There was a heavy pause. Then Wren took another drink, a long draw on the bottle this time. When he finished, he set the beer down on the table with a sharp click.
“Dying,” he said shortly. “It makes him… short-tempered.”
The thick, greasy smell that had rolled off Earl still coated the back of Ledger’s teeth. He licked them absently and tasted the salty-sweet taste of fresh rot. Maybe some of that death was Earl’s own.
“Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy,” he said. “Any chance he’ll die before my bones are forfeit?”
Wren crooked his mouth to the side. “It’s always possible,” he said. “But he’s been dying for over a century, so he’s outlasted a lot of people and their bones.”
That gave Ledger pause. He had thought the bones were just a graphic threat, an upgraded pound of flesh. That didn’t mean Earl wouldn’t pull his ribs out through his navel—threats existed to be carried out—but he’d not considered it a pattern. He thought about asking what Earl wanted with the bones, but…
Stick to the matter at hand. While he stillhadhands.
Ledger took another drink. Then he set the glass down and nudged it away from him. He’d started to feel it, and he wanted to get some things nailed down first.
“I misspoke, didn’t I?” he said. “Promised more than Bell owed.”
Wren nodded. He glanced around the bar as he talked, black eyes restless as he took in the late-afternoon customers.
“Bell promised us the property deed,” he said. “You went withwhateverthe boss was looking for. You’re lucky it wasn’t a virgin to sacrifice.”
One of the drinkers at the bar caught part of that. He swiveled around to glare at them. Ledger lifted the glass and nodded blandly. He didn’t recognize the man, but he had been gone a few years. People came. People went. People got drinking problems.
“Keep that talk to a minimum,” Ledger said. “My dad’s reputation did not die with him.”
Wren twisted around in the chair to look. Something about the younger man’s stare made the man at the bar uncomfortable. He started to get off the stool, but the woman with him grabbed his arm. Her fingers dug into the heavy tanned muscle, and she muttered something furiously to him. Wherever she said was enough to make him sullenly settle back onto his stool.
“I could take him,” Wren said mildly as he turned back around. He smirked at Ledger, his mouth tilted crookedly with amusement. “If you need me to protect you.”
“Yeah, they’ll probably just burn the house down,” Ledger said. “It wouldn’t have occurred to them while Bell was alive, but deals with the devil only last till you die.”
“I thought you wanted to burn the place down,” Wren said.
“That was before. If there’s something that will stop my shin bones being turned into wind chimes, I’d rather it not go up in flames.”
“That’s not what he wants your bones for,” Wren said.
Ledger still wasn’t going to ask.
“So if it isn’t just the deed—the real one,” Ledger said, “what is it that I have to find before the equinox?”
Wren picked up one of the discarded chicken bones and bit it in half. The splinters of it crunched between his teeth, and he washed it down with the last of the beer.
“His death,” he said. “But start with the deed. Without that, you might as well give up and walk into traffic now.”
That was it. Ledger had had enough for the day. He drained the last of the whiskey in his glass.
“I have the feeling it won’t be that easy to get off the hook.”
CHAPTER5
THE MOTEL CLAIMEDto include a free breakfast with the room rate.
Ledger supposed, technically, they fulfilled that promise.
There were four pots of coffee—one had a peeling sticker with Decaf written on it—and a tray of bagels under a grubby plastic dome set out in reception. A drunk woman in a sky-high miniskirt and a fishnet shirt slumped at one of the small tables, her head in her hands and a cup on the table in front of her. Her stringy blond hair was long enough that the pink-dyed ends touched the table.
She had been there yesterday too. Ledger hadn’t paid close enough attention to be sure if she’d changed her clothes.
