The Dirt on Ninth Grave

by Darynda Jones

  A warmth coiled inside me. Pooled in my abdomen. Tightened my skin until it felt too small for my body.

  After what might be the only action I’ll have for decades, I broke the kiss to examine him. To assess his emotional state. He was so startlingly handsome, I lost precious seconds just staring at him. He stared back. Slightly drunk, he watched me with his jaguar-like intensity, on the verge of pouncing.

  He was going to want to pounce even more in a moment, but for a very different reason.

  I leaned my head back, took in a sip of cool air, then asked, “Who are you?”

  “Whoever you want me to be,” he answered without hesitation.

  This was not going to be easy. “No,” I said, inching off him. “What kind of being are you? Because you damned sure aren’t human.”

  He stilled, but it didn’t take him long to realize what I was doing. Once he caught on, the fire that danced across his skin grew brighter. Hotter. He lowered his head. Monitored me from beneath his dark lashes as the predator in him took over. I could only pray my knots held.

  When he said nothing, I moved on to phase two. I found the biggest knife I could, dared to enter into his circle of reach should he break free, and held it to his throat. He had no way of knowing I’d never really hurt him, but I still had to convince him I gladly would.

  I slid the razor-sharp edge under his chin and raised his face to mine. “Who are you?”

  Anger glittered bright and hot in his eyes.

  “Fine,” I said. “Who am I?”

  “You’re wasting precious time, Dutch.” He looked at the timer. “In twelve minutes these restraints are coming off one way or another.”

  “You stopped that woman from telling me who I was. Somehow, you’re the smoke. It cascades off you in waves. You’re fire and darkness and dusk.”

  “Eleven.”

  “And today you heard me. When time froze, you still heard me. You stopped that angel from killing me. Why would an angel, a heavenly being, want me dead?”

  “Ten.”

  “I can see things others can’t. I know a dozen languages. I can talk to dead people.”

  “Dutch,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “And you keep calling me Dutch. Is that my name?”

  “Nine.”

  It wasn’t working. He didn’t buy it. Not for a minute. Either that, or he wasn’t concerned for his own safety. Perhaps he’d be more concerned about mine.

  Growing more desperate by the second, I stepped back and held the knife to my own throat.

  He fought the restraints, but I’d tied the belt to it so he couldn’t get up. Not without great difficulty.

  And suddenly I didn’t care. I almost welcomed the excuse to join the departed. They didn’t have it so bad. Unless I’d been a horrible person in my previous life, I would either go up or stay put. I was good with either. And I was getting answers tonight if it killed me.

  “You’ll have two minutes to untie your restraint and get me to a hospital. Last chance.” I pressed the serrated edge into my throat. Flinched when it broke the skin. This was going to suck on all kinds of levels. “Who am I?”

  “Eight.”

  I closed my eyes, took a slow, steadying breath, tightened my grip, and pulled the knife across my throat.

  14

  Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance …

  The five stages of waking up.

  —BUMPER STICKER

  Before I got even a quarter inch in, I was pinned against the refrigeration unit, my airway cut off by a steely grip. Though not by a human. Smoke surrounded me, and I couldn’t see anything, but I could feel the hand around my neck, the body pressed to mine.

  Then the smoke dissipated and Reyes Farrow materialized. He had one hand, the one holding the knife, pinned at my side. His other hand was busy making sure I’d never breathe again.

  With his face a mere inch from mine, I could see into the incredible depths of his eyes. Mixed in with the deep bourbon brown were flecks of gold and green. They glittered, and the old saying “All that glitters is not gold” came to mind. Just because something glittered did not mean it was good. And Reyes defined that line between the two.

  He bit down. I could see the muscles in his jaw flex as he worked them. But I was mainly having a hard time getting past the smoke thing.

  Who could do that? What in this dimension or the next was capable of dematerializing into another state of matter?

  With a final shove of frustration, Reyes let me go. I fell to my knees and coughed so hard I almost threw up. I still had the knife. I tightened my grip even though it would clearly do me no good.

