Unwelcome
BRADY CARNEGIEwrinkled his nose, clutching the plastic bag with the cell phone in it to his chest almost like a child.
Well, children’s pictures had beenonthe cell phone, but not the good kind. The terrible kind, imprinted in Brady’s unwilling gray matter, burned behind his eyeballs for the rest of his life, those sweet, innocent babies and the preacher of the revival tent church nearly forty miles away.
And of the man whose skeleton was currently charred beyond recognition in the burned-out carcass of his police SUV.
The phone, relatively unscathed, had been unlocked, and somebody had made the homemade pornography the phone’s wallpaper.
Deputy Roy Kuntz showed up in some of those pictures, but most of them featured his brother, Preacher Donnie Ray Kuntz as the star.
Brady had lived in the area for about a year and some change. He’d heard of Preacher Donnie Ray, who worked under the big revival tent about a parking lot away from areallybig recently refurbished house.
And he’d worked with Roy. Hadn’tlikedRoy. Had donebackflipsand double shifts and worked holidays to avoid being partnered with him. Hadneverthought the man had his back.
But they’d been coworkers nonetheless, and these… theseabominationson the phone by Roy’s barbecued vehicle were blood-freezing and awful.
The sheriff, Arlen Cuthbert, didn’t seem as disturbed as Brady.
A big man, much of his high school football weight sagging on his middle-aged bones and much of his gray hair reduced to a tired hula skirt around his bald scalp, Arlen Cuthbert nonetheless held some power in this weird territory in California.
East of San Diego and Los Angeles, they were also south of Meth and north of Hell—at least they were on some of the mapsBradyhad seen. On the one hand, there wasn’t much out here but a whole lot of long, desolate roadways that cut through the Mojave Desert and Death Valley.
On the other hand, there were small towns strung together by hundreds of miles of two-lane freeways, towns that had banks and meth labs and mini-marts and innocent civilians and desperate people, all of whom could clash at unreasonable times.
Brady had done his research before he’d taken this job—he’d seen that the crime rate had been steadily on the decrease over the last two years before he’d transferred. He’d wanted in on that action, some police work that gave his profession a good name!
The one thing he’d realized over the last year was that whatever was affecting the crime rate, diminishing the mob presence, reducing the meth labs, getting rid of the dangerous people with guns who liked to knock over small businesses and banks—whatever the hell this force for good was, it wasnotthe police force.
Not south of Meth and north of Hell, anyway.
And it sure as shit wasn’t Arlen Cuthbert.
“Well, Donnie Ray and Roy, they was tight,” Arlen said.
“This isn’t guys at a barbecue!” Brady heard the disgust cracking his voice and wondered at his own sanity. The contents of this phone were an abomination—everything he knew about the world said that. How could Arlen be so unfazed? “This is twopedophiles and a whole bunch of kids who are never going to be the same!”
Arlen hawked and spat, the spittle landing close enough to the still smoking remains of the SUV to sizzle. “They’ll be okay, I guess,” he said, not meeting Brady’s eyes.
Brady fought the urge to scream. “What about Roy?” he asked. “Willhebe all right?”
Arlen stared at the blackenedthingin the SUV for far longer than Brady’d had the stomach for. “Don’t reckon it matters much now what he did when he was alive,” he mused, and Brady wondered if he could be convicted for shooting his boss.
“It matters to those children!” he snapped. “It matters to their parents! MyGod, Arlen, somebody killed Roy Kuntz. Don’t you even care?”
“You got anywhere to start looking for that man?” Arlen asked him.
Brady gestured helplessly to the other wreck on the road, an empty Chevy Impala that lay, crushed and useless, a good seventy-five yards away.
The car was demolished—nobody could have walked away from that disaster. And yet, nobodyhad. There were no prints in either direction of the wreck, and although Brady had searched for fifty feet in either direction of the entire collision site, he couldn’t find a sign thatanybodyhad been nearby when the Impala had T-boned the cop car and gone rolling off into the desert.
So… what? Was it a magic fucking Chevy Impala? It just tootled along, causing destruction and mayhem wherever it may roam? Brady loved cars—always had—but as far as he knew, his dream of a magic car that talked and made decisions of its own had gone the way of Santa Claus and the Easter Buggy… erm, Bunny.
Brady choked back a snort of laughter at that, and Sheriff Cuthbert eyed him sourly.
“What’s so goddamned funny?” he asked.
“Who was driving the goddamned Impala?” Brady snapped.
