“You okay?” Christie asked.
“No,” I answered, tired of pretending otherwise. “Let’s go.”
Rosen and Holloway were waiting for us just inside, and we all approached the desk together. They flashed ID. Christie and I signed in and had our IDs scanned as well, and then a man dressed a lot like I’d been earlier—in the slate-gray scrubs but with booties bagging his shoes instead of paper slippers—came to escort us back. I noticed that Christie watched his feet as he walked to be sure he wasn’t leaving any kind of trail.
He asked us to wait outside for a minute while he went in to check that everything was ready, and though I tried to get a look inside as he swung the morgue doors open and shut, I was totally unsuccessful.
He came out two seconds later, offering booties to the rest of us. We bypassed three autopsy tables currently occupied with sheets pulled up over the bodies to protect the privacy of the dead. I shuddered thinking two of them might be the couple from the Inn.
Two men and a woman already stood against the steel-drawered far wall. The woman was not one of those glamorous television detectives in a wardrobe way above her means. She had on navy pants, a matching cardigan and a man’s or non-tailored woman’s light blue, button-up shirt beneath it. She could have as easily been a postal worker as a detective if not for the badge hung around her neck. Her non-bottle-brown hair was pulled back into a low, tight ponytail, and if she wore anything on her face it was Chapstick. Still, she looked like a model’s “before” shot. She was slim, fit, and had nice enough features. Anything more and she’d probably have more admirers than respect among her peers. Being a woman sometimes sucked that way. Her partner looked weathered—hair buzzed to hide the bald, face ruddy and eyes slightly squinty.
The third man was probably the ME. The scrubs gave it away, as did the white hair peeking out from under a paper cap that matched his booties. He wore thick, square-rimmed glasses that were either retro or relics.
The detectives shook hands with the Feds, who introduced everyone around, but after that one quick glance at the gathering, I had eyes only for the morgue drawer we were standing around, and so I missed who was who—though Penny Raab probably wasn’t either of the men.
“You ready?” someone asked.
I nodded without looking away.
I felt a hand on my shoulder, guessed it was Christie’s, and let it stay.
The ME stepped into view, twisted the handle and yanked on the drawer. It came sliding out, as expected, and I nearly crumpled to the floor.
With relief.
It wasn’t Christos. There wasn’t much of a face left for identification, and the hair was the right color, but it didn’t cover his body like a gorilla’s. Not that there was much of that left either…the body. The ME had done his best to replace the lengths of skin that had been shredded away, but so much of it was simply missing. One of the man’s arms had been placed next to his body, the other was AWOL. His stomach looked like a meat puzzle that was only half finished.
“Excuse—” Christie started. She gagged and ran from the room.
Involuntarily, I took a step closer to see if I’d seen what I thought I had…
“Are those bite marks?” I asked, tamping down my own gag reflex.
“Is it him?” the ME asked.
I shook my head.
“Verbal confirmation,” he prodded.
“No,” I answered. “Not him.”
He replaced the sheet.
“You didn’t answer my question,” I said.
The ME shared a look with the detectives, who passed it on to Rosen and Holloway.
Rosen gave him the nod. “Miss Karacis is a PI whose partner has been pursuing his own investigation. As long as she continues to be cooperative, I see no reason not to share this information.”
“We’re keeping this from the press,” the female detective—Penny—said, giving me the hairy eyeball, “so if it turns up anywhere…”
“They won’t have gotten it from me. I’m camera shy.”
“That’s not what I hear.”
Great. Just great. My five seconds of fake fame were going to ruin my life.
The ME cleared his throat. “Right. Well, you agree then?” he asked me. When I nodded, he continued. “Yes, human bite marks. Multiple assailants. Female, based on the DNA.”
You could have knocked me over with a feather. “So then, not canine?”
“Well, I suppose you could call them bitches, but it would be scientifically inaccurate.”
We all gave him a look. “Sorry, a little medical humor.”
Good thing he’d opted to work with stiffs rather than a live studio audience. But I was respectful. “Thank you all for your time. I’m glad it wasn’t him, but I’m sorry for…whoever this was. And his family. If there’s anything I can do to help…”
“Is your partner still pursuing his investigation?” Detective Penny asked.
“He’s dropped out of touch. Hence my concern.”
“Have you filed a missing person’s report?”
“I’m not sure that’s what he’d want. I suspect he’s gone undercover, and I don’t want to draw any official attention or waste resources if he’s just in deep.”
The ME replaced the drawer and the others started to move toward the exit. I went with the flow.
“Undercover where?” Detective Penny asked, sticking by my side.
“I suspect the Back to Earth movement.”
“Suspect?”
“He’s off the clock on this one, pursuing an investigation of his own. He’s not reporting in.”
“So you’ve come looking for him?”
“Yes.”
“And what have you found?”
So far, a whole lot of nothing…and a fridge full of guilt and temptation. I justified withholding the evidence from The Rustic Potato because of the whole chain of custody issue. Who could say for sure that I hadn’t doctored the food myself? No, better they should discover it on their own.
