Page 4 (1/2)

Chapter Ten

I woke up the next day and checked the Araby Motel’s scratchy sheets first thing

My panties had passed the period test last night No blood My dreaory, sometimes a prelude to inal" spot of blood,Of course she could just be pregnant

I sighed, trying to corips with my sudden new Sunset Park side: sexy chick

I’d always tried to act like a hipworld, but sootten fairy tale I didn’t res like horht want appeared on the horizon

Any shrink could tell you that never being adopted ht lead to self-estee meant I’d had to stand up solo and secretly to the older bad boys who kept recycling back to the orphanage fro tails of initials in their case files, and half of them were OOW (out-of-wedlock) unwanted half-vampire spawn

Every jaunt in and out of the institution just made them nastier

Our Lady of the Lake convent school was a relief in getting away froirls’ school, but the other students all had houed ways of tore, working like a stevedore to earn living expenses, a social life was an afterthought Somewhere, sometime after my institutional stays, I had the iin, in terine how the fairy tale would have gone if Sleeping Beauty couldn’t bleed? But I didn’t remember when or hoho Or what

I also didn’t ree parties very well either Maybe then Whatever had happened, if it had, I caht onup

Duringand terrifying "alien abduction" pelvic exah school to the underground drug sellers for the "others" A lot of teen fee," and I could get the Pill without a prescription or a pelvic, since many doctors still wouldn’t treat supernaturals No one ever questioneds Besides, ould want to et the Pill made me feel neurotic and squeae had abortions with less angst than I produced for a PE

So it wasn’t that I didn’t want male company or affection or that I didn’t dream that someday my prince would coe pale stingray hanging overheld underwater? Being held down? A lot of working wos were arched and veined like a bat’s, and beca -ups My hts wandered too close to the ht that was my problem That nail file had done the job

It was even harder to veer away fro that bolt of earthy energy froround under my feet, from the man behind me, whose hands in front of mine had tapped into all that subterranean sexuality

Maybe ood news at this point was that iness wasn’t my usually predictable period after all The bad neas that I’d never hadfor another one and I didn’t reht whatsoever Round one to Ric Montoya Too bad I didn’t have tis to do, Hector Nightwine still loo number one on my A-list I’d come back froentrification-doo at 11:00 a two more times for sheer pleasure before I panicked and flipped it open In the htwine’s secretary aup

"Hello"

"GoodIt’s Ric"

Number two Not bad

"Ye-es?" I’d never turned one word into tith that little purring note in ed reat phone voice

"Oh" Was it going to be their place?

"I wondered if you could co-stand lunch in the park Feeding bun breadcru down at "their" picnic table Arranging so more formal Dinner perhaps Plus I could keep an eye on Hector’s place and ure out how to storet

Too late

That is no way you play a hot guy, a fashion stud right out of GQ, honey

I gagged irlfriend Souy underneath the high-end accessories He obviously believed he could dowse for water, and maybe he could I have an opena Lite Days pad if we’re rendezvousing in the park again Those dowsing rod visions see, or no one, ever had before

Still, visions of sedate sugarplums danced in my convent-bred head A stroll,sweet, mundane, and old-fashioned Pure Kansas corn

I parked Dolly in a lot off Sunset Road and walked back to the area where I’dareas, but I kept bearing west until I spied Kon Tiki (ot me near where I needed to be

I stop, bemused There is a dreamlike quality to the scene I walk into slowly Tiht here is tee with busy men in suits and buff uniformed cops in buff-colored uniforms: Bermuda shorts and short-sleeved shirts that showcase tanned biceps and quads The air buzzes alkie-talkie communications Chrome yellow Crime Scene: do not cross tape wraps several of the dead-dedicated trees, cordoning off a pizza-pie-shaped slice of the open ground

A chill runs up ulate between the reeds on the west, Kon Tiki’s dour face on the lake’s central island, and Sunset Road This is "our" place and suddenly, this su the city’s law enforce beside me "This area is off-limits to the public"

Luckily I’h for an equally authoritative voice behind me to announce, " Miss Street is withbehind lasses with their titaniu cheekbones, aristocratic nose, knife-edge jaw He is still just as good-looking, just as professional, and he is eyeing a on here?" I ask when Officer Buff has withdrawn in a state of high grouch I know his type Works out, hits the tanning beds, and thinks he’s the cat’s pajamas Likes to pull over helpless wo and alone, screw theht you should see," Ric says

I eye the Crime Scene tape I’ve been here before, at cri down the previous evening on this very spot

"I know it’ll be hard" Ric is standing very close to ertips on ertip technique noawful I felt that too You need to see what’s really there"

"I do?"

He leans away, stung "No, you’re right I do Maybe we do I won’t let go of you"

How uy? But I kno he o of me We’ll be linked In touch And he knohat this is about

I nod I’irl I’ve seen dead people before

Ric leads us to the tape, where we’re questioned again Ric flashes an ID "The captain okayed it"

"You maybe Her too?"

"A new associate, Miss Street"

The ed officer is all on-duty starch I could be a naked Madonna impersonator and he wouldn’t blink an eye "Go ahead"

We duck under the familiar yellow plastic ribbon, not attached to an old oak tree but to s through my mind, the windht be seeing all too soon

Ric leads ht There is now an actual pit, larger than a bread box; say the size of a grave site, all the better to acco around the revealed centerpiece This is a pair of interlocked skeletons lying in a to work Someone really wanted them six feet under

The skeletons seerueso skulls face each other in profile, all the teeth in place, as clean and even as pearl bangles The spines and ribs are collapsed, but the arle with each other for a horizontal ladder It’s hard for a civilian likeabout the pair’s cuddling position, now eternal, screa lovers

When you’re about to faint it’s just like in those movie special-effects sequences You stay fixed in place and the foreground is rushing away fro French super-train Zoom

Because I now find h-impact sex and death I’d felt yesterday afternoon These dry bones, so sedate now, are the writhing, naked, ulti couple of my vision

"Male and female," I mutter at Ric

"Good What else?"

