by Cara McKenna
The next best thing to sex when it came to clearing Vince’s head was dicking around in the garage, so he’d gotten up, left a message on the Petroch answering machine saying he’d be taking a few days off, grabbed a quick shower, and headed for the spot. He gave Tremblay a call at nine, and got a whole load of nothing in his ear.
“I told you I’ve got a man on it,” Tremblay said through a sigh. “I’ll let you know what comes of it.”
“I’ll let you know what comes of my little investigation,” Vince countered. “Though since you saddled me with a corporate babysitter and tipped off the whole damn construction outfit, can’t say I’m feeling too hopeful.”
“I wasn’t about to let you march in there and get yourself arrested, trespassin’ on a private building site. You didn’t give me much choice, Vince. I know you’re angry, but I’d rather piss you off than find myself shippin’ your ass back downstate over all this.”
They’d hung up as annoyed with each other as ever.
An hour later, Welch had called.
Vince had given him the shop’s address, and just past eleven, a car door had slammed out in the front lot. He set aside the old transmission he’d been flushing and wiped his hands on a rag.
Welch strolled in, looking as out of place as humanly possible, yet perfectly at home. Perfectly entitled to be wherever he was at a given moment. Prick.
“Mr. Grossier, good morning.”
“Yeah, morning.”
“Ready?”
“Sure. I’ll follow you.” Vince grabbed his helmet off the workbench.
“As I’m supervising your visit, I’d prefer you come as my passenger.” His gaze dropped. “And I’d prefer that you please wash your hands before getting in my car.”
“Fucking Christ.” Vince set the helmet back down. “Do you always talk like that?”
“Yes, I do.” Welch headed outside. Vince gave his grimy hands a scrub with the pumice bar in the shop sink, then locked up.
The dickhead’s car was a beauty—black enamel gleaming in the bright white sunshine, despite the dust. A Merc was uptight for Vince’s taste, but he could appreciate the grace of the creature.
“How fast does this thing go?” he asked as he dropped into the cush passenger’s seat.
“It’s electronically limited to a hundred and eighty-six,” Welch said, sounding programmed, himself. “Seat belt, please.”
“You ever get her up that high?”
“I think you’ll find I’m highly compliant with traffic laws.”
Vince shook his head. “My God, you must be a thrill a minute in the sack.”
“I’ll distribute a questionnaire to my former lovers and have the results analyzed, if you wish.”
Goddamn, was that a joke Vince detected?
“Seat belt,” Welch said again, and Vince obeyed just to shut him up.
Welch popped open a gleaming wood compartment in the console and removed sunglasses that probably cost as much as Vince’s bike. He wore driving gloves as well, not unlike the fingerless ones Vince favored for riding, minus a hell of a lot of wear and tear. He drove them down Station Street, the sedan gliding shark-smooth over the old train tracks. He brought them to a needlessly full stop before taking a right onto Railroad.
“May I ask what you’re looking to find on this little excursion?” Welch asked.
“You may, but I’m not sure myself. Except I have reason to believe a good friend of mine saw something suspicious down around that site, shortly before he died.”
Welch kept his eyes on the road, though curiosity warmed his icy voice. “Oh?”
Vince considered whether or not to tilt the cards he held. He didn’t know where the bones might have come from, or under what circumstances they’d been found, or whether anyone at Sunnyside might know anything about them. One thing seemed certain—the jerk in the driver’s seat had a hard-on for rules and regulations. And since it appeared to be his job to keep Sunnyside’s nose clean, he ought to be just as worried about the situation. “Bones, my friend said.”
“Bones? How suggestive. Any details?”
Vince shook his head. “I’m short on those. But I want to know what he saw. And I want to know if somebody else thinks maybe he saw too much.”
“How did your friend die?”
“In what looked like a drunk driving accident. But I don’t buy it.”
“Bones,” Welch repeated thoughtfully, with none of the skepticism Vince had come to expect after explaining this to Miah, Casey, Raina, Tremblay, Nita, Kim.
