Dead on Delivery (15 page)

I didn’t wait for her to change her mind. I rushed to the Buick and took off. In the rearview mirror, I could see her jotting down my license plate number on her hand.

Fabulous. If she did call the cops, it would take them seconds to figure out who I was.

That would be a big enough problem. The bigger problem would be if they figured out what I was.

 

 

THE ADRENALINE FROM MY CONFRONTATION SEEPED AWAY slowly. I would have probably felt better faster if she’d taken an actual shot at me. A fist strike to my chin or a kick to my ribs would have been easier for me to deflect. Physical fights were so much more straightforward than emotional ones and I knew how to deal with them better.

All that hurt and anger thrown in my face? I had no idea how to counter-thrust, how to deflect. I wasn’t even sure what it all meant.

The “spic” thing was pretty clear. I don’t have the most clear-cut features. With my dark hair and olive skin, this wouldn’t be the first time that someone thought I was Latina. My Spanish sucks, so people rarely labor under that misapprehension for long. The woman I was pretty sure was Mrs. Rawley hadn’t been listening for my accent, though. She had enough hate and hurt stored up inside her that it probably roared in her ears nonstop. She probably couldn’t even hear herself think anymore.

I thought about the look on Mrs. Bossard’s face at her son’s funeral. Or, I guess, the lack of any expression on her face. Would that numbness turn to hate eventually? And why toward Latinos? There was a lot I didn’t know.

I brushed at my face. That cobweb sensation still hadn’t left me. Whatever I’d walked through was sticking to me like glue. Didn’t spiderwebs have some kind of sticky stuff on them to trap the bugs? It was probably what was keeping it stuck to my face. I pressed down a little harder on the accelerator. With a little judicious speeding, I might have time for a hot shower before I had to teach.

I wonder what the Latino angle was going to be in all this. I had put the
descansos
down to local custom rather than belonging to a particular ethnic group until Mrs. Rawley started hurling incorrect racial epithets at me. It still made no sense. A
descanso
was a remembrance, a memorial, not a desecration or a curse. They implied regret and sorrow over whatever had taken the life they memorialized. Why put them up if you were the one who murdered the person? Why murder a second boy if you already regretted the first one? It wasn’t making sense to me.

I rubbed at the cobwebs again. This time I flipped down the vanity mirror. Maybe if I could see them, I could get rid of them, but no. There was nothing visible. The strands must be too fine. A horn honked to my right and I quickly corrected course. I must have swerved a little into the other lane. I flipped up the mirror and told myself to pay attention to the road.

I switched on the radio, hoping to find something to distract me. Oldies, oldies and more oldies, and a couple of stations pretending to be something other than oldies but really just playing oldies. I flipped it back off.

Something started to crawl along my neck. I slapped at it, but my hand came away with nothing. I could still feel it, though, skittering under my hair. I shook myself, trying to dislodge it. Another horn beeped at me. I had swerved again. This wasn’t safe. I pulled off at the next rest stop and raced into the bathroom.

I peered at myself in the tinny mirrors. The light was bad, but my eyesight is exceptionally good. I couldn’t see anything. No webs. No bugs. Now that I was out of the car and not driving, the sensation of something crawling on me was gone. I scrubbed at my face and neck and arms with the rough paper towels anyway. Satisfied that I’d done everything I could in a public bathroom without getting arrested, I walked back to the car.

A breeze lifted my hair off my damp neck. It felt damn good, clean and bug-free.

I got back in the Buick and eased myself back onto Highway 120. I chose the least objectionable oldies station and set the cruise control on the Buick. I had already turned onto Highway 99 when I found myself brushing at the nonexistent cobwebs on my face again.

I willed myself to keep my hands on the wheel and my eyes on the road. I was going to kill myself if I kept trying to get rid of that sensation.

That’s when the lightbulb went off in my head. Who had killed themselves? Neil Bossard and Kurt Rawley. I looked over at the seat next to me. One of the legs of the little voodoo doll peeped out of its tissue covering inside its protective baggie, a little plastic spider stuck to its foot. Apparently voodoo molecules could seep through plastic. Stupid polymers. Couldn’t trust them farther than you could throw them.

