Cold to the Bone

by Emery Hayes

  “Cutting-edge medical treatments,” Kenny clarified. “Violet has been the launch pad of a lot of different medical trials over time. But he was really counting on Dr. E’s super cell.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Bea told me the paperwork was bogus,” he confided. A frown rippled over his brow. “She checked, you know? When she was getting sicker and her father was having a harder time curing her. By the third round, she knew something wasn’t right. She was scared, but she was committed.”

  “What paperwork?”

  “From the FDA. No clinical trial can start without permission, and no credible pharm company will work with a doctor who doesn’t have the paper.”

  “Do you think Dr. Esparza had permission?”

  He turned back to the window and pressed his fingertips to the cool glass. “It’s not hard to counterfeit documents. You could probably buy a set online.”

  “Did your father think they were bogus?”

  “My father wanted Nueva Vida for Violet,” he said. “He wanted it bad. Bad enough maybe he ignored some things he shouldn’t have. But in the end, if all of Dr. E’s experimenting was without regulation, the FDA would never approve a trial based on the results of his work.”

  “And that meant Violet wouldn’t get her chance?”

  “Exactly. But if Bea wasn’t in the picture anymore, if there was no evidence of Dr. E’s success outside the lab, then maybe my dad could get the super cell into the human gene pool, open clinical trials that are legit.”

  Motive. If Kenny was right about Nueva Vida.

  “Does your sister have that kind of time?”

  He shook his head slowly. “It doesn’t look like it.”

  “And that saddened your father too.”

  “Yeah. Nueva Vida has enormous potential, but medicine doesn’t move at the speed of light.”

  She’d known as much. Anything she’d ever read about medical advancements put it at a snail’s pace.

  “What did Dr. Esparza do when Beatrice confronted him about the paperwork?”

  “He told her he had preliminary permission. That he was extending himself beyond that, but with good results. And Beatrice could see he was right. But she could also see that with each round, she was getting sicker.”

  “And she wanted out?”

  “She worried there would be a cancer the cure wouldn’t fix.”

  “Because not all cancers are created equal?” she asked.

  “Right, but Dr. E has gone a step above that. He created a cell impervious to the disease.”

  “A cell that can never get sick?”

  “A cell that can never get cancer,” he corrected, and he liked the idea so much that a smiled bloomed on his face as certainty infused his words. “Never.”

  “So why was Beatrice sick so much?”

  “Clinical trials,” he said. “Through the summer and fall. Sick and then healed. Dr. E had to do it, and then apply new data to the next trial, and so on. That’s how he built his super cell.”

  “He perfected it on Beatrice.”

  “Exactly. The cell is synthetic—man-made—and doesn’t exist naturally in the human body. Beatrice got sick because her cells are human in every way. And she was stage one.”

  “So Dr. Esparza gave Beatrice cancer?”

  “Four times, to be exact,” Kenny agreed.

  “How?”

  “He preserved cancerous tumors he removed from the body of his patients and implanted them in Beatrice. And then he watched them grow. Each trial he waited a little longer to launch his super cell. And each time the cell went to work.

  “Nueva Vida is like a legion of knights, armored, prepared, on-the-spot execution. The moment a cell in the human body starts to go bad, it’s eliminated before it can contaminate neighboring cells.”

  “Dr. Esparza told me Beatrice doesn’t have cancer,” Nicole said.

  “That’s right. He tried to do it again. Twice, actually. He implanted, each one larger than the one before, but they disappeared almost immediately.”

  “How?”

  “Because he created an army of super cells inside Beatrice and they were waiting, already in formation. And he did it from one single cell. He got it to replicate. And that’s Esparza’s great discovery. A synthetic super cell that replicates like organic cells. No one else has ever done it.”

  “And the super cells eliminate disease before it can take hold?”

  “They eliminate cancer,” he clarified.

  “Because the super cells were coded for cancer.”

  “One central code, boiled down to the deadliest commonality among cancers,” he agreed. “Before Dr. E could even set up a microscope and take a tissue sample, the cancer was gone.”