"Passion and death"

"Is it ever different?"

I ignore his cynicishten on my upper arms

I frown "Old"

"Old? Who?"

"Old Just old Believe ertips reading the tremors of my nerves and skin

"Thanks," Ric says "Don’t say anything The lead detective is co He’ll be a pain Let round"

"These are my corpses"

"Mine too Shhh Delilah" He whispers in ue

Well, that worked I am pretty much speechless How did he know my first name? How did he kno to shutdislike I can see why He is short, squat, vaoes with a professional bloodsucker

"If it ain’t the Cadaver Kid again," he says to Ric "I heard you were nosing around Montoya" The voice is grating, egotistical, and,

"Detective Haskell" Ric’s voice sounds icy but I can sense he is super hot under that cool white collar I’m suddenly very attuned to what’s under that cool white collar "The captain likes me to eyeball these crime scenes And I did call it in"

"You Not your little casino luck-piece tootsie"

I stiffen as much as Ric had done on me yesterday His hands claet the e

" Miss Street is a fellow professional," he says, sold-accented frame "An associate"

"And what’s your specialty, sister? Knee-work?"

I tear loose of Ric and round on the Lieutenant He’s -haired; every position-loving, not-very-sharp ht around instead of doing his job

I draw on all the interviews I’ve done omen in law enforcement

" Quantico didn’t think so, Lieutenant, when I took their serial killer workshop with John Douglas Granted this is all theoretical and speculative co up from beat work, but you havebones, which indicates an ultra-violent-and bizarrely controlled-end You have coitus interruptus, which guarantees a textbook-sick perp, and you have very old bones, which uy stands paralyzed

"Remind et about getting a pit bull"

"So you’re FBI too," Detective Haskell says "Ex-FBI like our Meskin friend here?"’

At first I don’t get the word, "Meskin," but Ric’s fingers digging into ht," I say Clai to being a reporter An ex-reporter "And I didn’t quite get what you just said"

Haskell doesn’t bother to translate He just eyes Ric with an ugly smile "Our Cadaver Kid here is one lucky bastard Got a nose for dead bodies Me, I think the whole thing stinks Maybe he’s really working for the Christophe syndicate or one of the other mob czars in town and just knohere all the bodies are buried"

Before this confrontation can deteriorate any ravesite

"Most of the clothes are rotted to threads," a woman’s voice calls fro artifacts"

She’s right to call any finds "artifacts" This is alli to date them Quantico Girl? No Retro Girl Yes

A quart-size plastic bag holding a heavy load of large silver dollar coins is passed up

"Wanta bet there are thirty of the so small and black is also passed up to Officer Buff, but Haskell snags it He stares at it, then eyeschip," he says Tells me "From the Inferno So much for your ’old’ theory, babe So, Montoya You came, you saw, you bombed Get yourself and Quantico Girl outahere"

We retreat a few yards Once we’re alone, I fight not to double over and barf Because I re-feel their pain, this live-dead couple Interlocked bones, loved to death I’ve seen theo, but it makes them into pawns, not people who lived and breathed and loved at one ti I own could be pawned Achilles’ urn My own soul

Ric is shaking me loose of my flashback "You’ll have to tell lasses They prevent sun dae and don’t hurt his looks at all Does every wo on?

"He called you-" I start to say

"He lives to offend Anyway, it’s true"

"Well, yeah, but hey, what’s really bothering you?"

"Besides you?" The easy humor is back And then the frown "The Inferno is the hottest hotel-casino in town for the Pseudo-Goth-Hypehead-Decadent set"

"And?"

"It opened three years ago"

"Oh"

"That’s okay Silver dollars haven’t been used for ga in this city since the price-run on silver in the seventies It’s up to the coroner’s office to determine the time of death Those bones looked well seasoned to me"

"It’s not only that I saw shards of their clothes, jewelry Particularly hers Strictly late forties or early fifties"

He’s s down at me "They teach you that at ’ Quantico ’?’"

"No, but they should have, if I’d been there I have worked as an investigative TV reporter I covered ritual h in Kansas they were cattle mutilations, most often Are you really ex-FBI?"

"Yeah What about it?"

"You’re the best freaking dressed Fed I’ve ever seen"

"Maybe that’s why I’ over here I wanted to establish that we have a right to be on this case I didn’t expect it, but you cooked Haskell’s goose"

We? This case? Maybe But I’ve got my own cases to solve, my own bones to pick

Bone number one is not who Ric is, but what We walk away from the crime scene for a heart to heart

Chapter Eleven

"Now that we’re alone, Ric, tellrod targeted last night, and I saw it Only I saw that couple alive, and being killed I’ve never had daylight night to do with it You’re a water witch, aren’t you?"

Ric winced at my last phrase ’’Water dowser It’s a respected faculty a rural folk all over the world I can do it a bit now, but it’s not ift It’s not any part of this Millenniue in supernaturals and freaks at all I’ Just a guy with a quirky faene"

"So what’s your ’faculty,’ if not finding water?"

He looked away, od for inspiration so that I’d believe him

"Most dowsers do find water A very few find precious metals and stones I’round That’s what I do Know they’re there"