“I don’t know. That night is kind of a blur now. I mean, the ritual part stands out clear as day. And I remember Steve and Curtis. And the girl — the, like, sacrificial lamb. If these other people were there, I don’t remember them. But it was a big group. And it was dark for most of it. And I was tripping megaballs on mushrooms.”
Medina snapped his eyes away from the photos and tilted his upper body and face away from them. Uncomfortable, Darger thought, but that would be a normal enough response given the condition of the deceased.
Darger reached out and shoved the photos back inside the folder.
“What’s the address of this place?”
“No address. Like I said. It’s out in the middle of nowhere. Unmarked two-track off a road that leads to the State Game Lands. Probably the only slice of pseudo-civilization for miles.”
“Do you think you could take us there?”
“Nope. Hell no. I can give you directions as best I can, and I happen to draw a pretty mean map.” Medina shook his head, eyes wide. “But there is no way I’m ever going back there.”
Chapter 15
Rain pelted the car, rivulets of wet streaking down the windshield. Cora stared through the beads of water smeared across the glass, fingers clutched around the seatbelt running a diagonal line over her chest. Watching. Waiting.
Her boyfriend, Chase, knocked on the door of the monumental house before him. He stood with his back to her, the porch light shining down on him, his face angled away from her. The shadows grew thicker as they trailed down from the back of his head, which she didn’t like.
Stone columns framed the front door of the big house, like something from the cover of one of the Country Living magazines her mom always read in the lobby at the dentist’s office. One of those stately, immaculate places that looked too fancy for anyone to actually live in. Maybe Joanna Gaines or someone like that might look at home here, but not a real person.
Chase looked wrong standing before this suburban palace, with his t-shirt sleeves cut off and cargo shorts going ratty and frayed at the bottom. The awful barbed-wire tattoo circling around his bicep rippled as he lifted his arm to ring the doorbell and then knock again. He turned his head, and she could see his chiseled jaw for a second, the fresh coating of dark stubble angling into the light. The image reassured her, if only a little.
Thunder rumbled in the distance, and Cora swallowed in a dry throat. They shouldn’t be here. The whole neighborhood made her wince, cringe, some knot of discomfort constricting in her belly. She wasn’t sure if the hulking home qualified as a mansion or not, but it had to cost something like twenty times the trailer her family rented. Maybe more. She lived a few tax brackets away from this neighborhood, and she mostly figured she always would.
Chase belonged in the trailer park, and so did she. Or at least that’s what the world seemed to believe. Her dad had warned her about places like this, about the people who lived in them.
He’d worked thirty plus years at a shower head factory, all of it second shift, so he wasn’t home much at any time she was awake. During those rare times when he was there, she remembered a sweaty can of Pabst Blue Ribbon in one hand and a smoldering cigarette in the other, a perpetually defeated look in the purple bags under his eyes. In her nineteen years on the planet, the only thing the old man had really impressed upon her boiled down to four simple words: don’t trust rich people.
“Listen to me. Don’t go trustin’ no rich kids, OK? Don’t do it.” He jabbed two fingers at her for emphasis, smoke twirling off the cigarette perched between them. “The cake-eaters been taught their whole lives to look out for themselves, to be willing to throw anyone to the wolves if it means savin’ their own skin. Loyalty is for suckers in their world. For losers. Like all of life is a damn business decision. A number crunch. They’ll smile in your face, big shit-eating white tooth grins, but just you remember that they’re never really your friend. Ever.”
Her dad, too, readily accepted his lot in life. Worked his shifts at the factory without fail. Considered watching twelve hours of football every Sunday to be a form of enlightenment.
Chase was different, though. He had dreams. Hustling and grinding to lift himself out of the gutter. Making connections. Taking risks. He was looking to move up in that world. A friend had set up this meeting tonight. “A chance to make real money,” Chase had called it. He’d sold drugs off and on since Cora had been with him, but only minor stuff. A little weed. A few boner pills here and there.
