Grave Payback #2
The clothes he’d worn before being murdered were what you’d expect of someone who worked in a mine.
Heavy safety boots that could break down a door as easily as cave in an ass if needed.
Well-worn jeans and an ocher and orange plaid shirt, both of which fit tight on account of the man’s build.
He had the physique of someone who’d been doing hard labor for decades now and never skipped dessert.
Solid, thick muscle with a healthy layer of fat over it.
Not the kind of guy who’d go down without a fight, and certainly not an easy one at that. Which meant whatever had done him in was either terribly strong or clever.
I scanned the surrounding area, most of which was made of hard-packed gravel and loaded with heavy machinery, from bulldozers to excavators.
Some caution tape lined parts of the perimeter, indicating the place was now closed.
A lone pickup truck sat near a small hovel of a building sporting a faded white cross.
A short look at the vehicle triggered a sharp pang, and a memory followed. Familiar-looking hands gripped an old steering wheel and pushed a cassette into the tape deck. It wasn’t a stretch to realize it belonged to the man whose body I now occupied.
Whenever a spot of luck came my way, it was often bad. So the occasional bout of good fortune wasn’t something I’d question.
I headed toward the diminutive chapel, stopping just before I reached the pair of double doors.
They were the color of dark espresso that had begun to fade to something softer.
The place looked as if it had been built nearly a hundred years ago, and on the cheap.
Yet it still remained standing. Though I wasn’t so sure about the single window near the front, the frame of which sat visibly askew, sagging now due to time and likely the elements.
It wasn’t uncommon for mines to have a small chapel like this on-site. It’s a tough job, and a dangerous one on top of that. Miners perish every year in some pretty terrible ways.
But those ends usually excluded the intervention of the supernatural.
I pushed through the doors and entered to find the place furnished how you’d expect for an out-of-the-way chapel.
Simple carpeting and the usual sturdy pews—all framed by white walls that had been kept cleaner and better maintained than the exterior.
A small altar draped in a red cloth stood at the other end from me.
But it was the man with his back turned to me that held my interest.
I moved closer. “Church, that you, pal?”
The figure turned to face me. He had the sort of face that somehow managed to balance softness in features with the right amount of sharp edges and hardness.
A look that left you wondering if he was pretty handsome or just handsomely pretty.
The guy had the freshly tousled blond locks and icy blue eyes to mirror some of the angelic images in a place like this.
If only he didn’t dress like an IT guy—from the tucked-in white shirt to the khakis.
The man embodied the idea of geek chic.
“Vincent.” He inclined his head in a polite welcome.
Church usually had more words for me than just that.
While not particularly talkative, he usually made some time for the little niceties in conversation.
Then again, I’d once asked the man for his name, and he’d looked around the building we were in and told me to call him the same thing.
No one likes a wiseass…
I crossed the distance between us, extending a hand.
Church didn’t bother with any foreplay. He gripped my wrist instead, brushing up the sleeve of my shirt, then holding tight to the soft skin of my forearm.
Mr. IT held me with the strength of hydraulic machinery as the sensation of burning needles pricked along my skin.
I hissed through it.
He released his hand just as I’d adjusted to the fresh pain. My forearm had reddened as if I had actually been burned, but the thing keeping my attention was the fresh number of all black now on my skin.
The number five stared back at me, as much a warning as a motivator. In theory, it represented the amount of time my soul could remain in this particular body. In reality, it was a countdown for how long I had to find the monster responsible for offing this fella, and then put the kibosh on them.
If I failed, I’d be shuffled off to my next case, and someone would go unavenged.
Enough reasons to stop whatever killed this guy.
“Not a lot of time, Church.” I nodded to the number on my forearm.
He gave me a tight, thin smile. “It will have to be, Vincent.” His voice seemed a bit more strained than the usual light and almost airy whisper. Still as strong and confident, but an undercurrent of rasp just touched it.
I arched a brow. “Everything okay?”
His smile almost widened an imperceptible amount…
Almost.
