Grave Secrets

Dear God, is there a handle on the inside? Do these things have handles on the inside? Let there be a handle on the inside!

I’d opened morgue coolers a thousand times, never noticed.

Trembling, I groped in the dark.

Please!

Cold, hard metal. Smooth. I moved along it.

Please! Let there be a handle!

I could feel myself weakening by the minute. I tasted bile, fought a tremor.

Years, decades, millennia later, my hand fell on it.

Yes! I depressed the handle, pushed on the door. It opened with a soft whoosh. I peeked out.

On the light box, smoky gray organs and opaque bones, a glow-in-the dark portrait of a human being.

Autopsy room three, dimly lit.

Did the gurney behind me hold room three’s recent occupant? Were we both put on ice by the same hand?

Leaving the door slightly ajar, I staggered to the gurney and unzipped the pouch. A slash of light fell across pasty white feet.

I twisted the toe tag, strained to read the name. The light was dim and the letters were not large.

RAM—

They swam in and out of focus like pebbles at the bottom of a stream.

I blinked.

RAMÍR—

Fuzzy.

RAMÍREZ.

The Guatemalan equivalent of Smith or Jones.

I worked my way down the gurney, unzipping as I went. At the head end, I pulled back the flap.

Maria Zuckerman’s face was ghostly, the hole in her forehead a small black dot. Smears darkened the front of her clothing.

I lifted a hand. She was fully rigorous.

Shivering uncontrollably, I backed the length of the gurney, rezipping as I went.

Why?

Inane habit.

Opening the door with my bum, I backed into room three.

And felt cold steel pressed to the base of my skull.

“Welcome back, Dr. Brennan.”

I knew the voice.

“Thank you so much for saving us a trip.”

“Lucas?”

I could feel the front sight, the barrel, the hollow tube that could send a bullet screaming through my brain.

“You were expecting someone else?”

Lucas snorted.

“Díaz does what I tell him.”

My addled brain cells screamed one word.

Stall!

“You killed Maria Zuckerman. Why?”

My head was heavy, my tongue thick.

“And you had Ollie Nordstern killed.”

“Nordstern was a fool.”

“Nordstern was smart enough to uncover your dirty cell-harvesting game.”

A hitch in the breathing behind me.

Keep him talking!

“Was that also Patricia Eduardo’s mistake? She learned what Zuckerman was up to?”

“You have been a busy girl.”

The room was spinning.

“You’re a tough one, Dr. Brennan. Tougher than I anticipated.”

The gun barrel jabbed my neck.

“Back to bed.”

Another jab.

“Move.”

Don’t get back in the cooler!

“I said move.” Lucas shoved me from behind.

No!

Die from a bullet or die God knows how in the cooler? I spun around Lucas and lunged for the door.

Locked!

I whirled to face my attacker.

Lucas had a Beretta pointed at my chest.

My vision blurred.

“Go ahead, Dr. Lucas. Shoot me.”

“Pointless.”

We glared at each other like wary animals.

“Why Zuckerman?” I asked.

Lucas splintered into four, recongealed.

“Why Zuckerman?”

Had I said that or only imagined it? “You’re very pale, Dr. Brennan.”

I blinked away a trickle of sweat.

“My distinguished colleague will keep you company.”

I struggled to understand his meaning.

“Why?” I repeated.

“Dr. Zuckerman couldn’t be trusted. She was weak and prone to panic. Not like you.”

Why didn’t Lucas shoot me?

“Did you kill your victims, Dr. Lucas? Or merely steal from their corpses?”

Lucas swallowed and his Adam’s apple bounced like a kid on a bungee.

“We would have made a great contribution.”

“Or a black market killing.”

Lucas’s lips curled in an imitation grin.

“You’re even better than I thought. All right. I do love it when the gloves come off. Let’s discuss science.”

“Let’s.”

Stall!

“Your president has sent ES cell research back to the twelfth century.”

“He acted out of a commitment to scientific ethics.”

“Ethics?” Lucas laughed.

“Their argument has no validity?”

My thoughts were fragmenting. It was becoming harder and harder to think.

“That the retrieval of stem cells requires the killing of little babies? That stem cell researchers are no better than Mengele and his Nazi mutilators? You call that bullshit scientific ethics?”

Lucas waved his gun at a list of safety regulations taped to the wall.

“A blastocyst is no larger than the dot on that ‘i.’”

“It is life.” My words sounded slurry and far away.

“Throwaways from fertility treatments. The discards of aborted pregnancies.”

Lucas’s agitation was growing. I was doing this all wrong.

“Hundreds of thousands suffer from Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, crushed spinal cords. We could have helped them.”

“That was Zuckerman’s goal?”

“Yes.”

“And yours was to fatten your wallet.”

“Why not?” Spittle glistened at the corners of his mouth.

“Mechanical hearts. Pharmaceuticals. Patents on orthopedic hardware. A smart doctor can make millions.”

“By killing or just stealing embryos?”

Hadn’t I asked that eons earlier?

“Zuckerman would have taken forever mixing eggs and sperm in her little dishes. My way was quicker. It would have worked.”

I wanted to close my eyes.

“You know it’s over,” I said.

“It’s over when I say it is.”

I wanted to stop hearing and sleep.