“Everybody seems to think I’m crazy for fixating on this,” Vince said. “No need to act polite if you think the same.”
“I don’t know what to think yet,” Welch said. “But I can’t imagine any scenario in which remains—particularly human remains—found in a construction zone are a small matter. I’ll be curious to speak to the foreman, and see what documentation may have been made of it.”
Vince blinked, tempted to laugh at the idea that he might finally have found an ally willing to pay his concerns more than lip service. And this shithead, of all people.
“What precisely do you know?” Welch asked.
“I know from the sheriff that this was the site my friend was sent to that day—Alex Dunn was his name. Deputy. He called me the same night, told me he’d seen some bones on the job that afternoon, and that he was spooked. Asked me to meet him for a drink so he could tell me about it, but he never made it to the bar. And despite what anybody else might think, he didn’t drive drunk. I think somebody made it look that way, to keep him from doing exactly what he’d planned to—tell someone what he’d seen.”
“That’s quite a bold conclusion to jump to.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“I’m not a detective, but as Sunnyside’s public relations representative and legal counsel, I’ll do what I can to assuage your concerns.”
“Sure you will.”
Welch smiled in Vince’s periphery. “I’d advise you not to underestimate how seriously I take my job, Mr. Grossier. My employers have a vested interest in making sure the contractors they’ve hired are conducting themselves responsibly. If they’re to discover they’ve gotten involved in something questionable, better to find out now, rather than several months—and several millions of dollars—down the road.”
Goddamn, but Vince couldn’t stand the way this guy spoke. And that English accent—all wrong out here. “I know Sunnyside’s full of shit when they say they care about employing the locals, but Jesus—they couldn’t find an American lawyer to do your job?”
“I’ve been an American for twelve years,” Welch said, ably dodging potholes and stray rocks. “I daresay many of my tax dollars have gone toward the rehabilitation of such fine, occasionally incarcerated fellow citizens as yourself.”
“Asshole.”
“Excellent use of your free speech, Mr. Grossier.” Welch turned the Mercedes onto a service road, bound for the foothills of Lights Out. A billboard proclaimed the route off-limits to the public, and THE FUTURE SITE OF THE ECLIPSE RESORT CASINO’S WELCOME CENTER, FUNCTION HALLS, AND WELLNESS FACILITIES! As they drew closer, however, it appeared to Vince to be mainly a large pit. The work looked similar to what he and the other rock rats did at Petroch—drilling the shit out of the earth.
A hard-hatted worker approached them as the car neared the site, and Welch lowered his window.
“I’ve got visitation clearance,” he said, drawing some papers out of his leather folio. The worker, plainly a migrant, stared at the pages like they were covered in hieroglyphs, then pointed toward the nearest mobile office trailer. Welch thanked the nonplussed man in Spanish and drove closer to park.
“You habla español?” Vince asked.
“A bit. Sunnyside’s headquarters are in San Diego. As am I, when I can help it.”
They slammed their doors in unison, and Vince waited while Welch and his papers disappeared inside the trailer. The man exited a couple minutes later, carry
ing two neon yellow hard hats. He tossed one to Vince.
“The sheriff mentioned your day job,” Welch said. “I trust you know how to fit one of these.” He stripped his driving gloves and got his own helmet on. “A foreman’s coming to meet us.”
The foreman in question arrived shortly, and, thank Christ, he looked like a guy Vince could actually relate to—dusty and solid. Not a Fortuity resident, but probably a Nevadan—Virgin River’s headquarters were down in Mesquite. Whatever the case, he’d fit right in at Petroch, or Benji’s. And no doubt he’d have fuck-all clue what to make of Welch.
“I’ll drive,” Vince muttered to his handler.
“If you insist.” Welch drew a pad and pen from his jacket pocket, looking content to document.
Vince gave the stocky foreman’s hand a good shake and introduced himself. “Thanks for letting us intrude.” Then a little pang twisted in his middle. For all you know, this is one of the men who might’ve had reason to want Alex silenced. Hard to think it, though, from the look of him.
