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  Meg responded to Eli’s hesitation. “How romantic.”

  “They pull in cadavers from the Anatomy Hall for experiments.”

  “Okay, maybe they buy them,” Meg said. “Happens all the time.”

  Eli decided there was no time for the tunnel explanation. He jumped right to the point. “Henry’s roommate at State Home is a young man named Jimmy. They have him there.”

  “Have him?”

  “Yes, hooked to a ventilator on a stretcher, next to this dead girl.”

  Meg held up both hands in surrender. “Eli, stop. Listen to what you’re saying. The company you work for is stealing dead bodies and has kidnapped a young man for an experiment?”

  “That’s right and —”

  “When is the last time you slept? Three? Four days now? You’re exhausted.”

  Eli buried his head in his hands.

  “The police back there are searching your truck because it’s abandoned in a back alley.” She put her hand on Eli’s shoulder. “Come on, I’m taking you home.”

  Eli jerked away from her.

  “It’s Fisher and Korinsky.” He was yelling now. “Some kind of synchronized abdominal operation.” Eli made a slicing charade of the double incisions. “But it fell apart. The ventilator tubing cut in half.”

  Meg shook her head.

  “I think he’s dead. Jimmy.

  They killed him.” They faced each other, Meg in silence, a rank odor from Eli’s damp pants filling the space between fogged windows.

  “My mother warned me to stay away from surgeons,” Meg said with a hint of a smile. “This is some date.”

  Eli heard voices outside the car, on his side.

  “Lock the doors, Meg.”

  But before she had time to react, Eli’s door flew open. Standing there was Bennie, Tongue next to him, pointing a gun straight at Eli.

  “Get out of the car.”

  Eli started to move, but Meg put her hand on his thigh and squeezed hard. With a swift move to the gearshift, she put the car in reverse and slammed the accelerator.

  The open passenger door clipped Bennie in the side and dragged him along the pavement. Eli kicked Bennie in the neck to knock him free. He closed the door to muffled screams.

  Meg backed all the way to the street and stopped.

  Tongue fired a shot that ripped through the back door.

  “Go!” Eli yelled, and Meg peeled out, the Civic fishtailing away from the rapid fire of three more shots.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  DOWNTOWN MEMPHIS

  9:51 P.M.

  Basetti drove his beat-up Celica down Second Avenue at sixty miles an hour. Clamped on top was a light he had taken from Lipksy’s car that he had not had a chance to use before. It flashed strobe-like to Nine Inch Nails cranking from a set of busted speakers.

  Lipsky had called on his cell phone and told Basetti to come to Mid-America Mall. He was sitting on a park bench smoking a cigarette when Basseti ground his front tire into the curb.

  “Wouldn’t the department be proud,” Lipsky said, flicking his cigarette into a drain chute and plopping low into the bucket seat.

  “Got some more information for you,” Basetti announced as he peeled out of the parking lot. “Branch is traveling with a woman.”

  “So, he’s got himself a bitch, what of it?”

  “Some bitch all right, her name’s Meg Daily.”

  “The medical examiner lady?”

  “Yeah, the one you talked to on the phone.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Lipsky said, twisting in the seat to remove an empty can of Red Bull jammed in his back.

  “I ran her through the computer.”

  “You did, did you? I thought they hired you to study T and A.”

  “It’s DNA, boss.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Anyway,” Basetti continued, “seems as though Miss Dr. Daily has a record.”

  “What did she do? Cut someone open while they were still alive?”

  “No, but wouldn’t that be interesting, you sick bastard. She got into a little altercation with her boss in Little Rock. Assault. Broke his face in three places.”

  “Umm, Kum Pow Chicken.”

  “Exactly,” Basetti said as he stopped at a red light. “Now we’re proud to have her in River City.”

  “Get out.” Lipsky elbowed Basseti and climbed over the console. “I’m driving this piece of shit. Let’s go find Bonnie and Clyde.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  MEMPHIS

  I-240, NORTH LOOP

  10:41 P.M.

