The Blood Key (The Wander Series Book 1) Read online

Dr. Miller hadn’t believed in spoiling his patients, so access to sweets was restricted for ‘health’ reasons. Consequently, the candy bars around the register were looking scrumptious. I wondered how far Fletcher’s cash would stretch. I was still looking down, trying to make up my mind when the door to the store swung open. There was a bang as it hit the wall and bounced off.

  A muffled male voice screamed, “Gimme tha money!”

  My chin snapped up and my gaze locked onto the guy behind the counter. Shaggy dark brown hair, a five o’ clock shadow, huge hazel eyes and a black T-shirt. Recognition flared between us but there was no time to acknowledge it. Something hard poked me in the spine, right between the shoulder blades. I crushed the plastic wrapped chocolate in my fist then dropped it as my hands opened in reflexive surrender.

  The robber shoved me forward then leaned around to knock a display of miniature flashlights and lighters out of his way. The cheap cardboard and plastic fell without much noise. His shotgun was aimed center mass on the clerk. I tried to think of him as a stranger, but it didn’t work. Due to circumstances I wished he was. Tiny snippets of childhood kept flaring in my brain.

  We communicated with our eyes as I tilted my head toward the gun. He shifted to the side in preparation for me to make a move. I lunged forward, trapping the double barrels on the empty countertop, and launched the back of my head up into the criminal’s chin. He made a pained ‘oomph’ sound.

  I heard Izzy’s voice from beyond the racks of junk food. “Hey Z, what’d you buy for us to…what the..!”

  I couldn’t see her, I could only hear her and I damn sure wasn’t letting go of the gun. The dude was screaming in my ear and tugging with all his might against my full body weight. He stank—nicotine funk and body odor mingling to produce fumes that made tears well like hot acid saline. There was no giving up. None. Meth-head that he was, the robber still outweighed me, so if we kept this up I was going to lose.

  A deafening boom as the shotgun went off and cigarettes went flying in the air.

  More weight hit my back, making my hips dig into the sharp counter edge in front of me. My lungs expelled air and forgot to draw it in again. I gaped in pain and surprise but didn’t let go of the shotgun. One more hard push of pressure and then I was free—gasping. The force of my release made my fingers lose their hold on the smooth steel barrel. It slid forward, like it’d been thrown, onto the floor and out of sight. I half feared it would go off again from the fall, but it didn’t.

  The thief wasn’t screaming anymore. All I could hear was heavy breathing—some of it my own. I turned to see, Dominic Vargas, my brother’s childhood best friend, sitting on the unconscious masked man. Dom’s hands were twisted around the guy’s wrists so tight the skin was blanched to a pale yellowed color and veins bulged.

  He shook his long curly hair out of the way of one eye. “Hey, Zena. You think you can call the cops or something?”

  Izzy had her hands over her ears and her mouth was so wide one of the king-size candy bars behind her head could’ve fit inside with room to spare. She dropped her hands to stare in shock. “You know the cute guy, Z? Small world and shit, huh?”

  My lips felt numb and my ears were ringing from the shotgun blast. I opened and closed my hands into fists, trying to regain my equilibrium.

  Timothy the driver ran in the door of the shop with a drawn handgun, took one look at Dom and I, then holstered it. He plucked a phone out of an inner coat pocket and dialed what I assumed to be 9-1-1.

  I crouched by Dom until he was looking down at me. “Leave me out of it and say you saved us when the cops come.”

  He shifted his upper body closer, enchanting forest green striations of color giving his eyes a mischievous twinkle. “No. I’m telling the truth. You could use the good press.”

  Timothy the driver interrupted, “Mr. Fletcher requests your presence back in the car, Ms. Skala.”

  My nerves were frayed and snapping with imagined sparks. “Request denied, Tim. Fletcher can come in here if he’s so hot to talk to me.”

  I stood and Dom’s eyes followed my face then his gaze wandered down the rest of me.

  “You grew up, Zena.”

  He sounded surprised.

  I looped my arm through Izzy’s. “Thanks, captain obvious.”

