon as David and Jennifer arrived at his brownstone, Lazlo corralled them straight into his war room. “I spent some time there and took photos of a hidden delivery area,” he said, pointing to Hargreave Merciful Hospital on his map. “There’s not much to see in each photo, but when I put the pieces together, I got a half-decent image of the faces of two of the medical staff.”

David and Jennifer looked momentarily confused until Lazlo opened up his laptop and loaded up the photos from the pen-drive. He showed them a composite image he had put together of the people he’d seen receiving the motorcycle couriers.

“That woman there is Dr. Schwartz, the head of the transplant teams,” John confirmed. Unfortunately, this wasn’t something that Jennifer could relay to Lazlo, as he’d wonder how she had this information. It was, after all, only John who had seen the medical staff at the medical research center in Hargreave up close.

“Can you ID them?” David asked the detective.

“Not from an image of this quality, but I can see if our IT guy can get the images enhanced enough to scan into our system. I had a look at the hospital website—but no luck.”

Seeing their disappointment, Lazlo informed Jennifer and David of his observation that the vans were accessing what he believed to be a separate, hidden delivery area to the medical research center, accessible through the nearby residential development site, which allowed avoidance of the hospital’s delivery vehicle checkpoint.

“So, the developer of the residential site is involved?” David asked.

“That much, at least, is clear. I’ve got someone looking into the ownership of that company. I also followed one of the vans to this place,” Lazlo said, showing them next the photos of the storage facility near the Red Hook port in Brooklyn.

“That’s a refrigerated container, isn’t it, one which can be transported by truck or on a cargo ship?” David suggested.

“So, it could be used for transporting bodies?” Jennifer offered.

“Your father’s right that it is refrigerated,” Lazlo replied. “And it’s possible some of the bodies are in there. The storage facility is being leased by the same company that has also leased a crane and section of the waterfront—so whoever owns those containers has the means to take them out of the country hidden among regular freight.”

“Does El Gordito own that company too?” Jennifer questioned.

“It’s more likely