  “Hours.”

  “Less.”

  “Beatrice was a miracle,” she said.

  “She should have lived forever.”

  22

  Benjamin sat in the driver’s seat, the window cracked and the heat pumping full blast into the cabin. He’d left Charlene at the resort to rely on the snack bar in their room. He’d left the driver to his own devices, which meant the man was filling in crossword puzzles at a small table in the hotel bar. Benjamin wanted to be alone with Nicole without an audience, and so he waited in the parking lot of the station, backed in so he could watch the vehicles as they arrived. So far, they’d been few, and none had been the sheriff’s Yukon.

  The windows were clouding, and he sat forward and flipped the switch to defrost. He glanced at the clock on the dash. Forty minutes. Irritation plucked at his nerves. Instant gratification had its high points, but anticipation had given him hours of imaginative play. He’d waited for this moment a long time. Eight years. Killing Nicole would be enjoyable but not practical. And not as much fun as toying with her. He wanted to give her a fright. And he wanted her to worry. Damn the video she had. That could be reduced to inadmissible after claims of tampering, editing, imposing his image onto the footage. What Nicole probably hadn’t yet realized—her only viable witness to his crime was dead. And that made him smile. Not an accident. Not even a suicide. But a slow clogging of his arteries had produced a heart attack magnificent in its strength.

  There being no witness weakened any case against Benjamin to a roll of the dice.

  His cell phone rang, and he looked at it hooked to his belt. The calling number flashed at him in red. He knew having a woman for a boss would mean an increase in frustration. Women liked to talk. They stuck their noses into business that wasn’t theirs and wanted details. Men were satisfied with a job well done. When evidence surfaced that a contract had been fulfilled, they pressed a button on a keyboard in a room far away and the electronic transfer of large funds was executed. Women held on to their purses with white knuckles. Callon had won the bid and Benjamin was owed a bonus, but the old bat was holding out on him.

  He answered and resented having to do so. But you wouldn’t know it by his tone or his words.

  “Geneva,” he said, his voice full of pleasant surprise. “I thought you were going to try the slopes this evening?”

  She ignored his small talk. “I’ve spoken with Esparza,” she said. “He’s not cooperating.”

  “He’s hurting,” Benjamin said. “You knew killing his daughter would result in sticky emotions.”

  “He’s a man of science.”

  “And a father,” Benjamin said. He loved pretending that he knew what such a thing could do to a man. Personally, Jordan’s existence had caused him nothing but trouble, and his death would be a relief.

  “He needs to know things can get a whole lot worse.”

  “And you want this done in conversation or action?”

  “A little of both,” she returned.

  “You have a list of dos and don’ts?” The woman had a lot of rules. They’d already broken one when Charlene used her hands to kill Beatrice. That had earned them a scolding—the woman didn’t understand that the girl was fast. Rabbit fast. “Any prefere
nces?”

  “Yeah. Face-to-face contact. And whatever you do, don’t kill the man. We want what’s inside his head.”

  “No luck with his computers?”

  “Wiped clean,” she confirmed. “We believe he has his lab work on flash drive or media card. So if you’re not able to follow directions on this, make sure you check every nook and cranny on his dead body for it.”

  “Of course.”

  “But it won’t come to that,” she continued. “Because you will follow directions.”

  “That’s always the plan,” he agreed, but he knew that sometimes changes were necessary. Like right now. Now was a good time to shake up the boss, make her appreciate what she had in him. “The police are looking for you,” he told her.

  A pause as time crackled across the line. “How do you know that?”

  “They were in the lobby of our hotel this afternoon. They have pictures of you with the dead girl. But not just you. Looks like they have the whole bunch of you, all posing like you’re family.” He shook his head. Arrogance and intellect—the two did not complement each other. The Big Pharm players who had come to Blue Mesa intent on either buying or stopping the sale of Esparza’s discovery had lost their common sense along the way. Geneva included. “That was a mistake.”