  3 NOT SO FAST

  The police came in force. An ambulance showed up too, but since the only person who required medical attention was in the back of a squad car they left. It turned out the owner of the gas station was too penny pinching to repair his broken video surveillance system. None of our brush with death was recorded for posterity.

  Since Dom had insisted on the truth, I told the truth. The officer questioning me was built like a tank with wide rounded shoulders and a hard impatient mouth. His collar insignia had an oily thumbprint dead center making the chrome dull and lifeless. He kept asking the same things in different ways, like he wanted to catch me in a lie.

  “So you’re telling me you wrestled this dirt-bag’s weapon away from him?”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and tapped one foot. “For the third time, I didn’t wrestle with him. I held onto the shotgun and Vargas got him restrained.”

  A camera flash burst like distant white lightning through the front windows. There was an established perimeter of police units so the media vultures were in check.

  The officer squinted in distaste at the gathering horde. “And how do you know Vargas?”

  I put my back to the windows and hugged my elbows. “He was my brother’s best friend.”

  He made a clicking sound through his teeth. “Yeah, was, ‘cause your brother’s dead and nobody’s found the body yet. You got anything to add to that, Skala?”

  Fletcher’s voice carried through the claustrophobic confines of the store, “Are you harassing my client?”

  My guardian angel arrived with crisp steps, demeanor polished and aloof. He was half a foot taller than my interrogator and he used it to his advantage. Fletcher’s full gray eyebrows traveled upward as he peered over the rims of his shiny glasses and down his thin nose.

  “We’ll be leaving now. My client can be contacted through me for further questions regarding this case. She would be more than glad to testify in court when the time comes.”

  He used his taller, thinner frame as a wedge and popped me free into an empty aisle of snack food. His grip was a little too tight on my bicep.

  Words hissed into hot verbal steam, “I’m getting you home and you are not to answer your phone, the door, or go anywhere. Do you hear me?”

  I answered out of the side of my mouth, “Last I checked I’m not deaf, Fletch.”

  His nose wrinkled and his glasses slid further down. “That is not my name, Ms. Skala.”

  He was steering us toward the exit. Where was Izzy? Ha! I spotted her bright hair by the fountain drink machines. I watched as she leaned toward the officer in front of her and brushed his forearm with her fingers. Oh…my…God! She was flirting. The officer in question was eating it up. He looked young, maybe right out of the academy. His hair was cut military short and he had the squeaky clean fresh look of a Ken Doll. I wondered if he smelled like plastic.

  “Iz, we need to go.”

  She gave one last appreciative glance to the man in uniform and joined us with a hop in her walk.

  Curling glitter eyelashes fluttered as her clasped palms rested against one cheek in a dramatic pose. “My hero! Super Skala to the rescue.”

  I yanked her hands down. “Shut it or I’m dropping you on the side of the Interstate.”

  Fletcher mumbled, “I know just the spot.”

  Izzy’s expression went sour and she opened her mouth to respond, but Dom’s voice ran over what she would have said, “Take care of yourself, Zena. I’ll catch ya later.”

  Somehow I’d missed seeing him leaning against an endcap of plastic wrapped donuts and various other pastries that had avoided upheaval in the struggle. His arms were crossed over the band logo on his ches
t and he flicked his hair off of his face with a shake of his head. It made me want to take scissors to the unruly mass. A patrolman with a notepad shifted to watch us.

  Unbidden, a memory surfaced of hiding in a dark closet, trying to evade my brother during a game of house hide and seek. I’d been about twelve and Dom had been on the cusp of sixteen. That was the first and only time I’d been aware of the opposite sex in an interested way. He’d been oblivious. I was just a kid and his best friend’s sister to boot.

  The hole in the shelves behind the counter made me shudder. “Dom, you need a new job.”

  He turned, broad shoulders pulling the thin cotton of his T-shirt tight. “I’ll figure something out, Z.”

  A little zing of electric pleasure went up my spine that he’d adopted Izzy’s nickname for me. It meant he was paying attention. How stupid was I to think about that at a time like this? I shook my head at myself in my mind and followed Fletcher out the door with Izzy and into the circus of lights and shouted questions…again.

