Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet

by Darynda Jones

  The driver grinned down at me.

  “Hi, I’m Charley,” I said as Eric opened the door and jumped out the second the van stopped.

  “I know,” she said with a soft laugh. “I’m Sabrina, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t repeat that in court.”

  “You got it.”

  I watched as they transferred the money to the trunk of a yellow Hyundai and the bag with the clothes to the back of a green Dodge Ram truck. But the part that fascinated me the most was the fact that Michael and Sabrina peeled a plastic wrap off the sides of the van. I couldn’t see what the van now looked like from my vantage, but surely they had just changed its entire appearance.

  They wadded the wrap and stuffed it into a storm drain; then Michael tossed Eric a set of keys. He jumped in the truck and started it up as Sabrina headed for the Hyundai while Michael took her place behind the wheel of the van.

  “I’m going with the money,” the blond said, but Donovan pulled him back in and closed the door.

  “We stick to the plan. Unless you want to give up your share and leave now.”

  The guy sat back, his expression full of anger, and most of it was directed at me.

  “Hold on to your panties,” Michael said as he charged forward. The Hyundai and the Dodge followed until they were out of the garage; then everyone went their separate ways.

  “You just signed our arrest warrant,” the blond said to Donovan.

  He unsheathed a wicked-looking knife, and my gaze locked on like a laser-guided missile. My chest weakened, the walls caving in as I withered inside myself like paper. I’d felt a knife once as it slipped past layers of flesh and tendon until it hit bone. It was not something I wanted to repeat.

  He pointed it toward me. “Either she goes in the dirt,” he said, shifting the pointy end toward Donovan, “or you do.”

  Adrenaline pumped hard through Donovan’s body, so if this chain of events surprised him, I couldn’t feel it. Without a hint of hesitation, he pulled his Glock and fired. For the third time that day, a gun went off way to close for comfort.

  I should’ve known the day was going to turn out bad when it started with my father trying to kill me. They always went downhill from there.

  “Fuck!” the guy yelled, ducking long after the bullet flew past him and broke through the glass of one door.

  He’d ducked, too. For some reason, that made me feel better about my earlier reaction. But not about the sound. Nausea punched into my stomach and pushed hard, but I was getting used to the massive adrenaline dumps. I tensed and fought the surge of bile, forcing it down and holding it there.

  “Drop the knife, and the next round will never leave the chamber.”

  The guy tossed the knife right at me, but more as a warning than an attack. It hit my shoulder and landed harmlessly on the metal floor with a clang. I grabbed it before the guy could change his mind. The blade was as long as my forearm, and holding it did little to alleviate the fear coursing through me. I couldn’t help but wonder if Reyes had been right. I was afraid of a guy with a knife. Two months ago, that would only have registered about a 4 on my Richter scale, but now the slightest offense seemed to rocket my fear response off the charts.

  We hit a rough spot as Michael barreled forward, and then the world went dark. Everyone exited out different doors: Michael out the driver’s door, the blond out the back, and Donovan out the sliding side door. He grabbed the last bag and nodded for me to follow him. We were in his detached garage.

  Michael was busy taking off yet another wrap; this one had yellow letters that read D & D PLUMBING. Now the van that had been black when I first saw it was white. Clever.

  “You kidnapped me,” I said to Donovan.

  “We didn’t kidnap you. We borrowed you.”

  “You took me hostage.”

  “Which is like borrowing.”

  I marched behind him and he busied himself with this task or that one. “Why banks? Why do this?”

  He dropped his gaze and fiddled with his gloves, unsnapping and resnapping the strap. “Sadly, we won’t see a penny of that money we took today.”

  “What? I don’t understand.”

  “That was the goal.” He lifted his brows into a shrug. “It was always the goal. We had to make it look like we were just robbing banks randomly. Like we just stumbled upon a fresh shipment of cash by accident. Like we didn’t know it would be there. Waiting.”

  I’d wondered how they happened upon so much cash.

