Haunted Honeymoon (16 page)

“Me, too. I knew I was being set up, so I got out of my place as fast as I could and went to Ian’s, vengeance on my mind. He wasn’t there, as you know, and when I was going by the neighbors’ house …” I took a deep breath and told her about discovering Ford with Cricket’s body and how he’d hit his head and the men in the black van who took me away.

“The Poindexters’ deaths were never reported to authorities,” she said. “I know this dude who tracks 911 calls for alien abduction stories, and I had him scour records for anything abnormal when you vanished.”

“Did your pal catch Ford’s phone call about vampires?”

“No, which proves that your abductors have lots of pull. I got in touch with Gabriel to see if he knew of anything.”

“And?”

“And he said everyone’s gossiping about you and Wilcox, but as far as he knew, the Council was keeping out of it. You have gone out of radio contact before.”

“Only when pursued by maniacs, not as a general practice,” I said. “I was held in a building south of here in one of those mostly abandoned industrial neighborhoods. They had an autopsy room and they were after vampire intel.” I loved throwing in new jargon. “They worked for Ford’s father, because there was someone they called the Professor who was running the show.”

“How do you know it was him?”

“Because he looked like an older version of Ford and because that bastard cloned Señor Pickles and didn’t tell his wife. He thinks cloning is too elementary, so he’s using the cat parts to try to revive the original Señor Pickles,” I said. “He’s trying to reanimate human bodies for use as soldiers in warfare.”

Mercedes sat down on the bed beside me and hugged me tight. Then the strangest thing happened. I felt her shake and heard a choked sound. Stoic Mercedes was crying. She took off
her glasses and pressed her face hard against my shoulder and bawled for a long time.

When she seemed to calm down, I reached for the carton of Barton’s tissues on the fake-marble bedside table. “‘It’s not worth sneezing at if it isn’t Barton’s,’” I said, handing her a tissue.

While Mercedes blew her nose, I finally noticed the purplish circles under her eyes and the hollowness in her freckled cheeks.

“Oh, Mercedes, I’m sorry to put you through this.”

She looked up at me with her big amber eyes and said, “I thought I lost you this time.”

I squeezed her hand. “It takes more than mad scientists and armed guards to get rid of Milagro de Los Santos.”

“What did they do to you?”

I smiled and said, “I don’t want to talk about it. I
never
want to talk about it.”

“How did you get away?”

“I can’t …,” I said, and shook my head. “But they’ll be coming for me when they find out I’ve gone.”

“Then we have to decide what to do right now.”

I was relieved to turn my thoughts elsewhere. “The military contractors don’t know who I am, but whoever killed Wil does.”

“You’re assuming that Wilcox’s murder was a message to you. So why Wilcox, and not you?”

“Everyone knows I’m hard to kill.”

“Is there anything else?” Mercedes asked.

“Well, there is one thing,” I said. “Wil’s body is in my truck. At least it was when I left it there.”

Mercedes put her hands to her forehead and massaged. She said, “Airports are a problem, but we can get you across the border into Mexico or Canada.”

“The safest place for me is Oswald’s ranch. The contractors
don’t know who I am and won’t look there. And if the Vampire Council is behind Wil’s murder, they won’t try anything while I’m with the Grants.”

“Let me call Gabriel and see if he’s got another safe house.”

But I didn’t want to go anywhere else. The ranch had been my refuge when I was first infected, and it had been my home. I wanted to go home. I said, “I just want to be there.”

“What about telling Ian?”

“What if Ian had Wil killed?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think he’d do that, but … I’m not sure.”

“Ian does anything he feels like doing,” I said. “That’s why I could never consider him even though …” I stopped that thought.

Mercedes said, “Are you sure Oswald will let you stay?”

“Oswald will want to help me. That’s who he is,” I said with more certainty than I felt. “He’s always been there for me.”

“That was different. He was in love with you then.” She sighed heavily. “If your truck is still near Ian’s, we’ve got to get rid of it, get rid of your laptop and electronic trail, and get you a new ride. Pepper can help.”

Ernest “Pepper” Culpepper, biker and former meth chemist, had helped us before.

“He’s two hours away.”

“No, he’s not,” Mercedes said.

