Bad Bones (4 page)

Outside the shop, Gabe stood on the sidewalk looking at the card.
LeBarron Antiques and Collectibles,
it said, in two lines of flowery script that you could feel when you ran your finger over it, underneath which was the name Cecil LeBarron, in a plain font, and right at the bottom, in that same font but smaller, the address, phone number and website.

Gabe stuffed the card in his back pocket and went over to the bike. He was totally sure the bracelet was worth more than a hundred and fifty dollars. Way,
way
more. Had to be, or why had Mr Cecil LeBarron acted like he did? So the first thing he had to do was go straight back to the canyon and find out if there was any more to be dug up before anyone else came along and discovered the skeleton. Second thing: do some proper research.

He’d dialled in the four-digit code for the bike lock, and was wrapping the bracelet in the duster
when the unsettling sensation of being watched crawled over him again. The same feeling he’d had when he woke up that morning, only much stronger this time. Then his right hand locked solid round the bracelet. Freaked by what was happening, Gabe’s head swivelled like he was at a pro-tournament tennis match, searching for any sign of an owl, or even a coyote.

Not a thing.

Gabe stared down at his hand, the bracelet held in its claw-like grip. His arm hurt bad, and the intense pain was creeping up towards his shoulder. Panic was starting to take hold of him again when something made him stop and slowly look up. On a bench right opposite him sat a man. Just some old guy wearing a tatty yellowy-brown leather jacket, dusty work boots and washed-out jeans, so pale they were almost white above the knees. A faded red baseball cap was pulled low enough to make it impossible to see the man’s eyes, but Gabe knew he was staring straight at him. And he knew he’d seen him before.

Last night. The man had been in his dreams last night…

Gabe’s stomach did a flip, and he dragged his gaze away from the man. He felt like he’d been punched in the gut. Images from the horrific dreams came flooding back, only now they looked like a shaky, badly made film playing in his head, complete with a hissed and whispered soundtrack that was impossible to understand. This person across the street wasn’t dressed like the masked figure had been, and he wasn’t wielding a blood-spattered gold knife or wearing a feathered headdress.

But the man across the street had been right there, killing the boy.

Sometimes in dreams you just knew things without actually seeing them.

Right now, in broad daylight, Gabe knew that this person, his face half obscured, was the same man he’d seen pull the living, beating heart out of the boy on the altar. There was no doubt. Gabe could feel the cold, fanatical anger radiating from him.

A breeze blew past, bringing with it the sharp, pricking aroma of burnt herbs. The smell funnelled straight up his nostrils and into his brain, intensifying the sounds and the pictures, for a moment making
what was going on in his head more real than the world around him.

Fighting back, Gabe clutched at the only thought that made any kind of sense. He had to get away –
now
.

The sudden rush of adrenaline coursing through his bloodstream jolted Gabe into action, shaking off whatever had been paralyzing him. Stashing the bracelet and lock he grabbed his bike and launched off the sidewalk and on to the road without looking. Behind him he heard the screech of tyres and a horn blaring, but he didn’t care. He just had to put some distance between himself and the person across the street.

Someone he’d never seen before, except in his dream.

Which was not only crazy, it was impossible.

Wasn’t it?

Gabe rode, hunkered down and pedalling manically, flying through a couple of traffic lights
way
after he should have stopped, weaving between cars and getting in and out of spaces the sane part of him knew were much too close for comfort. But for a mile or more the sane part of him hadn’t been
in control, not until the adrenaline had worn off and he could finally allow himself to coast to a halt. Panting like a beast, for a moment he had no idea where he was.

Covered in sweat, lungs heaving and muscles screaming, Gabe slowly calmed down. It was only when his heartbeat had settled back to something approaching normal that he saw his ‘escape route’ had brought him within easy striking distance of the canyon. It was where he’d been planning to come, before he’d gotten totally spooked by losing control of his hand, then seeing the man across the street. But now … now he wasn’t so sure he wanted to go back up there, even in broad daylight.

Before he’d freaked out seeing the man sitting opposite LeBarron Antiques and Collectables, his main doubts about returning to the canyon had been being found by a Park Ranger. He realized what he’d done the night before was wrong. Not real
bad
wrong, like murder or whatever, but not right, either, and no doubt illegal. He wasn’t stupid, he knew the difference between right and wrong, but that wasn’t what was getting to him.