  He’d turned his back to me, and I took the opportunity to scramble to my feet and bolt. I hit the swinging doors to the hallway and didn’t look back. He could have caught me. Easily. Yet he didn’t. Either he didn’t care what I did, who I would tell about him, or he was afraid he would really hurt me. I was leaning toward the latter.

  * * *

  I woke up the next morning sore and exhausted. How did I even go to sleep after what I saw? The impossible. The inconceivable. Even though I was pretty sure physics wasn’t my strong suit, I knew that what he did defied the laws of … everything. Nature. Science. Man. Did that mean that everything we knew about the world around us was a lie?

  My mind spun with all the possibilities. With all the implications.

  When I dragged myself into the shower, I tried not to think of it.

  I failed.

  Since I’d run home without Reyes’s, I had no jacket to walk to work in. As with many things in life, layering was the answer. I pulled on a T-shirt, then a button-down, then a thin sweater, and to top off my layer cake ensemble, I found the biggest, bulkiest sweater in my admittedly sparse closet and wiggled into it.

  If this didn’t do the trick, nothing would.

  I grabbed my bag, said good-bye to the crew, and stepped out into a world of glittering ice. And there on my porch, hanging from a hook that had once held a wind chime, was Reyes’s jacket. He’d brought it to me. I wrapped it tightly around myself. He couldn’t be that mad if he was concerned enough to leave his jacket.

  With breath visible, I hurried down the steps, almost biting it on the last one, then crunched across my yard and to the café.

  Mable peeked out her screen door and waved at me.

  “Good morning, Mable!”

  She seemed different. Upset, perhaps. Her wave wasn’t so much a greeting as a device to get my attention. I glanced around, then walked up her steps.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked her.

  She nodded, then gestured for me to enter. Mable walked the fine line between being a messy housekeeper and a hoarder. Piles of mail and magazines sat on every available surface. Plastic bins of items she was saving for this grandkid or that cousin lined the walls. And a collection of old dolls sat in a glass hutch that hadn’t been dusted in probably twelve years. She wasn’t gross, just cluttered. And a little dusty.

  I waited for her to put in her teeth, then questioned her with a quirked brow.

  “Laryngitis,” she whispered, a slight wheeze to her voice.

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  She waved off my concern. “Doesn’t hurt a bit. I just had to tell you the latest. Have you met Jeremiah Kubrick? He’s Dixie’s ex-father-in-law. Lives down the street near the Denton house?”

  “Sorry,” I said with a shrug. I had no idea what the Denton house was.

  “Well, we were texting this morning”—I swallowed back my surprise that she and an elderly man were texting—“and he likes to keep an eye on the neighborhood. Has a telescope and everything. Anyway, he said he saw someone in your house last night.”

  I let my surprise shine through that time.

  “And the night before. But you weren’t home either time, so he thought you should know.”

  “Did he get a look at who it was?” I asked from between teeth that had cemented together.

  “S
ure did. That Jeffries boy. The one who became a cop.”

  I knew it. He must’ve made more than one key. “I’m so stupid.”

  “You most certainly are not.” She gave my shoulder a chastising whack. “That boy has leaned a little off center since the day his mama brought him into the world. Force must’ve been desperate to hire the likes of him.”

  “Thank you so much for telling me.” I had started to leave when the deeper implication sank in. “So this Jeremiah was watching my house with a telescope?”

  “No,” she said, chuckling. “He was just seeing if you were home. You know, to try to catch you walking around in your skivvies.”

  A horrified yelp squeaked out of me involuntarily. “He’s a peeping Tom?”

  “Certainly not! A peeping Tom sneaks around houses and looks in windows. Jeremiah looks in windows from a distance.”

  I didn’t know whether to laugh or press charges. Not that I really would have. Pressed charges. I now knew who was breaking into my house, and I had an eyewitness. Jeremiah Kubrick had just given me the proof I needed to report Ian to his superiors.

