At Close Range

by Laura Griffin

  “Rey called this morning to give me the heads-up. The sheriff in New Mexico received a tip about where to find the shell casings from the ambush up there. The prints on the shells trace back to someone who’s already on their radar.”

  Dani sat there watching Ric, wondering if he realized how deeply Scott was involved in all this.

  She glanced down and read the description of Doern, as well as the paragraph about his being wanted for murder, armed robbery, and racketeering.

  “Whose murder?” she asked.

  “It’s a three-year-old case. Evidently, he was involved in a bar brawl up in South Carolina, got kicked out of the place. Next day the guy he was fighting with turned up dead in an alley. Doern’s DNA was found at the scene, but they never could locate him.”

  Dani studied the picture. It was a DMV photo like the one Scott had shown her, except this one looked more recent. His hair was longer, and a sleeve of tattoos covered his right arm.

  She read the description again. Six-two, 220. He was almost the same size as Scott and could have passed for his brother.

  Dani sank into a chair and stared at the eyes.

  “So, the FBI’s all over this.” She looked up at Ric. “Why?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I don’t know, and neither does Rey. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone shows up and tries to yank our investigation.”

  “Bring it on. They don’t have jurisdiction.”

  “They’ll say they do if they want in.”

  Anger surged through her. “That’s bullshit. They don’t have a clue about our case.”

  “Funny, that’s how I feel, too.”

  Jasper walked into the room holding a slip of paper. “Hey, Dani. Got that plate you wanted. Comes back to a Marco Varela of Mission Hill, New Mexico.”

  Dani stared down at the scribbled name. “This ring any bells with you?” she asked Ric.

  “None. Why?”

  “It was just a fluke. I’m trying to track down the money. This guy has a Mission Hill address and drives a Ferrari.”

  “Not just any Ferrari,” Jasper put in. “An Enzo. I checked into it, and that’s a limited edition. They only made four hundred.”

  Ric whistled.

  “The guy’s from Chile,” Jasper said. “Used to be a big polo star.”

  “Where’d you get that?” Dani asked.

  “I looked him up.” Jasper handed over a printout of a Wikipedia page. The photo alongside the article showed a handsome man atop a horse. “I was curious about the car and where his money came from. I thought maybe he was a movie star or something. Anyway, he’s retired now and bought a big ranch out there where he breeds horses.”

  Dani thought of the ranch off Spruce Canyon Road with the horses and the high-dollar fence. Was that his place?

  “So, does this help?” Jasper asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe,” she said. “I’ll look into it.”

  Christine poked her head into the conference room as Jasper left. “Hey, Ric, sorry to interrupt, but your wife’s looking for you.”

  Ric pulled out his phone. “What? My ringer’s on.”

  “She’s here.”

  Ric jumped to his feet as Mia stepped into the room. She was flushed and breathless, and Ric dashed around the table to her side.

  “Is it time?”

  “I wish. That’s not why I’m here.”

  He rested his hand on her belly. “What’s wrong? Are you okay? Why didn’t you call me?”

  “Because.” She surveyed the table and reached for the bottle of water by Ric’s food. “Damn, it’s hot out there.” She took a swig while Ric looked on, clearly confused. She dragged out a chair and sank into it.

  “Mia, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing at all.” She smiled up at him. “But there’s been a break in your case.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Ric looked at her for a long moment. Then he looked at Dani.

  “Sit down,” Mia told him. “You’re sweating bullets.”

  “I’m sweating?” He raked his hand through his hair.

  “I know I’m a mess.” Mia glanced down at her sweat-soaked T-shirt and leggings and then looked at Dani. “I just came from the gym. I was doing some reading while I was on the treadmill—Ric, sit down.”

  He sat.

  “Anyway, I was doing some reading, and I think I know how it all fits together.”

  “How what fits together?” Dani asked.

  “Your victims. Ayers, Lovett, Kreznik, and also Collins.” She looked at Ric. “Did you know they presented at the BAA conference three years ago?”

