“What? What did you give me?”
“Do you feel hot?”
“Hot?”
“Not hot as in Girls Gone Wild’—I mean hot as in burning up.”
She did feel hot. She tried to bring her legs under her to stand up and found she couldn’t. Her legs weren’t responding. They felt like wood. Rigid.
Her tailbone throbbed from the fall, and her hip hurt where the needle went in. The ache seemed to be spreading up into the small of her back. “What did you give me?”
“Steatoda juliei.”
“What?” Her body was clenching. Sweat popped out on her forehead, her upper lip, her arms, trickled down her sides.
“Steatoda juliei,” Galaz said. “It’s a neurotoxin that comes from the false black widow.”
It felt like she was cramping up—everywhere at once.
Galaz continued, “The term ‘false’ is misleading, since there are few differences between Steatoda and Latrodectus. The black widow is glossy black, as opposed to a matte finish—that’s steatoda—and the steatoda doesn’t have the hourglass on its belly, but otherwise, they’re almost identical. Especially where their neurotoxins are concerned.”
Locked in pain, Laura followed his words, but there was a lag. She could feel a buzzing in her brain and knew it was pure fear. This wasn’t just pain, it was agony, her body slippery with sweat—soaking every inch of her skin, in her eyes, blotting her blouse with it. And clenching, God, her toes were clenching and the pain just wouldn’t stop …
Galaz said, “There are variations in neurotoxins from species to species. Some are far more extreme than others. This particular neurotoxin is pretty severe, but fortunately for you, not long-lasting. One, two hours at the most, and then the effects wear off. Another choice of spider, and you could be in incredible pain for two or three days. But I chose Steatoda juliei because we don’t need that long.”
She looked at his crossed legs, the top leg moving back and forth. Using his knee as a fulcrum. He was smiling. “I gave this Steatoda its name. Since I spent months studying the effects of its venom on everything from bunny rabbits to horses, I can safely say this was an unnamed species, until now. That’s Phylum: Arthropoda; Subphylum: Celicerata; Class: Arachnida; Order: Aranae; Genus: Steatoda; Species: juliei.”
Suddenly, her lower back bloomed like a bright red flower, pain so crushing and absolute that for a moment she couldn’t breathe.
She closed her eyes and moaned. Her instinct told her to curl up in a fetal position on the floor, but her abdominal muscles were as stiff as a washboard. She gulped air, tried to roll with the cramping pain, but couldn’t: It was the bright screaming center of her brain.
Galaz was talking at her but she didn’t understand much of what he said.
“When you find a new species you can name it after anything you want—other than yourself. That would be in bad taste. You just add an ‘i’ to the end. So I named it Steatoda juliei. Do you know why I chose juliei?” He leaned his upper body as far forward as it would go so he was looking into her eyes.
Julie Marr. She didn’t know if she spoke it out loud or if she just thought it.
“I meant this dose for Buddy Holland’s daughter. I wanted to see how she reacted, but—” He shrugged— “The best-laid plans … you know the saying.” He turned to Harmon. How is our other patient?”
“He’s dead.”
“You sure this time?”
“Uh-huh.”
Galaz stood. “We’d better go then. You’ll have to carry her. Give me her gun.” Galaz removed his own gun from the paddle holster on his hip and traded it for Laura’s Sig Sauer. Harmon tucked Galaz’s gun into his ankle holster.
“That reminds me. Better check her boots, too. She should have another weapon.”
Harmon’s manhandling was excruciating. He found her second gun, her mace, her knife.
Galaz put his index finger to his lip. “What we’ll do is, you make sure this place looks right. Doesn’t matter about hair and fibers, lots of people come here. What about Freddy?”
“I saw him race out of here. He won’t be back for a while.”
Galaz said to Laura, “Freddy thinks someone stomped his boyfriend. He’s probably just now figuring out his inamorata isn’t at St. Mary’s Hospital. Pretty ingenious, don’t you think? If only you hadn’t come early and spoiled the party.” He sighed. “I should have known—you never know when to stop.”
Laura barely heard him. Her arms felt as if they were being pulled out of their sockets, handcuffed as they were behind her back. Every muscle, long and short, big and small—writhing, turning inside-out, flopping like an oxygen-starved fish, wringing itself limp, squirting pain and adrenaline into her system.
“Aren’t you even curious where we’re going?”
Laura tried to say something, but couldn’t.
“You mean to tell me you haven’t figured it out?”
He stood over her, the toe of his alligator-skin loafer inches from her face.
“We’re going to see Summer,” he said.
Buddy Holland trailed Laura Cardinal to a house in midtown, then to Fort Lowell Road. He knew from the way she was acting that Cardinal was on to something and he wanted to know what it was.
It was easy to get locked out in an investigation like this—he was just some cop from Bisbee with no power here. He also knew that Cardinal didn’t trust him because Summer was his daughter. He understood how she could think that. But he didn’t care how she felt; he wanted to find his daughter, and no one was going to stop him.
He watched her drive through the gates to what looked like an estate. He got out and walked up the utility road along the east side of the property, lined with a new ten-foot-high, chain link fence topped with barbed wire, every panel marked NO TRESPASSING in big red letters. When he came to a place where the lane curved, he spotted a mirror by the side of the road to show the blind corner. The last time he’d seen something like that was in Germany, where he’d been stationed during his stint in the Army. Fingers locked into the chain link, Buddy peered through the kaleidoscope of foliage at the narrow road and saw Laura Cardinal’s car stopped on the lane as she talked to someone in a black SUV.
The SUV turned around and followed her up the lane. They turned in at some tall trees—where he assumed the house was. Buddy wondered if the black Suburban belonged to the DPS lieutenant, Galaz. Whatever they were doing, he and Victor had been kept in the dark. Maybe it didn’t have anything to do with Summer’s kidnapping. Maybe their meeting was of a personal nature.
Still, he decided to stay around awhile and see what happened.
He backed his Caprice under a tamarisk tree a little ways back from the road, where he could keep an eye on the entrance. The sun was low in the sky and the shade of the tamarisk, dense and inky, concealed the car well.
A little over an hour later, he heard cars coming up the lane. Galaz’s black Suburban drove slowly out the gate and turned right onto Fort Lowell, followed by Laura Cardinal’s 4Runner.
The glass was dark on the SUV, but he thought he saw a person in the passenger seat. A man drove Laura Cardinal’s 4Runner. He was by himself.
Why wasn’t Cardinal driving her own car? Was she riding with Galaz?
There was something secretive about this that seemed off.
Buddy realized he had a choice. He could go onto the property, or he could follow Galaz and the 4Runner.
He compromised by calling Victor Celaya. Victor said he would send someone to check out the property. That worked out, Buddy put his brown Caprice into gear and slipped into the traffic stream like an alligator into a river.