by Ann Charles
Jess caught up with Claire. “You’d think Ruby would’ve at least told her kid she was leaving. Do you think she took the money with her?”
Her back to Jess, Claire rolled her eyes. “Think about it, Jess. Why would she take all of that money with her?”
“Good, that means it’s still somewhere around here.”
Silence followed as Claire bent the back of the bench seat forward and searched through the gadgets, tools, and geology-related books Mac had neatly packed back there.
“What are you doing?” Jess asked.
Out of the corner of her eye, Claire could see Jess peering over her shoulder. “Looking for something for Mac.”
After breakfast, Mac had disappeared up the attic ladder. Claire suspected he was searching for proof of Ruby’s ownership of the Lucky Monk, but she hadn’t asked, since Deborah had been circling in vulture fashion since emerging from her lair wearing curlers, a silk robe, and bright red lipstick.
Muffled thumps overhead had been the only sign of life from Mac all morning until a few minutes ago when he’d hollered down to ask Claire if she’d run out to his pickup and grab the envelope.
“You should look in the glove box.” Jess offered unsolicited help.
“Thanks,” Claire said with a dose of sarcasm.
She clicked the seat back into an upright position, pulled open the door to the glove compartment, and screamed.
* * *
Mac looked up from the box of Joe’s old tax returns he’d been sifting through. He frowned at the web-clogged mesh covering the attic vent. Was that a scream?
Several seconds passed, filled with the whirring of the attic fan. He shook his head. It must have been his imagination.
Specs of dust twirled and tumbled through the air, illuminated by the 100-watt halogen floodlight Mac had dragged up into the sweltering loft. The scent of dry-rotted cardboard and baked insulation surrounded him. He mopped his face with his sweat-soaked T-shirt and bent back over the box of returns.
A high-pierced shriek rang out.
Jess! He’d know that eardrum-bursting scream anywhere.
Springing to his feet, he dashed down the attic ladder, and took the steps three at a time. The rec room and store were nothing more than a blur.
He raced down the porch steps. “Jess?”
“Mac, no! Freeze!” Claire said from where she leaned inside the passenger side of his pickup.
He skidded to a stop a couple of feet behind her. “Where’s Jess?”
“I’m up here,” Jess said from the porch.
On his flight out of the store, he’d zipped past where she stood, plastered against the wall, trying to become one with the house.
He turned back to Claire. “What’s going on?”
“I have a little problem.” Claire said, still with her back to him.
Then he heard it—a dry, rattling sound, like a tiny pair of maracas.
He crept up behind Claire and peered over her shoulder.
A diamondback rattlesnake sat coiled, tail shaking, on the open glove box door, not a foot from Claire. Its head was raised and poised to strike.
“Fuck.” He licked his dry lips.
“That’s my line,” Claire said.
Easing back, Mac rubbed the back of his neck.
Rattlesnakes could strike in under a second. His chance of pulling Claire away fast enough to avoid a bite didn’t look too good.
“It’s not hissing.” Mac observed.
“It looks plenty pissed off to me.”
“You should’ve slammed the door on it as soon as you saw it.” Before it had time to prepare to strike.
“Yeah, well, I sort of froze. Snakes freak me out.”
“You might be able to move out of its range if you take it slowly.” He peered through the open window at the snake.
The snake opened its mouth and hissed.
“He disagrees,” Claire whispered. “And I’m with him.”
“What are you going to do? Stand there all afternoon until you pass out from the heat?”
“Maybe he’ll go to sleep.”
Mac thought about going around to the other side if his pickup and trying to distract the snake, but worried he might scare it into striking Claire instead.
Reaching out slowly, he placed his hands on the door panel, the metal almost too hot to touch. “Claire, I want you to take a very small, very slow step backward.”
“Uhhhh, no.”
Mac heard the screen door squeak open. “What’s going on?” Kate asked.
“Claire is about to get bitten by a rattlesnake.” Jess informed Kate matter-of-factly.
