Lay It Down

by Cara McKenna

  “Something’s up,” Vince said, narrowed gaze moving around the bar. “Something shady. Maybe to do with the casino.”

  Raina’s posture slumped and she sighed, clearly not in the mood for this. He knew she got fed up with spending her workdays listening to the old-timers and their grouchy gossip about the corporate developers who’d been ripping holes all through the foothills in the name of progress. But this shit was dead serious to Vince.

  “You think the project has something to do with Alex’s accident?” she asked. “How would that even factor?”

  “He called me that night, asked me to meet him down here. Wanted to talk to me about something he’d seen, I think was how he said it. Something around one of the construction sites—bones.”

  “Bones? What kind of bones? Not human ones?”

  Vince shrugged. “Never had a chance to find out. Next thing I know, I’m watching news footage of Alex’s cruiser getting winched out of a gulley.”

  She frowned, thinking it over. “That’s a little creepy, sure. But—but what are you saying, Vince? Are you implying somebody killed him? Faked the accident?”

  He hated how crazy the whole thing sounded when she worded it like that. He hadn’t even articulated those thoughts in his own mind. Hearing her say it out loud made him wonder what he was thinking himself. “I’m not saying anything except I don’t think we know the whole story.”

  “What, like, somebody cut his brake lines or something, so—”

  “I said I don’t know. But I can’t unhear what he told me.” Bones. Goddamn, he couldn’t get that word out of his head. “And it’s funny what the news said, about the recorder in his cruiser being switched off when it happened.”

  Raina shot him a leveling look. “Of course he’d turn it off—he knew he was going to drive drunk. The man wasn’t about to document himself breaking the law.”

  “He wanted to meet me at the bar. He should’ve walked,” Vince said. “He always walked.”

  “Tell me this—did he sound drunk when he called?”

  Vince felt a headache brewing, everything about this conversation going badly—and Raina was only the first friend he’d attempted to confide in about it. “Yeah. Pretty drunk.”

  She leaned in, looking sad. “Matter of time, him finally making that awful decision.”

  “Doesn’t add up. He never would’ve done that. Never. That this happens the same goddamn day he sees something? Something he needs to tell somebody about, bad enough to call close to midnight, and lay something about bones on me?”

  “Vince, take a deep breath and listen to what you’re saying. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “No, it doesn’t. That’s what got me worried.”

  “Look, I get it—you think this is your fault, for agreeing to meet him.”

  He sat up straight. “Now wait—”

  “But it’s not. Alex was a time bomb. And every last person in Fortuity’s asking themselves those same questions, about what we could’ve done different, if we could’ve prevented this. I mean, look at me—his fucking bartender. But it was self-destruction, plain and simple. Not your fault. And definitely not something to do with the casino or the construction, or any mysterious bones he told you about when he was shitfaced.”

  Vince felt his usual above-it-all, smug veneer fall away, features hardening. “You of all people should be worried about that casino.”

  Clearly annoyed by his tone, Raina drew herself up tall and crossed her arms. “Should I, then?”

  “You should. You think anybody’s gonna bother with Benji’s, once all those fancy joints open?”

  “Oh, are we changing the subject again? God, you men—scared shitless of any feelings that don’t come from your pants.”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “But fine, we can talk about that. This casino’s bringing people, period,” she said. “People drink. I serve alcohol. All that adds up to good news, in my book.”

  That was how she’d been playing it, but Vince wasn’t sold. She had to be nervous about what the Eclipse was going to do to their town. The very name sounded ominous, and he knew she’d voted against it, too. Raina and most everybody he’d talked to. The ranchers were worried about the water supply and what the construction might do to the few decent routes they relied on to get stock in and out of town. The religious folks thought it’d turn Fortuity into Sodom—or worse, Reno. Mayor Dooley said the casino would bust open a dam and flood this town with money, but all that sounded like to many of the locals was an invitation to drown. But it had passed, somehow or other.

  “Rich tourists won’t be climbing down off their cushy thrones to drink with the likes of us,” Vince countered. “Most of the construction guys don’t even come in here.” The majority were immigrant workers, content to keep to themselves in their little trailer city at the edge of town.

