Read Online Haitian Graves by Vicki Delany - Free Book Online Page B

Canadian cop being after him. They’d make a call to his company. He had money and influence. He’d be whisked out of Haiti. Probably be gone by morning. And his kids with him. He wouldn’t stay in the States for long. Not where someone might start asking his daughter questions. He’d get a transfer. Plenty of places his company could send him. Saudi Arabia, maybe, or Colombia. At first he’d have to take the boy, or there’d be questions. François was learning from Hammond how to be a man. To be tough, to be mean. How to treat women. But he was just a kid. He didn’t deserve to be dumped in some third-world country and left to survive on his own.
    The pickup ahead of me made a left-hand turn. The red taillights of Hammond’s Lexus were fading into the distance. I tapped my brakes. Time to turn around. I’d go home, get drunk and fall into bed. I could solve the problems of the world another day.
    White lights came out of nowhere. Screaming brakes broke the still night. I heard the unmistakable sound of metal on metal. The lights of the Lexus swervedsharply right. They headed downward. And then they were no longer moving.
    Hammond had been hit. His car was off the road.
    I gunned it. A battered old Chevy had come off a side road. It had hit the speeding Lexus side on. Pushed it into a weed-choked ditch. I screeched to a halt. I grabbed my Maglite from the glove compartment and leaped out. Two men were climbing out of the Chevy. They were shaking their heads and yelling a blue streak. They looked okay. Angry, but not hurt. I ran to the ditch. The Lexus’s engine was still running. The driver’s door was open. The interior light was on, but no one was inside. Bright red drops were sprinkled across the dash. They might be from a nosebleed. Might be from something more serious.
    There were no houses around here. No streetlights. But the full moon threw enough light for me to see by. The ground sloped upward into a small hill. A cemetery stood on the heights. Not the big cemetery in the center of Port-au-Prince, but similar.
    “He come outta nowhere,” one of the men from the Chevy told me. “Damned fool. Where he gone?”
    “Call the police,” I said.
    They eyed me. They weren’t inclined to do anything I told them. Not a white guy in civilian clothes with blood all over his face.
    There was no wind. The branch of a small tree swayed. I headed toward it. I didn’t think Hammond was armed. I hoped he wasn’t.
    I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket. I pushed a button. “I need backup,” I said. “Now.” I told Pierre where I was. ”You’ll see my car. Side of the road.”
    “On my way,” he said. If he was at home, it would take a good fifteen minutes at least for him to get here.
    I switched on the flashlight. Something glistened at my feet. I turned my light onto it. Red liquid splashed on the grass. Only a few drops. But enough.
    I followed a trail of blood, broken grasses and gently moving branches up the slope. I walked into the cemetery. Into the narrow streets of the dead. Behind me the two men argued about calling the police. If their car was still mobile, they’d probably just drive away. In the distance, a dog barked. Otherwise, all was quiet. Deadly quiet.
    The tombs closed around me. The crumbling statues loomed over me. Heavy crosses stood out against the night sky. The moonlight hid the bright colors. Everything was turned into a watery gray. Broken stone and hunks of concrete crunched under my feet. I heard a sound to my left. Swung my flashlight. Drops of blood led me around a three-story tomb. There wasn’t much blood. Hammond wasn’t badly hurt. An angel, terrifying in the moonlight, glared at me, wings outstretched. She looked ready to pounce.
    Something scurried away. Taking itself out of the light. More than men and ghosts were here tonight.
    “The police are on their way,” I yelled into the night.
    Silence.
    “Your car’s not going anywhere,” I said. “By the time you