Dead Man's Hand (The Journals of Octavia Hollows #2) Read online

  Dead Man’s Hand

  The Journals of Octavia Hollows

  Book 2

  Written by

  Stacey Rourke

  Copyright 2019. All rights reserved. Published by Anchor Group Publishing. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

  Special Thanks To:

  Hell Yes Designs

  Cheree Castellanos

  Bam Shepherd

  &

  Stacy Sanford

  Find the full catalog of Stacey Rourke books at: https://bit.ly/2SIbPLz

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  Chapter One

  The number to dispatch hadn’t changed, which made locating the crew of Sin City Construction a cake walk. Gravel crunched under my tires as I eased my motorcycle to a stop. At first sight of the beat-up Chevy pick-up with the showgirl in a hardhat logo on the driver’s side door, notes of melancholy twanged in my heart.

  Somehow, that downhearted feeling played right into the Bon Jovi song Blaze of Glory, which had been stuck in my head since hearing it at a dive bar I stopped at for a burger the night before. Humming to myself, I altered the lyrics for my own benefit. “Wake up in the morning, and I raise the weary dead. Got a fat pig for a pillow, a dirty hotel mattress for last night’s bed.”

  Unclasping my helmet under my chin, I tugged it off and shook out my long, fuchsia strands.

  Strapped to my chest in his infant carrier, my piggy sidekick, Bacon, snorted himself awake.

  “Good morning, sir. I hope you had a nice nap. You woke up just in time to see my old stomping ground.” Unfastening the buckles that held him in place, I eased his little hooves—currently painted a brilliant sapphire blue—to the ground. “Elba was killed months before I came to work here, but maybe there’s something here that can help us find whoever made him disappear before I could get to him.”

  In a normal world, bodies stayed buried and death was the ultimate finality. But my world was far from ordinary. Nearly ten months ago Elba, my fiancé, died in a horrible accident on a construction site—much like this one—in Tallahassee. Being a necromancer, that should have been little more than a momentary hiccup in our relationship… if his body hadn’t disappeared. My hunt for answers now had me retracing my steps across the country, back when I thought outrunning the pain was actually an option.

  The latest stop on my quest was the scorching heat of Las Vegas in search of my old boss, Mike Bowmen. Big Mike, to all those who knew him.

  Buzzing saws and clapping hammers welcomed me to the birthplace of yet another lavish Vegas estate, the smell of sawdust hanging heavily in the air.

  “You waiting for a written invitation, Nowak? Get those two-by-fours out of the back of the truck!”

  I would recognize that gruff growl anywhere. With a smile tugging at the corner of my lips, I followed that booming voice into the framed-in garage, anticipating a warm reunion with one of the few bosses I remembered fondly. After pausing for a potty break, Bacon trotted along at my heels. “Hey, Big Mike. Long time, no see. How’s it going?”

  Spinning to face me, his heavy jowls were set in a permanent scowl. The thin blue t-shirt he wore was stretched taut over his beer gut. Sweat stains soaked through the fabric under his arms and ringed his collar. “Hollows, where the hell have you been? Grab a hardhat and help me carry the shingles up onto the roof.”

  Pulling up short, my gaze flicked to the pallet full of bundled shingles. The memory of just how heavy those sons of bitches were quickly returned. “I… uh… don’t really work for you anymore. I just wanted to ask you a couple of quick questions.”

  “Time is money.” Dragging his forearm across his forehead, he wiped away a stream of sweat. “You wanna talk? Grab a hardhat and follow me.” He stalked past me with wide strides, jerking his forehead toward a canvas tent at the edge of the job site. “You can set your pig up in the doggie day care.”

  Snatching a scratched up yellow hard hat from the folding table at the side of the garage, I signaled Bacon to follow with a few quick air kisses. “Doggie day care?”

  “Complete horseshit, if you ask me.” Not bothering to glance back, Big Mike stalked straight for the tent in question. “Grown-ass people needing emotional support animals around just so they can do their fucking jobs? It’s a joke. But, their union rep used it as a bargaining chip when I capped overtime, so what choice did I have?”

