by Ann Charles
“Hey, I’m not done asking questions.” Claire squirmed on the tailgate, her knees squeezing his hips.
“Yes, you are,” he said, his lips soft, hot.
Claire squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to let him derail her train of thought.
If she was right about Sophy stealing from Joe and hiding the goods in those mines, Joe couldn’t have been just a traveling salesman. That furniture would have been out of his price range. The stuff stacked away in Sophy’s house was Sotheby’s material, not from some rinky-dink antique store out here in the middle of nowhere.
Tomorrow, the junkyard would be open, and Claire could go take a look at Joe’s Mercedes, see if she could find that briefcase hidden somewhere. Briefcases didn’t get up and walk away.
Mac’s mouth traveled up the inside of her arm and all of her coherent thoughts headed for Splitsville.
Something growled from the shadows under the pickup.
Claire looked over her shoulder in time to see Henry leap from the open car window and tear after a white cat through the tangle of parking lot traffic.
“Shit!” She hopped to the ground and chased after him, weaving through darkened pickups. “Henry, come back!”
The blare of a horn made her freeze. Wincing, she watched in horror as Henry raced after the cat across the Interstate, a minivan slowing just in time to miss his tail.
Claire rushed after the dog, only to be yanked backward as she reached the highway shoulder.
A Corvette trying to match the speed of sound whizzed in front of her, the whoosh of air trailing it pelted her face with dust.
“That was close,” she breathed, her heart jackhammering in agreement.
“Too close,” Mac said from behind her, letting her go.
Looking twice this time to make sure the road was clear, she zipped across the asphalt and skidded to a stop in front of Sophy’s diner. She squinted in the thick shadows, looking for a glimpse of Henry’s little white butt, listening for his panting.
Mac jogged up next to her.
“Did you see which way he ran?” she asked between gasps.
“Yep.” Taking hold of her hand, he dragged her around the back of the building.
Mac halted around the corner, shining a flashlight into the trees bordering Jackrabbit Creek.
Henry stood on his hind feet at the base of a cottonwood, his front paws on the trunk as he growled at the rustling leaves.
Claire wheezed and bent over while trying to catch her breath. Mac wasn’t even the slightest bit winded, damn him. “Do you carry ... a flashlight on you ... all of the time?”
“No, I grabbed it from inside my truck when you ran after Henry.”
Henry tried to climb the trunk and slid back down.
The cat hissed. A low branch wavered from more than the breeze.
“Crap, I forgot his leash.”
“I noticed.” Mac held out the strip of nylon.
“How did you grab both a flashlight and the leash and still catch me before I crossed the road?”
“You’re no Olympic sprinter, Claire.” Mac chuckled at the cosmopolitan gesture for “get bent” she directed at him. “You want me to grab him?”
“No.” She needed to cling to what little dignity she had left. Henry was becoming an expert at making her look like a total ass in front of Mac.
Holding the stitch in her side, she hitched her out-of-shape hiney over to where Henry sat whining up at his tormentor, the beam of light from Mac’s flashlight spotlighting the scene. She strapped on the leash and tugged.
The dog refused to move.
“Fine, we’ll do this the hard way.” She picked him up and carried him away.
Every muscle in the dog’s body was wiry and tense as he struggled, but not quite hard enough to get free.
“Ready?” she asked as she returned to Mac’s side.
“Hold on a minute.” He flashed the light at their feet, centering on a cigarette butt. He bent down and picked it up by the tobacco end.
“You found a cigarette. Congratulations.”
He held it out to her. “Red lipstick.”
“Sophy probably comes back here to smoke. What’s the big deal?”
“I saw one with red lipstick in another place last week.”
“Where?”
Mac dropped the butt. “Socrates Pit.”
* * *
Monday, April 19th
“Explain to me again why we’re digging around in this nasty car,” Jess said from the backseat of Joe’s Mercedes.
“We’re looking for clues.” Claire wiped a drop of sweat rolling down her temple, ignoring the tone in the kid’s voice.
