The Lethal Bones Read online

Maybe because the space in between those open ends was shrouded in darkness. The low sun couldn't light it all. The shadows hiding most of the alley made Ben's heart pump so fast, he had to take a few breaths when he felt lightheaded. Standing like a statue, waiting for his body to make a decision and either enter or flee.

  In one hand, he held the package. About a foot long, a cardboard box with duct tape wrapped around the edges. No markings on the box. Ben wished for a gun to hold in his other hand, and then, he caught himself. A gun? He thought he would never pick up a weapon again in his life after Rocky Mountain National Park.

  But now, holding one might alleviate some of the dread he could feel inching up into his throat. Yesterday evening, in that abandoned office room, he had stood opposite Ember Clarke and pretended to be fearless. He’d pretended he didn’t care if meeting someone in this dark alley could be dangerous or not. Maybe he’d wanted to impress the hot woman giving him the flirty eye and complimenting his butt. Maybe he’d wanted the promise of an adrenaline rush, as much as he wanted the teeth of the bear that had killed his father.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he whispered into the alley. Was he really going to risk his life to acquire a set of bear teeth? So what if the bear had killed his dad. Was it worth it?

  In the moment, Ember had seemed so persuasive, and he’d been feeling especially nihilistic. It had seemed like the perfect storm for his next move. But now, standing here, he had to question the decision-making of the Harvey Bennett of twelve hours ago.

  He breathed, tapping his foot on the cold pavement to disperse some energy.

  Ben turned back around to the street behind him. Only a few blocks from a major road, this side street was bare, with no cars or pedestrians at the moment. He'd seen a car a couple of minutes ago. Now, as empty as the main streets in the tiny Midwest towns he'd frequented since leaving Rocky Mountain.

  He could turn around and leave. Flip this package into a trash can next to the mailbox, then catch a ride back to his truck. He knew how to disappear. Ember would never find him again.

  Or, he could walk into that alley and see what was next for him.

  “Screw it,” he said, and he took a step into the alley. The first raindrops fell, at once sporadic and then, within a few seconds, everywhere. Streams ran down his forehead as he tucked the package underneath his arm.

  Going in, he could feel the difference in the air. Thicker, saltier, harder to push in and out of his lungs. Each step felt like a thousand pounds of force striking the ground. Twenty feet in. Forty feet in. Eighty.

  Halfway into the alley, he was in almost complete darkness. While he could hear a little of the street traffic coming from somewhere, he mostly heard only rain. It smacked off the brick surfaces and collected in quick puddles along the uneven ground.

  And then Ben saw something.

  A man emerged from the shadows. He must have been pressed up against the side of the building to stay almost invisible; then he took a step forward. In the dim light, Ben couldn't see much. This guy was young, maybe twenty. Black, short and skinny, with a well-groomed helmet of hair atop his head. Bright eyes and a sharp face.

  “You Ben?” the kid said, and the tenor of his voice told Ben he was definitely young. Maybe not even twenty years old. He moved within five feet and then planted his feet wide.

  Ben nodded. “What am I doing here?”

  The kid laughed. “She got you running silly errands for her, that’s what you’re doing here. Creeping up in the ghetto with a package under your arm like Ember’s personal UPS man.”

  At the mention of Ember’s name, Ben felt a wash of calm come over him. He was in the right place and the right time, and he had someone in common with this kid out here in the alley. He didn’t know why Ember had said this would be dangerous for her. Just a creepy alley with a kid standing here.

  No longer being alone made everything different.

  “Ember got a way about her, doesn’t she?” the kid asked.

  “You could say that.”

  “Yeah, I could. I know she seems a little intense and scary, but she’s good people. Takes a little while to get to know her, but she’s alright.”

  “I’m not interested in getting to know her.”

  The kid’s head cocked a little. “Then what you doing out here, bro? I figured you were trying to hit that.”

  Ben pursed his lips and said nothing.

  “That for me?” the kid asked, eyeing the package.

  “Yeah,” Ben said as he held it out. The kid put out his hand, and he was an inch away from touching it when they were interrupted.