  Inside the shade of the canvas canopy, roomy pens were set up for the four-legged guests enclosed within. Giant oscillating fans were set up for their comfort, along with automatic refilling water bowls and cushy pillow beds. I had stayed in hotels about three stars below the comfort level being offered to these treasured pets. Finding a vacant suite on the end, I gave Bacon an assist into his temporary oasis. All the dogs were instantly on alert, whining and whimpering at the alluring scent of swine. Lucky for my little pig bestie, he was bigger than any of the scarf-wearing ankle-biters in there. Except, of course, for the Great Dane in the corner who was busy flossing his teeth with a loose corner of the tent.

  “If they give you any crap, pig stomp ‘em,” I quietly coached as Bacon sniffed his new surroundings.

  Seeing Big Mike had already moved on, I jogged to catch up. On the north side of the house, he clipped the safety tether’s carabiner to his belt. With two bundles of shingles flung over his shoulder, he scaled the ladder with surprising agility for a man his size. One of his men met him at the roof’s edge to relieve him of the supplies.

  Tipping my face in Big Mike’s direction, I squinted into the sun and shielded my eyes with one hand. “I’m sorry if I left you shorthanded when I took off—”

  Easing himself down a couple of steps, Mike motioned for me to pass up another bundle. “People come, and they go. That’s no business of mine. You show up and put in a hard day’s work, that’s all that matters to me.”

  Squatting down to spare my back, I tossed a bundle of shingles over my shoulder and heaved it up to his waiting hands. “Normally, I would appreciate that kind of discretion, but today I need a little bit more.” One bundle successfully transferred, I gathered up the next. “After I left, did anyone ever come here looking for me, or asking about me?”

  Chewing on the inside of his cheek, Mike’s forehead crinkled into a scowl. “Now that you mention it, someone did. Normally, I wouldn’t remember something like that, but this guy stuck out. He was wearing a Maine Black Bears hat. I remember, because I admire a person that hangs with a team even through the rough years. Before 2018, they hadn’t won a conference in five years. Good for him, not being a fair-weather fan.”

  “Yep, that’s exactly what I was wondering about; the team loyalties of the guy who might be following me,” I muttered under my breath, waiting for Mike to inch back down for the next load. Clearing my throat, I tried again. “Do you happen to remember what this sports enthusiast said?”

  Shaking his head, Mike’s cracked and calloused fingers closed around the edge of the bagged shingles and tossed them onto his shoulder. “Typical broken-hearted ex-boyfriend stuff. Asking when you left, and if I knew where you had gone. I wouldn’t have offered that up, even if I knew. Don’t care enough to meddle. Hey,” his chin jerked toward a box by the air compressor, “hand me that box of roofing nails.”

  Swiveling around, I followed his directions and passed them up the ladder. “If I told you that the guy wasn’t my ex, and I’
m not even sure I know him, would that make his questions or behavior seem slightly odder?”

  “Keep them away from the edge this time, or you’re picking every damned one of them up when they fall!” Mike barked at the guy on the roof before turning his attention back to me. “You might not know the guy, but he definitely knew you. Said you had history, and he needed to find you to resolve some things. There may have been more to it than that, but I stopped listening. He had the face of one of those guys who are really in touch with their emotions, and I don’t have time for that shit. I’m forced to listen to my seventeen-year-old daughter’s never-ending drama. I’ll be damned if I’m going to listen to it from a grown-ass man I don’t even know.”

  Someone who claimed to have history with me…

  A shiver of unease skittered down my spine.

  I came down to Vegas from Seattle. The day I arrived in Seattle, a guy bumped into me, planting a burner phone on me which connected me to a family in need of my help. That man… wore a Maine Black Bears cap. It seemed the theory that I had a stalker was gaining merit.

  “Do we need to stop for mimosas and braid each other’s hair, or can you hand me up the next bundle?” Mike snapped his fingers for the load.