  Dani leaned forward. “The what?”

  “The BAA, the Biology Association of America. I wasn’t there, but someone at the lab went, and I remember flipping through the program and reading some of the seminar descriptions.” Mia took another gulp of water.

  “Are you okay?” Ric asked again.

  “I’m fine, just thirsty. Anyway, I remember Dr. Kreznik being mentioned in the program. He’s local, so that caught my attention. I just went back and did some research,” Mia said excitedly, “and all four of them were part of a panel discussion on nuclear transfer technology, with a specific emphasis on enucleation.”

  Dani glanced at Ric, then back at Mia. “Enucleation. What is that, exactly?”

  “It’s an important step in somatic cell nuclear transfer. Otherwise known as SCNT.”

  “Sorry, babe, you’ve lost me,” Ric said. “Back up.”

  Mia took a deep breath. “Okay, SCNT. The process starts with a somatic cell, or body cell. You make the cell inactive to stop the replication of DNA. Then the nuclear material and the chromosomes are harvested. That’s called enucleation. Then that material is deposited into an oocyte, or donor egg cell, in which the genetic material has already been removed to make room.”

  “Wait,” Dani said. “Are you talking about in vitro fertilization?” She was no scientist, but that’s what it sounded like. Although maybe her mind had jumped to that because Mia was sitting in front of her nine months pregnant.

  “Not IVF,” Mia said. “Reproductive cloning.”

  Dani stared at her.

  “Cloning,” Ric repeated.

  “You mean like . . . with sheep?” Dani asked.

  “Sheep, rabbits, horses,” Mia said. “It’s totally taken off in the equestrian community, for example. Cloned polo ponies can fetch a hundred K or more.”

  Ric’s eyebrows shot up. “A hundred thousand bucks?”

  “Wait, polo horses?” Dani turned to Ric. “Maybe Marco Varela is involved.”

  “Who’s that?” Mia looked confused.

  “A retired polo player in New Mexico,” Dani said. “He lives on a ranch near Nathan Collins.” She looked at Ric. “You think he might be raising cloned polo ponies?”

  “Maybe,” Ric said. “And maybe the dead professors were moonlighting for him. You say it’s a big business?”

  “Very big,” Mia confirmed. “But that’s not what concerns me. Rumors were floating around the scientific community that certain microbiologists and geneticists were working on a secret human cloning project.”

  “Humans,” Dani repeated with disbelief. “Is that even possible?”

  “Theoretically, yes,” Mia said. “But it’s highly problematic.”

  “How?” Ric leaned closer and looked intently at his wife. He so obviously admired her intellect, and Dani had always liked watching them interact.

  “Well, regardless of where you stand on reproductive cloning technology in general,” Mia said, “it’s way too soon to apply it to humans. The vast majority of cloning attempts in mammals—at least ninety percent—fail to produce a viable offspring. Then many of the organisms that are born die very young or have severe birth defects.”

  “So, why would anyone do it?” Dani asked.

  “My guess would be money,” Mia said. “You shouldn’t underestimate what people will pay, and the lengths they’ll go to, to
have a child that is genetically related to them. Even if it’s only one parent.”

  “One parent?”

  “Yes, the genetic material comes solely from one parent, oftentimes the mother, because the procedures tend to work better with females.”

  Ric shook his head.

  “So you believe scientists are doing this?” Dani asked. Was that what Ayers and Kreznik had been up to?

  “Like I said, it’s all talk,” Mia replied. “I heard rumors about it several years ago, but then I also heard Michelangelo never really got off the ground.”

  “Michelangelo?” Ric asked.

  “That was the name of the project.”

  A chill snaked down Dani’s spine. “Oh my God, the Creation of Adam.”

  Mia and Ric looked at her.

  “Ayers had a print of it in his office. The fresco by Michelangelo.”

  “That’s probably where the project name comes from,” Mia said. “He had that in his office? Wow, maybe they really were working on it.”

