Third Grave Dead Ahead

by Darynda Jones

  “It’s almost your bedtime.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “She can stay.” I leaned in and whispered, “She’ll be asleep in no time.”

  “True. But are you sure?”

  “Of course,” I said, shooing her out the door. “I’m just going to soak a bit, then join her.”

  Amber was watching one of the horror movies I’d rented. Come to think of it, that movie might keep her awake. At least it would keep one of us awake.

  “I’m going to take a quick bath, kiddo,” I said, leaning over the sofa and kissing her forehead.

  “Don’t make the water too hot. My teacher says it gives you old-timers.”

  After squelching a snicker, I said, “I don’t think hot baths have anything to do with Alzheimer’s, but I’ll take that under advisement.”

  “Okay, but my teacher says,” she warned. I could see why Cookie threatened repeatedly to sell her to the gypsies if she weren’t so cute.

  7

  I totally take back all those times I didn’t want to nap when I was younger.

  —T-SHIRT

  I stripped down and sank into the tub, cringing when the scalding water slid up my legs and torso. A sultry heat settled around me, the steam seeping into my skin, and my lids started to drift shut almost immediately. My mind wandered aimlessly to greener pastures. Pastures with a four-poster bed perched in a field of grass with fluffy down pillows that just begged to be slept on. And baby ducks. For some reason, there were baby ducks. I rubbed my eyes, forcing myself back to the present, and led a dampened strand of hair behind an ear. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. If I was going to make it another night without sleep, the last thing I needed was a hot, relaxing bath.

  I washed quickly and immersed myself fully in the water to rinse off, looking from beneath it at the glint of light before resurfacing. Reluctantly, I pushed the stopper with my toes to let the water drain and stood to get a towel, which I draped over my head to wring the water from my hair.

  The drain gurgled as the water stirred at my feet. I felt something solid there and slowly lowered the towel. A telltale heat rose like steam around my legs, and Reyes materialized in front of me, his powerful shoulders glistening as water sheeted off them. He locked a hand around my throat and leaned me back against the cool tile wall, so at odds with the blistering heat that radiated off him. His expression was hard and unforgiving.

  And before I could say anything, that familiar need gripped me. I steeled myself, fought it, but it was like fighting a tsunami with a spork. He stepped closer as his gaze locked on to mine, his deep brown eyes almost inquisitive under his spiked lashes.

  I felt him nudge my legs apart with his knee. “What are you doing?” I asked, gasping as the heat penetrated my core.

  Without answering, he pulled the towel out of my hands and tossed it aside.

  “Reyes, wait. You don’t want to be here.” My palms rested on his rib cage. “You don’t want to do this.”

  He leaned in until his full mouth was almost on mine. “No more than you want me to,” he said, daring me to argue, his breath like velvet over my lips. He smelled like a lightning storm, like earth and ozone and electricity. His hand rose to hold my chin captive as the other slid between my legs. My stomach lurched with the contact, the center of my being so sensitive to his touch, I almost came right then and there.

  A knock sounded at the bathroom door and I looked over with furrowed brows.

  “Not yet,” he said in warning, his fingers diving inside me, drawing me back to him.

  I gasped and clutched on to his wrist to push him away. Instead I pulled him deeper, clawed at him, begging for release.

  He pressed his steely body against mine and leaned in until his mouth was at my ear. “Stay with me,” he said, his deep voice rich and smooth. He released my chin, took hold of one of my hands, and led it down the solid wall of his abdomen.

  The knock sounded again and I felt myself being ripped away from him.

  “Dutch,” he said as my hand encircled his erection, but water rushed up and around us like a flash flood until I was literally fighting for air.

  I bolted upright, sending bathwater splashing over the edge of the tub as I remembered where I was.

  “Okay?” I heard a voice say. Amber.

  “What, sweetheart?” I said, wiping water from my face. “I didn’t hear you.”

  “I’m going home. My cell’s about to die and I have to call Samantha. Her boyfriend broke up with her, and the world is apparently going to end.”

