by Tanya Huff
Henry decided not to be subtle. He wasn’t in the mood and they wouldn’t understand. “Go away. Stay away.”
Darkness colored the words and became threat enough.
Not until they were safely in the car, cocooned behind steel and locked doors, did the photographer, cradling the ruins of his camera in his lap, finally find his voice. “What are we going to do?” he asked, primal memories of the Hunt trembling in his tone.
“We’re going to do . . .” With an icy hand and shaking fingers, she jammed the car into gear, stomped on the gas, and sprayed gravel over half the parking lot. “. . . exactly what he said.”
Together they’d been threatened a hundred times. Maybe a thousand. Once, they’d even been attacked by an ex-NHL defenseman swinging a hockey stick with enraged abandon. They’d always gotten the story. Or a version of the story at least. This time, something in heart and soul, in blood and bone recognized the danger and overruled conscious thought.
Inside Marjory Nelson’s apartment, Celluci glared enviously at the back of Henry’s red-gold head. If he hated anything, it was the press. The statements they insisted on were the bane of his existence. “I wish I could do that,” he muttered.
Henry wisely kept from voicing the obvious and made sure all masks were back in place before turning. This was not the time for Michael Celluci to see him as a threat.
Celluci rubbed at the side of his nose and sighed. “There’ll probably be others.”
“I’ll deal with them.”
“And if they come in the daytime?”
“You deal with them.” Henry’s smile curved predator sharp. “You’re not on duty, Detective. You can be as rude as . . .” Just how rude Celluci could be got lost in a sudden change of expression and a heartbeat later he was racing for the bedroom.
To mortal eyes, one moment he was there, the next gone. Celluci turned in time to see Vicki’s bedroom door thrown open, swore, and pounded across the living room. He hadn’t heard anything. What the hell had Fitzroy heard?
How could she have forgotten?
She dug frantically at the tiles in the kitchen. As they ripped free, she flung them behind her, ignoring the fingernail that ripped free with them, ignoring the blood from her hands that began to mark its own pattern on the floor. Almost there. Almost.
The area she cleared stretched six feet long by three feet wide, the edges ragged. Finally only the plywood subfloor remained. Rot marked the gray-brown wood and tendrils of pallid fungus grew between the narrow boards. Fighting for breath, she slammed her fists against this last barrier.
The wood cracked, splintered, and gave enough for her to force a grip on the first piece. She threw her weight against it and it lifted with a moist, sucking sound, exposing a line of gray-blonde curls and perhaps a bit of shoulder.
How could she have forgotten where she’d left her mother?
Begging for forgiveness, she clawed at the remaining boards. . . .
“Vicki! Vicki, wake up, it’s only a dream.”
She couldn’t stop the first cry, but she grabbed at the second and wrestled it back where it came from. Her conscious mind clung to the reassurances murmured over and over against her hair. Her subconscious waited for the next board to be removed. Her hands clung of their own volition, fingers digging deep into the shoulder and arm curved protectively around her.
“It’s all right, Vicki. It’s all right. I’m here. It was only a dream. I’m here. I’ve got you . . .” The words, Henry knew, were less important than the tone and as he spoke he drew the cadence around the fierce pounding of her heart and convinced it to calm.
“Henry?”
“I’m here.”
She fought the terror for control of her breathing and won at last. A long breath in. A longer breath out. And then again.
Henry almost heard the barriers snap back into place as she pushed away, chin rising defiantly.
“I’m okay.” It was only a dream. You’re acting like a child. “Really, I’m okay.” The darkness shifted things, moved furniture that hadn’t been moved in fifteen years. Where the hell is the bedside table? “Turn on the light,” she commanded, struggling to keep new panic from touching her voice. “I need my glasses.”
A cool touch against her hand and her fingers closed gratefully around the heavy plastic frames. A second touch helped her settle them on her nose just as the room flooded with light. Squinting against the glare, she turned to face the switch and Michael Celluci’s worried frown.