I jammed my Bluetooth into my ear and dialed Meredith on my cell. “Meredith, I’ve got another one.”

 

 

I QUITE CLEVERLY LEFT THE DOLL IN MY CAR WHEN I GOT TO the karate studio. The last thing I needed was fifteen twelve-year-olds rolling around the mat, thinking they had spiders crawling all over them. I didn’t know what the reach of the nasty little thing’s powers were, although I did notice a number of people wiping their faces and slapping at their necks as they walked past my car in the parking lot.

I felt pretty safe inside the studio. Sophie showed up about a half an hour after I got there. The few moments to myself had been nice. I’d caught up on e-mail, paid a couple of bills and tried to figure out my bank statement, which still pretty much defeated me every month.

“I brought you a Diet Coke and a Luna Bar,” she said, dropping her offerings on my desk and flinging herself into a chair.

“You’re a peach.” I grabbed the food. I could use the calories and the caffeine.

“Not a very good one,” she said, looking at her shoes. “I can’t figure out what to do with that axe. It’s not talking to me. Can you help me figure out where it’s supposed to go?”

“What have you done so far?” I leaned back in my chair and popped open the Diet Coke.

“I googled Ginnar.” She didn’t look up.

“And?”

She shook her head. “Nothing remotely useful.”

“He’s not going to be listed on
whitepages.com
, Sophie.” I know. I know. I’d pledged to cut down on the sarcasm. It was hard, though. It’s been my default for so many years now.

She flung out her hands. “Then where?”

“Well, think about it a little. What is he?” I could do this. I could be reasonable and help her think this thing through just the way Mae used to help me think through problems on my own.

“I don’t know. I don’t even know that he’s a he, to be honest with you.”

With dwarves that tended to be kind of a moot point. I’m pretty sure they knew which gender they were, but it was pretty hard for anyone else to tell. Female dwarves’ beards could be just as long and lustrous as the males’. Little dwarves had to come from somewhere, though. Not that I planned to think about that very hard. “We know he or she’s a dwarf, right? Where do dwarves live?”

“Inside mountains?” Sophie looked up.

An excellent first step. “Are there mountains near here?”

She nodded. “Lots.”

“Maybe you should start there. Take it for a drive up into the Sierras. See if it starts talking a little louder. The closer an object gets to the place it needs to be, the more powerful it gets.” Maybe I should drive that little voodoo doll up to Oregon and ditch it there.

Sophie gave me one of those fabulous teenage girl looks that spoke volumes on what she thought about me and my ideas. “Seriously? You want me to take an axe for a drive?”

“It’s my best suggestion for the moment.” I got up and stretched. The afternoon classes would be arriving soon. “Do me a favor and let me know if you start feeling like there’s anything crawling on you, okay?”

Another stare. Soon I’d have this girl rolling her eyeballs and standing with her arms crossed over her chest like a barrier. Did I know how to be a mentor or what? “Like bugs?” she asked.

“Exactly like bugs.” See? I’m a great teacher.

She lifted her hands in a gesture of supplication. “Any particular reason?”

“A very particular reason, but not one I’m willing to explain right now.” I gave her a big smile.

“You know, it’s a little frustrating when you do that.” She scowled at me.

I felt a sudden shock of recognition. I knew that face. I knew that scowl. I could feel its echo on my face. I’d made that scowl a hundred times. Maybe a thousand times. I’d made it at Mae right here in this very office and I’d made it for the exact same reason that Sophie was making it at me now.

The way Mae would lead me through solving my problems used to irritate me to no end. My argument was that if she knew the answer, she should just give it to me. Her argument had been that I would actually be learning something if I reasoned it out on my own. As irritating as that had been, it was ten times more irritating to realize that she’d been right.

I stared at her. “I’m sorry. I know it’s frustrating. I’ll explain as much of it as I can as soon as I can. Okay?”

“I guess it’s going to have to be okay, isn’t it?” She got up from her chair and went out to help the kids coming in get ready for class.