It took me a second to figure things out. “You and Pepper?” It felt wonderful to laugh again. “You and Pepper! I’m amazed and intrigued. You and Pepper!” She had rejected countless musicians as not worth her time and now she was dating a biker!

“It’s none of your business and, besides, did you know he plays the bagpipes brilliantly?”

“‘Bagpipes’ and ‘brilliant’ should never be uttered in the
same sentence.” When I finally stopped laughing, I said, “I trust Pepper.”

“He can help get you to the ranch and I’ll drive up later.”

“No way, Mercedes Ochoa-McPherson. I’m not going to have them come after you like they came for Wil,” I said. “Promise me you’ll stay away. And promise me you won’t tell Ian where I’ve gone, if he bothers to ask. Promise you won’t tell him
any
of this.”

“Milagro—” she began.

“Cricket and Ford would be alive if they hadn’t met Ian,” I said. “Promise me.”

She pressed her lips together and finally said, “Okay, I promise. Now get some rest and I’ll arrange things.”

I dropped back on the bed and pulled the leopard-print bedspread over me. I was dimly aware of Mercedes making phone calls and then Pepper arriving.

He shook me awake. He was a wall of a man with several tattoos (daggers, naked broads, Foghorn Leghorn) and a rusty-brown beard that sported tiny silver skull beads.

“Time to get up, babe.”

“Pepper!” I threw my arms around him and he gave me a smacking kiss on my cheek. He had a comforting aroma of bourbon with faint notes of exhaust and marijuana.

“You look like you been rode hard and put away wet, Milagro.”

“Now would be the time for you to lie about how I look,” I said. “You don’t have to do this. You’re risking your life.”

He laughed a big, booming laugh. “Hon, I was born risking my life. You and Mercedes are the prettiest accomplices I’ve had, though.”

“Who knew when we met that we’d still be friends?” I said. Oswald sure hadn’t; he’d never liked me going to the raucous bar where Pepper held court.

“Not me,” he said. “Ain’t fortune a queer bitch?”

“That she is, Pepper.”

A little after four in the morning, Pepper and I said good-bye to Mercedes.

My friend said, “If you need to call me, use Oswald’s office phone. The last time I talked to Gabriel, he told me he’d done a big security update on the family communications. I’ll be waiting to help any way you need me to.”

“Thanks. You know I love you, don’t you?”

She nodded. “Back atcha, Mil.”

She gave me a powerful hug and I held on tight, but not so tight that I would hurt her. “This is left over from the room charge,” she said as she tucked folded bills into my pocket.

I picked up the trash bin liner with my old clothes. “This needs to be burned.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

Pepper and I went to his Harley in the lot. The big man handed me a helmet and said, “Hoped we’d do this on a blazing day with you topless, your jugs smashed against me, and your hair flying in the wind.”

“There’s always the future.”

Pepper looked somber for a moment. “Mil, I been to jail here and in some not-so-nice places. The first time is the hardest and you think you’re never going to be okay again, but you will be. Maybe not the same as you were, but that’s what life is. Change. You’re going to be okay.”

“Thanks, Pepper. We better go.”

He took me to a spot about a mile from Ian’s house and parked beneath a stand of firs.

I told him, “If I’m not back in twenty minutes, hightail it out of here and tell Mercedes.” I took off the pointy half boots and
tucked them inside the pink pleather jacket. I’d doubled up my socks so I could move quietly.

“Is that enough time?”

“People always said I’m a fast girl,” I told him, and winked.

It was almost pitch-black on the heavily wooded hill as I set off running. Rocks and sticks poked through my socks as I cut through yards and climbed over fences, surprising wildlife.

I felt a surge of power; no one could follow me when I moved like this. Almost no one.

I approached the service lot from the hillside below. It was a steep incline, and I used my toes and fingers to grip rocks and brush. I reached the plateau of the lot and crouched as I crept toward my truck, still hidden from view behind the Dumpster, which now overflowed with construction debris.

I walked to the pickup slowly, afraid of what I’d find. But Wil’s body was where I’d left it, wrapped in the cloth, under my gardening equipment. I didn’t know what the weather had been like, but I hoped that it had been cool enough so that when his body was sent to his parents … I couldn’t think about it.

My keys and phone were inside the cab, as was the big sports bag that I’d packed. I got inside and sat for a few minutes while I listened out the open window. I hoped I hadn’t walked into a trap. I heard and sensed no one.

