Emily Kimelman - Sydney Rye 02 - Death in the Dark Read Free Page B

nodded to Blue as though another human was with me.
    I took my seat and Blue crawled under the table. “Ostiones?” I asked. The man nodded and moved back to the shack. The beach curved around forming a small inlet filled with bright blue water. Directly across from me the beach rose up into a sand dune. The wind played with its tip sending sand cascading down the dune’s side.
    The man returned with a dozen oysters on a tray and a Corona. I smiled at him and pointing to myself said, “Joy.”
    “Ramon,” he answered. Ramon left me and I ate my oysters and drank my beer while staring into the Sea of Cortez.
    I hadn’t left and Ramon never questioned that. It was as if he was expecting Blue and me. He lived with his mother in the cement house and we lived in our RV. I started paying rent after a week, though no one ever asked. I just started leaving a couple of hundred bucks as a tip. I liked it there.
    But I knew it would not last. You can’t spend your life on the beach eating oysters and feeling bad. Sometimes you have to make a change. And that night, when I flopped drunk and exhausted onto my pathetic mattress, I knew something was going to give.

 
     
     
    WAKE UP!
     
     
    I woke up with my hands over my head, the joints at my shoulder aching. It was hot in the small space and I tried to scratch an itch on my nose but couldn’t move my arm. I blinked my eyes open.
    There was a man sitting on the end of my bed. Instantly I was awake and nauseous with fear. I yanked at my arms but instead of moving them down to me, I moved myself up to them. Sitting on the bed, my feet underneath me I could see that my hands were tied and stuck to the headboard with what looked like a giant nail. My ankles were bound with a thick rope that itched once I saw its rough fibers rubbing my skin red.
    The man was small in stature, thin, with black hair that curled in tight ringlets almost to his waist. His skin was tan and his eyes deep brown. His eye lashes curled up, long and thick, like a cows. He watched me without comment.
    “Who are you?” I asked, my voice rough.
    He smiled, a wide grin that showed off big teeth with even, thick spaces between them. “I’m Merl.”
    “What are you doing in my bed?”
    He reached out a hand and that’s when I saw the dogs. There were three Doberman pinchers patiently panting. Two on his left and one on his right. Blue sat next to the last, his pant in sync with theirs. Merl reached into his belt and pulled out a knife.
    I breathed deeply, trying to slow my heart which was in the process of filling me with so much adrenaline that my teeth began to chatter uncontrollably. I clenched my jaw to shut them up and felt my stomach threatening to empty.
    “Cat got your tongue?” Merl asked and then laughed, showing off his wide-set teeth again. The knife glinted in his hand. Merl reached toward me with the knife. When his head was close enough, I reared back mine and tried to slam it into his skull. But Merl was much too quick for me and I threw myself through the air, flipping off the bed.
    Getting my bound feet underneath me I faced him, my teeth grinding and my heart about to explode.
    “You’re even better than Mulberry said,” Merl told me from the end of the bed. How did he get all the way down there?
    “What?” I asked.
    “Mulberry sent me,” he said.
    “Mulberry sent you to tie me to my bed and threaten me with a knife?”
    He shook his head.
    “You’re the trainer?” I asked, the fact dawning on me.
    Merl nodded. “And I brought help.” He pointed to the three dogs. “Thunder, the oldest and most faithful of my companions.” The first dog stood and barked. His slick black coat shone in the dull light that filtered through the RV’s small windows. There was a sprinkle of grey on his formidable muzzle. “Michael, the largest of my friends.” The middle dog stood and barked a welcome, his tongue lolling out of his head. He was a giant, not as tall or thick as Blue, but it