Chest of Bone (The Afterworld Chronicles Book 1)

by Vicki Stiefel

High on the hill, his father barked, “Ronan! Now!”

  Oohhs and bummers from the kids as Ronan removed his helmet and gloves and skated toward us. For such a lumbering guy, he was elegance on ice.

  The puck launched off the stick of a girl in blue. “Shit!” she screamed.

  The bullet flew toward my head. A hand blurred and snapped it out of the air.

  “Sorry!” The girl skated over to us, frantic. “My aim sucks. Sorry. Sorry.”

  “Not a problem.” Larrimer returned the puck to her.

  Ronan patted her on the back in that awkward teenaged way.

  Sadness touched my smile. He was a good kid.

  “How did you do that?” Ronan asked Larrimer as he traded his skates for work boots.

  “I used to play hockey, too,” Larrimer said.

  “Cool catch.” Ronan stood, stared at his feet. “I’m pretty worried.”

  “I know,” I said. “Me, too. We’ll find her.”

  “Yeah.” He sighed, face drawn. “I… I miss Lulu. She’s, well, she usually texts all the time, and I feel like, um, empty.”

  “Empty,” Larrimer said. “Yes.”

  “We need to talk to you, Ro,” I said.

  Ronan’s eyes brightened. “How can I help?” He tucked his helmet and mitts under his arm, slung his skates over his shoulder.

  I gestured toward town. “How about we talk over lunch at Mandolins?”

  Ronan toed the snow with his boot. “Can’t. Dad made lunch.”

  Can’t, huh. Hummm. “After lunch then?” I asked. “An hour? Come over to the restaurant.”

  “Okay. And Agent Larrimer,” he said. “It’s not my place, but you should wear more clothes. You’re gonna freeze that way.” Then he hocked a loogie on the ground.

  At Mandolins, Larrimer and I ordered sandwiches, hot drinks, and oatmeal cookies, and found a seat at a corner table where I could watch the door. Larrimer had no problem having his back to it, which would drive me nuts.

  Black-and-white animal photos decorated walls painted a soft yellow, the conversation—low murmurs with occasional bursts of laughter. Patrons greeted each other, the atmosphere convivial, almost like someone’s home.

  And any of them could be involved in Dave’s and Jason’s murders.

  I checked my phone. No messages. No calls. Nothing from the kidnappers, the cops. Just nothing.

  Two hours later, Ronan entered Mandolins wearing a blue watch cap and sporting a bandaid across his cheek, one that hadn’t been there before lunch. When he spotted us, he walked over.

  He took a chair next to Larrimer and swiped off his cap. His lips were raw, and his psyche lacked its usual joy.

  “Are you hanging on, Ronan?” I asked.

  “Sort of, I guess.”

  “About Lulu’s kidnapping.”

  His stare turned glassy.

  I covered his hand with mine. “Here’s what we need.”

  He squared his shoulders. “I’m a crack shot.”

  “We need information, Ronan,” Larrimer said. “Not Wyatt Earp.”

  I rubbed my fingers across Ronan’s fist. “Try to relax a little.”

  “We believe the men who killed her father took her,” Larrimer said. “They want something.”

  Ronan sighed. “If I’d been there for Dave that day—”

  “Then you’d be dead, too,” Larrimer said.

  I wrapped my hands around my mug of hot chocolate. “We think Dave had something or knew something that a man named The Master wants.”

  “Never heard of him.” Ronan huffed. “Stupid name.”

  “Yes, but lethal,” Larrimer said.

  “We’re guessing Dave died,” I said, “because he wouldn’t tell them what they wanted to know. And now, they believe Lulu knows what ‘it’ is. Maybe she does. Maybe not. She’s a great secret keeper.”

  “Yeah,” Ronan said. “She is. Will they hurt her?”

  I forced myself to meet his eyes. “I, we hope not. Do you know anything about Dave’s calligraphy? Or any of his secrets? Anything?”

  I watched him battle the beast as tears pooled on his lower lids. They didn’t fall. He swiped at his nose. “Her dad was a good, good dude. He… man, he was nice. Treated me like I was a responsible guy, ya know. Like I could be trusted. I was over there lots. Helped out at the Feed and Seed until Lu told me to stop. She was scared, and scared for me, too.”

