Ivory sat in the shower, surrounded by the ceramic tiles in various flower shapes of desert sage, which appeared to float away from her, creating the illusion of an emerald lagoon beneath her. She held the white soap tightly in her hands. Her skin was red from her shoulders down her stomach and hips. The scar from Bill’s deer knife shone like a desert star.
She glanced at her flawless diamond ring finger and whispered Money. The thought of marrying Bill weakened her, and she closed her eyes and decided to rest for several minutes, thinking she did not want to be home again, either with her brother dead. Bill, she promised, would be a victim of the Utah Killer. And she would wear the Great Horned Scarlet Owl ring, which she loved as much as Adam.
Ivory’s face was hot, and she was sweating—the steam of water—a dry silver cloth concealing her from the mirrored wall in front of her. She thought I made a big mistake. I should’ve stayed hidden in the vast desert. Maybe it was better to fight the Utah manic than Bill. At least there was a chance to survive and get the Scarlet Owl ring back.
The petals she stared at looked like the desert wildflowers running dense alongside the narrow roads up to the closed motel. There were countless petals, tessellations of moons and suns, radiating and exploding, and spinning rays of water faster and faster, washing the sins of the terrible desert.
She could almost smell the perfume on the ceramic tiles. She inhaled a dream and exhaled new life.
Ivory laughed at the trap she had made and was suddenly caught in it. Bill was despicable, and his moral code was that of a cobra. He was no master at all, just impulsive and a monster.
She was in Las Vegas, another desert, but nuptials were never happening in any damn desert. She sneered with hatred at the alarm clock and the picture frame with Bill’s red Audi; the contract was in the glove compartment; the Mountain Gorillas had their code, too, and she, once their leader, paid it off with the group’s dirty money. Being home with Silverback and the Mountain Gorillas, she wished, yet she was grateful for her decision; the return trip had been delayed, as it was too dangerous. She had adjusted her private goal and revised the revenge plan to escape the trap she had set for herself.
She slowly stood up and turned off the water. She opened the glass door, wrapped a bath towel around her, and went into a dark room, where she dried and changed using the flashlight from her cell phone. Bill was a sicko. He could have a camera lens watching her. She texted one of the Mountain Gorillas to take a message to Nelson. A handwritten note with a drawing of an Owl, she made her signature. She would use whomever she had to, and she couldn’t empathize with Nelson; he had foolish faith in his brother, turned his illegal ways, and day to day, like an average person sharing life in the city, but Bill would not follow.
Ivory knew no woman, man, or Utah Maniac Killer could alter Bill’s cruel, dark, and crazy nature. Yet she believed precisely that and learned after a couple of weeks that her power might have made the piranhas temporarily dance to her melodies, captive in an aquarium, and broke them down until they turned on each other.
Bill was gone playing poker in the high-limit area with The Boss. Nobody knew The Boss’s identity. The Boss could be anyone, but he wasn’t killing randomly or overkilling; no, he preferred killing in the open, in daylight, as her brother. The Boss had no emotion. A Polar Bear in Alaska, you’d recognize him more than him. There was no desire for anybody to name.
The Utah Maniac was quiet; no bodies in the desert or freshly painted up in the canyons. There would be an eclipse soon, and she wondered if the threat that vanished would return then. It mattered that he was stalking her like her brother. Mother was with her sister; her brother was cremated immediately after the service. Ivory convinced her mother to go, rather than wait for her. She gave her money for the one-way plane ticket before going with Bill and promised to take care of herself. Ivory was clear. If Bill wasn’t the one who killed her brother, then she had to unmask the Utah Maniac, the owner of the abandoned motel. The FBI hasn’t tracked and put an end to his gory work.
***
“Silverback, where are you going?”
“I am going to win this fucking board game with the Surreal Red Forces.”
“Not without the Gray Wolf”
“No?”
“No!”
“Of course, you’re right.”
“Nelson has the Owl ring; he has always had the Owl ring,” Silverback said.
“The Surreal Forces will soon know it as well. They fear nothing human or alien. More importantly, they don’t fear the Mountain Gorillas or you, their leader.”
“I am still going back to the desert. Nelson confided that he placed the Scarlet Owl ring inside the waves of colorful desert wildflowers. Nelson stopped the Jeep somewhere, walked around awhile, saw petals that stuck out, and spotted purple-like flying bugs hovering over them. Nelson had yet to retrieve it because he didn’t recall how many steps he had taken from the road. Or identify the flower or the bug.”
“With the fear of the Gray Wolf and the Utah Destroyer after him, he’s, of course, unsure about his memory, but his hunger grows with each rising sun for the power to change his wretched disease. Plus, he needs to continue to live in the tiny hope of transforming his brother and seeing the final fall of The Boss.”
Silverback stood up, put on his aviator sunglasses, and was ready to go out to the desert alone. “You are staying, okay.”
“There are miles and miles of Bluebells, Lupine, and Sego Lily wildflowers leashing the desolation of the desert. How are you going to find it?”
“The Investigators will find it for us. I am sure the Township Sheriff has been following us.
“How’s that Silverback?”
“The Utah killer will be back, and when it does, they will be searching for a body, someone recently missing, if we are lucky, Bill’s body. And picking anything from the ground that doesn’t belong, and then it’s bagged into evidence.”
“How will that help if the Township Sheriff holds the Scarlet Owl Ring?”
“I plan on switching it with the replica,” Silverback said. “Unmask the Destroyer of the Canyons. The Owl Ring can do that.”
“If Nelson didn’t betray us.” The Mountain Gorilla replied.
“Nelson will arrive back in the web of the Utah Desert. I am waiting for Spade to inform us when Nelson appears.”
“The Scarlet Owl ring may remain lost, a repeat of destiny. First, Bermuda’s jaw of the North Atlantic Ocean and, second, the canyon’s fin of the Western Utah desert, though that would be a double tragedy with multiple folds of families and lives destroyed, including Mouse.”
“Bring me Ivory.”
Celia Garza 