Buried Secrets. Evelyn Vaughn

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      A Navajo medicine blanket covered the wall behind her bed, and an octagonal god’s-eye, strung from yarn and sticks, hung to face the window. The remaining wall space was dotted with framed pictures, mostly of relatives. Only on nights like this did Jo notice how far away her family lived, how few friends she’d made since taking the job in Spur…how many years ago?

      Maybe that had been her plan.

      Her younger brother, Max, was a photojournalist, so she had pictures of her grandparents and her late parents, her aunts and uncles, her older brother, Lee. She had more recent pictures of herself, not quite thirty, looking decidedly average beside her vivacious cousins in East Texas. She had pictures of her dogs, even—of every person who’d ever held importance in her life…except one man.

      Except Diego.

      Jo told herself not to think of Diego. People died. She’d gone on without him and was doing fine by herself.

      She drank the milk and put the empty glass on the barrel that was her night table, rather than carry it back out to the kitchen—but not because she was afraid. Then she turned off the light and tried to sleep. She had work in the morning. She almost always worked, despite the town council’s worries over all the vacation time and sick time she’d been accumulating. And she prided herself in not frightening easily. She’d faced everything from rabid dogs to armed robbers, and she’d defeated them all. She’d even faced—

      No. After all this time, she wouldn’t let one bigmouthed detective make her believe in monsters.

      But tonight the bed seemed awfully empty, too. Small.

      Despite the moonlight glowing through her windows, Jo closed her eyes and tried to sleep.

      In her dream, she saw Diego and jerked awake with a sharp, real breath. Too real. She preferred the half life she’d been living since she moved here; it hurt less. She preferred the Novocain.

      But another attempt at sleep—another gasped return to consciousness—confirmed that the numbness had worn off at just about the same time Zack Lorenzo opened his big mouth.

      “Damn it,” Jo whispered brokenly, sitting up in bed so that her Navajo blankets slid to her waist, dragging her hands through her short hair. She wouldn’t dream of him again. Not tonight. Not now. Not Diego.

      It hadn’t even been real. Except for him being dead.

      But the next morning’s rising sun found Jo sitting at her kitchen table, dizzy from hours of fighting the dreams that haunted her each time she closed her eyes. Both Butch and Sundance lay at her feet, eyeing her with mutual doggy concern.

      She glared blearily at Zack Lorenzo’s business card, on the table in front of her. He’d somehow robbed her of her sense of safety. Business hours or not, Jo meant to take it back.

      She picked up the phone.

      Chapter 2

      Zack was in Hell—Hell with Formica countertops, contoured bedspreads and a window air conditioner that made the carpet smell like wet socks. Almanuevo didn’t rate a Holiday Inn, much less a Hilton. Unless he stayed in a bed-and-breakfast or tourist resort, he was left with the Alpha Inn, a “motor hotel” of unparalleled luxury—if you lived in the freaking 1950s.

      He still stayed awake most of the night, for his own reasons. But even though he was awake ungodly early, taking notes at the pink “kitchenette” table, Zack swore when his mobile phone rang out its programmed Journey riff. It didn’t matter if he was awake or not. Who the hell called at dawn?

      He snatched up his phone. “Whaddaya want?”

      “Mr. Lorenzo?”

      A woman? “Yeah, this is Lorenzo.” So whaddaya want?

      “This is Sheriff James, from Spur.”

      He guessed the sheriff counted as a woman. Cocky, yeah. Butch even. But Josephine James couldn’t hide being female, even from a man who wasn’t particularly interested. Jeans and short-sleeved cotton tops just fit differently over feminine curves. Her shiny brown hair, shorter than some men’s, had bared the nape of her neck. Zack never really thought before then about how soft and vulnerable napes looked. And her pixie nose had undermined her no-nonsense, I’m the sheriff attitude.

      So, now, did the caffeinated strain in her voice. He felt a twinge of guilt for maybe giving the lady a fairly sleepless night, but he fought it. Gotta break a few eggs, yada yada. This was his job. Worrying about other people wasn’t, not anymore.

      He wasn’t any damned good at it, anyway. “What can I do for you this morning? It is morning, right?”

      “Look, Mr. Lorenzo, I’ve changed my mind. I’d like to talk to you. If you’re still in the area, I mean.”

      The area. Yeah. Right. “I’m still in the state, anyhow. You want I should drive back down there?”

      “No,” she said quickly, then paused. “It’s a small town, and I don’t want questions. I’ll drive up and meet you.”

      “You know,” he pointed out, “as many car accidents are caused by exhausted drivers as by drunks.”

      “I’m a good judge of my own limits.” He’d heard that before. It was usually a lie.

      “I’d make better time,” he insisted.

      “I’m sure you would. Where are you staying?”

      Stubborn, wasn’t she? “The Alpha Inn. Room 7.”

      “I’ll be there by lunch.” And she hung up, which Zack found annoying, even though he generally did the same thing.

      “I could be there by breakfast,” he muttered, and went back to his note-taking so he could maybe catch a nap before Little Jo moseyed on into town.

      A nervous woman. Great. Even the well-rested ones were trouble.

      He hoped she had something worthwhile to tell him.

      Relieved to have that decision made, Jo managed a quick nap on the cot in the jail’s cell before she left Fred in charge for the day. She couldn’t help remembering that the last person to stretch out on that cot was one rangy, thirty-something Chicago P.I. Despite having changed the sheets, she imagined that she could smell the faint scent of aftershave. Or was that just the whole “breathing again” business?

      Either way, she slept better.

      She drove her old Bronco into Almanuevo a little after 11:30 a.m., marveling at how quickly the once-deserted little town had risen from the dead. Was it even five years since some real-estate developers started marketing the area as an Eden for psychic enlightenment? Not that it wasn’t pretty in its red-rocked, desert-y way—Big Bend National Park lay several hours south of them and the Guadalupe Mountains almost as far to the north. But when the closest metropolitan area was El Paso, how could Jo not be surprised by Almanuevo’s success?

      And it was, against all probability, succeeding. Billboards advertised vortex tours, psychic readings and even a dude ranch that offered everything from chakra alignments to rattlesnake roundups. The signs were set too far СКАЧАТЬ