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His eyes propelled open, and he gasped. His sleep had been bloated with bad dreams, distorted images from the things he’d done. He hadn’t considered that his efforts would be burned into his brain, that they would hunt for and haunt him, even as he closed his eyes.

He’d expected the beginnings of a cleansing of sorts, freedom from the binds that had tormented him for years.

He’d had no choice. If he hadn’t finally done what he’d done, he’d have surely lost his mind. He couldn’t have waited much longer, so when the opportunity presented itself, he moved quickly.

The killing had been the easy part. It was the other things, cutting up the corpse, stripping the bones free of the flesh—getting rid of the tendons, organs, blood—and then posing the bones. It had been so much work.

He’d known what to do, though. He’d studied. He’d bettered himself, transformed into a new man. He’d done everything right to prepare. He told himself not to let it bother him, that no matter how arduous it might get, he was on the right path. He hadn’t counted on the dreams, the nightmares. He’d have to make it through.

Thankfully, there was only one task left.

Well, there was only one important task left. He could rightfully continue, but after going through all the work, he could only commit to one more.

A break first, though. Besides, time would serve multiple purposes. He could rest. He could work on erasing the dreams. He could contribute to misleading the authorities. He could ingratiate himself with the community.

But no matter what, he was going to finish what had been set in motion over twenty-five years earlier.

CHAPTER

2

SHERIFF CALLOWAY DROPPED me off downtown and then steered his truck back toward the scene, where investigators from Tucson were going to be arriving at any minute.

I would write up what I’d seen or what I might find as I took a closer look at the pictures I’d taken. Calloway would let the lab in Tucson know that I would be coming by. I understood that the reason Sheriff Calloway had taken me out to the scene was more about Wilmot than my expertise, and though I didn’t want him feeling sorry for me, I was glad he’d gotten me out of bed.

“I need you to help with a possible message. I also want you on your toes, looking for your father or signs of him. Once the techs are done with the bones, particularly the extra finger bone, I’ll get you the results if you don’t get them first yourself, see if that shines a light on anything. Dental records are going to be our best hope right now, but that extra bone …” he’d said.

Yeah, that digitus medius. Wilmot’s had been with him when he left, either of his own accord or not.

A cold dread filled me as the sheriff’s truck disappeared into a cloud of stirred-up dust. I hadn’t realized how much safer I’d felt with him nearby. I was rattled by the bone sculpture.

I looked out to the distant desert at familiar sights, things I tried to see with fresh eyes today. A nonproducing pecan farm was made with perfectly matched and manicured rows. The mountains, frequently topped off by snow in the winter, sometimes in spring as the temperatures made their run toward three digits in Black Vulture. A gathering of a group of almost matching tiny houses, at one time barracks where miners used to live when they were working, now occupied by those who chose to reside in Black Vulture. My eyes went toward the Tumacácori mountains again, the Vulture Caves, a place that had been fodder for all kinds of local and evil fairytales, villains made of bats and blood-drinking killers. My father had loved hiking out to those caves. He’d been fascinated by the bats in the caves and their nightly exodus on their way to eat from the plentiful bounty of insects in and around The Wild.

“You out there, Wilmot? Pop?” I muttered as I scanned.

He could be anywhere. He was probably nowhere, but the idea I’d always held on to, the thing that had lain even more groundwork as to who I’d become and had sent me out on too many desert excursions to count, was that his bones must be somewhere.

There were ways to destroy them, hide them, but like the strange bone between the skeleton’s fingers, the one I’d assigned the label of digitus medius whether or not that would prove to be true, there was usually something left over or overlooked. I squeezed my eyes shut tight as the sculpture and its coyote taxidermy-like pose came back to my mind.

There was no way not to be shaken by what had been staged. If someone had taken the time to create it, it must mean something.

A noise that sounded like a mix of foot stomps and deep voiced groans forced my eyes open again. Colors, movement, and scents came at me all at once, and before I could understand what was happening, I was knocked down on my back on the cracked and uneven walkway.

The fall took the wind out of me, but I still managed to exclaim something like “Hey!” as my frantic hands worked double-time to push the man off me.

Putrid scents, body odor and other wild things, reached my nose, but I didn’t take the time to analyze the scent soup. My eyes finally focused on a dirty face and black rotted teeth with even darker gaps showing through a grimace. The man, his hair color hidden by a knit cap, could have been in his twenties or in his eighties—his face was too dirty to tell, and his eyes were red and rheumy.

His breath was worse than everything else.

“Get off me.” I tried to roll or buck him off, but he was strong enough to pin me, at least for a few seconds.

“Hazel Dylan, you will pay for the sins of your father,” he said, his face way too close to mine.

There were other words that might have gotten my attention, but those rocked my soul and stilled my struggle. “What?”

“Hey!” A voice came from behind my head. “Get off her!”

The man atop me, too agile to be too old, I decided, dismounted me, and in a stumble-run, took off down the walkway and then around the building.