Page 40 of The Last Grift
Gabriel really wished Elton had been able to come along or that he’d still had his sat phone. Someone to talk to would be helpful about now. He knew he shouldn’t stall any longer; he needed to take a closer look and the day was only drawing closer to sunset. The last thing he needed was to get stuck up The Valley in the ass-back of nowhere in the dark with no goddammed phone.
“Fucking get this over with. Bigfoot isn’t hiding in there.”
Gabriel slid from the driver’s seat onto the dirt and gravel of the access road, and the soles of his boots sunk deep into the sludge.
“Lovely.”
Picking his way to higher ground, he managed to avoid the huge, muddy, water-filled pothole near the front tireand took that as a good sign. A sign at least. The puddle looked almost bottomless. A person could possibly drown in it if they weren’t careful.
Stomping his boots against the swampy earth for reasons Gabe couldn’t explain, he inhaled a lungful of the cold mountain air, blew it out again, and then forced his feet to start toward the shed. Jokes about banjos aside, he felt a deep reluctance he couldn’t explain. It was probably the fact that he was on the run and right now felt extremely exposed and alone, but the mob wouldn’t be waiting for him here. They were refined criminals, more likely to ambush him in a place closer to civilization.
An ambiguous scent that he couldn’t immediately identify floated on the air. Gabe paused again, trying to work out what it was. Not the skunky scent of pot. Another, stronger gust of wind whipped across the clearing, and the smell was gone.
“Hello? Gordon MacDonald? Are you in there?” he called out quietly as he moved closer to the decrepit building. As if Gordon wouldn’t have already heard Gabe’s arrival. If he had been around, he probably would have announced his presence. Then again, he could have had Gabe in the sights of his shotgun by now. The hairs on the back of his neck rose.
If he hadn’t promised Elton that he’d “poke around,” Gabe would have been back behind the wheel of the truck already.
To one side of the shed, a lumpy pile of something unidentifiable was covered by a plastic tarp held down by large rocks. It wasn’t hard for Gabe to imagine a body under there or—well, a body. He peered closer. Unless it was a small person, he was going to assume construction supplies. He definitely saw the side of a large white bucket, the kind a person could buy at the hardware store.
“Gordon?” he called out again, wondering what else to say. Christ, he’d only met the man once. He couldn’t very well say, “It’s me, Gabriel, the guy who roughed up a couple of your customers the other day.”
“Gordon? Elton Cox asked me to see if you’re up here, and if you are, are you okay? He’s worried about you.”
Still no reply. The only thing he heard was the rustling of the wind as it returned for a third pass, catching at the boughs of the evergreen trees and shrubs behind and around the shed. The blue tarp flapped and rattled under its influence, making him flinch.
“It’s a fucking tarp, Gabe. Get a grip.”
Forcing himself to cross the remaining few yards to the shed, Gabriel banged his fist against the door. Which, he realized, was stupid of him because the building was no more than three or four hundred square feet. If anyone was in there, they’d heard him coming, probably from miles away.
“If they could still hear,” Gabe muttered grimly. A deep sense of foreboding came over him. He didn’t like the feeling.
Open the door, Chance. Get it over with. Standing in front of a closed door isn’t going to change whatever might be inside.
Thanks, Mom.
The door creaked slightly open.
“Here goes nothing,” he whispered as he reached his hand out. Heidi’s voice was right—he needed to get it over with.
Grasping the heavy fisherman’s-style rope looped through a hole in the wood in lieu of a doorknob, Gabriel pulled the door open as far as he could, which wasn’t much. A flat rock he’d thought was a sort of welcome mat or front step was set just high enough to keep the door from swinging wide.
The smell Gabe had been aware of earlier was worse in the shed, much worse. He slapped a hand over his nose and mouth, not that it helped. There was a decidedly earthy, organic deadness to it. His first thought was that an animal hadcrawled inside and died, but some instinct he would have preferred to ignore told him it wasn’t an animal.
Gabriel forced the door across the rock until it was wide enough that the afternoon light was able to creep over his shoulders and get inside for a look. It took a couple of seconds for his eyes to adjust to the dim. There was just one window, and it was covered with newspaper, so the only significant light came from the open doorway. It illuminated an unpleasantly still form.
“Shit.”
Gabriel stumbled backward, flailing his arms and nearly falling on his ass in the muddy driveway. He desperately wanted to get away from what he’d found. He wanted to have never found it. “Shit, shit, shit.”
At the opposite end of the shed lay a body. A human body. The smell was that of decay, of decomposition. Covering his mouth and nose, Gabriel forced his feet to inch forward, intending to—well, he didn’t know what he intended. If it was Gordon, he was beyond help. Biting his lips together, Gabe grasped the edge of the door and forced it open enough that he could squeeze through the gap.
But just a few short steps inside and Gabe knew the body wasn’t Gordon MacDonald’s, which was good. Unfortunately, he did recognize it, which shouldn’t be possible considering he’d been in the area less than a workweek.
Dwayne Fucking Perkins. In the middle of his forehead, where there hadn’t been one a couple of days earlier, was a small, round hole. The hole was tidy, neat—death had been almost instantaneous, Gabe guessed. He certainly wasn’t going to check for a pulse. Not with that smell.
“Motherfucker.”
NINETEEN