The guy shrugged and cast overdressed Welch a skeptical glance. “No skin off my nose, though I need you out of here by noon—we’ll be blasting, then. So, what’s this I heard about bones?”
Shit—Tremblay must have gone spreading the particulars around. Vince would have preferred keeping exactly what he knew to himself, around the construction people. He cursed himself for ever having gone to the sheriff in the first place.
Oh fucking well.
The foreman listened as Vince gave him the gist, leaving out his suspicions surrounding Alex’s death.
“That’s fucked as shit,” he said, scratching his temple, hard hat bobbing.
“Sure is.”
“I remember Dunn,” the foreman added. “Recognized him when I saw the story about his accident on the news. Nice fella, real polite. They’d sent him down over worker disputes before, since he spoke Spanish. Good man, I thought. Shame the way he went.”
You don’t know the half of it. “How’d he seem, that last day he was here? Jumpy at all?”
The foreman frowned thoughtfully, the walkie-talkie at his hip squawking static. “When was he here last . . . ?”
“Last Monday, the sheriff said. Day he died.”
He rubbed his chin. “Must have been the afternoon he came by over a zoning issue.”
“That’s what Tremblay said.”
“That was the last time I remember seeing him. Didn’t strike me as jumpy, no. Can’t say I ever saw him looking anything but calm and professional.”
“Huh.”
“You undercover or something?” the guy asked Vince quietly, squinting as if to discern if his tattoos were fake. “Here on some kind of investigation?” What were those narrowed eyes saying, Vince had to wonder. Was this guy edgy, or oblivious?
Vince shook his head. “Just trying to get some answers, for my own peace of mind. I was friends with Alex Dunn, since grade school. Just trying to understand what upset him, the afternoon before he died.”
“Ah. Condolences. What about you?” the foreman asked Welch.
“I’m here to keep an eye on Mr. Grossier.”
His brows hitched. “Okay. Well, I’m happy to show you boys around the site real quick, but I don’t know a thing about no bones. You mean like, artifacts or something?” He started walking. “Like Native American maybe? Or fossils?”
“I don’t know anything for sure,” Vince said, boots crunching over rock chips. “Could be anything, old or fresh—shallow grave, some victim of the drug trade, maybe.”
“No shallow graves around here, I wouldn’t guess.” The foreman paused to kick the ground. “We’re having a hard enough time using TNT, ourselves.”
“Right.” Well, that was something, Vince figured. Ruled out buried remains, likely. “You come across any old mine shafts, in this area?”
“Not here, no. Those are all over in the northern sites, where they’re lying in the access roads.”
“Figured as much.”
They tailed the guy all around the perimeter of the bustling pit, asked him a hundred questions, and got jack shit as helpful answers went. The guy reluctantly let them pester the workers, Vince and Welch pooling their pidgin Spanish, but with no payoff.
“All I seen from day one is rocks, rocks, rocks,” said one English-speaking laborer. He was taking a smoke break near the office as Vince and his escorts neared the end of the tour.
“Damn.” Vince stared out over the site, frustrated down to the hard red ground.
“Gonna have to ask you fellas to clear out now,” the foreman said. “Sorry I couldn’t help you with those answers you’re looking for.”
“Thanks for your time.” Vince returned his hard hat. “Can I give you my number? Just in case you hear anything?”
“Sure. Knock yourself out.”
Vince jotted it on a page of Welch’s little pad, tore it off, and handed it over. Welch added a business card, smoothing his dehelmeted hair and thanking the foreman for indulging them.
“I hope that helps you sleep easier,” Welch told Vince as they walked under the blazing high-noon sun back to the Mercedes.
“What are you talking about? That was useless.”
Welch paused before unlocking the car. “I’d have thought that was what you were after. Proof you’d misunderstood your friend’s meaning.”
“Fuck no. I want some clue as to what the hell he saw, before he was killed.”