The midday sunshine reflected off the other old, dead cars watching Claire and Jess. Millions of pieces of broken glass littered the oil-stained ground around them and raised the temperature to bone melting level. Joe’s car stunk of musty foam padding and baked leather. A hint of something dead and rotting wafted through the smashed windows.
“Ewww!” Jess shrieked. “I just touched a mouse turd! Wait, it’s a raisin—no, a chocolate chip. How long are chocolate chips good for?”
Claire frowned back at Jess. “Chocolate would have melted long ago.”
“Then it’s a raisin.” Jess stuck her hand under the passenger’s side seat, or what was left of it.
Something seemed to have spent a season burrowing into the stuffing previously covered by very expensive leather—the same leather that was now nothing more than strips piled on the faded carpet at Claire’s feet.
“We’re looking for clues for what?” Jess asked.
“Joe’s past.”
“Wouldn’t it be cool if we found a bloody finger or a dried up eyeball somewhere in here?”
“Yeah, real cool.” The last thing Claire wanted to find was a body part—human or any other mammal. Unfortunately, she wasn’t having much luck finding anything at all.
Someone had gutted the trunk already, and the engine had been sold long ago. All that was left was what remained of the interior.
Ruby had been wrong. Old Monty Kunkle wasn’t selling parts from this crinkled trashcan. He was offering it as a sacrifice to all gods and creatures of the Arizona desert, sun and beast and insect alike.
Claire had about swallowed her tongue when she’d opened the glove box and a scorpion had scrambled out at her. After that, she and Jess donned the leather gloves Ruby had wisely recommended and took great care when reaching into shadowy places.
Jess sat up, using the back of her arm to push back wisps of red curls that kept catching in her lashes. “Nothing under here, except more potato chips.” She dropped the chips in the palm of her glove and held them out for Claire. “Look, sour cream and onion flavored. That was Joe’s favorite, you know.”
Henry’s, too.
“Great detective work, kid.” Claire grinned despite her disappointment.
She started to climb out of the driver’s seat and paused when a flash of white between the seat and the center console caught her attention. She pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes in a red and white wrapper. Marlboro, the leaded kind.
“Did you find something?” Jess asked from behind Claire, the girl’s shadow blocking out the sun for a reprieving second.
“Just a cigarette pack wrapper.” Claire smoothed out the pack. She tapped it against her palm and two cigarettes—wrinkled slightly from wear and tear—fell into her hand. She sniffed one. The tobacco smelled old, stale, but still smoke-worthy.
“You’re not actually thinking about lighting up, are you?”
Claire looked at Jess. The girl had a disgusted sneer on her lips.
Maybe. “Of course not. I was just trying to see if I could figure out how old they were by smell.”
“What’s that?” Jess pointed toward Claire’s lap.
“What’s what?” Claire glanced down, ready to scramble out of the car if the object in question had legs and/or antennae.
“That.” Jess lifted a small
piece of paper from Claire’s thigh. “It must have fallen out when you tapped the cigarettes on your hand.”
“Really?” Claire stuffed the pack in the side pocket of her cargo pants while Jess frowned at the paper. “What is it?’
Shrugging, Jess handed it over. “Some dude’s name and number.”
Letters and numbers were scrawled on the inside of the gum wrapper. “Is this Joe’s writing?” she asked Jess.
“How should I know? I hardly ever saw the old guy.”
Claire folded the paper and shoved it in her pocket. Finally, another clue.
“So, like, what are you gonna do with it?” Jess asked, eyes sparkling with anticipation.
Claire climbed out of the car. “Call the number and see who picks up.” She tried to keep her tone level, bored sounding. No need to drag Jess into more trouble than the girl managed to stir up on her own.
“Cool! Maybe we’ll find out that Joe had another wife and kids. You know, more family—brothers and sisters.”
“Yeah, right.” For Ruby’s sake, Claire hoped not.
“Or maybe it’s the name and number of a rich uncle.”
