The Ghost of Durango
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BeforeThe Mystery of the Moving Image
POV: Sebastian Snow
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It’d finally happened.
Despite my nonstop protestations and lamentations to the contrary.
I was on my first-ever vacation.
And not the sort where I could still do research, write emails, and make calls on behalf of the Emporium. A staycation, I believe those were called.Oh no. This was a real pack-your-toothbrush-and-clean-underwear, we’re-outta-here sort of vacation.
I will admit… it’d beena year. And it was only April. Murder and mystery seemed to be behind us for good, and Calvin and I finally had an apartment—a gorgeously renovated loft on the top floor of a multiuse in the East Village—which I’d nearly lost my mind in the pursuit of. (If it’d taken even one day more, I’d have gone feral and ended up in Central Park, throwing bread crumbs at myself while trying to live as the most dominant pigeon of Frisbee Hill.) The one downfall to our new digs was that the landlord didn’t want the lease starting until the first week of May. So instead of sitting on our thumbs, Calvin had gone ahead and said the one thing I hated hearing more than sugar-free cheesecake.
“I need a vacation.”
ByI, he meantwe, of course, because when you share utility bills with a guy, you’re sort of a packaged deal. I’d immediately declined. Small-business owner and all that. And I don’t know if Calvin slipped Max and my dad a twenty or something, but I was out-voted—three to one—on the matter. I did, in fact, need a vacation. Was, in fact, expected to accompany my boyfriend. And no, in fact, was not staying in the state of New York.
That’s how I also ended up taking my very first flight at thirty-three years old. I left from LaGuardia with nothing but Calvin, our checked suitcase, and copious dread bubbling in my gut.
Our destination?
Denver International.
Why?
Not a clue. Calvin said it was a surprise. If I hadn’t been such a tweaked-out ball of anxiety on the cab ride to the airport, through security, when I was pulled aside because the officer wanted to inspect my cane—thenme, when I told her to swab it down for GSR—boarding, and turbulence that had me white-knuckling Calvin’s hand the rest of the flight, I might have swooned that my man was bringing me on a romantic adventure.
Although, Denver was not what I thought of when riding off into the sunset.
After we’d landed in the Mile High City and briefly detoured to the bathrooms because I had a bloody nose from the altitude, we’d stopped at a rental counter in the baggage claim area and Calvin was given keys to a car he’d apparently organized for us prior to leaving New York. Then, once we’d been driving for the better part of the afternoon, stopping briefly for lunch at a rustic, frontier-style restaurant that boasted a menu of entirely local ingredients and game and was nothing short ofincredible, again for gas, and then for a photo op at a national park, like real tourists, I’d come to the logical conclusion that we weren’t staying anywhere near Denver.
“Cal.”
“Seb.”
“Please, for the love of God, tell me where we’re going. My ass fell asleep fifty miles ago.”
“Our destination won’t make any difference to your ass.”
“Are we going to New Mexico?”
“Not quite.”
I tugged my phone from my pocket.
“Who’re you texting?” Calvin asked, not looking away from the road.
“Max.”
He swiped the cell and tucked it between his legs. “Let Max work,” Calvin said. “You’ve checked in with him half a dozen times already.”
“What if he can’t find the price of an antique?”
