Spectre Black by J. Carson Black Page A

nothing.
    “Is Jolie here?” he asked. “She said to come by and we’d settle up.” He motioned to his truck with the landscaping logo on the side.
    The detective was no pushover. “You’ll have to come back later. Jolie’s out at the moment.”
    Landry let his disappointment show. “Do you know when she’ll be back? I have a job in Deming tomorrow that’s gonna take several days, and to be honest . . .” He slouched a little, swiveled to glance at his van. “I usually get paid up front—she’s really good about that—and I kind of need the money.”
    She wasn’t buying it. “Tell you what,” she said. “If you give me your number, I can have her call you.”
    “That would be great.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a burner phone, and texted her the number. No more tearing off slips of paper to scrawl on, or asking her to go pull off a sheet from the pad by the phone. No muss, no fuss. She looked down at her own phone, then slipped it into the pocket of her jeans—
    And started to close the door. Landry said, “If you talk to her, tell her Cyril came by.”
    “Who?”
    “Cyril. She’ll know.”
    “Cyril. Like the saint? Saint Cyril?”
    “That’s the one.”
    He waited on the street parallel to Jolie’s. Fifteen minutes passed, then twenty. A few minutes after that he saw the headlights of the detective’s car pulling onto the road. He stayed at least two lights behind—there were three traffic lights before she turned into a newer neighborhood. The streets were quiet, with tall palm trees and pueblo-style condominiums, most of them pale yellow. Brown poles stuck out of the top of the stucco near the roofline like the pegs on Frankenstein’s forehead. Typical New Mexico fare. Landry stayed way back and out of sight with the van, training binocs on her. She pulled into a condominium’s driveway, the automatic garage door opened, and she drove inside. The garage door rattled back down.
    He parked around the corner and walked past. It was getting dark. He wished he’d been closer and at an angle where he could see if there was another car parked inside.
    Jolie had chosen the right person to look after her place while she was gone. But she didn’t know the danger. Landry did.
    He punched in a number he knew by heart. His neighbor, Louise, the sixty-seven-year-old transplant from Washington, DC, where she’d worked in the State Department.
    She answered immediately.
    “How’s Barkley?” he asked. “Is he still with us?”
    “He died two days ago.”
    “I’m sorry,” Landry said. The wolfhound was old and sick, and even though it had been coming for a long time, he knew Louise was heartbroken.
    But it did clear the path for him. “Will you do me a favor?”

    Landry made the arrangements. It would entail another break-in at Jolie’s, but he knew she’d thank him later.
    If she was still alive.
    He firmed it up with Tom, the pilot who’d flown him out here. Gave him instructions where to go and when would be the best time.
    “I’ve done extractions before,” Tom said.
    “Just do it soon. I have a bad feeling.”
    He sat alone in a booth in Dina’s Diner with his own image beside him in the mirror. Wondering if Jolie was still in communication with her fellow detective and pet-sitter. Maybe she’d left for parts unknown. If Jolie was alive, if the detective passed on his message, she would text him—unless she thought it was a trap.
    If Jolie was on the run, she’d confided in this woman. Or at least, trusted her fellow detective to take care of her animals.
    Landry felt good about that—but he knew that the enemy was much more dangerous than Jolie’s pal could imagine.
    He felt it—felt it in his jaw. An electric feeling: By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes .

    Back at the motel, he turned on the television.
    The evening news came on—local, not national. Canned music blared like trumpets at a medieval fair. It was the same canned music