“Jesus. Both of you.”
“I’m afraid so.” Henry shifted his weight on the edge of the bed and asked, without much hope of success, “Do you want to talk about it?”
Her lip curled. “Not likely.” Talking about it would mean thinking about it. Thinking about what she’d have found, what she’d have seen, if she’d managed to tear up just one more piece of floor. . . .
“Celluci? Fergusson. Med school’s got three Chens. One of them’s even a Tom Chen—Thomas Albert Chen. And guess what, the kid’s got an airtight alibi not only for that night but for the whole two and a half weeks our boy was at the body parlour. Rough luck, eh?”
Celluci, receiver pinned between shoulder and ear, washed down a forkful of scrambled eggs with a mouthful of bitter coffee. He hadn’t thought Fergusson a subtle enough man for sarcasm. Obviously, he’d been wrong. “Yeah, rough. You take his picture around to Hutchinson’s just in case?”
“Give it up, Celluci, and stop wasting my fucking time. You and I both know that we’re not looking for any Tom Chen.” Fergusson sighed at Celluci’s noncommittal grunt, the sound eloquently saying give me a break. “Tell Ms. ex-Detective Nelson that I’m sorry about her mother, but I know what the fuck I’m doing. I’ll get back to you if we get any real information in.”
Celluci managed to hang up and shovel another pile of eggs into his mouth before he succumbed to Vicki’s glare and repeated the conversation. She might have dropped off, reassured by Fitzroy’s supernatural protection but he’d spent a restless night stretched out in the next room, straining to hear any sound that might make its way through the wall, wondering why he’d so easily surrendered the field. You’ve got the day, he reminded himself, reaching for another piece of toast. Which was really no answer at all. Goddamn Fitzroy anyway. Hopefully, massive quantities of food would make up for lost sleep.
Vicki pushed her plate away. She knew she had to eat, but there was a limit to how much she could choke past the knots. “I want you to check that alibi.”
Oh, God, not again. He’d really thought that she’d shaken her obsession that Tom Chen could be the actual name of their suspect. The profiling she’d done had been good solid police work and he’d taken it—prematurely as it turns out—as an indication that she was beginning to function. Hiding concern she wouldn’t appreciate, he reached across the table and covered one of her hands with his. There was no point in restating the obvious when she refused to hear him, so he tried a different angle. “Vicki, Detective Fergusson knows his job.”
“Either you check it or I do.” Pulling her hand free, she regarded him levelly. “I won’t let this go. You can’t make me. You might as well help; it’ll be over sooner.”
Her eyes were too bright and he could see the tension twisting her shoulders and causing her fingers to tremble slightly. “Look, Vicki . . .”
“I don’t need a babysitter, Mike. Not you. Not him.”
“All right.” He sighed. She’d asked for his help. While it wasn’t exactly the kind of help he wanted to give, it was something. “I’ll check the alibi and I’ll run a picture over to Hutchinson’s. I don’t think you should be alone, but you’re an adult and you’re right, this will go faster with both of us working on it.”
“All three of us.”
“Fine.” Too much to expect she’d want Fitzroy to butt out, “What’ll you be doing?”
She set her empty coffee mug down on the table with a sharp crack. “Tom Chen wanted my mother’s body specificall
y. In the time he was at that funeral home, he passed up two other women of roughly equal age and condition. I’ll be finding out why.” As she stood, she knocked her knife to the floor. It bounced once, then slid across the kitchen floor, across tiles still whole, still covering . . .
How could she have forgotten where she’d left her mother?
The eggs became a solid lump the size of her fist, shoved up tight against her ribs. Eyes up, she stepped over the knife. Another two steps took her off the tiles.
Gray-blonde curls and perhaps a bit of shoulder.
Just one more board. . . .
“Raise right leg.” As Donald spoke, he fed the stored brain wave pattern corresponding to the command directly into the net.