  I struggled to catch my breath. “Okay, hon. See you tomorrow,” I said, my voice too airy.

  “’Kay.”

  I forced myself to calm, to get a grip on reality, to unclench my fists and free the sopping towel I’d dragged into the bathtub at some point. Then I eased up and perched my chin on my knees as I waited out the storm trembling through me.

  This was getting ridiculous. If I’d bound him, how was he still entering my dreams? What the hell was that about? Not to mention the fact that I’d fallen asleep in a bathtub. I could’ve drowned.

  Freaking son of Satan.

  My phone chimed, letting me know I’d missed something. I reached over with a shaking hand and grabbed it off the vanity. My sister, Gemma, had sent me a text. Three, in fact. She was having car trouble, couldn’t get a hold of Dad, and wanted me to pick her up at a convenience store just outside of Santa Fe. I tried to call her as I stepped out of the tub, but an annoying voice cut in, saying her phone was either off or she was out of the calling area. Wonderful. She did say her battery was low. Maybe it died.

  Having no choice, I patted dry, dragged on a pair of jeans, a Blue Öyster Cult sweatshirt, and my hard-won biker boots, and stepped out of the bathroom. The television sat silent, the living room dark.

  I didn’t bother drying my hair before I left the apartment, advising Mr. Wong not to let strangers in as I did so. A freezing rain pelted me when I rushed outside to Misery, swearing on all things holy if Gemma wasn’t at the convenience store when I got there, I would begin my illustrious career as a soul collector for real, starting with hers. I supposed I’d have to pick up a jar first.

  I drove to Santa Fe for the second time that day as sheets of icy rain cascaded down my windshield. My hair, frozen to my head, was slowly thawing. At least it was easier to stay awake in Popsicle mode. Misery was doing her best to warm me, and I had to admit, my toes were pretty toasty. I should have brought a towel or a blanket. What if something happened? What if Misery died and I froze to death? That would suck.

  I wondered if Reyes ever got cold. He was so hot, as though his body generated heat from its own source inside him. He should’ve come with a HIGHLY COMBUSTIBLE warning label.

  When I was finally warm, I realized the shaking I’d been experiencing was not due to the temperature but to Reyes’s latest visit. Figures. I forced my mind away from him and onto the case at hand. My first order of business would be to use my supernatural connections to find out if Teresa Yost was still alive. The odds were certainly against it, but with any luck, she’d survived whatever the good doctor had in store for her. I needed more information on him as well.

  The rain continued to fall in a procession of thick angry droplets that sounded more like hail against Misery than raindrops. It forced me to slow, to take the turns more cautiously than I wanted to. But its aggressive disposition matched my own. The slapping of the windshield wipers lulled me into serenity, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop my thoughts from traveling back to Reyes.

  Why did he come to me? He was so angry, so reluctant to be with me, yet there he was, enjoying it each and every time as much as I.

  Then again, he was a man. Why men did anything they did was beyond me. And they have the nerve to complain about women.

  I took the exit that would lead to the convenience store outside of Santa Fe. It sat in a fairly remote area, and I couldn’t help but wonder what in the name of jelly beans Gemma
had been doing out here. As far as I knew, she rarely went spotlighting for jackrabbits. A delivery truck ahead of me caused me to slow even more, but since the rain made it impossible to see beyond twenty feet, I actually felt safer behind it. I focused on its taillights to stay on the road. Rain in the parched deserts of New Mexico was always a good thing, but driving in it was becoming dangerous. Thankfully, the heavily lit convenience store came into view. The truck continued on as I coasted into the parking lot, then stopped short. Only one car sat off to the side, probably the night clerk’s. I scanned the area for Gemma’s Volvo, a realization coming to light along with a stunned kind of anger. She wasn’t there.

