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  Alien Rites

  Lynn Hightower

  PRAISE FOR THE WRITING OF LYNN HIGHTOWER

  “Lynn Hightower is a major talent.” —Jonathan Kellerman, New York Times–bestselling author

  “Hightower is a writer of tremendous quality.” —Library Journal

  PRAISE FOR THE ELAKI NOVELS

  “The crimes are out of The Silence of the Lambs, the cops out of Lethal Weapon, and the grimy future out of Blade Runner … Vivid and convincing.” —Lexington Herald-Leader

  “One of the best new series in the genre!” —Science Fiction Chronicle

  Alien Blues

  “Hightower takes the setup and delivers a grittily realistic and down-and-dirty serial killer novel.… Impressive … A very promising first novel.” —Locus

  “Brilliantly entertaining. I recommend it highly. A crackerjack novel of police detection and an evocative glimpse of a possible future.” —Nancy Pickard, bestselling author of I.O.U.

  “[The] cast of characters is interesting and diverse, the setting credible, and the pacing rapid-fire and gripping.” —Science Fiction Chronicle

  “An exciting, science-fictional police procedural with truly alien aliens … An absorbing, well-written book.” —Aboriginal Science Fiction

  “Truly special … Original characters, plot twists galore, in a book that can be enjoyed for its mystery aspects as well as its SF … A real treat.” —Arlene Garcia

  “Hightower shows both humans and Elaki as individuals with foibles and problems. Alien Blues provides plenty of fast-paced action.… An effective police drama.” —SF Commentary

  “Hightower tells her story with the cool efficiency of a Mafia hit man.… With its lean, matter-of-fact style, cliff-hanger chapter endings and plentiful (and often comic) dialogue, Alien Blues moves forward at warp speed!” —Lexington Herald-Leader

  “A great story … Fast and violent … Difficult to put down!” —Kliatt

  “An intriguing world!” —Analog Science Fiction and Fact

  Alien Eyes

  “Alien Eyes is a page-turner.… Fun, fast-moving … A police procedural in a day-after-tomorrow world.” —Lexington Herald-Leader

  “Hightower takes elements of cyberpunk and novels about a benevolent alien invasion and combines them with a gritty realism of a police procedural to make stories that are completely her own.… A believable future with a believable alien culture … Interesting settings, intriguing ideas, fascinating characters [and] a high level of suspense!” —Turret

  “Complex … Snappy … Original.” —Asimov’s Science Fiction

  “The sequel to the excellent Alien Blues [is] a very fine SF novel.… I’m looking forward to the next installment!” —Science Fiction Chronicle

  PRAISE FOR THE SONORA BLAIR MYSTERIES

  Flashpoint

  “Diabolically intriguing from start to finish.” —Publishers Weekly

  “Miraculously fresh and harrowing.” —Kirkus Reviews

  “Rings with gritty authenticity. You won’t be able to put it down and you won’t want to sleep again. Riveting.” —Lisa Scottoline, New York Times–bestselling author

  Eyeshot

  “Hightower has invented a heroine who is both flawed and likeable, and she knows how to keep the psychological pressure turned up high.” —The Sunday Telegraph

  “What gives [Eyeshot] depth and resonance is the way Hightower counterpoints the murder plot with the details of Sonora’s daily life in homicide.” —Publishers Weekly

  No Good Deed

  “Powerful, crisply paced.” —Publishers Weekly

  “Refreshingly different … A cracking tale told at a stunning pace.” —Frances Fyfield

  The Debt Collector

  “Hightower builds the suspense to an almost unbearable pitch.” —Publishers Weekly

  “Well-written and satisfyingly plotted. Best of all is Sonora herself—a feisty babe who packs a red lipstick along with her gun.” —The Times (London)

  To my brother, Jay Christopher,

  who’s one of my best buddies.

  I’m glad we didn’t kill each other

  while we were growing up.

  The terrible gift that the dead make to the living is that of sight, which is to say foreknowledge; in return they demand memory, which is to say acknowledgment.

