Third Grave Dead Ahead

by Darynda Jones

  “Besides, there are feds all over that place. He could have hot animal sex if he wanted to, but he’d have an audience.”

  “Did you check his property? Maybe there’s some freshly turned dirt. Or a new garden. That’s always popular with serial killers.”

  “Nothing. The man’s clean. Who’s that guy following you?”

  “Uncle Bob put a tail on me.”

  Angel smiled. “I like Uncle Bob. He reminds me of my dad.”

  “Really? That’s so sweet.”

  “Yeah, not really, but if I knew who my dad was, I think he’d be like Uncle Bob.”

  I couldn’t help but grin. “I bet you’re right.”

  We drove in silence a few miles before Angel tossed me a “See ya,” and popped out again.

  * * *

  I stopped for coffee at a twenty-four-hour convenience store, then booked it over to Kim Millar’s apartment complex, flashed my ID to the guard at the gate—then offered him a ten-spot if he refused entrance to the black pickup following me—and parked close to her door. I wasn’t sure if I was doing the right thing. Admittedly, this was more curiosity than honest-to-goodness investigative work. Did she also believe Earl Walker was still alive? Did she know something Reyes didn’t? According to Kim, she and Reyes were in a zero-contact agreement. For her own safety, Kim’s existence was never brought up in any of the court documents. Because she had a different last name, it was easy for her to fade into the background, at Reyes’s insistence.

  From what I could tell, Kim worked from home as a medical transcriptionist. No idea what that entailed, but it sounded really important. However, I’d been to see her twice, and after getting a glimpse of her life, her pristine apartment, and neat-but-out-of-date attire, I was beginning to think she needed to get out more. She was beautiful. Slim with auburn hair and silvery green eyes.

  I padded up the walk to her turquoise door. The complex was styled to look like authentic Pueblo with round-edged adobe walls, flat roofs, and stepped levels, each one with vigas along the roofline, heavy timber beams extending through the exterior walls. Every door was painted a different Southwest color, from bright blues, reds, and yellows to the more earthy tones of terra-cotta and rich umber.

  The last time I visited Kim, Reyes got a little upset. I tried not to let that worry me. He was bound now. He’d never know. Still, I couldn’t help but hesitate before I knocked. But knock, I did. A few moments later, the door opened. Kim stood there, pencil in hand. I flinched. Not because she was gripping the pencil like a switchblade and my sister had tried to stab me with one once—a pencil, not a switchblade, her grip quite similar—but because if I thought she’d looked fragile before, she looked ten times that now. I regretted my decision to come here instantly.

  Her huge green gaze landed on me, worry and despair saturating the air. “Ms. Davidson,” she said, her voice soft and surprised. She glanced around, and I could feel the hope carried in each glimpse, each hesitant blink of her eyes.

  “He’s not with me,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “But you’ve seen him.”

  Her grip tightened on the pencil and I forced myself to stand my ground. This time, I glanced around, then looked back at her and offered the slightest hint of a nod. Her eyes widened. She pulled me inside and slammed the door shut.

  “They’ve been here already,” she said, closing curtains and leading me to her small living room.

  “I figured they might come here.” Those U.S. Marshals were nothing if not thorough.

  She turned back to me after closing one last set of curtains. “Do you think they’ve bugged the place?” she asked, sitting next to me on the sofa.

  Despite the fragility that seemed to encase her like a thin layer of crystal, she had a healthy glow, a soft blush on her porcelain skin. She seemed almost excited.

  I couldn’t help but smile. “I don’t know, but I don’t really want to say too much.”

  “I saw on the news where he escaped.” She was way too happy when she said that.

  “Yes,” I said with a chuckle. “Do you think he’ll come here?”

  “Heavens no. Remember, no contact. Like it matters anymore. The authorities know all about me.”