  He took out a saddlebag and stuffed it with some personal effects. “The deal was we get to keep everything we’ve taken so far. That’s our payoff. But the money from the heist today all goes to one guy.”

  “And who would that be?”

  “The guy who’s blackmailing us.”

  The air siphoned out of my lungs as I laughed; then I realized he was being serious. “You’re being blackmailed to rob banks?”

  “Stranger things have happened,” he said, lifting one shoulder.

  “Not to me.” When he offered me a skeptical stare, I said, “Well, okay, but this is still a bit out there, even for me. Donovan, what happened?”

  “I happened.” Eric walked up then. He’d apparently ditched the truck and strolled up to us with hardly a care in the world. “I was jumped one night outside a club by a group of guys, and I killed one of them. This guy filmed the whole thing.”

  “He has evidence that would put all of us away for a long time. We were there. I watched it happen. Eric was holding his own, so I didn’t step in. But we just left the guy there.”

  “We didn’t think he’d die,” Eric said. “Those guys fucking started it.”

  “But if it was self-defense?”

  “Not when you’re a Golden Gloves champion boxer,” Donovan explained.

  Michael shoved Eric to the side. “And these dipshits fled the scene.”

  Donovan gave him a stern look. “He would have gone up for a good stretch either way.”

  “And when this guy came to us,” Eric continued, “he knew everything about banks.”

  Michael nodded in agreement. “Said he could get us in and out, told us what to take and what to leave, how to avoid the cops, everything.”

  “Then he set up every job to make it look completely random,” Donovan said.

  “So, who is this guy?” I asked, hoping they’d tell me.

  A slow grin spread across Donovan’s face. “I’m going to a lot of trouble to keep your ass alive and unharmed. The last thing I’m going to do is feed you to the wolf.”

  “But he works at the bank you robbed today, right? That’s how he knew about the shipment.”

  “Yeah,” Michael said with a wink, but he was lying. I could feel it as easily as I could feel cool breeze on a hot summer day.

  “Thing is, I don’t think it was going to stop here. I think he was going to force us to hit one more bank. He’s been talking about it for a while. When we told him it couldn’t be done, he said he had a guy on the inside. The fact that you made us basically saved our asses.”

  “We’re out,” Michael said, a smile playing on his mouth. The same mouth that smirked more often than not, so the smile was nice. Genuine.

  Eric was at my back then, too close as usual as he bent over me. “You saved us from ever having to do this again. There’s no way he can force us to continue now.”

  “We’re off to Mexico anyway,” Donovan said. “This just seals the deal.”

  “Not for me, it doesn’t.” We turned as the blond strode in, his movements sharp with anger. “This guy had no idea who I was. That I was even involved.” There was something odd about his anger. He wasn’t being completely honest, I just couldn’t quite figure out which part he was lying about.

  “He still doesn’t,” Eric said.

  “But she’s seen my face. You insisted on it, remember?”

  Donovan grabbed him by the collar, clearly as sick of his whining as I was. “You were the one who wanted in on this. We stick to
the plan.”

  “Since when did the plan involve taking a hostage?”

  “I improvised,” Donovan said, pushing him away. Then he turned to me with another grin. “How much time do we have until you turn us in?”

  Oh, they really were leaving. And they knew I would have to turn them in. I was a little stunned no one was trying to kill me. “As long as it takes me to get free.”

  He frowned in confusion, so I showed my wrists. The next grin that crept across his face could only be described as wolfish. “I can’t make any promises once you’re tied up.”

  I smiled. If Donovan was anything, it was a gentleman. A scruffy, vagabond gentleman, but a gentleman nonetheless. “I think I’ll take my chances.”

  15

  Your existence gives me a headache.

  Go stand over there.

  —T-SHIRT

  Twenty minutes later, I found myself hog-tied in a basement-level room in the asylum. Donovan didn’t want to take the chance that one of his club members would come to the house and find me all tied up and helpless, so the three of them led me over to the asylum and down a dilapidated staircase. Eric found a chair, and the tying commenced. Or, well, the taping. They had no rope, so they brought out the duct tape. Men had such a thing for duct tape.