“We just got in last night, so not much. But we’re investigating the theory that Back to Earth is a cult and that Christos—my uncle and the founder of Karacis Investigations—has disappeared inside. Your DB—” dead body, “—you might want to check missing persons for anyone with connections to the Back to Earth co-op or The Rustic Potato.”
“The what?” the male detective asked.
“That organic place I’ve been urging you to try,” his partner answered for me.
“You’ve eaten there?” I asked, maybe too sharply.
They all looked at me. “Christie and I went last night.” I said, thinking quickly. “There was…something funny about the food. I don’t usually get all euphoric over steak, no matter how good.”
Penny raised a brow in her partner’s direction, and he nodded to her in unspoken communication, then answered for them. “We’ll check it out. You suspect…what? That it’s drugged?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time. Remember original Coke?”
There, I’d done my due diligence, hopefully in a way that would leave Apollo out of it.
Speaking of whom…Apollo had said something to me way back when about ambrosia—that it was dangerous to mere mortals (a category from which I was apparently exempt on the mediocre strength of long ago gorgon/god blood). Beyond addiction, it super-charged the body in a way that overloaded the human system, like a jolt of electricity might jumpstart the heart or stop it. Was Back to Earth another killer cult, like Jonestown, or had they found a way to modify ambrosia for humans? I had to know.
“Was there…anything else wrong with your DB?” I asked. “I mean, beyond the obvious?”
“I’m not certain that privacy laws—“ Detective Penny began.
“Cancer,” Rosen interrupted her. “Tumor the size of a walnut pressing on the brain. Why?”
So whoever John Doe was, he hadn’t been drinking the Back to Earth Kool-Aid, because then the San Francisco PD would have a remarkably healthy body on t
heir hands. Overly healthy…cells literally bursting with life. Or maybe he had and the tumor was one of the side effects to the human body.
“I don’t know yet,” I answered him, “but it seemed important to ask.” Nobody commented. You didn’t get far in our fields without hunches…parts of the puzzle you instinctively knew fit or didn’t. It was how you prioritized your time and decided which leads to chase.
We’d hit the outer door beside the desk where we’d signed in. I could see through the window that Christie was waiting for us on the other side, still looking a little green.
“Are we finished here?” I asked.
“We’re going to want to get your official statement on the attack last night. Was that related to your investigation?”
“The agents can give you the statement I gave them. I’m available for any follow-up questions, but for now, I think I’d better get my friend out of here while she’s still speaking to me.”
“You brought a friend along on an investigation?” the male cop asked, making me not-so-sorry I’d missed his name. I thought ass would work just fine.
“I brought a friend along for support when I thought I might have to ID my uncle’s remains. I had no idea San Francisco had such mean streets and that I’d be jumped in a hotel parking lot. Now, if you don’t mind—”
I didn’t wait to hear whether he did or not, but pushed my way through the door and got Christie out of the morgue.
I had to buckle her seatbelt for her when she just sat in the passenger’s seat like a lump, staring at nothing at all.
“You okay?” I asked her, not because turnabout was fair play, but because…okay, I got it, sometimes you just had to ask.
“That was horrible,” she said.
I expected her to talk about the blood or the gore, but I should have known better by now. “That poor boy. What can I do?”
“Do? No way. I’m sorry I dragged you into this. It’s way too dangerous. I’m putting you on a plane home. Today.”
I started to pull away so that I could shut Christie’s door, but she grabbed my arm in a death grip, holding me in place. She turned those baby blue eyes on me, but the irises had nearly eaten all the color.
“Don’t treat me like a kid. I’m tougher than I look. It just…takes me a minute sometimes. I’m not like you. I haven’t had the chance to get used to any of this. But that in there—” she waved her hand vaguely back the way we’d just come, “—that’s real. It puts all my problems in perspective. Jack’s an idiot, but I’ll get over him. That guy in there, he had problems. He’ll never get a chance to get over them. I want to do something about that. I want to make a difference.”
“You don’t think legions of people have whiter smiles because of you?”
She turned away from me. “Thanks so much for taking me seriously. Never mind. Just take me to the airport.”
I slammed her door shut and cursed myself all the way to my side of the car. What was the right thing to do here? Take her to the airport—tough love and all that? Put her on a plane and watch her fly away to safety, probably hating me forever for being such a jerk? If I sent her home now, would the damage to her psyche outweigh the potential physical danger should she stay? Or did I let her risk herself? She was a grown woman, and she was right, I wasn’t treating her like one. If anyone had tried to tell me what to do, I’d have told them where to go and how to get there. But Christie was too ladylike…or too hurt.
I yanked open my door, snapping, “Okay.”
Christie looked at me, her eyes bright with tears. “Okay?”
“You can help. But if anything happens to you…well, I’ll beat myself up and then I’m going to start in on Jack for setting this whole thing off.”
“He has nothing to do with it.”
“Still.”
She cracked a smile. “Deal.”
I was going to regret it. I already regretted it. But I thought I was doing the right thing. Only time would tell, and there would be no take backs if I got it wrong.
“So where do we start?” she asked.