Welch’s stare was pure incredulity. “You got your clue. Every dead end we hit back there was corroboration that your friend likely died precisely as he seemed to.”
Vince shook his head. With Welch seeming to have come down firmly on the skeptics’ side following their field trip, Vince reverted to his original conclusion—that the guy was a complete asshole.
“For all I know,” Vince said, “that foreman knows exactly what bones my friend saw.”
“Then he’s squandering his talents working construction—he ought to move to L.A. to pursue an acting career.”
“It’s possible.”
The doors unlocked with a bleep. As they climbed in, Welch asked, “Have you heard of Occam’s razor, Mr. Grossier?”
“That what you use to get your unnaturally clean shave?”
“Seat belt,” Welch said. “The principal behind Occam’s razor—”
“I know what it is, dumbass. Something to do with a blade floating over some old-timey jerk’s head, right?”
“I believe you’re thinking of the sword of Damocles.”
“Fuck, whatever. It’s the thing about the most obvious answer probably being the right one.”
“Yes. I might suggest you apply it to this situation, regarding Alex Dunn.”
“And I might punch you in the side of the head if you don’t shut up.”
“Seat belt, please, so we can get going. Delightful as this outing’s been, I have other commitments this afternoon.”
Vince buckled up with an almighty eye roll, thinking the entire day was amounting to one massive kick in the nuts.
He’d get to the bottom of this shit, without Duncan Welch’s meddling, so-called help. Tomorrow, he’d get serious, with a clear head and a new plan. All he wanted right now was to find himself back on top of Kim in a bed. On a floor. Against a wall. Anywhere. Get himself back to pursuing something he was good at, for an hour or two.
Find that girl, find some peace of mind. Right now, the promise of her was just about the only thing keeping him going.
Chapter 16
Kim went through the motions of her job that morning, barely aware of the shots she was taking, thanks to the memories coursing through her head like a pornographic slideshow.
Last night Holly had called to ask, “Did you fuck that biker guy yet?”
“Not technically, no.”
“So he didn’t put his penis in your vagina,” Holly had said carefully, and Kim could picture her doing the rude little finger motions to match. “Heavens, what on earth
could that leave? Aside from just about everything?”
“Fine,” Kim had said. “It was¸ like, the hottest, most epic dry hump in—”
“I knew it! I knew you fucked him!”
“I’d say it was more the other way around.”
“You banged a guy named Vince . . . Holy shit. That is so awesome. Are you his old lady now? Do you have to get his name tattooed on your cleavage?”
“He’s not in a gang, you spaz. Though he is on parole . . .”
A pause. “Jesus Christ, Kimbo. I don’t think I’ve seen you go through a major breakup before, but when you’re in the market for a bad-idea rebound, you do not fuck around.”
“Apparently not.”
“You’re my new hero. Tell me everything.”
And Kim had flopped back across the rumpled bed before giving her friend the play-by-play. Same bed she’d later slept in, the lingering scent of her best-ever mistake spurring fitful, X-rated dreams.
Wiping red dust from her lens for the fiftieth time that hour, she wished she was on that bed now. With Vince. Getting to know him in the technical sense. But work was work.
At least she had no more safety-sensitive construction shoots scheduled and was free to photograph whatever she liked, this final day of the assignment.
She’d finish up by three, then escape the heat of the day to hole up in her room and start the laborious process of sorting through the thousands of frames and cherry-picking the ones worthy of charging her client for. Sort and organize, until Vince showed up. She was eager for the task. She needed to get her brain off all the bullshit—off that run-in with his mentally ill mother, and what she’d said about Kim . . . About whether she could possibly stay here, to see if it really did mean anything. About how if she did stay, how long would it be for? About pretty much everything except her breakup.
And how sad was that, that the thing in her life that currently required the least introspection was the painful dissolution of a two-year romance?
In truth, that was also a major factor in her considering sticking around. Avoiding the fallout. Procrastinating the cleanup.