St Kilda Consulting 01 - Always Time to Die

sitting on the floor surrounded by photos of all ages and sizes. He nodded coolly to her.
    He didn’t like discovering that he’d driven forty minutes over frozen ruts because he hoped to catch a glimpse of a busybody’s smoke-and-gold eyes.
    “You’re looking well, Miss Winifred,” Dan said. It was a lie; she looked tired, pale, and unusually gaunt.
    “Wish I could say the same about you.” Despite her curtness, Winifred smiled. “I was hoping you’d come around to see an old lady. About time you remembered your manners.”
    He shook his head. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
    She gave a bark of laughter. “What did you expect, a miracle? God has better things to do than transform me. Give me a hug and I’ll forgive you for waiting so long to see me.”
    Carefully Dan hugged the woman who was old enough to be his grandmother and tough enough to be Satan’s sister. Winifred was all sinew and bones and attitude. The realization that he’d missed her amazed him. Like the Snead brothers and the warmth of his parents’ kitchen, Winifred was part of a childhood that he only now was coming to value instead of simply accepting as a given.
    “How is Mrs. Quintrell?” Dan asked.
    “Winters are hard on her,” Winifred said, looking toward the bed.
    Dan nodded as if he thought Sylvia noticed the difference in the view out her windows from spring to summer, fall to winter. But the changing seasons mattered to Winifred, so they had to matter to Sylvia.
    Sometimes he wasn’t sure what Winifred believed in the silence of her own mind, but he knew that those beliefs made it possible for the old woman to face another day of caring for a sister who would never care about anything in this life.
    “Well, what did your mother send me?”
    “I’m an errand boy, not an herbalist,” Dan said. “All I know is the package with the red tape is for fever and cough. Mom said you’d probably be needing that if you have the flu that’s been working its way through the valley.”
    “Let’s see what you have,” Winifred said, stifling a cough. “I can’t afford to be sick. Sylvia needs me. Without me, she’d die.”
    Dan believed it. Certainly nothing else was keeping Sylvia alive.
    He began pulling paper packets from his jacket pockets. Next came small baked-clay containers, plus one larger one, until finally his pockets were empty. He peeled off his jacket and hung it over his arm. The room was way too hot for anyone healthy.
    Which explained why Carly was wearing a loose T-shirt and jeans, bare feet, and a sheen of sweat on her forehead. Her feet were narrow and high-arched. Bright purple toenails struck a note of rebellion. Something Celtic had been tattooed on the inside of her right ankle. He wondered what the design was, and if it would feel or taste different from the rest of her skin.
    Deliberately he ignored that line of thought and looked back at Winifred. She picked up each package and container in turn, sniffed, and nodded approvingly.
    “No one equals your mother,” Winifred said, “except maybe my mother’s grandmother, and there were whispers about the unfortunate state of her soul.”
    Dan saw that Carly had quietly come to her feet and was standing nearby, close enough to catch what he and Winifred said.
    Recording every word, I’ll bet.
    He tried to be irritated, but whatever scent Carly was wearing smelled better than everything else in the room.
    Innocence and spice. Hell of a combination.
    “Don’t let me interrupt,” Dan said. “Like I said, I’m only a delivery boy.”
    Winifred laughed huskily. “You stay put and let me see you. Thought we’d lost you this time for sure.”
    “Just a climbing accident,” he said. “Those volcanoes are tricky.”
    She snorted and gave him a look that told him she knew what had really happened. Somehow, someway, she knew.
    It has to be the Sandoval family, Dan decided. Smugglers’ grapevine. Drug runners’ grapevine. Curanderos’ grapevine.
    Shit. I’d really hoped it wasn’t the Sandovals.
    And he’d known it was.
    That was why he was on “vacation” leave in northern New Mexico, where Sandoval men had been devils and their women had been patient saints for three hundred years.
    Winifred nodded once, abruptly, and turned back to Carly.
    Message delivered, Dan thought. Too bad I’m not sure which side of the law Winifred lives on.
    “We were talking about my childhood memories,” Winifred said to Carly.
    “Yes,” Carly said