Dangerous Thing

by Lanyon, Josh

  Reassuringly, a cricket chirped.

  Shaking off the jitters, I got moving. I knew it would take Jake at least half an hour to get back to the ranch, grab one of the vehicles and drive around to pick me up. Half an hour in Creepsville would be plenty. I booked.

  It grew darker. I trudged on. The birds in the trees stopped sympathizing and fell silent. I heard a crack behind me like a twig snapping under foot.

  I stopped. Tried to figure out where the noise came from.

  The sound came again, closer. And with it came a scent I can’t quite describe. A musky odor, heavy and oily, animal.

  It was hard for me to pinpoint my location since I was not familiar with this part of the woods. I took a moment to locate Saddleback Mountain and make sure I was heading east, toward the archeologists’ camp.

  I paced myself, not wanting to risk a sprain on the uneven track.

  Whatever followed me, moving through the bushes, could be heard plainly now. And I knew that if it was an animal, a bear or a big cat, running was liable to trigger an attack. When was the last time anyone in these parts had been attacked by a bear or a mountain lion? It was possible, but not probable, right? Maybe it was something harmless. A deer or a stray cow. Or a really big rabbit.

  Reason told me to walk; I picked up speed, breaking into a lope.

  My muscles burned, sweat soaking my shirt. I started worrying about pushing myself too hard. Hard not to, after sixteen years of hearing Lisa warn me to be careful, take things slowly, remember that I wasn’t strong. Kind of a drag if the last words I heard on earth were Jake’s “I told you so.”

  Surely the camp couldn’t be much further? Ahead I spotted the markers that staked out the location of the Red Rover mine. Maybe another mile? I ran faster, listening to the scared but steady thump of blood in my ears.

  Jogging around a bend, I nearly got creamed by Jake who was tearing up the road in the Bronco.

  I jumped left; Jake swerved right and braked.

  I rolled out of the bank of leaves, picked myself up and clambered into the Bronco.

  “For Chrissake, Adrien!” He swiped off the reflective sunglasses.

  “There’s something out there!” I gasped, double-checking that I had locked the door. My heart was going like a trip-hammer. I shut up and listened to its beat.

  Jake’s face fell into hard dangerous lines. Pulling his gun out of his shoulder holster, he reached for the door handle.

  I forgot about my heart and grabbed for him. “What are you doing?”

  “What do you think is out there?”

  “I don’t know. A bear maybe?”

  I must not have sounded convincing. “That’s what I thought.” He gave me a long, level look. “Wait here.” Shaking my hand off, he climbed out.

  He just didn’t get it.

  I climbed out too, none too happy about it, watching tensely as Jake strode back up the road. He looked ready for trouble, though he clearly believed I was a victim of my own imagination. I trailed behind, wanting to keep the Bronco in sprinting distance, but not wanting to lose sight of Jake.

  While we waited my heart slowed back down to a regular tempo. I relaxed a bit. Even felt triumphant. I had done what I had set out to do and I was none the worse for it.

  A few yards ahead of me Jake stood still. I stopped in my tracks. Nothing moved in the twilight. Not a twig stirred, not a blade of grass bent. Beyond the sound of the Bronco engine running quietly down the road, there was utter and unnerving silence.

  I could hardly make out Jake in the gloaming.

  “It’s gone,” I called.

  He shook his head.

  He was right. I could feel it too; something was there, beyond our line of vision. Waiting.

  Fear zinged up and down my nervous system, shorting out commonsense. Last night I’d had reason to be terrified. Today … my reaction was illogical. If a bear had tracked me from the cave it wouldn’t be hiding in the bushes now. And if it wasn’t a bear or another large carnivore, what was the problem?

  “Jake —” I broke off as a long, blood-curdling howl broke the stillness.

  It was not a coyote. I’ve heard enough coyotes to tell the difference. It sounded like ... well ... a wolf. Close by.

  Jake brought his gun up into a firing stance, but the echo didn’t seem to come from any one direction.