  Meg’s babysitter answered the phone from a deep sleep.

  “Jessica? This is Meg. How’s Margaret doing?” The nursing student cleared her throat. “Oh, she’s fine. Been asleep for at least two hours.”

  “Good. Listen, is there any way you could stay there tonight? All night.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Jessica answered. “Sure, I guess.”

  There had been only one other time Meg had left her daughter with a babysitter overnight. Her boss had made her stay for the murder-suicide of a politically connected couple in Little Rock. Three months later, she refused to leave her daughter again and was fired the next day.

  “Just sleep in my bed, that’s fine, but Margaret will need her insulin shot by seven A.M.”

  “The same dose as tonight?”

  “Yes, the same dose. I’ll have my cell phone on if you have any questions.”

  Jessica was fully awake now. “I guess the night has gone pretty well, huh.”

  Meg exited I-240 onto Jackson Avenue. Through the evening, she had waited alone at a restaurant, picked up a smelly surgeon, backed over someone with her car, and been shot at more times than she could count. She glanced at Eli, who was turned sideways so he could see out the back window. He gave her a weak I’m-so-sorry-ass smile.

  Jessica waited on the line for a response. Meg rolled her eyes. “You have no idea.”

  Jessica didn’t quite get it. “Ooh, ooh, hot.”

  Meg pretended not to hear that. “I really appreciate this and I’ll pay you, big time.”

  “Just have fun.”

  Meg pitched her phone onto the dash.

  “I’m sorry, Meg,” Eli said. “Is she okay with this?”

  “I guess she doesn’t have a choice, now does she? I’m driving to who knows where, trying not to get killed, while we go bust your brother out of the asylum.”

  “It’s not an asylum, Meg.”

  Meg pulled off the accelerator and slowed to seventy-five. “I know, I didn’t mean it that way.”

  Eli checked behind them again. Jackson Avenue had a line of cars cruising into Raleigh. At least no one was on their tail.

  He took a deep breath. “I swear I think we’ve lost them.” Just saying those words allowed Eli to relax a bit. He removed a torn slip of paper from his wallet and punched a number into Meg’s cell.

  “Who are you calling?”

  “Coates Island. I want to make sure Henry’s still there, at least.”

  Coates Island is a thirty-seven acre mass of land connected to Lauderdale County by a 150-foot bridge. Originally a cotton plantation, it still contained slave quarters scattered across the island in great disrepair. In the late 1990s, Ray Dean Coates, great-grandson of plantation owner Nathaniel Cobb Coates, sold the land in a lucrative deal to developers for an upscale living community for the disabled. Stone had shown Eli the brochure, more resort than institution. It would have been a decade or more before Eli could have financed Henry’s move to such a luxurious location. Stone’s offer had seemed almost too good to be true.

  A woman’s voice answered.

  “This is Dr. Eli Branch. I’m calling to check on my brother, Henry.”

  “It’s eleven o’clock at night.”

  “Yes, I’m aware of that. Would someone please go make sure he’s okay?”

  She sighed loudly into the receiver. “Hold on.”

  A few seconds late
r, she said, “the night nurse told me your brother’s fine. Asleep, just like the rest of us were.”

  Eli exhaled. “Thanks, sorry to bother you.”

  Meg pulled off Highway 19 and headed straight for the river. “I don’t trust you country boys and your dirt roads.”

  “It’s not a dirt road,” Eli said. “Besides, I’d need the bed of a pickup for what you’re thinking; this car’s not big enough for anything.”

  “Maybe you just need a challenge,” Meg said, her Civic kicking up plumes of white gravel dust.

  She stopped the car just before the bridge. A historical marker with an engraved plaque announced the island as a historical location. The Coates’s magnificent plantation home had burned near the end of the Civil War.

  “I don’t know about this,” Meg said, before crossing the long, desolate bridge. A full moon reflected off cypress planks that appeared to dissolve into water midway down.

  “This is it,” Eli assured her. “There’s only one way across.”

