Hidden Bones (Dead Remaining) Read online

  “You sound excited,” Eric said. “Am I supposed to know what Clancy is?”

  And there it went again, another tremor of an airplane overhead, except this one was accompanied by an ear-shattering crack and sounded on the verge of touching down. Impossible. His little rental cottage was almost forty miles from the nearest airport, San Francisco International. An ugly image fizzed through his brain, lightning fast: smoke, fire, bodies strewn about, the tail section of a 747 sticking out from the top of his home like an ugly hat. He’d been having more gruesome visions like these lately than he’d care to admit.

  Jake huffed an incredulous breath down the phone. “You’ve never heard of Clancy? Clancy, Washington?”

  Eric turned his attention back to the conversation, ignoring the bad feeling in his stomach. “Should I have?”

  “Hell-o! It’s only where all the Darkest Thrills novels take place—and all the movies based on the books!”

  “Okay, that does ring a bell. Spy stuff, right—like actiony, blow-everything-to-smithereens, macho-guy kinda thing. Kincaid something.”

  Jake made a choking sound. “You’re not . . . oh my God . . . don’t tell me you’ve never seen any Dylan Kincaid films! Night Smoke, Darkest Sunrise, Revenge Fire . . . there’s like a bajillion of them!” Jake prattled on about his favorite film in the series, Darkest Sunrise—which, despite its title, took place primarily in an underground bunker.

  “Not really my kind of flicks. You were saying about your show in Clancy?” Eric prompted before Jake had the chance to further launch into the many ways Dylan Kincaid had kicked ass and taken names in Night Smoke. Maybe the books were better than the movies, which, judging by the billboards he’d seen, had more CGI-enhanced explosions and chisel-chested eye candy than quality acting.

  “We’re heading up to Clancy for a show—next week, actually. There, and then Seattle, which is just a few hours away. It was kind of a last-minute booking, but it just so happened that we called at the perfect time. We were initially trying to book a Seattle gig a couple months from now, but the original headliner for next week bailed because of some issue with the lead singer—he fell off the wagon again and was whisked off to rehab. The club’s even throwing us some extra cash for being so accommodating.”

  “And because your band is getting to be pretty big now, too, right?”

  “Sure, sure,” Jake said, endorsing what was only a fact. Augustine Grifters had recently had a lucky break when lead singer Madison’s brother, a big-time advertising executive in Los Angeles, used a sample from one of their more popular songs, “Loverbot,” in a sports car commercial that had run nationally for a few weeks during prime-time television. The number of downloads the band had on the first night alone exceeded all the sales they’d had in the entire six-month period prior.

  “Anyway,” Jake continued, “we figured that, since we were heading to Seattle, why not also book a show in Clancy. Madison also has a friend there, named Darla, who she wants to surprise with a visit. The two were pretty close up until a couple years ago, when Darla took up with some loser none of her friends—Madison included—approved of. She left the Bay Area and moved up to Clancy with the dude. They lost touch with each other but still occasionally stayed in contact on Facebook. You know how it goes.”

  “Sure.”

  “Things didn’t work out so well with Darla and the deadbeat—surprise, surprise—and he drained their bank accounts and took off on her. Now, she’s kind of stuck with no money or job in Clancy, which, apparently, is painted a lot nicer in the Darkest Thrills series than it actually is in real life. The town’s pretty dead end, from the sound of things, and a lot of local business owners are riding out the Kincaid fame for as long as they can with tourists. But even that’s dying off.”

  “What a shocker. The movies seem like such gems,” Eric said dryly, and then he could practically see Jake rolling his eyes.

  “Anyway, Madison’s hoping she can convince Darla to come to California, though ‘convince’ is putting it lightly—it’s like she’s on a crusade. All I care about is doing the touristy stuff in Clancy before it disappears. There’s a couple Dylan Kincaid–themed bars and restaurants on the main drag that sound fun—you know the sort of thing, where the waitstaff dress up as characters from the films and the burgers have spy-lingo-y names.”

