Buried Secrets (14 page)

“Or I could get to the motel and check out those pictures the
sheriff took earlier this morning,” Zack muttered, leaning farther forward to peer under the bed for his shoes.

“I brought the camera and laptop with me,” offered Jo, still in the doorway. He clearly remembered telling her he didn't need anything. But he found himself distracted by the way she scrubbed her hands through her short hair, then shook off the last of her sleep like a wet dog—and, amazingly, looked like Jo. Just like that. First thing in the morning.

It had taken Gabriella how long to do her face and hair in the morning? She'd gotten good results, but still…

“Did you bring coffee?” he asked, remembering the cruel pseudo-coffee Nurse Vanderveer had served them last time.

“I can get some,” she promised, and actually entered the room—far enough to fuss with a duffel bag in the corner, anyway. Then, still crouched, she tossed him his shaving kit. “While you clean up. You look like hell.”

Which he guessed was her way of saying they were more or less okay. Zack gave up on his shoes and stood. Some pain. No dizziness. “And your breath's morning fresh, huh?”

She grinned up at him, and it felt like he'd won a don't-blink-first challenge. “Probably.”

Since she was still crouched by the bag, Zack offered her a hand. Jo took it. He drew her up to a standing position in front of him and suddenly wanted to kiss her again, morning breath or not. He wanted to remind himself that neither of them was hurt—not seriously—and that last night's intimacy hadn't just been a fluke. He wanted it badly enough to feel that want tangibly, even past the ache in his head. “Good morning.”

But he didn't want it badly enough to miss how her gaze avoided his, all of a sudden. “Morning,” Jo returned.

Then a too-familiar voice in the doorway said, “Am I interrupting something?” And Zack's morning got complicated.

Cecil Taylor, his business partner, had arrived.

 

Jo liked Cecil. She would have liked him even if he hadn't brought coffee. Now the investigation wasn't just about her and Zack, and that had to be a good thing, right? Considering how
personal things had started to get. In light of that, Cecil's arrival was a godsend.

Besides, it was gourmet coffee. Cold, but easily reheated.

Even Zack bore the younger man's fussing as if he liked him—for the first five or ten minutes, anyway. Then he started to sulk again. She guessed it could be the headache.

A slim man in his mid-twenties, Cecil had an immediate friendliness about him that contrasted against Zack's burly grumpiness as sharply as Cecil's pale English complexion and creatively dyed blond hair contrasted against Zack's Italian swarthiness. The younger man's polished features—high cheekbones, arched brows, lashes so dark he could be wearing eye-liner—made Zack look even less obviously handsome. Especially since Zack had cracked only one reluctant smile, and that of welcome, since the younger man's arrival.

And yes, Jo found herself noticing. Worrying. The man had been
shot,
after all.

Cecil had shed his long, black wool coat to reveal gray slacks, a tawny long-sleeved T-shirt that looked to be silk, and a rich-looking watch. His clothes, of an even better quality than Zack's, weren't wrinkled either. His British accent made Zack sound more like an extra in a mobster flick. Except for being male, Cecil was Zack's walking opposite—though actually, considering how enthusiastically he took over the already crowded break room, more like a dancing opposite.

Suddenly, Zack made a lot more sense. The good clothes. The gee-whiz gadgets. The money. All of that probably came from Cecil's world. Zack really was just an old-neighborhood Chicago cop. He simply had a cosmopolitan partner.

That made him both more comfortable and a lot more open-minded than Jo had originally guessed, even if Cecil
didn't
turn out to be gay.

“I am
not
overreacting,” protested the younger man, simultaneously connecting Zack's laptop to the digital camera and heating coffee with ease. “You were
shot.
”

Yeah, Jo liked Cecil.

“Barely,” Zack reminded him, scowling. He and Jo leaned against the counter just inside the door while Ashley folded blan
kets from the sofa. The break room had seemed crowded with three of them. With Cecil, it almost overflowed.

“This job is clearly a great deal more dangerous than we anticipated, and I for one think that merits reconsideration. Cream, Jo? Ashley?” Cecil asked as the microwave beeped.