  “If it’s so fancy, you’d think there would at least be some lights.”

  Across the river channel, the island rose from the water. Outlined by a perimeter of willow trees, it was now surrounded by gathering fog.

  “It’s almost one A.M.,” Eli said, trying to be persuasive but fully aware of Meg’s valid point. “Lights out.”

  Slowly, Meg pulled onto the bridge, testing it to make sure it was solid. The wheels caught between each plank and a clack-clack rhythm developed as they crossed to the island. Just beyond the line of willows, the island seemed to open up into an enormous space. The land had been cleared of brush and lay flat except for two massive mounds of dirt made by a bulldozer, currently parked between two cement trucks.

  Eli opened the door before the car fully stopped. When Meg caught up with him, he was standing in the middle of a concrete foundation the size of a football field. There were no lights, no tennis courts, and no swimming pool with a curved slide. There was no Coates Island Home and Resort, just a group of three stone slave quarters at the far border of the foundation.

  How could I have been so stupid? Eli thought.

  He had not, however, relied solely on the brochure Stone had given him. He had researched the facility on a fancy Web site that offered a virtual tour of the place—spacious rooms, a game parlor with a pool table and pinball machines. It even had a lake and a place to walk in the woods. But Eli knew the mistake he had made. How could I let my brother be sent to a place I’d never even seen? He felt a mosquito bore into the side of his neck. Eli slapped it away and emptied the air from his lungs with a prolonged “Damn it.”

  The words echoed between the slave quarters. Meg walked up behind Eli and cupped his elbow with her hand. He moved away from her and locked his hands behind his head.

  “Who did I call tonight? Who answered the phone and told me that my brother was sound asleep?”

  Meg stared at him but said nothing.

  Eli turned to face her.

  “Stone’s responsible for this.” Eli walked back to the car. “He never moved my brother. The fancy brochure, all of it, just a big lie.” Eli opened the driver’s door and looked back at Meg. “I’m taking RBI down.”

  Sighted through a pair of binoculars, a hundred yards away on the top floor of the old quarters, Meg’s silhouette appeared smoky-silver as she returned to the car. The sentry placed a phone call.

  “They’re leaving now.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  RALEIGH, NORTH OF MEMPHIS

  SATURDAY

  1:41 A.M.

  Lipsky sat in the booth of an all-night coffee shop filled with truckers. The police dispatcher had notified them of gunshots behind the old Crump Stadium and a car matching the description of Dr. Daily’s was seen on the north loop of I-240. He and Basetti had followed in pursuit but after finding nothing, they took an exit into the town of Raleigh. Lipsky nursed his second cup of coffee and watched the carnivore across from him.

  Basetti was downing an extra-large bowl of chili, into which he dumped a bag of Fritos.

  “Why not just swallow a hand grenade. Be much quicker,” Lipsky said, watching Basetti wash it all down and suppress a burp. He pointed to Basetti’s Diet Coke. “That makes a lot of sense.”

  Their waitress approached and refilled Lipsky’s cup, all the while talking on her cell phone. He lit a cigarette and blew smoke toward Basetti. “How about some second-hand fumes for dessert?”

  Basetti pushed away from the empty bowl. “Had an English professor in college,” he began and wiped his mouth on his sleeve, “said if you can’t make sense of something, tell a story about it.”

  “Tell a story?”

  “You have no idea what this guy Branch is up to, do you?” Basetti asked.

  Lipsky took another long drag.

  “Start from the beginning.” Basetti said. “Tell me his story.”

  Lipsky leaned forward with his hands on the table, about to stand up. “Should I come sit in your lap first?”

  “You’re just scared ’cause you don’t know how.”

  Lipsky leaned back in the seat. “Such a moron.”

  Basetti started the story for him. “In the beginning —”

  “Branch comes back to the medical center,” Lipsky began. “Home-town boy. Mr. Surgeon-save-the-world. A known commodity. Dad was a bigwig with the dead folks.” Lipsky stopped.

