by Ann Charles
But in spite of Porter’s easy acceptance of her rejection, the intensity in his green eyes throughout lunch had made Claire squirm in her seat. She couldn’t wait to get back to Ruby’s.
The store’s door handles were warm to the touch. Even the buzzer announcing her arrival sounded weary, burned out.
Dust-covered aluminum blinds blocked the sun from Aisle One’s row of pickaxes, shovels, garden hoses, and post-hole diggers. A tinny version of June Carter and Johnny Cash singing Long-legged Guitar Pickin’ Man crackled out of the speakers mounted in the ceiling.
Claire paused for a second under the ceiling vent, wafts of air drying the sweat from her upper lip.
“Can I help you find something?” A silver-haired sales clerk seemed to appear out of nowhere. With her electric blue eye shadow and bright red blush, the lady looked like she’d been playing dress-up over in cosmetics.
“Uh, no. I’m just here to pick up some mail.” Claire smiled as she side-stepped the clerk and boogied down Aisle Eleven: Pesticides, Hunting Supplies, and Greeting Cards—typical first date material in Jackrabbit Junction.
The post office occupied the back corner of the store. The pony-tailed old dude behind the counter didn’t even glance up from his guitar-covered magazine as Claire zipped past.
Joe’s post office box anchored the bottom right corner of the cluster. It was one of the bigger boxes—eleven inches squared. Claire squatted in front of it.
The lock turned as if it had been WD-40’d recently. The small door creaked when she opened it.
Her fingers shook slightly as she pulled out a thick, padded package sealed shut with reinforced packing tape.
She peeked at the guy behind the desk, who was still glued to his magazine, and then checked behind her to make sure Porter hadn’t followed her inside.
The coast was clear.
She tried to tear open the package, but the tape wouldn’t give.
Shutting the door, she slipped the key back in her pocket and scanned the aisle signs until she zeroed in on Aisle Three: Plumbing, Wiper Blades, Fire Protection, and School Supplies.
Scissors hung in a line above boxes of crayons and stacks of notepads, next to rows of baskets filled with P traps and pipe fittings. She cut open the end of the package and peered inside.
Reaching inside the package, she hauled out a handful of photos. She flipped the first picture over, wincing in anticipation.
Ruby’s dead husband didn’t disappoint.
Joe wasn’t smiling at the camera this time. He was too busy bonking some curly haired blonde, whose ankles circled his neck. It was a profile view of the lovers this time with a blurred white stripe along the left edge.
Claire shuffled to the next picture. A blush toasted her cheeks, followed by a gag.
This photo had a touch of sleaze to it that would make most porn-lovers smile. The setup was the same, including the white strip along the side, but Joe had flipped the blonde over. The camera caught a full-on shot of her face—pouting red lips open in mid-gasp, as well as a crystal clear view of Joe Jr. at full mast, pre-thrust.
The third photo was a close-up, vignetting a tattoo of a green and blue snake slithering across the blonde’s boney hip. Unfortunately, Joe’s bare ass cheek, including a saucer shaped birthmark, shared the focal point.
Claire started to turn to the fourth picture and stopped, looking back at the third. Wait a second. This was a close-up.
Holy shit! Somebody had taken these pictures of Joe and the blonde. The photos Claire had found in Ruby’s closet could’ve been shot with a camera that had a timer on it, but not these.
Glancing again at the first two photos, she realized the white strip at the edge of each was a curtain. Joe’s paparazzi poser had been peeping in the window.
The fourth picture made her wince. This close-up showed a portion of the blonde where the sun didn’t shine much, and, unfortunately, it wasn’t her armpits.
The fifth was yet another close-up, this time of Ms. Blonde’s face, her emerald eyes open, her tongue reaching out to touch Joe’s—Claire flipped to the next, her greasy lunch churning, bubbling up her esophagus.
She fanned through the next five shots, grimacing the whole time.
Sweat framed her forehead by the time she reached the last one. Digging in the package, she fished out three more photos from between several pieces of paper.
