No Immunity

half open down her breasts. Good pair of mangoes. Odd, a woman like this not covering herself. Oh, shit, how sick was she? Did she have the same thing as the boys? “Some kind of foreign virus,” as Adcock put it. Was this stuff one of those flus that knocks you out for weeks? He shoulda made Adcock cough up the facts on this plague business. Not that he was likely to make a guy like Adcock do anything.
    Ignoring the woman’s cries of “I pay rent, I pay already,” he pushed past her into the bedroom looking for the girl. “Where is she, your daughter?”
    “Señor?”
    He heard the girl before he saw her, squeezed between the dresser and the door. Her face was blotched red; the kid was shaking.
    “What’d you tell the big guy?”
    “I don’t know.”
    He had to strain to hear her.
    “You talked to him five minutes ago. You know. Tell me and I’m gone, understand?”
    “I don’t know.”
    He started to reach for her, caught himself, and let his hand threaten her. The mother’d be a problem if he touched the kid. He didn’t have time for that. Turning to her, he said, “You tell her not to talk to strange men?”
    “ Si. Yes.”
    He turned back to the shaking child. “This is what happens when you talk to strange men. You can make it okay by telling me what you said.” He shot another look at the mother.
    “Tell him, Sarita.”
    “He just wanted to know about the boys and the blond lady who took them, and the man and the nice lady they went with one day and came back.”
    The blond lady, the doc. The man’d be Grady. “The nice lady, what did he call her?”
    “Irene.”
    A siren ripped the air, so close he could barely hear her.
    “Last name, did he say her last name?” He was moving toward the door.
    Sarita shook her head.
    “Come on, think!” The siren shrieked and cut off. The cops were here. The Weasel slid out the door and ran.

CHAPTER 25

    “You ready?“ A whisper. It came from the back. How many deputies did the sheriff have here?
    Kiernan pulled her latex gloves off, tossed them in front of the freezer door, and hit the light switch. The room turned black as she slipped out into the hall. Hand to the wall, she hurried forward, past other doors to other rooms. There was no time to check them out. She couldn’t chance a dead end. She had to go with the one place she knew, the viewing parlor in front.
    A key scraped in the back-door lock. The lock that Jeff Tremaine said kept no one out.
    The viewing-parlor door swung easily, silently, and the room let in a dim glow from the street-side windows.
    Metal jangled outside on the sidewalk. Keys. Fox’s men would be coming in both doors.
    Desperately she looked around the room, squinting to pull the dark forms into recognizable shapes. Dais, podium, rolling wooden platform ready to hold a coffin, twin bookcases that reached nearly to the ceiling, twin cabinets in the back. The cabinets she crossed off immediately—too obvious. Under the this? Dicey.
    Metal scraped metal as keys moved into locks.
    The bookcases. In California they would be bolted to the wall. Here? She had to hope. The shelves were too small to hold an adult; that’s what Fox would assume. No adult would think to climb on top, he’d think. If she got out of this, she’d never again complain about petite-sized pants being too long. She grabbed a high shelf and climbed. The few books shimmied. A stack fell on its side.
    Across the room the dead bolt gave.
    The bookcase shimmied but held. Silently she swung herself onto the top, knelt, and scrunched over chin on knees. The dust flew up her nose. She rammed her hand over her mouth, pinched her nose. The fallen books, could she reach them, right them? Her nose tickled. It took all her concentration not to sneeze.
    The door opened, banging back into the bookcase. The light came on. Sheriff Fox stood in the doorway, a thick angry figure turned black by the backlighting.
    If he spotted the fallen books; if he questioned them at all, he need only look twelve inches up. She was in clear sight. She swallowed hard against the tickling dust. She could hear the back door banging open, feet clopping in.
    Fox took a step into the room. He looked left and right. “Come on out. We know you’re in here!” He strode across the room, yanked open the cabinet doors. “Shit!” He peered under the this.
    Deliberately Kiernan didn’t hold her breath. She breathed through her mouth, so softly air barely moved.
    Pushing his meaty body