Featured image by Bruno /Germany from Pixabay

“The negotiator had his back turned to me. I shot him in the spine about where his belly button should have been. I tapped the two guards in their foreheads while they were firing handguns in wild directions. When the buyer came out of the room still trying to stuff himself back in his pants I shot him in the groin. Prior to coming in I had used some voice altering software to record a ‘shots fired at the mall’ message for 911. A burner phone was used to alert the police and I went out a different door.”

“I did not know it at the time, but someone else had been sent to barricade the parking garage entrance. Might have even been legitimate construction workers with a work order from the Realtors. I went out a loading dock door. The first dumpster got the phone sans battery. I had a key fob and description of a vehicle a few streets over. The backpack and phone battery went in the trunk and I continued walking to a better part of town. Got a cab to a restaurant where some coworkers were going to gather for food and drinks.”

“But . . . I thought you were sent to kill one of them?”

“I was. I almost didn’t get hired after that. The buyer did bleed out before police found him. An erection is a dangerous thing, especially if it gets punctured. The negotiator had drug himself into another dressing room. There was chaos at the parking structure exit. Quite a few buyers and a bunch of the kids were taken into police custody. It’s illegal to torture someone for information, but it is not illegal to delay telling paramedics where they are. The negotiator gave up enough information to fill in the blanks the human trafficking squad needed filled in. A few days after surgery the negotiator was starting to deny he had said anything. Though he would never walk again he was feeling better and thinking about saving his own life from his former employers. He had signed his statement before he had a change of heart though. He died the following day.”

“You went back for him?” she questioned softly.

“God no. Sepsis. The biggest threat a gunshot wound presents to a human, especially a gut shot like that. I killed him the day I shot him. He just took a while to expire. No matter how good a surgical team is, when it is a .22 caliber hollow point that goes through the spine then splatters outward making a much bigger exit wound, they can’t find and plug all of the leaks in your intestines. By the time they realized his condition it was too late. His statement and confession would stand without cross examination or any possibility of witness tampering.”

“What about the children and that girl?” Melony asked.

“Girl?”

“The one in the dressing room?”

“That buyer took a little boy. He looked to be about five or six.”

“Oh my God!” she screamed.

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