The Dead Run Read Online Free Page B

maybe they would. Yeah, probably so.
    The vultures had been at her. The vultures, the sun, the bugs. She lay on her stomach, the top half of her body buried in the sandy, silty dirt.
    From the waist down, she’d been picked at—not picked clean, though you could see stark white flashes of bone peeking through in some places, but torn apart pretty good. Even vultures stopped eating once the meat went rancid, and in this heat that had happened fast. The flesh was bloated, purpled, falling from the bone, and the maggots were working at her from the inside.
    It was hard to remember that this had very recently been a human being. A woman. Someone you could laugh and joke with, someone you might love.
    Hard to remember, yet impossible to forget.
    Nichols spoke through his handkerchief. “This is how you found her?” A stupid question— no, señor, we thought it would be fun to bury her —but you had to ask.
    â€œSí.”
    â€œWell, let’s dig her up. Carefully. Con mucho cuidado.”
    From the car trunks came the shovels. Nichols watched them work. The way she was lying, it looked almost as if she’d dug herself in—like she’d been working on a shallow tunnel, and it had collapsed. That was ridiculous, of course. But so was half-burying a girl.
    Within minutes, the deputies had nearly unearthed her. Nichols could see the contours of her body beginning to emerge, and he told Fuentes to have his men drop their shovels and do the rest by hand, as if they were archeologists removing a prized artifact from the earth. To his surprise, Fuentes complied without debate.
    The smell was overpowering, but the cops didn’t complain. It was more than Nichols would have been able to say of his own men in this situation. Soon they were dusting the corpse, scraping the dirt from her back, her arms. She was still a person from the waist up. Decomposed, but human. Probably no more than two days gone.
    â€œTurn her over,” he ordered, glancing at Fuentes. The jefe toyed with his mouth lumber and said nothing.
    The deputies grunted and bent over her. The woman flopped onto her back. Nichols jockeyed for a better view. Fuentes, too, edged forward, raising his bushy eyebrows.
    Suddenly, all three deputies darted back, quicker than anybody had any business moving in this heat. As if the corpse had winked at them. All three men began speaking, the Spanish too agitated for Nichols to follow.
    â€œQue pasó?” he demanded, trying to push his way through. All he could see was an arm, up to the elbow. The deputies paid no attention. Too busy crossing themselves and praying.
    â€œGet the hell out of the way!” He grabbed the closest one by the elbow and yanked.
    The man turned, clamped his hand around Nichols’s wrist, and looked at him, wide-eyed. It didn’t take a psychologist to see that he was scared out of his mind.
    â€œElla tiene el beso demonico!” he hissed. “Mira en su pecho!”
    Pecho, Nichols knew. Chest. He took a deep breath, held it, and knelt next to the girl. Between her breasts was what looked like a stab wound, or a cluster of them. It was hard to tell; decay had rendered her body grotesque and mysterious, and Nichols was no doctor. He raised a hand, as if to touch the mark, then drew it back.
    When he stood, Fuentes was right behind him.
    â€œ ‘Beso demonico’ is ‘kiss of the devil,’ ” he said, and turned to glance at the deputies. They had retreated to their cars, clearly eager for permission to leave. One was still crossing himself, over and over. He looked like a third-base coach, perpetually signaling a runner.
    â€œWhat does that mean?”
    â€œJust an old superstition.” Fuentes waved a hand. “But as you can see, to some it’s very real. Look at them. Policía one minute, pinches muchachos the next.” He flung his toothpick to the ground and clapped Nichols on the shoulder. “I think