“I see,” Temi said, then dismissed this information with an elegant shrug. How one managed to shrug elegantly, I wasn’t sure, but she did it. “The Outback was extremely hot that time of year—I was there in January—and we saw quite a few dangerous creatures. Did you know that the bite of a funnel-web spider can kill a human being in two hours? Also, I was told that the Inland Taipan has the most toxic venom of any snake in the world. It paralyzes you and eats away at your muscle tissue. It gets dissolved and passed through your kidneys until you start peeing out reddish-brown urine.” She wriggled her eyebrows, clearly going into the garish details because Simon seemed like someone who’d appreciate them. And she was right.
He chomped on his burger as she spoke, listening in rapt fascination. Or just rapt... enrapture. In truth, she could have recited the plot of her favorite chick flick for him and received a similar result, but this would be better in Simon’s eyes. If he hadn’t been in love before, he would be now.
I shook my head and stole a couple of his fries. “If one of those snakes shows up in your shower, I’m not going in to get rid of it.”
“Understandable,” Simon said. “But you’ve got my back on the funnel-spider, right?”
“We’ll see.” It must be a testament to my oddness, but these tales actually filled me with a longing to travel to the continent. I wanted to travel anywhere, really, having never been farther afield than California to the west and Texas to the east. Maybe someday we’d do well enough with the business to finance a few out-of-country excursions.
“Actually,” Temi said, “I understand the Inland Taipan is non-aggressive.”
“Until some idiot runs up to take pictures of it for his blog?” I asked.
She smiled faintly. “Maybe.”
“Hmmph.” Simon picked up his phone again. “They still haven’t left the hotel.”
“Perhaps they’re brainstorming their next move,” Temi suggested.
“Or maybe they found your transmitter and tossed it in a storm drain,” I said.
“No way. It’d be flowing away under the city if that had happened.”
I filched a few more of his sweet potato fries and found a corner of the table on which to open my laptop. I skimmed the local news sites to see if there’d been any recent updates on our creature. According to the Daily Courier, people had been calling in all morning and reporting sightings. Supposedly, it’d been spotted everywhere from the community college to Thumb Butte Recreational Area to the back aisles at Home Depot. There weren’t any pictures to support these claims, and every person described it in a different way. A seven-year-old girl in the Prescott Lakes neighborhood blamed it for a missing cat and said it looked like a rainbow unicorn with two horns and a goatee. You had to love kids.
If the creature continued its west-to-east trek, it might already be on its way out of Prescott and headed to Camp Verde or Sedona. I imagined the legions of tourists in Sedona running out on the red rocks to take pictures of it... right before they were eaten. But if the monster had left, wouldn’t our Harley friends have left too? Either way, if the creature preferred nighttime excursions, it wouldn’t be out and about today.
“Temi, why don’t we go check out some of those estate sales?” I said. “I can show you the other half of our glamorous business, and maybe the scarcity of people on the streets will let us find uncrowded spots and get some good deals.”
She’d long since finished her meal and nodded agreement at this.
Simon was busy refreshing the screen on his phone so I swiped his last couple of fries. “You staying here?” I asked.
“Yeah, might as well. I’ll trade you the van for your laptop.”
“All right, but don’t get ketchup between the keys again. And don’t slip anything into my laptop bag that we didn’t pay for.”
Unlikely since the Raven served condiments in little bowls on your plate rather than leaving squeeze bottles out on the table, but one never knew what he might find. He’d never touch the paintings listed for sale on the walls—his thefts were always food-related and usually never for items worth more than a buck or two—but he might think the linen napkins would make nice souvenirs.
CHAPTER 11
Temi lifted up a rusty bicycle rim with most of the spokes broken. “When you said estate sales, I was picturing mansions full of antique sofas, priceless paintings, and marble busts.”
“You were picturing that in Prescott?” I asked from beneath a picnic table where I was sorting through old apple crates full of vinyl records and self-help books from the 60s. Older books were more my forte, but I put aside a signed first edition of Sex and the Single Girl. That one was still in print and ought to bring a few bucks. “I know there are some trophy homes up in the hills, but I think most of them are the second houses of well-to-do Phoenix entrepreneurs rather than the twenty-third homes of blue bloods with way too much inherited money to spend.”
“I suppose I was at least thinking that there’d be fewer cobwebs.” Temi swatted at a nice collection in the door frame. We were in the back of an old garage that had started its life as a barn. It was packed to the rafters, with a single path winding its way past the precarious junk piles.
“If the dust isn’t to your taste, you could join the people admiring the furniture in the house.”
“When you say furniture, are you referring to the green plaid sofa with the broken springs or the coffee table made out of plywood and cable spools? I simply ask because I wasn’t sure if those qualified for such a lofty label and thought perhaps you’d seen something someone might actually want.”
“Nope.” I squirmed between the legs of the table and poked into another crate. “That’s what I meant.”
“I don’t mind the dust.” Temi took a deep breath—a bracing breath? “What can I do to help?”
