Damn! I couldn’t be sick. I wouldn’t!
I collected Nordstern’s folders and stacked them beside the armchair. Stealing the quilt from the bed, I tucked my feet under my bum and wrapped myself in it. I was feeling worse by the minute.
Dramatically worse.
I opened a folder. Interview notes. I had to keep wiping my face as I read. Rivulets of perspiration rolled down the inside of my sweats.
Within minutes I felt a sharp pain in my belly, then tremors below my tongue. Heat rose from my throat to my hairline.
I raced to the bathroom, retched until my sides ached, then returned to my chair to re-cocoon. Every few minutes I repeated the journey. I felt weaker with each trip.
Collapsing into my chair for the fourth time, I shut my eyes and pulled the quilt to my chin. I felt rough cotton against my skin. I smelled my own odor. My head spun, and I saw tiny constellations on the backs of my lids.
The jackhammers receded to a sound like popping corn. I saw locusts on a summer night. Gossamer wings. Red, bulging eyes. I felt insects buzz through my bloodstream.
Then I was with Katy. She was little, maybe three or four, and we were reading a book of nursery rhymes. Her hair was white blonde. The sun shone through it like moonlight through mist. She wore the pinafore I’d bought on a trip to Nantucket.
Let me help, sweetheart.
I can do it.
Of course you can.
I know my letters. Sometimes I just can’t put them together.
That’s the hard part.
Take your time.
Hector Protector was dressed all in green;
Hector Protector was sent to the queen;
The queen didn’t like him, nor did the king;
So Hector Protector was sent back again.
Why didn’t they like him, Mommy?
I don’t know.
Was he a bad man?
I don’t think so.
What was the queen’s name?
Arabella.
Katy giggled.
What was the king’s name?
Charlie Oliver.
More giggles.
You always say funny names, Mommy.
I like to see you laugh.
What was Hector Protector’s last name?
Lucas.
Maybe he wasn’t really a protector.
Maybe not.
What then, Mommy?
A collector?
Giggles.
An erecter.
A defecter.
An ejecter.
A dissector
An inspector.
I awoke standing in the bathroom, palms and forehead pressed to the mirror.
Had that been the word Molly had overheard? Not inspector. Not Specter.
Hector.
Hector Lucas.
Did I really have it backward? Was the doctor in fact controlling the DA? Had Lucas ordered the attack on Molly and Carlos? What was his link to our work at Chupan Ya? I couldn’t make sense of it. Did he have Nordstern killed when the reporter got too close to the truth? Did he have Patricia Eduardo killed? Would Lucas deal with Zuckerman and Jorge Serano in the same way?
Would he try to kill Galiano and Ryan?
I lurched to the bedside table, fumbled for my cell.
Neither Ryan nor Galiano answered.
I wiped perspiration from my face with the back of an arm.
Where were they going? Zuckerman’s clinic? The morgue?
Think!
I took a deep breath, opened and closed my eyes. Images swirled. Stars flashed on my lids.
What to do?
I blew out a breath. Then another.
If Lucas really was dangerous, Ryan and Galiano would have no way to know. Zuckerman may already have reached him, and Lucas might think they were coming to arrest him, and shoot.
Throwing on shoes, I grabbed my purse and headed downstairs.
* * *
It took twenty minutes to hail a taxi.
“¿Dónde?”
Where?
Where had Ryan and Galiano gone? Not the Paraíso or Zuckerman’s clinic. Those places were staked out.
The driver drummed his fingers on the wheel.
Where would Lucas be?
Or did I want Díaz? Maybe Dr. Fereira could tell me.
I was trembling all over, my teeth clicking like a cheap party toy.
“¿Dónde, señora?”
Focus!
“Morgue del Organismo Judicial.”
“Zona Tres?”
“Oui.”
That was wrong. Why?
As the taxi crossed the city I watched an ever-changing panoply of color and shape. Banners strung above the streets. Ads posted on fences, walls, and billboards. I didn’t try to read them. I couldn’t. My head spun as it had in my drinking days when I’d fall asleep with one foot on the floor to remain stuck to the planet.
I knew I overpaid the driver by his smile and his blast-off.
No matter.
I looked up and down the block. The neighborhood was as bleak as I remembered, the cemetery larger and darker. Galiano’s car was nowhere in sight.
I stared at the morgue. Fereira. I needed to see Dr. Fereira. I followed a gravel driveway along the left side of the building. My sneakers made crunching sounds that thundered in my ears.
The drive led to a parking area containing two transport vehicles, a white Volvo, and a black station wagon. No Batmobile.
A drop of sweat rolled into my right eye. I wiped it away with my sleeve.
Now what? I hadn’t thought about entering without Ryan or Galiano. Look for Fereira?
I tested the personnel entrance at the back of the building. No go. The garage door used for body intake was also locked.
I tried to be more quiet. I crossed to the first van and peered through a window. Nothing.
I scuttled to the second vehicle.
The third.
A set of keys lay on the seat!
Heart thumping, I liberated my prize and stumbled back to the building.
None of the keys worked on the personnel door.
