‘So she was the one who took the photograph?’ Zamora asked.
‘She must have fought alongside the men during the Civil War,’ Ethan said, ‘maybe been married to one of them. Lillian could have taken her maiden name when she took up residence in Albaquerque, to hide their connection. Lillian came back to work very soon after the gunfight at the caves, didn’t she?’
‘Yeah, within an hour or two,’ Zamora said. ‘That’s why we put a guard on her, just in case. How’d you know about that? You were in hospital.’
‘Because she would have needed to use her laboratory to check that the bacterial samples she’d gotten from Lechuguilla Cave were alive,’ Ethan said. ‘She went after Jeb Oppenheimer when we were trapped underground, and when I caught up with her she’d tried to drown him in the water. She was drenched herself, and only Saffron Oppenheimer’s arrival just before me had stopped her from killing him. But she didn’t care whether Jeb Oppenheimer lived or died, she just needed a sample of the fluids in that pool.’
Lopez frowned.
‘But I thought that wasn’t enough, that the infection doesn’t last forever in the body?’
‘No,’ Ethan agreed, ‘but by having a sample that she could test, and samples of the remains of both Hiram Conley and Lee Carson, she could experiment. Lillian must have known that it was something to do with iron. When Doug Jarvis’s team went into the SkinGen labs they found Conley’s and Carson’s remains, but in both cases tissue had been removed from the area surrounding the bullets that killed them.’
Enrico Zamora thought for a moment.
‘The iron kept the tissues alive?’ he asked.
‘It stopped the tissue samples from decaying,’ Ethan said. ‘So by comparing the bacteria in the living tissue and the raw bacteria from the cave, Lillian may have been able to understand how to develop a method to genetically modify the bacteria to survive indefinitely within a human body. The perfect elixir.’
Ethan had finally realized what had been happening all along, perhaps even before he and Lopez had arrived in New Mexico the previous week.
‘Lillian hasn’t been abducted — there’s just no need for her to hang around anymore. She’s taken everything she’s got now that Ellison and his men are dead, and has probably sold it off to the highest bidder.’
Lopez shook her head thoughtfully.
‘No way,’ she said. ‘Lillian may have taken off with whatever she’s gotten from that cave, but I don’t believe she would have done that, not after Ellison gave his life so we could escape from the caves.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure of that,’ Enrico Zamora said. ‘We got the autopsy reports back this morning for Tyler Willis. It turns out that he died not from a beating or at the hands of Jeb Oppenheimer. He died from blood loss caused by the severing of an artery in his left thigh, a tiny cut that was almost missed by the coroner.’
‘Oppenheimer had him killed though,’ Lopez said. ‘He was holding Willis hostage.’
‘Yes,’ Zamora agreed, ‘but Willis died when Oppenheimer was nowhere near him. Claire Montgomery, his assistant, confirmed that for us, and despite her earlier indiscretions she has no reason to lie now that Oppenheimer’s dead. The only person in the room with Willis with the skill and knowledge to make an incision like that was Lillian Cruz, and Willis would never have known as she’d just hit him with shots of morphine after Oppenheimer had finished torturing him.’
‘Let me guess,’ Lopez said. ‘The morphine shot went into his leg.’
‘He bled out right there and then,’ Zamora nodded. ‘Never knew a thing about it.’
‘As don’t you,’ Ethan said. ‘You stick to the nondisclosure policy from this point on, okay? I don’t want the DIA hounding you out of a job down here or something.’
‘I ain’t got nothing to say,’ Zamora replied. ‘Been a pleasure, in a weird kind of way.’
Ethan shook Zamora’s hand, and Lopez gave the cop a hug before he turned and walked back into the facility.
Ethan turned for their car, knowing deep inside that wherever Lillian had gone it was highly unlikely they would ever see her again.
‘Well, whatever happens, I hope she knows what she’s doing. It’s likely the last time that anyone will ever hold the fountain of youth in their hands again.’
Ethan climbed into the car, Lopez joining him in the passenger seat. They sat for a long moment in silence before he looked across at her.
‘You ready to go home?’
Lopez stared into the middle distance for a long moment before replying.
‘I’m not sure where home is right now.’
Ethan glanced south toward the Pecos and the endless deserts beyond that led to the border with Mexico and her distant hometown, Guanajuato.
‘Can I ask you something?’ Ethan said finally.
‘Shoot.’
‘Do you trust me?’
Lopez looked at him but did not respond immediately, and Ethan realized that she was thinking seriously about it.
‘Yeah, I do,’ she said finally.
‘Then why not confide in me?’
Lopez held his gaze for a long beat before turning away again. One hand played idly with her long black hair.
‘Because I don’t want to go through what happened to my last partner again,’ she said finally. ‘Ever.’
‘Lucas Tyrell,’ Ethan said, recalling Lopez’s detective partner from Washington DC who had died the previous year.
‘He was a good man,’ Lopez said, ‘who didn’t deserve to die the way he did.’
Ethan leaned back in his seat. Fact was, he also had avoided close relationships since losing Joanna. The fear they both carried, veiled just beneath a thin veneer of normality, was that anybody could lose anyone at any time and never see them again. Be it by a bullet, or accident, or just plain stupidity, people died all the time. Only those left behind grieved for their loss, and all too often were unable to let go.
‘I take it you got all of the money that you swindled out of Jeb Oppenheimer,’ Ethan said. ‘And that now he’s dead, there’ll be no comeback.’
‘No sense in crying over spilt milk,’ she said with a brief smile.
‘Doug and the DIA won’t have missed something like that,’ Ethan warned. ‘They’ll know what you’ve pulled.’
‘Let them,’ Lopez said. ‘Every last dime’s been taxed. There’s nothing they can do about it. You’re welcome to half, seeing as we’re partners.’
Ethan shook his head. He couldn’t resist a wry sense of admiration for Lopez’s sheer audacity, but it was that same recklessness that had almost gotten them both killed.
‘I can’t do this, Nicola,’ he said, ‘unless I know for sure that you’ve got my back.’
Lopez nodded.
‘I know.’
‘Then make your call. Are you in, or are you out?’ he asked.
‘Of what?’
‘Of this, of Warner/ Lopez Incorporated, bail bonds and investigations. Where’s home, Nicola? It’s your call, you can do anything you want. Do you want to head north back to Chicago with me, or south for Mexico?’
‘What would you do if I went back over the border?’ she asked.
‘I’d carry on,’ he replied without hesitation. ‘Probably get more work done without you in the way, and Warner Inc. rolls off the tongue nicely anyway.’
Lopez smiled faintly.
‘I just need time to figure everything out,’ she said. ‘It’s only been a year since I left the police and we started this little venture. You lost Joanna four years ago, and you’re still not quite who you were before, are you?’
Ethan couldn’t bring himself to meet her gaze, but he shook his head briefly.
‘Then let’s just take this one step at a time, okay?’ she suggested.