Dance of the Bones

Ava finished her calls, knowing she’d done all she could for the time being, then she went back to bed, hoping to grab a little more sleep. It was going to be a busy day.

SOME TIME LATER, AFTER SUNRISE, Lani was startled out of her contemplations by yet another gunshot—-a single one this time. Once again, she peered off the mountain, scanning the desert for any signs of life. No vehicles were visible. Was this related to what had happened earlier? In the silence that followed the gunshot there was no way to tell.

Leo Ortiz arrived a -couple of hours later, at ten past eight. By then Lani had packed up her stuff and Gabe’s as well. She’d also doused the fire with the remainder of her water and carefully buried the ashes. She heard Leo’s powerful pickup growling its way up the mountain long before the man himself appeared outside the clearing.

Lani had considered hiking down the trail to meet him, but in the end, she simply sat beside the backpacks and waited. When Leo finally showed up, he was panting with exertion. He looked around the clearing and frowned. “Where’s Gabe?” he asked.

That was not the question Lani was expecting. Her heart fell. Her stomach clenched. “Isn’t he home?”

“He wasn’t when we got home this morning. Why isn’t he here?”

“He got mad at me and left,” Lani admitted. “He said he was going home.”

“You let him walk off just like that?” Leo demanded accusingly. “You should have called. It was just a dance. I would have left there in a minute to come get him.”

Lani didn’t lie and claim she had tried to call. Instead, she held up her useless cell phone. “No signal,” she said.

“There’s a radio in the truck,” Leo said. “I can call home on that.”

The trip down to the truck was made in heavy silence. Leo was naturally quiet, but he was also angry, and Lani knew it. As for Lani? If Gabe wasn’t home, if he had been the target of some of those gunshots . . . She couldn’t bear to consider it.

Leo flipped the two packs he was carrying into the bed of the truck, then went straight to the radio. “He’s home,” Leo said a moment later. “Delia said he just woke up and scared her to death because she had no idea he was there. He was in his bedroom with the door closed. We didn’t bother checking his room when we got home because he wasn’t supposed to be there.”

Sick with relief, Lani leaned against the passenger door. Gradually her legs seemed to give way beneath her. She slid slowly down onto her haunches until she was sitting propped on the Tundra’s narrow running board.

Leo came around to where she was sitting. “Sorry,” he said. “He’s a teenager and a boy. I shouldn’t have blamed you. Come on. Let’s get back.”

Lani stood up and tossed her own pack into the truck. “There’s one more thing we need to do,” she said when she again felt capable of speech.

“What’s that?”

“I want to stop by the charco.”

“What charco?” Leo asked.

“That one,” she said, nodding down the mountainside.

“Rattlesnake Skull?” he asked. “How come? -People say that place is haunted.”

Lani knew that all too well, and one of the haunting spirits was no doubt the soul of Gabe’s murdered second cousin, Gina Antone, but Lani didn’t feel like going into any of that right then.

“It’ll only take a few minutes,” she said. “I’m curious about something.”

“Don’t they always say curiosity killed the cat?” Leo said, letting go of his anger and giving her one of his easy grins.

“Maybe so,” Lani said. “But I still want to go. You can stay in the truck if you want. I can hike in and out.”

“And let you call me a ’fraidy cat?” Leo replied. “No way.”

When they neared the charco, Lani directed him to drive past the turnoff and stop on the shoulder of the road.

As they climbed out of the truck, Leo shot her a questioning look. “What’s going on?” he asked. “You look like something’s wrong.”