Immortal

17

‘Seriously, the place was wiped clean, not a trace.’

Lopez nodded wearily, mentally scratching another avenue of investigation off her list. She was standing in the foyer of a laboratory that handled all forensic investigations for Santa Fe’s law enforcement agencies, and had been responsible for the investigation of the morgue from which Hiram Conley’s apparently mummified remains had vanished.

‘Any ideas of who might have had a motive for abducting Lillian Cruz?’

The lab technician, an elderly guy by the name of Rodriguez, shook his head.

‘I worked with her a few times out Albuquerque way when she ran the morgue there. She was the best, no doubt about it, been working in the department for as long as I can remember. What she couldn’t tell you about rates of decay and infestation wasn’t worth knowing. Point is, everyone liked her, never heard a bad word said.’

‘And she never had any contact with Tyler Willis?’

‘The Tyler Willis?’ Rodriguez repeated. ‘No way, that guy is stellar, something to do with genetics out Los Alamos way. I’ve read a few of his papers. The high priests don’t have much time for us guys down in the morgues.’

‘Okay,’ Lopez conceded finally, ‘thanks for your time.’

Lopez walked out of the foyer, pausing on the sidewalk and breathing deeply in the warm air. The mountains in the distance, faded as they were in the haze beneath the flawless blue sky, reminded her again of home, as did the occasional road sign in Spanish and the little stores selling Aztec-style trinkets.

She sighed as she cut across a street to where she’d parked. Almost a third of her meager salary went on supporting her increasingly frail parents. She knew that the rest of her family were doing their best, but there was no substitute for American dollars in Guanajuato. Sometimes she’d even thought about…

She froze. A man walking down Camino Entrada toward a nearby steakhouse caught her attention. He was sauntering along the sidewalk with his face shielded from both the sun and from observation by a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. Lewis Delaware III. Twenty-nine. Possession with intent to supply. Released on an eight-thousand-dollar bond signed by his own legal representative, the creep had vanished right after he’d walked from Cook County Jail.

Lopez turned, letting her long black hair fall half across her face in the breeze as she walked across the street, deliberately not walking toward Delaware but veering to one side to avoid attracting attention — forgetting that she was wearing leather boots and a black vest that hugged her breasts above a pair of tight jeans. It was like trying to hide candy from a kid: any guy within a hundred yards couldn’t miss her.

Sure enough, Delaware turned his head and glanced across at her, lifting his chin to check her out. A flare of alarm panicked his features as he stopped mid-stride twenty yards away. Lopez covered her dismay at having been spotted with a cheerful smile.

‘Morning, Lewis,’ she called brightly. ‘Don’t run or I’ll kick your ass.’

Delaware flashed her a nervous grin, whirled and took off down the sidewalk.

Lopez launched herself in pursuit, wishing once again for the comforting feeling of a pistol by her side. Cans of pepper spray and nightsticks were handy, but they weren’t so hot against bullets. Lopez watched as Delaware, scrawny and out of shape, ran with a gangly gait past an automobile trader, barreling past a BMW pulling out in front of him. Lopez dodged past the vehicle with a single bound, lithe as an antelope as she bore down on the frantic Delaware, who glanced over his shoulder at her, his eyes wide with panic.

Delaware aimed for an old Lincoln parked at the end of Camino Ortiz, clearly hoping to make a break for it before she caught him. Lopez gave her all and accelerated as she yanked her collapsible baton from her jeans and flicked it open before hurling it at Delaware’s legs. The baton span through the air and sliced neatly between his calves, interrupting their passage enough to send the kid sprawling face down onto the hot asphalt in a tangle of limbs, his cap flying from his head. Lopez reached him as he scrambled back to his feet and yanked his fists up defensively in front of his face, glowering at her as he panted for breath.

‘I told you not to run, Lewis,’ she said.

‘I ain’t goin’ to jail,’ he gasped. ‘You ain’t takin’ me.’

‘No?’

Lopez reached out with her left hand to grab his left wrist. As Delaware pulled it back and exposed his face, Lopez jabbed a fast right straight into his eye. He yelped, staggered backwards and collapsed to his knees with his face in his hands.

