St Kilda Consulting 01 - Always Time to Die

voice in the room, she lay slack, unresponsive. Her blank eyes gazed out over the shimmering mystery of the swimming pool.
    “The next months will be difficult for me and my family,” Josh said, holding Carly’s gaze. “The other side will be looking for every bit of dirt it can find to smear me with.”
    She nodded. Mudslinging was the least attractive part of running for public office.
    “Once the primaries and the election are over, it won’t matter,” Josh said, “but I have too many people depending on me to throw it all away on the whim of a spiteful spinster.”
    With an effort Carly kept herself from looking at Winifred.
    “My aunt refuses to delay publication of her so-called family history until after the election,” Josh said.
    This time Carly did glance at Winifred, who was working in salve without pause, as though the conversation had nothing to do with her.
    “Isn’t that correct, Aunt Winifred?” Josh asked.
    “Yes.” The old woman’s voice was as curt as his. “Carly said it will be ready by April. There’s nothing you can do to stop me.” Winifred looked up. Shadows made her face more angular than usual, and her eyes very black. “I made a will and Carly’s pay is in it. So even if I die before my next breath, the Castillo family history will be written and published.”
    Josh made an impatient gesture. “Dramatic as always.” He turned back to Carly. “If you use anything about the Senator, me, my wife, or my son that isn’t available from public records or approved of in writing by me, my lawyers will make your life a living hell.”
    Shocked, Carly backed up a step.
    “I see you understand,” he said. “I can’t stop you from writing a pack of lies, but I can stop you from making it available to my enemies. And I will.”
    Josh left as suddenly as he had come. The door closed firmly behind him.
    Winifred capped the salve with a decisive motion. “You’re right.”
    Carly blinked. “Excuse me?”
    “We need more than Castillo women. I’ll make up a list of names.”
    “Names?”
    “Of the Senator’s local women. Some of their kids might be the governor’s kin. We couldn’t leave them out of the family history, could we? Wouldn’t be right.” Winifred’s eyes were as black and empty as the night.
    Carly looked at her employer and wondered what she’d gotten herself into.
    Get out of Taos or you’ll be the one screaming.

TAOS
TUESDAY AFTERNOON
18
    DAN PUT ANOTHER SHEET ON THE GLASS BED OF THE SCANNER , PUNCHED THE BUTTON , and waited for the machine to do its magic. From overhead came the sounds of paper being delivered or supplies being moved. Cold air settled down the stairway; the cellar door had been opened to remind the employees working on the first floor that there was a big hole next to the door. The chill made his leg ache.
    He knew he should just forget about getting anything useful done and go back to his rental to read the latest dispatches from the geopolitical train wreck. His body, not his brain, was on medical leave. His boss was waiting for an assessment on the political situation in Colombia, where drug money had transformed some warlords into politicians and financed private armies. Colombia wasn’t the only nation lurching closer to becoming a failed state, which was a polite description of the kind of anarchy that meant rape, murder, disease, and ruin for anyone who couldn’t get out.
    It had happened before. It would happen again. Bang-bang and skeletal babies for the TV minicams, the roll call of global disasters that fed the public’s “right to know.”
    So what else is new?
    The scanner flashed and transformed another piece of the past into electrons sandwiched between microscopically thin slices of silicon.
    I really should get back to work.
    Yet the thought of the small adobe house, its leaky plumbing, and its relentless stream of documents to be digested, annotated, and directed to somebody who cared didn’t appeal to Dan. But then, nothing did. He’d awakened restless, irritated, and out of sorts. An hour of rehab exercises hadn’t made a dent in his bad temper. Neither had ten miles of jogging and walking.
    He saw Carly in every bit of sunlight, heard her laughter in the breeze, and ached every step of the way. It pissed him off almost as much as it worried him.
    “I’m too old for wet dreams,” he muttered, turning the paper sideways.
    “Excuse me?”
    Dan whipped around, his whole body poised, ready to fight or