Bird of the Gods

Chapter Fourteen

Gravel crunched beneath the tires of the rented blue Subaru Forester as Fiona pulled into Riverview Mall's decrepit parking lot. Squinting against the early morning sun, Conrad lifted a hand to shade his eyes.

"Not as fun as Disneyland," he groused, staring at the long stretch of abandoned storefronts on the edge of the tiny town of Van Tassell, Wyoming.

Fiona opened her mouth to agree, but a yawn escaped her lips instead. After the wrong turn in Arizona, her tank was starting to get dangerously close to empty.

Conrad's eyes cut to her. "You okay to drive?"

Scrunching her nose, Fiona stared at him. "We're here." And not a moment too soon. She needed to get up and move around before she hit the pavement—or another car.

Conrad rolled his eyes. "Fine. This better be the right place." He dug around in the backpack wedged between his feet and pulled out his cell phone.

Fiona eased the Subaru between a pair of faded white lines in front of the mall and put it in park. Rolling her shoulders, she peered down as Conrad pulled up the picture of Lucky's. "Looks like it," she said, pointing through the windshield at a sign.

"Huh. Might as well get on with it," Conrad said, getting out of the SUV. Yanking his backpack out from beneath the glove compartment, he tucked his cell phone into his back pocket.

The moniker of "strip mall" was justified, Fiona thought as she eased the Forester's door open and stood up. There was nothing glamorous or fancy about the graffitied brown and black brick façade with its patchwork black shingled roof. Every window was boarded up with one or two sheets of plywood, the edges chipped away by vandals hopping to get in. Wide yellow caution tape stretched across the doors, each secured by a fat digital padlock.

Faded and weathered signs hung above the doors, stark reminders of five lost dreams: Lisa's Nail Salon, Kieslowski's Insurance, A+ Eye Care, Angelo's Pizza, and right in the middle, Lucky's. Bits of glass and shards from beer bottles littered the cracked grey sidewalk.

Fiona's gaze swept across the "No Trespassing" and "Kendall Property Management" placards nailed to the plywood. She was seriously considering widening one of those holes in the wood to get inside when a hiss from Conrad drew her attention.

Glancing over her shoulder, Fiona noticed two tall, lanky men in black trench coats and beanies stand up from their camp chairs by the broken sign at the strip mall's entrance. They'd passed that sign on the way in—how did she manage to miss them?

You're tired, that's why, a no-nonsense voice noted in the back of Fiona's mind.

"Fuck," she muttered under her breath as the two men began walking towards them.

Eyes narrowing, Conrad threw out an arm. "Get behind me," he muttered between clenched teeth.

Fiona took two steps back and bumped up against the digital padlock on Lucky's front door. Her heart rate jumped a notch and she looked around for something to defend herself with, finding only litter and gravel from the parking lot.

A piece of glass resting on the dirty window sill sparkled in the rising sun, drawing Fiona's attention. Ugh, she groaned. It was small and possibly covered in thousands of germs, but it would have to do. Wrapping her sleeve around her fingers, she picked up the triangular shard and positioned the sharpest point outwards.

"Yo!" one of the men shouted, throwing his arms out wide. Greasy brown hair fell across his forehead, obscuring one eye, and a cloud of what could only be described as marijuana smoke wreathed his head like a perverse halo. "You guys wanting to buy or what?"