Store for raping that beautiful piece of land, but she didn't understand this almost pathological grudge he seemed to have against the place. She'd been feeling out of sorts herself lately, and although she put that down to the usual holiday pressures and Bill's one-note Store complaints, there was another, missing element as well, and she couldn't quite figure out what it was.
Bill returned, picked up his presents from the living room floor, and put them on the kitchen counter. He took her in his arms, kissed her, smiled at her.
'Thanks for the presents,' he said. 'It was a wonderful Christmas.'
It wasn't, and she knew it, but she smiled back, kissed him. 'I love you,'
she told him.
'I love you, too.'
Next year would be better, she thought. She'd make sure it was better.
SIX
1
There was something about The Store building that he didn't like.
Ted Malory stood up straight, wincing as his back unbent. He'd been up here for three days now, with his usual crew and a group of four pickup workers.
He'd never landed a job this big before, and he'd been pretty damn excited when he'd gotten the contract. Every roofing company in Gila, Coconino, and Yavapai counties had bid on this one, and when he'd learned that The Store had awarded it to him, he'd been ecstatic. Not only would this mean big bucks, but if they pulled off this baby, he'd be able to parlay it into other, bigger jobs. He saw them roofing NAU buildings and Little America in Flagstaff, the El Tovar at the Grand Canyon.
Who knew where this might lead?
But it hadn't worked out the way he'd planned.
For one thing, he discovered, there wasn't as much money to be made as he'd originally thought. Or as much as the size of the job warranted. The Store had a take-it-or-leave-it standard contract and did not negotiate. They set the terms, and if he didn't like it, there were plenty of others who would jump at the opportunity to do the work.
So he'd taken it. He didn't like it, but he'd agreed to it.
Part of the deal was that he was responsible for all costs. The Store was paying a flat fee, and out of that, he had to pay labor expenses and purchase all materials for the job. He had no problem with that. His price quotes usually included supplies, and he got a good deal from his buddy Rod Hawkins in Mesa.
But the terms of this agreement specified that he had to buy all material from The Store's wholesale supplier, and those prices were much higher than Rod's.
The Store's representative also seriously undercalculated the time it would take to roof the building, considering the time of year and the total square footage of the project. They'd already lost two days because of snow.
The way he figured it, after this was all over, he'd barely be breaking even. But that wasn't all.
That wasn't even half of it.
Ted looked over the raised edge of the roof toward the mountains. Snow still covered Hunter's Peak, and the other mountains closer in were also swathed in white. He took a deep breath, glancing over at the northwest corner of the roof and the black plastic garbage sack. He quickly looked away. Each morning when they'd arrived, there'd been dead birds on the roof. Crows. They hadn't been shot, they seemed to have no injuries, they'd just . . . died.
And fallen out of the sky onto the roof of The Store.
It was unsettling and a little creepy, but Joe Walking Horse thought it was more than that, and the second time it happened, he quit. On the spot. He'd simply turned and stepped back down the ladder the way he'd come up.
Joe was his best man, his most experienced worker and fastest shingler, but Ted had been so pissed off that he'd told the Indian that if he left now he'd never work for his company again. Joe had not even hesitated as he'd continued down the ladder. He'd simply called out to Ted that it had been a pleasure working with him and had walked across the open ground to his pickup, gotten in and driven off.
Ted regretted his behavior already, and he planned to apologize to Joe and offer him his old job back once The Store was finished. But Joe's dread seemed to have affected the rest of the men as well, and it had been an unusually somber few days. Hargus hadn't even brought his boom box to work, and Hargus brought his boom box everywhere.
Even he had felt uneasy, and though he'd tried to make sure they worked fast in order to finish this roof as quickly as possible, he also made sure they did the best job they could.
He didn't want to have to come back to fix mistakes.
He hadn't said word one to Charlinda, though. She still thought this job was a godsend, and he let her think so. She was superstitious enough as it was, what with all the astrology and tarot cards and crap, and the last thing he needed to do was tell her that Joe Walking Horse had walked and that they were all spooked by the place. That'd send her off the deep end.
He yelled out for everyone to take a ten-minute break, and he grabbed a beer out of the cooler and walked over to the edge of the roof, glancing down at the parking lot. It had just been given a layer of sealant the day before, and was scheduled to be painted tomorrow. The lot was massive, stretching all the way out to the edge of the highway, big enough to accommodate every vehicle in town with room to spare. Nine acres of asphalt.
It was a shame, really, because this had been such a nice meadow. With only minimal effort, it would have been possible to do what had been done with Buy-and-Save or KFC -- construct the lot to fit the contours of the land and keep the biggest and best trees. But not only had the existing trees been cut down and hauled away, no new ones had been planted.
No shade.
In Arizona.
He shook his head. Oh, well. He supposed it would boost The Store's sale of windshield sunscreens come June.
Actually, he was a little surprised by the lack of landscaping. Even small businesses usually tried to make their places attractive and eye-pleasing. But The Store's exterior was strictly functional: tan cinder-block building, white sidewalk border, flat black parking lot. No plants, no trees, no decoration. It looked more like a prison than a retail outlet.
Below, a worker carrying a large metal pole was walking out of The Store to his truck, parked directly in front of the entrance.
Ted looked off into the distance. Hargrove's death hadn't even slowed down construction. The Store had simply brought in one of its own men, and work had continued, alternating shifts working twenty-four hours a day the last two weeks in order to meet the deadline for the bonus.
He'd heard from Frank Wilson, who'd worked with Hargrove on the project, that the building had a basement as deep as all get out, and that there were a couple of other construction quirks that The Store had insisted upon. No one knew why, but no one had dared ask, and The Store's plans had been followed to the letter.
Dead birds and secret basements.
It was all a little . . . spooky.
No, not a little.
A lot.
Shivering, he finished off his beer, dropped the can on the roof, and walked back to where he'd been working.
2
'Can I talk to you?'
Shannon looked up from the dirt to see Mindy Hargrove sitting on the weathered pine bench by the side of the road that served as a school bus stop.
Mindy hadn't been to school much lately, had been acting, well, weird, since her dad died, but now she looked positively freaked. Her hair was uncombed, her jeans filthy, her once-white blouse half-unbuttoned. There was a wildness to her eyes and the cast of her features that Shannon had never seen before and that made her feel
