Blood Debt

little nervously and waved a hand toward the table. "I'm just finishing breakfast. Would you care to join me?" He hadn't had an informal visitor since before Rebecca had died, and he couldn't remember her ever entertaining in the kitchen.
    Still, abandoning his breakfast now would mean wasting a perfectly good bagel and there was no sense in that.
    "Thank you, no."
    "Do you mind if I continue?"
    "Not at all." She took the offered seat and waited for him to circle the table and sit facing her. 'We have another match."
    His eyes narrowed, and he carefully set the bagel back on his plate.
    "Already? That's two in little more than a week. Three in two months.
    Don't you think we're likely to start attracting attention? The more regularly something happens the more likely people are to notice it."
    "True. However, given the size of the organ, this particular match was too good to pass up. The donor is about six feet four, two hundred and sixty pounds. Late thirties and in perfect health for our purposes."
    Which was really all her patron either wanted or needed to know. Dr.
    Mui waited patiently for Swanson to make the connection.
    As he did, he sat back and stared at her. "You said we'd never find a donor that big."
    "I was wrong."
    "Still…" He shook his head. "Three in two months. I'm concerned about the frequency. If we're caught, we won't be doing anyone any good." His mouth twisted. "Especially ourselves."
    Dr. Mui leaned forward, fingertips touching. "This donor came to us under rather unusual circumstances. However," she amended as he raised a hand in protest, "I'll merely point out that if we don't take advantage of this opportunity now, we won't have a chance later. I've taken the liberty of changing certain parts of the routine so we won't attract the attention you're worried about."
    "It would be a shame to miss the sale…"
    She waited while he chewed and thought, secure in his reputation of never missing a sale.
    "All right," he said at last. "What have you done?"
    This could be the difficult part. "I had Mr. Sullivan escort him to one of your guest houses. He doesn't know where he is, and he's not at the clinic attracting attention."
    Swanson's mug hit the table hard enough to slop tea over the edge.

    "And you were worried about the neighbor seeing you?"
    "He arrived just after dawn, I doubt anyone saw him. And if they did—you often have guests." As soon as possible after the transplant, the buyers left their careful seclusion at the clinic and recovered under close supervision in one of Ronald Swanson's guest cottages—equally secluded and much less likely to be accidentally discovered. Who, after all, would wonder at a wealthy man having wealthy friends. "I can only stress that this may be our one chance for this particular match."
    "But here…"
    "I can do all the preliminaries here. He won't have to be moved until the last possible moment." She watched Swanson openly as he stood and walked to a window that looked out over the property, the closest of the two guest houses clearly visible through the trees. "It is, of course, your decision."
    "And if I tell you to get rid of him, I take it it will cost me as much as if I tell you to go ahead."
    He didn't seem to expect an answer, so she waited silently.
    "Well," he sighed at last, pausing to drink a mouthful of tepid tea.
    "As I've said before, it's a waste of money if you hire a specialist and then don't listen to them. You're the doctor, and if you believe this is our best possible chance for this match…"
    "I do."
    "Then go ahead. I'll call our buyer." All at once, he jabbed finger at her. "You're sure he's healthy?"
    "I'm positive."
    "Good. Because after that last fiasco, a satisfied customer can only be good for business."

    "… midmorning showers are expected to clear by noon and the greater Vancouver region will enjoy a beautiful afternoon with temperatures reaching a high of twenty-seven degrees. The department of Parks and Recreation reports…"
    Tony hit the mute button and frowned. Television had become an immediate news source—the camera crews occasionally arrived at crime scenes before the police. Even if they were keeping the whole black market kidney thing under wraps during their investigation, there should've been something about a Metropolitan Toronto Police Officer beaten up and strapped to a bed in a North Vancouver clinic.
    Henry had said the police were going to the clinic, so the police had gone to the clinic. That much was