by Cara McKenna
“At Three C. You took a spill on your bike.”
“She okay?”
Miah looked to Duncan.
“I think it’ll be fine.” Scratched up like its owner, surely, maybe short a mirror, but the bike seemed tough to maim. And unlike Duncan’s poor Merc, the Harley looked better with a bit of abuse. He supposed there were advantages to fetishizing a vehicle whose cachet was rooted in performance, not perfection.
“Welch,” Casey said, seeming surprised to look up and find him standing there. “The fuck you doing here? You find that coyote yet?”
“Excuse me?”
“You gotta find the coyote, man. Step one.”
Duncan glanced nervously at Miah. “I’m not looking for a coyote,” he said to Casey.
“Why you here, then? You and Miah having a duel for Raina’s love or some shit?”
Christine’s eyebrows rose at that, and she turned to dig through drawers in the hutch.
Miah told Casey, “You were giving Welch a riding lesson. I drove by right after you went down. Ronnie’s coming out, to make sure you’re okay. You were talking some serious nonsense, Case. We think you concussed yourself.”
Casey frowned, his gaze more focused now. “Nonsense?”
“Yeah. Vince is on his way, too.”
“What exactly did I—”
“Hold still,” Christine told Casey, and she set a first-aid kit on the table. Duncan stepped aside to give her room. She dabbed at the scrapes on Casey’s cheek and temple, ignoring the stream of multisyllabic oaths that came pouring out of him.
Miah jerked his head to tell Duncan to follow him, and headed back out to the front porch.
Once the door swung closed, Miah sighed into the open air. “What the fuck?”
Duncan nodded. “Indeed. It has to be a concussion.”
“You sound confident.”
“I was a defense lawyer for three years before I went corporate. I specialized in fighting personal injury claims. I never saw a plaintiff present hallucinations as one of the symptoms of suffering a blow to the head, but it does happen. In very severe concussions, and traumatic brain injuries.”
Miah smirked. “You were an ambulance chaser?”
“I was an ambulance deflector. I saved a lot of construction companies a lot of money over fraudulent claims.”
“What a saint you are. How many legitimately injured workers did you fuck over in the process?”
Duncan kept his gaze cool. “Fucking over was never in my job description. The law, when practiced well, leaves no room for emotion, and fucking over requires an unprofessional amount of contempt.”
“Or greed.”
Duncan spoke evenly. “I carry out my job with the precision and detachment of a surgeon. But enough about me, Mr. Church.”
“Miah.”
Duncan cocked his head. “Are you really so invested in establishing familiarity with me, Miah?”
The man smiled. “It’s not unlikely that you and me might get trashed some night, and exchange a few punches in the bar’s front lot. Seems silly for us not to be on a first-name basis.”
“You want to fight me for Raina’s affections?” Miah would win, no doubt about that.
“No, I don’t. Raina’s affections are hers to misplace as she sees fit.” He smiled again. “I just really want to hit you. Just once.” His gaze zeroed in on Duncan’s black eye. “Though it looks like somebody beat me to it.”
“Perhaps one day the opportunity will arise. But getting back to Casey—you’ve never known him to have a history of seizures or anything like that?”
“Never. Head injury explains the babbling . . .”
“But not the reason he fell to begin with. And he was shaking, too. I represented a contracting company against a seizure claim once—the plaintiff’s lawyer insisted it had been caused by heavy equipment vibration.”
Miah made a curious face. “He’s been riding for years, though, and I’ve never heard of him having one.”
“And all that said, I won that case—I have no clue if the claim was legitimate.”
The rumble of an engine sounded, and they turned to watch Vince cruise down the road. He looked as fitting on his bike as Duncan surely looked laughable. He turned into the lot and parked, expression grave as he strode to the porch. He nodded to each of them. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Miah said.
Vince stood before them and crossed his ink-covered arms. “How’s Case?”
