Jurassic Dark

PROLOGUE

Five Years Ago

There’s nothing more freeing than deciding to kill a man. Deciding to kill a man for revenge is even better. That’s why I followed the man deep into the New Mexico wilderness and plunged a knife into his chest.

It didn’t take a lot of planning. Only a week before, I had no idea I was going to turn into a killer. But when I found out he was going camping out in the Basin, a plan came together in my mind, and I knew I would follow it.

The man hadn’t kept his campsite a secret. He told everyone in town where he was going. The local grocer happily talked about his plans with me. He had ordered steaks for the trip and wanted three cans of ravioli. He was headed for the Basin by the border of Colorado and New Mexico, but firmly in New Mexico a few miles from native lands.

It was clear that the man didn’t think his life was in danger. He didn’t hide where he was going, and once he was there, he built a big fire so that anyone passing for miles would know where he was.

There was no clue about my intentions. No clue that he was drawing his last breaths. I entered his tent when he was asleep and wielded the long blade. He woke up just before I killed him, but he was too stunned to move in time, and I stabbed him too quickly. I plunged the knife into his chest three times, even though he stopped breathing after the first time.

The whole thing took a few seconds. I went from being an innocent person to a heinous criminal in less than a minute. The most surprising thing about the whole event was that I didn’t regret it.

In fact, I knew that if I ever got the chance, I would jump to do it again.

Part I: Matilda Hears About a Bone and Meets the Other Woman

New Food Truck Delights Locals and FBI

By Silas Miller

Citizens of Goodnight have voiced their delight with the new food truck in town. Owned and operated by Nora Montana, Nora’s Tamales opened five days ago and will continue serving Goodnight weekdays for breakfast and lunch.

Folks can’t get enough of my tamales, Ms. Montana explained. I’m making my pork tamales with green chiles all day and night, but no matter how much I make, they clean me out.

Nora’s Tamales stops regularly at the Plaza and various local establishments, including the Goodnight Gazette. In addition to pork tamales with green chiles, the food truck regularly serves chicken tamales with red sauce, turkey tamales with mole, and cheese tamales with jalapeno peppers.

But these savory tamales are not the only delights on the menu. I love the sweet tamales, Adele Dees said. I’ve ordered a daily batch of the pineapple tamales for the diner.

Other dessert tamales include strawberry with raisins. In addition to the tamales, the food truck makes burritos to order and good coffee. Lines have been a block long in the Plaza for breakfast, causing distress to some of the older townsfolk.

I have bunions, one senior citizen cried, asking not to be mentioned by name. An old woman with bunions shouldn’t be expected to stand for hours in order to eat a tamale.

Locals aren’t the only ones enjoying the new food service. FBI agents, who are here investigating our possible serial killer, have been spotted more than once purchasing food from the food truck.

The FBI agents refused to comment about the food because lunch is officially part of an ongoing investigation, but witnesses described how much these Washington D.C. agents have been enjoying the food.

Of course, they haven’t gone for the good stuff, Norton Perkins, owner of Goodnight UFOs, said. They’re eating bean and cheese burritos. That kind of stuff. They probably never even heard of a tamale, so what do they know? In fact, they probably never even heard that J. Edgar Hoover used the Andromedans as confidential informants in the war against saccharin. To be fair, not many folks know about that.

The food truck is a welcome relief to the diner, which had become overrun with business when the former tamale lady was jailed. My blood pressure is down twenty points, Ms. Dees explained. And Morris, the cook, is no longer threatening to quit. All’s well at the Goodnight Diner.

The Nora’s Tamales food truck runs in town between seven in the morning until one in the afternoon. Ms. Montana says she also plans on taking catering orders for large events.

Chapter 1

It’s been two weeks since the giraffes were moved to Boise, but life hasn’t gotten back to normal in Goodnight, New Mexico. With the discovery of a second murdered blond girl, the FBI has taken up residence here, searching for a serial killer.

They still don’t know that I spoke to the dead girl and discovered her body. Amos Goodnight, the local sheriff, has decided to keep that juicy piece of information just between us, and I agree. It freaks me out that I’ve spoken to two dead people, and I didn’t want the federal government to know about it.

My friends Nora and Adele were doing very well. Adele was no longer having a nervous breakdown, and Nora was thrilled to have a new income stream that was paying the bills with work hours that allowed her to pick her kids up from school.

