Perfect Specimen: Brietta (13 page)

Now Ga’rag would kill them both—the specimen
and
the witness. But in that moment an earsplitting bang exploded out of nowhere, and Ga’rag slumped to the ground, blue blood pouring from a gaping wound in his chest.

Not daring to believe her eyes, Brietta turned to see Taggert prostrate on the ground, waving Hannan’s pistol in the air and grinning a shaky grin. Then he scrambled to his feet and strode over to pull her into a hearty embrace.

“My God,” she whispered, still disbelieving. “Please tell me that was another hallucination.”

“Not this time.” He tilted her face up to his and scanned her anxiously. “Are you okay? Do you believe that? It was a fucking space alien. And you—man, he wanted you bad. And by bad, I mean
bad
.”

“His ‘specimen,’ whatever
that
means,” she agreed, trying to laugh and failing. “Thanks for shooting him.”

“
You’re
the rock star,” he assured her. “Total guts.”

She wrapped her arms around Taggert’s chest. “I thought we were dead. So much for this stupid cavern protecting me.”

“It
did
protect us,” Taggert reminded her. “If he could have beamed you up from in here, I would have lost you for sure. Plus, he couldn’t make your head hurt in here. I mean”—he grimaced—“we think he was causing the sinus headaches too, right?”

“I guess we’ll find out when we go outside.” Relaxing finally, she smothered his mouth with exuberant kisses, then smiled up at him. “We saved each other’s lives. I just wish we could have saved Hannan too.”

“He was going to shoot me, then you. And I doubt he would have let me get close enough to mace him.”

“I know but . . .” She knelt beside the bodyguard’s lifeless body. “I really liked him. He was a great guy, except for the trying-to-kill-us part.”

“Yeah, I liked him too.” Taggert knelt beside her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. “How do you want to handle this?”

“Handle it?” Brietta sighed. “Can’t we just throw them both into the fissure?” When Taggert arched a reproachful eyebrow, she assured him, “I know, I know. It’s just—you want to be famous for discovering the cavern, right? Not for capturing ET’s evil twin.”

“ET and his laser blaster definitely belong in the fissure,” Taggert said with a weary chuckle. “But we’re scientists, so destroying this sort of groundbreaking evidence isn’t an option, right? And meanwhile, Hannan’s aunt is a nice woman. I need to tell her something right away. Something believable.” He turned the body over and suggested carefully, “Maybe we could say he was struck by lightning?”

Brietta nodded. “It actually looks like that, doesn’t it? Poor Hannan.”

“Yeah, it must’ve been excruciating. But instantaneous, so that’s a blessing, right? And speaking of blessings . . .” He pulled her to her feet, then brought her over to their makeshift bed, urging her down onto it. “I need another kiss.”

She leaned back eagerly, then was distracted by a gleaming copper-colored spot toward the middle of the dome. “Taggert?”

He was already nuzzling her neck. “Yeah?”

“Sean, look!” She pointed upward, and he reluctantly broke off his seduction and glanced up at the ceiling.

“What the . . . ?”

“The blaster stripped the rock away,” she guessed. “Which means it wasn’t really rock, right? Or at least not naturally occurring rock.”

Taggert stood and stared. “Impossible. I checked so many spots, and it was definitely rock. Real rock. I drilled into it at least twenty inches—”

“But not up there.” She smiled. “You would have found it eventually—hey, what are you doing?”

He had retrieved Ga’rag’s space gun and was examining it critically.

“You can’t just shoot it,” she began, but apparently she was wrong, because that was exactly what he did, blasting away the textured coating from a three-foot section of the dome. “Wow. It’s—well, it’s some sort of mural, right?”

“Yeah.” Taggert seemed mesmerized. “A mural. Copper or maybe bronze? Not gold, right? But—” He flashed a shaky grin. “Emeralds, I think. See them?”

“Or peridot. Or green volcanic glass—”

”Cut it out,” he warned her playfully.

She jumped up, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him. “I hope for my sake they’re emeralds. I could use a decent necklace—”

“You’re hilarious,” he assured her with a grin. “And by the way, slight change of plans. I’m keeping the ray gun.”

“You can’t. It connects us to Hannan’s death. It lands us on the freak show channel. And it’s lazy digging.” She smiled sympathetically. “We should hide it now, in fact. And the creep’s body too, pending our decision to toss it in the pit forever. Then we should load Hannan onto Kasha. Poor horse.”

“We have the SUV,” Taggert reminded her. “That’s how Hannan got here. So we’ll carry him that way. After I hide the lizard’s body. Wanna watch?”

She trailed him as he dragged Ga’rag’s corpse through the cave entrance, but no sooner had they gotten outside than a patch on the alien’s armband began to flash a white light. Instinctively, she grabbed Taggert away just as the body dematerialized.

“Oh, no!” Her heart sank. “He’s got friends, and now
they’ll
come after us.”

“I’m not so sure,” Taggert mused. “That signal was probably set to grab him—and anyone he had hold of—as soon as he got outside. Automated, which means there’s
less
chance of other lizards showing up, not more chance. Plus, they would have been here by now, right?”

She moistened her lips, trying not to panic.

“He was a lone wolf, I’m sure of it. Didn’t you see how he treated you? For some freakish reason, it was personal. He said it himself, remember? You were
his
specimen. He didn’t say
our
specimen. Not once.”

“He hated me and my whole clan,” she agreed. “And he kept saying he didn’t dare kill me, even though he wanted to. So maybe you’re right—he was a lone wolf. A rogue.” She nodded in relief. “I’m going to let you keep the ray gun, though. We might need it.”

“I’ll take that deal.” He studied her curiously. “Still no headache, right?”

“All gone, thank God.”

“Great. So let’s get going, okay? We can come back later in the day, but for now I’ve gotta get Hannan’s body into the village.”

She didn’t envy him the job of explaining things to the aunt, so she slipped her arms around his waist, then kissed him tenderly. “Today’s going to be rough, but after that, everything will be perfect.”

“Just you and me? With an ancient dome over our heads? Yeah, that sounds pretty good. The sooner we start clearing the rest of the fake rock away from the mural, the better. And we’ll bring the potheads in on it soon, too,” he promised. “Meanwhile, I’ll get hold of a working phone in town so you can call your doctor cousin.”

She smiled as she thought of the Ryerson family. “It’s the lawyer cousin I want to talk to. Apparently he has a new girlfriend and I want to hear all the details.”

“And you can tell them about your new boyfriend,” he said, wagging his eyebrow suggestively. “Right?”

“I can’t wait for you to meet them,” she agreed.

“Are you going to tell them about all this? It’s fine with me,” he added, as though anticipating another power struggle. “It’s just so bizarre.”

“We’ll tell them together. You’re my witness, remember? Plus”—she slipped her arms around his neck—“I want them to see what a heroic hunk I landed.”

“And what a heroic babe
you
are?”

“Exactly!” She laughed in delight. “Can you imagine? A doctor, a lawyer, a shrink and a college bum—leading their safe, boring lives. They’ll
never
be able to relate to
this
.”

About the Author

Kate was born in Ohio, moved to Rhode Island at the age of nine, and moved again during high school, this time to Northern California. She did her undergraduate work at Cal (Berkeley), where she met her future husband. After attending law school together, they settled in the Sacramento area, where she has juggled married life, children, lawyering, and writing. So far, so good!

In her spare time, she’s hooked on TV and movies (especially science fiction), reading, traveling, and cooking (mostly Mexican food, thanks to hands-on lessons from her mother-in-law).

Kate’s books range from time travel to spy stories to space adventures.