“Cream, please,” said Ashley, clearly won over from the tea camp by the heavenly smell of gourmet coffee.

Cecil looked expectantly toward Jo.

Zack said, “Jo drinks it black. You didn't have to come out here to
reconsider
this job. We aren't reconsidering anything.”

“Mmm. Which is exactly why I did fly down here. I knew you'd say as much. Careful, dear, it's hot.”

“Thank you,” said Ashley, sinking onto the arm of the sofa as she accepted the drink, and exchanged a mutually appreciative smile with him, despite their age difference. Huh. Cecil did not appear to be gay.

“You knew right,” insisted Zack, beside Jo. “So you can drive back to El Paso and fly back to Chicago and—”

“And leave you here to delve into heaven-knows-what kind of evil you've unearthed, getting shot and cursed and whatnot? I think not. Here you are, Jo.”

“Thank you.” She inhaled caffeine from the coffee's steam, it smelled that good. It tasted even better.

“I'm fine, and the rest of it's my job,” said Zack, taking his mug without a thank-you. Cecil didn't seem to notice. “There's nothing for you to do here except distract me.”

“And do what I always do, which is to provide backup. Now let's take a look at those photographs, shall we?” And the younger man settled into one of the folding chairs.

Zack shook his head—and winced. And took a sip of coffee.

“Of course, you'll have to relocate.” Cecil did something that made little pictures of the carving appear on the laptop's screen. “You mustn't stay at that inn any longer.”

Zack slid his gaze up from the coffee. “Mustn't I?”

“It's dangerous,” agreed Ashley. Suddenly, Zack and Jo's investigation seemed to have become a group effort.
A good thing,
Jo reminded herself. “Obviously someone knows you're there, if they tried to shoot you.”

“They shot at Jo,” Zack protested, then dropped a glance toward her when she drew breath to protest. “Well, they did.”

She said, “They hit you.”

“We might as well assume you're both at risk,” said Cecil. “As long as you're both working on the investigation.”

“Which means Jo should quit,” said Zack.

“Like hell!” She wasn't about to give up now that someone had started taking potshots at her!

“We'll talk,” Zack muttered under his breath.

Under her breath she repeated, “Like hell.”

“In any case,” said Cecil, “if you continue to stay in a public place…”

Which at least seemed to distract Zack from glaring down Jo. He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, his gaze was aimed back at his partner—and it was raw. “Then we're putting other people at risk, too. You're right.”

Jo wanted to touch him, to reassure him that it hadn't been on purpose, that nobody else had been hurt. And maybe just to touch him. But she suspected Zack didn't want to hear it, just now.

“A private residence would be best,” continued Cecil, choosing one of the thumbnail images of the carving, magnifying it, and somehow making it brighter. “We could rent something.”

Or they could stay at her place.

Even as Jo thought it, she rejected it—and not just because Spur was a good hour away. She wanted to help. Hell, she was ready to
fight
for her right to help. But to bring any of this back to her monastic little home…

Dangerous enough to spend time in Zack's hotel room, but to bring him into her life…no.

She slanted a glance up at him, relieved that he wasn't watching her, wasn't somehow reading her fears. She hadn't thought she was afraid of anything, but the idea of getting closer to him than she already had…

It was already too close. And not just because of the crowded break room, or the way Cecil's quiet glance in her direction seemed to read everything she'd hoped Zack wouldn't.

Then Ashley said, “You can stay at my place.” And fool
ishly, Jo felt jealous. “It's the obvious choice. I have two spare rooms. It's nearby. And rest assured, my home isn't without magical protections. What rental can offer that?”

“You're a practitioner?” asked Cecil, impressed.

“Curandera,”
she told him. “And a Wiccan. You?”

“Urban archeologist,” he said. “But I dabble.”

“Hold it,” protested Zack. “Not that I don't appreciate everyone just pitching in like this, but it was bad enough when Jo was at risk. Now I've got all three of you to worry about?”

“Excuse me?”
challenged Jo, and he rolled his eyes.

Rolled. His eyes. At her. It annoyed her more than it probably should have. “We'll talk,” she warned, low.

He mouthed back,
Like hell.

