Buried Secrets by Evelyn Vaughn Page A

in the middle of nowhere, she was a pain in the butt and from the look of how badly she’d done the sign of the cross for Doña Maria, she wasn’t even Episcopalian, much less Catholic.
    But he was attracted all the same—the first time since Gabriella’s death. That meant seeing her die would hurt, and he had enough to hurt about to go looking for any more.
    After another swallow of liquor, Zack relaxed enough to sink onto the neatly made bed. He had calls to make—Cecil Taylor, the Ambrosia Café, even Ashley Vanderveer. But he could make them from the bed as easily as from one of those puny plastic chairs.
    Even against the too-soft mattress, something poked him in the butt. He groaned, rolling onto his hip and feeling the coverlet beneath him. When he felt nothing, he stood and felt it more thoroughly. Still nothing.
    Then he touched his back pocket—and fished out the silk-wrapped charm the old Bruja had sold him. One for him, one for Jo. Protection, the old woman had said.
    He looked at it suspiciously, then sniffed it. It smelled like incense, like her santuario had. It made him wonder—
    Zack stiffened then at a new sound. A bad sound.
    Tickety-tick-tick.
    Alone in the middle of his motel room, he forced himself to turn toward the covered windows—where he could clearly hear something skittering across the glass.
    Tick-tick, tickety-tick-tick. Like little fingernails being drummed along a tabletop, or—
    For a moment, there was silence. Then—
    Tickety-tick-tick. Scratching. Like something barely corporeal trying to scrabble its way in from the darkness….
    Zack tried to force himself to draw a breath; for a moment, even that seemed touch and go. Damned windows! Finally, somehow, he managed. After that, he was able to draw his gun.
    More scrabbling. God only knew where he got this sickening certainty that seized his gut, his chest, but he had it. Something was out there in the dark, and he did not want it in.
    Somehow, Zack managed to count to three, then duck across the room and slap off the lights. For a moment, he felt safer.
    Then he heard it again, scratching.
    Tickety-tick-tick-tick-tick. And a long, inhuman moan.
    It was the moan that finally keyed him in.
    â€œHell!” Zack exclaimed—at his own foolishness, not whatever-it-was trying to get in. There was no whatever-it-was!
    The room still dark, he checked out the peephole, then silentlyundid the chain lock on the door. He turned the knob and lunged out, all in one smooth movement, just to make sure…
    And saw nothing but a darkening parking lot.
    The wind moaned again, hot and unending. Then he got hit in the face with blowing sand, even as it skittered across the window. Tickety-tick-tick-tick.
    â€œDamned son of a…” He went back inside, still muttering, and turned on the lights. At least Sheriff James hadn’t been here for that little farce!
    He dumped out the rest of his glass of bourbon, in case those two swallows had made him more susceptible to mind games.
    People in his line of work couldn’t afford to get scared.
    It made them dangerous.

Chapter 7
    D ane and Sigrid Thorson’s den was done in whites—carpet, furniture, drapes and glass-topped tables. Silver-framed snow-scapes hung on the walls. But none of that could erase the fact that they lived in a double-wide mobile home with a broken air conditioner. Jo, with Zack, conducted the entire interview—their third, counting Ashley’s—under the hum of a box-fan.
    Still, the older couple were gracious hosts, offering cold “mead”—which tasted like a flat, highly alcoholic beer—and answering questions. As a priest and priestess of Asatru, a Norse form of paganism, they were apparently used to questions.
    â€œFirst of all, we aren’t Nazis,” said Dane, while Zack scribbled notes. Jo tried not to watch Zack’s wrists. “Some Odinists are, but not our clan. Asatru