Third Grave Dead Ahead

by Darynda Jones

  “I mean, the reasons are all there,” she continued. “I’m just still a little surprised that you’d save his life knowing what you know.”

  “What reasons?”

  “You two. You and Rey’aziel. You’re magnets. Literally.” She held up two index fingers to demonstrate. “You’re drawn together by sheer force of will.”

  “Oh, that.”

  “I mean, it was written. It’s not like I didn’t know you would do it. It’s just, if the demons get ahold of you…”

  “Yes, I’ve heard. Very bad,” I said, ignoring the tightening in my stomach.

  “Very bad indeed, but don’t worry, they’re going to send you a guardian right after a time of great suffering for you.”

  “Suffering?”

  “Yes,” she said with a nod.

  “I’m not really that into suffering. Will it be bad?”

  “Suffering usually is. Especially when the angels prophesy about it.”

  “That sounds horridly unpleasant. And they’re going to send me a guardian? But, I thought Reyes was my guardian.”

  She snorted. “Rey’aziel? Your guardian?”

  “Yes,” I said, a little taken aback. “He’s always been there for me. He’s watched over me and saved my life several times.”

  “Well, that’s true, but he’s not your guardian. He’s … I don’t think you understand the situation.”

  “What situation?” I asked, wary.

  “He’s, well, he’s very powerful.”

  “Yeah, got that memo as well.”

  “And he’s … I’m just not sure how to say this.”

  “Sister Mary Elizabeth, there aren’t many things you could say that will offend me, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “Oh, good, then I’ll just say it. He’s kind of like your Achilles’ heel.”

  “My what?”

  “You know, your kryptonite.”

  “So, Reyes is my weakness?” I asked, more confused than offended.

  “Exactly. You’re in love with him. You can’t make sound decisions when he’s around.”

  “She does have a point,” Cookie said, nodding in agreement.

  “Pfft. Please. I make sound decisions all day. With my eyes closed. And my hands tied behind my back.”

  “Exactly,” she said, her mouth a grim line, “which happens often when he’s around.”

  The fact that she knew that was oddly embarrassing.

  “So who is it, then? This guardian?” I took a long draw on my java. I’d need all the spunk I could get if I was scheduled for a time of great suffering. Suffering, great or otherwise, tended to leech the spunk right out of me.

  “I don’t know his name, but I do know he’ll bring a balance. Oh, and he hasn’t died yet.”

  “Okay.” I leaned back in thought. “So he’s going to be a departed?”

  “Yes.” She glanced at her watch. “He’s going to die in two days, eleven hours, and twenty-seven minutes.”

  “Wow, that’s pretty specific. I don’t actually kill this guy, do I?” I laughed nervously. I would hate to kill my very own guardian angel. He might take it personally.

  “Of course not,” she said, chuckling along with me. “Not directly.”

  “Well, good.” I took another shot of coffee before her words sank in. “Wait, what does that mean?”

  “What?”

  “Not directly.”

  “Hmmm,” she hummed, glancing at the ceiling in thought, “I’m not really sure. That’s all I got. I hadn’t had my tea yet. Sometimes I miss things before tea.”

  “Holy cow.” I put both feet on the floor and sat up straight. “I’m going to be indirectly responsible for someone dying?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well, that sucks ass.”

  “Yes, it does.”

  “Can you ask them who it is?”

  “Who what is?”

  “This guardian I’m going to murder indirectly.”

  “Oh, of course.” She laughed softly. “But, ask who?”

  Perhaps her decision to remain chaste was for the best. “The angels.”

  “Oh, right. No.”

  “Why not?” I asked, glowering a little.

  “I told you. I don’t talk to angels. I just sort of hear them.” She turned to Cookie. “Is she still not sleeping?”

  Cookie shook her head.

  “How did you—?” I stopped myself. “The angels? Really? They gossip that much?”

  “You have no idea.”

  * * *

  I showed Sister Mary Elizabeth to the door, then turned back to Cookie. “Is it just me, or was that weird?”

  “Both.” She eyed me with a wary suspicion. “So, you’re going to off someone.”

  “Not directly,” I said defensively. “I mean, who knows how many people I’ve killed indirectly. You, too, for that matter.”

  “Me?” she asked, appalled. “Okay, I’m going to find out if a man named Keith Jacoby was in the Cayman Islands around the time of the doctor’s first wife’s death.”

  “Perfect. I’ll do a little research on Reyes’s case and the names he gave me.”

  “That’s so wild what she said.” Cookie sat behind her desk. “How she actually hears angels.”

  But was that really the most important part? “Did you catch the time-of-great-suffering thing?”

  Her expression softened. “Can you just make sure I’m not around when it happens?”

  “No can do,” I said, strolling back to my office with a negating wave of my hand. “If I have to suffer, then so does everyone else within a ten-mile radius.”

  She pursed her lips. “What ever happened to taking one for the team?”

  “Was never much of a team player.”

  “Sacrificing yourself for the greater good?”

  “Not that into human sacrifice.”

  “Suffering in silence?”