“You call Martin and make a date.”
She crinkled her nose. “Can we call it something else?”
“Call it whatever you like.”
“Are you going to tag along?
“I have something else to do.”
“What’s that?”
“Recon on the Back to Earth co-op.”
“Alone?”
“You’ve got your job, I’ve got mine.”
“But I saw what they did to that guy…that body at the morgue. You need back-up.”
She didn’t know about my gorgon glare or the super-healing side effect of the ambrosia. All she knew was that just this morning I’d been in the hospital, and it wasn’t a huge leap from a gurney to a slab. The concern was sweet but inconvenient.
“How about this—I’ll call or text you every hour. If I miss, you call the cops.”
“If you miss, it might be too late.”
“That’s my best offer,” I said. “One way or another, I’m going in.”
She sighed hugely. “Anyone ever tell you before that you’re a massive pain in the butt?”
“First I’m butch and now I’m massive? Some friend you are.”
It made her crack a tiny smile. “Whatever. You make sure you hit that timeline or there’s going to be hell to pay.”
I pretended to tremble in fear. Now Hades, he knew how to lay down a threat. And with him, Hell was a very real possibility. But, hey, all I had to do to keep him happy was find his estranged wife and send her back into servitude…that or let him unleash Hell on Earth. No pressure.
I was still working on an option C. If Persephone had left Hades of her own volition, I couldn’t be party to her renewed imprisonment. Unless, maybe, she turned out to be a psycho hose beast the world would be better off without. No, not even then. There had to be another way.
“Will do,” was all I told Christie. She didn’t need to bear the rest of the burden along with me.
We stopped off on the way back to the hotel to buy and activate a few prepaid phones. That way if either got ours confiscated, we’d hopefully have back-ups that wouldn’t be found. We preprogrammed in the agents’ numbers, the detectives, etc., and yet I still felt wrong leaving Christie behind to make contact with the cult. That it was her choice would not make me feel any better if something happened to her.
Hating myself as I did it, I waited until Christie left the room to freshen up before taking a three-fingered scoop of the ambrosia Apollo had given me to speed the healing of my cracked ribs and protect me from whatever was to come. Then I grabbed an expensive bottle of water off the television console and made my way out.
Jesus had texted me the address he’d found for the compound. I forwarded it to Christie so she knew where to send backup if I didn’t report in. Then I programmed it into the GPS on my phone and let it guide me. And guide me. I was well out of the city, and had bypassed signs for quite a few vineyards by the time the GPS finally informed me in its cultured computerized voice that I should turn in five hundred feet. The only problem was that when the turn came up, the sign for it said “Private Drive” in all caps with an additional sign tacked below that said “No Soliciting”. An orchard obscured all view of what lay at the end of the drive. While none of that especially intimidated me, it didn’t give me the warm fuzzies either.
I decided not to take the turn, but drove past until those twisted trees gave way to a piled stone fence that I hoped marked the next property line about a half mile down the road. I pulled off to the shoulder and opened my glove compartment. “Gone for Gas,” I wrote in the notebook I kept there for recording mileage, which I always meant to do but rarely actually did unless I was on a paying case and needed it for the expense report. I also grabbed the fanny pack I kept there with a camera, first aid kit and power bars for stake-outs and other emergencies. I added the bottle of water from the hotel, and I was good to go. I tucked the note und
er my windshield wipers in plain sight of anyone curious about the abandoned vehicle to hopefully keep anyone from calling the cops.
Then I locked the car and crept into the trees. They weren’t humungous, but they were taller than me, which made skulking convenient. If I’d been a country girl, I could have told what type they were from the buds and little white flowers, but there was no fruit yet—it was way too early in the year—which meant no harvesters or whatever to dodge. Still, I kept my ears perked and crept toward the private drive, figuring that if I travelled parallel to it, I’d be sure to hit the complex. I caught sight of the road through the trees and was ready to pull back to make sure nobody who might be on it would catch sight of me when I heard a car crunching over the pits and loose stones of the dirt drive.
My heart seemed to kick into overdrive like it knew something I didn’t, and consequently my blood went rushing around like a kid who’d downed the mother lode of Pixie Stix. I took a few steps closer to the path, the better to see what was kicking up my alert system, though it was giving me more of a heads-up than a duck!
I was just in time to see a big black Town Car with livery plates slide slowly into view, the better to save its suspension. And in the back, through the lightly tinted windows, was an unmistakable figure. Golden hair, wavy and glorious, falling like a lion’s mane or the rays of the sun, broad shoulders, commanding presence, and while I couldn’t see them at the moment, eyes the color of tropical waters. Apollo. Sun god and snake.
I pulled back into the orchard, put my back to a tree, and whipped out my cell phone. I had it out and speed dialed before I knew what I was going to say.
“Where are you?” I asked when he answered.
There was a pause on the other end, then Apollo said, “I’m in the Napa Valley. Where are you?”
“Why?” I asked.
“Why do I want to know or why am I in Napa?”
“The last part.”
“When did you become my keeper?’
Crazy in the Blood (Latter-Day Olympians) Page 11
