Page 11 of Wrong Turn

“Wait. There’s a baby,” Kelly said.

Lei and Harry froze, staring at her. “A what?” Harry said.

Just then, a thin wail came from the corner of the room.

Chapter Eight

Lei froze. “That sounds like a baby.”

“Itisa baby.” Kelly covered her face with her hands. “Poor thing.”

“Why is it here?” Harry was already heading for the corner of the room, where a crude curtain cut off the area.

“I think—they had another captive and—she died and left that baby. They were pissed about it. From what I could gather, these guys capture women and sell them to whorehouses,” Kelly said. “They were trying to find a buyer for the baby.”

Harry swore and spat on the ground, then slipped behind the curtain. The crying stopped. Apparently, Harry knew how to calm the creature. Lei was thankful; babies terrified her.

She made herself reach into Joao’s pockets, looking for anything identifying. She had to master fear and revulsion and truly experience that this man couldn’t hurt her, that he was done and dead.

Lei found the keys to the men’s truck. A silver cross and a rabbit’s foot dangled off the key ring, giving Lei a twinge for the first time—Joao, whoever he’d been, was dead now because of her. She shook it off, noticing the Mustang’s key among the others.

“Let’s get your car back, Kelly.” She held up the keys.

“And here’s some extra kerosene.” Kelly held up a square gallon container of the piney-smelling accelerant she’d found in the corner. “Should I scatter it around?”

“Hang on a minute.” Harry emerged from behind the curtain. She held an impossibly small, swaddled bundle to her shoulder. “You didn’t tell us the baby was an infant girl.”

“How would I know?” Kelly said crossly. “I never saw it. They’d go back behind the curtain and do stuff to it when it cried.”

“Well, this baby’s only a few weeks old.” Harry carefully lowered the child so they could see a tiny round face, and the tuft of dark hair protruding from her wrappings. “She was wet, so I changed her, that’s why she was crying. We’ll have to take her with us. Fortunately, all the baby’s stuff is back there, too.”

“Oh wow,” Lei breathed. “How are we going to explain a baby?”

“You two won’t have to explain anything,” Harry snapped. “I’ll take care of her for the moment and figure something out. Lei, finish searching the bodies. Kelly, go pack up the baby’s stuff and find a bag or something to put it in, while I get her settled in the car.” Kona rejoined his mistress and they headed for the door.

Lei gulped as she rolled Fernando’s head into position near his shoulders with her toe. The man’s eyes were open, and surprise was frozen on his face forever. “We will have to destroy as much of this building and these bodies as we can.”

“Absolutely.” Kelly had pushed the curtain aside and was thrusting baby stuff into a canvas grocery sack.

Lei removed Fernando’s wallet, emptied money and his ID from it, and dropped it back on his body. She moved on to the next man. “Let’s try to make this look like an accident. It will save hassles later if no one’s looking for a killer.”

“It’s a stretch that anyone’d believe this is an accident,” Kelly said, emerging with the bulging bag. “I’ll go find Harry.”

Lei tossed her the keys. “In case you need to unlock the car.”

Kelly nodded and exited.

Lei put her hands on her hips and looked around the chaotic scene, trying to remember what she’d been studying about forensic investigation. “The bodies need to look natural,” she muttered. “And the cause of death needs to be obvious and plausible.”

She dragged Joao’s body by the heels back to his pallet, covering him with his blanket. “Hopefully it seems like the lamp fell over and started a fire.”

She didn’t want to move Fernando’s body back to his pallet, so she dragged that over near him and positioned his body onto it, then made sure his head was centered above it and covered the whole business with a blanket.

Harry and Kelly reappeared. “The baby’s settled in a box in the back seat of the Mustang, and Kona is keeping an eye on her,” Harry said. She assessed the room with a quick glance. “Good job, Lei. These poor innocent men were victims of a fallen lamp.”

“Just what I was thinking,” Lei said.

They staged the room as best they could, and Kelly poured the kerosene she’d found over the wooden table in the center. When they were ready and the bodies positioned, Harry used her shotgun to tip over the lit lamp into the pool of fuel.

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