I stared after her and thought about all those times that Mae had given me the inscrutable master routine. Had she been trying to keep me safe? Right now, I didn’t want Sophie involved in whatever was happening in Elmville because I wanted to protect her from it. I’d thought Mae was doling out knowledge in little bite-sized bits for her own entertainment half the time. It had never occurred to me that she’d been doing it for my own good.

Maybe she’d been protecting me as much as she could. I looked down at her desk, which I now sat behind. The view was mighty different from the other side.

 

 

I MADE IT THROUGH CLASS WITHOUT ANY CHILDREN GETTING imaginary bug bites, through sparring class without me coming anywhere close to killing one of my students and through my shift at the hospital. I’d gotten the first decent night’s sleep I’d had in days and had woken up Wednesday morning all fresh and ready to take on the world.

There are no evening classes at River City on Wednesdays. Ted and I had started using that night to work out together. I used to spar with Mae. Obviously that wasn’t happening anymore. Sophie was learning fast but was still light-years from where she could give me a good workout. Ted had stepped up to take Mae’s place as a sparring partner. At first I’d scoffed at his offer, but he’d talked me into trying it and, honestly, he was pretty good. He had some moves. I was still stronger and faster, but he had some stuff that I hadn’t seen before and it was good for me to stay flexible.

He showed up at the studio at about seven and gave me a kiss hello. I kissed him back. With enthusiasm.

He pulled away. “Wow. That was a nice welcome. What’s up with you?”

“Can’t a girl just show appreciation to her boyfriend?” Or perhaps butter him up a little because she wants something from him?

His eyes narrowed. “A girl can. You can’t. At least, I don’t think you can.” He walked onto the mat and took a fighting stance, left leg forward, guard up. He bounced a little on the balls of his feet.

“I could!” I roundhouse-kicked his stomach.

Well, I didn’t actually get there. Ted blocked down and scooped his arm under my leg and did a fist strike at my chest. “You never have. Plus, you’re using that tone of voice you use when you’ve done something you think is going to piss me off or you want to ask me for a favor. Or, come to think of it, sometimes it’s a combination of the two. Which is it this time?” He kept lifting my leg until I was off balance.

I sighed and went over backward, landing in a backward somersault and coming up in a crouch. It was weird to have someone know me this well. The only other person who came close was Mae and she was a little more cryptic about her observations. I launched myself at him, sending a flurry of uppercuts and punches toward his abdomen to knock him off balance and then spun on my left leg, raised my right knee and sent a spinning hook kick at his chin. He went over backward to avoid me clipping him. I pounced on top of him. “You want fries with that combo, sir?”

He chuckled. “You know, it’s a good thing you’re cute.”

I blushed. I wished I was as sure of myself in the boyfriend/ girlfriend give and take as I was in a fight. I knew how to take a punch. I didn’t know how to take a compliment.

“Stop blushing and tell me what’s going on and what you need,” he said.

“I went back to Elmville . . .”

“Goddamn it, Melina.” He snaked an arm through mine, trapped my left leg with his right, twisted his left leg around my neck and twirled me to the ground beneath him. “Alone? After what happened to us the last time we were there? What the hell were you thinking?”

“That I needed more information and the best place—maybe the only place—to get it was in Elmville.” And that I was capable of taking on the sons of cadejos by myself. I reached between us, grabbed his thigh, swept my leg and brought us back into a mount position with me on top. “I was careful.”

“Did you go back to the Bossards’ place, Melina? Please tell me you didn’t. Someone didn’t want you there. I realize you think that’s like an engraved invitation to come back whenever you want, but it’s not.”

I decided not to linger in the mount. We’d end up rolling around on the floor all night. I leapt up and back into my fighting stance. “I didn’t go back to the Bossards,” I said quietly.

“Well, that’s some small measure of solace. Then where did you go?” Ted was up in a second as well.

“I went to a house where I made another delivery a few weeks before I made the one to Neil Bossard.” I came at him with a series of sidekicks to his ribs.

He tried to catch my leg like he had on my first roundhouse, but I’d sped up my pace. Who says I can’t be taught? “Another delivery? In Elmville? Did you talk to the person you made the delivery to?” he asked.