“Better. He’s in the kitchen. Not shaking and shit, anyhow, and he’s talking some sense. My mom’s patching up some scrapes, and Ronnie should be here soon. I know it’s a pain in the ass, but maybe he ought to go to Elko. Get an MRI or whatever. If you need to get back to your mom, I could drive him myself. Provided Dad could return a few calls for me.”
Vince shook his head firmly.
Miah shot him a leveling look. “You weren’t here, Vince. He didn’t just fall—he had some kind of . . . spell. Like a bad trip. Maybe even a seizure or something, Welch thinks.”
“Casey’s no fan of hospitals,” Vince said.
“Casey’s no fan of paperwork,” Miah corrected dryly, confirming Duncan’s suspicions. “The kid’s got a pay-as-you-go phone with an area code he hasn’t lived in for, like, six years. But we’re talking about a possible brain injury.”
Vince swallowed, glancing between them. “He said stuff?”
Duncan nodded, and Miah said, “Yeah, a lot of stuff. Weird stuff. Welch said it could be from the head injury, but shit, I dunno . . . Any chance he was on something—mushrooms, or acid?”
“Or peyote,” Duncan offered. “He told me to ‘find the coyote.’”
“What else?” Vince demanded.
“That I was gonna die in a fire,” Miah said, smirking.
Vince, however, wasn’t smiling. “’Scuse me?”
“He kept talking about Miah being killed. About a fire on a starless night.” Duncan couldn’t help thinking back to the long minutes he’d spent in that smoke-stinking mine, listening as Casey had spouted a seeming forensics expert’s knowledge on the topic. “What is it with your brother and fire?”
“Case has always been a bit of a pyro,” Miah said. “But a starless night? We get maybe a handful of those a year, and the rainy season’s just about the only time when I’m not worrying about fires . . . He came to and offered my mom his condolences,” Miah added, his smile fading when Vince didn’t mirror the levity. “What?”
Vince stared at his friend and his tone grew grave. “Raina ever tell you what almost happened to her, the night of the meteor shower?”
Miah’s expression darkened, and Duncan’s blood went cold, brain filling with question marks and fog.
“Yeah,” Miah said stiffly.
“What nearly happened to Raina?” Duncan interjected. Something terrible, to judge by Vince’s voice and Miah’s expression. Something bad enough to make her punchy about getting held down? And what on earth was it to do with Casey’s spill?
“It’s none of your fucking business,” Miah said, pink rising in his cheeks.
Vince seemed to concur, turning back to Miah. “I gotta talk to you, after we get the bikes sorted out.”
“To do with what happened that night?” Miah asked. “To Raina?”
Vince shook his head. “Not directly, no. Just clear your schedule for the next couple hours. Actually, see if you can’t get the night off—you might need a few drinks.”
A white minivan turned into the ranch’s lot.
Vince stood up straight. “That’ll be Ronnie.”
“Case’ll be in good hands,” Miah said. “I’ll drop Welch back off with his bike, and if one of you can help me, we can get Casey’s bike in my bed and drop it back at the spot.”
Vince nodded. “No problem.” He looked to Dunca
n. “You get enough of a foundation to know how to ride yourself back to Raina’s?”
“I have.” But Duncan wasn’t going back to Raina’s yet. He was rattled, and needed time to turn everything around in his head.
Vince greeted the older man from the clinic and they disappeared inside for a minute. When he returned, Vince said, “Okay, let’s figure out the logistics and worry about a hospital run later. I’ll meet you by the bikes.”
Duncan followed Miah to the pickup.
“Fucking strange,” Miah muttered, starting the truck as Duncan buckled up.
“Indeed.”
Behind them came the ripping noise of Vince’s throttle, then relative silence descended as Miah drove. After an eternal, awkward minute, he finally huffed, “So.”
“So?”
Another pause, and Miah asked, “Have you?”
Seeing no reason to be coy, Duncan simply said, “Yes.” He nearly added, “We have,” but for whatever reason, the we didn’t feel right. He and Raina weren’t a thing, hot sex and needy spooning notwithstanding.
Miah said nothing, and his face was unreadable. The face Raina had no doubt watched who knew how many times, just as she’d watched Duncan with wonder the previous morning.