  I had to be careful, though. He was clearly unstable. The best I could hope for would be formal charges for breaking and entering filed against him. But there was a chance he could just lose his job. Then I’d have an even angrier unstable man with a license to carry on my ass.

  “Thank you, Mable. I knew someone was breaking in. I just didn’t know who.”

  “Well, now you know. And Jeremiah has pictures.”

  “No way.” I fought the urge to fist-pump. “Those will help. Can I get a copy?”

  “Course.”

  “Thanks, Mable. I have to get to work, but—”

  When I stopped midsentence, she asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “He has pictures?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does—Does he have pictures of me?”

  She laughed. “Where do you think his new wallpaper came from? You look good in that bronze bra and underwear set, by the way. It’s his favorite.”

  That was so wrong. So, so wrong. Time to invest in shades. But first, Ian.

  Seething to the very depths of my soul, I walked out without even asking if I could get her anything.

  How dare Ian. The gall. I felt utterly violated, and he’d never touched me. Well, he had, but not in that way.

  Bobert had been a detective. He could advise me on how to proceed. Filing a complaint was one thing. Filing a complaint against a crazy man who also happened to be a cop was another beast entirely.

  I strode to work without feeling the cold, I was so mad. Also, I was layered out the ass, a fact that became supremely evident when I had to de-layer in the storeroom.

  When I’d first walked in through the back door, I was met with the scent of heaven. Literally. One word hit me. A word I may or may not have worshiped in my previous life. A word that meant the difference between a life filled with meaning and joy and a life vexed with doldrums and thoughts of suicide.

  Chile.

  Having shed most of my outer coating, I started toward the prep station to get the coffee going. Cookie wasn’t in yet or it would already be done.

  As I passed, Reyes stepped out of the kitchen and settled his weight against the doorjamb, his lean body holding the swinging door back.

  I stiffened and glanced at him only because it would have been more awkward not to.

  He was wiping his hands on a towel. “Feeling suicidal today?” he asked, anger shimmering in his eyes.

  “Maybe.” Seriously, I had the best comebacks.

  “At least I can remember my name.”

  I inhaled, appalled that he would use retrograde amnesia to score such a cheap shot. I stepped closer. “Oh, yeah? At least I’m human.” I probably should have taken note of our surroundings before saying something like that, but he didn’t seem to care.

  We were in the middle of a bona fide staredown when he reached into the kitchen and handed me a plate. “Merry Christmas.”

  He’d made eggs and enchiladas, with both red and green chile. Christmas style. My mouth flooded so fast, I almost drooled.

  “Thank you,” I said, feeling sheepish.

  “Oh, and this, too.” He reached back in and handed me a steak knife.

  I frowned. I didn’t need a knife to eat enchiladas.

  “In case you want to finish what you started last night.”

  “It’s perfect,” I said, snatching the knife out of his hand. Another badass comeback for the record books.

  Actually, I did want to finish what I’d started last night. In the worst way possible.

  I was in love. I didn’t realize just how much until thirty seconds ago. I knew it the minute my eyes landed on him. Even angry and hurt and volatile, he liquefied my bones and infused my heart with warmth and life and a sense of security. He was like a sanctuary. Like shelter from a storm. I knew, beyond anything known and not known, beyond the future and the past, that I could count on this being, on this man, to be there for me.

  It was the whole rote memory thing. I’d woken up in that alley knowing how to talk. How to walk. How to search the Internet. And I woke up in love. It was ingrained in my DNA. I loved Reyes Farrow. I craved him, and there was nothing I could do about it.

  This went beyond the fact that he’d saved my life. Then again, he did. He couldn’t be evil. That angel had every intention of dismembering me. Reyes—and the details were still a bit hazy—fought it off. Somehow he fought a celestial being. For me. Was even wounded in the process.

  But angels weren’t evil either. Maybe it wasn’t as simple as good and evil. Maybe there were an infinite number of grays in between.

