Drained (Edgars Family #6) - Suzanne Ferrell Page 0,89
levels decreased prior to their death.”
Brianna wanted to grin, cheer and fist-bump the woman beside her. Internally, she did so. As a woman who’d hidden her talents and brains for years, she understood what it was like to have a man question her work. To make them understand how brilliant you were in a public setting like this? Brilliant!
“That’s sick,” one of the plain clothes detectives muttered and others nodded their agreement.
“It is, but it’s also part of his process,” Carson said. “A key part of his psychopathy.”
“Which is?” Stedaman asked.
“He wants all their blood and he’s draining it by gravity, that means a certain amount of pressure must be maintained, so he needs the heart to keep pumping. He also wants them to suffer as their blood drains away. Stimulating their hearts allows that to happen. As the blood volume drops the body shunts it to the most important parts of the body, the brain, heart and lungs. They’ll become confused, drift in and out of reality. He snaps them back in with a hit of the Meth. Eventually that won’t work as minimal circulating volume is left. Then they won’t be able to breathe and their heart will stop working correctly, which results in chest pain. If they’re even a little bit cognizant at this point, they may beg for help.”
The room was silent as they all took in the depravity of the man they were hunting.
“So, what’s he doing with the blood?” One of the plain clothes detectives asked. “Drinking it?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard there were weird people who actually drink blood,” another detective said.
That got them several jokes about Dracula and vampires, which lightened the mood a little. As an outsider, Brianna should be surprised at the dark humor, but her time spent among Aaron and the Edgars clan—cops and nurses—she realized that if they didn’t find some way of getting past the cruelty and death, they wouldn’t be able to do their jobs.
“We don’t believe he’s drinking it,” Aaron said, with a quick nod from Carson to confirm his conclusion was on the right track.
Carson took the lead now. “If that was all he wanted, he’d simply drain as much blood as he could and dump the bodies anywhere. Instead, he’s trying to take all the blood then staging the bodies to tell us something. What, we’re not sure about yet.”
“If he’s not drinking it, what the hell is he doing with it?” Stedaman asked.
Aaron looked to Brianna. And this is where she had to say the unthinkable, because she’d been the one to think it first.
“We think he’s somehow adding it to the local blood supply at the blood banks.”
26
The doctor’s body slid from the cart to the examination table with less effort than the football player’s had. The rain last night had backed his schedule up a day, so he’d moved onto collecting his next donor. The weather report said no rain tonight, so he’d be able to post his next message to the world tonight.
He pulled extra hard on the leather strap up around the body’s upper torso and buckled it tight below the edge of the table, then repeated the same on the one across the lower abdomen and hips.
In choosing his restraints, he’d gone old school. Modern day hospital restraints used Velcro and slide buckles, easily overcome if the donor struggled enough. To prevent that, he’d used thick leather and old-fashioned slip-proof belt buckles.
“Wh…what?” the doctor mumbled in his alcohol and ketamine induced state.
Before his donor could reach for the chest leather strap, he secured both wrists on the t-shaped extended arm rests for the table.
That woke him up more.
“Hey! What are…you doing?” The donor bucked a little against his body restraints, his fingers on his hands flexing as he tried to move his arms.
“Relax. You’re not going to get loose and you’ll only end up hurting yourself,” he said, as he grasped one of the man’s flailing legs he was trying to use to kick free. It took more effort than he’d expected to hold it in place. He ended up putting all his body weight on his thigh as he strapped the leather tight around it. Then he went for the ankle, dodging the only free extremity trying to kick him in the head.
Finally, he managed to secure the body and could begin the rest of his work.
“Why? What?” the doctor stammered, seemingly trying to remember the five w questions. Who, what, when, where and why.