I still love Miah.
Yet she’d slept with Duncan. They were different as lovers, surely. Was Miah more tender or rough? Duncan had to wonder. Louder, slower, more or less . . . sensual? More or less of whatever Raina wanted? And which was better—to be the man who got to enjoy her, or to be the man who actually meant something to her? Surely the latter was a far more rare honor.
Miah interrupted Duncan’s increasingly frantic—and increasingly pathetic—stream of consciousness. “Treat her good,” he said gruffly. “That’s all I’ll say about it.”
“She’d demand nothing less.”
Miah nodded. “That’s fucking right.”
Chapter 16
They reached the abandoned bikes without another word, and once Casey’s was secured in the bed of the truck, Duncan bade Vince and Miah good night. As soon as he recovered his rhythm with the BMW, his mind began wandering in earnest. He turned Casey’s spacey words over, feeling like a hound who’d caught some curious, unshakable scent on the wind.
You find that coyote yet? Utter nonsense, yet it nagged at him. He was seeking something as grisly as carrion, after all. He wished he possessed the primitive scavenger’s instincts necessary to catch the scent.
Off-road was tricky, to be sure, and Duncan tipped over a good half dozen times as he edged deeper into the badlands, too slow at dodging rocks, misjudging the softness of the earth. The dust was brutal at low speed, but he found that the closer he edged toward the creek, the harder the packed clay became under his tires, making for a more stable ride. The sun began its descent in earnest, the wind biting more sharply and the blue above him deepening to indigo in the east.
The scrub grass grew denser, and then stubby trees began to appear, announcing his arrival at Dead Creek. The stream was currently shirking its moniker, a thin but steady trickle snaking along the pebbled creek bed.
Everywhere Duncan looked, he saw bones. He imagined the hands capable of sifting through dirt and burying those charred remains. Or pulverizing them. Just touching those dry black sticks, maybe knowing what they’d looked like when they were still clad in flesh.
Duncan normally shied from morbid thoughts, from reminders of the frailty of the human condition—his own frailty—but they came to him unbidden now, notions and images like tugging hands. Like swarming, buzzing insects, impossible to disperse. He . . . felt them somehow. Nearly as if they were calling to him, the way a couple of stray notes taunt as you try to recall a forgotten song.
That was all insanity, of course. Duncan possessed no sixth sense—he operated on facts alone. And lust, it would seem, though that impulse was new. He’d followed his instincts with Raina, against his brain’s better judgment, and he couldn’t say he had any regrets. And it was in that spirit—or with that breed of surrender—that he let the landscape call to him, taking its direction, angling the bike without thought or expectation.
As the creek made a sharp curve, a pumpkin-colored box appeared beyond the scrubby trees—an ancient camper van. Duncan slowed.
The thing belonged in the dictionary beside the passage for sketchy. Straight out of the seventies, the vehicle promised to be housing a cook operation, or a load of illegal immigrants, or perhaps a pregnant runaway.
Still, if one was looking for evidence, one might be well advised to make the acquaintance of criminals. Duncan killed his engine and knocked down the kickstand. He’d hoped the motor would’ve made his arrival known, but the van showed no signs of life, despite the rear door hanging wide open.
“Hello?” He wandered closer. There was a warning painted neatly along the vehicle’s faded orange flank, PRIVATE PROPERTY. BEWARE OF—
A sharp click at Duncan’s back froze him where he stood. His heart went very still, very quiet, and he turned slowly to find himself staring into the business end of a hunting rifle.
At the other end stood a man roughly Duncan’s age; long and lean, wearing a tight T-shirt and old jeans, sockless feet in sequined flip-flops. Like the van, he looked as though he’d stumbled out of the seventies—from a long stay in an opium den, all rock star snake hips, black goatee, and wild hair, the lead-lidded eyes of a hobbyist sex offender.
Oddest accessory of all, there was a large white parrot perched on his shoulder.
“Hello,” Duncan said, feeling eerily calm.
The man smiled. “Greetings. What the fuck d’you want?”