  Clamping my jaw together to keep from cursing aloud, I tried her cell again, to no avail. Then I checked the texts again to make sure I had the right place. I did. Maybe she was lost, had told me the wrong convenience store. Before I could make a decision on what to do, my passenger’s-side door opened. Thank goodness. I figured her car was stuck somewhere out in this tempest and she’d had to hoof it to the store on foot. But instead of my sister’s blond hair and slight frame climbing in, a large wet man crawled inside and closed the door behind him. After an initial period of astonishment, a jolt of adrenaline rushed through me in a delayed reaction I would later shake my head at in befuddlement.

  Cookie was right. I almost get killed in the most unlikely places.

  I jumped to open my door, but long fingers that could easily be mistaken for a Vise-Grip locked around my arm. The fact that I knew the survival rate of abducted women spurred me into action. I fought him with a few well-placed punches while groping for the door handle. When he jerked me toward him, I raised my feet over the center console and kicked. But he bound my legs within a steel-like arm and pulled me underneath him.

  A large hand muffled the screams I’d let rip as he pushed himself onto me. His weight caused the console to grind into my back painfully, but I still kicked and squirmed and used everything I’d learned in the two weeks I’d lasted in jujitsu. No way was I going to make this easy for him.

  “Stop fighting me and I’ll let you up,” he said with a growl.

  Oh, now he wants to negotiate. I began my struggles anew, clawing at him and kicking. A primal instinct had taken hold, and I no longer controlled my actions. He forced my head back, leaned into me, and the sickening feel of a cold sharp object against my throat stilled me instantly. My senses came rushing back at a dizzying speed, along with the chilling reality of my predicament.

  “Don’t stop fighting me,” he added in a husky voice, “and I’ll slice your throat right here and now.”

  For an endless minute the only thing I heard was my own labored breathing. The flood of adrenaline coursing through my veins shook me from head to toe. The man was soaking wet. Cold rain beaded off him and dripped onto my face.

  Then something familiar registered in the back of my mind. The heat. Though his clothes and hair were soaking wet and bitterly cold, a heat radiated toward me and I blinked in utter astonishment.

  He rested his forehead against mine as if catching his breath. Then he moved his hand from my mouth to the back of my neck and lifted me to a sitting position. My legs were still draped over the console when he straddled my hips—an amazing feat in the cramped space—and placed the weapon against my throat again.

  Looming over me, he seemed larger than life. I recognized the prison uniform underneath a pair of work coveralls, filthy and torn.

  “I won’t hurt you, Dutch.”

  The sound of my name, the name he’d given me, sent an electric charge rushing through every molecule in my body.

  I stared at him as a flash of lightning illuminated the confining space, and looked into the deep brown eyes of Reyes Farrow. The realization stunned me. He had escaped from a maximum-security prison. Things didn’t get much more surreal than that.

  He was shaking with the cold, answering a question I’d asked myself of him earlier. Though his gaze was laced with desperation, his actions screamed otherwise. He seemed very much in control, and something other than desperation was driving him. A fierce determination fueled his every move. I didn’t doubt for a moment his willingness to kill me if need be. He was super pissed at me for binding him anyway.

  “Take the Jeep,” I said, unable to believe I was actually scared of him. Of course, he’d always been the only thing I was afraid of growing up. I just didn’t know it was him until recently.

  His eyes narrowed. He hovered over me, allowed his gaze to roam over my face. I wanted to turn away but found it impossible. The things we had done over the past few weeks. The things he was capable of. And now I was sitting here with a knife at my throat, placed there by the very man who could make me scream out his name in my sleep. “It’s yours,” I said. “Take it. I won’t call the police.”

  “I have every intention of doing just that.”

  Somehow, this was so different from any other encounter I’d had with him. Different because it was him, Reyes Alexander Farrow, Rey’aziel, the son of Satan in the flesh. Aside from that morning, I didn’t have experience with this part of him, with a beast capable of ripping a man to shreds between commercial breaks, if the stories Neil Gossett told me were any indication.

  When a burst of lightning illuminated our surroundings again, he glanced at his watch. Only then did I realize his muscles were tense as if in pain. “We’re late,” he said tightly, the barest hint of a grin lifting one corner of his mouth. “What took you so long?”