In the open isolation box, the right leg trembled and slowly lifted about four inches off the padding.
“Hey, Cathy, we’ve got a fast learner here. Remember how ol’ number nine’s leg flew up? Like he was trying to kick the ceiling?”
‘I remember how Dr. Burke was worried he might have damaged his hip joint,” Catherine replied, continuing to adjust the IV drip that nourished the rapidly deteriorating number eight. “And at least we didn’t have to manipulate his leg for the first hundred times like we had to on all the others.”
“Hey, chill out. I wasn’t saying anything against super-corpse. I was only pointing out that number ten seems to have quantitative control.”
“Well, we are using her brain wave patterns.”
“Well, number nine used my brain wave patterns for gross motor control.” He echoed her supercilious tone. “So he should’ve had the advantage.”
“I’m amazed he learned how to walk.”
“Ow.” Donald dramatically clutched at his heart. “I am cut to the quick.” Rolling his eyes at her nonresponsive back, he tapped another two computer keys. “And it’s painful going through life with a cut quick, let me tell you. Lower right leg.”
Surrendering to gravity, the right leg dropped. “Raise left leg. I’ve got a feeling that number ten’s going to be the baby that makes our fortune.”
Catherine frowned as she moved to check on number nine. There’s been too much talk of “making fortunes” lately. The discovery of new knowledge should be an end in itself; the consideration of monetary gains clouded research. Granted number ten represented a giant step forward as far as experimental data was concerned, but she was by no means as far as they could go.
There was something she had to do.
The need began to force definition onto oblivion.
“Frankly, Vicki, I’m amazed your mother didn’t tell you all this.” Adjusting her glasses, Dr. Friedman peered down at Marjory Nelson’s file. “After all, we had a diagnosis about seven months ago.”
Vicki’s expression didn’t change, although a muscle twitched in her jaw. “Did she know how bad it was?” She could refer to anyone’s mother, not that the illusion of distance helped. “Did she know that her heart could give out at any time?”
“Oh, yes. In fact, we’d agreed to try corrective surgery but, well . . .” The doctor shrugged ruefully. “You know how these things keep getting put off, what with hospitals having to trim beds.”
“Are you saying budget cutbacks killed her?” The words came out like ground glass.
Dr. Friedman shook her head and tried to keep her tone soothing. “No. A heart defect killed your mother. She’d probably had it all her life until, finally, an aging muscle couldn’t compensate any longer.”
“Was it a usual condition?”
“It wasn’t a usual condition . . .”
Vicki cut her off with a knife-edged gesture. “Was it unusual enough that her body may have been stolen in order to study it?”
“No, I’m sorry, but it wasn’t.”
“I’d like to see the file.”
Brow furrowed, Dr. Friedman studied the plain brown folder without really seeing it. Technically, the file was confidential, but Marjory Nelson was dead and beyond caring. Her daughter, however, was alive, and if the contents of the file could help to bring healing out of dangerously strong denial, then confidentiality be damned. And it wasn’t as if the file contained anything she hadn’t already divulged during the last hour’s interrogation—details had been lifted out of her memory with a surgical precision both frightening and impressive. Reaching a decision she pushed the folder across the desk and asked, “If there’s anything else I can do?”
“Thank you, Doctor.” Vicki slid the file into her purse and stood. “I’ll let you know.”
As that hadn’t been exactly what she had in mind, she tried again. “Have you spoken to anyone about your loss?”
“My loss?” Vicki smiled tightly. “I’m speaking to everyone about it.” She nodded, more a dismissal than a farewell, and left the office.
Loss, Dr. Friedman decided, as the door swung shut, had been an unfortunate choice of words.
She almost had it. Almost managed to grab onto memory. There was something she had to do. Needed to do.
“Cathy. She made a noise.”
“What kind of a noise? Tissue stretching? Joints cracking, what?”
“A vocal noise.”
Catherine sighed. “Donald . . .”