  —Luc Sante, Evidence

  ONE

  David’s stomach sank when he saw the spatters of brown blood in the front seat of the car. He had hoped, for no particular reason, that there might still be a chance of finding Luke Cochran alive. The uniform leaned over his shoulder, rain coursing down the slicker over his arm. He pointed his light, adding to the dim thread of brightness from the overhead dome.

  “She identified the shoe.”

  David looked at the dirty white tennis shoe—an Eckler, expensive brand. Cochran was a big kid, over six feet, and the shoe looked a size eleven. The laces were frayed, and there was a wad of pink bubble gum stuck to the sole. It was wedged in the hinge of the front seat door, passenger’s side, as if Cochran’s foot had caught and been wrenched free, leaving the shoe behind.

  Someone moving the body?

  David ducked out of the open door, head exposed to the downpour of warm, fat rain. “Gotten a statement from the car yet?”

  Cochran’s car was a sleek, shiny black Visck. It had been pristine and beautiful before it jumped the guardrail and went over the side of the exit ramp into the weed-choked thicket. Raindrops beaded on a paint job that still shone.

  David backed into a tangle of sticker vines, tearing the skin across the back of his hand. Rain-diluted blood ran down his fingers. He wiped his hand absently across the back of his jeans, and tripped over an empty, dirt-encrusted carton of Jack Daniels.

  The uniform put a hand out. “Steady, sir.”

  David took a second look at the fleshy young face of the embryo in uniform. His ego plummeted. Steady, sir?

  He slogged through knee-high weeds to take a look at the car from the other side. He was wet enough not to care how much more rain he absorbed. The generator on the Crime Scene Unit’s van throbbed, someone shouted “Lights,” and the car was suddenly bathed in bright yellow illumination.

  The light turned everything sordid.

  The exit ramp ran with water, coursing over a sodden grey diaper, and the pitted asphalt shimmered with the reflected glow of light. The ragged remains of a pale pink dress circled a guardrail support. David glanced over his shoulder, down the hill toward Elaki-Town. The street lights were dark here at four A.M., and the storefronts, antique stalls, small bars, and restaurants were dark humps at the bottom of the hill.

  David wondered about that. No light at all? He was sure the storefronts and restaurants usually stayed lighted. Didn’t they?

  A car made a shark pass on the main drag, catching the hulking presence of Elaki in its headlights. David hoped the car doors were locked tight, shrugged his shoulders at anyone foolish enough to be in Elaki-Town this time of night. He wondered if he’d be called to a fresh crime scene at the bottom of the hill before he was finished with the one at hand.

  He looked back at the dark streets, sensing the Elaki backed up into the storefronts. Watching, he supposed—the carnival of red and blue lights, vans, ambulances. Human drama. He was wondering where the hell Mel and String were, when he caught sight of the girl.

  She stood on the exit ramp under a street light, as if seeking warmth. Her shoulders sagged low, feet turned inward—pigeon-toed, elbows out. She was worrisomely thin, arms bony and bare and running with rain. Her electric-blue tank top had a hig
h collar, and her jeans were threadbare, sagging under the weight of water absorbed. She clutched a large bundle of blankets to her chest, and her eyes were closed.

  The bundle in her arms moved, and David realized that she held a small child, a toddler, no more than two or three.

  He looked at the uniform and pointed. “Who is that?”

  “Oh. That’s her.”

  “Her?”

  “The one all the fuss was about, who poisoned her newborn baby. Annie Trey.”

  She did not look old enough to be out after curfew. David moved toward her, noting that the technicians, uniforms, and detectives kept a constant distance from this small young girl, as if she were contaminated. He counted five large umbrellas. Four empty cars. And no one had offered to shelter this child with a child from the wet and the dark.

  The baby coughed, sounding croupy, emitting a small cry heavy with misery. The girl tucked the small head under her chin, tightened her grip, and cooed softly. She did not open her eyes. She bent forward, as if her back ached, and David wondered how long she had stood there, holding the child.