“Zack,” insisted Cecil. “If this evil is as vile as your notes and interviews imply, people are already in danger. You need some sort of headquarters—the more protection, the better. You need someone like myself organizing the information you and Sheriff James have gathered. And I hardly see the downside of involving a magically adept medical expert.”

“You wouldn't,” said Zack.

“Whatever personal issues you may have with the situation,” Cecil continued with deliberate evenness, his brandy-colored eyes sharp, “cannot be allowed to get in the way of the job.”

Jo felt Zack stiffen beside her. “We'll talk,” he warned his partner.

But he was clearly outvoted.

Z
ack loved Cecil; really he did. The kid had helped keep him sane after Gabriella's disappearance and through the shifting of realities that had followed. But the general rule of play was, Zack went out to fight the big bad monsters, and Cecil stayed safely back at the office to research them.

Cecil arriving in Almanuevo, where all portents pointed to Bad Things a'Coming, hardly started Zack's day out right. Then the investigation—
his
investigation—suddenly became a team effort and set up shop in Nurse Vanderveer's home. Since nobody was at the clinic, the nurse practitioner clipped on a cordless headset and walked them over. It was a great house; adobe-walled, wood-beamed and tile-floored, built around an inner patio. Lots of herbs and pottery. Not too many windows. It had a peaceful feeling about it, like he might feel at church or his Nona's, which Zack assumed were the protections at work. But he couldn't help thinking that Ashley was taking a hell of a risk, handing over her spare key.

“It's not just because something shot at you,” she insisted as the four of them strolled back to their cars. “Though being Jo's friend, that's more than enough reason.”

Jo's head came up, as if that surprised her, and she shared a shy smile with the blonde. It was a surprisingly vulnerable expression, on a woman who was again wearing a cowboy hat.

“But I'm part of this town,” continued Ashley. “I know something's going down. Some of my
patients
know something's going down—and not just the ones getting snakebit. It's got everyone on edge, which is hardly healthy. On top of that, Brent Harper disappeared from
my clinic,
and you still have no idea whether it could have been voluntary. This is already personal. Why shouldn't the three of you stay at my place?”

“The three of us?” asked Jo, before Zack had to.

Ashley said, “Zack was right, Jo. You can't be sure which one of you was the target last night.”

The idea made Zack's head hurt for more reasons than the stitches. He scooped a sandy piece of rock up off the road and flung it into a clump of cactus, maybe twenty feet off, with more force than was probably necessary.

A buzzing noise warned them not to head toward that clump of cactus anytime soon.

“You're the one who wanted to help,” he told the sheriff. It came out as an accusation.

“Yes.” Jo met his gaze. “I do.”

Well, he was just saying.

The team decided that Jo would return to Spur for the day. It would give her a chance to collect some belongings and make sure Deputy Fred wasn't having any trouble holding down the fort.

“And to recharge my cell phone,” she teased, as they reached the parking lot. Ashley, with a wave, headed inside.

Zack wasn't wholly comfortable with Jo being so far from the rest of them, even for the day. Not now that they'd become targets. Still, while he might not be Mr. Sensitivity—or empathic, which is what Cecil was—he could guess how poorly Jo would take the suggestion that someone go with her. Besides, he and Cecil had some catching up to do in private. So he handed her his phone. “Check in.”

“It's Spur. Barely an hour—” she started to protest, then shut up. Maybe she could compromise too. “Thanks.”

She took the phone.

“Cecil's #2 on the speed dial,” he told her, stopping beside her Bronco. “Check in when you get to the office, again when you head out. You sure you're okay to drive?”

She couldn't have slept well, on the floor like that.

“Asks the man with stitches in his head,” she challenged—but with a smile.

“It's a hard head.” The assurance came out more gently than he'd meant.

“Yes,” said Jo. What, about his head? “I'm okay to drive. Yes, I will let you know when I get home. Yes, I will let you know when I head out again. But
you
let
me
know if you figure out why our
diablero's
stealing evil people's bodies, 'kay?”

“Fine,” he said, though something about the way she said that tickled a thought. It didn't feel like a thought he'd like, so he ignored it for Jo. “Look, why don't you take the Ferrari?”

She said, “Because I like my truck.”