  “That’s gender reductive, boss,” Roof Guy cringed, sucking air through his teeth. “Remember that video they made us watch at the last union meeting? Gender blind is gender kind. Plus, mimosas are delicious. Men shouldn’t deny themselves things like that just because of toxic masculinity.”

  Sweat streaming down his forehead, Mike tossed another bundle into the Ambassador of Political Correctness’ direction. “Shut the hell up, and take the shingles, Jonah.”

  I could feel the weight of the burner phone in my back pocket as though it was the intrusive hand of whomever planted it on me.

  There had to be a way to trace the phone back to who purchased it. I mean, that was a thing people did, right?

  Staring at the arid ground, I kicked at the sand with the toe of my boot. “There’s no more shingles down here. Is that all you had?”

  Hopping off the ladder, Big Mike grabbed the gallon of water he brought with him to every job site and slugged down a gulp. “Back of the step van. Should be unlocked; just slide the door up.”

  Mind clicking and whirring over how I would even begin to have the phone traced, I walked to the truck on autopilot. My hand closed around the rusted handle and tried without success to yank its rollers up their track. “You sure this thing is unlocked?”

  Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he stalked over to help. “Yeah, that thing has been sticking lately. I think Jonah bent the damned track when he threw the stepladder in.” Elbowing me out of the way, he grabbed the handle and rocked it side to side before forcing it up with the squeal of grinding metal.

  A potent stench rolled out of the truck, causing me to hide my nose in the crook of my arm as I heaved. “Whoa! What the hell is that?”

  “Smells like burning hair.” Knocked back by the smell, Big Mike fought the urge to recoil and opted instead to step into the truck to investigate.

  I didn’t have to see it; I could feel it calling to me in a luring darkness that coiled around me to whisper the unthinkable against my ear.

  Death.

  Brutally vicious death.

  “Mike, get out of there. We need to call the cops.”

  “Why? Did someone do something to my truck? Did you see them?” Jamming his hands on his hips, the jaded contractor spun my way, his features set in a mask of accusation.

  The bed of the truck creaked under his weight, that slight shift allowing the door of one of the built-in cabinets to swing open. Propped inside were the charred remains of a body surrounded by stacks of neatly arranged cash.

  “Is that a body?” Jonah shrieked from his perch, voice bordering on hysteria. “Because if so, my union contract allows bereavement days for my mental health!”

  “Shut the hell up, Jonah!” I shouted, stealing the sentiment from Mike.

  Chapter Two

  Still shaking from his grim discovery, Big Mike sat on an overturned five-gallon bucket. Elbows on his knees, he hung his head and focused on steadying his breathing. Jonah and the other members of his crew huddled around him, blinking their stunned confusion at the cop cars and ambulance that filled the job site with a wash of strobing red and blue lights. Standing at the edge of their cluster, I kept my stare fixed on the ground in the hopes it made it less obvious that I was eavesdropping on the EMTs as they transported the filled body bag into the back of their ambulance.

  “Second burn victim in as many weeks,” the older of the two—a weasel-faced man with a pencil-thin mustache—muttered.

  The second EMT was a baby-faced albino who nodded his agreement. “The similarities don’t end there. It seems they were both coming off the night of their lives. Looks like this guy won close to a hundred grand at the Rabbit’s Foot Casino. There were indications that the other guy spent the last hours of his life with a couple of showgirls.”

  “No.” When Big Mike finally managed to force his head up, I got a glimpse of his complexion drained sheet white. “I recognize the iron cross around his neck. That’s Nate Charles. He had a gambling problem he fought hard to kick. He wouldn’t have stepped foot in a casino.”

  Clearing his throat, Weasel-face exchanged matching glances slathered in judgment with his cohort. “We… can’t really discuss the crime scene.”

