Devil in Texas(61)

Randie cried out, covering her mouth with a shaking hand. "Oh God, this is all my fault." Tears were streaming down her face as she pulled a crumpled paper from a pocket in her skirt. "About 20 minutes ago, I found this letter on my pillow. I thought it was a joke. A Halloween prank."

Frowning, Sadie took the page and read it aloud for Wilma's benefit:

"If you want to find your daughter, look in the cemetery. Come alone, or you'll both become permanent residents."

Wilma plucked the paper from Sadie's hand. A moment later, she dropped the page as if she'd been burned. She was muttering invectives and making arcane gestures.

"What?" Randie cried. "What did you see?"

"Blood on the moon. There's no time to lose. I will alert Marshal Wright. Sadie will go with you."

"But the paper said—"

"Irrelevant." Wilma waved this protest away like it was smoke. "You will wear identical costumes. You will work as a team to lure the madwoman out."

"We must operate under the assumption Poppy has an accomplice," Sadie said. But she refrained from mentioning the crushed pastilles. She figured Randie would escalate from fear to hysteria if she thought Jazi had been drugged—or worse. "We should wear bullet proof vests."

Randie frowned. "There's a vest that stops bullets?"

Sadie's neck heated as she realized she'd just betrayed the true nature of her work. "Uh... yeah. Rex wears them. We can borrow a few of his."

Randie looked like she was about to question the efficacy of this plan, but Wilma interceded.

"Dépêche-toi!" The Mambo was herding them like goslings toward the ladder. "You're burning daylight, as Cass would say!"





Chapter 21



Cass had a roaring in his brain, a burning in his gut, and a weight on his ankles that kept trying to drag him into the darkness. Dimly, he realized he tottered on the edge of the abyss. If he let go, he could ooze into a deep dullness. No pain. No worries. No struggles. An eternity of nothingness yawned before him.

But to an adrenaline junkie like Cass, "nothingness" was the definition of Hell. So he fought his way back to the surface. Scratching and clawing at shreds of shadow, he embraced the pain. He welcomed the nausea. He opened to the flashing cyclone of light, funneling through his brain.

"Damnation," he groaned as pinpricks of sensation became screaming nerves. He was lying on his side, staring at a lumpy, stinking puddle that he suspected was vomit. Maybe even his vomit. None of his limbs worked.

"Did you have a nice nap, Snake Bait?"

"You're alive?!" Cass had never been so happy to hear a wisecracking pain-in-the-ass in his life.

"Of course, I'm alive," Collie retorted. "God hates me, and Satan fears me."

Cass laughed—or rather, he tried. The sound came out more like a wheeze. The boy was somewhere behind him in the gloom. Cass hadn't yet figured out how to turn his body so he could see more than the vomit, and five inches beyond that, the black expanse that looked like a marble wall.

"Just for the record," Collie said. "That wasn't much of a rescue."

"You're welcome." Cass grunted. He was wrestling the hemp that bound his wrists behind his back. "Where are we?"

"Judging by the lack of windows, the R.I.P., and the coffin—"

"We're in a tomb?!"

"I was going to say a really lame Halloween party, but yeah. 'Tomb' works, too."

Cass cursed again, this time succeeding in rolling to his haunches. Now he could see the light source that cast a dim, ruddy glow on the walls. A candle sputtered inside a canvas sack, which was lined with sand. The luminaria sat on the coffin. Judging by the low level of the flame, the wick would soon gutter.

"How long have I been out?" Cass demanded.

"Long enough for Vandy to chew through my ankle ropes."

"Good. Get your butt over here."

Pressing the sides of his feet together, Cass triggered a special mechanism in his right boot heel. A knife sprang from the toe.

Collie grunted with satisfaction. Apparently, he'd been looking forward to this moment. Plopping down on his buttocks, he started the tedious task of cutting his wrist bonds on the blade.

Meanwhile, Cass craned his neck to the side and spied a ray of light. It came from the outside, piercing a keyhole. "Can you pick the door's lock?"

"It's got a keyhole, don't it?"

"Doesn't it."

"Doesn't it what?"

"Your grammar, boy."

"You think I give a rat's ass about book-learning right now?"

"Do you ever?"

"Nope."

Cass sighed. At this rate, he'd be edifying the kid for the rest of his life. "So how did you wind up in here?"

"I was stupid."

"You?"

"It happens."

The ghost of a smile touched Cass's lips. Considering the nightmare Collie had lived through, the kid was remarkably calm.

"It happens? That's all you're going to tell me?"

Collie shrugged. His hands were free, so he started working the knots that bound Cass's wrists. "Poppy gave me some soul cakes. Vandy took one whiff and refused to eat them. That's when I suspected something was wrong with the cakes. Unfortunately, I'd already washed one down with bourbon."

"You think she used bad eggs?" Cass asked cautiously, remembering the suspicious stinging sensation on his neck moments before he'd passed out.

Collie snorted. "I think Poppy is a bad egg. That woman's so crazy twisted up inside, her brain's rotting out. I heard her talking to Hank. They're in cahoots. They arranged for Bodine's rifle to backfire. And the Satin Siren to burn down. And a half dozen sodbusters to have 'fatal accidents.' They even arranged for some sugar planter back in Galveston to drown, after he jilted Poppy and asked some other woman to marry him. Apparently, Hank is Poppy's nephew. He knocks off folks she doesn't like, and she keeps him out of jail."

Well, that certainly explains a few things.

"So you're saying Poppy doesn't like me?" Cass asked dryly.

"Well, you did help Baron make a new will," Collie deadpanned. "Apparently, she got Hank paroled so he could plug you and Tito from the grocer's roof. Only in your case, she had a change of heart 'cause she wants babies."

Cass's neck heated as he realized just how close he'd come to being buzzard bait that day. Apparently, when Poppy had bailed him out of jail, she'd intended to lure him into an ambush. Her "change of heart" would explain why she'd kept throwing herself between him and a hail of bullets.

"So when Hank failed to gun down Tito," Cass theorized, "Poppy tried to poison him—and you and Sadie, too, because she decided you were threats. When Baron visited Sadie in her dressing room, he ate the soul cakes Poppy sent. Now Baron's in the hospital. That proves he didn't know about the poison."

Collie grunted. "I don't think Baron pays enough attention to Poppy to know what the hell she's doing—whether it's forging his name or tampering with his medicine."

Cass muttered an oath at this revelation.

At last, the ropes fell away from his wrists.

Collie climbed to his feet. "I don't blame you for staying clear of Poppy's bed," the boy said grimly. "But since you refused to give her babies, she ain't feeling so forgiving anymore. She told Hank to fetch some kerosene. My guess is, she doesn't want our bodies—or Jazi's, either—to be identified when this tomb gets re-opened on All Souls Day."

"Jazi?"