  I’d wondered how the marshals had discovered her in the first place. There was nothing to connect Kim with Reyes. Then, a couple of weeks back, I found a reference to the possibility of a sister on one of those prisoner groupie sites and figured that’s where they caught her scent. Of course, the fact that fan sites existed at all for prisoners stunned me to my toes. And when I found out there was not one, but several dedicated to one Mr. Reyes Alexander Farrow … to say I’d been taken aback would’ve been the understatement of the millennium.

  Still, it was the only explanation I could think of to explain how the U.S. Marshal’s office had become aware of Kim’s relation to Reyes. Like I’d said, thorough.

  I thought I should warn Kim about Reyes’s attitude toward our friendship. “Kim, the last time I came to see you, Reyes was none too happy.”

  Startled, she asked. “Did he … did he threaten you?”

  “Oh, no. Well, maybe a little.” He’d actually threatened to slice me in two if I ever came to see her again, but I doubted he really meant it.

  She rolled her eyes. “He won’t do anything. He’s all bark, that one.”

  Her newfound boldness floored me. She was so excited and open. “You seem really happy.”

  “I am.” Glancing down at the hands in her lap, she said, “Now he can go to Mexico or Canada. And he can live.” Her hopeful gaze landed on mine. “For the first time in his life, he can live. But I need to give you something.” She was glancing around again and went for the pencil. I braced myself, but she also went for paper. Thankfully. She scribbled a note, then handed it to me. “Can you get this to Reyes? This is the account number and the password. It’s all there. Every penny.”

  “The account number?” I asked, studying the line of digits.

  “It’s his money.” When my brows slid together in question, she said, “Well, my money. But he gave it to me. I just live off the interest. And I take only a little bit of that. It’s his. All of it. He could live like a king in Mexico with this.” She rethought her statement. “He could live like a king anywhere in the world with this.”

  I folded the paper and held it in my hands. “Where on earth did it come from? How—?” Shaking my head, I realized I would never understand how Reyes did the things he did, so I switched gears. “I’m assuming this is a bank account?”

  She nodded, a huge smile on her face.

  “How much is in there?”

  She looked up in thought, pursing her lips. “Last I checked, a little over fifty million.”

  I stilled.

  She giggled.

  I slipped into a mild state of shock.

  She patted my shoulder, said something about the account being in Switzerland.

  I grew light-headed.

  She waved a hand in front of my face, offered me a paper bag.

  I knew Reyes was good at computers. He’d hacked into the NM Public Education Department’s database and given himself a high school diploma so he could take online classes while in prison, and with it, he’d gotten a master’s degree in computer information systems. And the first time I’d met Amador and Bianca Sanchez, Reyes’s aiders and abettors, they’d explained how he’d helped them get their house, how he’d studied the market, told them when to buy stocks and when to sell. But $50 million?

  I pressed the paper back into her palm. “Kim, if he did this for you, then this is your money. I know him. He won’t take any of it from you. But more importantly, you can’t trust anyone with this information, even me.”

  She pushed it back. “You’re the only one I’d trust with it. You’re the only other person on the planet he’d want to have it if anything should happen to me.”

  I stuffed the paper in my pocket reluctantly. “What do you mean by that?”

 
; “Nothing,” she said, a reassuring smile on her face. “Just in case. You know.”

  My brows slid together in concern. She wasn’t lying so much as not telling me everything. “Hon, is everything okay?”

  She blinked in surprise. “Absolutely, why?”

  Okay, that wasn’t a lie. “No reason. I just wanted to make sure. You seem to be cooped up a lot.”

  Glancing around her apartment, she said, “I get out. Probably not as much as I should. I go walking around the grounds every day. We have a pool.”

  Part of me wanted to comment on how many pools she could have with 50 million dólares in her bathing suit, but she seemed comfortable here. Who was I to suggest a house on a beach in Hawaii?

  She was feeling so good, so calm, I almost didn’t bring up the reason I’d come. But I needed to get her opinion on the matter. I just wasn’t sure if Reyes was seeing things clearly.

  “Can I ask you something?” I said, pulling her attention back to me.