  Further deliberation was thwarted by the tall, lanky sheriff with wavy black hair and a cocky smirk sauntering around the side of the ambulance. “Got another crispy one, huh? I’d say we have a homicidal arsonist on our hands, if the last one hadn’t been deep-fried from the inside out.”

  Powder—as I chose to dub the albino EMT—rolled his eyes skyward. “Or, you know, we could blurt out key elements of the case in front of everyone.”

  Chewing on the inside of my cheek, I filled my lungs to capacity and exhaled slowly. The dark recesses of my mind had been invaded by haunting whispers that grew in intensity with every beat of my heart. While the messages of the dead were little more than inaudible gibberish, their intent was crystal clear.

  Two deaths.

  Both seemingly linked by hedonistic pleasures.

  At least one dead by unexplainable means.

  If I was going to embrace this journey I was on, I needed to believe this case fell into my lap for a reason.

  There was something here I needed to learn. Something that may lead me to Elba.

  That could only mean one thing…

  I would soon be longing for air-fresheners and hoping my resurrection powers could do something about fried-flesh funk, because I would be needing a moment alone with the scorched remains of Nate Charles. It seemed life wasn’t quite done with him yet.

  Technically speaking, I could trip my way into the ambulance, and—oops!—fall on the body. As long as I was magically primed going in, with a simple touch, Nate Charles would no longer be in the past tense. However, him making a grand, David Copperfield-esque appearance may have raised a few red flags. That was the thing about resurrections; everyone wanted them, but they were a bitch to explain.

  Leave it to my boy, Bacon, to squeal in with the ultimate assist.

  The maze of pet gates folded in on themselves in a screaming crash of metal, spilling the pampered pets out into the yard. An excited Cocker Spaniel crashed into one leg of the canvas tent, causing it to buckle, and a frenzy of pups ran to escape the mass of fabric crushing down on them all. The giant doggo, pint-sized floofers, and mini-smooshfaces ran as fast as their assorted sized legs could carry them. Driving the chaos was a riled up pig who was fed up with having his butt sniffed. Ears flapping with each stride, the pack chased him onto the job site.

  “Shit!” Pretty boy sheriff planted his feet in a wide-legged stance, arms out as if he could somehow halt the storming mass. “We have to protect the crime scene! Get ahold of those animals, before they destroy any evidence th
at may help us button this bitch up!”

  Sucking air through his teeth, Jonah straightened his spine and held up his index finger. “That’s not a gender considerate statement. Maybe the local law enforcement needs to work on eliminating toxic labeling.”

  Pushing off his knees, Big Mike rose to his full height, his expression returning to his standard stoic neutral in a blink. “If that stampede messes up my freshly poured concrete, I’m filling it in with your ass. You all insisted on having those animals here—They’ll be no trouble at all, you said. I promise you this, if you don’t get control of them right the hell now, this will be the last day I let any four-legged pests on my job site!”

  Construction workers, local law enforcement, and EMTs alike scrambled to round up the loose herd. Which, conveniently, left me all alone with the dead body.

  Sure, it was risky, but if I moved quick…

  Glancing in one direction and then the other to make sure everyone was good and distracted, I edged into the back of the ambulance before self-preservation could talk me out of it.

  The instant I eased the door shut behind me, I came to a horrible realization. As bad as the smell was outside, in here it reached a stomach-churning new pinnacle of gross. Covering my nose with the bend of one arm, I used the opposite hand to open cabinets and drawers in search of items to stuff in the body bag when it no longer had an occupant. Kind of like the Indiana Jones bag of dirt for the diamond switch… only way ickier.

  After locating four rolled blankets I figured would work, I dropped them next to the gurney and stared hard at the next hurdle before me… unzipping the bag.

  Hand shaking, my fingers closed around the zipper. The chill of its metal released ice into my veins as I slowly guided the zipper down its track. Cracked and blackened flesh greeted me. My stomach lurched in protest, acidic bile scorching the back of my throat. For some reason, I thought squeezing my eyes shut would make things better, as if temporary blindness would somehow help the odiferous dilemma approaching my nose.