‘Jesus Christ!’ he cried as Lopez yanked him to his feet, flashing her bondsman badge as curious citizens watched them from the parking lot of a Saab dealership, and cuffed Delaware.

She dragged him, still whimpering, across the street to a narrow alley. Delaware turned, unsteady on his feet, real fear starting to spread like an infection across his face.

‘What the hell is this?’ he uttered. ‘I want to speak to my—’

Lopez strode forward and drove one knee into his groin. A strangled gasp later and the kid was on his knees. She moved around behind him, squatted down and whispered in his ear.

‘Listen good, Lewis. I’m going to empty your pockets and anything I find that I don’t like, I’m going to borrow, okay?’

Delaware opened his mouth to reply, but only a faint whistling squeaked from his throat.

Lopez emptied his pockets, finding two hundred bucks in cash, a small wrap of what looked like marijuana and two crumpled packs of cigarettes.

‘You’ve got weed,’ she hissed. ‘Both know what possession means, right, Lewis?’

‘Don’t tell ’em,’ Lewis whined pathetically. ‘Please don’t tell ’em.’

‘Get up,’ she ordered, gripping his cuffed wrists and yanking them into his shoulder blades, eliciting another squeal of pain. ‘What they don’t find you won’t miss, understood?’

With more force than was necessary Lopez pushed Delaware back to where she’d parked her car outside a nearby mall. She was in the process of wedging him into the rear seat when she saw Ethan walking toward her. He glanced at Delaware as she booted him aboard the car.

‘Busy afternoon?’ he asked.

‘Productive.’ Lopez nodded, shutting the door and handing him Lewis’s packets of cigarettes. ‘Saw him jaywalking back there, easiest pull we’ve had in months. How about you?’

Ethan took the cigarettes from her. ‘This all he had? Thought he’d be dealing, all the way out here.’

‘Nothing on him,’ Lopez said calmly with a shrug. ‘Doesn’t mean that wherever he’s been staying is clean.’

‘We don’t have time to get search warrants,’ Ethan said, and handed her the printed copy of the photograph from the town hall. ‘Recognize anybody?’

Lopez scanned the image and gasped.

‘I’ll be damned. Willis was right.’

‘You found him yet?’

‘No,’ Lopez admitted, swiping a strand of hair from out of her eyes and noticing Ethan watching her as she did so. ‘Nobody has any leads on either Tyler Willis or Lillian Cruz. Which means we’re left with trying to find either Saffron Oppenheimer or Colin Manx, both of whom probably have nothing to do with the disappearances.’

Ethan filled her in on Saffron Oppenheimer’s family history, both illustrious and tragic at the same time.

‘There’s a motive for her hitting laboratories all right,’ Ethan said, the hot wind moaning down the street tousling his light brown hair. ‘And it may explain her taking such care to hit the computer servers before she left.’

‘Industrial espionage?’ Lopez murmured. ‘You think that she’s actually working for Grandpa?’

‘It fits if Tyler’s work in any way conflicts with SkinGen’s,’ Ethan said with a shrug. ‘Saffron hits labs working in similar fields to slow down their research. Right now, we don’t have much else to go on. Local police have searched Tyler Willis’s apartment and found nothing out of the ordinary. Enrico suspects that whatever he was working on, the details are being held elsewhere.’

Lopez nodded.

‘Which means that somebody else was looking for them, or at least Tyler suspected that they were, and hid his work.’ Ethan smiled at her, teasing her along. ‘I’m not Sherlock Holmes,’ she said, ‘but I guess it does tie Jeb Oppenheimer to both Saffron and Tyler Willis. Still, it’s a long shot.’

‘Not so long that we shouldn’t pursue it,’ Ethan said. ‘Time to go and join the natives.’

Lopez jabbed a thumb at Lewis Delaware.

‘We can drop this asshole off along the way.’

Ethan nodded as he walked around to the passenger door. Lopez waited until he was on the other side of the car before discreetly tossing the small wrap of marijuana into a nearby trash can.