Or maybe, Claire thought, forcing a smile to her lips for Jess’s sake, the guy on the other end would be able to answer a few questions about Joe and the real business she suspected he’d been running out of Jackrabbit Junction’s only antique store.
Chapter Sixteen
“Damn it!” Sophy threw her pickax across the shadow-filled chamber. Her words, along with the clatter of steel hitting rock, echoed off the walls of Socrates Pit.
Where had the bastard hidden it?
She tore off her gloves. Between the dust clouding the air and twenty minutes of swinging a pickax, her lungs burned. With just a few hours left until she had to open the diner, another setback didn’t fit into her schedule.
She glared down at the ore cart partially buried in the rubble. She’d followed his slurred instructions, finding the cart right where he’d sworn it would be. But it’d meant hacking her way through several feet of ceiling that had collapsed over the last few years thanks to that damned copper company and their nighttime blasting.
The “loot” he’d bragged about that night at The Shaft was supposedly stashed under the cart. Her hands shook as she wiped the sweat from her brow. Her dreams, her future—so close.
But the loot wasn’t there.
Sucking in a gulp of musty air, she remembered his last words, his last gasps and pleas. He couldn’t have lied. The fear filling his bulging eyes had been too real.
Uncertainty festered in her stomach, the dark silence of the mine squeezing her in its grip.
But what if he had?
Joe had been an expert at masking the truth. He’d whispered sweet nothings of Vegas, its neon lights; promised a desert oasis—a high-rise condo dream. And she’d been a first-rate fool. A smile plastered on her lips day in and day out as the hot and dusty reality of low-income housing and food stamps enveloped her.
The hope that had flourished in her heart, along with her belief in his tinsel-town vows, had carried her through the poverty. But after years of double shifts and swollen feet, she’d seen through his lies.
Yet, she’d stayed.
It had taken a slick-talker in a white Stetson hat and snakeskin boots to pry her from Joe’s side. Whispering promises of poolside martinis, high-roller rampages, and red satin sheets while he held her in his arms, Mr. Stetson had convinced her to pack her meager belongings and chase after her dream again.
But he was no different than Joe. The whipped-cream world he’d guaranteed melted into a pool of sticky lies. Within a week, he’d left her, bruised, penniless, flat on her ass in a dark Vegas alley.
They never showed those alleys on the glossy pages of magazines.
Sophy dug out a cigarette. The flame of her lighter danced in the semi-darkness. She inhaled, the nicotine taking some of the bite out of her gnawing frustration.
Too many years of dreaming. Way too many.
After scurrying home from Vegas with her tail between her legs, she’d picked up her greasy-spoon life where she’d left it.
Two decades of cleaning tables and filling napkin dispensers lined her face by the time Joe had returned through that diner door. Her parents were long dead, their bones left to rattle in their coffins with each dynamite blast over at the copper pit.
Visions of reconciliation had danced in her head, flamed by Joe’s need for her during those first few months after his return to town. But she’d confused lust for love yet again.
He’d laughed when she’d mentioned renewing their wedding vows. Then he’d stopped coming by her house late at night.
The pain of watching him set up shop kitty-corner from her diner, seeing him come and go, day and night, drove her to the liquor cabinet more often than not. But those nighttime outings convinced her that selling antiques wasn’t his only racket, and months later all of her spying paid off.
Her tears long-dried by then, she’d aimed for Joe’s throat, and this time, he’d bled. But not for long, and Sophy had been ready—she’d expected retaliation.
What she hadn’t expected was Joe dragging that redheaded bitch to town.
Watching Joe moon over Ruby, freely giving the woman the love Sophy had begged him for burned deep.
She dropped her cigarette and crushed it with her boot heel, grinding it into the floor, her thoughts festering on Ruby’s smiling face. She looked at the empty ore cart and swallowed the acrid memories coating the back of her tongue.
The loot had to be close. She’d followed his directions to the letter.
Squatting, she shined her light under the cart again. The dust had settled. Her beam seemed brighter this time.
