Jackrabbit Junction Jitters (36 page)

Claire swerved to miss a scraggly looking coyote, and Kate’s
stomach roller-coastered. She needed a stiff drink, one that would burn all the
way into the pit of her stomach. She didn’t know how Claire pulled off this
Inspector Gadget routine without popping antacids like Tic Tacs.

Up ahead, Kate saw a drive and a mailbox. “There it is.”

The numbers on the box matched those she’d memorized.

Claire turned the steering wheel and cruised up the smooth,
paved drive. “Are you sure this is it?” They ascended a small hill. “The place
looks dark.”

Pitch black was more like it. With the moon recently set,
the stars too far away to help, and no outside nightlight, they could be
driving off the rim of the Grand Canyon for all Kate could see.

“Hit the brights. I can’t see anything.”

They crested the hill and Kate gasped.

Claire hit the brakes and skidded to a stop. “Holy shit.”

Kate shoved open her door and stepped outside so she could
get a better look without trying to peer through the bug guts splattered on the
Ford’s windshield.

Standing there, under the milky spill of stars, she crossed
her arms and let out a very definitive, “Humph!”

How in the hell could the owner of a two-bit bar in a spitwad
of a town afford something like this?

In front of her sat a huge, Pueblo-style house. Two stories
high, headlights reflecting in all umpteen windows that stretched from floor to
ceiling on both floors, the place looked like a five-star resort. Homes like
this went for a million-plus in Tucson, according to the real estate channel
Deborah tuned to day after day since arriving in Jackrabbit Junction.

After killing the engine but leaving the headlights on,
Claire joined Kate under the Big Dipper. “We’re too late, huh?”

“We’re not late.”

“You just said back there—”

“I lied. We’re not meeting Porter here. We’re not meeting
him at all.”

“Damn it, Kate!” Claire pinched Kate’s arm hard. “What in
the hell are we doing here then?”

“Ow!” She rubbed her bruised flesh, glaring at Claire. “We’re
here to find proof.”

From her back pocket, Kate pulled out a pair of cotton
gloves she’d found in Ruby’s tool shed and slipped them on.

“Shit,” Claire said, watching Kate slip on the gloves. “Please
tell me this isn’t Butch’s house.”

“Okay. It’s not Butch’s house.” Kate climbed the steps
leading to a pergola-covered patio. Lights in the walls lining the steps kicked
on, illuminating the stairs in a soft glow. Kate smirked. Motion sensor lights,
those couldn’t be cheap. “It’s Butch’s desert palace.”

A string of curses flew from Claire’s lips.

“Your mother would be so proud,” Kate told her potty-mouthed
sister.

On the top stair, Kate pulled a penlight from her shirt
pocket. More motion-sensor lights flickered to life, revealing an immense patio
covered with a jungle’s worth of potted plants and patio tiles made of
travertine limestone—the kind imported only from Spain or Portugal.

Turning back, she shined the penlight on Claire’s face. “By
the way, we’re not leaving until we find proof that Butch is trying to steal
the Lucky Monk, so start digging.”

Mac stared at the dead man, unable to drag his gaze from the
withered corpse—especially its empty eye sockets.

Tucked away deep in the Lucky Monk’s dry innards, Father
Time and Mother Nature’s creatures had been kind to the body. Tuffs of hair
still clung to the skull, along with patches of leathered skin, stretched tight
across both cheekbones. The right ear lobe was half chewed off. The left ear
was missing entirely, no doubt a tasty meal for one of the mine’s past
residents.

His flashlight beam reflected in the unbroken lenses of a
pair of wire-rim glasses that sat askew on the man’s face. The nose was nothing
more than two holes, not even a hint of cartilage remaining. The mouth gaped
open, frozen in a silent scream, lips peeled back to expose crooked, brown
teeth.

As he watched, a spider crawled up the piece of loose, dried
flesh hanging from the chin, scuttled over the bottom set of teeth and
disappeared in the shadow-filled mouth.

Something touched the back of Mac’s neck.

He jerked back, scraping his elbow and forearm on a serrated
rock edge. The flashlight slipped from his grip, the beam cartwheeling through
the air before it clattered between two small boulders at his feet.

Then the world went black.

Mac brushed frantically at his neck in the darkness, his
breathing ragged, his heart a juggernaut in his chest.

The rock he stood on wobbled underfoot, then rolled out from
under him. He stumbled, reaching out to catch his balance and busting his
knuckle on another sharp edge. He landed on a pointed chunk of rock, his hard
hat tipping to the side.

“Fuck me,” he said in the darkness. Pushing to his feet, he
rubbed his throbbing ass cheek and coughed on the dust he’d stirred up.

From the other side of the hole, he heard a scratching
sound.

The blackness surrounding him seemed to grow thick, choking.
He flicked on the light on his hard hat and stared at the hole.

With his breath locked in his chest, he heard the sound of
toenails—
or bones
?—on stone. Rocks clattered to the floor on the other
side.

Something was climbing the other side of the rock pile.

In a blink, Mac jerked into action. He scrambled down the
remaining rock pile, grabbed his backpack, and rocketed toward the main adit.

Minutes later, he leaned against the wall next to the place
where he’d spread out the maps earlier that afternoon. His lungs ached; sweat
rolled down his forehead.

Glancing back toward the direction of the cave-in, he shook
his head, disgusted with himself. With distance between him and the dead man,
his common sense had reclaimed its position at the helm.