“Your truck doesn't start.”

“It always starts.” She raised her chin at the
look
he gave her. “It just takes a few tries.”

“The Ferrari starts on the first try.” He winced when she climbed into her driver's seat and shut the squeaky door.

“The Ferrari is across town at the Alpha Inn.”

“And we all know what rush hour traffic is like in greater metropolitan Almanuevo,” he told her, through her open window. “Across town is what, two miles?”

Jo said, “
I like my truck.
Now don't go interviewing any stepmothers or surprisingly efficient housewives without me.”

Changing the subject with witch jokes. “Cute,” he said, but he let her. “You know, I
do
have backup, now.” And he jerked a thumb toward where Cecil waited with his rental.

When Jo glanced in that direction, a little line showed at the bridge of her nose, like something worried her. Something other than roadside safety. Maybe even…

“What, you're jealous of
Cecil
now?”

She grinned then. It made her blue eyes sparkle. He never would've thought he'd find himself falling for a lady who would wear a cowboy hat. But he'd kissed her, and he'd liked it. And
now he was lingering by her truck door, as if they had more to say to each other than just
have a nice day.

“I finish what I start,” she said. He hoped that was a promise. Then she started the truck, which only took two tries. “Be careful,” she warned, before he could—and waited for him to step back before she reversed out of the parking space.

Zack watched her return Cecil's friendly wave, then pull onto the blacktop and drive off toward the horizon. The wind ruffled his hair, and he saw a hawk circling, high above them.

Then he headed toward Cecil's rental so they could go clear out his motel room. Thank God Jo could take a little teasing. And she hadn't actually been
jealous
of Gabriella, last night—

Zack stopped. Frowned.

Stealing evil people's bodies,
she'd said. Which they'd pretty much agreed on, though they'd debated what evil meant. Their
diablero
wasn't claiming any old bodies. He was taking the bodies of criminals, abusers, bigots. For a moment, the two thoughts, that and Gabriella, overlapped.

No. No, no, no, no, no.

For the first time, after four years of dead ends, Zack found himself hoping the sonovabitch he was after had nothing to do with his wife's disappearance.

 

It felt good to swing by the house, feed the dogs, shower and change clothes. Guilty for spending so much time away lately, Jo let Butch and Sundance come with her to the office, which made their week.

Only dogs could find that exciting.

After everything that was happening in Almanuevo, she enjoyed driving back into the familiarity of Spur. The town boasted one gas station. A general store doubled as the post office. A few old companies that had set up shop back when the highway was a main thoroughfare still clung to life, mainly through trucking—certainly not from walk-in business. A freelance blaster let Jo do contract work for him now and then, to keep up her license. One restaurant. One bar.

Jo suspected the Jinglebob—the bar at the edge of town—was the only reason Spur needed any law enforcement at all.
Cowboys from several area ranches tended to congregate there of an evening. Things sometimes got lively around payday.

Sometimes. Other than that, it was a hell of a quiet town.

Quiet as a tomb,
she thought, parking beside Fred's antique cruiser, in front of their Depression-era jail. She felt tempted not to call Almanuevo—to keep her worlds separate—but she'd promised. And it was Zack. So she pressed #2 on his speed dial before she got out of the truck.

“Lo!” sang Cecil's voice, after the second ring. It startled her. She'd been expecting…

Well, she didn't know why. “Hi, Cecil,” she said, pushing Sundance's eager nose away from her face. “It's Jo. Let Zack know I got into town just fine, okay?”

“Will do, love.”

It was less satisfying than she'd expected. “Bye, then.”

Cecil seemed like the kind of person you actually said goodbye to, instead of just hanging up.

Then Jo was alone in Spur again. Except of course that she wasn't alone, not really. She had the dogs. And Fred.

In the jail, Fred looked up from his computer—on which he liked to play solitaire by the hour—as if it was any other morning. “Howdy, Sheriff,” he said, and reached out his free hand to scratch the dogs' heads. “Boys.”

“Hi. Anything happen while I was gone?”