  “Christ,” he said just loudly enough for me to hear him.

  Without conscious decision, I started back for the Bronco. I meant to walk but somehow I found myself going hell-bent-for-leather.

  Jake was right behind me, slamming and locking his door a half-minute after me.

  “I’m not imagining it,” I said.

  “No.”

  I stared at what I could see of his face in the gloom. “What the hell was that? There are no wolves around here.”

  He shook his head.

  We sat for a few moments while the shadows deepened around us.

  “What are we waiting for?”

  “Damned if I know.” His eyes continued to search the side of the road.

  “Maybe it’s a werewolf.” He turned my way and I added, “I’m kidding.”

  “I hope so.”

  Without further comment he shifted into reverse, resting his arm on the back of my seat as he turned to guide our backwards retreat.

  We reached a point in the road where there was space for Jake to turn the Bronco around, which he did with smooth efficiency.

  “I found something in the cave,” I said abruptly. Proof of how disturbed I was by whatever the hell we had just experienced, the corpse in the cave had momentarily slipped my mind. “Not what I expected. I found a body.”

  Jake spared me half a glance. “Not what you expected? What did you expect?” His dark brows drew together. “Was it…?”

  I knew what — and why — he asked.

  “I think so.” Belatedly queasy, I said, “Animals have been at it.”

  * * * * *

  When we reached the ranch, Jake called my grisly discovery in while I poured us each a drink. When he got off the phone I said, “How long before we have to start back for the cave?”

  He took his glass. Knocked back a mouthful of whisky. “You don’t need to go. I’ll handle it.”

  “Stop treating me like —”

  He interrupted, “Look, you don’t have to keep proving yourself to me, okay? I think you’re plenty tough in the ways that count.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. It was hard to hold his gaze. Suddenly he seemed to see way too much.

  “From here on out this has to be handled by professionals. Understand?”

  “I guess so.”

  We drank in a silence that was unexpectedly companionable. Jake swished whisky through his teeth and swallowed, making a kind of “Ahhh ...”

  “The thing I don’t get is why would anyone kill Ted Harvey and Dr. Livingston? What could they possibly have in common?”

  Jake sighed as if he’d known the peace and quiet was too good to last. “If it is Harvey,” he replied.

  “It may not be Harvey, but it’s the guy I saw in the road the night I arrived here. I recognized his shirt.”

  He seemed to consider. “Okay, well, maybe one of them was killed by mistake.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You thought they looked alike, right?”

  “No. I knew Livingston wasn’t Harvey. Everyone else thought my description of Harvey fit Livingston. I didn’t.”

  Jake shrugged as though this proved his point.

  “These two have nothing in common. One is a respected academic. The other is … kind of a low life.”

  “They’ve got something in common. Presumably, the same person killed them. Presumably, that person had a motive.”

  I swiveled my glass on the table, clockwise, counter-clockwise. “You think it’s Kevin.”

  Jake shrugged. “Suppose Harvey and the kid had a business arrangement. Suppose Livingston found out about it. Th
e kid kills the professor. He falls out with Harvey, and kills Harvey.”

  Jake’s tour of duty as a cop tended to color his worldview as through a glass darkly.

  I blinked at him. The alcohol was hitting me all at once. I felt almost woozy with fatigue. “Jake, there’s no reason to suspect Kevin more than anyone else.”

  “How about a .22 caliber rifle?”

  “We don’t even know if ballistics got a match.”

  “I think they will get a match, Adrien.” His eyes met mine. “I know you like the kid, but there’s usually not a lot of mystery about these things. You gather the facts and you put them together, and they usually add up to one person, even if there’s not always enough evidence for a conviction.”

  I didn’t get a chance to argue this because the sheriffs drove into the yard then, and Jake left to show them the cave. I listened to the truck engines dying into the night and I decided to grab a quick nap, sacking out on my bed for a couple of hours of deep dreamless sleep. When I woke I felt like the new and improved model.

