The Juliet Read Online Free PDF Page B

so certain. They stayed inside their car, turning a map around in circles. There was a metal detector and a spade propped up next to a big red dog in the back. The dog panted from excitement, not heat. It was a cool day in the desert, sort of heavenly to a positive thinker.
    Not just tourists, then. Treasure hunters. Rank amateurs by the look of them. It was funny how some folks thought they could start at the Everest of their desires. The desert was poison, didn’t they know that? Killed Lee Marvin for sure, and a lot of other Western stars Rigg could think of. Maybe the “Death” in Death Valley was too subtle.
    He walked back to the old fridge and opened the door, taking out a weeping green bottle. It was morning still. He might as well look the part of an alkie recluse. The bottle’s label had been peeled off. It was an old habit from the paparazzi days. Rigg wasn’t just an actor, he was a brand unto himself. Accidental endorsements were money down the drain.
    Rigg returned to the doorway and gestured with his inappropriate morning beverage. “Everything all right?”
    The couple had almost islanded their vehicle. Those wagons were tough, but they didn’t have enough clearance. The man rolled down his window and leaned out. “Yeah thanks, we’re just ah…” He gave the shack and Rigg a confused once-over. “We were looking for The Mystery House? I think we made a bad turn back there.”
    The couple didn’t recognize Rigg Dexon. “Yeah you did sir.” He put a little extra honey in his growl to give them another chance. “An’ anyways, the CDC burned that place down. On account of the rats.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “Hantavirus. Place was soaking in it. It’s carried by rats, like the bubonic plague.”
    The woman was visibly disappointed. “No one told us that.”
    Rigg’s folksiness was getting thicker by the second, setting up like pudding, but the couple still didn’t know who he was. “Parks Service don’t like that information to get out. Might cause a panic. Anyways, you best get your vehicle turned around. Ruts only get worser from here on up.”
    “Hantavirus?” The woman didn’t believe him.
    “Yup.” He knew how to send these folks on their way. And they were going without water, warm or cool, he decided. To hell with them. “Used to be called Ko -rean hemorrhagic fever. Nasty stuff. It’s anywhere you got rodents around here, anywhere they been peein’. Hantavirus!”
    At the mention of an Asian vector, the couple blanched. Rigg was nothing if not a good read of people. “See ya around.” He pointed in the direction of the Amargosa Range, which for today anyway, was the right way out of Dodge.
    The man didn’t need any more encouragement. He slammed the vehicle in reverse and managed a K turn that threw sprays of brown gravel everywhere. Rigg didn’t even flinch; he’d gotten to a point in his life where a bit of dust in the eyes and lungs felt natural.
    Looking for The Mystery House. He knew damn well what they were looking for. They were looking for a shiny piece of green rock that had been making fools out of men for more than a hundred years, Rigg included.
    He watched the tourist treasure seekers rumble away, and he was curious about where they’d gotten their intel. The Mystery House–Juliet connection was an esoteric piece of lore at best.
    Rigg went back inside. Beyond some unfinished enviro-friendly modifications on the exterior, there was nothing obviously special about the four-square stucco shack called The Mystery House. There was a large front room with a kitchen in the corner, and the bathroom and bedroom in the back, all painted a cheap green that sometimes glowed as if the sun was trying to tell secrets long covered over in plaster and mud. If the Big Bad Wolf came around, wouldn’t he be surprised to find out the house was half glass? It’d been built by a saloonkeeper named Hogg in the early 1900s at a time when timber was scarce but whiskey bottles