  I drew my brows together. “Late?”

  His smile faltered and he ground his teeth, leaned forward, and placed his forehead against mine again. I realized he was hurt. He went limp against me for half a second, as though he’d lost consciousness. With a jerk, he forced himself to attention. He grabbed the steering wheel for balance, then refocused on me.

  In my mind, history was repeating itself. That night so long ago, a teenage boy went limp from a violent blow. He raised his arms in a futile effort to fend off the attack. The image brought back feelings of empathy, of a blinding need to help him.

  I fought it. This was no teenage boy. This was a man, a supernatural being, holding a knife to my throat. A man who had sat in prison for more than a decade, being molded, tempered, and hardened by the hatred and anger that procreated in such places. As if growing up in hell hadn’t fueled such malevolence enough. If he wasn’t incorrigible before going in, he was sure to be now. I couldn’t allow compassion to intervene, no matter our history. Nice boys didn’t use knives to get girls. Maybe he really was his father’s son.

  I glanced to the side. The hand with the makeshift knife gripped the steering wheel as if his life depended on it. The fact that he was hurt reminded me of a line he’d told me a while back: Beware the wounded animal.

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked.

  He opened his eyes to me and said, matter-of-fact, “Because you’ll run if I don’t.”

  “No, I mean, why did you escape?”

  He frowned. “They wouldn’t let me out otherwise.” Another pained expression flashed across his face.

  I glanced down. The dark coveralls were drenched in blood, and a gasp escaped before I could stop it. “Reyes—”

  An aggressive knock on my door made us both jump. The knife was at my throat instantly. The wounded animal indeed.

  “If you try anything—”

  I ground my teeth. “Seriously?”

  “Dutch,” he said, a warning in his voice.

  “I won’t.” Even if I’d been brave enough to fight him, the knife was simply too close, too menacing for me to do anything foolhardy. Not that foolhardy wasn’t my middle name.

  “I don’t want to hurt you, Dutch.”

  “I don’t want you to.”

  “Then don’t make me.”

  The persistent knock sounded again.

  I reached over to unzip the plastic window, and he pressed the knife deeper into my skin.

  Leveling a steady gaze on him, I explai
ned, “He’s not just going to go away. I have to talk to him.”

  When he didn’t respond, I reached over and unzipped the window, but just a little. It was still pouring out. That’s when I felt Reyes’s thumb across my lips and looked back, startled. He lowered his intent look to my mouth, let it linger for half a second, then bent his head and kissed me. I knew instantly what he was doing. Who would question two lovers taking advantage of the weather?

  The kiss was amazingly gentle. Liquid and warm. His tongue slid across my lips and I opened them, giving him access, permission to deepen the kiss. And he did. He tilted his head and dived inside, his mouth scalding against mine. Irony at its finest. This was the first kiss we’d actually shared in the flesh, the real deal.

  Without thought, I raised my hands to his chest, solid and blisteringly hot. A steely arm snaked around my neck and pulled me into him. Despite the unhurried tenderness of his actions, his muscles were rigid, poised to strike should the need arise.

  I could not mistake this for more than what it was. As heavenly as it felt to be wrapped in the arms of Reyes Farrow, to feel his mouth on mine, the courts had declared him a murderer. More than that, he was desperate. And desperate men did desperate things.

  “Guess you two have things under control.”

  Startled, I broke the kiss off and glanced over to see an elderly man in a bright yellow slicker chuckling at us.

  “Personally, I’d have gone for the backseat, but that’s just me.”

  I turned to the face framed within the window opening, and felt the pressure of a blade at my throat, angled so the man couldn’t see it. As I flashed my best smile to the man practically drowning outside my window, I felt another wave of pain wash over Reyes and the knife tip pierced my skin. I flinched when it drew blood. He immediately eased up.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to raincoat man, my voice unsteady. “We were just taking advantage of the storm.”

  “I understand,” he said with a huge grin. “You might want to pull over a little farther. Never can tell in a storm like this what other drivers’ll do.”