Wild Wild Death (8 page)

“You are back.”

I rol ed my eyes. “I didn’t have a whole lot of choice. Just like you didn’t when your friends left you here.”

Goodshot shrugged. “I don’t hold it against them.

They did what they could. And then they got busy and moved on.”

A very good idea, and keeping it in mind, I moved on. If I was going to end up spending the night in jail, at least it wouldn’t be because Security rounded a corner and found me standing there talking to thin air. I wove in and out of the maze of headstones, heading for the administration building with Goodshot trotting along beside me. “I’m taking your bones to New Mexico,” I told him.

His eyes sparked. “I always wanted to be buried His eyes sparked. “I always wanted to be buried with my ancestors. You are the answer to my prayers.”

Maybe. Maybe not. I wasn’t about to tel him that burying him wasn’t as important as making sure Dan stayed alive. Besides, I had other things to worry about. Like how I was going to get into the office. I jingled the keys in my pocket and had a thought. “The window was open!”

Hope springing in my heart, I covered the distance to the administration building in record time. Sure enough, El a’s window was stil opened a crack, just like it had been earlier in the day. I squeezed my hands into the opening, braced them, and—

Broke a nail.

“Damn.” In the meager light of the nearest security lamp, I studied the damage.

Goodshot chuckled. “Women is women. No matter where or when. You ain’t gonna let a little thing like that stop you, are you?”

I wasn’t. To prove it, I tried the window again.

This time, I was able to raise it a couple inches. “A little more,” I grunted. “A little more…” Of course, just because the window was open didn’t mean I’d have an easy time getting into it. I looked around, found a nearby trash can, and dragged it over.

“Bones and dirt and trash,” I grumbled, climbing on the trash can. It shifted and I braced myself against the building. Before anything could happen that would involve more dirt and maybe me being found facedown in the grass by Security, I threw one leg into the office, hoisted myself onto the sil , and slipped inside.

Goodshot was already in there waiting for me.

“Must be nice to be a ghost,” I grumbled. “And just poof everywhere you want to go.”

“Never had no reason to prowl around watchin’

the living world. Until tonight, that is.” He grinned.

“When you showed up and stole my bones. Of course, it’s a might inconvenient not being able to touch things.” He strol ed over to El a’s desk and put his hand on her computer monitor. It whooshed right through. “I hear touching people isn’t a good idea, either.”

I wasn’t about to give him the chance to demonstrate. See, I knew from experience that the touch of a ghost can freeze a person to the bone.

Keeping my distance, I hurried to the other side of El a’s office, slipped the keys back into the file drawer where I’d found them, and dragged myself back outside through the window, closing it down behind me. Goodshot was waiting for me by the road, but as I made a move to start across, he put a hand in the air to stop me.

“The automobile that patrols, it’s getting nearer.”

Like one of the Indian scouts in an old Western movie, I expected him to put one ear to the ground and tel me just how far away Security was. I guess he knew it, too. He rol ed his eyes and pointed.

“Headlights,” he said. “And they’re comin’ this way.”

I was already standing in the center of the road when the glare of car headlights split the night.

Blinded, I froze, and frozen, I was no match for the Security guard who threw open his door.

“Hey, you! Stop!” It was Mal Johnson. I recognized his voice as wel as the silhouette of his barrel chest and stubby legs against the bril iance of the patrol car’s headlights. I wasn’t about to give him a chance to recognize me. I hunched into Quinn’s windbreaker, hiked my tote up on my arm so I wouldn’t lose any of the bones, and took off running.

“This way! Fast!” Goodshot moved like the wind.

But then, he didn’t have a body to worry about, or lungs that screamed for air. He raced ahead of me, waving me forward, and if I’d had any breath at al , I would have pointed out that we were moving farther from where I’d left the step stool, not toward it. The way it was, I didn’t have the luxury. Mal might not be able to hear Goodshot, but he’d hear me for sure if I dared to open my mouth. I tried my best to keep to the shadows of headstones and angels and hulking mausoleums, Mal’s huffing and puffing always just paces behind me.

“Take a sharp left turn when I tel you.”

Goodshot’s voice hissed in my ear. “Get ready…

now!”

I did as I was told and instantly felt the ground go out from under my feet. The grass was slick from the rain earlier in the evening, and my sneakers took to the hil like skis. I slid down, somehow managing to keep my body in balance and my mouth shut. At the bottom of the hil , I would have congratulated myself for making it unscathed if I hadn’t heard Mal groaning and grunting behind me.

“Now here. This way!” Goodshot waved me

“Now here. This way!” Goodshot waved me forward. For a guy who hadn’t bothered to emerge from his tomb to explore the cemetery before, he sure knew his way around. This was the oldest part of the cemetery and the terrain was bumpy. I tripped and nearly went down.

“Now here, to the right. Up this hil ,” he cal ed.

Up a hil ? I’d just come down a hil . But I think I knew what Goodshot had in mind.

I raced up that hil as fast as I could. Truth be told, that wasn’t very fast. But it left lumbering Mal Johnson far behind.

A few more minutes, and I was back at the wal .

But not where I’d left the step stool.

“You’d better hurry, little lady. That man, he cal ed in the cavalry.”

I swung around just as a Cleveland Police patrol car cruised into sight.

Mug shots.

And now, the blue windbreaker was the least of my worries. I was covered with dirt, my hair hung in my eyes, and my jeans… I glanced down to confirm my worst fear. Yep, they were ripped.

And I was going to look like one of those stoned celebrities when they stood me up against the wal .