  Ric looked at Dani but didn’t say anything. She didn’t say anything, either. It was hard to get her head around the very idea.

  “Is it illegal?” Ric asked Mia.

  “Many states have passed laws banning human cloning. And the American Medical Association has come out against it, for obvious reasons, such as the extremely high death rates. But that’s not to say it isn’t happening.”

  “Have you heard anything about this kind of research going on around here?” Dani asked.

  “Where? You mean here in town at the university? That’s very unlikely,” Mia said. “It’s not exactly a bastion of scientific research. And this sort of work is expensive. It would require big-time funding. More likely, if it’s happening around here, it’s in the private sector.”

  “So, if Ayers and Kreznik moved down here to work on this Michelangelo thing,” Dani said, “why take a job at the university? Especially a job with a pay cut.”

  “Maybe as a cover,” Ric suggested. “Teach a few classes by day. Do some moonlighting to earn some real money by night.”

  “And what about Collins?” Dani looked at Mia. “Right before his death, he told me in our interview that he was working on something called YACs.”

  “Yeast artificial chromosomes,” Mia said. “Maybe he lied. Or maybe that’s what he actually was working on officially at Trinity. But, based on his published work, he was definitely still involved in human cloning research. And Trinity wouldn’t have supported this sort of work if they knew about it. Not as a Catholic institution. The whole thing is extremely controversial. In fact, if the school got wind of this project, it’s conceivable they would drum up a reason to get rid of anyone involved without drawing attention to the subject of the research, which would create a scandal.”

  “That might explain the sexual harassment investigations,” Ric said. “Ayers and Collins were both pressured to leave.”

  Dani shook her head, trying to clear it.

  “I know, it’s a lot to take in,” Mia said.

  “And I’m still not sure I get it.” Dani looked at Ric. “Even if we assume all of our victims are somehow involved in this Michelangelo project, who would want to kill them? And why?”

  “Maybe Marco Varela,” Ric suggested. “If they were helping him clone polo ponies, maybe he got pissed off when they took a job somewhere else. He would have had a lucrative business going, and then they left.”

  Dani’s phone buzzed. It was Scott, and she’d been dodging him all day. Maybe he had an update about the case.

  “I need to take this.” Dani got up and slipped from the room.

  “Harper,” she said briskly.

  “Whoa. Your phone is working. I was beginning to wonder.”

  “What’s up?”

  “How’s the case coming?”

  Dani propped her shoulder against the wall and looked out at the bull pen. It was a clever strategy on Scott’s part to ask about work. If he’d asked something personal, she would have jumped off the phone.

  “We’ve got some interesting developments. Did you happen to notice the red Ferrari when we stopped at that gas station near Mission Hill?”

  “The Enzo. What about it?”

  Of course he’d not only noticed but knew exactly what kind it was.

  “Well, on a hunch I ran the plate, and turns out the owner is some retired polo star who has a ranch out there and breeds horses now.”

  She stepped into an interview room for privacy and filled him in on everything Mia had just told them.

  “Damn,” Scott said. “Sounds like a breakthrough.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “There’s no way all that could be a coincidence. And if Marco Varela owns the ranch near Collins, that puts another victim just down the road from him.”

  “Yeah, but I’m still having a hard time with motive.”

  “Revenge,” Scott said. “His scientists abandoned him to go work for someone else. And they took their valuable IP with them.”

  “You’re saying he hired a hit man to kill four people because someone shut down his pony-making factory? That seems pretty extreme.”

  “Come on, Dani. People get killed over a dime bag. Or a pair of shoes. If those horses are worth a hundred K a pop? Sounds like plenty of motive to me.”

  “Maybe,” she said, still not convinced. “Anyway, is there anything new on your end?”

  “No. And that’s not why I’m calling. What are you doing later?”

  She didn’t answer. She knew what he was asking and she didn’t want to go there.

  “Daniele?”

  “I’m working.”

  “What about after?”

  “What ‘after’? I’m totally buried right now.”

  “I want to see you tonight.”