Mac shot Jess a shut-up glare. Her candid play-by-play wasn’t helping.
“There’s a snake out here?” Kate’s voice was high and squeaky, like she’d channeled Minnie Mouse. She opened the screen door and slipped back inside, watching through the mesh.
“My sister’s support is amazing,” Claire muttered under her breath.
“Claire.” Mac focused on the snake again. Its head had lowered slightly. “Whether you meant to or not, you’ve cornered the snake. You have to make the first move.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not face-to-face with a set of fangs.”
“Trust me.”
Several seconds passed, the rattling of the snake’s tail filling the void.
Claire’s shoulders lifted and dropped as she took a deep breath. “Okay.”
She took a tiny step backward.
The snake’s tail rattled harder.
“Mac?” Claire’s voice shook.
“It’s okay, Slugger. Take another step.” Two more and she’d be clear of the door.
She followed his instructions.
The snake hissed, its fangs threatening.
Claire froze. “If he bites me—”
“He won’t.”
“—I’m gonna bite you and pass on the poison.”
“I love it when you talk dirty to me.”
“You’re twisted.”
“One more step to go, baby.”
A butterfly flitted in front of Claire’s eyes. She jerked and stepped back. Mac shoved the door, catching sight of the snake throwing itself up and forward as the door slammed closed.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” Claire brushed off her arms and stomach, shuddering visibly. “That was close.”
“Are you okay?” Mac reached for her.
Jess shrieked from her spot on the porch.
“What now!” Mac whirled to scowl at his niece.
She was pointing at the pickup door, where the head of the rattler hung next to the door handle by a thick thread of flesh.
“Damn.” He scrubbed down his face. “That was way too close.”
“What in the hell are you doing with a rattlesnake in your glove box?” Claire was still rubbing her forearms.
Dragging his gaze from the blood dripping onto the gravel, he stared at Claire. “That was in my glove box?”
She nodded.
Mac grabbed the door handle.
“What are you doing?” Claire stumbled back several feet.
“That’s where I had the envelope.” He opened the door. The dead snake slid out onto the ground, its tail still twitching.
“Ewww!” Jess made a great audience.
Mac kicked the carcass under the pickup, then leaned inside the hot cab and rifled through the glove box, which now stunk like snake piss thanks to his dead visitor.
“Well?” Claire asked from over his shoulder.
“It’s gone.”
“Are you sure that’s where you left it?”
“One hundred percent.” He slammed the truck door shut. All of the information he’d gathered to date on the Lucky Monk was gone, stolen. A week’s worth of research wasted. Son of a bitch!
Claire cursed along with him, doing a much more thorough job of it. Then she asked, “Is there anything else missing?” Like Gramps’s mysterious package?
Mac shook his head.
“Somebody who knows I’m digging for proof on the Lucky Monk. I shouldn’t have left my windows down yesterday when I was picking up stuff for Harley in Yuccaville.”
“Did you see anyone suspicious?”
“No, just a few kids on skateboards and that dickhead Rensberg heading into his bank.”
“Rensburg. You mentioned that name before.”
“He’s the vice president who gave Ruby grief a few months ago.”
“But why put a snake in your glove box?”
Despite the late morning sun blazing a trail across the sky, a chill prickled Mac’s spine. “As a warning.”
* * *
“I need to visit the little girl’s room,” Kate heard Claire yell over the roar of The Shaft’s Saturday night crowd.
She nodded, waiting until Claire had weaved through the throng of bodies before turning to Gary, the bartender. “Is Butch around?”
She fanned herself with a cardboard coaster. If the smoke-filled air didn’t choke her by the end of the night, she’d surely keel over from the heat. The place had to be spilling over the maximum occupancy level. Who knew there were so many people hiding under rocks around these parts.
Gary shook his head. He leaned over the bar as he dried a shot glass. “He had to run to Yuccaville, but he’ll be back in—oh, shit! Not again.”