Sure now that what he’d heard was a packrat or some other
critter who had also been exploring the cave-in’s leftovers, he debated his
next course of action. Should he wrap up his work in the Lucky Monk tonight and
head back to Ruby’s? Or should he head to Yuccaville first and report the dead
guy to the sheriff’s office?

He sipped from his canteen, still mulling what to do as he
swished the warm water around, washing the dust from the back of his throat as
he swallowed.

That dead man had sat in the mine for a long time. What was
another night? Mac would hit Yuccaville in the morning.

A thought hit him—he hadn’t checked to see if the dead man
had both hands. He shoved off the notion. That wasn’t important right now.

Claire’s words about
Treasure Island
and Flint’s
Pointer replayed in his head:

And Flint’s pointer
refers to the skeleton of a man Flint killed and then used as an indicator to
where the treasure was hidden … the skeleton is a pointer that leads to the “jolly
dollars.”

Mac looked back in the direction of the cave-in again,
trying to remember details about the dead man’s body and if an arm or leg had
been pointing in a particular direction.

Unfortunately, he’d been so mesmerized by the tattered remains
of the guy’s face that he couldn’t even picture what the dead man had been
wearing other than glasses.

Without a doubt, he knew that as soon as he told Claire
about the body, she’d insist on coming up to the mine with or without him and
seeing the dead guy for herself, risking her life in a very unstable section of
the mine.

Damn.

He rubbed his forehead. Maybe he shouldn’t tell her about
the remains.

Right, and when she found out about the skeleton—and she
undoubtedly would somehow—and realized he’d skipped her and gone to the police
without even checking to see if the skeleton had two hands, she’d be pissed as
hell.

“Shit.” Mac sighed.

That left just one option—go back and take another look at
the dead man tonight.

But if he was going to pay another visit to the dead man, he
wasn’t going to do it from this side of that hole. He needed the pry bar and
some of his other tools he’d stashed behind a greasewood bush near the mouth of
the mine.

This time, he’d get some answers to a few questions of his
own, like how the guy died, if he’d been a miner, and if he had any kind of
identification on him at all.

Blocking out the fear that tingled up from the base of his
spine at returning to the cave-in, he squared his shoulders and tried to
mentally prepare himself for his up close and personal meeting with the dead
man.

* * *

“You’re doing it wrong,” Claire said from where she sat in a
plush patio chair while she watched Kate dash from window to door to window, searching
for a way into Butch’s fortress.

Kate’s obsession with Butch being Darth Vader’s evil twin
had “therapy” written all over it.

The desert’s creatures of the night kept Claire company. A
giant crab spider scurried across the partially lit terrace while crickets
chirped from shadows over by the potted palms surrounding a small pool with a
fountain in the center of it. A warm breeze, carrying the scent of damp earth
mixed with pungent greasewood, blew wisps of her hair across her face.

“Would you stop saying that?” Kate wiggled both handles on
the second set of French doors that led out onto the patio.

“Well, you are. And you already tried those doors.”

“Just shut up!” Kate scared the crickets into silence.

“If wearing all black is your idea of coming prepared to a
breaking-and-entering party, you haven’t learned a thing from me over the
years.”

With a brush-off wave that incorporated the use of her
middle finger, Kate strode across the patio, away from the house, and down the
steps leading to a large pole barn with three garage doors fronting it. Butch
seemed to be into super-sizing his dwellings.

Claire lifted her feet, making way for a beetle on its route
across the patio tiles toward one of the motion sensor lights. “Kate, where are
you going?”

Kate didn’t answer her. Claire looked over to find her sister
shining her penlight in one of the pole barn’s windows.

“Can we go back to Ruby’s now?” Claire asked. Her voice
sounded tired even to her own ears.

Now that she’d calmed down about being tricked into driving
to Butch’s place, she felt like a deflated party balloon. She wanted nothing
more than to sit in front of Ruby’s TV with a mixer bowl full of cereal in milk
while she waited for Mac to come back from the mine.

Some nicotine wouldn’t hurt, either.

The idea of driving off alone and leaving Kate for the
scorpions and coyotes to fight over tempted her. That would teach Kate a lesson
for lying to her.

“Claire?” Kate’s nose was still pressed against the window.

“What?”

“What color was Joe’s old El Camino?”

“Midnight blue, why?”

“I’m just wondering if the El Camino I’m looking at is one
and the same.”

Claire sprung from her chair, her flip-flops flapping as she
raced to the pole barn window.

“Let me see that.” She grabbed Kate’s penlight and
shouldered her sister aside.

“Hey! Pushy.” Kate knuckled Claire’s shoulder hard. “This is
my breaking-and-entering shindig. Go find your own light.”

She reached for the penlight, but Claire held it out of her
reach.

“Just give me a minute, would you?”

Claire turned back to the window, ignoring her throbbing
shoulder, and shined the bright light through it.

Sure enough, there sat Joe’s old El Camino, shiny and
overflowing with muscle, parked in the center of the oversized garage. The
custom red leather bench seat glowed next to the midnight blue hand-rubbed
paint job.

She directed the beam of light along the car’s sleek lines,
wondering why it was sitting in Butch’s garage. The last Claire had heard,
Sophy Martino’s name was on the title. A prison sentence shouldn’t have changed
that.