  A warm shiver moved through her. “I have to work, Scott.”

  “Call me when you get off.”

  “I’ll try to call you tomorrow.”

  She hung up before he could change her mind.

  • • •

  Dani swung by Schmitt’s on the way home that night and found Sean seated at the bar with Jasper. This time she resisted the urge to bitch them out.

  “I got your text,” she told Sean. “What’s the word on Audrey?”

  “Still hasn’t shown up.” He checked his watch. “As of eight P.M., that is. I talked to several of her friends and then finally got ahold of her sister, Lesley.”

  “What did Lesley say?”

  “She confirmed my theory that there’s another car. It’s a Mustang convertible, cherry red, that her parents gave her for graduating from college in four years.”

  “Wow, three cheers for Audrey.”

  Sean smiled. “I know, right? They gave Lesley one, too, but hers is white.”

  Dani rolled her eyes. “What did Lesley say about her sister?”

  “She hasn’t heard from her since yesterday, but she’s not worried.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. She said her sister does this a lot.”

  “What, goes missing after her husband’s funeral?”

  Jasper chuckled, but Sean looked annoyed.

  “Takes off without telling anyone where she’s going and ignores her phone. She’s been known to have ‘episodes’ when she gets stressed-out, apparently. She pulled the same thing the day before her wedding when she got cold feet. Her sister says it’s no biggie, that she’s probably at a luxury hotel somewhere getting a facial.”

  Dani scoffed. “Well, is she going to confirm this for us or just let it go?”

  “She’s supposed to call me when she hears from Audrey, but she didn’t seem worried.”

  “This woman sounds like a real sweetheart.”

  “Yeah, she was a little chilly on the phone, like I was interrupting her Sunday.”

  Unbelievable. Dani thought of Dax rushing over to her house the minute he heard about her break-in. But, hey, who was Dani to judge? If there was one thing sh
e’d learned on the job, it was that people’s family dynamics often didn’t make sense to outsiders.

  “So, you’ve crossed Audrey Ayers off your list of concerns,” Dani concluded.

  “Bumped her to the bottom. I’ll see where we are tomorrow on it. What about you? How’s it coming on Rodney Doern?”

  Dani glanced across the bar as Travis walked in, followed by Scott. The sight of him set off a flurry of nerves in her stomach.

  “Dani?”

  She looked at Sean. “What’s that?”

  “What’s the word on Doern?”

  She updated him about their suspect’s being added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. She’d planned to share Mia’s discovery, too, but decided to save it for morning. Dani could feel Scott’s gaze on her, and she wanted to leave before anyone else noticed. She couldn’t let him talk her into going outside with him. They’d either end up kissing or arguing, and she wasn’t up for either.

  “That’s it?” Sean asked. “You guys were at it all day. I thought maybe you turned up something new.”

  “We did, but I’ll fill you in tomorrow. You guys enjoy your night off.”

  “What about you?” Jasper asked. “You want to have a beer with us?”

  Sean nudged her elbow. “Yeah, stay and hang out. You’ve been hitting it hard.”

  She glanced at Scott, who was watching her intently from the other end of the bar. What did that look mean? It was the same as last night, only darker.

  “Thanks, but not tonight,” Dani said. “I need to go home and crash.”

  • • •

  Scott pulled up to Dani’s house and parked under the pecan tree overhanging the street. No lights on except for the porch, so she was probably asleep by now. Definitely a signal that he should go. Instead he cut the engine and debated whether to knock on her door.

  A light in the living room went on. He watched as a shadow moved in front of the window.

  Damn it, what was he doing? If she saw him out here, she’d think he was obsessed. And maybe he was. He’d gone out drinking with Travis tonight specifically to get her out of his head, but that plan had tanked the instant he’d walked into Schmitt’s and spotted her at the bar.

  He wanted her again. He could admit that to himself. But he felt weirdly protective, too. If he were her brother, Scott was exactly the kind of man he’d warn her to stay away from. He should do the right thing here and leave her alone.