Throwing down his towel, he dashed out from behind the bar.
Whistles, catcalls, and hoots of laughter erupted from a table near the dance floor. Kate spun on her bar stool and watched, her mouth gaping, as a lanky young redheaded cowboy proceeded to perform a striptease for his well-soused buddies and anyone else interested in watching. His jeans ringed his ankles before the bartender managed to part the sea of drunks and flag Mr. Tighty-Whities’s attention.
Kate’s window of opportunity slid open. With a glance toward the bathroom to make sure Claire was out of the picture, she hopped off the stool and stole to the door leading to the kitchen.
The hinges creaked as she inched it open and peeped into the florescent lit room, the air hazy with grease and thick with the scent of fried meat. Across the room, a man stood at the stove with his back to her while he flipped burgers and whistled to Johnny Cash’s, Walk the Line, which blared from the radio perched nearby.
Kate checked over her shoulder to make sure nobody had noticed her. The stripper had managed to shuck his shirt in spite of Gary’s attempt to wrestle him down off the table. The group of cowboys and cowgirls watching the show cheered at the sight of the kid’s pale, bony chest.
Slipping through the door, Kate tiptoed across the kitchen and down the hall on the other side. Three doors lined the corridor—one on the left, one on the right, and one at the end. A mop and yellow bucket filled with sudsy water leaned against the wall near the last door.
The door on the left had a window in it, but the light was off inside. Kate doubted this was Butch’s office, but she reached for the doorknob anyway. A flick of the light switch revealed a large storage room, filled with metal shelves lined with warehouse-sized bags of flour and hamburger buns, among other sundries. Kate peeked through the window to confirm the coast was clear before easing back into the hall.
The door on the right had an EXIT sign above it. It led out behind the bar next to the dumpster, a grease bin, and a small section of the parking lot all bathed in an orange glow from the overhead nightlight.
That left the door at the end of the hall.
Her heart sank at the sight of a deadbolt lock and a keyhole in the doorknob, but it twisted freely in her hand. She knocked lightly, just in case the bartender had been wrong about Butch’s whereabouts, and pushed the door open. Shadows greeted her.
With one last glance behind her, she darted into the room. She closed the door and leaned against it, catching her breath. Breaking and entering had always been Claire’s forte. Kate usually just ran interference.
A feeble orange smear of light leaked in from the small window across from her. She fumbled along the wall and flipped on the light switch, expecting florescent lights to buzz to life overhead. Instead a desk lamp flickered on, along with a couple of recessed lights overhead, casting a warm glow over the room and Butch’s antique-looking desk.
As she waited for her heart to stop racing to win the Kentucky Derby, she studied the room in which Butch undoubtedly spent many hours. Well-polished, fine grained oak lined the floor. On the other side of the antique desk, a red leather chair—the high back dotted with brass tacks—rested against the wainscoting covering the bottom half of walls that were painted cactus green.
Oak filing cabinets lined the wall to her left, a shiny black stereo system sitting on top, the LCD display emitting a dim blue light. A 42” flat-screen TV hung on the wall.
Wow! How much did bar owners make around these parts? The faint clattering of metal pans coming from the kitchen reminded her that she wasn’t there to admire Butch’s furniture.
Kate tiptoed across the wood floor and rounded the desk. Four short stacks of papers covered most of the blotter. Deftly, she began sifting through the first stack, scanning beer vendor bills, grocery store receipts, and quarterly tax statements.
The second and third stacks held mainly catalogs selling all sorts of bar and restaurant accessories, several issues of a magazine for small business owners, and last week’s copy of The Yuccaville Yodeler.
She dug into the fourth pile. Part way through a bunch of invoices for some company named V.C. Enterprises, Kate found a bill from the same repair shop where her car was being patched up. She scanned down the paper, expecting itemized costs for fixing Butch’s pickup, curious how much her insurance company had forked out for her little mishap. Her eyes stopped at the words bench seat foam.