  “Maybe not, but the tourists will,” Raina said. “For a chance to tell their buddies they’re in with the local riffraff. Plus all the hospitality and casino workers—they’ll need a place to drink, and they sure as shit won’t feel like sticking around their place of business, paying hotel prices.”

  “Once, maybe. Twice, tops. Then your novelty’ll wear off, sweetheart. They’ll get bored, same as you did with Miah.” A mean jab, sure, but she’d broken his best friend’s heart. That was fair game.

  “Prick.”

  Vince drank to that.

  “It’s high time this happened, really,” Raina said lightly. “I voted against it, but hey, beauty of democracy. Maybe we could stand to class ourselves up. Fortuity—what are they calling it? ‘The new desert Aspen,’” she said dreamily. That was the dumbass slogan gracing billboards splashed with slick renderings of the yet-to-be-built Eclipse.

  “You’re cute when you’re naïve.” Vince was going for patronizing with the smile he cracked, but Raina didn’t take his bait.

  She knew him too well, anyhow. Vince and Raina were two of a handful of Fortuity natives of their generation who’d stuck with the town after the local industries had hit hard times, and it wasn’t from a lack of motivation. He’d stayed out of a sense of family duty, same as her, even as so many of their peers—including Vince’s little brother—had run off in search of greener pastures . . .

  Duty, or something else?

  “You’ve got that red dust in your lungs,” her late father had always said to them. “The dust’ll call you back.” Raina had tried to fight it—tried to leave Fortuity behind as Casey had, but yeah, she’d been called back. She never talked about what had happened in Vegas to send her running home in her midtwenties. Had to be something nasty, though—the girl was tough as nails.

  “So when’s Casey back, then?” she asked.

  “Any day now.”

  “Where from?”

  “Fresno, I think. Maybe. He moves around so much, who the fuck can keep track? I was shocked his number still worked. Vegas area code, and he cleared out of there at least two years ago.”

  “What’s he been doing?”

  “Counting cards, last I knew, but that was a long while back.”

  She shook her head. “Now there’s a perfect waste.”

  “Tell me about it.” Vince’s little brother was a world-class dumbass when it came to a lot of things—women, chiefly—but he’d always had a head for math and science. Particularly the areas that involved blowing things up or burning things down.

  “Well, well,” Raina said, gathering empties from around the counter. “The original Desert Dogs, back together, all grown up.” Minus one. God rest Alex Dunn. “How ’bout that?”

  “You know it,” he said. “We still got your position open, girl. Head bitch.”

  “Fuck you, Vince.” Though he knew she’d loved that title, once upon a time. She’d been the only girl in Fortuity deemed tough enough to hang with the Grossiers and Miah and Alex . . . Actually, she’d been more persistent than tough, basically bossing her way into their silly grade-school war games out around th
e brush and creek and foothills. Then in high school, all those hours lost loitering in the garage, Raina sitting on the workbench, reading sex-advice articles aloud from her stupid chick magazines while the guys dicked around with their two-wheeled toys.

  Beyond the front windows, the desert had gone from pink to orange. It did that every evening, a few minutes before the sun sank behind the peak of Lights Out to dunk Fortuity in premature twilight. Hence the Eclipse.

  Raina caught somebody’s signal for another round and filled a pitcher, delivering it before shutting the windows and unpropping the front door on her way back. The sun dropped; the temperature dropped. From a hundred-plus in the sun to the midforties under the moon. Summer to winter every damn dusk. Vince watched as she reached up on tiptoe to switch off the AC for the night.

  Back behind the bar, she cracked her neck, looking beat. Vince had his arms folded on the wood, and she mirrored him for a second, then stood up perfectly straight, her expression telling Vince precisely who’d just strolled through the front door.

  Vince swiveled to raise a hand at his best friend.

  Miah must have taken the truck—no helmet tonight. The second that old wool felt Stetson came off, Lights Out swallowed the last of the day’s sun. Vince felt the predictable, angst-filled current that ran between the ex-lovers prickle through the air.