  The crack of the gunshot made Ben’s eyes shut.

  He couldn’t move, and even though he was only blinking — a split-second, or less — he felt frozen in place. He wasn’t used to being shot at, certainly not while standing in an alley and not knowing it was coming. He tried to force himself to react.

  Things were happening in slow-motion, though. He couldn't move, but he did manage to push his eyes open. When he did, the kid was still standing opposite him.

  But now the kid had a hole in the middle of his forehead. Total shock on his face. A trickle of blood darkened the edges and ran down, mixing with the rain pelting the kid. His eyes had gone totally blank, yet they were still staring. Staring right through Ben. That would be the detail Ben would remember most. Those blank eyes.

  Staring. But dead.

  The kid took one feeble step back and then collapsed, facing on his back, as the rain pelted around him.

  Another gunshot broke through the sound of the rain, this time hitting the kid in the chest. His body shook after the second bullet entered him. Blood leaked out of his mouth.

  Ben squinted toward the end of the alley. Emerging from the lit pathway was a tall man, white, dark jeans, and a black leather jacket, jet-black hair. As dark as Ember's. But, instead of running down to the shoulders, this guy wore his short and spiky. Like the Statue of Liberty.

  He was holding a pistol, except it wasn't like any gun Ben had ever seen before. It had a stock on the back and a curved magazine sticking out of the bottom. A cross between a pistol and a miniature assault rifle.

  Ben didn’t have to freeze — he hadn’t moved since he’d heard the first shot — but he realized once again that he was fixed in place, his body completely ignoring his mind’s commands to run. The man advanced, gun up, stock against his shoulder. He had a weird, sideways grin on his face, but his eyes were dead. Dark, cold, icy brown. That smile seemed painted on. Nothing on his person indicated he was law enforcement. No badge, no big yellow or white letters on his jacket.

  “Drop the package,” the man said, in an accent that sounded vaguely European.

  Ben found he couldn’t move. He wanted to run, but his feet were glued to the pavement underfoot. On the ground next to him, the kid was still wriggling, little spasms over his arms and legs. No way he could be alive, though, after a bullet to the middle of his forehead and one to the chest. Why is he wriggling like that?

  “Drop it!” the man shouted, and put his finger on the trigger. He raised the gun up to his eye level.

  Ben broke his paralysis. Package clutched under his arm, he turned and ran toward the open end of the alley.

  7

  Ben’s feet stomped on the pavement out of the alley. Puddles splashed up onto the legs of his jeans. With the rain coming down in sheets, the sound filled his ears. Had the man with the spiky black hair shot at him? He couldn’t tell. And it didn’t matter.

  He ran — no looking back, only out into the open air of the now-cloudy day. With everything in him, he pushed himself as hard as he could to escape the alley, out onto the main street.

  Once in the open, he found one person walking on the other side, an older man ambling along. No cars. No police. No other people. No one who could help.

  Ben didn't bother to yell at the older man. But he also knew he couldn't stand here for one second longer. He didn't want to look back because he
couldn't stand the thought of the man with the gun coming after him — not less than one minute after seeing the kid take two bullets in the alley.

  He turned to his right, and his eyes landed on the front door to the apartment complex. Not a good option. Too close. He needed more distance between him and his attacker.

  So he ran along the sidewalk, not stopping for anything. Not even to look back. No bullets came in his direction, so he figured he had a bit of a head start, at least.

  What the hell had Ember gotten him involved in? Ben kept seeing the man's eyes as he'd sauntered down the alley. The gunstock against his shoulder, rain cascading down the sleeves of his leather jacket. That smug smile on his face as he marched toward Ben.

  At the next intersection, Ben turned right. He found himself on a more substantial street, four lanes, with traffic moving. Pedestrians on either side. Drugstore, grocery store, gas station. No one and nothing paying any attention to Harvey Bennett having an anxiety attack on the sidewalk.