  “Of course.” She’d pinned that smile back onto her pretty face.

  I scooted closer and braced myself for any reaction she might have. “Do you think it’s possible that Earl Walker is still alive?”

  The smile on her face didn’t waver. It didn’t falter or fade in the least. But the smile in her eyes, the genuine part of a smile, vanished. Then, like a geyser erupting from her core, panic rose in her and hit me full force, but she sat perfectly still. Motionless. Frozen in the throes of her own fear.

  I put a hand over hers instantly and leaned forward. “Kim, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  She blinked, appearing like a mannequin with the emotion that had been painted on her face a little too garish. “You didn’t frighten me,” she said, the lie hanging thick in the air. “What you asked is absolutely impossible.”

  I backtracked as fast as I could. “You’re right,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m sorry I even brought it up. I just thought if Reyes was innocent.”

  The smile faltered at last. “He’s innocent? Did he tell you that?”

  “No!” I lied, literally jumping forward. “No, he didn’t. I—I just wondered why he would escape. I just thought—”

  “But you were with him,” she said, putting the facts together. “When he first escaped. I saw it on the news. He carjacked you.”

  “Yes, he did. But … that’s not what I meant. He never said—” The fragility that had been there on my first two visits, the crushing sadness, resurfaced, and I was afraid her bones would crumble to dust before my eyes.

  She pulled back, her gaze wandering past me to another place and time. “He’s alive, isn’t he?”

  “No, hon—”

  “I should’ve known Reyes would do that.” Her eyes suddenly shimmered with unspent tears. “Of course he would do that. He’s always done that.”

  My thoughts shot from How do I get out of this? to Come again? “What do you mean? Kim, what did he do?”

  She replaced the smile and turned back to me. “He told me he killed him.”

  Well, shit. What the hell was going on? Was Earl Freaking Walker alive or not?

  “And he lied.” An iridescent pool sat trembling on her lower lashes as she battled her lungs for air.

  “Why would he lie about something like that?” I asked, struggling to understand.

  After glancing at the hand covering hers, she clasped her fingers around it, then looked up at me as though she felt sorry for my lack of depth. “Because that’s what he does. He protects me. He does anything for me. He always has. Do you know there are pictures everywhere?”

  “Pictures?” I asked, fighting past the grief.

  With an almost invisible nod, she said, “He kept pictures. Proof. Blackmail.”

  “Reyes?”

  “Earl.” She shook visibly as memory after memory washed over her. “In the walls.”

  I leaned forward, trying to get through to her. “Sweetheart, what pictures?”

  She stood, walked to the door, and opened it for me. Reluctantly, I followed. “I’ll get in touch with you the minute I know something,” I promised.

  Her breath hitched in her chest, and I realized it was taking all her strength to hold herself together. The kindest thing I could do would be to leave. So I did. She closed the door softly behind me as I walked to Misery. And everything she’d told me before about Reyes and her surfaced. How Earl Walker had used her to get what he wanted out of Reyes. He had abused him in the worst way possible. Had he taken pictures? Wouldn’t that implicate himself?

  Then understanding of what she meant about Reyes protecting her dawned. He had gone to prison partly for her. Cleary, she needed to believe Earl Walker was dead with every ounce of her being. And I had just planted a seed of doubt in her mind.

  Reyes was going to kill me.

  15

  If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is NOT for you.

  —BUMPER STICKER

  With a lingering sadness after my visit with Kim still tightening my chest, I walked up to a dilapidated mobile home and knocked on a rusted door. The village of Corona sat nestled in the picturesque mountains of southeastern New Mexico. With less than two hundred people in residence, it had a small-town charm all its own. And it was a good two-hour drive from Albuquerque, which explained why it took me a little over an hour to get there. A man whom I’d assumed to be the last name on Reyes’s list, Farley Scanlon, opened the door, an annoyed scowl bunching his brows.

