No Immunity

stone-still air of the motel room, it sounded like an eighteen-wheeler... driving through his head.
    He forced himself to focus. He should do something. He had seen blood, plenty of it on the field. He’d seen legs broken, jagged ends of bone snapped through the skin. He’d been there when the whistle blew, the pile unpiled, and a body was left lying on the AstroTurf dead-still, and the coach and the trainer and the medical crew rushed on and hovered, and every player on either team and all seventy thousand fans in the stands remembered guys who had snapped their necks or smashed their skulls so hard that their brains tore loose. Those guys were friends a helluva lot closer than Grady Hummacher. But they hadn’t been dead. And Grady Hummacher sure as hell was. Tchernak didn’t need to get any nearer to his body to know that. He couldn’t get nearer; his legs felt like they were wrapped in cement. Like they were dead.
    God, and the smell! He had to get out of here.
    But he couldn’t do that. Not with Grady lying there. From the looks of the room, Grady’d be lucky to have any blood left in him. Tchernak stared at Grady’s back. He knew he should turn him over, check his face. But he just couldn’t.
    He’d check out the room first.
    He stock his hands in his pockets, safe from the danger of leaving fingerprints, and lumbered to the far side of the bed, running his gaze over the floor, the chair, the walls— anything but Grady Hummacher, who had been sitting in the airport bar with him talking about the girlfriend who was no longer a girlfriend and the teenaged boys he’d plopped on her.
    Tchernak froze. The boys. Where were they? Teenagers? Thirteen years old, or nineteen? He was breathing through his mouth now, teeth together as if they could fence out the smell. He moved slowly across the room, keeping his back to the wall. There were no bodies on the far side of the bed. The bathroom door was open. Tchernak pushed it hard against the wall. Nothing behind it. He flicked on the light before he thought about it. And flicked it off as soon as he eyed the whole room. The boys were not here. Water gurgled in the sink.
    Tchernak turned off the water and stood in the bath-room doorway. Last night Louisa swore Grady had plucked the boys from her office. That had to be true. No one else would have bothered with them, it had to be Grady who’d taken them. They trusted Grady.
    Or so Grady had intimated.
    Tchernak surveyed the swirl of blood and sheets one more time. Maybe these boys weren’t so trusting. Maybe they got fed up with Grady coming and going, leaving them in a barrio apartment with neighbors they couldn’t hear. They were boys used to fending for themselves in the jungle; given the alienation and frustration of their lives, the two of them could have snapped and beaten Grady till he stopped moving.
    And then run off into the dark.
    Or they could be lurking within spitting distance, panicked out of their minds, ready to lash out at anyone in the world they couldn’t understand.
    It was stupid to stay here at the death scene, Tchernak knew that. He had to get out. But he couldn’t do that without checking out the body. He was a detective, after all. And he owed that much to Grady.
    He swallowed hard, walked over to the body, and grabbed its shoulders. God, it was still warm. Still soft, like Grady was just sleeping. Like he wasn’t covered with blood. Tchernak cut off all thought, all emotion, all urge to drop the body and run like mad.
    His face was matted with blood. Even his eyes were bloody.
    Tchernak dropped him so fast, he bounced. Then he ran outside away from the room and threw up his guts.

CHAPTER 43

    Kiernan screeched into a U and headed back north on Route 93 and into the cafe parking lot. The gold Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo had Nevada plates but no rental sticker. The Jeep could belong to anyone. Still, she couldn’t ignore it.
    She knocked on the motel room door. It swung open. The room was dark, but the outside light sent an ever paler trapezoid across the floor and onto the bed. She could see the jumble of dark blankets and sheets clumped together on the far bed. The air coming out of the room was hot. And the smell. Jesus, she knew the smell of bowels released, of urine shot in fear, of blood spurted and pooled. Of death.
    Feet. Jean-clad legs. “Oh, God, Tchernak! No!” Her throat swelled closed; her eyes stung. She was shaking so hard she couldn’t move. She didn’t hear any