The first photo was just another profile shot with the white strip at the side. She’d seen enough of these types of shots by now that the sight of Joe’s naked flesh didn’t even make her blink.
But the last two pictures made her pause. All clothes were on in these shots. One had Joe holding open the motel door, the number seven visible next to his head, as the blonde stepped out of the room, a wide smile on her lips as she stared right into the camera eye.
The other picture showed the blonde in the forefront climbing into a black Jaguar, her long, bare legs visible under her fire-engine red dress. In the background, Joe watched from the doorway of room number seven. The motel’s neon sign was legible over his right shoulder—The Sundown Inn.
Claire remembered hearing about that very motel from Chester months ago, who considered himself the Robin Leach of southwestern Arizona’s Lifestyles of the Lewd and Depraved. The Sundown Inn reigned as one of the seediest in his opinion, and he’d been there three times, so he knew.
Claire chewed on her lower lip, wondering who’d been the photographer, and if he or she had been attempting to blackmail Joe, the blonde, or both.
Then again, maybe Joe just got off on keeping pictures of his ex-lovers.
She dumped the pictures back in the package and pulled out one of the pieces of paper. It was a yellowed newspaper picture of the blonde with a man in a three piece suit. A young boy, probably ten years old or so, held the blonde’s hand. Claire read the caption below the picture.
Richard Rensberg II and his wife (Bianca) brought their son along to watch Yuccaville’s 85th anniversary parade.
A banner in the background spelled out, “Congratulations, Yuccaville!”
Digging in the package again, Claire drew out another piece of paper. This was just an article—no pictures—with the headline, “The Copper Snake Goes Public.”
She scanned the print, finding the news about the Copper Snake Mining Company now trading on the New York Stock Exchange, along with details on the company’s profits for the last few quarters, all quite boring after Joe’s X-rated exhibit.
Another piece of paper showed the lovely Bianca Rensberg sitting in front of a handful of little kids, reading a Dr. Seuss book as they stared up at her.
The next article covered the history of the Copper Snake Mining Company, with a picture of three generations of Rensbergs standing in front of the company’s office building. Richard the second was there, along with the young boy from the parade picture. An old man with a handlebar moustache stood next to them—the first Richard Rensberg, according to the caption.
Claire stuffed the papers back in the package, noticing something squishy in the bottom of it. She fingered past the papers, touched something satiny, and weeded it out.
Red panties.
“Ew!” She dropped them like they were alive and wriggling.
As she squatted next to them, she’d realized she’d seen those panties before in one of the pictures—Joe had been removing them from the blonde with his teeth.
Shuddering, she used a pair of scissors to lift the satin undies for a closer inspection without touching them. Joe must have kept them as some kind of memento, the sick bastard.
“There you are,” Porter said from the end of the aisle.
Claire squeaked in surprise, teetered off balance, and fell onto her ass. Luckily, her back blocked the panties from Porter’s view.
She managed to stuff them back in the package before he saw them. “I thought you were going to wait in the pickup.”
“You’ve been gone for ten minutes. I came to see what happened to you.�
� Porter eyed the package. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
She’d found way more than that.
“Uh, yeah.” She glanced toward the front of the store. “I’m ready if you are.”
She wanted to get back to Ruby’s and lock herself in Joe’s office while she took a closer look at the package’s contents. Why had it been locked up in a post office box for years?
Porter nodded at the package she held against her chest. “You want me to carry that for you?”
“No!” She clutched it tighter, then smiled, every centimeter of it as fake as her mother’s hair color. “I mean, no thanks. It’s not heavy.”
As Claire crossed the parking lot under the wilting heat, movement across the street in The Shaft’s parking lot caught her attention. She watched as Butch crawled out of his pickup with a briefcase in hand. He walked around the back bumper and opened the passenger door.
A brunette in a pair of pink cowboy boots, Daisy Duke shorts, and a white halter top crawled out of the cab. A wide smile on her face, she draped her arm around Butch’s waist. Side by side they strolled around the back of the bar.
Who in the hell was that? A girlfriend?
Poor Kate. This was going to burn, no matter how much she denied her feelings for Butch.
