Kiss of the Bees

badly hurt to pose any danger, Brian holstered his weapon.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I didn’t do it,” Quentin sobbed. “Tell Dad I didn’t do it.”

“Didn’t do what?” Brian asked.

“I didn’t kill Tommy. He fell. He fell in the cave. I tried to help him. I swear. But he died anyway.”

Davy, who had stopped to help Candace up a ledge, arrived just in time to hear the last sentence.

“Lani’s dead?” he demanded.

When Quentin looked up at Davy, his eyes wavered as though they wouldn’t quite focus. “Lani’s not dead,” he said. “Tommy’s the one who’s dead. He’s been dead a long, long time.”

“But where’s Lani?”

“Lani? How should I know where Lani is?”

Davy reached down and grabbed the neck of Quentin’s shirt. He would have shook him, too, if Candace hadn’t stopped him. “Leave him alone, David,” she gasped, fighting to regain her breath. “Can’t you see he’s hurt?”

Letting go of the shirt, Davy turned and looked up the mountain. “She has to be in the cave,” he said. “I’ll go. You two stay here with Quentin.”

“Lani! It’s Davy. Where are you?”

Davy! For a moment, Lani thought she must be dreaming. It was impossible. Davy was in Chicago. He couldn’t be here.

“Lani!” he called again. “Can you hear me? Are you in here?”

She heard him then, heard the sound of movement in the passageway. It was true. Davy was here. He had come to find her, to save her. Instead, he was crawling directly into the arms of Mitch Johnson. Somehow she had to stop him.

“Davy,” she screamed. “Go back! Don’t come in here. He’ll kill you. Go back.”

The cavern reverberated with a hundred echoes and then fell silent. There was no further sound of movement from the passageway.

“Thank God you’re alive,” Davy called back. “But it’s okay, Lani. We found Quentin down the mountain. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

Once again there was movement in the passageway. “The killer’s still in here, Davy. It’s not Quentin!” Lani howled. “Go back, Davy, before he kills us both.”

“Davy!” Mitch Johnson called out. “Did you say Davy? Not little Davy Ladd. Come on in, Davy. I won’t hurt you. I won’t hurt anybody. You’re right. It was all Quentin.”

Now there was movement again, but not in the passageway. Now it was in the cave itself. “Keep talking, little girl,” Mitch Johnson whispered hoarsely. “Just keep talking. I’ll find you, you little bitch, if it’s the last goddamned thing I do.”

Another match flickered to life.

“Lani,” Davy demanded. “What’s going on in there? Who’s in there with you?”

For a moment Lani was quiet. Mitch Johnson was an implacable enemy—more determined to find and destroy her than he was concerned about his own capture.

Nana Dahd had told Lani more than once that the Tohono O’othham only kill to eat or to save their own lives. In relating the story of the evil Ohb, Rita had always said how proud she was that, in the moment when Diana Ladd might have killed Andrew Carlisle, she had chosen instead to spare him, trusting his punishment to the Mil-gahn system of criminal justice.

In a moment of understanding that went far beyond her years, and far beyond anything Mitch Johnson had told her, Lani understood that somehow, still alive and in prison, Andrew Carlisle had taken that piece of Tohono O’othham honor and turned it into something evil. He had used it cheawogid—to infect—someone else with the same evil that had fueled and driven him.

Nana Dahd had died too soon to know how wrong she was. But Lani knew. The telltale cheposid—the brand—Mitch Johnson had burned into her breast was proof enough that, as long as he lived, so did Andrew Carlisle.

Those thoughts streaked through Lani Walker’s mind as she sat bat-still in the cave, watching the momentary light of the match flickering in the darkness and listening as Mitch came stumbling toward her. Had she screamed again, the echoes might have thrown him off and sent him in the wrong direction, but suddenly she knew that was the wrong thing to do. Instead of hiding from the evil Ohb, Bat Meeter wanted him to find her.

“I’m here,” she said quietly, pulling herself to her feet. “I’m waiting.” A storm of needles and pins shot down her numbed legs. She had to cling to the stalagmite to keep from falling, but she held her ground.

“Lani!” Davy shouted. “Please. What’s going on?”

“He has a gun, Davy,” she said, speaking slowly in Tohono O’othham. “His name is Mitch—Mitch Johnson. The evil Ohb sent him here. He wants to kill us both.”

“Speak English, you little bitch,” Mitch Johnson swore. “You’re a goddamned American, speak English.”

He was only a matter of yards away from her now, creeping along the wall on the same path Lani had followed, as that match, too, flickered and burned itself out. Pulling herself around the rock, she stood directly in his path.

“You’ll have to come get me, Mitch,” she taunted. “I’m right here. I’m waiting.”