The Spider Thief

by Laurence MacNaughton

  Moolah whined and climbed back up into the front seat. He swiveled his head back and forth, looking out the window and then at Ash.

  “Been cooped up too long?” Ash leaned across the wide seat and opened the door. Without hesitation, Moolah jumped out and started sniffing the bushes along the side of the road. Above, the sky darkened as clouds rolled in. Looked like a thunderstorm was on its way.

  Ash gave the phone another try and then tossed it on the seat, fed up. “It’ll be okay, buddy,” he called to Moolah after a minute. “Let’s just get Mauricio and get out of here. What do you say? Let’s head to Texas. Get some steaks.”

  At that last word, Moolah came back to the open car door, his tail wagging.

  “You act like I never feed you. I know I must’ve fed you this morning.”

  Moolah gave him a begging look, his eyes big.

  A pickup truck blew past on the road, buffeting the Galaxie with wind. Tires screeched. Ash’s head snapped up.

  The gunmen’s rusted green pickup skidded to a halt in the middle of the highway. Salvador stuck his thick ugly head out the passenger window, giving him a murderous glare.

  The truck’s white back-up lights lit up.

  “Moolah!” Ash said. “Get in the car!”

  Chapter Six

  Runaway

  The pickup backed up, and Salvador leaned out the passenger window with his ugly assault weapon. He fired. Bullets kicked up dirt along the shoulder of the highway.

  Ash got Moolah inside, shut the door, and turned the key in the dashboard. The starter whinnied at him.

  “Come on,” he whispered, and tramped on the gas pedal. The engine started, then shuddered and threatened to die. He fed it more gas, making it growl, and shifted into gear. The back tires spun in the gravel, sliding the Galaxie as he wrestled it back onto the road, headed straight for the pickup.

  Salvador yelled to the driver, and the pickup swerved. At the last second, Ash steered around them. Just as Salvador brought up the automatic weapon and cut loose, the pickup skidded, throwing off his aim. Chunks of asphalt sprayed the Galaxie’s doors.

  In seconds, Ash had pushed the speedometer past seventy, praying the car could keep it up. The Galaxie might have sat too long in a shed for this kind of driving, but he didn’t have a lot of choice.

  He pushed the car as hard as he could, edging up on a dirty eighteen-wheeler, the only other thing on the road.

  On the side of the highway, a flashing yellow sign streaked past, announcing an upcoming runaway truck ramp. These ramps were a common sight in the mountains, designed to stop heavily loaded trucks that had lost their brakes on the steep roads.

  A plan unfolded in his mind. Get ahead of the eighteen-wheeler, use it as cover from the gunmen as they passed by, then pull off before they knew he was gone. Ditch the car and hoof it into the trees before they could turn back and catch up.

  As a plan, it was lousy. But it was the only thing he could think of.

  The highway curved, hugging the side of the mountain as it dropped into the valley. Guardrails penned them in on both sides, protection from the craggy ridge rising up on one side and falling abruptly away on the other.

  Ash got just ahead of the eighteen-wheeler’s cab and stayed there, waiting. He had to do this just right, cutting across in front of the big rig and off the ramp before the pickup could follow him. The truck ramp appeared ahead, more yellow lights flashing on its signs.

  In the rear-view mirror, the green pickup closed in behind him.

  Ash floored the gas pedal and swerved right. The Galaxie downshifted angrily, kicking him in the seat as he hurtled diagonally across the path of the eighteen-wheeler.

  The big rig’s horn blasted at him, its grille filling his rear window. Salvador cut loose with the assault weapon, blowing a line of craters out of the highway. The eighteen-wheeler’s front tire exploded in a flurry of rubber.

  Ash braced himself as the Galaxie screamed up the ramp. It ended in a long strip of gravel. He hit it hard. The gravel sucked at the Galaxie’s tires, slowing them to a crawl.

  Behind him, the eighteen-wheeler skidded on its blown-out front tire, rubber howling on the asphalt as the driver tried to keep control. The rig drifted off the highway and shuddered up the ramp after Ash. Its speed shredded the blown tire and flung it off, sending it flapping through the air. A fountain of sparks erupted from the bare steel wheel. The cab tilted at a crazy angle, the mass of the loaded trailer pushing it along.

