Lisa walked to her bedroom balcony window and pulled the curtains aside. She was wearing only a skimpy silk nighty, so it felt a bit exhibitionistic. She liked the feeling, and often dressed that way around the house. She enjoyed the constant reminder that her body remained as sleek and sexy as a runway model’s—even if her face wasn’t magazine material.
She opened her balcony doors and swung them inward. The motion caused a stir below, scattering crows as if Cruella de Vil were stepping into the morning sun rather than Pennsylvania’s next senator.
California was a West Coast state, so it was all about sunsets rather than sunrises. But the Pacific was still beautiful in the morning. Lisa raised her arms to revel in the glory, letting the cool sea breeze caress her body while it blew into her room.
While she sucked in the fragrant air and refreshing atmosphere, the crows returned and their cacophony resumed.
She was twenty feet above the expansive flagstone patio that boasted a sophisticated outdoor kitchen, complete with a fully functional bar and a rotisserie capable of cooking complete beasts. The big black birds were congregating about thirty feet off to her right, directly beneath one of the other balconies.
She couldn’t tell why. There were too many of them to identify the attraction. But the shape was foreboding.
A shudder ran down Lisa’s spine, leaving a tingling in her toes. Instead of reaching for her robe, she clapped twice to scatter the pests. Paralleling events of the previous night, they protested at first but obeyed after a second round.
As the crows dispersed and the shape took form, Lisa’s autonomic nervous system kicked in. Her heart jumped and her lungs jerked and her larynx let loose its first scream in years.
18
A Pattern Emerges
RIES BELIEVED that the secret to eternal youth was running barefoot on the beach. It was an odd conclusion for a biochemistry PhD to make, especially one who could recite the formula for the chemical compound that halted aging. But people were peculiar that way, filled with irony and fenced by incongruity.
It was the connection to eternity that convinced him. Alone on an empty beach at dusk or dawn with the sand squishing between his toes and the water swishing over his ankles, he couldn’t help but sense how insignificant he was. If he spent his entire life running up and down that beach, he wouldn’t even register as a blip on its timeline. The waves would keep crashing and the water would continue receding for a thousand lifetimes to come. They’d be completely impervious to the fact that he’d ever existed. As they would to the next million men who trod across that sand.
By internalizing the fact that his entire life would almost certainly be entirely inconsequential, Ries never ever had to worry. And when you didn’t worry, you didn’t age.
At least that was how Ries Robins, Immortal PhD, chose to look at it.
Nonetheless, the scream that capped off his morning run gave Ries cause for concern. Forceful enough to put a dozen crows to flight, it wasn’t a simple startle or the overreaction to an insect or mouse. It was a soul-cracking, gut-twisting, glass-shattering shriek of a scream, and it was coming from the back of Lisa’s house.
Once the air was free of flapping wings, he saw his friend standing on what he presumed was her bedroom balcony, given the fact that she was barely dressed. Already accelerating toward her in a run, he yelled, “What is it?”
She pointed to the patio two stories beneath her feet.
At first Ries saw a baby-blue bundle splotched with black. Then he made out the human form. A woman in a nightdress, clearly dead. Drawing closer, he recognized the remains of the face. Or rather the hair. Camilla.
He reached the scene a few seconds before David. They both stood staring as the others arrived. “She must have fallen,” Ries said, gesturing toward the balcony above her body. “Was she a sleepwalker?”
Nobody answered. Everyone was in shock.
Camilla was lying on her back as though the patio were a bed. A bloody halo indicated that her head had hit hard enough to crack. The imperfect circle surrounding her skull was matted with hair and crisscrossed by crow tracks. Worst of all, the birds had gorged on her eyes. And what lay below. Ries knew that their selection was a simple preference for soft fatty tissue, but as he stood there staring in the dawning light, it sure seemed like a message from God.
David glanced up at the balcony above Camilla, then over at Lisa. “Did you hear anything?”
“Not a peep,” Lisa muttered.
“Oh my God!” Allison cried, arriving and immediately turning away.
“Sleepwalking? Suicide? Murder? Drugs?” Ries thought out loud.
“I doubt it’s drugs,” David replied. “Her bloodwork has always been clean.”
“I don’t think she was a sleepwalker,” Lisa said, answering Ries’s question at last. “And she certainly wasn’t suicidal.” Lisa’s voice was returning to normal, although she continued to look away.
“Did anyone pay attention to how much Camilla had to drink?” David asked. Everyone was there now, all seven remaining Immortals.
When none of them answered the question, Felix said, “I’ll check her room.”
“We can’t call the police,” Pierce said. “I realize the autopsy likely wouldn’t reveal her special status, but we can’t be questioned. We aren’t prepared to explain our presence, or how we knew her—now that she’s no longer Camilla. As far as the government knows, Camilla Rose died earlier this year in Oceanside.”
Nobody replied to that. They all stood there staring—everywhere but at each other.
Ries considered the possibility that it might be murder. His thoughts immediately went to the MBA clique, not because he considered any of them capable of homicide, but because they were the A-types. The aggressive personalities. The ruthless achievers. And they had interacted with Camilla much more than the research staff. At least historically. These days, he didn’t know if anyone but Lisa had much contact with her. Camilla had always been the odd person out in their crowd.
Pierce would be Ries’s first suspect—assuming the choice was among Immortals. The original investor was the oldest member of the team, and the least connected aside from Aria, who would be near the bottom of his list. Next he’d guess either Felix or Lisa. Felix was a man, and men are more likely to commit murder. Lisa had always been cutthroat in the ambitious sense. If poison was involved in Camilla’s death, Lisa would move to the top of his list.
Pierce approached David and whispered loud enough for Ries to hear. “Can you do an autopsy?”
David grimaced. “My lab isn’t equipped for that, and there’s no way I’d take her corpse there in any case.”
Pierce reddened and shook his head. “Of course. My lips are moving faster than my brain.”
“I could take some blood and run some tests, but I wouldn’t be comfortable going beyond that. What are you thinking?”
“Poison.”
“Me too,” Ries added.
“I’ll go grab a couple of syringes,” David said.
Felix called down from the balcony. “There’s an empty wine glass in her bedroom, and an empty bottle.”
David returned with two syringes and bent over the body. Ries watched him draw blood from the femoral vein and urine straight from the bladder. He was quick and discreet. Given that the corpse’s unpleasant appearance had people looking away, Ries doubted anyone saw it happen.
Felix arrived on the patio toting a sheet, a blanket, and two pillowcases. He held the linen out and looked at Pierce. “Give me a hand.”
They draped the blanket over Camilla as if making a bed with her on one side—then rolled her up like a burrito. They lifted the roll onto the sheet and folded it from the left and the right. The result was surprisingly neat, respectful even.