Bad Bones Read Online Free PDF Page B

Ranger. He realized what he’d done the night before was wrong. Not real
bad
wrong, like murder or whatever, but not right, either, and no doubt illegal. He wasn’t stupid, he knew the difference between right and wrong, but that wasn’t what was getting to him.
    For the most part the Law seemed to be all aboutwhether you either got caught or you didn’t. Like school, but on a whole different level in terms of punishment. Last night, as he fell asleep, the way Gabe thought about it was that what he’d done couldn’t hurt anyone, and as it could really help his family it was, therefore, no biggie. He was beginning to have second thoughts because of the gold bracelet nestling oh so innocently in his backpack.
    Life now was either ‘Before Bracelet’ or ‘After Bracelet’. Before Bracelet, all he’d ever associated skeletons with had been the ‘woo-hoo-spooky!’ cartoon nonsense at Halloween. Before Bracelet he’d never had a real nightmare in his entire life, certainly never been followed by a damn owl. After Bracelet he’d turned into this superstitious idiot, making connections where there were none. Was he simply giving coincidences a meaning they just didn’t have?
    “Owls are nocturnal, right?” he muttered to himself, even as he checked the sky and the deep shadows between buildings. “They’re fricking
nocturnal
, dammit.”
    Twenty minutes later, Gabe stood in the parking area by the entrance to the canyon, giving himself afinal talking to. Like what was there to worry about anyway? Nada. The man across the street was just some guy who, coincidentally, happened to look
somewhat
like a person he’d had a crappy dream about. So what? And the thing with his hand was just like a muscle spasm, a cramp. Nothing more.
    So, if he didn’t go and see what else there was to dig up, all he’d have was something he was pretty damn sure was worth a whole lot more than a hundred and fifty bucks. And that would be it.
    He didn’t have a choice. If he was going to have any chance of helping his family he
had
to go back to what he couldn’t stop himself from thinking of as ‘the burial site’. Except it wasn’t a body, not really. It was some old bones. That was all. Just a load of bones.

Chapter Seven
    It turned out the canyon was virtually empty; he’d so far seen a solitary dog walker some way away, and that was it. Plus it all looked so different in the bright sunlight. Even after what had happened yesterday, he would have to be a complete wimp to be scared by rocks and trees and brush. He was being extra-vigilant and wary because he did not want to get caught by a Park Ranger. That was all.
    The fact that nothing, completely nothing, had occurred the whole way up to the tree Gabe had marked the night before was almost worse than if something had. It felt like a total comedown; all that worry, for what? Once he’d found a place that was as out of sight as possible to stash his bike, he got down to business. He wouldn’t be long. He’d be able to see exactly what he was doing and this time he wouldn’t have to bother trying to cover his tracks. In-N-Out, like the burger chain.
    Gabe had come prepared for the job, having taken a small gardening trowel and a small paintbrush from the workbench at the back of the garage before he left for school. Getting them out of his backpack, he set to work.
    As he dug, Gabe could feel himself becoming more and more agitated and twitchy. Much more nervous than he should have been if getting caught was all he was worried about. But he stayed, drawn to the promises he’d seen in the yellow glow of the gold bracelet.
    Half an hour later he’d unearthed a tiny medallion, followed by three heavy, jewelled rings. And then he found something that scared the hell out of him. A gold knife, inset with light blue stones, with an arc-shaped blade. Exactly like the one he’d seen in his awful dream.
    Gabe sat back on his heels and stared at the knife, searching for any signs of