  I treated myself to a long soak in the claw-foot hot tub, doctored up my yellow jacket bite, which was now an unattractive red welt, pulled on a pair of sweats and a soft T-shirt, and started dinner.

  While the pork chops broiled, I sat down at the table with a legal pad and tried to make sense of what Jake and I had learned so far.

  The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, I told myself. But what was the truth?

  Someone had killed two men who, on the surface, had nothing in common. So … maybe they did have something in common? Or maybe killing one had been an accident? Or maybe the same person hadn’t killed both men?

  Someone (I refused to think something) was harassing the archeologists at Spaniard’s Hollow. Why? Because someone held that ground to be sacred? Or because someone wanted to bring attention to the dig? I thought about what Marquez had said about Shoup wanting a “big discovery.” That meant publicity, right? Mysterious goings-on at a site could generate a certain amount of publicity.

  I had another whisky and considered the possibilities.

  Someone was willing to kill me and/or Jake. Why? It’s not like I was such a threat as an amateur sleuth. Was there another motive for wanting to get rid of me and/or Jake?

  The snake incident had happened after I let it spill that Jake was a cop, so maybe his being a cop figured in?

  Except, as Melissa pointed out, there were few secrets in a small town. Billingsly knew Jake was a cop. The word could have spread before I ever opened my big mouth. Marnie Starr knew Jake was a cop.

  Which meant?

  The snake could have been intended for me, but Jake was the one who had been shot. And now that I thought about it, one of the pictures I’d seen at Marnie’s had been of Marnie holding a rifle like she meant business.

  Love American Style? Maybe Harvey’s death was unconnected to Livingston’s after all? Or maybe Marnie knew Livingston too? I tapped the pen on the yellow pad studying the myriad random dots as though I could connect them in a meaningful pattern.

  * * * * *

  It was several hours before Jake returned, looking weary and grim.

  “Was it Harvey?” I asked watching him scrub up at the sink.

  “Yeah, they’re ninety percent sure it is.”

  “Was he shot?”

  “Yeah.”

  I trailed Jake to the front room, watching as he poured himself a stiff drink.

  “Do you think it was the same weapon?”

  “Adrien, get real.” Jake downed his drink in a gulp and poured another.

  I understood why he might be feeling tense. “I simply mean, was there anything to indicate it wasn’t the same weapon?”

  Jake drifted into the kitchen as he answered, “It’s not like I had — or wanted — a chance to examine the wounds.” He opened the oven broiler. “Mm. My favorite. Charcoal briquettes.”

  “They’re a little dried out. I didn’t know how long you’d be.”

  He gave me a deadpan look.

  “Why don’t you have a shower,” I suggested. “Take it from me, you’ll feel better. I’ll fix you a plate.” He handed his glass to me. “And another drink.”

  A shower and another drink put Jake in a more agreeable mood — or maybe my having another drink made it seem so. Anyway, over his withered chops and mushy vegetables he described for me how they had climbed down to the cave and retrieved Harvey’s body, carrying it down by stretcher which, at night, must have been pretty grim.

  “Are they going to arrest Kevin?”

  He didn’t meet my eyes. “I’m not in their confidence.”

  “Would you arrest Kevin if this was your case?”

  He shrugged. “There are a lot of factors involved in timing an arrest. At this point, I’d want a tighter case. Something to take to court.”

  “Do you think I’m still considered a suspect?”

  He pushed his plate away. Now his eyes did meet mine. “You’re suspect all right. I just don’t know that it’s murder they suspect you of.”

  I considered this.

  “Jake, you know what happened in the woods today —”

  “Here we go,” he muttered. “The Blair Witch Project.”

  “Hey, you were there.”

  “These men were shot to death. The Guardian did not rip them to pieces like that dog — not that the dog was ripped to pieces by supernatural beings. The Guardian is a legend. A folk tale. It’s not — I admit there was something funky about the woods today, okay? But I’m not prepared to — I mean —” He shook his head, denying any and all paranormal possibilities.

  Not that I blamed him. For all that I prided myself on keeping an open mind, I wasn’t ready to log into the Twilight Zone.

