The night, full of mysterious shadows, awakened both my nerves and my instinct as I pulled up to an abandoned warehouse and parked. I tapped my fingers on my steering wheel and looked to the passenger seat, where a case full of money — three-quarters of a million dollars, to be exact — was supposed to be waiting.

Except there was no money.

I had failed at the most important task of my life: to save my mother’s life.

My road to hell had begun a week ago when I returned home from a week in Vegas — one last week of mother-daughter fun trip before the exchange and her surgery. Except we no longer had a home. Red and blue lights flashed as we pulled into our street, and an orange glow illuminated the night sky over our burning house. A few hours later, the only remains were ashes, along with a few stronger brick walls. The house was gone, and the money was gone as well.

“Jack Pace,” my mother repeated in shock. They were the only two words she’d said since she saw our house burning down. The doctors had said it was due to trauma and they didn’t know whether it would return, but we were hopeful.

“Mom, you’re going to be fine. I promise.” I held her hand as she lay in a hotel bed that night, but I too struggled to believe my own promise.

She’d lost a lot of weight in the past month. Her appetite dwindled and her body weakened. Her time to get a healthy heart for a transplant was running out. The organ was failing, and her body became weaker every day. I’d spent every hour of my days searching for ways to increase her chances of survival. We had a better chance of finding a heart under the Christmas tree than waiting for a matching organ at the hospital. I felt like I was standing in a long line with a number, wondering when my mother’s name would be called out to meet the Grim Reaper. I needed to find a matching donor, and I needed one now.

I didn’t find one; well, at least not a legal one.

With odds against us, I used my contacts at the precinct to find one of the most powerful cartels in the country and stuck a deal: seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars for a heart.

Except I didn’t have the money, and they had my mother’s heart. I pulled the black mask down from my forehead, covering my face.

Fuck them if they’re going to give my heart to someone else.

As soon as I asked for an extension, Aaron Cortez backed out of our deal. I took a chance coming here tonight and still I wasn’t sure if I was in the right place. They could have changed the original location of our meeting. They might not have a viable heart.

I turned off the ignition. I’d used the remaining cash in my bank to buy this unregistered car at a scrap yard. I opened the glove compartment and removed the little brown bag. When I reached inside, the cold metal gun handle felt just right, and I was glad that my training as a detective had given me that extra set of balls I’d need for tonight to pull off my plan. If the evening didn’t go well, tomorrow I could be looking at gun charges, kidnapping, and illegal organ trafficking, to name just a few. Or maybe someone would be writing my obituary.

I parked the car about half a mile away from the warehouse and did my first run around the complex, preparing my escape route, slashing the tires of parked cars and checking for a second exit if something went wrong. Much-needed adrenaline pumped through my veins. I opened the door and closed it gently before tiptoeing along the night’s darkest path toward the warehouse. A second glance at the parked expensive cars with deflated tires boosted my confidence.

When I reached the building, I could hear an argument brewing from within. I climbed up the discarded skid pieces, then on top of a garbage dump until I reached a rusted staircase. I rubbed my sleeve over the partially broken window glass to clear the dust and peeked through. Three men in black suits had their backs turned to me as they walked out a door into a different room. My gaze skidded to the left, where a man in a white coat with a cooler in his hand stood beside another man who was dressed in a suit. He was shorter and held a typical black doctor’s bag. I assumed he was a doctor hired to perform the surgery. The sight of a cigarette in his hand made me question his hygiene standards, and I wondered whether Fate had intervened when our house burnt down to save my mother’s life from a possible disaster. Now that I had a closer look, I was happy that a trustworthy friend had agreed to do the surgery. This guy didn’t appear to be someone I’d want to perform my heart transplant.

I made my way down the staircase. With my back pressed against the warehouse wall, I crept toward the door. The doctor was whispering something to the other man.

My hands shook, and my heart drummed in my chest. I took a deep breath, removed the empty gun from the back of my jeans, and gave myself a little pep talk. “You can do this, Hope. It’s for your mother.”

I adjusted my ski mask, counted to three, and stepped out from behind the wall. With my arms out in front I approached with confidence, pointing the gun their way. They didn’t notice me until I was a dozen or so feet away. It was right about the same time that the smell of fuel hit me. Four open red containers were lined up near the trunk’s tank, and gas had leaked down the side of the vehicle’s body. Whomever had filled it up did a messy job.

“Don’t make a sound or I’ll shoot. You answer me without talking, do you understand?”

They both nodded, glancing toward the door the other men had left through minutes ago.

“Are you the doctor?” I asked the guy with the black bag.

He moved his head up and down to acknowledge.

The other guy, the one holding onto the cooler, looked up from underneath his baseball cap. “You don’t have to do this, you know. You can still walk away before it’s too late and we won’t say anything.”

“Which part of no talking did you not understand, you asshole?” I said through gritted teeth. “Does that cooler have a heart?”

He nodded.

“Let me see the paperwork.”

He removed a folder from a briefcase that was hanging over his shoulder across his chest. I quickly scanned the details, the way my surgeon friend had instructed me. It was a match. The same heart my mother was supposed to have transplanted this evening was resting within my reach.

I followed their nervous gazes to the truck and motioned with my gun to go to the back. “Open the trunk.”

“You don’t want to do this.”

“I said, open it.”

