Buried Secrets

He stalked back toward the car with their headless snake.

“Is what?” demanded Jo, following him.

He’d been going to ask if this was normal, but when had he started wanting backup? “This can’t be normal. The number of snakes she’s put under the knife isn’t, and the way this thing came at us definitely isn’t. We’ll take its body back to Vanderveer. If we ask nice, maybe she’ll test it for rabies.”

“Wouldn’t she need the head to check for rabies?” asked Jo. It annoyed him that he hadn’t remembered that much.

“You wanna go fishing in her jar-o-venom for it?” he challenged, then regretted it. Jo James might turn around and go back, in some feminista show of courage.

Instead, she caught up with his longer stride and gestured toward the body. “We might as well leave this too.”

“Maybe I want to keep it,” he said, aware that he was just being contrary now. “Make a belt or something.”

She shrugged, all suit yourself.

Though he doubted the rental agency would appreciate snake guts in the trunk any more than they would’ve liked him shooting the car, insurance or no insurance.

Then he heard another rattle—and the headless snake writhed in his hand!

With a yelp, Zack threw it. The thing arced awkwardly through the air like a heavy rubber hose, landing on a flat rock. It wriggled some more, still headless, while he slapped his hand against his pants to wipe off the traces of the cursed thing.

“What the hell was that?” Magic?

Then he heard a snort, and guessed not. If it was magic, Jo James wouldn’t be trying—unsuccessfully—not to laugh. Another quick glance into the desert proved how uncoordinated the dead snake’s movements were. The adrenaline in his system eased back to a trickle, allowing normal thought.

“Rigor mortis,” he guessed out loud, even more disgusted.

“Same thing happened to me once,” Jo assured him, which just annoyed him further. Like he wanted her sympathy!

“Oh really?” he challenged, swinging himself into the driver’s seat. He let her open her own damned door.

“When I was twelve,” she agreed, climbing in. Her lips were pressed together, but her eyes danced with mirth. When he turned to glare down at her, Zack knew he was in trouble.

Even keeping things antagonistic, he couldn’t pretend Jo was one of the guys.

As they drove back toward Almanuevo, Jo rolled the second “charm” the Bruja had given her in her hand, hidden from the driver’s seat by her body. A love charm, huh? It felt lumpier than the protection charm did. Now that they’d left the incense and the props, neither bag seemed particularly magic. But would they? Did she expect them to glow, or tingle or something?

Would she want them to? Would she want them to work at all?

The protection charm, maybe. But the love charm? Jo wasn’t looking for any man, hadn’t looked in years. Even if she did, the last thing she needed was a guy like Zack Lorenzo, who reeked of testosterone like cheap aftershave, to fall in love with her.

Except that his aftershave smelled expensive, not cheap, in the close confines of his powerful car. Rich and delicious.

“So you’re widowed, huh?” she asked finally, rubbing her trigger finger over the silk of the bag. The callus on her finger caught against the fine fibers.

“More or less,” admitted Zack. Sort of. “Why?”

Jo made a face. No magic was powerful enough. “Do you think that’s what the Bruja meant, saying we’ve both been robbed?”

“Could’ve been.”

Not big on personal answers, was he? “You aren’t still sulking about the snake, are you?”

“I don’t sulk.”

She raised a hand to fend off his vehemence. “Just asking.”

“Just because a guy doesn’t want to talk through every detail of his life doesn’t mean he’s sulking. Geez!”

“Forget I asked!” And she leaned her seat back a little farther, braced a boot against the dash, and made herself comfortable.

Finally he said, “I don’t like talking about my wife.”

“Fair enough,” she said, and for a while they just listened to classic rock. He had a good ’80s mix—Journey, Cheap Trick, The Eagles—and a better sound system. She could do with less air-conditioning, though. It was only March.

“Do you think it works?” she asked. “Spells and stuff?”

Casually steering with one hand, Zack said, “Yeah.”

“I thought a lot of these people were flakes.”

“A lot are. But some are scary powerful.”

“Do you think Doña Maria is powerful?” She’d been scary, that was for sure. In an incongruous, matronly way.

Zack considered that for a while. “I think she’s legitimate, anyhow. Powerful’s harder to tell. She didn’t give us much.”

True. But they hadn’t left empty-handed, either.

Jo’s fingers curled more tightly around the secret gift. She’d never had magical amulets, before. “It seemed so normal,” she admitted. “I mean, not normal normal. But it wasn’t…”

“No special effects,” Zack translated, to her relief. So she wasn’t the only one who’d ever noticed that, huh?

“Yep.”

“Look, I’m no expert either—I investigate the stuff, I don’t practice it—but I’ve seen magic work, and it…it’s like it hides itself in reality. I’ve never heard of a spell yet that couldn’t be called coincidence by some mean-spirited dweeb with a hard-on for skepticism.”

Jo admired the metaphor, but was vague on the point, “Uh-huh…?”

“Say someone does magic for money. He’s not gonna open his eyes and find a pile of money on his coffee table, you know? He probably won’t even win the lottery or have a relative drop dead and leave him an inheritance. More likely he’ll get offered a second job, or a lot of overtime, or his tax return will come early, or he’ll finally sell that old car that’s been sitting dead in his driveway for a year. So is it coincidence? Hey, get the map out of the glove box.” He considered it. “Please.”

Jo guiltily pocketed her love charm and retrieved the map. “Hard to say if it’s coincidence or not.”

“Exactly. But either way—” He glanced toward her for a split second, just long enough to convey his earnestness. “He does get the money.”