Her hair immediately matted down and water ran into her eyes.
She took a Kleenex out of her pants pocket and wiped mascara off.
Now what?
She walked over to one of the gravesites. It was only about eighteen inches deep and filling with water. She checked the other one.
Same thing.
If Rachel was buried here somewhere, Aspen doubted that it would be too close to the existing graves, otherwise the police would have stumbled on it. It would be better to search farther out. She walked down the tracks for more than two hundred yards, looking in both directions for anything that suggested digging-fewer weeds, a raised area, whatever.
She saw nothing of interest.
She came back to where the graves were and then walked down the tracks in the other direction.
Again nothing.
This would be harder than she thought.
But Rachel was here somewhere.
She knew it.
She set up an imaginary grid and walked it, step by step. The rain never let up, not a bit. If anything, it got stronger. Her tennis shoes were caked with mud.
Slippery mud at that.
She fell and ended up with an ass full of it.
Then fell again.
And again.
Now she had mud all over her arms.
And in her hair.
“Goddamn rain.”
Her legs ached and her eyelids were raw from rubbing the rain out of her eyes. She’d been at it for what seemed like forever when she finally finished the grid.
Still nothing.
“Shit.”
Enough.
She went back to the car and rested against it, wondering what to do. If she got in this muddy, she’d ruin the interior, or at least end up having to clean it for an hour.
No thanks, either way.
Maybe she should just take her jeans off and throw them in the trunk. The evening was getting on, darker by the second. There was no one around. It was doubtful that anyone would see her. But still, she wasn’t wearing panties, and the thought of being bare-ass naked out here in the middle of nowhere creeped her out.
Then she remembered the gravesites, filling with water.
She headed over to the nearest one and found it half filled.
She stepped over the yellow tape and waded into the pool of water. Then she leaned backwards and put her hands down, like a crab, and wiggled her ass back and forth in the water.
She felt the mud coming off.
Good.
This was working just fine.
She wiggled more.
Her left hand suddenly sank down.
Twelve inches or more, almost up to her elbow.
As if she had slipped into a shaft.
Her fingers felt something weird.
Soft.
Silky.
Definitely not dirt.
She pulled herself up, turned around, kneeled down and then dug. In a few minutes she found the silky stuff again. She tugged at it and found it still firm, but on the verge of breaking loose. She dug even more, scooping out mud and throwing it over the side of the hole.
This time when she grabbed the silky stuff something gave way and pulled up. She fell backwards on her ass with a splash, still gripping whatever it was that she had found.
She studied it-something about the size of a small basketball-and then dunked it in the water and swished it around.
When she pulled it up, she was holding a head.
Rachel Ringer’s head.
18
DAY THREE-SEPTEMBER 7
WEDNESDAY NIGHT
After dark, Draven drove around Pueblo with Gretchen seated next to him, her leg pressed against his. Country-western played on the radio. She showed him where each of the bikers lived. Draven wasn’t sure yet whether he’d kill them, screw them up, or just leave them alone.
Maybe he’d let Gretchen decide.
“Do you want them dead or just messed up?” he asked.
She pondered it.
“Dead,” she said. “I’ve pictured it in my mind a hundred times. I don’t know if that’s such a good idea, though.”
Draven considered the pros and cons both ways.
“It probably isn’t,” he said. “At least not right off the bat. But if we don’t kill them, they can’t know you’re involved.”
She exhaled and fidgeted in the seat.
“I’m not afraid of them,” she said.
“Well, you should be. Which one do you hate the most?”
She answered immediately.
“Two Bits,” she said. “The guy you flushed.”
“Fine. We’ll start with him.”
They parked down the street from Two-Bits’ crappy little rental house and drank Jack Daniels from Draven’s flask in the dark as they waited for the asshole to return home.
Lightning crackled in the distance and then it rained.
Gretchen ran her finger down the scar on Draven’s face.
“So how’d you get this?” she asked.
He shrugged.
“Hell if I know,” he said.
She kissed it.
“I like it,” she said.
He smiled.
“Good, because I don’t think it’s going to wash off or anything.” He played with her hair. “What about you? You got any scars?”
“I’m not telling,” she said. “You have to check for yourself.”
“Careful,” he said. “I will.”
She unbuttoned her blouse.
“Do it then.”
He laughed.
“It’s too dark,” he said. “I can’t see anything.”
She took his hand and put it on her breast.
“Just feel for them, then.”
Not more than ten seconds later a headlight came down the street, jiggling and bobbing, unmistakably a motorcycle. Then the deep roar of the engine cut through the rain.
“Company,” Draven said.
Draven waited until the asshole killed the engine and stepped off the bike. Then he walked out of the shadows and cut the jerk off before he reached the front door.
“You pissed all over my carpet,” Draven said. “That wasn’t very nice.”
The biker tried to focus.
Too drunk to place him.
Then the confusion dropped off his face and he charged.
Even in the rain he smelled like alcohol and smoke.
Draven punched him in the face repeatedly until he fell to the ground. Then he straddled him and punched him another ten times, until his knuckles bled. The man withered under him, hardly able to even moan.
“This is your only warning,” Draven said. “Tell your friends too.”
He was standing up when a figure appeared.
Gretchen.
Carrying a rock in her right hand, the size of a softball.
She brought it down on the biker’s head as hard as she could.
The guy’s skull cracked.
Then he gurgled and stopped moving.
“Shit!” Draven said. “What are you doing?”
Gretchen just stood there, frozen.
He looked around.
Then grabbed her by the arm and pulled her towards the car.
“Come on!” he said.
She dropped the rock.
He stopped long enough to pick it up.
Ten miles away, out in the sticks, he threw it out the window.
19
DAY FOUR-SEPTEMBER 8
THURSDAY MORNING
Teffinger got up at his usual time, before dawn, even though he had been up half the night at Marilyn Black’s bedside and the other half of the night fishing a head out of the gravesite down by the railroad spur.
Coffee.
He needed coffee.
Lots and lots of coffee.
He also needed a jog in the worst way but was too tired. So instead he showered, popped in his contacts, and ate a bowl of cereal in the Tundra as he drove to work. Being the first one there, as usual, he fired up the coffee machine and then headed over to his desk to see what additional work had landed on it while he hadn’t been around to fend it off.
He pulled Marilyn Black up on the computer.