Haunted by Kelley Armstrong Page B

Victoria.
    “I’m going to call you Victoria,” she announced.
    The Nix stopped whispering. “What?”
    “I’m going to call you Victoria.” She paused. “Unless you’d prefer Vicky, but I don’t really like Vicky.”
    “Victoria is fine,” the Nix said. “Now, we—Wait, they’re talking to you.”
    Jolynn popped out of her reverie and smiled at her friends.
    “Hmmm?” she said.

    “That dress Rachel was wearing,” Dot said. “That’s the same one you wore to Buzz’s party last month, wasn’t it?”
    “Probably the exact same dress I wore. I did donate it to charity.”
    Dot snickered.
    “Oh, and speaking of cast-offs,” Nellie said. “Did you notice Millie’s handbag?”
    Dot arched her brows. “Was that a handbag? I thought she was carrying…”
    Jolynn tuned out again and stifled a yawn.
    “Can I kill them yet?” she asked the Nix. “I’m getting awful sleepy.”
    “Yes. That’s the perfect excuse,” the Nix—Victoria—said. “Yawn again, but don’t hide it. When they notice, tell them you should be leaving, and get up.”
    “What? Leave? But I haven’t killed them!”
    A sigh fluttered through Jolynn’s mind. Victoria explained the plan again. She was so clever. They were going to be best friends. Yes, siree, friends for life. Jolynn shivered, barely able to suppress her grin.
    “Good,” Victoria said. “Now follow that with a yawn.”
    Jolynn yawned, and lifted her hand to cover it, but missed.
    “Oh, my,” she said, wide-eyed. “Excuse me.”
    “I think someone’s getting sleepy,” Dot said with a smile. “Do you want to stay here tonight, hon?”
    “Oh, please, if I could.”
    Jolynn lifted her handbag from the chair. She peeked inside. The shiny metal of the gun winked. She winked back.

    “Oh, wasn’t that fun,” Jolynn said as she rummaged through the kitchen cupboards. “Did you see the look in their eyes?” She pouted. “Too bad we couldn’t let them scream.”
    “Not with people sleeping in the apartment overhead. The gunshot was loud enough, even through the pillow.”
    “You’re right. And Nellie did kind of shriek. That was nice.” She lifted two knives from the drawer. “The boning knife or the cleaver?”
    “You’ll probably need both.”
    “Good idea. Oh, and what about a saw? I think Dot keeps a saw in the closet. One of those little ones, for cutting metal and stuff?”
    “A hacksaw.”
    “That’s it. Should I get that, too?”
    “If you can find it.”
    Jolynn found the hacksaw right where she remembered seeing it, in the closet with some other tools. With the hacksaw and boning knife in one hand, and the cleaver in the other, she headed for the bathroom, where Dot was waiting in the tub.
    This was going to be such fun.
     
    Two trunks. That was all that remained of the luggage from that morning’s train from San Francisco. Two black trunks with silver handles. They looked brand-new, not the sort of thing you’d expect someone to abandon at the train station…unless they had a good reason.
    The moment Samuel saw those big trunks, he knew someone was up to no good. Damn things were big enough to fit two, maybe three, crates of bootleg hooch. The owner probably saw a few uniforms milling about, got cold feet, and ran. The Southern Pacific railway didn’t hold with bootleggers. As a baggage-checker it was Samuel’s job to, well, check the baggage. And if there were as many bottles in these trunks as he suspected, no one would miss one.
    He marched over to the trunks. The minute he got within a foot of them, he reeled back, hand shooting up to cover his nose. Goddamn! If that was hooch, he didn’t want even a sip of it. Smelled like something curled up and died in there. He was surprised the baggage-handlers in San Francisco hadn’t noticed. Maybe it hadn’t smelled that bad before spending a half-day in a baggage car, baking in the August heat.
    As Samuel reached for the latch, a pickup truck backed up to the receiving dock. A