Will the Sun Ever Come Out Again? (10 page)

“There’s no one,” he says after what he hopes is an appropriate amount of time. “No one suspicious. No one with a grudge. I really have no clue.”

Edwards nods, his eyes both grim and frustrated. “All right. We’ll see what we can pull in the way of prints and such. Hopefully, we’ll find out who’s doing this. In the meantime, I’m going to have a car on you at all times.”

“What?”

“Yeah. This is twice now, and even if they are just a sick prank, we can’t ignore the nature of it. Believe me, it’s for your safety.”

Ben listens, and the detective’s words make sense. The sacks have worried him, and he feels a healthy amount of fear roiling in his chest. Still, he thinks of the problems it will cause, the least of which being the fact that he’s almost out of weed. Surely, the police wouldn’t sit idly by as he scores. It’s a terrible inconvenience, because if anything’s ever made him want to smoke, it’s the horrific shit that’s happening to him right now.

In the next moment, he imagines a squad car sitting outside the office and the questions it will inspire. Sooner or later, it will all circle back to him, and everyone will know something weird’s happening, that his life’s taken a turn past pathetic and grown scary.

But then he thinks of coming home to find another brown paper sack full of human pieces. Or what if he finds one on the bedroom floor when he wakes up? Finding the most recent bag inside his apartment has made everything too close, too ripe with potential for…what? Horror? Violence? There are too many unanswered questions, and he doesn’t know where to start.

“Okay,” he tells the detective. “That would be great.”

If Rose felt sure of anything, it was that she wasn’t about to touch a skeleton that might just land them in a quarantine. She rummaged through the kitchen, grabbing garbage bags, the gloves only the newest of newbies wore, and one of the industrial rolls of plastic wrap they used for covering the prep racks. After she’d laid everything out on one of the tables, she gave it a long look, searching her mind for anything else they might need. The nerves along her spine fired like warning shots. She tried to exhale her fear, but it didn’t help. How had everything turned so bizarre so fast?

Before she could stop herself, she rushed across the kitchen and ripped open the drawer where they kept the spare utensils and implements. With a shaking hand, she rummaged through the spatulas and whisks until she found one of the cheaper, rubber-handled kitchen knives. The blade wasn’t terribly sharp, but it would do damage if she needed it.

“Why would I need it?” she whispered.

“Hey!” Jim slapped a hand down on one of the steel counters. “We’re not exactly flush with time.”

“Right. Grab what you can from that pile, and let’s go.”

Without a word, Jim scooped up the plastic wrap and garbage bags. He left the gloves behind, so Rose grabbed them as she moved past.

“What’s with the knife?”

“It’s only about a thousand percent better for cutting the wrap.”

“Right, but if we wrap the entire thing, will it sink? What about air?”

She waved the knife a little. “It pokes holes, too.”

“Okay, yeah.”

She let her boss lead, sticking close as they left the restaurant and made their way to the docks. Jim insisted on no lights, and she had to admit it was a good idea. Getting caught moving a skeleton sat at the bottom of her favorite things list.

“How much time do we have left?” she asked.

“Hour and a half. Maybe a little less.”

“Shit. And we have to row this thing out?”

“Yeah. Sucks, don’t it?”

Rose tried to picture the two of them in a damn canoe, paddling out into the middle of Lake Travis while sharing space with a dead body. She hated thinking about the cramped quarters, because she didn’t care that there wasn’t so much as a scrap of tissue left on those bones. She didn’t care that they planned to wrap it in plastic so they wouldn’t have to make any real contact with it. At the heart of it all, they’d be spending time with a corpse, and that was something she could barely comprehend, let alone stomach.

Climbing the ladder down to the lakebed was a challenge. The darkness felt thicker as dawn approached, and her jangling nerves made the process of feeling for the next rung with her toes something close to a thrill ride. When she finally dropped to the ground, her breath came in ragged bursts.

“You okay?” Jim asked.

“Fine. Let’s just do this.”

“Right. Once we grab things, we won’t worry about the ladder. We’ll take the long way around and just climb the bank. Probably be easier.”

“Whatever. Let’s go.”

Jim’s footsteps trailed away. She followed, and she reached for the knife’s handle. Her fingers tightened, and she felt a little better. At least she had a weapon.

“Please tell me it’s still there,” she said.

“It is.”

Jim stood over the bound skeleton, and Rose found herself staring at the skull. She wondered if it had belonged to a man or woman, if they’d been alive when the stone was shoved past their teeth. It must have felt terrible. The thought of experiencing that kind of horror made her eyes water. As she dried them with the heel of her hand, she thought about the fangs. Could they be real? If they were, could the skeleton really be human?

“Jesus.”

“Nope,” Jim answered. He sat the box of plastic wrap beside the skeleton’s legs. “Afraid he ain’t here to help. Now, let’s get this over with.”

By the time they reached the last house, Thomas thought every breath tasted like cold dirt. He could only look straight ahead. For several moments, he examined the street and the curb, hoping Jenkins would remain silent, maybe even show some kind of mercy.

The truth stared him in the face: he wasn’t cut out for the job. In the hidden corners of his mind, he’d always known, but he’d done a good job of lying to himself. For months now, he’d told himself falsehood after falsehood, each fiction a piece of the façade that showed the old man and everybody else he was meant to be a fixer. He wasn’t sure when the cracks had started to show, but he knew the moment the entire work had shattered.

Thomas closed his eyes. He knew his fingers were iron around the steering wheel, that he was all but shaking in the Lincoln’s seat, but he couldn’t control it. Theresa Davis had been the third name on the list, and her voice still reverberated in his memory.

She’d said, “Please.”

“Please.”