But this? This was crystal, and while he hadn’t been explicit about it, she thought it was going to be a lot of the stuff. More than he’d ever handled before, for sure.
He had even started getting kind of uptight about it. He’d been so quiet on the drive over here, which was out of character for him. But he’d also talked about how this would be their ticket out of the slums, into the good life.
His words had painted pictures of new clothes, nice cars, a house in the suburbs where they could start a family. He’d wooed her with visions of a better life, a better world, right from when they’d first met. Sometimes he could be immature, yes. He was easily hurt and quick to wound her with insults when his pride was punctured. His sense of humor veered toward the juvenile as well, his fart and dick jokes raring up in times and places that embarrassed her.
And yet, being with him inspired her, felt like a true adventure. He made her believe, in brief fits and starts, that her life could be more, greater than the sum of its parts, better than the dreary way of living the world had presented her. He made her think that anything was possible, at least for brief snippets of time.
“All of life is a risk, ya know?” he said. “Like, it don’t last forever, Cora. We gotta take some chances. Make some opportunities. Cut a few corners if that’s what it takes. Get rich or try dying.”
That made her laugh.
“Wait. You mean die trying, right?”
He smiled, that square chin emerging like it always did.
“Nope. Get rich or try dying. That’s how I say it.”
The front door of the mansion twitched and swung open, bringing Cora’s attention back to the world beyond the windshield. At first, there was only light shining in the open doorway.
Then a figure in a cowboy hat jutted into the gap. Aviator sunglasses covered most of his face. Two mirrors that reflected the dark bulk of Chase’s shape in them.
Cora’s fingers pinched the edge of the seatbelt like crab claws, flexing and releasing over and over. That hollow drumming of the raindrops on the roof of the car persisted. Kept a steady backbeat to Cora’s racing thoughts.
The figures on the stoop talked a moment. Then Chase and the cowboy-hatted man turned and looked toward her in the car, and something cold sloshed around in her gut. This wasn’t good.
Chase jogged back to the car, a hand cupped over his brow to keep the rain out of his eyes. He popped open the driver’s side door and leaned over the seat toward her.
“Come on, babe,” he said, not quite looking at her. “He says the both of us should come inside.”
“What?” For some reason, Cora didn’t want to go in that house. “But why me?”
Chase’s eyes danced all over the inside of the car, his gaze piercing empty space.
“He, uh, says he wants to see who he’s dealing with. It’ll only be a minute.”
Cora didn’t move. Her eyes slid over to the man in the cowboy hat. He stood there, a cartoonish silhouette, watching them.
She felt a hand on her shoulder. Chase was looking at her finally. Smiling in that disarming way he had.
“Don’t worry, baby. He’s just one of those paranoid types. Wants to make sure we’re not narcs.” Chase winked. “It’ll be quick. I promise.”
Cora held still for a second longer. Then she moved to undo her seatbelt.
The cowboy led them through the house. Saying nothing. His ponytail dangled from the back of his hat and swished slightly as he walked, the heels of his boots clickin
g on the tiles in a crisp way that almost seemed prissy.
Apart from the overhead light in the foyer, the suburban palace was mostly dark inside. Eerie. Elongated rectangles of light reached through the windows and stretched over the floors. The gloom seemed to blossom off leather furniture in the living room and stainless steel appliances in the kitchen, gathering strength in the corners of each room they passed through.
Cora fought the instinct to reach out and grab Chase’s hand. She was scared, creeped out beyond all reason, but some instinct told her to not show any weakness in this place.
They crossed another living space and went through a darkened doorway into an office. The cowboy had them sit in front of a desk, closing the steel door behind them before he made his way to the chair on the opposite side.
He switched on a lamp shaped like a dragon. It was clearly more a novelty item than something meant to illuminate a room, with all the light shining through orange and red stained glass panels shaped like scales. It reminded Cora of being in a bedroom lit only by night light.