  He finally turned to look behind him and found nothing. No one after him. No guns. No car screaming down the road, piloted by a man with evil brown eyes and a Statue of Liberty haircut. Just regular Denverites, going about their business.

  Ben aimed for the gas station. He sprinted toward the front door, glass but lined with a metal frame. He had to skid to a stop when he realized he couldn't push the door open. He'd have to pull. He took a breath, shook his head to calm himself, then yanked it back, and stormed inside.

  An older man, gray hair and wearing huge glasses, stood behind the cash register, a glass shield protecting him — only a small cutout at the base of the glass enclosure. There were five people crammed inside the tiny store, three in line and a couple more milling about in the single aisle, shopping for candy and drinks. Ordinary people doing ordinary things. Be normal, he told himself.

  Ben’s shoulders heaved. He stood, breathless, arms out. Package held limply in one hand. He took a breath to yell, but only a violent cough came out.

  A woman standing in line cocked her head at him, frowning. “You okay, guy?”

  “No,” he said. “Someone needs to…”

  He trailed off, and he realized he was about to ask someone in the room to call the police. Then, he realized he had a phone in his pocket and could easily do that himself. But, like a lightning bolt, the thought struck him that maybe talking to the police wasn’t a good idea. He didn’t know who any of these people were. He didn’t even know who Ember was. What if calling the police actually put him in more danger?

  He needed to think. Needed to get away and talk to Ember. Or talk to Lucas. Ben needed answers and a safe place to process everything.

  He lifted his free hand. “I’m fine. Everything is fine. Sorry.”

  He stumbled out of the convenience store and took stock of the area. In the parking lot next to the building was a tent, like an outdoor kiosk — something from a market. Underneath, Ben could see a table, but no people in the immediate vicinity.

  But it was sheltered from the pounding rain. He headed for it and bumped into the table when he wasn't able to stop in time. His trembling hands dropped the package on the table.

  As his body came to a halt, his brain exploded with adrenaline. Thoughts fired. The sound of the rain attacking the top of the tent. The honk of a car horn nearby. His pulse thumping against his neck. All these sensations bled into one big mess inside his brain. Everything was too much — the stimulation was too intense.

  He leaned over and vomited his breakfast onto the parking lot’s pavement. His head thudded, ears ringing. An electrical current of terror ran through his body, and he steadied himself against the table until he could get his breathing under control. It didn’t work, and he ended up gripping the table with a shaking hand and arm, nearly hyperventilating.

  The woman from a minute ago came out, her keys in one hand and a bottle of kombucha in the other. She padded across the parking lot, her neck craning to watch Ben as she walked. She opened her mouth to say something to him, but then she averted her eyes and closed her mouth. In another few moments, she was in her car and leaving. For some reason, he felt better when she’d left.

  Ben’s gaze landed on the package. It was wet, with one corner of the duct tape fallen away. Time to see what the kid in the alley had died for.

  Gritting his teeth, Ben ripped away the duct tape and pulled at the cardboard. It was wet enough that it came away in chunks until he could see the contents. There was a smaller rectangular box inside, roughly the size of a shoebox — white cardboard, with gold cursive writing on the side. His head buzzing and his vision blurry, Ben couldn't read the words.

  Still, he had to know. He yanked the smaller box out of the package. There were brown shapes on the front, but he couldn’t make them out. His fingers traced over the top until he discovered the box had a lid.

  He had a brief flash of realization that what he was about to open might explode in his face, but that realization was stifled by his drive to know, to understand, what exactly that kid — Ember’s friend — had died for. Ben lifted the lid and looked underneath it. When he could see the things inside, his brow furrowed and he took a step back.

  A dozen individually wrapped chocolates.

  8

  Dalton stood over Kenneth’s body. One bullet to the head, another to the chest. The second bullet probably hadn’t been necessary, but Dalton did like to make a point. He could have done a lot worse, but he didn’t want to take the chance anyone would recognize the hit as one of his own.