  I stopped and turned back to her, my eyes narrowing accusingly. “If I have to suffer, I’ll be screaming your name at the top of my lungs the whole time. You’ll be able to hear me all the way to Jersey, mark my words.”

  “You’re very testy today.”

  Fifteen minutes later, I stabbed the intercom thingy on my desk. “Remember that dental assistant at Reyes’s trial? She said Earl Walker was scared of Reyes, and she just happened to work for the same dentist who identified Earl through his dental records?”

  “Sure, I remember. Sarah something,” she said.

  “Sarah Hadley. And guess where Sarah Hadley is now.”

  “Jamaica?”

  “Why would she be in Jamaica?”

  “You told me to guess.”

  “Listen to this—”

  “You realize I can hear you without the annoying intercom.”

  Cookie and I both leaned forward and looked at each other through the doorway.

  “But this is more fun,” I said. “More Star Trekkie.”

  “More annoying?” she asked.

  When I pressed my lips together and waited, she caved.

  “So where is she?”

  “Okay, check this out.” I brought up the article. “Sarah Hadley was found dead in her apartment Monday morning by her landlady while responding to complaints that Hadley’s television was too loud.” I looked back at her.

  “No way,” she said, leaning forward again.

  “Way.”

  “Like, this Monday?”

  “No, that’s just it. Reyes’s trial ended over ten years ago on a Thursday, right?”

  “Right.”

  “She was found dead the following Monday right after his trial.”

  “Walker killed her. He was tying up loose ends.”

  “It would seem so. Not only that, he was a hairsbreadth away from going to prison himself for scamming elderly women out of their money—winner—and was facing a fifteen-year prison sentence.”

  “Then he’s conveniently murdered?”

  “About five minutes before h
is case went to trial.”

  “Lucky guy.”

  “Yeah. Or a conniving one.”

  “So, Sarah Hadley switches the dental records, thus proving the man Earl Walker chose to take his place in the afterlife was actually Earl Walker—”

  “What? I can’t hear you.” I waved my hand and pointed to my ear and then at the intercom. “You need to speak into the intercom.”

  After a loud sigh, she pressed the button. “—then she testifies against Reyes at his trial, and good ole Earl repays her by—”

  “Beating her to death with a bookend.”

  “I think Earl has issues.”

  “And I think he has about a gazillion years of jail time waiting for him.” I jumped up, walked into Cookie’s office to grab my coat, as that was where I’d left it, walked back into my office, then pushed the intercom button again. “Okay, I have addresses on the names Reyes gave me. I’m heading out. And hopefully I won’t kill anyone.”

  “You still have days before that happens. Don’t worry about it.”

  “True, and thankfully one of the men on the list is already dead, so there’s no killing him again.”

  “And the others?”

  “One is here in Albuquerque, and one is in Corona.”

  “The beer?”

  “Sadly, no. The town.”

  “We have a town named Corona?”

  “I know, right? Who knew? I’m going to interview the guy here first. Wish me luck.”

  “Wait!” she said as I walked past her desk.

  I turned to her, but her finger was still on the button and she was giving me this impatient glare.

  Oh fine. I’d started this. I once again walked into my office and pushed the intercom button.

  “So, you’re saying I look like a cupcake?”

  14

  Time to make today my bitch.

  —T-SHIRT

  I steered Misery in the general direction of south until we came to a crumbling group of apartments behind another crumbling group of apartments behind an abandoned group of apartments that made the first two look like the Ritz.

  “Charley’s House of Cards,” I said into my phone while pulling in to the lot of the worst of the apartment buildings.

  “Yost’s first wife was cremated,” Cookie said.

  “What?” I turned the ignition to off. “But her death was suspicious. And they let him cremate her?”

  “Apparently. He had it done on the islands before he brought her back to the States.”

  “Why do these people not check with me first?”

  “No hit on the alias yet. Still looking.”

  “Okay, let me know. Soon, because the odds of me getting out of this neighborhood alive are nowhere near good.”

  “I knew it. I should have come with you.”

  “So we could die together?”

  “True. Well, good luck.”

  I kept the phone to my face even after we’d hung up. A phone made the perfect excuse not to notice the people ogling me as I strode to apartment three. It didn’t actually have a 3 on the door, but I was pretty good at counting in the single digits.

  I rapped on the door of one Mr. Virgil Gibbs, and a thin man, hunched over with age and abuse, answered. He had dark hair and a graying beard.

  “Hi,” I said when I got his attention. He was busy looking at a group of men looking at me. “My name is Charlotte Davidson, and I’m a private in—”

  “Maybe you should come inside, sweetheart.”

  He stood back but kept a wary eye around us.

  “Okay.” I was so going to die. I stepped inside nonetheless. He didn’t look super agile. Surely I could outrun him.

  His apartment wasn’t bad, considering. A couple empty beer bottles on an end table. A television complete with foil-laced antenna sticking out. No dirty ashtrays, which surprised me. Or underwear on the couch.

  “You want a beer?” he asked, the fact that he was missing a few teeth becoming evident with the question.

  “No, thank you.”

  He stepped to the fridge to get one for himself. “What did you say your name was?”

  “Charlotte Davidson. I’m a private in—”

  “Davidson?” he asked, twisting off the cap and eyeing me with a squint of blue.