When the cowboy spoke, his words lilted with an indistinct accent — a bastardized Texas drawl that felt clunky and inauthentic, Cora thought. Was he faking it?
“So Rico recommended you.” He lowered his aviators to make eye contact, but only for a second. “I respect that.”
Chase nodded, something stiff in the gesture that the cowboy seemed to notice.
He leaned back in his chair. Smiled without showing any teeth.
“Well, hell. This all feels a little formal now, don’t it? A little stiff. You can relax, boy. I just wanted to chat a minute with you. With both of you. Sort of get to know each other before we get knee-deep in the swamp together.”
Cora was suddenly struck by the fact that she couldn’t tell how old this guy was. Was he thirty-five or sixty-five? She searched for hints. Age spots on his hands or the hint of crow’s feet protruding from the edges of the aviators. But the way the gauzy shadows swirled behind the desk made it impossible to tell.
“This is a risky kind of business, you understand?” he was saying. “Gotta make sure everything is clear up front. Clear as crystal.”
“Absolutely,” Chase said, his head nodding nonstop like a bobblehead figure.
“But I’m getting ahead of my own self. First of all, let me get the goods out. Let’s let everyone involved see what we’re talkin’ about here.”
He stood. Walked around the desk to a filing cabinet along the wall next to Chase’s seat. Opened the top drawer. Moved things around inside. Bulky objects clanged against the steel body of the case.
Cora swallowed. Something about the metallic clinks and clunks made every hair on her body stand on end, made her shoulders crawl upward until her collarbone touched the sides of her neck. They shouldn’t be here. It was all wrong.
And then a wave of embarrassment came over her. Always such a scaredy-cat, such a baby. Ridiculous. Nothing was even happening here. Nothing scary, anyway. Chase knew how to deal with these kinds of people. He wasn’t like her dad. He’d done this before.
The cowboy turned and looked over his shoulder, a sheepish grin curling the bottom half of his face.
“Shoot. Could use an extra set of hands here. Wanna help me out?”
Chase hopped up. Bounded two steps that way.
The long blade came out of the drawer slowly. Gleamed a second in the strange reddish glow of the dragon lamp. Jumped then. Lurched to life.
It jammed into Chase’s gut just as he got within arm’s reach.
Chase’s forward momentum stopped. A faint wet sound popped from his lips.
The cowboy thrust the knife several times. His body looking taut and wiry as he hurled himself into it. The mirrored sunglasses making his eyes look insectile, blank and unreadable. That almost sheepish grin never leaving the bottom half of his face.
Cora shrank back in her chair. Her mouth moved to scream, but no sound came out.
The knife punched into Chase’s abdomen nine or ten times. Sliding in and out with ease. Lisping out wet slurs with every entry and exit. Whispering sibilance.
Cora couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Mouth and eyes opened wide. All the way.
Finally Chase buckled forward. Gasping and whimpering. Bending at the waist. He toppled like a felled tree. Flopped onto hands and knees.
Runnels of blood pulsed out of him. Slapped and puddled on the tile floor in front of him. Wet sounds babbling with each throb.
The cowboy strode around behind him while he was still on all fours. Ripped the knife across Chase’s throat. Shoved his bleeding body to the floor.
Cora came unglued from the chair. Scrambled for the door. Twisted and yanked the knob. It moved about a millimeter toward her before it stopped.
Locked.
No. Jesus, no.
Her hand scrabbled over the cool steel surface. Fingering the seam where the door met the frame like a hamster pawing at the glass wall of its cage.
She turned. Saw the cowboy’s silhouette stalking toward her.
And then words came out of her. Spilling from her lips without her thinking them first. Surprising her as much as him.
“Please. Whatever Chase did. Whatever… I had nothing to… I know it’s a business thing, and I won’t tell anyone. I promise I won’t. It’s business.”
The cowboy stopped abruptly a few feet shy of her. Blood dripping down from the knife dangling at the end of his arm.
He stood there. Stared. Motionless.