  Soon, assassins from the other Branches would find out about this. Kenneth's death needed to appear to be a hit from one of the other Branches, not from Five Points. There was an art to a clean kill, or a deliberately messy kill, or a clean kill designed to look like a messy kill. There was an art to all of it, and there was an art to reading the death scenes of a Branch kill. He was a master at both, and he needed to get this one right.

  He liked to think of it all like baking, even though all he'd ever really baked was a packet of pre-made cookies. To him, the fulfillment of a contract was like baking a casserole. With the right ingredients, proper preparation, and careful monitoring, what came out could be delicious or disastrous. It could be palatable, understood, or it could be wholly obscene and incomprehensible.

  As such, every kill had a signature. Some killed in a way that was difficult to read. Dalton liked to think his kills were instantly recognizable, which is what made little Kenny’s death such a challenge.

  Kenneth was on his back, with his legs spread, one arm high, one arm low. If Ember had made this kill—which she would never have in real life due to her stupid "code" about not killing innocents—Kenneth never would have seen it coming. The arms splayed out at an odd angle made it seem as if he'd been trying to escape. That wouldn’t work.

  Dalton tugged on Kenneth's legs to straighten them, and then he arranged the corpse's arms at his sides. The blood spatter pattern wouldn't mean much since the escalating rain would wash it all away within minutes.

  The heavy droplets thumped on the shoulders of Dalton's leather jacket and slid off, leaving him dry on the inside. One of his favorite reasons for wearing it. While it didn't often rain in Denver, it didn't hurt to be prepared for the weather.

  The spikes in his hair, though, weren't immune from the rain. He could feel them flattening against his forehead. He used to take great care to style them up, twisting the little chunks into spikes. But now, his hair mainly formed itself according to muscle memory.

  Dalton folded the stock of his pistol and slid it inside his jacket. He looked toward the end of the alley, where the mysterious man had fled, only moments before. Who was that guy? Why was he meeting with a member of the Five Points Branch at eight in the morning?

  Dalton wiped rain off his brow and sighed, a bit of a smile poking around the side of his mouth. "Poor little Kenny. All this time you thought no one knew about your little friendship with Ember. You thought you were gettin
g off scot-free with those late-night phone calls, the meetups at the gun range to practice, going to movies together like you were her little project, a decade older than you."

  Dalton stood in front of Kenneth and stared into the kid’s dead eyes. “What was Ember bringing you? Who’s the chump she sent on this suicide mission? I wish I could ask you, but it’s a little late for that now.”

  None of this had been planned, obviously. Dalton had learned of this clandestine meeting only an hour before, and he’d rushed to get here and take advantage. Dalton wasn’t quite ready to launch his bigger plan, but this little rendezvous may have bumped up his scheduled a bit. Maybe now’s the time. Perhaps he would never have been ready on his own, and he needed this corpse in the alley to give him the final push he needed to set everything in motion. Thank you, Ember, he thought.

  He heard the rustle of footsteps splashing puddles through the alley — no need to check who.

  “Mr. Dalton?” said a timid voice.

  Dalton pushed his facial muscles into an expression of concern before he turned his body in that direction. He looked up to see Rennie standing with a couple of Five Points guys. “Yes?”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Our friend Kenneth here had an unfortunate accident. Someone from the Boulder Branch—Ember Clarke, I think—killed him.”

  Rennie’s brow knitted together. “Ember did this?”

  “Yes. I saw her do it.”

  “That’s crazy. She’s one of the most dedicated followers of the Club rules. Are you sure she killed Kenny? I mean, this is just —”

  Dalton sneered, then stood. “Are you calling me a liar, Rennie?”

  “N — no, of course not, Mr. Dalton. If you say it happened like that, I believe you.”

  Dalton stood and shucked rain from the sleeves of his jacket as he eyed Rennie. Yes, you do.

  Rennie cleared his throat. “Do we go after her?”

  Dalton shook his head. “She’s gone. But, she did have someone with her. A guy I’ve never seen before. White guy, tall, solid, short brown hair. He was trailing behind her in the meeting, maybe to serve as some sort of distraction, so Kenneth wouldn’t see a cowardly sneak attack coming.”