  Eric bent over the back of the chair and kissed my neck. “See you on the flip side, gorgeous. Don’t go breaking into anything I wouldn’t.”

  I smiled and nuzzled him between my head and shoulder. He was a good kid. And sexy as all get out. This was such a bad position for someone like me to be in. Tied up and helpless with three hot guys vying for my attention. I totally needed to get out more.

  He nibbled my earlobe a bit, then left before I could even say good-bye.

  Michael offered me that cool smirk he carried with such style and bent to kiss my cheek. “I have a feeling we’ll meet again,” he said before saluting and heading away.

  And that left me alone with Donovan.

  He kneeled in front of me, his face quite handsome in the low light that streamed in from a single high window. He wrapped both arms around my waist and wedged in between my legs. “You’re a brave woman,” he said, his smile genuine.

  I wanted to tell him about Artemis, because before she died, she had been his dog. I wanted him to know that she was with me and doing well, that she’d saved my life at least twice already, but I had no idea how he’d take that. He probably thought I was enough of a freak without bringing his departed dog into the picture, so I decided to keep that bit of info to myself for the time being.

  “You’re really going to Mexico?” I asked.

  “To start with. Who knows where we’ll end up, but things are getting too dicey around here.” He rubbed my leg with one hand, his fingers getting dangerously close to the crest between my legs, otherwise known as Virginia. “You could go with us,” he said without looking up at me.

  He was dead serious, and I knew he’d let me come in a heartbeat if I wanted to. But how could I possibly leave? Some women were the drop-everything-and-run-off-to-Mexico kind of girls, but I was not. I had responsibilities. And a case to solve. And demons after my ass. Come to think of it, running didn’t sound like such a bad idea.

  Nah, I couldn’t leave Cookie. Or Gemma. Or Mr. Wong. Or … Reyes popped into my head no matter how hard I tried to keep him out. His shimmering dark eyes and long thick lashes. Who was I kidding? I couldn’t leave him either.

  Yet kneeling in front of me was one of the sweetest men I’d ever met. Biker or not, he knew how to treat a girl.

  True, he duct-taped me to a chair, but that had been my idea.

  “I’ll let you know where we are when we get there,” he said, not waiting for an answer from me. “You’ll always be welcome.”

  “Right,” I scoffed, not believing him for a minute. “You’ll find some Mexican beauty who makes you want to get married and have pequeños banditos for the first time in your life, and you’ll forget all about me.”

  The sadness that washed over him spilled out into me. “Not likely, love.” He ran his thumb over my bottom lip, then covered it with his own, taking it between his teeth and suckling before pressing his mouth to mine.

  It was a nice kiss, soft and unhurried, and as welcome as a delicate rain on the high plains. It was what I needed. A healing kind of karma swam around me as he pulled my hips to his. I spread my knees and reveled in the feel of his erection against my most sensitive girl part. And I swore if I hadn’t been taped down, I would have jumped him right then and there. I was such a hussy.

  “I’m not sure you should be doing that, Miss Charlotte.”

  I broke off the kiss with a breathless gasp. Rocket was standing right behind Donovan, hands on his hips in disapproval.

  “Rocket,” I said, straightening in the chair. “Donovan was just helping me with … my contacts.”

  Donovan raised his brows humorously.

  Rocket furrowed his. “Did you swallow them?”

  Rocket was like a giant Pillsbury Doughboy with a kind face and a mushy body, which made him the best hugger around.

  “No, I didn’t swallow them. He was just—” Before I could come up with another plausible lie, I looked over and saw Strawberry Shortcake, a departed nine-year-old who could make me cringe at forty paces. I hadn’t seen her in a while, so it was actually nice to know she was still here and okay. But she wasn’t what gave me pause. While she also stood with her hands on her hips, disapproval lining her pretty face, right beside her stood a tiny girl with a short dark bob and overalls.