For the most part the Law seemed to be all about
whether you either got caught or you didn’t. Like school, but on a whole different level in terms of punishment. Last night, as he fell asleep, the way Gabe thought about it was that what he’d done couldn’t hurt anyone, and as it could really help his family it was, therefore, no biggie. He was beginning to have second thoughts because of the gold bracelet nestling oh so innocently in his backpack.

Life now was either ‘Before Bracelet’ or ‘After Bracelet’. Before Bracelet, all he’d ever associated skeletons with had been the ‘woo-hoo-spooky!’ cartoon nonsense at Halloween. Before Bracelet he’d never had a real nightmare in his entire life, certainly never been followed by a damn owl. After Bracelet he’d turned into this superstitious idiot, making connections where there were none. Was he simply giving coincidences a meaning they just didn’t have?

“Owls are nocturnal, right?” he muttered to himself, even as he checked the sky and the deep shadows between buildings. “They’re fricking
nocturnal
, dammit.”

Twenty minutes later, Gabe stood in the parking area by the entrance to the canyon, giving himself a
final talking to. Like what was there to worry about anyway? Nada. The man across the street was just some guy who, coincidentally, happened to look
somewhat
like a person he’d had a crappy dream about. So what? And the thing with his hand was just like a muscle spasm, a cramp. Nothing more.

So, if he didn’t go and see what else there was to dig up, all he’d have was something he was pretty damn sure was worth a whole lot more than a hundred and fifty bucks. And that would be it.

He didn’t have a choice. If he was going to have any chance of helping his family he
had
to go back to what he couldn’t stop himself from thinking of as ‘the burial site’. Except it wasn’t a body, not really. It was some old bones. That was all. Just a load of bones.

It turned out the canyon was virtually empty; he’d so far seen a solitary dog walker some way away, and that was it. Plus it all looked so different in the bright sunlight. Even after what had happened yesterday, he would have to be a complete wimp to be scared by rocks and trees and brush. He was being extra-vigilant and wary because he did not want to get caught by a Park Ranger. That was all.

The fact that nothing, completely nothing, had occurred the whole way up to the tree Gabe had marked the night before was almost worse than if something had. It felt like a total comedown; all that worry, for what? Once he’d found a place that was as out of sight as possible to stash his bike, he got down to business. He wouldn’t be long. He’d be able to see exactly what he was doing and this time he wouldn’t have to bother trying to cover his tracks. In-N-Out, like the burger chain.

Gabe had come prepared for the job, having taken a small gardening trowel and a small paintbrush from the workbench at the back of the garage before he left for school. Getting them out of his backpack, he set to work.

As he dug, Gabe could feel himself becoming more and more agitated and twitchy. Much more nervous than he should have been if getting caught was all he was worried about. But he stayed, drawn to the promises he’d seen in the yellow glow of the gold bracelet.

Half an hour later he’d unearthed a tiny medallion, followed by three heavy, jewelled rings. And then he found something that scared the hell out of him. A gold knife, inset with light blue stones, with an arc-shaped blade. Exactly like the one he’d seen in his awful dream.

Gabe sat back on his heels and stared at the knife, searching for any signs of blood, mesmerized by the fact that he was holding something he’d dreamed about. Something he’d seen kill a boy. He was kind of shocked by how it felt, holding it. Having this knife, owning it, made him … he couldn’t quite put into words how it made him feel. Strong, maybe
even untouchable. And he wanted to keep it. Forever. He finally made himself put the knife down and checked his cell. Time to get back to digging. That was what he was here for – he could sit and look at what he’d found back home.

Some five minutes later, he finished teasing the dirt away from a nine- maybe ten-centimetre high crucifix. He carefully pulled it out, cleaned off the earth and turned it over. It was heavy, a solid chunk of precious metal, and it was different from everything else he’d found. The medallion, the rings and the bracelet were in pretty good condition, as was the knife, but the cross was twisted badly out of shape and the figure of Christ was all battered. And it looked warped, like it might have been in a fire.