“Not really. Bud's back.” A jerk of his head indicated someone with matted gray hair and a stained duster, asleep on a cot in the cell. The cell door stood open. Crazy Bud wasn't dangerous, just a vagrant who showed up several times a year, when he needed a place to stay. Nobody in town seemed to mind the jail being used for that.

It added some variety to the job.

“I appreciate you keeping an eye on things for me, this last week,” said Jo, getting a cup of coffee and settling into her chair. She'd taken official vacation time, but last night she'd also called Fred to feed her dogs for her. Usually, she only asked that when she left town to visit family. “I don't know what I'd do without you.”

Fred looked startled. Then he ducked his head, clearly unsure what to make of her sudden sharing. “Wasn't nothing.”

We had some excitement in Almanuevo.
Jo drew breath to say it—Fred would hear about the “manhunt” the next time he drove into town, anyway.

But something about the jail, the morning, the routine made her swallow back the words. If she told Fred about the shooting, she'd have to mention that she'd been in Zack Lorenzo's motel room past midnight. Working, of course.
Mostly.

Fred might ask what she was working on, and the answer—snakes, snipers, witches, Mafia, the walking dead—just didn't belong in this old building, with its beige walls and window air conditioner and gun-metal furniture.

None of it belonged in Spur. Spur was where she'd come to get
away
from craziness like that.

Except it's not crazy. I'm not crazy. I never was.

Unless she counted moving into the middle of nowhere in her mid-twenties. Hardly ever dating—it wasn't as if some of the cowboys down at the Jinglebob hadn't asked. Making no close friends. She'd been here for years, not living at all, just breathing. Hardly even that.

In the meantime, the evil had never gone away. She'd just refused to look. Out here in Spur, it was so
easy
not to look.

Why not keep it that way a little longer?

Jo went through a week's worth of mail and paperwork in under two hours. By then it was almost lunchtime. Fred offered to make the run to the diner, since they had Crazy Bud to feed, and she took him up on it.

After Fred headed out, Jo stood to go do some filing—and stopped, dead still.

Crazy Bud had sat up on the cot, in his cell, as Fred left.

Now he was staring at her.

And he was petting what looked like a rattlesnake.

 

“This one's getting rather personal, isn't it?” asked Cecil, with his unique knack for reading people.

At least he waited until Zack had showered and changed, back
at the Alpha Inn. But Zack, hating even the suspicion that Gabriella could have been evil, remained in a foul mood.

Now he saw that, along with packing their files, his partner had cleared the minifridge, including the Diet Cokes.

Zack didn't drink Diet Coke. Jo did.

“We're working together. Once she knew what was up, she wouldn't drop it.” Which he had to admit, he kind of respected, even if it did annoy the hell out of him. “I told you that.”

“Actually,” said Cecil, “I was talking about Gabriella. But I'm happy to discuss Jo first.”

Crap,
thought Zack, going to the closet to pack his clothing. This was typical Cecil. Most guys—Zack's brothers, uncles and cousins—could go months without mentioning their relationships. Or they'd keep their talks focused on basics, like
Gettin' any?

Since Gabriella's death, Zack hadn't even had
that
deep a conversation about his love life. But Cecil was a talker.

“What about Gabriella?” he demanded, just to be obstinate, and stuffed some shirts into his suitcase.

“Do you think this necromancer you've been tracking is the one?” Cecil stepped in to do a better job with the clothes. Zack moved on to what computer equipment Jo hadn't taken.

“I'm supposed to know? This is our third necromancer.”

“Neither of the others had this kind of ability,” Cecil reminded him. One had turned out to be a group of teenagers—powerful teenagers, but still—on their way to becoming self-made Satanists before Zack put a stop to things. The other guy had turned out to be more of a necrophile.

Yeah, that job had been pretty gross.

“Gabriella died in Chicago,” said Zack. “This is Texas.” But it was a weak argument.

Cecil proved it. “We've connected missing bodies to the Life Force Club in six states.” Eventually their investigations forced the network so far underground, even Cecil couldn't find them. “The leadership could be based anywhere.”

So maybe this is the one.
But Zack couldn't force his throat around the words. It wasn't that he didn't want to take out who
ever had gotten Gabriella; God, that one goal had kept him going, these last few years. But if this was the one…