The door rolled up. Rows of stacked pouches filled the van. Ten other coolers with what appeared to be organs, each one with a folder attached to its side, lined one of the walls. I wondered how many other people were waiting for their lives to be saved with these trades. I took the army knife from the holster at my thigh and cut through one plastic pouch. White powder spilled, and I swore under my breath as I realize that I stumbled upon a larger operation. My steady nerves began to fray.

The warehouse side door opened and a brawny man with a moustache came out. He stopped as soon as he saw us and reached behind him for the door.

“Don’t you dare even think about it,” I called out.

“You chose the wrong people to cross, bitch.”

“Shut up and stand beside these two.” I motioned with my gun.

But he didn’t listen. Instead, his mouth opened like a dragon’s as he yelled, “Security!”

A jolt of panic electrified my veins. From that moment, I relied on my adrenaline and instinct. “Get in the car.” I pointed to the van’s door.

The surgeon threw his cigarette butt to the ground. Flames shot upward, their heat forcing me to step back. The fire reached the tank, and I grabbed the guy holding the cooler, pulling him off to the side. The explosion that followed threw us back a dozen or so feet. His arm caught fire and he dropped the cooler. I raced forward and grabbed it, keeping my gun pointed at the thug who’d ruined my plan to make a quiet escape and kept screaming, “Security!”

I might as well have been holding a squirt gun because he rushed at me with all his might, regardless of my weapon. Of course I didn’t fire, because I didn’t have any bullets – but I had something else he wasn’t expecting.

I set the cooler down, and I kicked him in the center gut as hard as I could. Winded, he fell back, then quickly got up and flew at me again. This time he grabbed my leg, trying to knock me off my balance. Grateful for my self-defense training, I somersaulted sideways, executing a perfect landing, and threw a jab at his nose. The crunching sound of breaking bone echoed. He yelped in pain and fell to his knees. The truck full of narcotics and illegal organs was ablaze. My heart ached for the recipients who wouldn’t get their transplants tonight. On the other side of the truck, beyond the flames, chaos ensued as someone yelled for an extinguisher. By now a few more men had come out with their guns around the van and were heading toward us. I grabbed the cooler and the surgeon by his arm and ran out of the warehouse, heading straight for my car.

Shots were fired. Rounds of bullets echoed in my ears as I prayed that none of them would hit me.

“Get in!”

Holding the steering wheel with one hand and the gun with the other, I pressed my foot on the pedal without bothering to put on my seat belt or turn on the headlights. Thank goodness I’d parked away from everyone, behind a pile of scrap.

“They’ll find you, you know.”

“They won’t. No one saw me.”

“They have ways. I promise you that.”

His threat crawled up my spine in the form of fear, but it was too late to turn back. Right now, the only thing that mattered was getting to my mother and making sure that she survived.

“You can do the surgery, right?”

“I’m going to need help.”

“I’ll do it.”

“You’re not a nurse.”

Fuck!

He wasn’t going to do it. If he did, he’d know that my friend had helped me, and I couldn’t risk any more lives tonight.

“You know what? You’re right. I don’t need you after all.” I pointed the gun at him. “Open the door and get out.”

“You’re driving.”

“You think the chances of survival are greater with a bullet in your head than jumping out of a moving car?”

He hesitated for a moment and then opened the door. I gave him a nice push as I turned left to help him get out, and pressed my foot to the gas pedal again.

In my rearview mirror I watched the warehouse burn, and then I didn’t look back again. Twenty minutes later I arrived at a private clinic.

A few hours passed, and I was standing in blue scrubs behind a glass wall as my friend and her co-workers did the transplant. When I first approached her about the surgery, she didn’t agree. But I begged her like a vagabond and then cashed in on a favor she owed me. She still didn’t agree, and so I cried until there were no tears left, and she finally gave in.

The surgery lasted five hours. Jules removed her scrubs and cleaned up after the surgery before coming over to see me.

“The surgery went fine. I’ll need to observe her for a few days before she’s transferred to the clinic, though.”

“I owe you big time, Jules. Are you sure they won’t say anything?” I nodded to the other surgeon on her team and two nurses.”

“No. I trust them. Will you be okay?”

“Yeah, I think so. Once she’s at the clinic, I’m going to disappear for a while.”

“You know you can call me if you need anything.”

“Jules, I stole an organ from a cartel. I think it’s better for both of us if I stay away. At least until I can figure out what to do next.”

“All right. But Scar has access to people, and he can help. If you need a new identity or anything, just let me know.”

What I really needed at the moment was luck. A lot of luck.

“The fewer people involved, the better.”

“All right, you take care of yourself, Hope, okay?”

“I will.”

Once my mother was at the clinic, I submitted my request for a leave. The news of the warehouse fire spread quickly. The investigation would take a while, especially since I’d been right in the middle of it all. So far, though, there were no red flags. If anyone had seen me and recognized me, I would have already been arrested or dead.

“A year?” Mike, my boss asked. He’d only been at the precinct for two years, but he was a good boss. “We could use your help around here. There’s a good case the Feds want us to work on.”

“I’m sorry, Mike. It’s been tough with the house fire, and my mother’s not well, but I’ll be back. I promise.”

“I wish you well, Hope, and I hope you find the answers you’re looking for.”

I hoped that as well. I hoped that I’d find Jack Pace and could finally let my mother rest.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

I kept my lips sealed.

“All right, don’t tell me, but be careful. Please.”

“I will.”

We said our goodbyes, and I left to search for Jack Pace.