  “I can see where that would be fun,” Eric said carefully. He was feeling uneasy about his friend’s plans, though he couldn’t pinpoint why. “But is Madison even sure that Darla will want to come back with her?”

  “Madison’s pretty sure she will. It doesn’t sound like she’s got too much going for herself in Clancy. But that’s kind of why I’m calling too.”

  “Oh?”

  “See, we’re trying to caravan up there in two cars. As it is now, we’re pretty full with just the van, with all the gear and equipment we’ve got to haul around with us.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “So, I’m wondering if you’d be up for a little road trip—you and Suze?”

  “To help haul your gear?”

  “Well, yes and no. We do need the extra space of your Jeep, but I also thought you might want to get out of town for a minivacation, given all the recent drama. You’re off work now, anyway, right, with the semester being finished?”

  “I’m off now, but, hmm, I don’t know . . .” Eric rubbed the slight hump his nose had developed courtesy of the face-first, ten-foot drop into a hole he’d taken while in captivity. He glanced at the novel on his computer screen and let out a long sigh. Maybe it would do him some good to get out of town for a few days. “I’ll have to talk to Susan first. She only went back to work this morning.”

  As if on cue, Susan’s keys were jingling at the front door. Eric said goodbye to Jake and went to meet her. Immediately, he was taken aback by how miserable his girlfriend looked. She shrugged off her coat and hung it on the wonky coatrack pegs he’d been meaning to tighten, not bothering to pick it up when it fell to the floor.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She gave him a short answer. “Everything.”

  Eric wrapped his arms around the woman he had come to consider not only a lover but also a best friend. “Want to talk about it?”

  She shrugged underneath his grasp. “There’s not much to say. It’s just . . . I don’t know if I can be here anymore. Here, in Perrick.”

  “Bad day at work?”

  “The worst. It was so bad that I was ‘informed’ that I could—more like should—take more time off.”

  “How much time?”

  She shook her head. “They didn’t say; they just want me gone—they’d probably be happiest if I stayed gone forever. You won’t believe this, but somebody carved traitor on the top of my desk, like I had something to do with what happened . . . on the farm.” Her voice, Eric had noticed, always took on a strange tone when she talked about the place. “I wish we could pack up everything; leave this petty, small-minded, backstabbing place; and never look back . . . why are you smiling?”

  “Because I can make your wish come true. Maybe not forever, but at least for the time being.”

  CHAPTER 2

  “Well, well, the mayor of Clancy herself. I’m honored,” Jake said, taking Mayor Julia Moulden’s hand into his own.

  The mayor smiled amiably as they shook hands. “I’m the one who’s honored. Been a fan of you guys for years, since ‘Neon Skies.’”

  Jake was impressed. He took a long swig of his rum and Coke, a freebie from the bar’s owner for a performance well done, happy to note that the bartender had poured heavily—nothing worse than a weak mixed drink. The crowd and band were also happy, which meant that he was happy too. He nodded. “Our first album, from way back in the day. Most of our listeners in Perrick—that’s where we’re from—haven’t even heard of it.”

  “We do have the internet up here,” Mayor Moulden said coyly and then flipped her hair back from her shoulders.

  She was attractive in a dignified older woman sort of way—what was older for him in his late twenties, which placed her in her midforties—with dark eyes and a heavy raven-colored bob with severe bangs. Mayor Cleopatra, he dug it.

  He was wishing that he’d ended things with Bonnie before the trip, and not just because he thought the mayor was cute. Something told him that she wanted it to be over, too, but didn’t want to be the one to strike the first blow. Nobody ever wants to be the bad guy—or girl—in a relationship.

  The mayor introduced herself once more as the rest of the band—Chuck, Madison, and John—joined them. Madison raised her eyebrows at Jake in a manner that suggested she had noticed his admiration of the mayor and approved. She then gave him a thumbs-up as she took a drink, as subtle and embarrassing as a stage mom at a toddler’s beauty pageant. He gave her the sort of threatening quit it look only close friends are allowed to give each other with no hard feelings attached. This only seemed to encourage her. “So, Mayor Moulden, are you single?”

