Was this the same herd she’d seen just before entering New York City? Lynn couldn’t tell; they all looked identical to her. As the last stragglers departed, one seemed to look at their little group with interest—possibly even recognition. Lynn grinned. Maybe going down the same road twice wasn’t always such a bad thing.
CHAPTER 15
THE BUILDING HAD AN ODDLY triangular shape that accentuated the corner façade, which had been decorated, pre-war, with a now faded, blue, oval sign with stars on it. Lynn recognized it instantly as they walked up to it. “Yeah, this is it.” She took in the area around her. Across the road from the car dealership was a patch of green, barred off by a chain-link fence. “Richard’s body should be in there.”
Dani took in the building and the trees, then turned her head back toward the building. Was she thinking about her friend who had died there? “Let’s make sure the building is secure before we check on the grave.” There was a rasp to Dani’s voice again. This couldn’t be easy for her, but she made her way to the door, regardless.
Skeever seemed equally hesitant. Something about the place made him whine. Did he remember this was where he’d lost his previous owner? Could he still pick up his scent?
Lynn quickened her pace so she could arrive at the door ahead of Dani. She carefully tried the handle. It gave without resistance, so she pulled the door open entirely. Nothing jumped at her; nothing moved within the shadows.
Dani slipped past her, spear and knife at the ready.
“In, Skeever.” Lynn inclined her head toward the interior. If they were about to set off another trap, she wanted him with her and not stuck outside again.
Skeever whined but followed Dani as she explored deeper into the building.
Lynn let the door fall closed behind her and watched Dani’s progress. She cast sweeping glances across the showroom, aware that every car and every counter was a potential hiding place for predators.
“Where did you find him?” Dani’s soft voice carried easily through the building that seemed to hold its breath along with Lynn.
Lynn exhaled. “To the left, in a small office.”
Dani diverted from her path until she could push the door open. Lynn knew there was nothing to see there, just a small room, another desk, a chair, some filing cabinets, and trinkets left behind by whoever had worked here. Dani still seemed to soak it in as she stood in the doorway.
Skeever parted ways with her and sniffed his way around the cars, taking his time to familiarize himself with the space—or reacquaint himself, whichever was the case.
Lynn waited patiently for both to finish as she kept an eye out for danger both inside and outside of the building. Except for some prey animals and birds, the outside world was deserted. Indoors, nothing moved but them. Not much had changed around here—nothing at all, as far as Lynn could tell. It was a good sign. Lynn was still tense. That nothing had changed here did not mean the grave was undisturbed. “Ready to check things out across the street?”
The words seemed to draw Dani from her thoughts, as she was slow to reply. “Yeah. Let’s get it over with.”
Lynn pushed the door open and waited for Dani and Skeever to join her. She squeezed Dani’s arm in passing and gave her a look meant to inquire if Dani was all right.
Dani set her jaw and nodded. She dipped her head, but before she could hide her face from Lynn entirely, Lynn could tell Dani was on the verge of tears.
Lynn let go. “Come on. We’re doing this together, right?”
Dani nodded again. The nonverbal reply seemed to be all she could manage. She crossed the street and followed Lynn into the driveway of the white house with the red-tiled roof.
Lynn found the little path that led into the overgrown yard and crept through quietly, keeping an eye out for anything that may have found its home here since her last visit.
The gravesite wasn’t hard to find. Quietly, she pointed to a bumpy patch of grass with a calf-high boulder on top of it. She had found it in the yard, where it had appeared to serve no obvious purpose, so she had upgraded it to both protector and marker of the grave. It seemed to have done its job: the site looked undisturbed. “There it is.”
Dani pushed through the green to overtake her, snapping twigs. She hesitated as she came closer to the stone, then crouched down and laid her hand on it. “He’s safe.” Dani couldn’t quite keep a wobble out of her voice.
Skeever joined her, sniffing the dirt.
Lynn turned away to give them some privacy and to keep watch over them. If the roles had been reversed, she would want a few moments to herself too.
“How are we going to get him home?”
Lynn almost missed the softly spoken words over the rustle of the wind through the leaves.
“I thought about that last night.” She turned back around to find Dani watching her with red-rimmed eyes. “We, um, we should make a stretcher. We’re at a car shop, so we can probably find something that will serve as wheels too. It won’t be pretty, but if we can rig up a cart that one of us can pull alone, the other has her hands free to hold weapons.”
Dani seemed to turn the proposal over in her mind, then nodded. She straightened out and looked back down at the stone. “Let’s do that first. As soon as we dig him up, we need to move.”
“Yeah, that was going to be my suggestion too.” She guided everyone back out onto the street.
Dani bent down to pluck a stray twig from Skeever’s fur. “What do we need?”
Lynn inspected her, but she knew better than to ask if Dani was all right; of course she wasn’t. It was better to focus on the task at hand and find some distraction. Hugs couldn’t fix everything. “Two beams for the sides and handlebars, sturdy branches to act as crossbeams, and something to act as tires. I have rope to tie it all together.”
Dani seemed to grasp the basic idea. “Okay, then let’s find what we don’t have.”
Finding the branches they needed didn’t take long. Lynn’s tomahawk was sharp and her arm strong. She cut them from the trees in the garden. Once they were stripped of side branches, they carried them into the car shop and secured the door. Things went a lot faster when no one had to stand guard.
Dani helped her lay out two long branches far enough apart for either of them to stand between and hold one beam in each hand. Then they cut another branch to size and tied it to the two long beams in an H shape. After knotting three more branches to the long beams—first at the end, then two in between—they created a platform to hold Richard’s body. What took a little more doing was finding a way to attach the wheels. Tire housings weren’t hard to come by—the garage in the back of the building had a few stored neatly away, protected from the elements for all these years—but they didn’t have much height to them, so Lynn opted for bike tires instead. As far as she could tell, the only option to secure them was to nail them to another beam. She had to find a way to secure the beam to the stretcher while allowing the beam to rotate instead of having the wheels rotate on a stationary beam. Lynn was pondering it when Dani cleared her throat.
“Lynn?”
“Hm?” She didn’t take her gaze off the beam, afraid her half-formed idea would vanish if she lost sight of the required components.