Page 133 of Murder on Charity Lane

“Where?”

Mrs. B squinted at her phone. “A mile from here. Two miles? Hold on, where’s the … three minutes away. At VivX. Sunny Wheeler’s bankrupt business.”

“His life-extension place is back here?”

“Three minutes away.” She shuddered. “Can you imagine wanting to live forever?”

“Don’t you?”

“Goodness, no. On the other hand, I can imagine never wanting to die.”

“Let’s focus on doing that, then.” Ocean followed the road around a gentle curve. “Hamilton told me the life-extension people get organ transplants and inject blood proteins. Or, like, spinal fluid? I don’t know. What does Lily-Ann think we’re going to find at a defunct lab?”

“I’ve no idea. Maybe we can interview the grizzled caretaker and he’ll tell us all about Sunny’s scandal. Or there’s a real estate motive? Like there was with poor Gregory Ybarra.”

“Poor Gregory Ybarra tried to blackmail you and steal the Cottages,” Ocean reminded her.

“Which is how he ended up dead,” she said. “It’s okay to feel remorse, Ocean.”

“Fine, but do it silently,” she said. “We can’t keep talking about how we covered up two murders.”

Mrs. B checked her phone. “It’s up here on the right.”

Ocean pulled into a graded clearing outside a building with white walls and a red roof, which reminded her of a prefab house with four bedrooms and a two-car garage. Even though it was five times the size of her cottage, it was humbler than she’d expected from VivX Life Extension Incorporated. It was clearly out of business, with mounds of dried leaves in the lot and dusty windows. The only sign of recent activity was a car with a fancy front grille in the corner of the lot. No doubt a day hiker taking advantage of free parking for access to the Santa Ynez Mountains.

“No grizzled caretaker,” Mrs. B said, as she climbed out of the car and peered at the clearly vacant building.

“Does that mean we can go?”

“Let’s look in the windows first.”

“That’ll crack the case,” Ocean said.

Still, she led Mrs. B in a slow circuit around the building. They looked in the windows and discovered a waiting room with a counter and vaguely inspirational prints on the walls. Like a not-quite-doctor’s office. The windows on the side of the building were blocked by blinds, though Ocean got the impression of empty offices within. Around back a flagstone deck was strewn with windblown leaves and empty beer cans and chip packages.

“Feh,” Mrs. B said.

“What?”

“I’d hoped immortality would look more glamorous.”

Ocean laughed. “All done here?”

“All done,” Mrs. B agreed.

She walked her back to the car and opened the passenger door. When she headed around to the driver’s side, her gaze brushed the parked car in the corner of the lot. From this angle, she saw dust and pollen on the hood, which made her think it wasn’t a day hiker. Also, the shadows in the window on the driver’s side looked wrong. Too dark. Was someone sitting inside?

She walked closer, gravel crunching under her sneakers. The air smelled of sunbaked sage. The sun warmed the back of her neck, and yeah, the shadows definitely looked wrong.

They weren’t shadows.

They were splotches, like fluid had splattered across the inside of the window. Ocean’s first thought was that someone had spilled a milkshake, because when Riley was five, she’d decided to shake her milkshake from Chubbies and a chocolate mess had erupted across the car.

Except that was just Ocean’s brain trying to make sense of what she was seeing, before her body tensed with horror.

Someone was inside. Motionless. The air no longer smelled of sage. The windows were sealed but something stank, so rancid that Ocean covered her mouth and nose. She edged sideways, trying to see through the rear windows of the car. The logo on the back said GENESIS. She felt a hiccup of hysterical amusement—a “genesis” in the parking lot of a life-extension business—until she recognized shapes inside.

She saw an arm in a sleeve, a bent elbow and a white hand. Not titanium white, a white with more blue. Streaked or marbled. The fingers reminded her of knotted twists of paper and that’s when she realized.