As for me, I was still eating peanut butter sandwiches because the Goodnight Gazette didn’t get the ad revenue it was supposed to. My name’s Matilda Dare, and I moved to Goodnight, New Mexico a couple of months ago after I inherited a house, two dogs, and the local paper from a distant relative I never knew. I’m technically married to a murderer who’s currently and forever living at the San Quentin prison. He’s fighting me over the divorce, and has completely cleared out my bank account doing it. After being married to a man who tried to put me away in an institution, I should be off men permanently. But I met Boone Goodnight, a hunky guy I technically live with, and now I totally want to be on top of him. And him on top of me. And pretty much every other position we can think up.

He recently revealed that he’s a paleontologist and kissed me, but since then, he’s been recovering from two broken arms, so there’s been little romance happening.

I mean, no romance. Nothing. Nada. Only one more kiss, and that happened right after the first kiss. So, the second kiss could be counted as the first kiss.

I still think Boone is interested in me, but things have been complicated these past two weeks. The FBI was hanging around, and so was a serial killer. My house needed renovations after someone tried to kill me in it, and Boone was recovering from his broken arms.

But today he was having his casts removed, and we were going to a party as a couple, so, I was assuming that the romance was right around the corner.

Did you hear me? Klee, the managing editor of the Goodnight Gazette, asked me, interrupting my thoughts about Boone. Did you do the horoscope?

Not yet. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do, I said.

Cut it down to two hundred words. Hurry up. Horoscope, Word Jumble, and Marmaduke cartoon. We’re trying to bring in more readers.

Silas, the senior reporter, sighed. He was a huge fan of journalism, and he didn’t like pandering to horoscope readers. I can’t believe we’re taking up space that could be used to shine a light on corruption and promote a healthy democracy in this country, he complained. And a word jumble? Can’t we at least have a crossword instead?

No, Klee said simply. Goodnight is a word jumble town, not a crossword town. Matilda, get it done. You have fifteen minutes.

I might have been the owner of the Goodnight Gazette, but Klee was in charge. She was tall with long black hair, and she always dressed in beautiful Santa Fe fashions and artisan Navajo jewelry. I was a rookie, trying to learn the ropes of the newspaper business, but Klee and Silas were true professionals and I trusted their judgment.

Nothing says Pulitzer Prize like a Marmaduke cartoon, Silas grumbled.

Anything new from the FBI guys? I asked him. Silas was covering the serial killer story, but I had been doing my own, secret investigation into it. I felt like I owed it to the two girls who died to find their killer and bring him to justice. I was also worried that there were other girls out there who needed to be found.

According to a source, they completed a profiler report, but I can’t get my hands on it, Silas said.

Word jumble, Klee interrupted in an imperious tone.

My heart raced, and I began to sweat. The horoscope was five hundred words. How was I going to cut it down to two hundred words? That was about sixteen words per sign.

Pisces: A new person in your life can mean love or disaster depending on your attitude. Therefore,

Therefore what? If I kept it like that, how would a Pisces person know what kind of attitude to have to avert disaster and find love? Journalism was a bitch.

Does it have to be exactly two hundred words? I asked Klee, but she shot me back an annoyed look. I gnawed on a pencil and did my best to cut it down.

For a town with a serial killer, it sure is a slow news week, Silas complained. Those giraffes left town, and everything went quiet. Why don’t you stir things up, Matilda?

I pointed to myself. Me? I don’t stir things up.

Klee laughed. Yeah, right.

You have to admit, folks started dropping dead once you arrived in town, Silas said to me.

It’s true. Goodnight was a sleepy little depressed town before I arrived. Now, people were being murdered left and right. That’s not true, I said. You take that back.

Can you make it happen again? Silas asked me. Get your murder mojo going?

Geez, Silas. That’s macabre. And I don’t have murder mojo.

How about some almost murder mojo? An almost murder would be almost as good. If it bleeds, it leads. Then, we wouldn’t have to do word jumbles.

Rocco has bought advertisements on the horoscope page for the next month, Klee pointed out.

I perked up. Really?

And if I can get us an advice column, I bet I can double our ads, Klee said, confidently. Silas groaned.

I raised my hand. I’ll do an advice column.

You’re married to a murderer. You keep finding dead people, Klee pointed out. She wasn’t wrong. Who was I to give advice?

That’s good, Silas said, coming to my defense. She can advise people not to marry a murderer and not to find dead people.

You can do a daily advice column? Klee asked me, studying my face.

