“You are the only one in the know at this time and it needs to stay that way.” She held out her pinkie toward him.
Mac shook his head at her pinkie. “I think you’re all suffering from stress-induced temporary insanity, but I’m weak around crazy dames, so I’ll keep my mouth shut for now.”
She lowered her finger at the sight of the sheriff’s pickup pulling up along the opposite side of the street. “Grady’s here. I hope he didn’t bring Ronnie along.”
“Why?”
“For one thing, she’s extra bossy when she’s low on sleep. For another, she’s acting weirder and weirder under the weight of her ex’s crap.”
“Is that why she was twitching last night?”
“You saw that, too?”
He nodded. “She and Kate are starting to look like they have fleas.”
She watched Grady open the door. The dome light shone inside the cab, illuminating his passenger.
“You’re out of luck, Slugger.”
“Dang it. Remember, Mac, not a word to Grady about Mississippi’s news.”
“My lips are unhappily sealed.”
Ronnie was shivering in the cold desert darkness when Claire joined her on the cracked sidewalk in front of the old house. She’d exchanged her Johnny Cash outfit from last night for a pair of yoga pants and one of Grady’s long, thick, flannel jackets. Her hair was bed-tousled, her eyes puffy from sleep—or a lack of it, considering Grady and she had left only an hour before Claire and Mac.
“You should have stayed in his warm bed,” Claire whispered as the sheriff pulled out a pair of keys and unlocked the padlock securing the chain-link fence.
“Grady has to go to work and I need a ride back to Jackrabbit Junction.”
“Do you want to wait for us in Mac’s truck? He can give you the keys so you can run the heater.”
“No way. I’d rather be inside with you guys.” She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “I can’t stop thinking about how they found those night watchmen in the trunk. That story is grade-A nightmare fodder.”
Ronnie’s fear was understandable. Her enemies seemed to be growing faster than the cane toad population in Australia.
“You guys ready?” Grady asked, holding open the gate.
Mac led the way through the dead weeds that had taken over what had been a gravel path at one time. Claire and Ronnie followed. Grady closed the gate behind them, joining them on the rickety porch. He stepped carefully around the splintered floorboards, his boots crunching on broken glass. Ronnie frowned at the NO TRESPASSING that had been scrawled onto the siding in big red dripping letters, reaching out to touch the long-dried paint.
The screen door screeched when Grady swung it open.
“How’d you get the house keys?” Claire asked him as he unlocked the padlock securing the sun-faded front door.
“The place has been condemned by the county,” he explained. “The sheriff’s office is in charge of keeping places like this secured.” He popped the padlock and pushed open the door. “Wait here while Mac and I do a cursory inspection to check to see if there are any problems waiting for us inside.”
After the guys had disappeared inside Claire stepped closer to Ronnie, bumping shoulders with her. “Did you tell him about what Mississippi told us?”
“No,” Ronnie snapped. “Like I said last night, I don’t want him to know about that right now.”
“But he’s the sheriff,” Claire whispered, returning to the same argument she’d tried on her sister last night. “It’s his county. Sleepover buddy or not, don’t you think the man in charge of keeping the county crime-free needs to know that if he shoots to kill in this case, his girlfriend might go to prison?”
“No, I do not, and you pinkie-promised not to tell him either, so keep your big mouth shut or I’ll … I’ll cut off your pinkie and carry it as a good luck charm.”
Claire leaned back, grimacing at her sister. “That’s morbid. What’s wrong with you? Are you dancing the mad-monkey tango along with Kate?”
“Nothing is wrong with me.” Ronnie’s right shoulder twitched. “I just need you to go along with me on this, damn it. Posse rules, remember?”
“But what if our silence winds up sending you to prison?”
“I’m not going to prison. The FBI is leaning on me, hoping this will make me squawk about more of Lyle’s dirty dealings. They tried it before, using those stupid videotapes of me getting off in the shower and in my bedroom, trying to humiliate me into coughing up answers I don’t have. That didn’t work for them then, and threatening me with prison now isn’t going to work either. Fuck those bullies in their cliché black suits with their files full of lies. And fuck Lyle, too.”
Whew! Claire’s ears burned from the steam venting out of her sister. “Boy, you’re really letting your love fly this morning.”
Ronnie glanced at her. “I’m tired of being a victim.”
Claire nodded, staring out at the dark street. “Maybe Grady’s law dog status will allow him special conjugal privileges when you’re behind bars.”
“Just do as you promised,” Ronnie said with a growl.
“I told Mac you’d be extra bossy,” Claire muttered.
Mac joined them on the porch, looking back and forth between them with a narrowed gaze. “Grady says it’s all clear.”
Claire didn’t wait for Ronnie, heading inside first. The sight of a big, metal, space age–looking tube sitting on a stand in the center of the living room made her screech to a stop. Grady was bending down to check out the contraption, shining his flashlight inside the round hole on the end. When he stood up, he snagged his jacket sleeve on the mirror positioned above the hole.
“Holy shit,” she whispered, joining him next to the coffin-sized cylinder. She peered inside one of the windows located near the top, but the interior was too dark to see anything. “Is this one of those iron lungs they used for people with polio?”
“I believe so.” Grady moved to the