  She ignored the criticism. The woman had a way of never acknowledging personal faults.

  “Esparza called that meeting. The big mix and mingle, let the competition see itself. It was his downfall, really. We all knew that if he had the goods, then we had to wrestle it from him as we have every other promising development that’s threatened to undo us.”

  “Not all of you.”

  “King is out of the picture now.”

  “Convenient.”

  “Helpful,” she corrected, then returned to the business at hand. “Meet with Esparza tonight so that he’s ready tomorrow first thing. He needs to leave with us voluntarily.”

  She hung up without waiting for Benjamin’s response, which she wouldn’t have liked anyway and which would have been something along the lines of “Fat chance.” Although he was practiced enough to deliver it in digestible words such as, “He may need a little more time than that. You know, he’s grieving and all.”

  And then Benjamin laughed, because Geneva would understand that no better than he did and because at that moment Nicole was pulling into the parking lot.

  Benjamin waited until she parked and then approached the Yukon in her blind spot, from the right side back end, and when she was standing and had shut the door, he stepped around to the driver’s side and was quiet enough that he spooked her, drawing the desired effect.

  “Hello, Nikki,” he said, and she whipped around, pushing him up against her cruiser with the flat of her hand against his throat and pulling her baton with the other. The polished wood caught the light and gleamed, and Benjamin remembered, too late, the precision with which she could wield that weapon.

  “Benjamin.”

  It was not said kindly. In fact, he thought she was enjoying this too much. That she might, in fact, take it further. But that wasn’t her way, he reminded himself. She was intense but methodical. She didn’t act in haste; she planned.

  It was good to see the fear shredding the irises of her eyes, pinching her mouth. His smile grew until he was laughing. And then she brought her baton up with a fierce but economical motion that stopped only after it connected with his balls.

  He bent forward, and he knew that was only because she let him. He didn’t doubt that. Nikki was strong. If she’d wanted him pinned against the cruiser, writhing in pain, he would be there now. He gasped once, twice, then said, “That was close, Nikki.” Close enough he would feel it for days to come.

  She had exercised restraint. She hadn’t incapacitated him, but instead had delivered a warning. A reminder.

  He rose and laid a hand on the baton. “You can consider your message received,” he said.

  “I don’t think so, Benjamin. The way I remember things, you have a thick skull and slower reactions.”

  But he wouldn’t let her get away with that. “I was a match for you,” he said. “In fact, I was winning in our little game called life.”

  “Not for long.” But she paled and her mouth tightened, and he knew he’d landed a direct hit.

  “How is Jordan?” he pushed. Too far, apparently, because Nicole brought the baton up again. He would have dropped to his knees, but she wouldn’t let him. The weapon made contact with his jaw next. He heard the clack of bone, but it didn’t shatter. Then she was standing close to him, the nightstick against his throat as she leaned both hands against the wood on either side of his head.

  “You feel that, Benjamin? Not the pain. In a moment that will pale in comparison to your need for air. I think Jordan probably felt that way when you were kicking him in the ribs. I think the pain stunned him and he felt betrayed. Not by you; at some point he realized what you were. But by me, for continuing to leave him with you. And then, his heart breaking, his ribs hurting, he started to feel that fire in his lungs. You feel it now, don’t you? I want you to remember it.” She leaned heavier on the stick. And she was right. The burn in his lungs was worse than the hurt in his dick or his throat, which he thought she might really crush. “You see, Benjamin, how close, how easy it would be for me to kill you?”

  He made eye contact, nodding slightly. Her weight shifted, a small give, and he could take a shallow breath, just enough to keep him from passing out.

  “Nikki,” he said, though he didn’t recognize his voice. It was rough, dry, reduced from the smooth swagger he threw at the world.

  “Sheriff,” she corrected him. “Why are you here?”

  “It’s been eight years—”

  “I can count, Benjamin.” She toed his feet apart. “You’re not here to see Jordan. He was never anything to you other than a means to get at me.”