And then a laugh hissed out of him, wet between his teeth.
“What on earth do you think is happening here, darlin’?” he said, his voice deep and oddly calm. That Texan accent seemed to have faded away. “Cause I got a feeling you have no idea entirely.”
He lurched for her then, that wiry body knifing over the space between them all at once.
His arm lifted. Shot out for her.
His fingers clasped her by the hair on the back of her head and pulled her close.
Chapter 16
The first thing Darger wanted to do when she walked into her hotel room later that night was to collapse directly onto the bed. But phantom whiffs of garbage stench continued to plague her. She dared not risk contaminating the bed with the stink.
Instead, she dropped her bags inside the door and headed for the bathtub. She turned on the taps and watched the water slap against the smooth porcelain surface of the bottom of the tub.
A standard assortment of miniature bottles stood in a row next to the sink. Shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, bubble bath. Darger lifted the bottle of bubble bath and sniffed at the open lid. It was a very floral scent, which wasn’t Darger’s favorite. Reminded her of potpourri and grandmas. Then again, anything was better than the smell of rotting garbage.
Darger paced from the edge of the bathtub to the door of her room while the tub filled. She was simultaneously exhausted and completely jacked up on adrenaline. Her mind had been whirring since the interview with the tattoo artist. Had she and Loshak been right about the cult angle? Darger wondered if Stephen Mayhew’s emaciation was the result of the punishment he said he’d earned after bringing Gage Medina to the ritual. Could they be starving people who angered the leader? Broke the rules?
But she was getting ahead of herself again. They’d find out what was really going on with The Children of the Golden Path tomorrow morning, when she and Loshak drove out to talk to Curtis, the mysterious leader of the group.
For now she needed to wash off the grime from a morning spent in a landfill and hopefully find a way to relax enough to sleep. Today had been a long day, and she doubted tomorrow would be any different.
Darger slid her jacket off and held it to her nose, trying to determine once and for all if the lingering smell was real. Nothing and then… maybe? Perhaps it was only a memory thing. Garbage heap PTSD. She wondered how people worked in that every day, knee-deep in all that waste, trudging through it, trucking it around. Did they just get used to it?
> She slipped into the scalding water and tried to clear her head. That worked for about thirty seconds, and then an image of the emaciated bodies appeared in her mind. And instead of pushing it away, she let her brain puzzle over it again. Tried again to make some sense of it, working at the edges of it, like she might make some leap about the missing pieces if she kept cycling through the whole mess in her head.
Her contemplation was interrupted by the sound of her phone ringing. She squinted across the bathroom at the buzzing device. It was past midnight. Who could be calling at this hour?
Could be Loshak, having some epiphany in the middle of the night, she thought. Well, he’d have to wait. Her phone was at the opposite end of the bathroom counter, and she wasn’t ready to get out yet.
She took a deep breath, inhaling the perfumed steam from the bath. Her phone blipped. A text message this time.
Someone calling and texting after midnight seemed like it could be important.
Damn it.
Darger hurried through the rest of her bath, washing her hair, and then wrapping it and the rest of herself in towels.
She released the drain plug and hobbled over to the phone, wet feet slapping against the tile floor. She dried her hands and swiped at the phone. She had a missed call and a text from Luck. So… nothing relating to the case.
She went back to the tub and watched the last of her bathwater spiral down the drain.
Damn it all.
She dressed in a pair of joggers and an old t-shirt. Rain pattered against the window as she climbed into bed, her skin still radiating heat from the hot bath water.
Lying there in the stiff hotel sheets, she opened the text from Luck.
Luck: I told Jill I was commandeering the last of the gummy bears you sent. Dad Tax. And then this happened.
There was a video attached, and Darger clicked to play it.
Jill with her cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk, gummy bears spilling from her mouth.
“You’re going to choke!” Luck said, laughing so hard the camera shook.
Violet Darger | Book 7 | Dark Passage Page 8