  “Yes, I’m a—”

  “Well, if you don’t want a beer, what do you want?”

  If he’d let me finish a freaking sentence, we’d get through this much faster. “Wait,” I said, walking to the window. “Is my Jeep safe out there?”

  “Honey, I could put a cup of gold out there and it’d be safe. They know not to mess with what’s mine.”

  “You seemed pretty worried about me,” I countered.

  He smiled, showing his disastrous collection of teeth. “You ain’t mine, unfortunately. But you’re in my house. They’ll leave your Jeep be as long as you’re out of here before dark.”

  With several hours left in the day, I had every intention of being just that.

  “So, you ain’t selling anything?”

  “No, I’m a private investigator looking for someone you know.”

  “Really?” His interest piqued, but in an amused way. “You don’t look like no dick.”

  “Well, I am. And I’m looking for—” I paused and flipped through my notepad to give him a minute to let his emotions level out. I needed a clean read. “—a Mr. Earl Walker.”

  He balked, both mentally and physically. “You about ten years too late, missy. You weren’t exactly his type anyway.”

  I knew that. I knew Earl’s type, and it was neither female nor grown. And he wasn’t lying. He truly believed Earl Walker was dead. Hell, maybe he was.

  With two scratched off the list, it looked like I was going to Corona.

  “Well, thank you for your time, Mr. Gibbs.”

  “Ain’t no problem. If you find him, tell him Virgil says hey.” He laughed into the bottle as he took another swig.

  “I’ll do that.”

  I climbed into Misery with several sets of eyes watching, including Virgil’s. He wasn’t a monster like his friend Earl, but I doubted I’d hang with him anytime soon.

  I called Cook to let her know where I was headed.

  “Hey, boss.”

  “I struck out.”

  “Oh, was he good looking?”

  “No. What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Well, if you asked him out and he said no.”

  “Not that kind of struck out. With the guy from Reyes’s list.”

  “Oh, bummer. What now?”

  “I was going to head out to Corona, but I think I’ll go talk to Kim Millar first.”

  “Reyes’s sister?”

  “That’s the one.”

  Reyes had a pseudo-sister, a girl he’d grown up with, and he cared for her deeply. While Reyes had been kidnapped from his birth parents as a small child and sold to Earl Walker, Kim had been given to the man. When she was two, her drug-addicted mother dumped her on Earl Walker’s doorstep, the man she suspected was Kim’s father, then died days later. Had Kim’s mother known what kind of monster Earl Walker was, I could only hope she would never have left her daughter with him. Walker didn’t sexually abuse her, as I’d feared. He did the next best thing. He used her to control Reyes, literally starved her to get what he wanted out of him. And while we never discussed exactly what it was he wanted from Reyes, the implications of sexual abuse were all there.

  “I’ll head to Corona after I talk to her,” I said.

  “It’s getting late, and it’ll take you a couple of hours to get there.”

  “Yeah, but I need to get this done, and since I can’t do anything about the doctor without more info, I’ll do this.” I could hear her pressing buttons on the fax machine, then rustling a paper or two.

  After a moment, she said, “Holy cow, he was there.”

  “What? Who was where? The doctor?”

  “Yep, just got it. A receipt from the Sand and Sun
Hotel in the Cayman Islands. One Mr. Keith Jacoby checked in on the very day Ingrid Yost was found dead. Paid for one night with cash and never visited again.”

  “Oh, my god, Cook. We got him.”

  “You need to call your FBI agent.”

  “Okay, I’ll try her in a bit. Keep digging.”

  “You got it. Don’t do anything stupid,” she said.

  “I resent that remark.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Well, I might. You don’t know.”

  “Do, too.”

  “I’ll call you when I get out to Corona.”

  “’Kay. And tell me what Agent Carson says. And tell me how Reyes’s sister is. And how much coffee have you had?”

  “Seventeen thousand cups.”

  “Don’t fall asleep at the wheel.”

  I glanced in the rearview to make sure my handy-dandy tail was doing his job. Yep. Right on my freaking ass. I hated being tailed. What if I wanted to run naked through a wheat field? Or pick up a male prostitute?

  “This guy ain’t moving.”

  Startled, I turned to Angel, who’d popped into the passenger’s seat. “Angel, you little shit. What guy?”

  He shrugged. “That doctor you sent me to watch. He’s all boo-hooing over his wife. Are you sure he did it? I mean, he seems really upset.”

  Geez, the guy was good. “Of course he did it. He was drowning in guilt when he came in.”

  “Maybe he was guilty of something else, like cheating on his taxes.”

  “Dude, I’m not wrong. Tax guilt is completely different. And unless I’m gravely mistaken, he killed his first wife, too.”

  “Okay, but I’d rather hang with you.”

  “Fine, but just for a few minutes. He didn’t give you any leads? Make a suspicious phone call? Go out to the shed? Down to the basement? Meet a woman in the alley and have hot animal sex? Maybe he’s having an affair.”

  He tossed me an irritated glare. “I would have noticed.”

  “Just checking.” I threw out a talk to the hand sign to block his ’tude.