  TWO

  Annie Trey opened her eyes when he approached, large blue eyes. Her hair was chin-length and dark, wet and close on her scalp. There was a nasty scab on one cheek, and her lashes were brown and thin. The freckles on her nose and cheeks were faint enough that you couldn’t see them unless you got close.

  David did not think he had ever seen anyone who gave so strong an impression of being separate and alone.

  Annie Trey had been much in the news—the unwed mother of an eighteen-month-old daughter, and a newborn son who died at three weeks of a violent and mysterious ailment that was toxic, swift, and unkind. She had not yet been indicted, except by the media, but there was talk of poison, and a simmering outrage that the toddler was still in her care.

  As far as David knew, the case was still under investigation. Public opinion was unsympathetic. Annie Trey was not pretty. She was below average in intelligence. She was not married, though she had admitted wistfully on the evening news that she’d like to be. She was from the South, somewhere small and obscure in Mississippi. She was quoted saying things like “being done dirt.”

  People did not like to think that newborn babies could die suddenly, painfully, and unexpectedly without someone to blame. Even those who were objective enough to reserve judgment could not help thinking there must be some reason the newspapers were after this Trey girl. And if Annie Trey had indeed poisoned her child, horrible as that might be, the tragedy kept its distance. Pregnant women could rest easier knowing such a thing could not happen to their babies.

  David held out a hand. “Let’s get you and your little one out of the rain, shall we?”

  She looked at him. Blinked.

  “I’m Detective Silver. David.”

  It took another beat for the words to sink in, and even then, she was wary. She inclined her head toward a knot of uniforms and detectives next to a patrol car.

  “They said I had to stay.” Her voice was in the upper registers, sharp around the edges.

  David’s jaw went tight, but he smiled. “Not in the rain, you don’t. Let’s get your baby out of this wind.”

  She thought a minute, then nodded and followed him to his car, which he’d left parked in the middle of the exit ramp. The headlights cast strips of illumination across her wet jeans. Drops of rain jittered in the light.

  David opened the passenger door, motioned her in. He reached for the baby. She paused, looked at him carefully, and handed him the child. The father in him applauded her caution.

  He peeped under the blanket, careful not to expose the child’s head.

  A beauty, this little girl. Eyes big and brown, fat black curls damp and wiry. She had sweet, fine, baby skin, flushed red now, with fever. The tiny button nose dripped, and David wiped it clean with his handkerchief.

  The baby coughed, croupy and deep. David handed her to her mother and closed the door on the rain. He opened the trunk of the car, found a thick blue towel, worn but clean, opened the driver’s door.

  Annie Trey took the towel, head cocked to one side, eyes narrow, while he gave instructions to the car.

  “Ms. Trey and her baby will be sitting here for now. Please stay put and let Ms. Trey instruct you as to heat and comfort.” He smiled at the girl, who was only a few years older than his own Kendra. “Be right back.” He glanced over his shoulder, resisted the urge to tell her to lock the doors. She should be safe, cops everywhere you looked.

  He had not recognized the woman in the beige raincoat, and he studied her as he approached the cluster of detectives. She was short and stocky, built like a large dwarf, not unattractive, hair short, thick, and swingy. Her eyes were brown, carefully made up, eyebrows thick.

  She stood next to Vincent Thurmon, Detective, Missing Persons. This one David knew. He held out a hand.

  “Vince?”

  “David? I heard you caught this one. Didn’t recognize you down there.”

  They shook hands, Thurmon squinting through reddened blue eyes. The lenses of his eyes were milky and opaque—no surprise he hadn’t known David till he was close enough to touch. Seven years ago he’d disarmed a man threatening yet another MacDonalds, eyes powder-burned in the struggle as the gun went off in his face. It was a freaky thing—the bullet missed him entirely, but his eyes were seriously infected by the time he made it through the clogged healthcare system. The routing physician made a miscall—not terribly unusual. Thurmon had lost sixty-five percent of his vision.