  As Donovan looked over his shoulder, wanting to see what I was seeing, I let a soft smile spread over my face. I turned my palm up, twisting my arm in my shirtsleeve as the tape held it in place, inviting her closer, and said, “You must be Blue.”

  Her oval face, tiny and so pale, it was hard to make out her features other than her huge dark eyes, was a picture of shock and awe. She’d obviously never seen anyone kiss before. If I’d known that would lure her to me, I would have dragged Donovan in here and made out with him ages ago.

  Rocket turned back to her, and he seemed just as surprised as I was to see her standing there.

  Strawberry walked up then, her mouth a thin line of disappointment. “Who is he?” she asked, pointing at the scruffy guy who still had his hands wrapped around my ass.

  With a grin, I said, “This is Donovan. He just happens to own this building you’re standing in.”

  “I thought you said you were going to go on a date with my brother.”

  For her sake, I tamped down the horror I felt at the prospect of dating Taft, her cop brother. He was okay as far as guys went, but I’d never felt the slightest inclination to bang him, and that was my criteria for dating. If that primal attraction wasn’t there from the get-go, it would likely never show up. Not in my world, anyway.

  “No, you said I was going to go on a date with your brother.” I leaned over and kissed her nose, an act she didn’t appreciate but one I enjoyed immensely. “As it turns out, he’s all booked up.”

  “Yes, with gross girls who wear too much makeup. You may not be very pretty, but at least you don’t wear too much makeup.”

  I coughed back a retort. “Thank you, I think. But Donovan’s a pretty good guy despite his tendency to rob banks.”

  “Really?” Her eyes came to life as she looked at him with a whole new perspective. “He’s a bank robber like Jesse James? I just thought he was a scruffy biker guy.”

  I laughed. Who knew the kid would be attracted to bank robbers? “He is a scruffy biker guy.”

  “Hey,” he said, nudging me with his knee.

  “But there’s more to him than meets the eye.”

  His mouth curved into something resembling doubt. “Are you really having a conversation with someone else or are you just avoiding the issue at hand?”

  “And what issue would that be?”

  “That I may never see you again.” His expression remained impassive, but his
emotions grew somber.

  “D,” Eric yelled from the stairs, “we have to hit it!”

  He took in a deep draft of air and ran his fingers down my jaw and under my chin. “If I don’t hear from you in two hours, I’m going to assume you’re still down here and send help.”

  My brows shot up. “I’ve seen the kind of help you have,” I said, referring to his merry band of criminal associates. “I think I’ll take my chances.”

  “I’ll call the police,” he corrected. “So let me know when you get out of here.”

  “Okay, promise.”

  “D! If you aren’t coming, can I take Odin? That’s a sweet ride.”

  “No!” he shouted.

  “Fine. Shit. Don’t blow a gasket.”

  I sat ogling Donovan, a new appreciation blossoming in my chest.

  “What?” he asked, suddenly wary.

  “Odin? You named your bike?”

  He offered me a wink as he picked up the roll of duct tape. “I was inspired by a crazy girl in a Jeep named Misery.”

  “You named your car Misery?” Strawberry asked, her face twisted in distaste.

  “Look,” Donovan said, his expression suddenly severe. “Edwards is not all there, if you know what I mean.”

  “Edwards?”

  “The guy who wanted to take you out.”

  “Really?” I asked, interested. “Is he cute?”

  “The blond in the van who wanted to slice you into itty-bitty pieces.”

  “Oh, that Edwards.”

  He laughed. “He got kicked out of sniper training school in the Marines, and he hasn’t been the same since.”

  “The Marines may have been on to something.”

  “Just watch your back, okay?”

  “Consider it watched.”

  He grinned and tore a strip of tape away from the roll, readying it for more duty. I laughed. “I think I’m secure.”

  “Nope, but you will be.” He ran the tape in circles around the back of the chair and over my rib cage just under Danger and Will Robinson.

  The act emphasized their fullness, a fact I was fairly certain he didn’t miss.

  “That’s better,” he said, his gaze fixed on the girls.