  4 GHOSTS

  The monstrosity that I’d called home would probably be a perfect candidate for a horror film. Ivy-covered brick, black eaves and latticed windows brought it all back. One touch of whimsy, courtesy of my stepmother, Rowena, was a fountain with a jumping dolphin spewing water in the center of the circular drive. Timothy pulled the sedan right up to the front walk.

  Security gates and overgrown woods would keep out unwanted guests. I felt myself relax by degrees into the buttery soft leather seatback at the thought of privacy—finally. I unbuckled and let the seatbelt retract while I stared up and up all the way to the pointed roof of a house that was now mine.

  Fletcher had filled me in on the drive over. Rowena was gone off to Europe and never wished to see me again…period. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that yet. She wasn’t my real mother but she was the only one I’d known. I shook off the melancholy and whispered, “Screw it.”

  Izzy asked, “Screw what, Z?”

  I laughed at myself and cracked open the car door to let some of the daytime air inside. It smelled like rain. The sky was a bumpy gray bowl overhead. Fall was often wet in North Carolina. I could hear the bugs singing in the bushes, my own welcome home insect orchestra.

  Fletcher grabbed my arm when I put a foot on the rolling decorative stones and shoved a manila envelope at me. The bottom was heavy. It felt like the right weight for keys.

  “Here, Ms. Skala. I trust you know your way around. The house has been vacant except for the groundskeepers for around a year. If you would like me to hire kitchen and cleaning staff, please let me know. I’ll conduct background checks on anyone I send, plus require confidentiality agreements be signed. The pantry and refrigerator have food; I’ve seen to it. There is no reason, I repeat no reason, for you to leave in the immediate future.”

  Izzy put her elbows in the seat to either side of her chest. It made her rather large breasts stand out even further. “So you’re grounding us, daddy?”

  Fletcher pushed his glasses up his nose and took a deep breath with his eyes closed. “I am not your father, nor would I want to be.”

  I pointed to the closed divider. “And what about Timothy? Does he stay here or with you?”

  He picked up a folder from the top of his briefcase and tapped it on his knees, “Timothy will return after he has delivered me to my office. He will stay downstairs in the servant’s quarters if you should have need of him.”

  I knocked his thigh with a fist. “Well alright-y then. Later, gator.”

  The keys in the envelope rubbed against the thick paper as I stood. Humidity hit and a clammy sweat broke out on the back of my neck. The braid helped but I was still determined to cut my hair short. It just felt right—like a new start. Out with the old and all that shit.

  White rocks settled under my feet with each step. The trees surrounding the emerald grass at both ends of the house were overgrown with curtains of kudzu. A dragonfly zoomed past my nose and I jerked in surprise. Izzy bumped into me from behind and latched onto my shoulders to steady us both.

  “Holy shit, Z, that thing was as big as a bird!”

  I smacked the envelope against my leg then started walking again. “Yup.”

  The keys felt cool in my fingers. I flipped through them; each was labeled with numbers. I dug in the envelope again in the shade of the porch, feeling around blindly until something sharp sliced the thin skin on one of my fingers. I hissed in pain and sucked on the salty blood for a second then pulled out the square slip of paper that had wounded me.

  Izzy was so close her breath was hot on my neck. “What’s that?”

  “It’s a list of what the keys go to. Looks like Number One is for the front.”

  I fumbled with the heavy ring until I found the right one. It eased into the lock so smoothly I wondered if Fletcher had sent a handyman around to spray the keyholes with lubricant. The hinges didn’t protest, enforcing my suspicions. Chris had gotten busted a couple times by the noisy dark wood behemoth when he’d come in past curfew.

  Dim grayish light streamed in from the windows around heavy drapes in the front lounge. That probably wasn’t the proper name for the room but I’d christened it that as a little girl because Rowena had used it to lounge in with her snooty friends. It was empty now. White sheets draped over the large couches and loveseats. The mantle was bare. No pictures.

  My mind’s eye remembered the family portrait that had once hung there. My father’s pleasant smile, halfway to dusky skin, and waving black hair; Rowena’s stiff blonde coif, my equally blond brother’s bright white-toothed smile and…me.