  Larrimer nodded. “Of what?”

  Ronan shook his head. “She couldn’t, wouldn’t tell me.”

  “His calligraphy was important to him, Ronan,” I said. “Do you know anyone who hired him professionally?”

  He pursed his lips. “No. Dave was—”

  “Hey, Ro!” A couple of teens beelined for us. One of the boys slapped Ronan with his ballcap. “Your pop’s looking for ya.”

  Ronan’s nostrils flared. “You tell him I was in here?”

  “No way, bro.” The boy’s face darkened.

  “Thanks for the heads up, man.”

  The teens sauntered around the corner.

  “Dad’s got a lot of chores for me to do,” Ronan said. “No biggie.”

  “No,” Larrimer muttered under his breath.

  “Can you think of anything else?” I asked.

  Brow furrowed, Ronan glanced at the door. “About a week before, you know, he died, he gave me a gift. It was sorta cool. A box. Said he’d made it for Lulu and me. Nice, y’know. He got how much I love Lulu.”

  I sucked in a breath. “Can we see it?”

  The door opened, and Ronan’s father stood in the doorway, face flushed with anger, a chaw of tobacco bulging his cheek.

  The kid froze.

  “Ronan?” I whispered. “We need to see the box.”

  “Gotta go.” He pulled his knit cap onto his head. He rose, a huge boy dominated by a small man.

  “Pop,” he said.

  “Need you, Ronan.”

  “Coming.”

  His father waited.

  Ronan turned back to us. “It’s somewhere in the house. Can’t tell you where.” He shrugged. “My pop said he’d keep it safe. I don’t know. Please find Lulu. Please.”

  Ordinarily, I’d wait until the following day, when Ronan’s father left for work, but I needed to get inside that house now. Was the chest there? Oh, I hoped so. It could be the key to everything. Larrimer caught my eye and nodded.

  Almost March, and each night, the sky darkened later. Normally I would relish that. Today, I cursed it.

  “Why don’t you take the truck and check on Bernadette,” Larrimer said as we exited the restaurant.

  “Oh, right,” I said. “While you break into Ronan’s house. Alone.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Yes, alone. Not your area of expertise, babe.”

  I chuckled. “My ass. I was in CI. Think again, sweetcheeks.”

  He growled. “So what do you think we do, honey bun?”

  “I’ll keep the old man busy, while you hunt for the box.”

  “The man’s a beast,” he said. “I’m not letting you within ten feet of him alone.”

  “Letting me?”

  He crossed his arms.

  “I don’t need this bullshit. We wait until they’re asleep, and we both go in.”

  Mr. Dragon Dude, for sure. I’d swear smoke poured from his nose. And then he smiled, tightlipped, slow and mean, like he was cooking something nasty. “Fine.”

  It was after 2:00 a.m. when capped, booted, gloved, and dressed in black, we slid through one of the Miloszewskis’ rectangular cellar windows and found ourselves surrounded by the detritus of a farming life. Shadow and light carved the large cellar, with a frozen dirt floor that would be damp come spring. An ancient plow, boxes, old harnesses, a pile of plastic shipping popcorn: a jumble. There were rooms, too, one with a huge metal door.

  We wove our way toward the cellar stairs. They were old and worn and the door whined as Larrimer eased it open onto an old farmhouse kitchen right out of the fifties. The linoleum groa
ned as we skirted the table toward an archway. To my right was the living room where I’d talked with Lulu, to my left, a parlor. I swept my beam left, over a room crowded with rugs and easy chairs and a china cabinet and, front and center, a recliner that faced the darkened flat screen on the wall. A charming contrast to the mounted animal heads that surrounded it.

  I peeled off into the parlor, while Larrimer took the living room.

  I walked the perimeter of the room, shining my beam into cabinets and drawers and closets, over the mantle and across the desk. I paused. A card lay carelessly strewn among the papers that littered the desk, but enough like the gala invitation to make me snap it with my phone and email myself the image. I slid the card down the front of my shirt and turned the corner toward the bow-fronted glass cabinet. And almost screamed. Ronan’s father slept in the recliner aimed at the blank flat screen.

  Shit. I continued my circuit of the room, awareness heightened of the man in the chair.

