going to be a hot one. Rare for April, but not unwelcome.
Okay. There’s the weather report. Satisfied now? Going to stop stalling for time? Going to take a few steps and find out if you’re seeing things?
The shadows pooled before him. Thick tree trunks leaned at odd angles, scabbed with loose hunks of bark that threatened to flake away at the slightest touch. The ground was matted with dead leaves the color of old bones.
Steve stepped into the grove. The leaves crackled under his heavy boots. The dry, minty smell of eucalyptus drew him forward, into the cool shadows. The smell was soothing, more appealing than the harsh odor of incense or the stink of water standing in a grave.
Okay, this is silly. This is just seriously insane, and I’m not going to open my mouth.
But he did. He couldn’t help it. “Homer,” he whispered, and he was instantly embarrassed.
He stood motionless for a couple seconds, not making a sound, hearing nothing but a faint whisper of Latin.
“Homer,” he called, and then he whistled. “C’mon, boy. Homer! You here, boy?”
The wind rose behind him. Scabs of bark tore loose and skittered across the ground. The sound masked a series of short, sharp noises.
A dog barking?
“Homer? C’mon, boy. Don’t be afraid. You remember me, dontcha, boy? April’s waiting for you, boy. C’mere, and I’ll take you to her.”
Leaves rattled in the shadows. Steve moved forward, kicking up dust motes that swirled in rare shards of sunlight.
“C’mon, Homer! C’mon, boy!”
He stopped again. Stood still. Listened.
A short, sharp sound. Yes. It was a dog’s bark.
And it had come from his left.
Steve turned and hurried down a narrow path. The trees grew close here, crowding him, and his shoulders ripped loose scabs of eucalyptus bark as he ran. Up ahead, he saw something moving in the shadows, speared now and then by a gauntlet of hard, sharp shafts of sunlight. Little stubby legs, like broken branches, pumped within a dust devil that swirled down the path. Sunlight glinted off an eye that was nothing more than a blot of yellow paint without an iris.
An eye that was looking back at him.
“Homer!” Steve hurried down the path. “C’mon, boy. It’s me!”
But the sticklegs were charging now, driven by a wind that pushed dry leaves in curtains that rose and fell, rose and fell, moving away in an awkward jog that belied the reality of their speed.
Steve tried to catch up. A fallen tree lay just ahead, blocking the path.
The tree would slow Homer’s progress…
Up ahead, a little startled yelp. Dead leaves rattled over a papery coat. Tumbling sticks scratched against the dead tree. Steve raced ahead, his gun belt jangling, his breath catching in his throat.
A pile of broken branches and torn leaves lay at the base of the fallen tree. Steve almost lost control, but then he noticed the slight indentation that tunneled beneath the tree.
A hole. Just enough room for a dog to squeeze under. Steve leaned against the trunk and looked on the other side. The small tunnel opened onto a ditch. The ditch ran downhill and became a gully.
There was no sign of the dog.
“Homer!” Steve called. “Homer!”‘
But it was no use. April’s dog had gone.
Steve climbed over the tree and knelt in the dry ditch.
His fingers explored the underside of the tree.
He found leaves that were the color of old paper. Or maybe they were the color of faded yellow paint. But there were other things under the tree. Bits of dried roots, twisted from fighting the hard earth, roots as hard as petrified bone. Steve held these things in his hand, closed his fist around them. They were roots, they were leaves.
Or they were the bones of a dog born in a dream, and skin from the back of a painted ghost.
Steve’s grip tightened.
He opened his hand.
The bones fell away.
And he blew the yellow dust into the cool mint shadows.
8:13 A.M.
Amy had long since stopped screaming, but she hadn’t moved from the corner of the basement. Her shoulder muscles cramped. Earthen cold leeched from the concrete walls and chilled her bones.
It could have been worse. She could have been Doug Douglas, dead on the floor, with skin fading to arctic white.
Doug. He’d held his silence for nearly eighteen years. If he had kept his mouth shut another eighteen, he might still be alive.
The thought gave Amy no relief, and she turned away from the dead man. April Destino’s corpse stood unmoving in the far corner. Mud stains dappled the hem of her red dress; her long blonde hair was twisted in a dry, almost fashionable tangle; her skin was oyster gray and slack. April’s blue lips were swollen in a half pout, half pucker, as if she were awaiting a final kiss from an uncertain lover.
Amy drew a shallow breath. Her chest was so tight with fear that it seemed she was breathing through a straw. She had come here intending to give Doug a good scare. She had come here to teach April how an expert played the game.
And she realized that she hadn’t even known where she was. This wasn’t Doug’s house. It was Steve Austin’s. Ozzy Austin’s. Doug’s words came back to her: You get in that fancy car of yours and you follow the yellow brick road. She was the one who was learning. She had thought that she was the smart one, the unflappable one, but now here she was, huddled in a corner, hiding in the shadows, worrying that her body would shatter if she so much as moved an inch.
But she had to move. She eased away from the cool concrete wall. Dank air stirred behind her, and her naked legs grew gooseflesh under the short cheerleader’s skirt. She moved forward slowly, a wary prizefighter answering a final bell, but April’s corpse didn’t advance from the opposite corner. Thank God, Amy thought. This isn’t turning into a horror movie after all.
The doorknob twisted easily in her grip, and the lock popped free. Her heart jumped. She tugged the knob and the door gave a fraction of an inch, but then it held tight. Frustrated, she pulled harder. Something slapped against the wood, and she realized that there was another lock on the opposite side of the door.
Shit. Amy’s fists thudded against varnished oak, and the sound told her the door was solid. She backed off, eyeing it. Expensive knob. Brass hinges.
The basement air seemed suddenly colder, heavy with the earthy stink of the grave. An icy whisper filled Amy’s ears. She whirled, instinctively retreating toward the corner, her eyes trained on April’s pouting blue lips, but April’s corpse hadn’t moved. It still leaned at a crazy angle against the far wall-half hidden in shadow, half bathed in flickering light.
Light that created the illusion of movement.
It’s just an illusion.
The hem of the corpse’s dress was a curtain made of stone.
There’s the proof. She’s not moving. She’s not breathing. She’s dead.
Once again, Amy’s throat was nothing but a straw, only now someone was pinching it. The light brightened and April’s face became a pool of milk in a bone-china bowl, and then shadows poured over April’s forehead and dripped down her face, transforming the blue pout into a sagging frown.
