Dance of the Bones

Startled, Lani looked around. Henry Rojas stood just outside. She rolled down the window. “Have they found something?” she asked.

“I’m not sure,” he said, “maybe.”

She didn’t spot the syringe until it was coming through the open window. She tried to dodge away, but Henry caught her wrist with his other hand and held it motionless while the needle bit through the sleeve of her lab coat and plunged into her arm.

“What the hell?” she demanded. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Saying nothing, he maintained an iron grip on her wrist until Lani felt a strange lassitude spread through her body. She tried to yell for help, but the ­people gathered by the Quonset hut were too far away and totally focused on what was going on there.

The next thing Lani knew, she was being shoved roughly to one side as Henry moved her from the driver’s side to the passenger side by lifting her useless legs over the center console.

As the paralysis closed in, her mind stayed focused long enough for her to realize that he’d given her something powerful. Depending on what it was and the dosage involved, she might awaken in as little as half an hour or it could take far longer. And when she did wake up, would she have her wits about her or would she be stuck in some kind of date-­rape-­drug confusion and fog?

Henry was behind the wheel now. When they reached the highway, he turned the wheel sharply to the left and sped away.

How soon before someone comes looking for me? Lani wondered. How long before they realize I’m gone?

A NOISE AWAKENED GABE—­A METALLIC noise of some kind that meant someone was coming. If it was Henry, Gabe knew he had to be ready, but where was the knife? It was no longer in his fingers and for several desperate seconds, he was afraid he’d lost it. But then he found it again—­right where he’d left it—­in his pocket.

Tim José lay beside him, burning with fever and still as death. Gabe could hear his friend’s shallow breathing, but that was all. In the coming battle, there would be no help from that quarter. It would all be up to Gabe and nobody else. Henry had left the two boys bound and helpless. He had no way of knowing that they were loose. The fact that Gabe was armed and ready to fight was the only element of surprise the boy had on his side.

Flicking the knife open, Gabe gripped it tightly and willed his cramped muscles to obey him when the time came. That was when he realized that, for the first time in his life, he didn’t need anyone else to do the fighting for him. Gabe Ortiz himself was ready to do battle—­ready to kill if necessary—­if that’s what it took to save Tim’s life and his own.

For several long seconds, the only sound in the oppressive darkness was the dull hammering of Gabe’s own heart. Then he heard something else, someone shouting his name. The sound seemed to come from somewhere far away. When he tried to answer, Gabe was surprised to find that his tongue was swollen. No words came out of his mouth, only a hoarse croak.

The shout came again. In the background Gabe heard the frantic barking of a dog and the wail of a siren.

“Gabe, where the hell are you?” Gabe heard the desperation in his father’s voice and tried his best to answer.

“We’re here,” he said, “right here.” But it didn’t seem as though anyone outside the box could hear him.

Then, to his immense relief, there was a sudden shaking and rattling as someone opened the tailgate on the truck. And then a dazzling beam appeared in the darkness as light entered through one of the ventilation holes. A moment later, the box itself moved, as though it was being pulled from the bed of the truck and placed on what felt like solid ground.

“I hear you, Gabe. We’ll get you out. Hold on. There’s a padlock,” his father said. “Somebody get me a fucking crowbar.”

Gabe almost giggled at that. He had never heard his father say a bad word before—­not ever, not once. That was when Gabe remembered. He and Tim had both soiled themselves. He’d grown accustomed to the stink, but what would happen when other ­people saw them that way? What would they think? Would they point at them and call them babies?

No, he realized. They would not. He and Tim were supposed to be dead, but they hadn’t died. It didn’t matter how they looked or smelled. They were alive.

As the hasp gave way, Tim stirred beside him. “What’s happening?” he mumbled. “Is he coming back?”

Gabe flicked the knife closed and pressed it into his friend’s feverish hand. “No,” he said. “It’s my dad. They found us.”

The lid opened. Fresh air and more blinding light flooded their prison. The first face Gabe saw belonged to his father. “Son,” he said, reaching for Gabe. “Come on.”

“No,” Gabe said. His voice was starting to work now. “Get Tim first. He’s worse off than I am.”

Several willing hands reached into the box and lifted Tim out. A moment later a single pair of strong arms—­his father’s—­grabbed hold of Gabe and lifted him out, too. The next thing he knew, Leo Ortiz was holding his son against his chest, cradling him as though he were a newborn.

“I thought we’d lost you,” his father sobbed. “I thought you were gone forever. We thought both of you were.”

Gabe had never seen his father cry. “I’m all right, Dad,” he said, wiping away his father’s tears. “I’m all right.”

Just then he caught a glimpse of Tim on a stretcher with a bottle of some kind of fluid attached to his arm. For just a moment, the knowing spirit that had been with him in those long-­ago hospital rooms returned to him. In a flash of joy, he realized long before anyone else that Tim José was not going to die.

Someone in the background—­Dan Pardee, Gabe thought—­passed him a bottle of water. He took a tiny sip. It tasted wonderful, better than any water had ever tasted before, but his mouth and throat were so parched that at first one sip was all he could manage.

“I’m okay,” he told his father again. “And Tim will be okay, too.”

Leo took a ragged breath. “Come on, Dan,” he said. “Since you and Hulk are the ones who found them, how about if you give us a ride to the hospital?”

Outside with ­people milling around and still in his father’s arms, Gabe was surprised to discover that it was dark—­that the flash of light that had seemed so blinding had come from the fluorescent overhead shop lights in the garage. In the fresh air, Gabe could smell himself. The rank odor was almost overpowering. He was ashamed when his father placed him in the back of Dan’s Explorer and crawled in after him.

A woman’s face appeared in the window next to Leo. She pounded on the glass and held up a badge. She wasn’t someone Gabe recognized, but since her badge said FBI, that wasn’t too surprising.

“We need to speak to him,” she demanded.

“After,” Leo Ortiz said firmly through the still closed window. With that, Dan hit the gas pedal, and they sped away.

They arrived at the hospital entrance less than two minutes later. Gabe more than half expected that Lani would come out to meet them. When she didn’t, he decided she was probably busy taking care of Tim.

Leo helped Gabe out of the SUV and was leading him toward the door when Lucy Rojas came ru

“It’s true,” Leo said, trying to brush past her, but she didn’t budge.

“Where is he?” Lucy’s face was filled with anguish, and Gabe realized that the woman knew nothing about what her husband had been doing.

“I saw your Toyota parked out by the airport,” Leo said. “Henry probably saw what was happening and used it to run off somewhere.”

Dan Pardee nodded. “That’s what I heard, too. They’re pla