Sign Off (Caught Dead In Wyoming, Book 1)

Chapter Twenty-Three

Mike opened the trailer's unlocked door.

"Mona?" There was no answer. He called again as he took a step inside, with me on his heels. "That's her car out front. She's got to be here."

"Maybe she's in the bathroom," I suggested. The door in the southwest corner labeled restroom was closed. The desk Burrell had sat on during my first visit was now as neat as the large desk in back.

"Mona," he called louder. No answer.

"Maybe she left," I offered.

"Without her car and leaving the safe open?"

He was right. The safe along the back wall had its door hanging wide open. Papers spilled from its bottom shelf to the floor. Two small, navy blue folders with gold lettering rested atop the white papers.

After a glance that way, I started after Mike, who was skirting around the desk closest to the door, which blocked a direct path to the safe.

I sniffed. "What's that smell? Like something's burning."

"More like a-" Mike stopped so abruptly, my nose connected with his back.

"What-?"

But, beyond the corner of the second desk, I saw what.

Blood. Glinting wet where it puddled on the floor and just starting to dry stiffly in the pale hair like some grisly hairspray. Blood that meant Mona Burrell had gone from "who" to "what."

"She's dead." Mike's voice sounded like someone had a grip on his throat. His body blocked part of the scene from my view, but from where he stood there would be no screen. He would see much more than a sweep of blue, a pale patch of flesh.

My future's ahead of me.

Now she had no future.

I stepped a quarter turn away. A spider had been busy, building a web from the door pulls of the deep gun cabinet to the windowsill. Droplets of red clung to it, outlining the intricacies that man so idly pushed aside without thought when they got in his way. A fine spray of blood traced the web, brought it to light like dyes that doctors use to trace veins.

My head throbbed, the pain so piercing it brought tears to my left eye. My vision all seemed tinged red, even the slanted glass of the open back window was stained with the color. Smells clashed and clawed at each other, the mustiness of the carpet, the slight sweetness of blood, the sourness of the emptied body, and mingled in with all of them, the strong, oily scent of Mona's perfume. My stomach dipped, rose toward my throat, then plunged.

"Let's get out of here, Mike."

He hadn't moved. "Should we . . . should we check the body?"

"You said she's dead," I said sharply. If there was a chance, and we'd just been standing here . . .

"I meant for clues."

"No." But I found myself looking around, taking in details. Identifying the navy folders as passports, the papers as business contracts. The stretch of blue as the sleeve of the sleek jumpsuit Mona Burrell wore. The patch of flesh as the back of her clenched fist. Had Mona gotten close enough to her killer to grab hair, scrape skin? "We don't want to interfere with the crime scene. This isn't like Three-Day Pass Road six months later. The experts will get a second chance at this murderer. Let's get out of here. We'll call it in from the car."

Out in air that seemed so pure and sharp after the cloying, acrid mix of death, my mind started working again. Experts could tell a lot more from the body and crime scene than we could, but if there was one area I prided myself on it was reading people.

"You call, I'll drive," I ordered, and Mike, ashen and with a faint tremble in his hands, silently handed over the keys to his four-wheel drive. He called 911 on his cellular phone and told the dispatcher what we'd found and where. After a second of listening, he looked at me while he repeated, "Who am I?"

I shook my head. We'd tell the sheriff's department we'd found the body, but I wanted some time first.

"I'm-" Mike scraped the ring he wore across the mouthpiece. "What? Can you hear me? I think the line-"

He pressed the "end" button. Not bad.

If my head would shrink to normal size so my neck didn't have so much to hold up and if my stomach would stay in place instead of threatening to take permanent residence in my throat, we might pull this off.

Closing the phone, he looked around. "This is the way to the Circle B."

"Yup. Now, make another call. Get Diana up here."

His eyebrows rose, but in short order he was telling Diana to meet us without letting anybody know where she was going.

Mike listened, then said to me, "Diana's just about to leave some event in O'Hara Hill, and she's assigned to hit a political fund-raiser barbecue for Thurston at six, she wants to know if she'll make it."

"No."

He repeated that. More listening, then Mike said, "She wants to know if she'll be in trouble for more than stiffing Thurston."

"Yes."

He listened about a sentence's worth, said, "Okay, 'bye," and hung up.

"She said she has one short chore to do then she's on her way. She'll meet us at Burrell's." His voice dropped. "I hope to hell you know what you're doing."

"Diana said that?"

"No. I did."