  The mayor threw back her head and let out a loud hah! Without skipping a beat, she said, “I am married—to my job!”

  “So, single, then,” Madison persisted. “Good.” She gave Jake an encouraging look that the mayor would have to have her eyes closed to miss. Had they been sitting at a table, he would have kicked his friend hard in the shins to shut her up.

  Luckily, Chuck swooped in to change the subject. “Do you have another job—most mayors in smaller towns have second jobs, right? Our mayor back in Perrick also owns a feedstore.”

  What a weird thing to ask, Jake thought. Then again, because he was a musician, people were forever asking him if he also had a “real” job. That, or his other favorite, You make enough to live on just being in a band?—as if rephrasing what boiled down to the same questio
n made it any less crass to ask.

  The truth was that Jake technically wouldn’t need to work a single day in his life, if he budgeted just right—or at least not for a very long time—thanks to the large inheritance he’d gotten from his maternal grandfather at age twenty. But what would be the fun in that? He liked to stay busy, and he enjoyed the feeling of putting in a hard day’s work. His great-grandfather, grandmother, and father had all been jewelers, so naturally it had been presumed that he would join the reasonably lucrative family business—three stores in Northern California, one in Orange County, and an online shop. While he didn’t want to make hawking jewelry a full-time gig—when it came to rocks, he, like Eric, preferred geology as a whole—he helped out when needed.

  “You’re right. I’m also a freelance accountant,” Mayor Moulden said.

  Jake was about to utter something flirty yet borderline corny—smart and beautiful—when a drunken jackass with a long ponytail and an embroidered pot-leaf beanie came up on his side and coiled a sweaty arm around his shoulder, sloshing half the rum and Coke down on his shoes.

  “Dude!” the guy shouted as an opener.

  Jake was not happy, but he also couldn’t be too rude, given that the idiot had dropped fifteen bucks to see him play. His smile was all gritted teeth. “Hey, buddy, you mind watching what—”

  “You’re from that California murder town, right? The one where they found all those dead kids?” He grinned down at Jake like he’d just won the lottery. “Man! That shit was insane.”

  The interloper was far too cheerful, acting like the murders of twenty-one children were the punch line to a big joke. This did not endear him to Jake, who was accustomed to people in Perrick speaking of the Death Farm tragedies with appropriate solemnity. He didn’t know what to say, but he knew what he wanted to say to the guy: Get out of my face before I slug you. He might have been small, but he was strong and could hold his own in a fight. He’d learned how to handle himself early on, around the time he discovered that he would not be joining his fellow classmates in their physical growth. Nothing catches the attention of the schoolyard bully quite like being the runt of the litter.

  Ponytail was off again, inebriated to such an extent that he swayed to and fro. His armpit was nose level to Jake, and no amount of patchouli oil in the world—and this guy was wearing a bucketload—could mask body odor so pungent. “That’s the hot cop over there, right—the one who worked with the FBI? And that psychic guy! Oh my God, this is unreal! Think they’d autograph my shirt for me? Do you know them?”

  Jake saw that he was pointing to the bar area, where Eric and Susan were chatting amiably with a couple of young twentysomethings in flannel button-downs, a staple among the crowd. The dipshit was being about as subtle as a ten-alarm fire, talking so animatedly that people were starting to stare, despite the boisterous sounds of the crowd. Eric and Susan looked their way, frowning. Now, Jake was getting angry; his friends were getting upset, and they’d been having a nice time up until their uninvited visitor started running his mouth. Being drunk did not give anyone a free pass to be disrespectful.

  The mayor looked as if she was getting upset too. She glanced at the bouncer helplessly and signaled him to come over. He was as big as a house and looked mean enough to eat rusty nails for breakfast—the last person anyone would ever want to encounter in a dark alley.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Madison asked coldly as Ponytail pulled out his cell phone and aimed it at Eric and Susan. “Hey, stop!”