The first time, he’d barely been able to understand her. She blubbered, and the wet sound of her pain and terror transformed the word into something more sensation than speech. One hand reached for them, palm up, the flesh raw and pulpy, portions of it still lodged in her teeth or hanging in slick clumps around her lips. She said the magic word again, this time her voice almost a shriek, and then she pressed the hand to her mouth and took another bite.

“How long do you think it will take?” Jenkins had asked. There was no smile on his face, no horrible glint in his eye, and that somehow made it all worse. He wasn’t enjoying himself; he was curious.

Mrs. Davis ate most of her right arm before the trauma killed her. On the back of his eyelids, Thomas watched her body flop and buck against the floor like a sick imitation of grease in a skillet.

“I want you to handle this one.”

He opened his eyes at the sound of the old man’s voice. Thankfully, he hadn’t started or gasped in any way. It took him a second to make sense of the words, but once he understood them his body went cold with dread.

“What?”

“You heard. You know.”

“I...” Again he looked to the street, hoping something out there might distract him. There was nothing, though. A quiet street on a quiet day. Damn.

“I don’t believe I’m ready.” His voice quivered, and he hated it.

“That’s quite unfortunate. I don’t want you thinking you have a choice in the matter.”

Thomas blinked. He turned to face Jenkins, found him looking out the window at the house that held Doris Hubbert, the last name he’d given the old man.

“I’m sorry?”

“You’ve been coasting. People have noticed. The word has come down that you need to step up to the plate. You’re not performing as you should, and you have no choice but to improve. Like it or not, you signed a contract, and that means you have obligations.”

Thomas remembered signing, remembered the dry scratch of the pen on paper. Earlier, the old man’s pencil had made the same noise. He recalled the heavy, suffocating despair that had filled him at the time, and how hopeless and gray and wounded the world had seemed, bloody slashes across his mind and his heart. He wondered if Jenkins had felt the same as he signed his contract.

“I don’t—”

A dry, firm hand appeared on his wrist. This time, he did start, and the hand clamped down like a vice.

Thomas looked into the old man’s eyes. Anger brewed there like stormclouds.

“This is our job,” Jenkins said. “This is what we
do
.”

Slowly, Thomas nodded. He knew in that moment that the world was still hopeless, that his wounds hadn’t healed and may never. But that didn’t change anything. The old man was right.

“I’ll do it,” he said.

“Has anything weird happened, lately?”

Standing in the break room, Melissa gives him a look like he’s just asked if she’d considered adopting a man-eating donkey for a pet. Her eyes narrow, and then a sarcastic grin creeps across her face. “Like hanging out with my ex? Yeah, I guess that one happens a lot.”

“Not quite what I was going for, but good to know.”

“What’s going on?”

He stands there for a moment, dipping a teabag into a mug of hot water and wondering how much he should reveal. Scaring her is the last thing he wants, but if somebody has it in for him, they might decide to make life hell for everybody else in his life. The thought of Melissa experiencing what he’s gone through feels like a barbed spike in his chest.

So he tells her everything. He starts with the knock on the door and takes her through all of it, finishing with the police car that waits in the parking lot, the officers inside doing their best to keep an eye on him. Her expressions start with amusement and anticipation before taking a sharp turn into shock and horror and finally settling on genuine concern with a healthy amount of fear. When he finishes, he stands there and waits for her to say something. The silence remains for a long time, and he wonders if she’ll say anything or just storm away.

“Holy shit,” she finally says

They’re the same words that have buzzed around his cranium for days. Few things sum up the bizarre turn his life has taken as well as those words. He nods, giving Melissa a look that says he knows exactly what she means.

She sets down her drink and throws her arms around him before he can think to reach. In the circle of her arms, it feels like home, and he wants to return her embrace, but there’s still a mug of hot tea in his hand. “Okay,” he says. “All right, don’t make me spill this.”

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” She steps back, and he sets down his mug before she can change her mind.

“I don’t know. I called because I was concerned, but then I just...I guess I didn’t want to bother you.”

“Bother me?”

“It’s not the best way to word it.”

“No, it isn’t. Bother me? What kind of a bitch do you think I am?”

“Did I say that at some point?” he asks.

“You know what I mean.”

“And I’d hoped you would know what I mean.”

She grins. “Well, you used the wrong words.”

The laughter bubbles out of him before he knows its coming. It feels good, the surge in his chest and belly. How long has it been since he really laughed? Soon, he stands with his hands on his knees, fighting for air as the laughter tumbles free.

He looks up and sees Melissa join him. The smile on her face is enormous and natural, and he thinks it’s the most beautiful she’s ever looked. He wants to watch her smile all day, but then her expression changes, becoming harder. The change is so fast, it feels as though her happy expression has been torn away.

“You didn’t just leave Simon in the apartment, did you?”

Her words hit him like a slap from a cold hand. For a second, all he can do is stare at her with what he’s sure is an idiot’s expression. Why hadn’t he thought to take Simon somewhere else? Jesus, the cat had been in the apartment when somebody left a bag full of ears on the kitchen counter! He wonders if Simon hid or if the intruder simply didn’t care. In the next second, his mind shows him pictures of his cat dead, maybe stuffed inside the refrigerator or strewn across the living room as some kind of horrible message.

“Can I take him to…your place?” Referring to the house as anything other than home still feels alien.

“Of course,” Melissa says. “Do it fast, though. Shit!”

He nods and rushes past her.

Preparing the body for dumping took longer than Rose expected. Jim tried to wrap the entire thing in one go, but the bones didn’t want to stay together. For ten minutes, she watched as her boss fumbled and fussed and cursed before he finally grew too frustrated and started stomping on it. Bones splintered. The legs fell apart, followed by the arms. The thing’s ribcage collapsed into a pile of thin bones and vertebrae. Rose watched it all, shivering. Jim probably wanted help, but breaking apart dead bodies didn’t fall within her job description.