  I aimed the narrow flash into a glass cabinet. Assorted doodads, much dust, and there, on a shelf, a graceful black box carved with the initials R and L entwined on the lid.

  Of course, the case was locked.

  Currents of air brushed my skin in the old, drafty house as I slid my picks from my jeans. The simple lock took seconds. Just before I opened the case, I glanced again at Ronan’s father. Drool dribbled down his chin. I slid my fingers into the case and lifted the box, opened it, and inside, nothing. Perhaps, it was a puzzle box. I photographed it, emailed the photo, and slipped the box into my small backpack.

  I relocked the case, turned to escape the room, but a soft thud, the sound familiar, froze me.

  The gray cat had leapt onto Miloszewski’s lap, and a reflexive hand rose and stroked its head.

  I flew toward the door on silent feet.

  The snick of a bullet being chambered stopped me.

  I reached for my gun, spun around to face the older man.

  “Wouldn’t do that,” he said.

  I lowered my arm. He stood less than three feet from me, a small bully wearing a mean smile and holding a Chief’s Special aimed at my face.

  “I knew you were a nasty one.” He held the gun with a careless authority, like he used it a lot.

  “Not so nasty, old man. Just curious.”

  He stepped closer and thwacked the back of his hand across my face, knocking me sideways. I steadied. “Asshole.”

  He hit me again, with a fist this time, and I staggered as pain shot from my jaw through my head. I could take him, but chose to play helpless for a moment longer.

  Through my aching jaw, teeth gritted, I said, “Is this how you treat Ronan?”

  He grinned, gleaming white teeth at odds with his leathery face. “It’s how I treat any burglar. Guess my pal’s dropped your big friend already.”

  “Not possible.”

  “‘Spect he got the drop on him ‘cause a you.” His chuckle really pissed me off. “We knew you’d come.”

  I wanted to ask how. Chose not to give him the satisfaction.

  A sly look. “Oh, my pal, he’s got his ways.” He seized my shoulder and pinched.

  He knew just what nerve to press, and I fought the pain, powered through it, and grabbed the arm with the gun as it moved past me, started twisting, going with his movement, the flow of it giving my move energy.

  The creak of a board, someone behind me. Pain exploded the crown of my head, and the world disappeared.

  didn’t want to open my eyes. I was hurt, woozy, and freezing my ass off—where was my coat? my backpack?—and damned if I could remember…

  Reality snapped back fast.

  I lifted my lids. Nothing happened. I was engulfed in blackness.

  No gloves, no jacket, no hat.

  My jaw ached, and the back of my head felt like a frigging bomb had gone off there. I touched it gingerly. Sticky blood clung to my fingers. Bastards. I’d been coldcocked.

  A groan from somewhere in the room.

  “Larrimer?” I ran fingers across the floor. Cement, not dirt.

  No answer. Miloszewski’s “pal” must have some moves to have brought Larrimer down.

  I reached into my pocket for my phone. Gone. Of course it was. Crap. Nothing was ever easy.

  Freezing air tickled my nose. My mouth was dry, and I was at once oddly hungry and nauseated. I’d better get up.

  I pushed to my feet. Dizziness threatened to slap me to the floor again. I groped, found something hard and cold to keep me upright. It swayed, and I gripped it tight to stay vertical.

  “Larrimer!” I hissed.

  Nothing.

  I needed a light. The box. I’d stashed it in my backpack. Dropping to the floor, I groped, no backpack, but my fingers found splinters, shards. And a prickle of power. I lifted a piece and smelled. Wood. The box. Destroyed. Ronan’s father, the bastard. I bet the bastard hadn’t thought much of the box until I took possession of it. But it wasn’t the chest, a thing I suspected not so easily destroyed by a rabid man.

  I pushed cold fingers down my shirt for the invitation. Gone, too. Miloszewski feeling me up while I was unconscious. Gross!

  The wood, the power. Dave’s gift to the kids. I slipped the slivers into the pocket of my jeans, then stood again, one hand on a wall, shaky, but better. I followed the wall, every so often bouncing into something cold. And creepy. I stoppered my imagination.

  Fingertips numb, I felt around a tall object, tripped over a lump on the ground, and found what I thought might be a door. Next to it, a switch. I flipped it.

  Another groan, and I stumbled across the room, much of it in shadow given the dim bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. In the corner darkness, a slumped shape on the floor.

