Shadowfires

motel's rear exit, left it in a supermarket parking lot several blocks away, and returned on foot. Both going and coming, he avoided passing the windows of the motel office and therefore did not stir the curiosity of the night clerk. Tomorrow, with the need for wheels less urgent, they could take time to rent a car.
    In his absence, Rachael had visited the ice-maker and the soda-
vending machine. A plastic bucket brimming with ice cubes stood on
the small table by the window, plus cans of Diet Coke and regular
Coke and A&W Root Beer and Orange Crush.
    She said, “I thought you might be thirsty.”
    He was suddenly aware that they were smack in the middle of the
desert and that they had been moving in a sweat for hours. Standing,
he drank an Orange Crush in two swallows, finished a root beer nearly
as fast, then sat down and popped the tab on a Diet Coke. “Even with
the hump, how do camels do it?”
    As if dropping under an immense weight, she sat down on the other
side of the table, opened a Coke, and said, “Well?”
    “Well what?”
    “Aren't you going to ask?”
    He yawned, not out of perversity, and not because he wanted to
irritate her, but because at that moment the prospect of sleep was
more appealing than finally learning the truth of her circumstances.
He said, “Ask what?”
    “The same questions you've been asking all night.”
    “You made it clear you wouldn't give answers.”
    “Well, now I will. Now there's no keeping you out of it.”
    She looked so sad that Ben felt a cold premonition of death in his
bones and wondered if he had, indeed, been foolish to involve himself
even to help the woman he loved. She was looking at him as if he were
already dead-as if they were both dead.
    “So if you're ready to tell me,” he said, “then I don't need to
ask questions.”
    “You're going to have to keep an open mind. What I'm about to tell
you might seem unbelievable… damn strange.”
    He sipped the Diet Coke and said, “You mean about Eric dying and
coming back from the dead?”
    She jerked in surprise and gaped at him. She tried to speak but
couldn't get any words out.
    He had never in his life elicited such a rewarding reaction from
anyone else, and he took enormous pleasure in it.
    At last she said, “But… but, how… when… what…”
    He said, “How do I know what I know? When did I figure it out?
What clued me in?”
    She nodded.
    He said, “Hell, if someone had stolen Eric's body, they'd surely
have come with a car of their own to haul it away. They
wouldn't have had to kill a woman and steal her car. And there were those discarded hospital whites in the garage in Villa Park. Besides, you were scared witless from the moment I showed up at your door last evening, and you aren't
easily spooked.
You're a very competent and self-sufficient woman, not the type to get the willies. In fact, I've
never seen you scared of anything except maybe… Eric.”
    “He really was killed by that truck, you know. It isn't just that they misdiagnosed his condition.”
    The desire for sleep retreated a bit, and Ben said, “His business-
and genius-was genetic engineering. And the man was obsessed with
staying young. So I figure he found a way to edit out the genes
linked to aging and death. Or maybe he edited in an
artificially constructed gene for swift healing, tissue stasis…
immortality.”
    “You endlessly amaze me,” she said.
    “I'm quite a guy.”
    Her own weariness gave way to nervous energy. She could not keep
still. She got up and paced.
    He remained seated, sipping his Diet Coke. He had been badly
rattled all night; now it was her turn.
    Her bleak voice was tinted by dread, resignation. “When Geneplan
patented its first highly profitable artificial microorganisms, Eric
could've taken the company public, could've sold thirty percent of
his stock and made a hundred million overnight.”
    “A hundred? Jesus!”
    “His two partners and three of the research associates, who also
had pieces of the company, half wanted him to do just that because
they'd have made a killing, too. Everyone else but Vincent Baresco was leaning toward going for the gold. Eric refused.”
    “Baresco,” Ben said. “The guy who pulled the Magnum on us, the guy
I trashed in Eric's office tonight-is he a partner?”
    “It's Dr. Vincent Baresco. He's on
Eric's handpicked research staff-one of the few who know about the Wildcard Project. In fact, only the six of them knew everything. Six plus me. Eric loved to brag to me. Anyway,