Though he’d not arrived wanting anything in particular, Duncan’s mouth offered, “A quick word. Would you lower the rifle, please?”
“That’s some bike.” The man’s gaze flicked to the BMW. “Looks like Vince Grossier’s taste. But you don’t look like no friend of Vince Grossier.”
“Strangely, I am.”
The bird bobbed its head with a little whoop. Its owner moved the barrel up and down, as though making an inventory of Duncan with the sight. Or perhaps choosing an organ to target.
“Am I trespassing?” Duncan asked.
“Haven’t decided yet. What’re you looking for?”
Unbidden, the truth fell from his mouth. “Human remains.”
The man’s eyebrows rose. So did the rifle, the barrel seeming to settle over Duncan’s heart. Still, the fear didn’t arrive.
“You don’t say. And why’s that led you to me?”
“It hasn’t,” Duncan said, then got caught on an odd thought. He stared hard at this man, this scavenger who made his home at the edges of civilization. Perplexed, upended, he muttered, “The coyote . . .”
“’Scuse me?”
“Are you . . . are you the coyote?” Duncan asked him.
“Why? Are you the Keymaster?”
He shook his head, shocked he’d even asked. “Nothing, never mind.” Of course he wasn’t the bloody coyote. Casey had been speaking with a head injury, not from some cryptic well of clairvoyance. “And no, I’ve not been led anywhere—I’m utterly lost. But I’m looking for bones. Burned ones.”
The eyebrows and barrel dropped. “You part of the investigation? All that drama with the foreman and our dearly departed sheriff? Man likes to know, before he takes aim at a detective.”
Duncan shook his head. “I’m no one.” No one at all, not anymore. He was as displaced as those bones, stripped of their flesh, location likely known only to a dead man. He let the honesty flow. “I lost everything because of those bones. I just want to find them. I need to. To keep from going completely insane.”
The man lowered the weapon, looking intrigued. He strode back to the open van and leaned his long body inside. When he turned back the rifle was gone, and he tossed something to Duncan. A fifth of rum.<
br />
“Sobriety never did sanity any favors,” the stranger said.
Duncan felt inclined to agree. He unscrewed the cap and took a sip.
“Who are you?” the man asked. “And where’s Kansas to you, Dorothy?”
“Duncan Welch. I was a lawyer for the company that’s planning the casino. I live in San Diego, but I grew up in London. Who are you?”
“Dancer.”
“Is that your surname or your profession?”
The guy smiled. “Save your singles. John Dancer. How do you know Vince Grossier?” The way he said it, Duncan had to imagine the two might not be mutual fans.
“We met when he was looking into Alex Dunn’s death. I was appointed by my employers to keep an eye on him. I wouldn’t quite say we’re friends, but we’d both agree that he owes me.”
“Join the club.”
Duncan felt the rum already, reminded he’d not thought to eat lunch. “Tell me, John Dancer . . . if you were looking to get rid of a pile of burned human bones, where would you hide them?”
“Me? I’d crush ’em. Toss ’em in the creek, or let ’em blow off across the badlands on a windy day. Nice and organic. Sure as shit wouldn’t bury ’em, though.”
Duncan nodded and winced through another sip. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
“Then again, I didn’t get rid of any bones,” Dancer said, crossing his arms. “Tremblay did, I bet. Now, if I was the sheriff, I’d have hid that shit in plain sight. Sealed those things up in a cardboard box and tossed it on some dusty corner of an evidence shelf. Only place in town where a load of burned-up human remains wouldn’t raise an eyebrow.”
Duncan took another drink. “You’re rather good at this.”
“I’m way smarter than our late sheriff, though. I’d put decent money on him reburying that shit.”
“So don’t give up hope, you’re saying?”
“I’m saying, gimme back my rum.”
Duncan capped the bottle and tossed it to Dancer. “Cheers.”
“You know much about our dear dead sheriff, Sherlock?” Dancer asked.
“A bit. What I gleaned from the news, and from a few brief conversations I had with him myself, over legal matters pertaining to the casino construction.”