Gabe glanced at the rest of his haul and then back at the crucifix, wondering what this obviously Christian object was doing with a bunch of stuff that was so definitely
not
Christian. Especially the knife. The only word to describe the knife was pagan. Finding the two things together didn’t make sense

The crucifix, like the knife, also had an almost visible power to it, making him feel as if it needed to be protected, kept safe. It wanted to be held.
Gabe shivered. He needed time to take everything in, deal with the wildly conflicting reactions in his head and his gut. A cautious voice was telling him to put the stuff back, insisting that no good would come of having it. But a raw, more feral instinct reacted vehemently to the very idea of leaving the gold behind. And it was winning the argument.

Gabe turned his attention back to the skeleton. This body, this person, had to have been buried out here in the middle of nowhere, who knew how long ago, for a good reason. And the only one he could think of was that the people who had done it hadn’t wanted him ever to be found. This was a person who was supposed to have disappeared. Gabe shivered again, noticing for the first time how the skeleton’s jaw was wide open, like the person was silently screaming as they drowned in the earth … as if they had been buried alive.

Unbidden, his imagination began to put layers of flesh back on to the bones, building up an all-too-real picture of what this person might once have looked like. He pushed the image away, an irrational fear of unintended consequences gripping him. If he wasn’t careful, might these remains come back to life?

Sometimes he hated his brain.

“Who the hell were you, anyway?” he muttered, frowning as he stood up. “And what are you doing here?”

They were both good questions, and he was surprised they hadn’t occurred to him before. If there were stories behind how all those things for sale in Cecil LeBarron’s place had ended up there, then there
had
to be a doozy of a one about how this particular body, and everything he’d so far found with it, had come to be here in the canyon. A place that was way off the beaten track now, so must’ve been even more remote back when the body was buried.

This couldn’t be the grave of someone anybody had cared much for – it wasn’t six feet under in a cemetery and there was no sign of a coffin, for starters. And something was off about this whole thing; he couldn’t ignore the way he was feeling. He looked at the cross again and couldn’t shake the idea that the damage had been done on purpose. He wasn’t religious, but for some reason it made him feel kind of bad. What had happened to it?

Gabe checked his phone again, surprised to see
how long he’d been so focused on the job; the time had run away and he’d forgotten where he was, forgotten to worry about being found. He should go.

But there was more to do.

It was late, though, and he could easily spend at least another hour digging and still not even have got to half of the skeleton.

But there was more to do!

A feeling of intense rage flooded over him. Why was he so angry at himself? Something was wrong. He really should go. Go now. Wrapping the new finds in the duster, along with the original bracelet, Gabe wondered how much all seven pieces would be worth.

Again a blast of anger hit him. These things were special! The knife wasn’t just antique, it was ancient! And, like the crucifix, it was sacred – he knew that, he had seen the knife being used. He’d held it in his own hands. How could he think of these things in terms of money? How could he?

Now he wasn’t so totally focused on digging things up, Gabe was more aware of his surroundings. Once again on high alert, he stayed still and quiet, closing his eyes and listening for the whisper of wings or
the near-silent pad of coyote paws. But there was nothing to hear.

And then there was.

Something …
in his head.

A murmur of voices, or maybe just one single voice – he couldn’t be sure. The sound echoed, bringing memories of his nightmare back into sharp focus. The sound of the voice rooted Gabe to the spot. It was bad enough recalling dark, blood-soaked dreams, but so much worse to be pulled back into them in broad daylight. Then a high-pitched whine set up, rising to a screech that felt as if it was trying to cut straight through his brain. Gabe clapped his hands to his ears in a vain attempt to shut out the noise.

A feeling of cold dread took over and blanked out everything else. Fear made him want to run, just abandon ship and take the quickest route out of the arroyo, but he had enough self-control left to start scrambling back up to get his bike instead.

Grabbing at anything to help him get up the slope, Gabe was shocked to see his fingers were bleeding when he got to the top. It took a moment before he realized there were no cuts anywhere on his hands,
that the blood was just smeared. He slowly raised his hands to his ears and touched them, fingers coming away daubed with red. His
ears
were bleeding? Gabe stood on the pathway, shaking and staring at his hands, unable to take in what had happened, half believing he was seeing things, dimly aware that the screeching in his head had stopped.