Yes? I said like a question. What was I saying? I couldn’t do a daily advice column. I sweated over editing a horoscope. How could I give daily advice?

Fine, Klee said after a moment, as if she gave the idea a lot of thought and came up against it but didn’t care enough to put the kibosh on it. After you finish with the horoscope, write up a blurb for the advice column and ask for submissions. What name will you use?

Name?

How about Advice Annie? Silas suggested.

Good, Klee said, writing it down. Advice Annie. I bet we get tons more ads for that.

The door to the office opened, and Mabel Kessler burst in. Mabel was one of the Goodnight’s elders, and she was always looking for a way to revitalize the town. She owned the rec center and community pool and half of the town, and she told me once that she had cut her own hair with nail scissors since she was fourteen. She was about sixty years old now.

Stop the presses! Mabel yelled.

I dropped my pencil, but Silas and Klee kept working as if Mabel hadn’t stormed in, yelling.

You’re down to ten minutes, Klee warned me. Finish it up.

I started cutting words willy-nilly, hoping that I didn’t bring down all the Aries in town with a horoscope of Don’t forget to….

Silas, I have your front page story, Mabel told him, marching to his desk and slamming her large purse on it.

Silas leaned back in his chair and put his dusty shoes on his desk. As far as I could tell, he owned one suit and tie and two shirts. He took a bath most nights in my bathtub, and I had seen more of him than I would have liked.

Is that right, Mabel? he asked. Pray, do tell. You got a lead on the serial killer?

Oh, pshaw. There’s no serial killer. So, a couple girls wound up dead in our rivers. Folks come around these parts and have no idea about nature, so sure they get themselves drowned.

I bit my lip and kept cutting words. Silas bit his lip, too. He didn’t tell her that he had uncovered the autopsy report and the two girls didn’t drown. There was no water in their lungs, and they had been strangled. And starved. And worse.

So, what’s your story, Mabel? Silas asked. Something bigger than a serial killer?

Much bigger! She put her hand up, as if she was writing in the sky with her palm. Richard Gere.

Klee yelped and shot up out of her seat. Richard Gere? What? Richard Gere? Here? Here in Goodnight? Richard Gere?

It was the first time that I saw Klee out of sorts. She touched her face, as if she was trying to keep her head together.

Yes! Mabel said, excitedly. I thought to myself: Self, who could bring excitement to Goodnight and get it the attention it deserves instead of the attention it doesn’t deserve?

At this point, she shot me a sharp look, but I kept my head down and slashed mercilessly through Gemini’s horoscope.

Klee skipped around her desk to get closer to Mabel, who I guessed now represented Richard Gere. When’s he coming? Do I have time to get eyelash extensions? I want to stand out when he gets here.

I don’t have an exact date, yet. But I have a plan. We’re going to erect a memorial right in the middle of the Plaza to Richard Gere.

I looked up from the horoscope. A memorial? I asked. Did Richard Gere die?

No, of course not, Mabel spat. He’s a Buddhist. They live a really long time.

And when they die, they’re reborn again, Silas explained. Pop! New life!

We were silent a moment, probably all thinking about Richard Gere living forever.

"I have a poster of him in American Gigolo, Klee said, staring out into space as if she could see Richard Gere in his 80s clothes. He was totally robbed at the Academy Awards."

"For me, it’s all about An Officer and a Gentleman, Mabel said, dreamily. I wish Richard Gere would carry me out of a factory."

Mabel was a pretty sturdy woman, and I figured Richard Gere would slip a disc if he tried to carry her anywhere, but I kept my eyes down and my mouth shut because Mabel scared me. She had forearms that could rival Popeye’s, and I hadn’t worked out for months.

So, the memorial is the front-page story? Silas asked, snapping Mabel and Klee out of their Richard Gere thoughts.

Duh! Mabel barked. Big memorial right in the middle of the Plaza. Richard Gere will show up for the unveiling and bring half of Hollywood and that guy in the robes.

What guy in the robes? Silas asked.

The Dalai Lama? I asked.

Mabel pointed at me. That’s the guy. He has millions of followers on Twitter. Millions. I can see it now. A totally revitalized Goodnight. Tourists. Business up the wazoo.

All from a Richard Gere memorial. And he’s not dead, Silas said.

Mabel put her hands on her hips and scowled at him. Think outside of the box, Silas.

He got back to work, typing on his computer. "You