I put the pickup in reverse and released the brake. It rolled back to the middle of the lot as I turned the wheel. Then I got out and pushed the truck to the street while trying to steer.

Gravity pulls a heavy object stronger and faster than one expects. The truck picked up speed while I was running beside it. I hopped inside, pulled the door closed quietly, and steered down the hill.

I had to turn the engine on at a sharp curve that went uphill.
When I reached the meeting place, I flashed my headlights to signal Pepper and pulled over. I took my laptop and cell phone out of the truck, placed them on the asphalt, and smashed them with a large rock.

Pepper got off his bike, pulled a can of lighter fluid out of his leather jacket, and doused the electronic gear that contained all my files, those unpublished stories and novels. He scratched a wooden match across the sole of his boot and then tossed it on the debris.

The plastic melted into a toxic hot mess, just like my life.

When the flames died down, Pepper kicked away the remains and mounted his bike. I got in my truck and followed his fast but circuitous route to a lonely part of the county whose obstreperous residents had quashed attempts at gentrification.

Pepper paused at a building with metal garage doors. When they rolled up, we drove into the Dantesque scene of men with welding helmets, torches, saws, mallets, and spray paint equipment.

The noise drowned out the sound of our engines, and Pepper pulled over and waved for me to do the same. A man with a shaved head and a blue jumpsuit went to him and they talked for a minute.

I got out of my truck, the sports bag slung over my shoulder. Pepper came over and shouted in my ear, “Your ride’ll be ready in a bit. Let’s chow down.”

“I’ve got something, um, incriminating there,” I said, looking at the bed of the truck.

“You mean the dead dude in back?” Pepper shrugged and walked away.

I only got a few glances as Pepper led me through the garage into a walled-off kitchenette with a table and a battered leather sofa. He closed the door and shut out much of the noise.

“You knew?” I asked.

“If you killed someone, baby girl, I imagine he had it coming.”

“I didn’t kill
him
,” I said, referring to Wil. “Someone left his body at my place to set me up.”

“Hate when that happens,” Pepper said as he opened a refrigerator decorated with a collage of female genitalia. “You want some eggs?”

The fried eggs doused in ketchup and slices of thick pink Canadian bacon, accompanied by cherry soda, was the best meal of my life.

Pepper smoked a joint as he watched me scrape the last bit of food off my plate. He suddenly chuckled. “I remember the first time you walked in the bar with Ian and his sister and Oswald’s cousin Sam. I thought me and the boys would scare you shitless. Ironic, huh?”

“I
was
scared,” I said. “Well, nervous.”

“You were different then.”

“I know.” I wasn’t a girl who drank blood and killed.

Pepper’s friend came in and said, “Your ride’s ready.”

We went to the shop and Pepper’s friend led me to a huge white truck. “Steal American,” he said. “All the paperwork is in the glove compartment. Enough power to outrun someone and more than enough to roll over them. We’ll piece out your pickup and get rid of anything identifying.”

I looked balefully at the gas-guzzler. However, girls on the run from multiple enemies couldn’t be picky. “Thank you. How do I pay you?”

“We’ll handle that through Pepper. He says you’re good for it.”

“Thanks. I’ve got to move a few things.”

The men politely averted their eyes as I went to my truck and unloaded the gardening gear. I carefully reached for Wil’s body, not knowing what to expect after all this time.

I hefted it as gently as I could and the soft floral smell of the cloth rose to my nose. Wil’s body felt as pliant as it had when I’d first hidden it. I carried him to the bed of the new truck and placed the gardening tools over him.

I got in the truck and the metal garage door rolled up. Morning had come. I drove into the light and toward Oswald’s ranch, with Pepper following.

Traffic was sparse this early, and after we got past the suburban sprawl, the landscape gave way to beautiful green fields and then vineyards stretching out to the hills.

Golden poppies, banks of blue lupine, and brilliant yellow wild mustard bloomed. I wished I could have shown Wil this. His death was my fault. All the deaths were my fault.

We soon reached the town where Oswald had his office. Wine-country tourism stopped at the base of the mountain, but we drove on. And along the drive, I kept remembering my first time coming here; perhaps it was exhaustion, but I had the surreal sense of moving backward in time.