Liz stared at the back of Valenti's head through the metal grill separating the front and back seats. She knew he was playing some intimidation game with her-and it was working. He was freaking her out. Had he found out what really happened at the cafe? Did he know Max healed her? Did he know everything?
Make him tell you what he knows, Liz coached herself. Don't volunteer anything. Don't start talking just to fill the silence. That's exactly what he wants. She leaned her head against the seat, trying for a bored expression. She felt as if any word she said, any tiny gesture she made, could put Max in danger.
The air in the car smelled like cigarettes, and plastic, and sweat, and something medicinal. She wanted to crack the window, but she doubted that windows in police cars rolled down.
Valenti pulled into the parking lot of a small mustard yellow building near the edge of town. He got out of the car and closed the door with a quiet click. Liz almost wished he'd slammed it. At least then he'd seem human. Instead he was an ice man, totally in control. She knew she couldn't play him the way she had Elsevan DuPris.
He opened her door and started across the parking lot. Liz scrambled out and caught up with him. She lengthened her stride until it matched his. They walked across the parking lot and through the building's glass double doors side by side. She wasn't going to walk three paces behind him like a pathetic little puppy dog.
As they walked down a long hallway covered with ugly specked linoleum Liz tried to remember every detail of the story she told him at the cafe. She needed to be able to repeat it back to him today without slipping up.
Valenti stopped abruptly and swung open a door on the left. He stood back and let Liz enter the room first, then closed the door behind them.
Liz couldn't stop herself from giving a tiny gasp as she stared around the windowless room. A morgue. She was standing in a morgue. Liz had seen way too many cop shows not to recognize the stacked rows of metal drawers along one wall.
Oh, God. This wasn't about Max. She was here to identify a body. Who? her mind screamed. Who is it?
Valenti brushed past her and strode along the wall. He grabbed the handle of one of the drawers and slid it open. The sound of the tiny metal wheels rolling in their tracks sent a chill through Liz.
"I want you to see this," Valenti said, his voice calm and cool.
There was a body stretched out on the cold metal of the drawer. A plastic sheet covered it from head to toe, but Liz knew if she walked over there, Valenti would pull back that sheet, and she would have to look. She didn't want to. She didn't. If she looked, it would be real. It would be someone she knew.
Tears filled her eyes. When Rosa died, Liz had never seen her body. She could never bring herself to look, even to say good-bye. Now she had no choice. Whose body was this? Why wouldn't Valenti just tell her what had happened?
Who is it? Liz's feet moved toward the drawer. Papa? Mama? She couldn't stop herself from going over there. She couldn't stop herself from looking down at the body She couldn't see much through the plastic, but she could tell that the corpse wasn't anyone she knew.
White-hot fury ripped through her. She whirled toward Valenti. "How could you do that to me? You let me think that…" She couldn't finish. If she said one more word, she knew she would start crying. And she wasn't going to give Valenti the satisfaction.
Valenti didn't answer. He took the top of the plastic sheet in both hands and pulled it halfway down. "What do you make of the marks on this man?" He sounded as if he were just making casual conversation, as if he had no idea he'd just put her through the most terrifying moments of her life.
Or as if he didn't care.
Liz stared at Valenti. She saw her own face staring back at her from the mirrored lenses of his shades. She felt as if she had fallen into some strange dream. Nothing made sense. Valenti was asking her to help him study a stranger's corpse? Why?
"The marks," Valenti repeated.
I have to do this, she thought. It's the only way I'm going to get out of here. She slowly lowered her eyes to the corpse. The first thing she saw was two handprints on the man's chest-iridescent silver handprints. She knew that if she placed Max's hands over those marks, they would be an exact match.
If he can heal with a touch, can he kill with a touch?
I guess I have the answer to that question, she thought. Sour bile rose in her throat.
"I… I've never seen anything like them before," Liz stammered. She needed time to think, time to figure out what to do. Maybe Max had a good reason for killing this guy. Maybe the guy was attacking him or something.
She forced herself to look at the corpse's face. The man looked about her father's age. His brown eyes stared vacantly at the ceiling. His lips were frozen in a grimace of pain.
Liz gagged. How could there be a good reason for killing this man? For killing anyone?
"That's interesting," Valenti said. "Because my son, Kyle, mentioned that he had seen similar marks on your stomach."
"He was wrong. It was just a temporary tattoo." She ripped her shirt out of her jeans and held it up. "See. No marks." She smoothed the shirt back over her stomach.
The handprints had been fading a little at a time. If Valenti had brought her in one day earlier, she wouldn't have been able to back up her story.
"Can we go now?" Liz asked. It came out sounding a little too much like a plea, but she couldn't help it.
Valenti ignored her. "I've seen marks like this before," he said. "They are made by the touch of a particular race of alien beings."
Liz's mouth dropped open. "You believe in aliens?"
What had happened to her nice, orderly world? The world ruled by the periodic chart? A week ago the only people who believed in aliens were tourists. Suckers who would go gaga over a photo of a melted doll. Now she had absolute proof that aliens existed. And the sheriff-Mr. Ice Man-was telling her he believed in them, too.
Valenti reached up and slid off his sunglasses. He shouldn't have bothered, Liz thought. His eyes were a cold gray that revealed nothing of what he was think-
"I am going to tell you something that I have never told a civilian-not even my own son," Valenti said. "But you're a smart girl, and you can help me. I am an agent for an organization called Project Clean Slate. Our purpose is to track down alien beings living in the United States and make sure that they pose no threat to the human population."
Liz gazed at him, trying to ignore the emotions rushing through her. Max killed someone, Max is an alien, Max is dangerous. Max loves me.
"This organization was formed in 1947, the year of the crash. That was the year we realized that aliens exist, aliens with the technology to travel to another galaxy."
"But everyone knows that UFO was a downed weather balloon," Liz said weakly.
"Don't play games with me, Ms. Ortecho," Valenti answered. "I know you've had contact with an alien. I suspect this alien somehow survived the 1947 crash, perhaps as a child who was still incubating. And I want to know what you are going to do about it."
Liz shook her head. "I don't know what you-"
"The alien who healed your gunshot wound killed this man," Valenti interrupted.
"I wasn't shot. I fell. I broke a bottle of ketchup." I wish that story were true, Liz thought. I wish I could go back to living in the safe little world where I knew all the rules, and there were no real surprises.
"That alien will kill again," Valenti continued. "Can you live with that? I saw your face when you thought it was someone you loved lying under this sheet. If you continue to protect the alien, one day soon someone will be standing right where you are, identifying the body of his mother, his father, his sister, or even his child.
"You can stop that from happening. All you have to do is tell me where to find the alien."
Liz took a deep breath. Then she pulled the sheet up so that it covered the dead man's face.