“Claire?” Porter hesitated at his door.
Shrugging off the veil of bewilderment, she reached for the pickup’s door handle.
She had a mystery to figure out, a boyfriend to win back, and an R.V. park to run. This was no time to get mired in another one of Kate’s messes.
“Let’s go.”
* * *
Mac’s stomach growled as he stood at the base of the rock pile, catching his breath. The beef jerky he’d gobbled up a short time ago had barely eased the panging in his gut. But until he knew for certain that he would be seeing the sun again, he needed to save his food.
He glanced at his watch—three-thirty.
Sweat soaked his T-shirt, the wet cotton clinging to his skin. He’d busted through the rubble a half hour ago, and then cleared a V-sized slit along the left wall wide enough to slip through.
It was time to find out why there was air movement on the other side, and why someone had boarded up this section of the tunnel.
He squeezed through the slit, slipped his pack over his shoulders, and shifted his duffel to his left hand. Adjusting the Smith and Wesson in his waistband, he inched along the tunnel, which narrowed quickly. Less effort had gone into carving out this part of the tunnel for some reason.
The ceiling suddenly lowered ahead, forcing him to hunch. Around the next bend was another bend, and then another, until he lost count.
His lower back began to throb from stooping, his shoulders scraped walls closing in on him. His stomach growled with enough gusto to wake the dead man sleeping off eternity behind him.
Mac rounded yet another bend and slowed as the walls and ceiling drew together ahead, leaving just a narrow rectangle carved out of the rock. The tunnel breathed around him, the air still musty, but alive with dust particles.
He slipped off his pack and slid along the walls, the rocks scratching him as he inched between them.
A strip of blackness loomed ahead, so dark his light didn’t even pierce it. He took a deep breath and stepped into the darkness.
Only the darkness turned out to be a cavernous room, so large that it swallowed his light. Pulling his flashlight from his pocket, he shined it across the room.
Rudimentary paintings covered the opposite wall halfway to the ceiling.
Rocks clattered behind him. He turned, his light pointed at the floor where he expected to see a critter.
Instead, he found a pair of dusty black cowboy boots.
He jerked his flashlight upward, and coughed in surprise. “What in the hell are you doing here?”
Then pain exploded from the side of his head and someone flicked off the lights.
Chapter Twenty-One
Kate chanced a glance away from the wet road in front of her to frown across the old Ford’s front seat at her sister. “What did you just mumble?”
“I didn’t mumble,” Claire yelled to Kate over the hammering of rain on the pickup’s metal roof. “I said I still think this is a bad idea.”
Kate’s grip on the steering wheel tightened as she fought the urge to reach over and flick Claire’s ear.
It was the second time Claire had voiced her lack of support for Kate’s plan since they’d left Ruby’s not five minutes earlier.
“And as I told you the first time you said that,” Kate yelled back, “I’ll be careful. Contrary to what everyone around here thinks, I’m a perfectly good driver.”
Dime-sized raindrops smacked against the windshield, blurring the road and surrounding valley under the afternoon gloom. The monsoon that had been brewing on the horizon since before lunch had finally graced Jackrabbit Junction with its presence a half hour ago, dispensing rations of billowing winds, fierce lightning, and curtains of rain that had soaked everything below. With the dark clouds blocking out the sun, it looked more like twilight than just four o’clock.
“I’m not talking about your driving. I’m talking about you bursting in on Butch right now. Maybe you should sleep on this.”
“You, of all people, think I should sleep on this? Aren’t you the same girl who on a whim streaked buck-naked across our high school stage during The Taming of the Shrew?”
“I was making a political statement about women’s rights. Quit trying to change the subject. This is a different situation. There’s something you don’t know about Butch.”
Kate did a double-take. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Now you’re going to start spouting conspiracy theories about Butch? So, what is it? He’s a secret agent for the CIA? He has some itchy, infectious rash? He wears women’s underwear?”
“You really need to work on your sarcasm.” Claire shifted in her seat, nosing closer to the window.
“Kiss my ass.”