Which said enough.
“I’ll take that as a no. What gives?”
In his usual fashion, he didn’t give me the answer I wanted.
“Your name is Wayland Keeney. Age forty-eight years old. You were a miner born and raised here in Randolph County, West Virginia. There’s a bathroom and a mirror, even in this small space.
” Church gestured to one corner, where an open doorway stood.
“You might want to clean up before getting to the case. It won’t be as straightforward as some of your others. ”
I eyed him askance. None of my cases could ever be considered straightforward, and Church wasn’t exactly Encyclopaedia Britannica when I needed him.
Though he’d given me a bit more than he usually did.
Something I made note of. “Do I want to know why you’ve already told me the details you have?
You’re usually more reserved about this stuff. ”
One corner of his mouth twitched. “This case is problematic in a few ways, and I’m giving you what I can, Vincent.
I trust it will be enough.” He turned halfway toward the altar at his back, retrieving a pair of leather-bound journals.
There was no ceremony as he presented them to me, dumping them into my open hands.
One was a collection of all the monsters and myths I’d come across in my research or on the job. As close to a manual on dealing with the supernatural as I could have. The other served as a recording of all my case files, mostly for my fragmented memory.
I stuffed them into my waistband, taking a step in the direction of the bathroom. Then something he’d said struck me. I rounded on him, opening my mouth as I did. “What’s problematic—”
The church stood empty but for me. No sound. Nothing to betray that he had left. Just the sort of quiet in a small building when you’re all alone.
I might have grumbled a string of curses about problematic paranormal investigator handlers who vanish on a whim.
The bathroom consisted of a toilet that looked like it came from a gas station, though it had been regularly cleaned, and a sink with a mirror over the top. A quick look at myself revealed a not-so-pretty picture.
Wayland wore every bit of his years and tough labor in his face.
Creased like old leather and caked in all the grit a miner would be.
Yet the brown of his eyes and natural set of his face spoke of something gentle beneath the hardness.
Something that edged on fatherly kindness.
The sort of guy who could kick your ass and would probably buy you a drink after.
I washed up and headed outside to the truck.
The world cut out, and I watched a short scene of Wayland’s hands wrenching free the cigarette lighter and slipping something into the space. Then he did something with the glove box that happened too smoothly and quickly for me to catch.
At least the vision settled whom the truck belonged to.
I stopped a few feet from it, sighing as I took it in. An old 80s F-250 in what I assumed was supposed to be something resembling the old two-tone style they’d come in. But that works only when you genuinely have a pair of colors. Not ten of the damn things.
The old truck looked like it’d survived a tour in the Middle East and had been cobbled together from the parts of similar survivors, and either a point of honor or likely cost kept Wayland from respraying the other panels to match what I guessed was the original color.
Whatever that was.
Vanilla crime investigators in television shows usually get cool cars, but as a rule, paranormal investigators often don’t. Still, you have to be practically a wizard of bad luck to drive around in a beat-up relic with not a single matching body panel, color wise.
I opened the driver’s side door, mildly relieved it’d been left unlocked. Then I went about re-creating what I’d seen in Wayland’s memory. Removing the cigarette lighter revealed a compartment he’d fashioned to dump his keys in. And something similar in the glove box and under the armrest latch.
That told me Wayland made a habit of this and, given that I’d found his wallet stashed in the glove compartment, that he didn’t feel comfortable taking it out of the truck before he met with his death.
It also meant that Wayland had possibly been concerned about needing to hide his identifying materials before he died, which prompted the obvious question: Why?
I didn’t have an answer then, but I was certain of one thing: there was a good chance I wouldn’t like it when I discovered it. There are seldom good answers in this line of work.
The old truck rumbled to life once I’d started her up and went into gear easy enough.
Flipping through Wayland’s wallet got me to his license, which gave me his address.
Not much good on its own as the man didn’t seem to have a cell phone, or a vehicle with GPS.
So I ambled onto the only road in sight and took one of the only two turns available to me.