  Miah crossed the floor and offered Raina a stiff nod. “Evening.”

  “Miah. Usual?”

  “Please.”

  As she twisted the cap off, she asked, “Did Vince here tell you Casey’s coming back to town?”

  “He did. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  She cracked a smile at that. “Two fifty.”

  Miah gave her a five, then turned his dark eyes on Vince. They clasped hands in a half-assed ritual of macho acknowledgment. Where Vince’s job dusted him gray with gravel, Miah’s left him red around the seams from the desert, from long hours on horseback, patrolling the scrubby acres of prairie that made up Three C, his family’s cattle ranch.

  Raina handed Miah his change and Vince got to his feet.

  “Enjoy your beers, boys. Holler when you need a refill.”

  Vince grabbed a seat on a bench before a trestle table in the front corner while Miah disappeared to take a leak.

  Vince eyed Raina idly. His matchstick had softened and he tongued the pulp.

  Funny how Miah had beat him to her, and how many summers ago, now? Two? Yet his best friend still bore the wounds. They’d loved like a bad trip—a writhing, wailing possession of a doomed romance, the kind that left scorch marks. So not Miah’s style, but if she’d managed to drive that steady motherfucker to moonlight yowling, God knew she and Vince would’ve straight-up torn each other to shreds.

  What a waste.

  Waste or not, once you wet your collar with a buddy’s sloppy tears over a girl, it was nighty-night on that dream.

  Miah returned, taking his predictable spot and hauling the window open behind him. Cold night air drifted in—some odd comfort to the man, some psychological promise of an escape route. Keep him outside and he was unflappable as a lead flag. Inside, twitchy as hell. Cattleman thing, maybe. The guy’s old man was just the same.

  They tapped bottles and Vince said, “Thanks for coming in.”

  “Can’t stay late.”

  “It’s Friday.”

  Miah took a long drink. “Like that means anything to me. Plus, Dad called just as I parked. Gotta check a length of fence before I turn in.”

  Best get down to business, then. “We gotta talk. About Alex.”

  Miah crossed himself and sighed, posture drooping. “Not sure I’m ready to. Can it wait till some night I can afford to get drunk? Tomorrow maybe, ride out to Big Rock? Spare these good people the sight of a grown man crying.”

  Vince shook his head. “Not about that stuff. Not about the accident that got reported on. I want to talk about what really happened on Monday night. How Alex really died.”

  Miah’s eyes narrowed, and it looked to Vince like he was setting his more-difficult feelings aside. He was good at that shit. Like his emotions were bits of hardware, stored in their proper compartments in the toolbox, tidy and separate and easy to lock away. Except maybe the ones Raina stirred up.

  “How he really died? Start making sense, Vince. Why’d you call me down here? I’m missing my mom’s rib eye for this.”

  And so Vince told Miah what he’d told Raina, about that phone call. About Alex needing to talk about something he’d seen, less than an hour before he was found dead. About the bones. Miah looked skeptical, but no shock. He hadn’t heard the fear and desperation in their friend’s voice.

  “Bones, he said? What kind of bones? Where? How old were they?”

  That’s the goddamn problem. “All he said was bones.”

  And there came that look again—pure doubt.

  Vince leaned in close and let his best friend hear how deadly serious he was. “Think what you want about Alex—you two ain’t been close for ten years or more. But I know that man. And I know he’d never drive drunk. And I know he sounded scared.”

  Miah shook his head, looking weary. “You think what? He saw something weird down at the development site? That this is some kind of cover-up?”

  Vince nodded once.

  “Of what?”

  “I don’t know what. He never made it to Benji’s to tell me.” The hairs rose along his arms and neck to know now what had detained his friend. “Could be any number of things. Shallow grave, maybe? Native American remains—something historical like that might threaten the casino even getting built on that land. Fuck if I know what they were. What I do know is that he was freaked, and he needed to tell somebody about it, but he never got that chance.”

  “Because of his accident,” Miah said.