What in the hell? His seats hadn’t been anywhere near her front bumper. She held the paper closer to her face. The next line read: cherry red leather upholstery for bench seat.
Lowering the bill, she frowned at the television. “He’s committing insurance fraud.”
Someone knocked on the door.
Kate almost peed her pants. Her gaze darted around the room, her ears ringing as she sought somewhere—anywhere—to hide. The small window beckoned.
The second knock came as Kate unlatched the window lock. She looked at the doorknob and froze at the sight of the metal turning.
The door inched open.
“Butch?” A familiar voice called softly.
Claire stepped into the office. When she saw Kate, her eyes narrowed. “I knew it.” She shut the door behind her and locked it.
“Jeez, Claire!” Kate’s breath whooshed from her throat. Her face burned as she dropped into Butch’s chair, feeling like she’d leaned too far out over the rim of the Grand Canyon. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“Good! What do you think you’re doing in Butch’s …” Claire’s voice trailed off as she glanced around the room. “Nice flatscreen.” She walked over to the TV, then noticed the stereo and let out a low whistle. “Butch sure knows how to outfit an office.” She ran her hand over the filing cabinets. “Hey, that looks like a French, Louis XV partners desk.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I saw one just like it last spring in an old newspaper photo of Joe’s antique store …” Claire trailed off again, frowning down at the desk.
Kate pushed up out of Butch’s chair. “Do you think—”
“We need to get out of here.” Claire stepped backward, rubbing her hands together. She turned to Kate. “You shouldn’t have broken in here.”
“I didn’t break in. The door was unlocked.”
“Quit splitting hairs. You’ve been sniffing around Butch for days now.”
Claire’s righteous attitude when it came to Butch made Kate’s ears steam. She leaned over the desk and snatched the repair shop bill from the top of the fourth stack, shoving it under Claire’s nose.
“Explain this, then.”
; Claire glanced down at the bill. “Explain what? It’s a bill from the repair shop, undoubtedly for his pickup, which you so kindly T-boned.”
“I remember the turn of events, thank you very much.” Kate held up the paper, reading aloud. “Cherry red leather upholstery for bench seat; custom paint touchup: midnight blue; custom—”
“Midnight blue?” Claire grabbed the paper from Kate’s hand. “Is he having his pickup painted?”
“It’s insurance fraud, I’m sure of it.” Kate crossed her arms over her chest.
Claire’s read down the page. “Holy shit.”
“I know. It’s this kind of thievery that makes all of our premiums shoot—”
“He bought Joe’s El Camino.”
“—through the … huh?”
She handed the paper back to Kate. “Butch bought Joe’s El Camino from Sophy.” When Kate just continued to stare at her, she clarified, “That’s not his pickup they are fixing up, dingbat, it’s Joe’s old El Camino. Look at the date on this bill. It’s a month old.”
Kate noticed the date in the upper left corner for the first time. Damn. She tossed the bill on Butch’s desk.
So he bought Joe’s car. What was the big deal? Why was Claire suddenly looking around Butch’s office as if tarantulas were crawling out of the woodwork?
“We need to get out of here now.” Claire made for the door.
Kate grabbed the drawer handle to one of the filing cabinets. “You go. I’m not finished yet.”
“Kate.” Claire’s tone warned. She twisted the doorknob and pulled it open a crack. “If you don’t exit this room immediately and plant your ass back on that bar stool, I’m going to tell Mom that you were the one who spilled the wine on her great-grandmother’s silk wedding gown.”
“Fine. Tattle away, but she’ll never believe—”
“Hi, Butch.” The cook’s voice carried through the crack in the door.
Kate’s tongue glued itself to the roof of her mouth. She locked wide eyes with Claire.
“I told you so,” she mouthed.
Footfalls crossed the linoleum, coming their way.
“Hey, can you come look at this?” the cook said, and the footfalls stopped, then faded.
Claire raced over and grabbed Kate by the forearm. “Get out there and distract him.”