I pulled myself out from under the picnic table and pushed aside a laundry basket full of car parts, possibly related to the half-assembled car in the backyard, but just as likely not. Once I could see her, I decided tall, athletic, and well-dressed Temi looked out of place in the dust-and-rust-filled garage. She might have fit in once, but nine years had changed her a lot more than it had changed me. I wondered if it was harder to have never had money and prestige than to have had it and lost it. I doubted I’d ever know. With my grubby hands, stained jeans, and faded T-shirt, I fit right into that garage and I probably always would.
“Look, Temi, you don’t owe me any explanations, but I’ve been wondering why you’re here. If tennis isn’t an option for you anymore, why not go back to school? I’m sure you could stay with your parents to save money while you’re studying.”
She grimaced. “I can’t go back there. I stopped in for a couple of days, and it was... awkward is a nice way to put it.”
“I don’t get it; your parents are nice.”
“My parents didn’t think much of my decision to leave for Florida all those years ago. If I hadn’t been given a full scholarship to the academy...” Temi plucked a cobweb off her shoulder. “My parents were fine with tennis when I was a prepubescent girl and it was a hobby, but Yaiyai never thought it was appropriate for girls to run around hitting balls with sticks.” This last part she said in her high-pitched Yaiyai-imitation tone, one of an eighty-year-old woman who had a cane she swung like a cudgel at all the young men in the neighborhood, because she was certain they were thinking impure thoughts about her. “My parents became less and less enamored with it when it started taking more of my time.”
“I remember that. They wouldn’t drive you to the tournaments, right? You had to get rides and stay with the other girls on the team?”
Temi nodded. “You only saw the tip of the iceberg. We had a lot of disagreements. Once I was offered that scholarship, I believed I could be independent and didn’t need them. We had a big blowup on the night before I left. If you give up your studies and do this, you’ll never be welcome in our house again. Words of that nature. I threw some curses around, too, words a
young lady shouldn’t know, much less say.”
“Yeah, I had a lot of those in my vocabulary too.” Though I’d never dared fling them at my parents.
“They forbade me to leave and wouldn’t help me get to Florida. I basically ran away from home. I hitchhiked and stowed away on freighter trains to get there.”
“I didn’t know that. At fourteen? You’re lucky you didn’t get mugged... or worse.”
“I know. There were a couple of scary incidents. When I got there, I handed over a parental release form with forged signatures. That first year, I kept waiting for the police to come and haul me back to New Mexico. I guess my parents never filed a missing person’s report though. I got the feeling they were waiting for me to fail and come back with my tail between my legs. That made me more determined than ever to succeed. I put an insane number of hours into my training, and when it paid off, and I started winning tournaments at the pro level... I don’t know. I thought they’d be happy, that they’d admit they were wrong, and that my choice had been right. That it’d all been worth it. But they always thought it was a crime to pay people money to play sports. And they never agreed with the jet-setter lifestyle, flying all over the world to compete. A waste of oil and the precious few resources the world has left.” This time she was imitating her dad’s voice—I’d known the family long enough to recognize the words without the impersonation though. “Even when I was succeeding beyond my own expectations... it didn’t matter to them. They never called or wrote, but I heard their words through my cousins’ mouths. They felt they hadn’t raised me right. They saw me as a failure.” Temi’s usual equanimity had faltered during her soliloquy, and she leaned back, blinking rapidly with her eyes toward the rafters. “I can’t go back there and prove them right.”
“Temi, you’re not a failure. It’s not a crime to go down a different path than the one your parents have in mind for you. It’s normal.” I probably should have patted her on the back and offered a sympathetic shoulder instead of a lecture, but I wasn’t good at comfort and commiseration. Besides, I didn’t know what she thought about our last meeting as teenagers, but I didn’t want her to think I was trying to hit on her.
“I’d believe that if they hadn’t been right in the end. The life I chose... I didn’t think it’d be so fleeting. I thought I’d have plenty of time to go back to school once I finished my pro career, and that I’d have enough money at that point and wouldn’t have to worry about finding a place to stay while I studied.”
I decided not to point out that she would have money now if she hadn’t been buying Jaguars and who knew what else. I probably would have made similar frivolous purchases if someone had handed me a few piles of cash.
“You could sell the car,” I said.
“I know. That’s on the table, but I wouldn’t get nearly what I paid for it two years ago.”
“Better sooner than later... like after it gets mauled by a rock-throwing monster. You keep hanging around with us and that’s liable to happen.”
Temi managed a smile. “Why do you think I opted for separate lodgings?”
“I assumed Zelda wasn’t up to your usual sleeping standards.”
“Oh, I don’t know. The van doesn’t seem much worse than the Motel 6, but you and your... friend are proving to be magnets for trouble.”
Before I could decide if I wanted to refute the comment, or explain that, yes, Simon and I were indeed just friends, my phone beeped. I pulled it out, expecting another “They haven’t moved yet” text message. Instead it read, Got something. Come get me?
Even though I was sure he had an ulterior motive in this tracking scheme, my heart rate still took a jump when I read the note. I grabbed the books and knickknacks I’d found. “Time to check out.”
“What does that entail in this industry?” Temi waved toward the items and their lack of price tags.