  “Come on, man—that’s not cool,” Jake said, moving his hand in front of the phone so that video couldn’t be taken.

  Ponytail moved the phone out of Jake’s reach. “It’s a free country,” he simpered.

  Jake was about to deliver a few choice words when a behemoth arm whizzed past his face. “Yah, grab this jackass,” he heard Chuck say, and then Ponytail was lifted off his feet as the bouncer seized him roughly by the collar, tearing most of it clean from his shirt.

  “You can’t touch me! Hey, help!”

  “It’s a free country,” Jake sang, enjoying the show. He couldn’t help himself. The guy did have it coming.

  Ponytail let out an incredulous yelp as the bouncer began rooting through his pockets and pulled out his wallet, removing the driver’s license. “You’re not from around here. Thought so.” He grabbed Ponytail by the shirt again and began dragging him toward the exit—an easy feat, since he was three times the kid’s size. “I think it’s time you head back to Olympia, partner.”

  “I didn’t do anything! You can’t—”

  The drunk’s head flew back as the bouncer cracked him hard on the nose. Within seconds, the front of his shirt was saturated in blood. Jake and John gasped at the overreaction, and Madison let out a quick, sharp shriek. Ponytail fell to the ground dizzily; the bouncer hauled him to his feet using a fistful of hair, punching him in the gut when he stumbled, and resumed dragging him away.

  Jake was starting to feel sorry for the guy. He’d only wanted him to go away, not be pummeled.

  “Jesus, is that really necessary?” Susan hollered as she and Eric approached.

  Jake glanced at the rest of the crowd, caught off guard by their strange reaction. As a musician, he’d witnessed his fair share of drunken bar brawls, yet never one that had escalated as quickly as this. Usually, the crowd stared at the display as if it was being provided for their entertainment; sometimes, they’d even hoot and holler. If they had a bit of class about them, they might even try to break up the fight, or at least attempt to talk some sense into the brawlers.

  This crowd, though, was pretending not to notice the violence unfolding before them. They sipped their beers and quietly continued their conversations, life as usual, just another normal night out in Clancy. Some turned their backs on the display altogether. Incredibly, a few shifted, and just when Jake thought they were going to intervene, they turned sharply and headed for the door as if fleeing from a fire.

  The few who dared look over appeared to be experiencing the same horror that Jake felt, yet they seemed reluctant to speak up. They shot nervous glances at the mayor, the band. Nobody wanted to say anything.

  “Guess you guys don’t like outsiders much,” Chuck prattled nervously.

  “Not when they act like that,” the mayor said distractedly. Her attention was focused on the bouncer and Ponytail, who was being hurtled out the front door. “There’s a sign posted right on the door which states that photography is prohibited in the bar.”

  “Guess he missed it,” Susan said, making her displeasure evident. “If that guy had any sense about him, he’d file an assault charge.”

  The mayor turned to look at Susan, as if suddenly coming to her senses. “Of course,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m going to have a talk with the owner about his staff. That was totally unacceptable. I’m sorry you had to witness that.” Mayor Moulden extended a hand and introduced herself to Eric and Susan.

  This seemed to soothe Susan’s anger. “It wasn’t like you were the one who did the punching,” she said with a half smile.

  “I just don’t want you to get the wrong idea about our little town.” The mayor pulled a small leather pouch from her purse, pinched out a few cards, and distributed them to everyone in attendance.

  Jake couldn’t help thinking of a greasy used car salesperson. He stared down at the card awkwardly; the font that identified Julia as mayor was three times the size of her accountant title. This did not surprise him. She seemed the sort to engage in politics even when she was off the clock, a bigger politician than she was an accountant. He found this icky yet strangely admirable. She had passion, at least, even if it was grossly misplaced. Because, without passion, what did a person really have?