Grave Secret Page 0,5
to find a good place to run. Our motel was on the access road right off the interstate. It was flanked by other hotels and motels, restaurants and gas stations, the usual assortment of services for road warriors. But to the rear of the motel, we found one of those "business parks": two curving streets with careful, still-small plantings in the flower beds in front of the one-story buildings, each with a parking area. A median ran down the middle of these two streets, wide enough to support a planting of crepe myrtles. There were sidewalks, too, to give the place an inviting and friendly look. Since it was late Friday afternoon, the traffic was minimal among the rows of rectangular buildings chopped up into characterless entities like Great Systems, Inc. and Genesis Distributors, which might conduct business of any sort. Each block was marked off by a driveway running between the buildings, a narrow thing that must lead to a parking lot in back for the employees. There were almost no cars parked in front; customers were gone, the last employees were leaving for the weekend.
In such a place, the last thing I expected to encounter was a dead man. I was thinking of the ache in my right leg, which has flared up from time to time ever since the lightning ran down that side, so I didn't hear his bones calling me at first.
They're everywhere, of course, dead people. I don't hear only the modern dead. I feel the ancient dead, too; even, very rarely, the faint, faint echo of a trace of people who walked the earth before there was writing. But this guy I was connecting with here in the Dallas suburbs was very fresh. I ran in place for a moment.
I couldn't be sure unless I got closer to the body, but I was thinking this one felt like a suicide by gun. I pinpointed his location-he was in the back part of an office called Designated Engineering. I shook off his overwhelming misery. I've had practice. Pity him? He'd gotten to choose. If I pitied everyone I met who'd crossed over, I'd be weeping continuously.
No, I wasn't spending my time on emotion. I was trying to decide what to do. I could leave him where he was, and that was my initial impulse. The first person to come into Designated Engineering the next workday would get a rude shock, if the guy's family didn't send the police to check his office tonight when he didn't come home.
It seemed harsh, leaving him there. However, I didn't want to get involved in a long explanation to the police.
Running in place was getting old. I had to make up my mind.
Though I can't agonize over every dead person I find, I don't want to lose my humanity, either.
I looked around for inspiration. I found it in the rocks bordering the ho-hum flower bed at the entrance door. I pulled out the largest rock I could handle and hefted it. After a little experimentation, I decided I could throw it one-handed. I glanced up and down the street; no cars in sight, and no one on foot. Standing a safe distance back, I took a balanced stance and let the rock fly. I had to retrieve the rock and repeat this action twice more before the glass shattered and an alarm began to go off. I took off running. I had to take a metaphorical hat off to the police. I had barely reached the motel parking lot when I saw the patrol car turning off the access road and speeding by the motel to cruise into the business park.
An hour later, I was telling Tolliver what had happened while I put on my makeup. I'd had a long shower, and sure enough, he'd jumped in again to "help you wash your hair."
I was leaning my clean self over the sink to peer into the mirror to apply my eyeliner. Though I was only twenty-four, I had to get closer to the mirror now, and I just knew the next time I had an exam, my eye doctor was going to tell me I needed glasses. I'd never considered myself vain, but every time I pictured myself wearing glasses, I felt a pang. Maybe contact lenses? But the thought of sticking anything in my eyes made me shudder.
Every time I thought about this, I worried about the money correcting my vision might cost. We were saving every