  Basetti, the facilitator, “Then?”

  “He gets pissed off at his lab tech and offs her. Stuffs her into the microwave or whatever that thing was.”

  Basetti stared at him. “You don’t believe that for one second.”

  “Okay, try this. Someone comes into the lab and asks to borrow a cup of sugar. She says, ‘hell no you communist bitch whore,’ and they stuff her in the cabinet. Like that version?”

  “Yes, except the cup of sugar is a batch of cells.”

  “Oh yeah, I forgot, green frog cells.”

  “Go on,” Basetti said.

  “His boss, Fisher, tells him to get lost and he skips across town to work for the evil empire, otherwise known as RBI.” Lipsky took another drag.

  “Meanwhile, back at the ranch?”

  “It’s hotter than hell and maggots are eating my garbage.” Lipsky shrugs. “I don’t know.”

  “Allow me.” Basetti continued the story. “Branch is doing some dead body dancing with the most pleasant Dr. Daily girl, who then comes up with a connection between the deaths.” He took out a folded set of papers from his back pocket and threw them on the table.

  Lipsky pulled back like it was used toilet paper.

  Basetti pointed. “The autopsy reports.”

  “How did you —?”

  “Got a friend who’s an EKG tech. He copied —”

  “Don’t tell me,” Lipsky said, studying the reports. “What’s the bottom line here?”

  Basetti leaned forward and whispered, “Both patients had a faulty medical device. Supposed to keep that aorta blood vessel from busting.”

  “So?”

  “Except these —” Basetti mimicked a balloon bursting. “Poof.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Yeah, and guess where they were made?” Basetti answered his own question. “Back at the RBI ranch.”

  Lipsky thought about it. “And then Branch goes to work for them?”

  “Or maybe,” Basetti said, “he’s on to them.”

  The waitress walked up with a full carafe. “No thank you,” Lipsky said. “I’m drowning in bullshit already.”

  She slapped the check down and walked away.

  Lipsky stood to leave. “So you’re betting the farm on Sand Dollar Reef?”

  Basetti followed him. “Better take your waders. Hear the water moccasins are nasty this time of year.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  MISSISSIPPI RIVER BASIN

  2 A.M.

  “We’re on a dirt road now,” Eli said as he drove slowly through a thicket of trees.

 
; “Just can’t help yourself, can you?” Meg said.

  Eli stopped at a barbed-wire fence strung across the road. Meg watched him in the headlights as he unhooked a wooden post and laid the fence along the side ditch.

  After he got back in the car she asked, “Where the hell are we?”

  Up ahead, through a grove of trees, the faint outline of a house came into view.

  “This was my grandparents’ place.”

  The car lights illuminated the front of the house. The roof sagged over a porch that stood on concrete blocks. A tree limb had fallen through one of the side windows.

  “Someone lives here?”

  “No, they died when I was in high school. But my father never sold the place. We used to come out here every summer.”

  “Both your grandparents died?”

  “My grandfather had Parkinson’s. When he died, so did my grandmother, two months later.” Eli opened his door. “Let’s try to get some rest. We’ll leave at dawn.”

  Meg followed him. “At least we’re not getting shot at.”

  Just off the side yard, the ground sloped up and continued into the tree line. Embedded in the side of the hill was a wooden frame with two feet of roof jutting out above it. “What a cute little door,” Meg said.

  “Storm cellar. Used to go down there when the tornados came.”

  They walked through the moonlit yard and a couple of wild chickens ran past Meg’s feet. She started singing the tune to the ’70’s sitcom, Green Acres.

  “Make fun if you want, but it’s beautiful out here during the day. We still have horses in the back pasture.”

  “Who takes care of the animals?”

  “Old man named Silas. Been here all his life. Just lives up the road a piece.”

  “A piece? You’re starting to talk really country, you know that?”

  Eli helped Meg as they stepped up on the porch, the boards creaking and moaning beneath them. He felt Meg’s hand linger on his arm a moment longer than necessary.