Dance of the Bones

LANI HAD MANAGED TO GET enough purchase on the car seat with her left foot to push herself up off the floor and into a semisitting position. It wasn’t a huge improvement, but it took some of the weight off her aching shoulders. Half an hour later when the door from inside the house opened, Lani expected to see Henry Rojas emerge. He did not.

What came out instead was the silver--haired woman Lani had seen before. This time she was stark naked, except for a pair of latex gloves and a pair of bedroom slippers. In one hand she carried a black plastic garbage bag. The other hand held Henry’s gym bag. Lani heard the woman open the trunk of a silver vehicle that was parked next to the Fusion.

Lani figured parading around naked meant one of two things: either the woman was completely nuts or else she had nothing to lose. If it turned out to be the latter, Lani worried that she herself had everything to lose. One thing Lani noticed was the difference between the woman’s body and her face. From the face and hair she looked to be close to seventy. Her body was that of someone decades younger. How could that be?

Over the course of the next several minutes, the woman made two more trips back and forth, loading things into the other car each time she came and went. The last time she entered the garage, she was dressed in a muumuu and a pair of chartreuse tennis shoes. She was carrying a walker she apparently didn’t need to use. After stowing the walker in the trunk of the vehicle and slamming the trunk lid shut, she walked over to Lani and knelt at her side. Lani noticed that the woman had brought a large purse along with her and that she was still wearing the gloves.

“Okay now,” the woman said, “I don’t know who you are, but you have a choice here. Henry was considerate enough to bring along some very nice meds. You can either hold still for a shot or two, or else I use my Glock. It’s totally up to you.”

As she spoke she set three clear glass vials down on the floor next to Lani.

Whatever it was, Lani knew that the medication in the vials was far less potent than Henry had thought. She’d already had two shots of the stuff. But would three more be too many? However, the choice between being given a possibly not--too--powerful drug and being shot in the head at close range wasn’t much of a choice at all.

She looked at the needle and nodded.

“Good girl,” the woman said. “Hold still now.”

Lani watched as the woman plunged the needle into her upper arm with practiced ease. By the time it came to the third vial, Lani noticed that the woman was reusing the second syringe, but the familiar lassitude was already creeping up through her body, and she really didn’t care. The last thing she heard was the woman saying, “Okay now. That should do the trick.”

Lani felt the drug’s rush immediately, noting with some irony that she’d missed her only chance to do any head--butting. Too bad.

EXPECTING DAN’S EXPLORER TO ROUND the corner at any moment, Brandon was dismayed when the garage door started to open. He didn’t want to get into some kind of confrontation with either Henry or Jane Dobson on his own. That meant he needed to play for time.

He grabbed for Bozo’s leash and was about to exit the Escalade when all hell broke loose. A silver car, driving in reverse, shot out of the garage and slammed dead on into the front bumper of the Caddy. The blow was hard enough to rattle Brandon’s teeth, hard enough for the air bag to deploy, but not hard enough to hurt him. And as soon as the air bag deflated, a skittish Bozo came scrambling out of the back cabin into the front.

This was far better than Brandon had hoped. The driver hadn’t even glanced in the rearview mirror. He had simply assumed that his driveway was empty and hit the gas. Tough luck for him. Brandon supposed he had seen Henry Rojas on occasion, but would he recognize Brandon in this unfamiliar place in the middle of the night? Maybe not.

But then the driver’s door of the other car—-Jane Dobson’s aging Acura—-opened. Jane herself, presumably, stepped out and marched toward him, clearly enraged. There was no sign of Henry.