Damn.
My hands trembled as I tried key after key at the vehicle bay.
No.
No.
No.
I dropped the cluster of keys. My legs shook as I searched on all fours in the dark. An eternity later, my hand closed around them.
Rising, I started again.
The fifth or sixth key slid into the lock and turned. I nudged the door upward an inch, and froze.
No sirens or beepers. No armed guards.
I nudged another two feet. The gears sounded louder than the jackhammers at my hotel.
No one appeared. No one called out.
Barely breathing, I crouched and crab-walked into the morgue. Why was it I wanted to be inside? Oh yeah. Dr. Fereira, or Ryan, or Galiano.
The familiar blended odors of death and disinfectant enveloped me. It was a smell I’d know anywhere.
Keeping my back to the wall, I followed a corridor past a roll-on gurney scale, an office, and a small room with a curtained window.
My lab in Montreal has a similar chamber. The dead are wheeled to the far side of the glass. The curtains are opened. A loved one reacts with relief or sorrow. It is the most heartbreaking place in the building.
Beyond the viewing room, the corridor dead-ended into another. I looked left, right.
Another light show behind my eyes. I closed them, breathed deeply, opened them. Better.
Though it was dark in both directions, I knew where I was. To the left I recognized the autopsy rooms, to the right the hall down which Angelina Fereira had led me to her office.
How long had it been since she’d given me Eduardo’s CT scans? A week? A month? A lifetime? My brain couldn’t compute.
I started right. Maybe she was there. She could tell me about Lucas.
A stab to the gut doubled me over. I took quick, shallow breaths, waited for the pain
to subside. When I righted myself, lightning burst behind my eyes and the top of my head exploded. Bracing against the wall, I vomited in great, heaving spasms.
Dr. Fereira? Ryan? Galiano?
A lifetime later, the contractions stopped. My mouth tasted bitter. My sides ached. My legs felt rubbery, my body hot and cold at the same time. Dr. Fereira would send someone to clean this up.
Using the wall for support, I pushed on. Her office was empty. I reversed direction toward the autopsy rooms.
Autopsy room one was dark and deserted.
Ditto for two.
I noticed violet-blue light spilling under the door of autopsy room three, the one in which I’d examined Patricia Eduardo’s skeleton. She was probably there.
Gingerly, I opened the door.
There’s a surreal stillness to a nighttime morgue. No sucking hoses, no whining saws, no running water, no clanking instruments. It’s like no other silence I know.
The room was empty and deathly quiet.
“Dr. Fereira?”
Someone had left an X ray on an illuminator box. Fluorescence seeped around the film like the blue-white shimmer of a black-and-white TV in the dark. Metal and glass gleamed cold and steely.
A gurney sat by a stainless steel cooler at the back of the room. On it, a body bag. The bulge told me there was someone inside.
Another spasm. Black spots danced in my vision.
Lurching to the table, I dropped my head, breathed deeply.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
The dots dissolved. The nausea backed off.
Better.
A body outside the cooler. Someone had to be working.
Dr. Fereira?
I reached for my cell phone. It wasn’t in my pocket.
Damn!
Had I dropped it? Had I forgotten it at the hotel? When had I left the hotel?
I looked at my watch. I couldn’t see the digits.
This was not working. I needed to leave. I was in no shape to help them.
Help who?
Leave where?
Where am I?
At that moment I felt more than heard movement behind me. Not a sound, more a disturbance in the air.
I whirled.
Fireworks flared in my brain. Fire shot from my groin to my throat.
Someone was standing in the doorway.
“Dr. Fereira?”
Did I speak or imagine I was speaking?
The figure held something in its hands.
“Señor Díaz?”
No answer.
“Dr. Zuckerman?”
The figure remained frozen in place.
I felt my hands slip. My cheek struck the metal lip of the gurney. Breath exploded from my lungs. The floor rushed toward my face.
Blackness.
29
I HAD NEVER BEEN SO COLD IN MY LIFE.
I was lying on ice at the bottom of a deep, dark pond.
I wiggled my fingers to bring back feeling, fought to rise to the surface.
Too much resistance. Too far down.
I breathed in.
Dead fish. Algae. Things of the deep.
I spread my arms like a child doing a snow angel.
Contact.
I followed the contour with my hands.
A vertical rim with a rounded lip.
I explored the rim. Not ice. Metal, surrounding me like a coffin.
A tickle of recognition.
I took a deep breath.
The stench of death and disinfectant. But the proportions were inverted. The odor of rotting flesh had the upper hand.
Refrigerated flesh.
My heart shriveled.
Oh God!
I was lying on a gurney in the morgue cooler.
With the dead!
Oh my God!
How long had I been unconscious? Who had put me on the gurney?
Was that person still here?
I opened my eyes and raised my head.
Shards of glass blasted through my brain. My insides contracted.
I listened.
Silence.
I pushed to my elbows and blinked hard.
Inky black.
I rose to a sitting position, waited. Shaky, but no nausea.
My feet were dead weight. Using my hands, I drew my ankles to me and began rubbing. Slowly, feeling returned.