“No. Really.” He backed away, still holding the sweatshirt he’d been about to pull over electronically raised arms. “It was a kind of moan.”
“Nonsense.” Catherine took the shirt out of his hands and gently tugged it down into place. “It was probably just escaping air. You’re too rough.”
“Yeah, and I know the difference between a belch and a moan.” Cheeks pale, he crossed to his desk and dropped into the chair, fingers shredding the wrapper off a mint. “I’m going to start running today’s biopsies. You can finish dressing Ken and Barbie.”
“Your mother was a pretty everyday sort of person.” Mrs. Shaw smiled sadly over the edge of her coffee mug. “You were probably the most exotic thing in her life.”
Vicki let the sympathy wash past her—waves over a rock—and pushed at her glasses. “You’re certain she wasn’t involved in any unusual activities over the last few months?”
“Oh, I’m certain. She would’ve told me about it if she had been. We talked about everything, your mother and I.”
“You knew about the heart condition.”
“Of course. Oh.” Flustered, the older woman cast about for a way to erase her last words. “Uh, more coffee?”
“No. Thank you.” Vicki set what had been her mother’s cup down on what had been her mother’s desk, then reached over and gently laid her academy graduation portrait facedown.
“An investigation must not become personal. ” The voice of a cadet instructor echoed in her head. “Emotions camouflage fact and you can charge right past the one bit of evidence you need to break the case. ”
“Actually, if anything, well, unusual was going on with your mother, Dr. Burke might know.” Mrs. Shaw set her own mug down and leaned forward helpfully. “When she found out about the heart condition, she convinced your mother to have a whole lot of tests done.”
“What kind of tests?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think your mother . . .”
Stop saying that! Your mother! Your mother! She had a name.
“. . . knew.”
“Is Dr. Burke available?”
“Not this afternoon, I’m afraid. She’s in a departmental meeting right now, but I’m sure she’ll be able to make time for you tomorrow morning.”
“Thank you.” Moving carefully, Vicki stood. “I’ll be back.” Lips twisted in a humorless smile. She felt more like Charlie Brown than Arnold Schwarzenegger.
“Goddamn, look at the time. It’s almost 8:30 in the p.m. No wonder I’m so hungry.”
Catherine carefully set the petri dish in the incubation chamber. “Hungry? I don’t see why, you’ve been eating sugar all day.”
“Cathy. Cathy. Cathy. And you a scientist. Sugar stimulates hunger, it doesn’t satisfy it.”
&nb
sp; Pale brows drew in. “I don’t think that’s exactly right.”
Donald shrugged into his jacket. “Who cares. Let’s go for pizza.”
“I still have work to do.”
“I still have work to do. But I doubt I’ll be capable of working to my full potential if all I can think of is my stomach. And,” he crossed the room and punched her on the shoulder, brows waggling, “I’m sure I heard your turn demanding attention mere moments ago.”
“Well . . .”
“Doesn’t your research deserve to have your full attention?”
She drew herself up indignantly. “Without question.”
“Distracted by hunger, who knows what damage you could do. Come on.” He picked up her coat. “I hate to eat alone.”
Recognizing truth in the last statement at least, Catherine allowed herself to be herded to the door. “What about them?”
“Them?” For a moment, he had no idea of who she was referring to, then he sighed. “We’ll bring them back a pepperoni special, pop it in a blender, and feed it to them through the IV, okay?”
“That’s not what I meant. They’re just sitting there, out of the boxes. Shouldn’t we . . .”
“Leave them. We’re coming right back.” He pulled her over the threshold. “You’re the one who said they needed the stimulation.”
“Yes. I did.”
With Catherine safely in the hall, Donald reached back and flicked off the overhead lights. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” he caroled into the room, and pulled the door closed.
One by one, the distractions ceased. First the voices. Then the responses she couldn’t control or understand. Finally, the painful brightness. It grew easier to hold on to thought. To memory.
There was something she had to do.
