Dance of the Bones

THE MOTHER OF SHINING FALLS looked and looked for her daughter, but she could not find her. Then suddenly, she heard her daughter’s voice. And Shining Falls sounded happy—-just the way she used to back when she sang to the children.

The mother followed the sound of the voice. She kept looking and looking. As the light came and went on the surface of the water in the charco, she could see little Shining Falls’s face smiling up at her. Sometimes the mother could see her daughter’s face very clearly. Other times she could see it only faintly. But always she could see her daughter smiling and hear her singing.

LANI STIRRED AS HENRY ROJAS accelerated away from the Border Patrol checkpoint. Her shoulders were cramped. Her hands were strapped together with tie wraps while a third one secured her right arm to the armrest on the door. She had no memory of his stopping long enough to cuff her or strip off her coat. Her lab coat had been used to cover the restraints, and no one at this checkpoint had noticed anything amiss. She’d been out cold. She was about to say something when Henry spoke. At first she thought a third person must be in the car with them, but then she realized he was talking to himself.

Dan had told her that during the long hours when he was alone in the car, he often carried on extended conversations with Hulk. Henry didn’t have a dog, so he didn’t have anyone else to chat with along the way.

Lani twisted in her seat, trying to find a more comfortable position. Then she closed her eyes, feigning sleep. She realized he must have given her something other than scopolamine. She was too wide awake and connected for that. Succinylcholine, maybe? But where would that have come from? Had Lucy stolen it from the hospital pharmacy? Was she in on this, too?

“Going with some money is better than going with no money,” Henry was saying aloud. “Either she gives me enough to get away, or I go to the cops and blow the whistle. It’s about time she paid me what I’m worth. She thinks that she can just order me around like she’s some high and mighty general while I’m her lowly PFC? Screw that. I’m the one who’s been taking all the risks, and I’m the one who’s about to lose everything.”

What risks? Lani wondered. And she wished she knew who “she” was. Was he referring to Lucy, or was there some other woman involved?

And that reminded her suddenly of the vision she’d had on the mountain—-on Ioligam. How many hours ago was that now? Less than a day, but it seemed like years since she had seen that ghostly woman in the smoke, an evil Ho’ok, a witch with silver hair. Was that Henry’s mysterious “she”?

And what about Gabe and Tim? Lani had seen the blowtorch and knew someone had been trying to break into Henry’s garage structure out at the airport. Maybe the boys had been there—-locked inside. But were they dead or alive? And was Henry Rojas the person who had killed Carlos and Paul José?

Lost in thought, Lani realized that Henry’s monologue had changed. “I need to talk to Francisco,” he said with some urgency. “And I need him now!”

Lani hadn’t realized she’d heard him dialing the phone, so maybe she wasn’t quite as with it as she had first thought she was.

A long silence followed. Lani imagined that telephone--hold elevator music was playing from somewhere. She heard Henry sigh in frustration and what sounded like fingers drumming impatiently on the steering wheel. He was still on hold when Lani felt the buzz of her own cell phone in the pocket of her jeans. When she went to the hospital and slipped on her lab coat, she routinely switched her ringer to silent. Sometimes she forgot to turn it back on. And this was one of those times. Between the road noise and the music on his own phone, Henry evidently didn’t hear the sound.