  Ash fought to keep the Galaxie moving through the gravel. The big rig plowed in behind him. The Galaxie’s tires spun and caught, inching him forward, then spun again.

  The rig dug a trough in the gravel like a freight ship breaking through rough water, bearing straight at him. Rocks sprayed up on either side. The dirty white trailer swung around, huge tires hopping across the gravel.

  Ahead, the gravel strip climbed uphill and ended in rows of yellow sand barrels, the last line of defense. After that, the ramp came to an abrupt end against a towering cliff face. He had only a second to imagine the Galaxie crushed between the big rig and the jagged wall of rock.

  Ash got the Galaxie moving. Gravel kicked up from the tires, clattering off the rig’s looming grille as it finally ground itself to a halt, its jack-knifed trailer filling the car’s rear window. Ash stared at the rivets in the chipped white sheet metal, the road grime on the undercarriage, the giant lug nuts circling the wheels that had stopped inches short of crushing him. A cloud of dust drifted over the Galaxie.

  The truck driver, a heavyset man in a red baseball cap, shoved his head out of the cab’s window. “What the hell are you doin’?”

  “Sorry.” Ash waved to him. “My bad.”

  On the shoulder of the highway below, the pickup skidded to a halt. Salvador swung one leg over the pickup’s door, straddling it, the weapon tight against his shoulder.

  Ash froze. He had no way to escape.

  The screeching of tires filled the air. The beige sedan from the gas station skidded to a halt behind the pickup. A black-haired woman in sunglasses and a business suit got out and crouched behind the door, aiming a squat steel pistol.

  Ash had only a fraction of a second to wonder who she was and what she was doing. Salvador twisted around and flung one arm out to fire single-handed. A plume of muzzle flash flickered from his weapon.

  Bullets riddled the sedan. The headlights burst. White spider webs stitched across the windshield. It caved in, glass exploding everywhere.

  In seconds, it was over. Salvador ejected his empty magazine. Ash watched open-mouthed, rooted to the spot.

  The woman popped up over the wreck of her car, broken glass sparkling as it fell from the creases in her suit. She returned fire, bam-bam-bam, shooting out the pickup’s rear window.

  The pickup’s tires spun, curling off white smoke, and the truck streaked away. She kept firing, bullets sparking off the doorframe around Salvador. He scrambled back inside the cab as the pickup hurtled around the curve and vanished.

  In the shocking silence after the gunfire, the woman ejected the spent magazine out of her pistol and slapped in a new one. She turned toward Ash and pulled off her sunglasses. Her hair was shorter, and God knows he’d never seen her in a suit before, but there was no mistaking the honest beauty in that face.

  “Cleo?” Ash whispered.

  Chapter Seven

  Truth

  Ash’s mind took an unexpected left turn. Could it really be Cleo? Where had she come from? How had she found him? A hundred other questions crashed together in his mind, stunning him.

  Thick rain drops spattered the windshield as he eased the Galaxie out from between the trailer and the rocks. He caught a glimpse of the truck driver peeking over the hood of his truck from the uphill side. It looked like he’d bailed out of the cab when the bullets started flying. Ash waved an apology to him.

  The Galaxie coasted down the short strip of pavement that connected the end of the runaway ramp back onto the highwa
y. As Ash pulled up behind the wreck of Cleo’s car, he leaned across the seat and rolled down the stiff passenger window.

  “Ash!” She came to the window and leaned into the car, her intense gaze searching his face. She smelled of perfume and gun smoke. It had been years since high school, and the awkward girl he knew now carried herself with a sureness that was downright intimidating. She wore her hair straight and professional, though it was starting to curl in the rain.

  More than anything, in her eyes he saw years of experience, along with a hint of wariness. He wondered what she saw in his.

  She shook her head. “It really is you. God.”

  “Just Ash, actually. But I get that sometimes.” He grinned at her, but she didn’t seem the slightest bit amused. “What, no hug?”

  “You’d be lucky to get a handshake. And for that, I’d have to be wearing gloves.”

