Adrien English Mysteries: A Dangerous Thing & Fatal Shadows (46 page)

A Dangerous Thing

287

We stood beside our packed cars. It was nearly dark.

Marquez’s body had been retrieved from the mine a few hours earlier. There was no sign of any lost gold, assuming it had ever really been there. Melissa, Jake and I had given our statements to the sheriffs; Melissa had bid us a hasty goodbye and hurried off to see about getting Kevin freed. Jake and I promised to make ourselves available for the coroner’s inquest and any further questioning as requested.

It had been a long day and we could have waited to leave till the next morning, but Jake was in a hurry to start back.

I could feel him watching me, but when I glanced his way, he was staring at the long silent ranch house. The windows were shuttered. The cowbell chimes hung motionless in the still, cold air. Across the barren yard, the windmill groaned with phantom pains.

It already looked abandoned, like we had never been there, like no one had lived there for years.

“Maybe we’ll come back sometime,” he said, surprisingly.

He met my gaze and shrugged. Then he tossed his keys, caught them, and started for his car. Over his shoulder he called, “Are you following me or am I following you?”

I opened my mouth -- then let it go. Mildly, I said, “Are you sure you know the way?”

He paused. Turned. “Hey,” he said. “I found you, didn’t I?”

Josh Lanyon

Josh Lanyon is the author of three Adrien English mystery novels. THE HELL YOU SAY

was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award and is the winner of the 2006 USABookNews awards for GLBT fiction. Josh lives in Los Angeles, California, and is currently at work on the fourth book in the series, DEATH OF A PIRATE KING.