  The air held something. It tantalized my brain and stirred my thoughts. An undercurrent of something familiar nagged at me. I struggled to describe it to myself but right when it was within my reach, Izzy broke the silence.

  “Some place, Z. It looks like an abandoned museum, not a home.”

  “It’s not all bad. I’ve got some good memories here. Hide and seek was fun. And scavenger hunts. Chris did his best to keep his annoying little sister entertained in the winter.”

  I tossed the key ring up high and caught it in my cupped palm. “C’mon, let’s check out the kitchen.”

  Our steps seemed hollow on the patterned tile floor as I led my friend down a dark side hall and into my favorite place. I knocked the swinging door open with my palm and stared for a second. This was where the warmth had been for me in my early years. Father had forbidden Rowena any redecorating in this section of the house. It was all homey honey browns and cool flesh colored tans. A drop-side table was nestled in a breakfast nook and a bay window overlooked the inner courtyard and its overgrown vegetation. The house was built in the shape of an empty square with the private garden as the gem in the center.

  Izzy’s voice was hopeful, “This is nice.”

  “Unless my stepmother burned everything, my room isn’t all that bad either. Or the library. Or the pool.”

  She hugged one of my shoulders and looked out the window at the verdant jungle.

  “So your stepmom hates you because of your brother?”

  Rowena had hated me ever since my father brought me home with no explanation after one of his many expeditions. The downward spiral of my life could be traced back to the unexplained disappearance of his plane when I was eight.

  I avoided the question by wandering over to the center island and picking up the remote for the flat screen mounted high on the textured wall. The red power button depressed and the rectangular screen lit up. We were treated to a view of ourselves dashing through reporters outside the convenience store.

  Izzy cocked her head sideways. “Damn, how come you didn’t tell me my hair looks like crap, Z?” She straightened then groaned, “Ay Dios mio! Momma’s gonna have a litter. Eff an A!” She dug around in her pocket for her phone, which started ringing as soon as it was free of her scrubs.

  I padded over to the pantry while she argued with her mother in Spanish. I didn’t understand most of it anyw
ay. I knew a butt-chewing in any language though—those were universal. Fletcher hadn’t been lying about the food situation. We were stocked for a new World War, a zombie apocalypse or another Ice Age—whichever came first.

  A box filled with snack-size bags of chips caught my eye and I snagged two. When I came out Izzy was yelling with big one-armed sweeps for emphasis. At one point she stooped to tugging on her over-processed hair in frustration. I ate my crunchy orange treat and then dug into her bag when I discovered I was still hungry.

  Iz got loud and then louder still. She ended the call with prejudice then turned off her phone completely. Her cheeks were flushed and she was breathing through flared nostrils.

  “Everything okay? Do I need to have Timothy take you home when he gets back?”

  She rolled her shoulders, tossed the blank-screened device on the counter so hard there was a good possibility it might have shattered, and shuffled into the pantry. Her hands were full of noisy crinkling bags of cookies and chips when she returned.

  “See what you’ve got to drink, Z.”

  I crumpled my trash and lobbed it at her head. “Say please.”

  Izzy emptied her armload onto the island. “I’m your honored guest. It’s your duty to satisfy me in every way.”

  My eyebrows went up. “That sounded dirty, Iz. I don’t have a lick ‘er license.”

  Her cackle filled the room, dispelling the gloom that had crept in with my unwanted, unpleasant memories. The allusion I’d made to liquor had me dashing to the freezer side of the stainless steel refrigerator. Sure enough, buried under boxes of frozen pizza was Rowena’s forgotten vodka stash. I extracted a tall frosted bottle.

  “Care to get shitfaced in celebration?”

  Izzy whistled in appreciation. “Break out the cups!”

  I found the top shelves of the fridge stocked rows deep with Cheerwine and Sun Drop. How or why Fletcher had taken the time to find out what soda I liked didn’t jive with his bad attitude from earlier. His actions said he cared and his words indicated the opposite. One of my hands crept up to caress the neat crisscross folds on the back of my head. My father used to braid my hair exactly like this when I was small. Guilt snuck up. He probably wouldn’t approve of Iz and me getting drunk. We were under age. My brain rationalized it. We were house bound. No one was going to see us.