Virgil smirks. “Thanks. If I need any help, I’ll ask.”
As the door opens again, Virgil jumps off the table, and I bury my face in my hands and start to sob. Well, I pretend to, anyway.
“My God,” the Cougar says. “What happened?”
Virgil looks just as baffled as she is. “What the fuck?” he mouths.
I hiccup, louder, “I just want to find my m-mother.” Through damp eyes, I look at Tallulah. “I don’t know where else to go.”
Virgil gets into character, slinging an arm around my shoulders. “Her mom disappeared years ago. Cold case. We don’t have much to work with.”
Tallulah’s face softens. I have to admit, it makes her look less like Boba Fett. “You poor kid,” she says and then she turns her adoring eyes on Virgil. “And you—helping her out like this? You’re one of a kind, Vic.”
“We need a buccal swab. I’ve got a hair that may or may not have been her mother’s, and I want to try to match the mitochondrial DNA. At least it would be a starting point for us.” He glances up. “Please, Lulu. Help an old … friend?”
“You’re not so old,” she purrs. “And you’re the only person I ever let call me Lulu. You got the hair with you?”
He hands her the bag he found at the evidence room.
“Great. We’ll get started on the kid’s sequencing right away.” She pivots, rummaging in a cabinet for a paper-wrapped packet. I am sure it’s going to be a needle, and that terrifies me because I hate needles, so I start shaking. Virgil catches my eye. You’re overacting, he whispers.
But he figures out pretty quick that I’m seriously terrified, because my teeth start chattering. I can’t tear my eyes away from Tallulah’s fingers as she rips the sterile packaging away.
Virgil reaches for my hand and holds on tight.
I can’t remember the last time I held someone’s hand. My grandmother’s, maybe, to cross the street a thousand years ago. But that was duty, not compassion. This is different.
I stop shivering.
“Relax,” Tallulah says. “It’s only a big Q-tip.” She snaps on a pair of rubber gloves and a mask, and instructs me to open my mouth. “I’m just going to rub this on the side of your cheek. It won’t hurt.”
After about ten seconds, she removes the swab and sticks it into a little vial, which she labels. Then she does the whole thing again.
“How long?” Virgil asks.
“A few days, if I move heaven and earth.”
“I don’t know how to thank you.”
“I do.” She walks her fingers up the crook of his arm. “I’m free for lunch.”
“Virgil isn’t,” I blurt out. “You told me you have a doctor’s appointment, remember?”
Tallulah leans in to whisper, although—unfortunately—I hear every word. “I still have my hygienist scrubs if you want to play doctor.”
“If you’re late, Victor,” I interrupt, “you won’t be able to get a refill on your Viagra.” I hop off the table, grab Virgil’s arm, and pull him out of the room.
We are laughing so hard as we round the corner of the hallway that I think we might collapse before we make it outside. In the sunshine, we lean against the brick wall of Genzymatron Labs, trying to catch our breath. “I don’t know whether I should kill you or thank you,” Virgil says.
I look at him sideways and put on my huskiest Tallulah voice. “Well … I’m free for lunch.”
That just makes us laugh harder.
And then, when we stop laughing, we both remember at the same time why we’re here, and that neither of us really has something to laugh about. “Now what?”
“We wait.”
“For a whole week? There has to be something else you can do.”
Virgil looks at me. “You said your mother kept journals.”
“Yeah. So?”
“Could be something relevant in there.”
“I’ve read them a million times,” I say. “They’re research about elephants.”
“Then maybe she mentioned her coworkers. Or any conflicts with them.”
I slide down along the brick wall, so that I am sitting on the cement walkway. “You still think my mother is a murderer.”
Virgil crouches down. “It’s my job to be suspicious.”
“Actually,” I say, “it used to be your job. Your job right now is to find a missing person.”
“And then what?” Virgil replies.
I stare at him. “You would do that? You would find her for me, and then take her away again?”
“Look,” Virgil says and sighs. “It’s not too late. You can fire me and leave and I swear to you, I’ll forget about your mother and what crimes she may or may not have committed.”