Flash and Bones

I rose again on rubber legs.

Dizziness sent the world spinning and triggered new nausea.

When I finished dry-heaving, I lurched forward once more.

And followed the wall. In ten feet, it met another. At the intersection, on the floor, slumped large plastic sacks.

I pressed my thumb to the nearest. The contents felt heavy but grainy, like oatmeal. I drew my nose close. Sniffed. Smelled a mixture of soil, clay, and dung.

Turning ninety degrees, I edged through the dark.

Two feet from the corner, a shovel hung from a hook roughly a yard above my head. Beside the shovel was a pitchfork. Then a hoe, another spade, a hand tiller, a hedge clipper, and a pruner. Below the tools were three coiled hoses.

My mind processed. An outdoor storage shed. Galvanized steel. One door. Bolted from the outside.

Tears threatened.

No!

The shed’s interior was relatively cool. I knew that wouldn’t last. When the rain stopped and the sun rose, the heat inside the windowless metal box would become unbearable.

Move!

Eight feet down, the second wall met a third.

I made the turn.

I’d taken two steps when the toe of my sneaker nudged an object on the floor. I prodded with my foot.

The thing felt firm. Yet yielding.

Familiar.

Another image fired up from my gray cells.

A corpse.

I shrank back.

Then, heart pounding, I squatted to examine the body.

I WORKED MY WAY UP THE TORSO TOWARD THE THROAT.

It was a man. His chest was broad, and his cheeks were rough with stubble.

I pressed my fingers to the flesh beneath his jaw.

No sign of a pulse.

Again and again I shifted my hand, searching for the throb of a carotid. Or jugular.

Nothing.

The man’s flesh felt cool, not cold. If he was dead, it hadn’t been for long.

Sweet Jesus! Who was he?

With trembling hands, I braille-read the facial features.

Shock sent adrenaline firing through me.

Galimore!

Breath frozen, I pressed my ear to his chest. A faint murmur? The rain was so loud, I couldn’t be sure.

Please God! Let him be alive!

I shivered. Then felt scalded.

My thoughts splintered into even tinier shards. Nothing made sense.

Galimore had not locked me in the shed. If he was a murderer or had partnered with a murderer, what was he doing here himself? Was he dead?

Galimore and I had a common enemy.

Who?

A wave of dizziness forced me down to my bum. I slumped back against the wall. Muddled words and images tumbled through my mind.

Two skeletons embracing in a makeshift grave. Two skulls with bullet holes centered at the back.

Grady Winge praying in the woods. Sitting at a table in the Speedway Media Center.

A ’sixty-five Petty-blue Mustang with a lime-green decal on the passenger side. Winge said it in ’ninety-eight. Repeated the exact phrase over a decade later.

Maddy Padgett standing by a pile of tires.

Padgett had been Cale Lovette’s lover. She was black. Lovette planned to quit the Patriot Posse.