  “I guess this is your baby now,” Thurmon said. “Let me know how I can help.”

  David nodded, frowning. Definitely alcohol on the man’s breath. Maybe he’d been off duty when the call came in. As always, he wore a hat, and water had beaded on the brim. He motioned for David to come under the umbrella.

  David shrugged. “Can’t get much wetter than I am already.”

  “Where is Annie?” This from the woman in the beige raincoat.

  David gave her a second look, knowing that both she and Thurmon had watched while he settled the girl and her child in his car. Perhaps this was her way of muscling into the conversation.

  He ignored her. “I don’t have much background on this, Thurmon.”

  Thurmon nodded. “Came in as a 911 five days ago.”

  “Tuesday,” David said.

  The woman grinned, friendly. “Very good, Detective. Tuesday was five days ago.”

  Thurmon waved a hand. “This is Angie Nassif. She’s—”

  “I’m a social worker. Annie’s one of mine.”

  One of mine. David did not like the way she said it. He gave her a stiff nod, thinking this was the one who had turned Annie in for investigation. Realized he was taking sides way too early in the game.

  “If I look familiar, it’s probably because you’ve seen me on the news.” Her grin had a sort of gamine, chipmunk quality. Which was not reason enough to dislike her as much as he did.

  Cops and social workers, he thought. Oil and water.

  “Why are you here?” David asked.

  Her mouth opened; then she shrugged. “I’m here to look after Annie. And the child, of course.”

  She was standing uphill, but was short enough that he still looked down at her. “You must have just gotten here, Ms. Nassif. You’ll be relieved to know that Ms. Trey and her baby are safe in my car. Out of the rain and the wind.”

  She had a clear, dusky complexion. The blush spread from the neckline of the tight white Peter Pan collar on the silk blouse, up the short neck, across the powdered cheeks.

  It shut her up.

  David turned back to Thurmon. “Who made the call? The 911.”

  “Annie … uh, Ms. Trey. Said she was on the phone to this kid, Luke Cochran, and he said something about somebody messing with his car, and he’d be right back.” Thurmon belched discreetly into his fist.

  “Then what?” David said.

  “She waited on the phone a while,
but he never came back. So she called the police.”

  David frowned. “Why’d she call the police?”

  “What?”

  “Most people would assume they were cut off.”

  “Phone told her he’d left the room. He didn’t come back. We sent a patrol car out. Car and the kid both gone.” Thurmon shrugged. “So. He left her hanging, not a criminal offense. All things considered, we didn’t make too much of it.”

  No, David thought. Someone like Annie Trey worried about a boyfriend. Not a ripple.

  “Anybody seen him since?”

  Thurmon shrugged. “Not sure.”

  Didn’t check, David thought. “There’s blood in the car.”

  Thurmon grimaced. “I heard. Look, Silver, I’ll send you my file. A recording of the 911 thing. Anything else—”

  “I’ll let you know.” David shook the man’s hand.

  Thurmon turned away, then looked back over his shoulder. “We’ve got a hell of a workload, Silver. And you know how they are.”

  “They?”

  “Women.”

  David nodded.

  “Angie, I give you a ride?” Thurmon asked.

  “No, I think I’ll stick around.” She stood on tiptoe, trying to look over David’s shoulder.

  He turned, saw the first yellow van that meant media.

  “Detective Silver?”

  “Yes, Ms. Nassif?”

  “Are you going to be questioning Annie?”

  He looked at her, said nothing.

  She stood up straighten “Maybe I should come along.”

  “Why?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Why should you come along?”

  “Well … I …” Her eyes went narrow. “Most police officers cooperate with my department, Officer.”

  “Sooner or later everybody runs out of luck.” David jammed his hands in his pockets, headed down the exit ramp to his car. He wondered why he’d declared out and out war with Social Services. As if he didn’t have enough to worry about.