  “Maybe. Or maybe it wasn’t an accident.” And when a maybe-not added up to the difference between a car accident and a cold-blooded murder, Vince wasn’t taking any chances.

  Miah’s fingers drummed his bottle. “I’ll humor you for a minute. Yes, Alex never drove drunk a day in his life. Until maybe, I dunno . . . Say he did see some bones. He was out there on county business, sees who knows what—a real brutal scene. Something awful. He’s upset, he gets drunk later, he finally crosses that line he kept drawn in the sand, between him and his vehicle. I could imagine any number of scenarios, Vince . . . but a cover-up for you can’t even say what? Not topping my list.”

  “Alex was the most goddamn responsible alcoholic I ever met.” Used to bug the shit out of Vince, in fact, that a man could be so good and so broken at once. How unfair it was that the kindest man among them had been stuck dealing with that, yet a thoroughbred shithead like Vince could take or leave a stiff one. Luck of the genetic draw, he guessed. Plus, while Vince’s parents had both checked out in their own ways, Alex’s folks had done some active damage to him, before he’d come to Fortuity to live with his grandfather when he was in the sixth grade. Precisely what damage, Vince had never come to know—he wasn’t one to pry, and Alex wasn’t normally one to share. But something rough. Something that had demanded numbing, for as long as Alex had been old enough to drink.

  “Maybe . . . ,” Miah began, trailing off for a moment. “Maybe it was self-destructive, you know?”

  “What, like he’d meant to kill himself?” That was way off the mark. “If that man had wanted to end it all, he’d have done it clean. Hanged himself. Or a gunshot maybe, but in the bathtub, at least. Not in his cruiser—he respected the law too much to go out that way.” And he would’ve left a note, apologizing, absolving everyone who might feel as Vince did, that they could’ve prevented this. An envelope full of cash, maybe, to cover funeral expenses.

  It was wrong, the way it had gone down, all wrong. Sadly, with Alex’s grandfather six months gone and no other family to speak of, Vince was probably the only person who could appreciate this. He was the only one who’d stayed close to Alex in recent years, since the drinking
had gotten so bad. Convincing anybody else was going to be one steep uphill battle.

  Miah sighed. “I got no clue, Vince. We’ll probably never know what was going through his head that night.”

  “Just saying . . . Something about this ain’t right.”

  “Not right, no. And I’m not downplaying that what he told you’s creepy. I’d love to know exactly what it was he saw, same as you . . .” Miah picked at his bottle’s label. “It’s strange, I’ll give you that much. But it’s not murder.”

  Murder was a big leap to make. Even Vince could appreciate that. Still, it didn’t stop him from wondering. “You think I’m paranoid?”

  “I think you’re upset, and rightly so,” Miah said carefully. “But far as any logical person can see, the man died in a car crash. I promise you’ll see that when the shock wears off.”

  “I’m not in shock. But he was my friend. Sure, we didn’t talk about shit, not the way you and I talk about shit. That’s what makes me think it must have been serious, if he took the time to reach out, to ask to meet me.”

  “Serious like maybe he was thinking of taking his own life?” Miah offered quietly, black eyes steady.

  “It wasn’t a fucking suicide.”

  Miah sat back in his seat, looking beat. “Go see the sheriff tomorrow, if it’s got you this torn up. He was there. Did his coroner duties. He knew Alex as well as anybody, demons and all. And he spent more time with him than anyone else. If anything smelled funny, Tremblay’s the one who’d have noticed. He’s also the one Alex would’ve gone to if he’d seen something upsetting, on the job. Maybe Tremblay sent him out there, after somebody found these bones he told you about. Maybe he’s got the answers you need, to be at peace with this.”

  Vince prickled. Fair points, but he and the sheriff weren’t exactly cordial, given how often Vince wound up in county following the odd recreational fistfight. And Tremblay’d love to nail him for worse, though Vince had been careful since he’d last served a real sentence. Fucking parole. No goddamn fun.

  Still, he and Tremblay had both loved Alex; both had helped bear the weight of his coffin yesterday. That ought to trump the bad blood. “Fine. I’ll talk to him. It’s as good a lead as any.”