I groaned and ran up and down looking for a foothold. I found one, final y, just as the cops stopped their car and flashed a high-beam light into the section. Lucky for me, there was an angel statue not far away. Its shadow kept me safely in the dark while I scrambled, grunting and groaning.

“Not fast enough!” As if I needed Goodshot to tel me. I dug my fingers into the moss that grew along the top of the wal and pul ed for al I was worth. Stil not enough to get me over the wal . I struggled and grunted and—

Flew over the wal as if I were as light as air.

I landed on the other side with less than grace.

After my bones stopped rattling, I realized my feet were blocks of ice.

“You gave me a boost up.”

Goodshot didn’t take the blame. Or any credit.

He wasn’t wasting time, either. My Mustang was a couple blocks away, and when I hobbled in that direction, he came right along.

My hands shaking, I managed to get the car unlocked, got inside, and started it up. No easy thing considering I didn’t have any feeling in my feet.

“Whoo-wee!” In the passenger seat, Goodshot grinned. “That’s more fun than I’ve had… wel , since I been dead!”

Keeping an eye on the rearview mirror, I peeled rubber, and since it was after midnight and there wasn’t any traffic, I didn’t bother to stop at the stoplight at the nearest cross street.

This did not bother my passenger. But then, he was so busy looking out the window, I guess he didn’t notice.

“Come on, little lady,” he crooned. “It’s time for us to git to the New Mexico Territory!”

I

had never tried to get a bag of human remains past airport security—and I wasn’t about to start now.

With Goodshot in the passenger seat next to me, I drove al the way, and five days after I’d masterminded the cemetery heist, we were cruising through the southern part of Colorado. By that time, I was more than tired of eating at fast-food joints, I’d had it with sleeping in motels, and I was sick of staring at my windshield.

A day of packing and planning back in Cleveland, then sixteen hundred miles divided by sixty-five miles an hour plus time out for eating, sleeping, potty breaks, and the outlet mal we passed somewhere back in Nebraska that cal ed my name and was impossible to resist.

I’m no math whiz, but even I knew it added up to a lot of hours.

Funny thing, though, with Goodshot along, I didn’t mind nearly as much as I thought I would.

“. . . and the horse wore the lady’s hat!” He finished up another hilarious story about his days in the Wild West show, slapped his knee, and roared with laughter. At least for a minute. When we zipped passed a sign that said, welcome to new mexico, land of enchantment, Goodshot’s smile vanished. “I never thought I’d be back,” he said, suddenly thoughtful. “And now, here I am. You taking me to the pueblo to be buried…” He sighed. “It’s a wonderful thing you’re doin’.”

It wasn’t the first time since we’d begun our road trip that he’d thanked me. This time, like al those other times, I pasted a smile on my face. But this time—unlike al those other times—I wasn’t sure I was able to keep up what was feeling more and more like a scam.

On a dead guy I liked.

The thought ate away at my phony smile. Not to mention my conscience. Lucky for me, by the time it did, my GPS was tel ing me I was just minutes away from our destination.

Real y? I glanced around at the craggy hil s and low, scrubby plants that surrounded us and thought about that ransom note.

Tres Piedras, New Mexico. Instructions @ gas
station

At least if nothing else, wondering how a gas station could exist in the middle of the rocky desolation gave me something to think about other than how burying Goodshot was the last thing I intended to do.

As it turned out, the gas station in question was situated at what I’d generously cal an intersection.

That is, where one godforsaken road crossed another that was just as empty, and a sign pointed east to Taos. One look at the pitted parking lot and rusted pumps and I was glad I’d fil ed up back in Colorado.

“Abandoned,” I grumbled, slowing and pul ing up beside the first pump. Maybe I’d seen too many movies, but this was not what I’d expected. I’d pictured arriving at some hubbub of a minimart and fil -er-up emporium, where I would be approached by a man in a hoodie who would be wearing a ski mask and using one of those Darth Vadar–like voice synthesizers. Al breathy and scary-sounding, he’d demand that I hand over the bones, and when I did, Dan would emerge from the men’s room, very much alive.

“Is there something wrong with your automobile?”

Goodshot’s question snapped me back to reality. “I hope not, because we’re gettin’ close. I recognize this place.” He glanced around at the battered gas pumps and, beyond them, the cement block building that had probably once housed a coffee shop and now had a caved-in roof and windows spattered by the birds that made their nests in the nooks and crannies of col apsing wal s. “Wel , I recognize some of it. Not these crazy, modern places, but the land.

Look! Over there!” Goodshot turned and pointed out the backseat driver’s side window at the barren, cue bal –shaped peak that dominated the landscape.

“That’s Wind Mountain. It has always been sacred to my people. We’re close. The pueblo’s just east of here, on the other side of the mountain.”

“The pueblo, yeah…” I groaned and leaned my head against the steering wheel. “There’s something I have to tel you,” I said, only since my mouth was up against the leather, I knew he couldn’t hear me.

And I couldn’t sit there just a couple feet from the guy who was counting on me to make sure he rested in peace. Not when I was about to break his nonbeating heart.

I pushed open my door, got out of the car, and drew in a breath of dry, dusty New Mexico air. “It’s like this,” I said, and I didn’t need to look; I felt a chil race up my arms and knew that, even though he hadn’t opened the car door to get out, Goodshot was standing right next to me. There was no easy way to let him down and no better way to get this over with than to blurt it out. “I didn’t steal your bones to bury them.” When he didn’t say a thing, I slid him a look.