Bed of Bones (A Sloane Monroe Novel, Book Five)

CHAPTER 1
    JUNE 1956
    PARK CITY, UTAH
     
    Willie wiped his dirt-stained hands across the sides of his jeans and cocked his head to the side, eyeballing his younger brother, who lagged behind. “Come on, Leonard! Why ya gotta be such a drag all the time? We’ll never get where we’re goin’ if we don’t hustle.”
    “You’re walkin’ too fast,” Leonard sniffed. “Wait up!”
    Willie didn’t turn around. He didn’t stop. He didn’t even slow down. He lengthened his stride and kept on going. “Quit whining, ya big baby, or next time I’ll leave ya home.”
    Leonard kicked a pebble with his shoe. It sailed across the open field, narrowly missing Willie’s head when it whizzed by. “Don’t call me that!”
    “What—a baby?”
    “Yeah. Don’t. I’m seven. Babies are…well…babies.”
    “Well, that’s what ya are, aren’t ya?” When Leonard failed to respond, Willie glanced back, knowing exactly what he’d see when he did. Leonard’s face had turned as red as their dad’s BMW 507—not because he was embarrassed and not because of the heat. He was about to get angry. When that happened, Leonard’s forehead broke out in an overabundance of dots that made him look like he had the chicken pox. “Hey, I was just kiddin’ around, Leonard. Ya know that, right?”
    “Mom said we weren’t allowed to go past the fence, and I can’t see it anymore. We’re gonna get in trouble, Willie. I just know it.”
    “Nothing is goin’ to happen, all right? Mom and Dad won’t find out unless one of us tells ’em. This is our little secret. Okay?” Willie shoved a hand inside his pocket, removed a plastic comb, and slicked it through his sandy-brown hair. At thirteen years old, he was practically a man. At least he liked to think so. He’d matured a good deal faster than all of his friends. While their voices remained high-pitched and squeaky, his was deep, like his dad’s. He didn’t look much like him though; he looked like his idol, James Dean. A year before when James was killed in a fatal car accident, Willie paid tribute by ditching his Chinos and collared shirts for jeans and plain white tees. He’d even talked his mother into buying him a leather jacket at Christmas to complete the look. At school he was ridiculed by his male classmates. He didn’t care. None of them had a fifteen-year-old girlfriend. He did.
    “How much longer?” Leonard mumbled. “I wanna go home.”
    “We will, just as soon as I find what I’m lookin’ for.”
    “Not this home,” Leonard said, “our real one. I hate it here.”
    Willie hated it too. Park City was the most boring place he’d ever visited in his life. Day after day they sat around with nothing to do, waiting for their dad to sign the paperwork over to a developer who had big plans for his grandfather’s land. They were only supposed to be here for a week. It had been more than two. He didn’t know why his dad kept going back and forth, negotiating every last detail with