  “I’m actually here about Truman.” He could tell by the look on her face that he’d scored a hit. “Material witness. Only witness.” He heard hysteric glee enter his voice. He loved that feeling—enjoyment at the expense of another. It was a pure rush. “He’s dead, Nikki,” he told her. “A bad heart. A very bad heart.” Benjamin bided his time.

  “Truman wasn’t much of a witness,” Nicole said. “I wasn’t counting on him.” As the man was a criminal and known associate of Benjamin’s, his account would not have held a lot of weight in court. “Besides, he wasn’t the only witness.”

  “You don’t count,” he said. “We both know that. Lovers. Bad breakup. Vengeance. A good lawyer could turn all that against you.”

  She shrugged but didn’t seem at all confident. “Eyewitness testimony was a very small piece of the evidence against you.”

  “Gotta love the digital age,” he said. “I have it from an expert in cinematography that videos can be altered without leaving a trace. A jury would be very interested in that.”

  Nikki didn’t appear to believe him. “You want to take this to court?”

  “Your case is cold,” he said. “Less than seventeen percent of murders not solved in the first days are ever resolved. I did my research.”

  “Let’s talk about why you’re really here. Esparza.”

  Benjamin raised an eyebrow. Too bad Nikki knew his ways, believed every move was calculated for a definitive reaction.

  “Yes, that Esparza. The one you mingled with at King’s place last night. You and your not-so-lovely wife, Charlene.”

  “You’re good, Nikki,” he said. “You always were.”

  “What are you up to, Benjamin?”

  “Business,” he said. “I don’t peddle in the small stuff anymore.”

  “What does a broker do?”

  She surprised him with that. “Your source is good.”

  “Did you kill that girl, Benjamin?”

  “You know killing’s not my specialty.”

  “But you’ve done it before.”

  “Once.”

  “More t
han once,” she said.

  “Keeping tabs on me?” He smiled and made sure it was big and full of satisfaction.

  She ignored him. A pretense, he was sure. “Why did Beatrice Esparza have to die?”

  “What do you know about it?”

  She shook her head. “You had opportunity, Benjamin. You had means.”

  “But not motive. You’ll never find that. I didn’t even know the girl.”

  “Some people kill for fun. Others for career advancement.”

  “You’re reaching and you know it.”

  “You know what else I know? You accumulate people according to what they can do for you, and based on descriptions of your wife, I’m wondering, is she a good spouse, Benjamin? Or a good killer?”

  “Why not both?” he said. “You know I have high expectations.”

  He slid an inch, and then two, along the cruiser, and she let him.

  “It was good seeing you, Nikki.” He smiled because he knew she hated that. She wanted him to suffer, always.

  She stepped back but kept the baton handy. Her mouth shut. She stood her ground and watched him climb into his vehicle, gun the engine, and pull out of the lot. He caught a last glimpse of her in his rearview mirror. She stood with her coat open and flapping in the wind, her feet solid on the ground, unmoving. She wasn’t the last man standing, which was probably what she was thinking. Benjamin was that. Always.

  23

  Nicole took the stairs two at a time, arrived at the top, and made a sharp left into the dimly lit corridor. She paced herself, or tried to. Forensics didn’t like uninvited guests, even when it was the sheriff. Science took time. Tests couldn’t be rushed. Results had to be confirmed. She knew she was the stick stirring the beehive and that there was no soft entry, but she strived for calm. She willed ease back into her muscles, stiffened from her encounter with her past in the parking lot not twenty minutes earlier. Benjamin had grown some stones.

  Her pulse still carried the memory of that first frantic beat when she became aware that Benjamin was here. Fear had become a spark in her belly, and she’d had to keep dousing it with reason to keep it from becoming a bonfire. Benjamin wasn’t here to take Jordan away from her. He couldn’t do that. Benjamin was a drug dealer, and judges did not award the custody of children to known criminals. Anyway, Benjamin couldn’t parent from behind a jail cell, and, she reminded herself, she had plenty of hard evidence to put him there.