  “Larrimer.” I slipped to my knees. “Larrimer. Wake up.” I bent onto my haunches and shook his shoulder. He didn’t stir. Another groan.

  His face—Ronan’s father and accomplice had beaten him bloody, lip split, cheek cut, right eye swollen shut.

  I pulled him to a sitting position and cupped his bruised cheek. “James.”

  Nothing. I hugged him close, trying to warm him, and turned to face the room.

  “No.”

  The faint light outlined an enormous carcass, an antlered moose, hung from a hook chained to the ceiling.

  We were in some kind of refrigeration unit.

  “Oh no,” I said aloud, gut punched by the second carcass. I gulped in a breath, fighting my damnedest not to freak or puke or both. A naked man—headless, handless, and footless—hung by another hook that curled into his upper back. Beneath his leg stumps, an icy metal bucket of what had to be blood sat below. I clenched my jaw, trapping a scream.

  I saw us—Larrimer, me—swinging from those hooks after we’d frozen to death.

  I’d seen horrors in my work, plenty, but nothing like this. How did someone do that to another human being?

  Out. We had to get out.

  “James.” I shook him. No response. Dear gods. And then I kissed him, kissed his lips, his cheeks, his forehead, his ear, and I reached for our song. More wet, sloppy, hot, kisses. “Wake up, please.”

  A groan, and I kissed him again, sucked on his lower lip, amped up our harmonic resonance. When he answered the kiss, my blood fired.

  “Larrimer, wait.”

  “Nice,” he mumbled, deepening the kiss, parting my lips, tongue thrusting.

  Holy shit. I pulled back. “Larrimer, wake up!”

  “Sure,” he slurred. “Mmmm. One more.” And he kissed me with the whole nine yards, arms crushing me, tongue inside me, cock hard against his freezing jeans.

  I was plenty warm now, and I’d bet he was, too.

  “We need to leave now. Wake up. Hurry.”

  “Getting there,” he said, his voice a granite rumble.

  I unwound from his arms, stood, and inched my way to the horror on the hook. I wouldn’t need any snapshot to recall this.

  I closed my eyes, couldn’t look. Not a person. Not a person. Dea
d. Dead. Dead. Okay, I can do this. I opened my eyes.

  A heart tattoo on his shoulder read Mom. Torso with a small pot belly, uncircumcised, lean muscular legs. I walked around him. A long scar jagged just above his butt cheeks. He wasn’t old. I reached for his hand—right, no hands—fisted mine instead. And they’d drained his blood into a bucket.

  Had I known him? I hugged myself. No, no, no. He shouldn’t be up there. He shouldn’t. I reached to lift him off the hook, take him down.

  Firm arms wrapped around my waist and lifted me away from the corpse.

  I looked up at Larrimer. “What?”

  “Let’s go. Now.”

  “But I have to—”

  “No, you don’t. He’s long gone, Clea. He won’t care.”

  I leaned my head against his chest. “It’s so wrong in every way.”

  “Jesus Christ, obviously. But I don’t want us to end up like him.”

  I let out a breath. “No,” I said, voice thin.

  He squeezed my hand. We felt like two popsicles.

  “How did they get you?” I asked.

  He blinked.

  “Larrimer?”

  “Said they had you. Yeah, I know. Then my head exploded, and I woke up kissing you. Sleeping fucking Beauty, that’s me.” He walked toward the door that lacked an interior handle and put his shoulder against it. “Care to join me?”

  “There’s no way, Larrimer.”

  “Perhaps there is.”

  I leaned my shoulder against the frigid metal door.

  “On three,” he said.

  “Set.”

  We pushed against the door. Nothing. We tried again. Not even a budge.

  He moved me out of the way, walked to the far end of the room, and I felt him gather strength. He flew across the room and rammed his shoulder into it. And again. It bowed. But it didn’t open.

  “Shit.” He turned to me. “Be nice if you could do those light things right about now.”

  Blood drained from my face. He’d seen, and said nothing. Then again, he’d just bent the door with superhuman strength, and I’d kept my trap shut.

  “I can’t. Not on command. I, um, I don’t know how.”

  “Try?”

  I held up my right hand and pushed, while I begged the magic to come. Nothing but a lot of cold air between me and the door.