“Haggling with the owner until neither of us gets a price we’re happy with.”
“Ah.”
“Then we rush over to pick up Simon before he gets himself into trouble. More trouble.”
CHAPTER 12
Business had picked up at the Raven Cafe by the time we returned, finding Simon at the same table, hunkered over my laptop. There weren’t yet enough people that the servers felt compelled to glare at him for hogging seats when he’d finished his meal hours earlier.
“What’ve you got?” I asked, pulling up a chair.
Temi sat across from him. He gave her a shy wave, but focused on me. “You know those pictures I took?”
“The ones of the mauled bodies that are too garish for T-shirts? Yes.”
“I didn’t upload those, but I did share some of thrashed vegetation and footprints, except I missed something when I was posting them.” Simon pointed at the screen where the blog from our website was displayed. Even though I had a half-written review on Arrowheads & Stone Artifacts: A Practical Guide for the Amateur Archaeologist I’d been meaning to finish, I’d been avoiding the site since he started posting evidence of our adventures in the wilds of Prescott. Somehow I thought that book review might disappoint the crowd flocking to our blog in search of monsters. “I was reading through the comments people have left—two hundred and twelve of them, by the way.” He gave me an arch look.
“Any of them buy anything yet?” I asked.
“No.”
I returned his look with my own get-to-the-point-then expression.
“But this guy said he enlarged one of the pictures I took of the forest right after the police arrived.” Simon was pointing at the comment, so I read it for myself, sharing the last half aloud.
“‘Nice choice to use a phone to take such important pictures. At least get an app that lets you up your ISO, lower your aperture, and lengthen your shutter speed. My five year old could have done better with her Fisher-Price camera.’”
“I have an app,” Simon said. “The problem was that my hands were quivering with adrenaline. Anyway, here’s the picture in question.”
He tabbed over to photo-viewing software, and I found myself admiring a slightly blurry image of the forest at night. He outlined a corner and zoomed in. I gripped the edge of the table. There was a dark bump sticking out of the side of one of those trees, one that had...
“That’s the creepiest eye I’ve ever seen,” I said.
Temi came around to the back of my chair to look. “Are you sure it’s an eye?”
“It looks like an eye to me.” Simon pointed. “There’s the outline of the head.”
“Its eye is... iridescent.” It reminded me of spilled engine oil.
“The head is weird too,” Simon said. “It’s too dark to see, but it doesn’t look furry to me. Or maybe the fur is extra short. And look, no ear, at least not one that protrudes.”
“Definitely not a bear,” I said, though I’d never truly believed it was. “Unless some mad scientist has been tinkering with bear DNA and making some creative alterations.”
“I suppose that’s possible.”
“Of course it’s possible. Haven’t you seen how crazy large tomatoes are these days? Genetically modifying things is all the rage.”
“I know that,” Simon said, “but I thought that since we have some Vulcans down here, we might have a real life Predator too.”
“Oh, please, they’re not Vulcans. Real aliens wouldn’t look like aliens on Star Trek. Or Predator.”
“What is Predator?” Temi asked. “Aside from a noun.”
Simon didn’t say anything to her, but his stunned expression spoke loudly.
“Sorry, Temi,” I said, “I forgot to tell you that if you’re going to work on this team, you’re going to have to cultivate a basic background in science fiction books, films, and television shows.”
“That’s... helpful for archaeological digs?”
“No, for understanding Simon.”
Simon nodded solemnly. Judging by Temi’s dubious expression, she wasn’t sure how important communicating with him would
be.
A phone bleeped.
“Oh!” Simon’s hand lunged down to yank it out of his pocket so fast that he almost fell off the chair. “They’re moving.”
He slammed the laptop lid shut, and I gritted my teeth. I would have reminded him that he was manhandling my computer, but he was too busy stuffing things into his pack and knocking over his chair in his haste to stand up.
“We have to hurry,” he said. “The tracker only has a mile range.”
“Are we sure we should be bothering them again?” Temi asked.
“No, but I’m hoping they won’t notice us bothering them. We can slip in, see what they’re digging up, get a sample of the language, and slip out.”
“Is that all he wants?” Temi pointed to the door. Simon had already jogged out of the cafe.
“I’m not sure, but he’s not getting anything else.” I patted my pocket, thinking I still had the van keys, but they were missing. “Kid’s a klepto,” I muttered and ran after him.
Though Temi clearly had reservations, she followed me. Zelda was parked right outside, a testament to the lightness of the traffic today, so we caught Simon before he zoomed off, though he did already have the engine running. Temi climbed in, and I slid the side door shut a second before the van backed out of its parking space. Simon threw it into drive fast enough that I tumbled across the carpet and bonked my head on the refrigerator.
“No, no,” I said, “don’t wait for us to get our seat belts on. We’re fine.”
Both of Simon’s hands gripped the steering wheel, and his phone rested on his thigh. If he heard me, he didn’t give any indication of it. I was fairly certain he ran through the light on Gurley Street, too, though with my butt planted on the floor, it was hard to be positive. I’d laugh if all this effort turned out to be for tailing our prey to the Prescott Denny’s.