  “How about a little peck on the cheek?” He leaned across the wide bench seat and tapped a finger just above his jawbone. “Right about . . . there.”

  She leaned one hand on the chrome windowsill. Rain dappled her suit, turning it dark. “Ash, who were those guys? What the hell just happened?”

  He shrugged. “Well, from where I was sitting. I’d say good shootin’, Tex.”

  “And by that, I assume you mean, ‘Hi Cleo, thanks for saving my miserable life.’”

  “Yes. You’re amazing. So where did you learn to do that?” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Did you join the CIA after graduation?”

  Her expression stayed dead serious. “Yes, Ash, I joined the CIA, and now I’m an international super-spy.”

  He blinked. “Seriously?”

  “No.” Her lips quirked up in a faint smile. “Think about it. How old was I when I got my big game license, you remember?”

  “I’m pretty sure it was after kindergarten. But I could be wrong.”

  “Welcome back to Colorado.”

  Up the hill behind her, the truck driver climbed down from his cab. He waved a cell phone over his head, shouting.

  “Uh-oh,” Ash said. “Time to go.”

  “Ash, just hold on a minute. We need to talk to him, have him call 9-1-1.”

  It felt like someone dropped rocks into the pit of his stomach. “Oh. Cops. That’s such a clean-cut, sunny-side-up plan, isn’t it?”

  “Ash, what kind of trouble are you in, exactly?”

  “I’ll be honest with you—”

  “First time for everything,” she muttered.

  “You wound me.” Rain poured down, getting louder. A few cars whizzed past. No cops yet. “Look, it pains me to admit it, but I don’t have a clue what’s going on. Really. I woke up a little while ago with a killer headache and some guy named Andres was trying to cure it with a bullet. That’s all I know right now. And that is the absolute, iron-clad, bankable truth. Take it or leave it.”

  The intensity that grew in her gaze felt like it could burn through him. “Some guy named Andres,” she slowly repeated.

  “Yeah. Andres. Black hair, sunglasses, homicidal. Looks kind of like Gene Simmons without his makeup.” The rain came down harder. “Look, I’ll tell you all about him, if you want. Just get in the car before you get totally soaked.”

  She folded her arms, obviously debating it.

  Ash glanced in the rearview mirror. Still no cops. But he was sure the clock was ticking.

  Finally, Cleo holstered her gun and tugged the door open. She climbed in and pulled the door closed with a heavy thunk. Rain ran in through the open window. She tried to turn the smaller of the two chrome cranks.

  “Other one,” he said as he pulled away and accelerated.

  “Ash, wait. Wait!” She turned around in the seat as they sped past the bullet-riddled wreckage of her car.

  “Trust me, you’re better off in here. That car’s seen better days. Roof probably leaks.” He sped the Galaxie down the highway, trying to put as much distance between him and the truck ramp as possible.

  Cleo stared harder at him, as if she was trying to see completely through him. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “Told you. I’m still trying to figure that out.”

  With an effort, Cleo got the window rolled up, and the noise of rain on the road vanished, leaving them in silence.

  Moolah chose that moment to come out of hiding and poke his head up from the back seat. He sniffed at Cleo’s neck. She jerked away with a start.

  Ash stifled a laugh. “It’s okay. He doesn’t bite.”

  “Is this your dog?” She half-turned in the seat, pulling awkwardly away as Moolah tried to snuggle up to her.

  Ash shrugged. “I feed him and pet him, and he won’t let me go anywhere without him. Guess that makes him my dog.”

  Tentatively, she started petting him. Moolah’s tail thumped against the back seat. They drove that way for a long, unbroken moment. The wipers squeaked across the wet windshield.

  He could feel her gaze studying him again. What could be going on behind those dark eyes of hers? Did she hate him? Was she glad to see him? He couldn’t tell.

  Finally, she spoke. “What did you do, Ash?”

  “See, why is this my fault?” He gave her his best innocent look. “I did absolutely nothing. I am a law-abiding citizen who flosses and votes. I would never dream of breaking the law.”

  “Uh huh. So where did you get this car?”