  Well built with shoulder-length brown hair intermingled with a streak or two of gray, a long mustache and goatee, and a strip of leather around his neck with a silver pendant, Farley proved to be one of those men in his late fifties who only looked in his late fifties up close.

  “Hello,” I said when he settled his frown on me in question. I noted the hunting paraphernalia in the background of his decrepit trailer. “My name is Charlotte Davidson.” I fished out my PI license because he didn’t look like a man who trusted easily. “I’m a private investigator working on a missing persons case.”

  He eyed my ID a long moment before returning his steady gaze to me. “Well, I ain’t killed no one, if you’re asking.” The barest trace of a smile slid across his scraggly face.

  “That’s good to know.” I smiled back, waited another heartbeat to give him time to adjust, then said, “Unfortunately, there are plenty of other things a man of your reputation can go to prison for.”

  His breathing remained calm, his gaze steady. But the emotion that hit me with hurricane force was full of both anger and fear, and I wondered which part of that was directed at me. It was probably too much to hope he was afraid of me.

  I took out my notepad and started checking off the itemized list I’d basically pulled out of my ass. “Okay, we have a few months for obstruction of justice. Three years for possession and distribution of a controlled substance. Ten years for conspiracy to commit murder.” I leaned in and smiled. “And that’s if the judge is in a good mood.” He looked like the conspiracy-to-commit-murder type, so I’d taken a chance. He didn’t argue the fact.

  “What the fuck do you want?” he asked, shifting away from me.

  “Wait,” I said, holding up a finger and continuing to read, “I also have nine months for accessory after the fact, but a good lawyer can probably get that reduced to time served once the trial starts, because it could take a while, if you know what I mean.” I snorted.

  The anger quickly overtook the fear.

  I closed the pad and eyed him a good twenty seconds. He waited, his jaw working hard.

  “Here’s what I can offer you,” I said, and he shifted his weight again, itching to be rid of me. “I’ll give you one chance to tell me where Earl Walker is before I call the police and have your ass arrested on all these charges right here and now.” I couldn’t really have his ass arrested, but he didn’t know that. Hopefully.

  The shock that hit me was so palpable, so visible, I felt as if I’d blindsided him with a left hook
. Clearly, he was not expecting the name Earl Walker to enter into the conversation. But his reaction had nothing to do with thoughts of lunacy. He was wondering how I knew. Guilt was so easy to sense. It was like picking out the color red in a sea of yellow.

  “I don’t have time for this shit,” he said, readying to walk past me.

  I put both hands on the doorjamb to block his path.

  He cast an incredulous stare at me. “Really, sweetheart? You want to do that?” When I shrugged, he just sighed and said, “Earl Walker died ten years ago. Look it up.”

  “Okay, two chances. But that’s my final offer.” I wagged my finger at him in warning. That’d teach him.

  “Honey, he’s dead. Ask his son,” he said with a knowing smirk. “His kid’s been sitting in prison ten years for killing him. Ain’t nothing you or the law can do about that.”

  “Look, I’m not here to give you any trouble.” I showed my palms in a gesture of peace, love, and goodwill toward men. “You and I both know he’s no more dead than the cockroaches that scurry across your kitchen floor every night.”

  His eyebrows seemed glued together.

  “This isn’t your fault,” I said with a lighthearted shrug. “No one needs to know your name. Just tell me where he is, and you’ll never see me again.” I was so going to hell for lying. I had every intention of watching the man rot in prison.

  Farley’s mouth formed a grim line as he took out a hunting knife that would have made Rambo proud and began cleaning his nails with the tip of the blade. Like Rambo might have had needed a manicure. The move was very effective. My first thought was how much it would hurt when the blade slid into my abdomen, pushing easily past the muscle tissue and through those ovaries with which I had no intention of procreating. Then Farley looked past me and stilled. With the reluctance of a man who forgot to take his Viagra before his weekly visit with his favorite prostitute, he slipped the blade back into its sheath.

  He must have seen Garrett parked in the distance, not that I dared take my eyes off him to check. He reached over and grabbed a jacket.