“And on your comebacks, too.” Claire smacked down Kate’s middle finger. “Anyway, this afternoon, when I was leaving the hardware store, I saw Butch pull into The Shaft’s parking lot.”
Claire paused and pointed at something in front of them. “There’s the road up ahead. Take a left there.”
Kate tapped the brakes and eased the Ford onto the dirt road—now mostly mud with a spattering of gravel.
“Finish your story about Butch.”
“He wasn’t alone.” Claire flipped up the hood of her yellow checkered raincoat.
Kate drummed her fingers on the steering wheel while she waited for the other shoe to drop. “Well, who was with him?”
“A woman.”
“Old or young?” Maybe his mom was paying a visit.
“She was wearing a pair of Daisy Duke shorts, a halter top, and pink cowboy boots.”
“Oh.” Kate’s sails fluttered and flapped.
“Exactly.” Claire pressed her nose to the windshield again. “There’s Mac’s truck, off to the right.”
Rolling onto the edge of the road, Kate braked.
Claire grabbed the flashlight she’d brought along and tucked it inside her raincoat. “If you go to the next dirt road and turn right, it will take you back around to the main road. Watch out for flooding on your way back to town. It can be deeper than it looks. You don’t want to get caught in a fast-moving current, dragged into a dry wash, and end up floating down to the Gila River.”
“Okay.”
“If something runs out in front of you, don’t slam on the brakes. This old tin can doesn’t have ABS or power steering.”
“Gotcha.” Kate had already realized those facts.
“And if it stalls when you—”
“Claire! Go already. Leave the nagging, older-sister routine to Ronnie.”
“Fine.” Claire reached for the door handle. “See if I help you the next time you come to me with gum in your hair.”
“You were the one who threw it
there in the first place.”
“Good luck, wacko.”
“Same to you, knucklehead.”
After slamming the door shut, Claire jogged over to Mac’s truck. She squatted next to the back wheel-well, reached under the bed, and pulled out a little black key box. She waved at Kate, then unlocked the passenger door and slipped inside.
Kate shifted into gear. Bumping her way along, she rolled back toward Jackrabbit Junction, The Shaft, and the man she planned to beg to give her another chance. Somehow, she’d managed to fall for one of the good guys, which hadn’t happened since her gradeschool crush on Rambo. Now if she could just convince Butch that she wasn’t some nutcase.
The windshield wipers cheeped and thumped as the rain slowed to a drizzle. Kate cracked her window, inhaling the scent of wet dirt mixed with noxious whiffs of what Claire said was wet greasewood trees. The cool breeze teased her hair, lifting her spirits in spite of Miss Pink Cowboy Boots.
As Kate swung into The Shaft’s parking lot, her stomach barrelrolled at the sight of Butch’s pickup. She needed a stiff shot of Jack Daniel’s to up her courage a notch. Ignoring the chicken clucking inside her head, she parked and raced across the lot before she had time to change her mind.
Gary nodded at her from behind the bar. The neon beer lights hanging in the windows reflected in his glasses. “What can I get ya?”
She peeled her tongue from the top of her mouth. “I need to speak with Butch.”
“He’s busy right now.”
He’d better not be busy bonking Miss Pink Boots.
Kate flashed Gary one of her top-five, most charming smiles—the one she usually reserved for traffic cops and highway patrolmen. “This will only take a minute.”
Or ten. Maybe twenty, if Butch was in a better mood than this morning.
“Sorry. He said he didn’t want to be disturbed. Why don’t you come back later this evening?”
“Hey, sweetie.” A long-legged, redhead sidled up to the bar, her dry goods almost spilling out of her low-cut tank-top.
Gary’s glasses practically fogged over. “Hi, Mindy. I didn’t know you were back in town. What can I get for you?”
Kate didn’t wait to hear the redhead’s answer. While Gary’s eyes were glued to Mindy’s headlights, Kate dashed through the door into the kitchen. The cook paid her no mind while he cleaned the grill and whistled along with Marty Robbins’s tune about falling in love with a Mexican girl from El Paso.