  It didn’t matter. Nothing else mattered. What he was. Where he was from. How he freaking turned into smoke, because damn. He was mine, fire, smoke, and all. I staked my claim right then and there.

  “Sorry I’m la—”

  Cookie had rushed in like a frozen tornado but stopped short when she saw Reyes and me. She cleared her throat and walked to the storeroom to de-cloak.

  I took my prizes and continued to the drinks station to start the coffee, but not before sampling a bite. When Cookie walked up, I groaned aloud and took another bite.

  “Is that what I think it is?”

  “If you think it’s authentic enchiladas, then yes.”

  “I caught a whiff when I walked in, but I thought I was dreaming.”

  “Here you go.” Reyes handed Cookie a plate as well through the pass-out window.

  She sucked in a soft breath and took the plate as if it were a delicate treasure. And so the morning passed with the two of us sampling Reyes’s cooking—when he wasn’t looking, of course—and waiting on tables. But only because we’d get fired if we didn’t.

  Mr. P and the dead stripper came in. Ordered the usual. Garrett came in. Ordered the usual. Osh came in. Ordered off the menu, thus the usual. And a plethora of women filled up every other seat we had. The words morning rush were taking on a whole new meaning. Reyes might have been good for business, but I had blisters from trying to outrun the headless horseman last night and then running all the way home after the Reyes incident. And now they throbbed like the fires of a thousand suns. Still, like Dixie had said, dude could cook. I could forgive a few blisters if it meant a steady supply of chile et al.

  When Bobert came in, I asked him if he could look into Mr. Ian Jeffries. Surely I wasn’t his first crush. If he’d gone stalker on other women, there would be a record of some kind, even if he’d never been formally charged.

  I also told him about the phone call I got from the FBI agent.

  “She’s really good at her job,” he told me. “Said she’d get back to me if they found anything.”

  “Bobert, what if I just endangered them more?”

  “Janey.” He covered my hand with his. “You did the right thing. The fact that you noticed what was going on may save their lives.”

  I gave him an unconvinced nod.
<
br />   By eleven, Francie and Erin had arrived and dined on the now-famous enchiladas. Francie’s face turned bright red, and her nose ran for the next half hour, but she carried on like a trouper. Mostly to impress Reyes.

  But it was eleven and past time for Mr. V’s usual phone call. I waited for his order, but none came.

  “I’m going on break,” I told Cookie. She was on break herself, sitting with Bobert. They both looked like they’d just had sex, but it was only the enchiladas.

  I wrapped myself in Reyes’s jacket and headed out the front door toward Mr. V’s store. I hadn’t even gone halfway when I noticed a sign on the door. No. This couldn’t be good. Practically sprinting the rest of the way, I read the sign. CLOSED DUE TO ILLNESS.

  I threw myself against the plate-glass window and cupped a hand over my eyes. It was dark inside. And empty. I stepped back and glanced at the dry-cleaning store. If the men had tunneled in and stolen something from them, wouldn’t there be cops and investigators? Their open sign flickered, and a woman walked out holding the hand of a young boy, a plastic-covered dress draped over her arm. So it was business as usual.

  A plan formed in my mind. I stepped to the street and studied the buildings. If I was right, I might have a way into Mr. V’s store that did not involve lock picking, which I was pretty sure I’d fail at, or breaking out windows, which I was pretty sure I’d fail at, too. Not the window-breaking part, but the stealthy, not-getting-caught part.

  I hurried back to the café. The lunch crowd would be arriving soon. I didn’t have much time. And I’d need help.

  I hated taking Cookie away from the love of her loins, but people’s lives were at stake. With an almost imperceptible nod, I motioned for her to meet me in the storeroom.

  She squinted at me.

  I motioned again, with a perceptible nod this time.

  She shook her head and shrugged.

  I gritted my teeth and pointed outright to the storeroom.

  “Sweetheart,” Bobert said, trying not to chuckle, “if you don’t meet her in the storeroom posthaste, she’s liable to stroke.”