  She had him on that one. “Well, okay, I did steal the car. But believe me, it was entirely necessary.”

  She stopped petting Moolah. “See, how can you justify something like stealing a car?”

  “Well, in my defense, the other option involved getting a lot more lead in my diet.” When she didn’t say anything, he traded looks with her and saw just a glimmer of sympathy in her eyes. After that, he decided it was time to go for broke. “Okay, so you wanted to know about Andres. Here it is.”

  She cocked her head. “I’m listening.”

  “He’s got followers. And they’re after this ancient treasure. A gold spider. He’s willing to kill his own people over it. And, obviously, they’re okay with killing me.” He swallowed. “So here’s my plan, as of this exact moment. If I can find the spider, maybe I can hand it over and get Andres off my back.”

  “Do you know where it is?”

  “Not yet. But there’s a bigger problem. If I give him the spider, it’ll only continue the curse.” He held up his hand before she could say anything. “Don’t tell me how crazy it sounds. Believe me, I know. But the spider steals memories. If you’re around it long enough, eventually it’ll kill you.”

  “Where did you hear this?”

  “If I told you the whole truth, you wouldn’t believe me.” He shook his head. “I don’t want to get you mixed up in this.”

  She sniffed, then turned to face the window. “Do you have anything on Andres that’ll hold up in court?”

  “You’re kidding, right?” he said. “Look, I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”

  “How about a state patrol station?”

  “Almost anywhere.”

  “Why, Ash? Why do you need to do this alone? These people are criminals. Just call the police. They’ll take Andres into custody. It’s that simple.”

  “Really? Well, gee whiz, why didn’t I think of that? Let’s call in the fuzz, so I can explain to them about my little bout of amnesia. And then we’ll share a good laugh. All the way to my prison cell.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Call it an educated guess.” Ash squinted through the rain. It got heavier by the moment, drumming on the roof, washing across the highway. “Look, I know this sounds bizarre, but this curse, it’s on me. I keep running away from it, but it always comes back.” His phone rang, making him jump. He pulled it out and held it up. “Huh. It’s my brother.”

  “Mauricio?” She yanked the phone out of his hand and answered it. “Hey, it’s Cleo.” A moment later, she let out a chuckle. “No, really. It’s me. No kidding.” She gave Ash a b
ittersweet smile.

  He smiled back. He couldn’t help it.

  “I know, crazy, huh?” she said. “Yeah, I still live here. In Denver, I mean, but my mom still has the old house.”

  Cleo held the phone away from her ear as Mauricio’s voice came back a high-pitched barrage. It made her grin.

  “Saving your brother’s butt,” she said, putting the phone back to her ear. “Why, what are you up to?” Then she turned serious. “No, but somebody just took a shot at Ash. Yes, with a gun. An automatic weapon.” She listened. “Well, like it or not, you’re not here, and I am. We’re headed to a police station.”

  “No, we’re not,” Ash said.

  “You guys have a lawyer?” She pushed her wet hair back from her face. “You’re going to need one.”

  Ash held out his hand. “Let me talk to him.”

  “What do I do these days?” Her eyebrows drew together. “How about you tell me what you’re doing?” As she listened, she looked over at Ash with growing worry.

  He felt his cheeks flush.

  “Uh huh,” she said, over and over. After a while, she covered her eyes with one hand. “No, I hear you, but I need you to understand . . . Right. And you could end up in prison, too. Or worse.”

  “It’s not that bad,” Ash said. “Look, we help people. Ask him about the señora.”

  “He says it’s not that bad,” she said, then nodded. “Uh huh. You too, huh? So, what can you tell me about Andres?” She waited. “Andres. That name sound familiar?” She looked over at Ash. “Yeah, he’s sitting right here. Hang on.” She held out the phone. “He says he doesn’t know any Andres.”

  Ash took the phone, shooting her a dirty look. Into the phone, he said, “You giving her my life story, or what?”

  “Somebody has to talk some sense into you, man,” Mauricio said. “You never listen to me. Is she for real? Somebody just take a shot at you?”

  “Don’t worry, we’re fine.” He caught Cleo’s glare and added, “There was some collateral damage.”