I listened for signs of activity outside the cooler.
Stillness.
I swung my legs over the edge and pushed off the gurney.
My knees were liquid, and I collapsed to the floor hard. Pain shot through my left wrist.
Damn!
My right hand came down on a rubber wheel.
I crawled on all fours and pulled myself up.
Another gurney.
I was not alone.
The gurney held a bag. The bag was occupied.
I recoiled from the corpse. My mouth felt dry. My heart pounded.
I turned and stumbled in the direction I thought the door should be.
Dear God, is there a handle on the inside? Do these things have handles on the inside? Let there be a handle on the inside!
I’d opened morgue coolers a thousand times, never noticed.
Trembling, I groped in the dark.
Please!
Cold, hard metal. Smooth. I moved along it.
Please! Let there be a handle!
I could feel myself weakening by the minute. I tasted bile, fought a tremor.
Years, decades, millennia later, my hand fell on it.
Yes!
I depressed the handle, pushed on the door. It opened with a soft whoosh. I peeked out.
On the light box, smoky gray organs and opaque bones, a glow-in-the dark portrait of a human being.
Autopsy room three, dimly lit.
Did the gurney behind me hold room three’s recent occupant? Were we both put on ice by the same hand?
Leaving the door slightly ajar, I staggered to the gurney and unzipped the pouch. A slash of light fell across pasty white feet.
I twisted the toe tag, strained to read the name. The light was dim and the letters were not large.
RAM—
They swam in and out of focus like pebbles at the bottom of a stream.
I blinked.
RAMÍR—
Fuzzy.
RAMÍREZ.
The Guatemalan equivalent of Smith or Jones.
I worked my way down the gurney, unzipping as I went. At the head end, I pulled back the flap.
Maria Zuckerman’s face was ghostly, the hole in her forehead a small black dot. Smears darkened the front of her clothing.
I lifted a hand. She was fully rigorous.
Shivering uncontrollably, I backed the length of the gurney, re-zipping as I went.
Why?
Inane habit.
Opening the door with my bum, I backed into room three.
And felt cold steel pressed to the base of my skull.
“Welcome back, Dr. Brennan.”
I knew the voice.
“Thank you so much for saving us a trip.”
“Lucas?”
I could feel the front sight, the barrel, the hollow tube that could send a bullet screaming through my brain.
“You were expecting someone else?”
“Díaz.”
Lucas snorted.
“Díaz does what I tell him.”
My addled brain cells screamed one word.
Stall!
“You killed Maria Zuckerman. Why?”
My head was heavy, my tongue thick.
“And you had Ollie Nordstern killed.”
“Nordstern was a fool.”
“Nordstern was smart enough to uncover your dirty cell-harvesting game.”
A hitch in the breathing behind me.
Keep him talking!
“Was that also Patricia Eduardo’s mistake? She learned what Zuckerman was up to?”
&n
bsp; “You have been a busy girl.”
The room was spinning.
“You’re a tough one, Dr. Brennan. Tougher than I anticipated.”
The gun barrel jabbed my neck.
“Back to bed.”
Another jab.
“Move.”
Don’t get back in the cooler!
“I said move.” Lucas shoved me from behind.
No!
Die from a bullet or die God knows how in the cooler? I spun around Lucas and lunged for the door.
Locked!
I whirled to face my attacker.
Lucas had a Beretta pointed at my chest.
My vision blurred.
“Go ahead, Dr. Lucas. Shoot me.”
“Pointless.”
We glared at each other like wary animals.
“Why Zuckerman?” I asked.
Lucas splintered into four, recongealed.
“Why Zuckerman?”
Had I said that or only imagined it?
“You’re very pale, Dr. Brennan.”
I blinked away a trickle of sweat.
“My distinguished colleague will keep you company.”
I struggled to understand his meaning.
“Why?” I repeated.
“Dr. Zuckerman couldn’t be trusted. She was weak and prone to panic. Not like you.”
Why didn’t Lucas shoot me?
“Did you kill your victims, Dr. Lucas? Or merely steal from their corpses?”
Lucas swallowed and his Adam’s apple bounced like a kid on a bungee.
“We would have made a great contribution.”
“Or a black market killing.”
Lucas’s lips curled in an imitation grin.
“You’re even better than I thought. All right. I do love it when the gloves come off. Let’s discuss science.”
“Let’s.”
Stall!
“Your president has sent ES cell research back to the twelfth century.”
“He acted out of a commitment to scientific ethics.”
“Ethics?” Lucas laughed.
“Their argument has no validity?”
My thoughts were fragmenting. It was becoming harder and harder to think.
“That the retrieval of stem cells requires the killing of little babies? That stem cell researchers are no better than Mengele and his Nazi mutilators? You call that bullshit scientific ethics?”
Lucas waved his gun at a list of safety regulations taped to the wall.
“A blastocyst is no larger than the dot on that ‘i.’”
“It is life.” My words sounded slurry and far away.
“Throwaways from fertility treatments. The discards of aborted pregnancies.”