  I redeemed myself from the pork chop fiasco by coming up with raspberry and dark chocolate ice cream for dessert. There’s nothing like a pint of ice cream to soothe the savage beast. He had quite a sweet tooth for such a tough guy. And a head for drink, but the latter was typical of cops, according to him.

  Catching my speculative gaze, his mouth twisted. “You’ve had too much to drink.”

  “I have?”

  He nodded. “I can always tell. You start giving me these looks.” He propped his chin on his hand and dropped his eyelids to half-mast, imitating me I suppose. I have to admit it was a pretty sappy expression.

  “Come hither,” he stated.

  “Pardon?”

  “That’s your come hither look.”

  Reluctantly I laughed. “And this is my go to hell look.”

  He sighed, a regretful sound like blowing into a beer bottle. “You’re probably the best looking guy I ever knew.”

  “A bottle of whisky helps.”

  “No seriously. You are. Your eyes and everything. Not my type, but beautiful.”

  “What is your type?”

  “A girl.”

  “Bullshit.”

  His head jerked up and he gave me a bright hostile look.

  “Bullshit,” I said again. Maybe I had had too much to drink because I wasn’t backing off although I saw it go through Jake’s soggy brain to pop me one.

  Instead he said clearly and bleakly, “I’ve got nothing to offer you, Adrien.” These were not the opening remarks to a proposal.

  “I don’t recall asking.” For good measure, I added, “Hell, you came after me, Jake. Every step of the way.”

  I don’t know how we jumped from mild flirtation to open hostility. A few too many drinks, I guess. I figured Jake’s next move would be to push away from the table and call for another early night. I didn’t want him to walk away, but I knew I couldn’t stand down. Not about this.

  He eyeballed me for a long moment then he shrugged. The tension was gone, just like that. He refilled his glass, held it up briefly in a salute and knocked it back.

  “So,” he said casually, “You want to fuck?”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Sure,” I said.

  B
ut I was less sure when we walked into my bedroom and undressed. For one thing, I knew sex wasn’t going to solve anything, but it might change things. For the worse.

  As I watched Jake unbuckle his belt in a business-like fashion, I remembered that this was a guy who liked to do it with whips and chains — and strangers.

  If we could have fallen on the kitchen table, swept away on a tide of passion … but the lag time of walking to the bedroom, stripping, lying down on the bed … it gave time to think. To reflect. To pause.

  To remember the last time I’d had sex with a guy I didn’t know that well. Not exactly a joyride.

  It was cold in the room. The light seemed too bright. I crawled onto the bed and wondered what the hell to do next. Had he ever done this without tying someone to the bed? Assuming he even did it in bed. My knowledge of the BDSM scene was sketchy at best — which was kind of the way I wanted to keep it.

  Jake knelt on the mattress and slipped his condom on with a snap like a detective donning latex gloves to examine a crime scene. Not a romantic noise.

  “Have you got lube?” he asked.

  “Uh … no. I wasn’t planning …”

  He glanced up and smiled. The smile disarmed me. He looked a little self-conscious. There was a flush across his cheekbones and his eyes were very bright.

  I smiled back and he leaned forward and kissed me. The kiss reassured. His mouth was warm and already tasted familiar.

  “I like kissing you,” he said softly. “I didn’t think I would. But I do.”

  “Good,” I said. “I like kissing you too.”

  We kissed again. I tasted the licorice-bite of the whisky on his tongue.

  He kissed harder and said against my mouth, “I want to fuck you so bad.”

  I nodded.

  “Lie back.”

  I stretched out. I wasn’t exactly sexually active these days but I wasn’t a virgin either. I knew what to expect and whatever Jake’s range of experience, I figured it would be okay. Probably not great for him, without all his little toys and costumes, and maybe not great for me either since he probably was not much into giving pleasure that didn’t involve the release of some serious endorphins. I’d do my best to make sure he enjoyed himself; I wanted him to see that it could be good without the improper use of kitchen utensils.