Page 14 of Immortal Unveiled

Ryder nodded. “Checked his pulse. Besides, I could smell the blood from a block away. He must have bled to death.”

“Okay. Let’s turn him around.” Manus rolled the body on its back, revealing what the body had hidden: a pool of blood. The victim had been stabbed in the heart. “Yep, dead.” Manus reached into his pocket and pulled out the gold bracelet.

“Put it in his front pants pocket, so it won’t fall out when they transport the body,” Ryder suggested.

Manus nodded and shoved the bracelet into the pocket of the dead guy. Then, carefully, he turned the body back into the same position he’d found him in.

“And now for some extra insurance,” Manus added and took the man’s cell phone, unlocked it with the dead guy’s thumb print, and navigated to the contact app, added an address to it, then navigated to the map app from there before closing the phone again and placing it back on the ground.

From his own pocket, Manus retrieved a burner phone and dialed 9-1-1.

“911, what is your emergency?” a woman’s voice answered within a couple of seconds.

“Yeah, there’s a guy on the street. I think he’s dead. There’s blood.”

“Where are you calling from, sir?”

“I’m at the corner of Brooke and Franklin. Can you send the police? I think I saw a guy running away. Come quickly.”

“We’re sending the police and ambulance now. Stay on the phone. What’s your name?”

Manus disconnected the call, then opened the back of the cell phone and pulled out the chip. A few hundred yards farther, he tossed the chip into a dumpster, then shoved the cell back in his pocket.

“Great, we’re done,” Grayson said and pivoted.

“Not yet,” Manus said, stopping him. “I wanna make sure nobody touches our body before the police can pick him up. We’ll wait.”

“And let the police find us here?” Grayson asked.

“They won’t, since we’re already invisible.”

“Damn!” Grayson cursed. “I wish you’d let me know when you make me invisible.”

“What would that serve? It’s not like you’re going to feel anything.”

“I’d just like to know.”

“And now you know: you’re invisible. There.”

Finally, Grayson shut up, and the three of them waited in silence. It didn’t take long until police sirens indicated the arrival of the police and ambulance. Once the paramedics determined that the man was indeed dead, they departed, and the police cordoned off the area and waited for the coroner’s van.

Manus could have left at that point or at least sent the hybrids home, but he needed to see this through. He couldn’t afford another screw-up.

It took a couple of hours before the police had collected forensic evidence and the coroner could take the body away. Only then did Manus nod to the two hybrids to follow him back to the car. Their job was done. Later, Manus would visit the morgue and make sure that the technicians there would collect the evidence Manus had planted on the body. With a little luck, it wouldn’t take too long until the police connected the bracelet to Nancy Britton. Then it would only be a matter of time until Kim would accept that her mother had been murdered by a burglar.

Case closed.