I still couldn’t see anyone leaving the building, and I thought I would at least see a smear of oil or loose dirt stirred up by their footsteps, even if they were invisible.
There. A smear of black appeared on the concrete lip of the building foundation, then a scuff of dirt.
The footsteps headed toward the gate, away from me. I scrabbled toward the back of the building.
The ground was packed hard with a fine layer of dirt on top. I sprinted across the open area in back of the building, my feet scraping through the faint tracks Francois’s Hummer had laid down. Would they be able to find me with those footprints? They looked pretty faint, but I didn’t like the idea of leaving a trail. Not that I had a choice.
I scrambled over the top of the berm and slid down the other side. This dirt was loose, as though it had been moved recently, but it was the nearest cover. I left huge footprints, but the dirt would stop a bullet.
There was a deep, broad hole in front of me. I hopped over it, but the dirt crumbled. I tipped into the hole, landing on my hands and knees.
I heard flies buzzing, and that smell … The hole was just a bit over five feet long, and right beside me was someone stretched out, lying in wait.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
My throat was too tight to let me scream; instead I hissed like a leaky bicycle tire. I panicked for a moment, convinced that Ty or Summer had gotten here before me and was stretched out with a gun trained on me.
But they weren’t. The figure beside me wasn’t moving at all. I leaned closer to it, to the smell and the flies, and I saw that it was Francois. He had been shot once in the head.
“You’re lucky,” Arne said from somewhere nearby. I spun and saw him crouching in the open space above me. “Some of the older holes have rattlesnakes in them.”
He extended his hand. I clasped it, letting him lift me out of the hole. He stood upright, visible above the top of the berm beside us. I stood upright, too.
He slapped a .38 revolver into my hand. “Don’t get busted with this.”
I opened the cylinder. One round had been fired—and I was pretty sure I knew where that bullet was—leaving five shots. For all the good it would do me.
“I can’t use this.”
“Oh no?” Arne gave me a look that was difficult to read. “I thought that was what you did now.”
“It is,” I said, hating the words as they came out of my mouth. I had never admitted it aloud before. Arne was still giving me that look. “But I can’t kill them unless I can get them in the circle first. Otherwise—”
“No need to explain. I know. I was in the building, too.” He scratched at his neck, then lowered his hand with a visible exertion of will. “I saw.”
“You can see them when they’re invisible?” It was hard to believe he was really on my side. It seemed impossible that he’d help me, knowing that I would have to kill him, too.
He broke eye contact, looking toward the building as though scanning for the others. “Yeah, if I really concentrate.” If he saw something, he didn’t say. “Well, I said I would help you with your thing when I was done with mine, didn’t I?” He waved toward Francois’s corpse. “I have one more problem to bury, but I guess I won’t have time for that.”
I looked away, determined not to think about patches of disturbed dirt behind me. “I didn’t know,” I said.
“I didn’t want you to know. There are some problems that can only be solved by a grave in the desert, but I couldn’t trust you with that. Don’t take that hard; I couldn’t trust anyone.”
Graves. And I had thought that disturbed dirt had come from digging for treasure.
We heard the sound of an engine, a low-horsepower motorbike approaching. I grabbed Arne’s elbow and pulled him low, so we were just peeking over the berm. The bike came into view and passed through the gate. It was a small thing, baby blue, with the minimum cc’s necessary for highway travel.
Wally was riding it. His green sweats had been replaced by a pair of huge purple M. C. Hammer pants and a gigantic dashiki. His left hand was encased in a mitten, and he had a pair of expensive mountain-climbing shades on.
I pulled Arne all the way down out of sight. He resisted at first, then turned invisible. I caught his elbow and looked at him, shaking my head at where I hoped his face was.
I sat with my back against the dirt, silently cursing at myself. I’d known Wally wasn’t dead—yeah, his injuries would have killed most people, including me, but I had learned to expect a certain
But I didn’t want him here. I still didn’t know what I was going to do about Fidel and Summer—putting Wally on the to-do list just made me feel tired.
The scooter engine idled. Was Wally coming over the berm at me? I took my ghost knife from my pocket and held it in my right hand. Arne’s gun was in my left. I was as ready for him as I’d ever be, and that wasn’t ready enough.
Then the engine started again, and I heard the bike putter away. The sound became muffled as it moved to the other side of the building, then shut off.
I turned to Arne, who had become visible again. “Shall we?” We stood.
“Ray, two things.” Arne took a deep breath and scratched furiously at his neck for a second or two. The drape must have been getting to him. “First, I saw the way you did those five guys in there. I want you to make it quick for me, too. Humane. Okay?” I nodded. He looked out over the desert. “Second thing, about Jasmin …”
Damn. Was he going to apologize, finally, for stealing my girlfriend while I was in prison? It didn’t seem like the time, but part of me was hungry for it.
