A Conspiracy of Bones (Temperance Brennan #19)(79)

Tragically, this entrepreneurial vision proved deadly. Hard fact: thirty milligrams of smack can kill you; with China Girl, it takes only three.

Why the difference? Basic chemistry. Both compounds bind to the mu-opioid receptor in the brain. But fentanyl is better at passing through fat, a substance surprisingly plentiful in the head. It arrives faster and, once landed, hugs the receptor so tightly that a minuscule amount triggers the chain of effects so pleasing to the body. End result: Fentanyl is now a ruthless predator roaming the streets of America.

Too much for my mind to compute at that moment. But the bleak facts were in there, stored from previous headlines and research.

“OK,” I said. “Heavner’s got cause. What’s she citing as manner?”

“Undetermined.”

There are only five choices for manner of death: homicide, suicide, accidental, natural, undetermined. Based solely on the tox report, I couldn’t disagree.

I said, “It’s unlikely Vodyanov hid his car at Art’s, hiked out to Buffalo Creek, screwed up, and OD’d.”

“We can talk about this after you rest.”

“Now.”

“Fine. No argument here. So we’re back to square one. The guy probably killed himself, or somebody offed him.”

“If Vodyanov committed suicide, the question is why? If someone murdered him, the question is who?” Also why, but my thoughts were going muddier with each beep of the monitor.

“The other development’s no surprise.”

I’d forgotten there were two. Waited.

“They ran the prints from your place, focusing on the ones lifted in the two studies. Nothing popped. Most were yours, already on file for comparison.”

“No hits in AFIS?”

“Local, North Carolina, surrounding states, nothing popped in any system.”

“The rest will come back as family or friends. Maybe my workers.”

“I’m gonna want to talk to those guys.”

“Right.”

“And, like you said, if it was arson and a B and E, the perp probably wore gloves.”

“You have to admire proper planning.”

Slidell ignored that. “The arson guys found no accelerant other than the paint and turpentine. But they found the distribution pattern odd.”

“Odd.”

“The stuff was really spread around.”

“So our perp is probably bad wiring and a careless painter.”

Did I really think so?

What did I believe?

Twenty minutes later, an orderly rolled me into an elevator, then down a corridor to a room so predictable nothing registered. With his help, I maneuvered the twenty-mile gap from the gurney to the bed. A blanket covered me. Lights dimmed. Footsteps retreated. Air movement suggested a reangling of the door. Sometime later, tubes rattled and fingers touched my wrist.

An IED could have detonated beside me. I would not have reacted. My body was down for the count.

Not so my blood or drug-pummeled brain. Sensing an opening, the questions and misgivings reengaged with undiminished zeal.

Image chased image. Some from the inexplicably missing ten hours. Pulsating walls. A steel tunnel tightening to form a cocoon around me. My fingers searching the inky blackness, desperate for a handle, a lever, a chain. The flesh melting from my hands, baring the bones, yellow and raw.

Like the bones in the face of the faceless man.

Other images sprang from the recent investigation. A trench-coated Vodyanov. A pigtailed Jahaan Cole. A gap-toothed Timothy Horshauser. A belligerent Aiello. A shard-covered study. A burned-out office.

Had I been targeted? Was I being watched? If so, by whom? Why? What danger did I pose? Did it involve government secrets? Dodgy real estate? Missing kids? Murder?

Was the threat a bombshell revelation that Margot Heavner was incompetent or corrupt? Was it Vince Aiello’s exposure as a pedophile? Nick Body’s as a fraud? Vodyanov’s as an enabler? A trafficker?

The discovery of a killer?

Or was it all the product of my faulty circuitry?

And where did Yates Timmer fit in?

Two weeks had passed since Vodyanov’s body was found. Slidell and I had zero to show for our investigation.

In addition to frustration, I felt terrible guilt.

Joe Hawkins had leaked me confidential information. That file may have been viewed, even stolen in the break-in. If there was a break-in. Lizzie Griesser had performed an analysis gratis. Her phenotype report was also destroyed, perhaps viewed or downloaded.

Out of some half-baked mistrust of cyber-security, I’d stored nothing in the cloud. Not a chance Heavner would share her notes, and I wouldn’t place Joe at further risk. I could ask Lizzie for another copy of her report, but that might put her in jeopardy.

Sudden frightening possibility.

Had Gerry Breugger burgled my home? Had he torched the annex to cover his tracks? To slow me and Slidell in our investigation? Did the reporter want a story that badly?

The implications were horrendous.

If Breugger made everything public, Joe might be fired, his long career ended in disgrace. Would Lizzie suffer the same fate? Would her employer lose clients due to distrust in the lab’s ability to maintain confidentiality?

My career was in free fall. Was I dragging my friends down with me?

I envisioned radiating circles with me at the epicenter. A ripple effect of destruction created by my actions.