Her breath caught at the sight of another wheel further back in the rubble. Another cart!
She sat back on her heels. He hadn’t mentioned more than one cart. Then again, he hadn’t been in much shape to chit-chat at the time.
Her pulse slowed as she looked at the pile of rocks she’d need to hack through to reach the second cart. With less than a week until Ruby sold the mines, time to find the loot was disappearing fast.
And Ruby’s nephew kept getting in her way. The last two nights, she’d seen his pickup below Two Jakes mine. How long before he was back snooping around in Socrates Pit?
She picked up her cigarette butt and tucked it in her pocket.
Mac Garner didn’t seem to understand that playing in mines was hazardous to his health.
Maybe it was time to put an end to his snooping for good.
* * *
Tuesday, April 20th
Claire hung up the phone and glared at the receiver. “I’m going about this Joe thing all wrong,” she told the wall and anyone else listening. “I should have called in a psychic. I hear that past life readings are the rage in Southern California now.”
A sun-warmed, mid-morning breeze puffed through the General Store’s screen door, carrying the scent of fresh cut grass and desert lavender. The soft ting-pings of Ruby’s front porch wind chimes chased the breeze.
It was a regular desert paradise.
Claire contemplated tearing out her hair.
“What did he say?” Ruby asked from behind her.
Claire turned around, but held her tongue, not sure where to start and what to omit.
Yesterday afternoon, as soon as Claire and Jess had crossed the threshold, Jess had broadcast to Ruby the fact that they’d found a name and number on a slip of paper in Joe’s car. Not that Claire had planned to hide this tidbit of information from Ruby; she just hadn’t intended to say anything until after she’d made the phone call.
Jess was oblivious to how Joe’s dirty laundry could affect Ruby’s life.
Ruby paused in the midst of stocking a shelf with Moon Pies and frowned at Claire. “Spill it, girl.”
Claire pasted a chipper smile on her face. “He didn’t say anything. He wasn’t there.”
“Then who were you y
elling at over the phone?”
“His mom.” The last person Claire had expected to answer the phone was the guy’s mother. Judging by the crackle in the lady’s voice and her inability to hear anything below a shout, the woman had to be pushing ninety.
“When’s he going to be back?”
Now came the tough part. “Not for another seven years, unless he makes parole.”
Ruby’s mouth fell open. “What?”
“Funny story—he got nailed for grand larceny. Seven to ten years in the state penitentiary.”
“You’re kidding.”
“But according to his mom, he’s completely innocent.”
“Let me guess, they got the wrong guy?”
“Isn’t that always the case?”
Ruby cocked her head to the side. “But ten years? That’s a little harsh, isn’t it?”
“Oh. Did I forget to mention the grand theft auto, illegal possession of a firearm, assaulting a police officer, and contempt of court charges? Apparently, the Miami judicial system doesn’t take too kindly to obnoxious criminals.”
Ruby tossed Claire a Moon Pie. “Sounds like a nice guy.”
“A real angel, to hear his mom talk.” Claire bit into the chocolate-covered cookie and marshmallow pie. “Thanks for breakfast. I skipped my usual half a grapefruit this morning,” she joked, hoping to divert the questions sure to follow.
“Why did Joe have this guy’s name and number in his car?”
Claire needed to work on her diversion techniques. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
But she was pretty sure her own guess was based on a much darker, more criminal origin than Ruby’s.
Ruby shoved the last Moon Pie on the shelf and tossed the empty carton into the trashcan on her way to the counter. “Manny’s right, you’re a rotten liar.” Her green-eyed gaze locked onto Claire’s. “What was my husband really doing in that antique shop?”
Claire froze, her Moon Pie halfway to her lips. “Honestly, I’m not sure.” Yet. Her suspicions were still in the larvae stage, and she didn’t feel comfortable sharing them with Joe’s widow. “But I’m working on an answer for you.”
“An answer for what?” Mac asked as he pushed through the velvet curtain while buttoning up his shirt.