Second Grave on the Left

by Darynda Jones

  She fixed a knowing gaze on me a heartbeat before she pulled into a gas station, tires screeching.

  “Cook, we’re five seconds from home.”

  “Tell me the truth,” she insisted after nearly throwing me through the windshield. She had really good brakes. “I mean it, Charley. Dead people follow you everywhere, but I don’t want them in my car. And you suck at lying.”

  “I do not.” I felt oddly appalled by her statement. “I’m an excellent liar. Ask my dentist. He swears I floss regularly.”

  She threw the car into park and glared. Hard. She would do well in a prison setting.

  After transforming a sigh into a Broadway production, I said, “I promise, Cook, there’s not a dead person in your backseat.”

  “Then it’s in the trunk. There’s a body in the trunk, isn’t there?” The panic in her voice was funny. Until she flew out of the car.

  “What?” I said, climbing out after her. “Of course not.”

  She pointed to her white Taurus and stared at me accusingly. “There is a dead body in that trunk,” she said. Really loud. Loud enough for the cop sitting next to us with his window down to hear.

  I rolled my eyes. It was late October. Why the hell was his window down? When he opened his car door and unfolded to his full height, I dropped my head into a palm. Thankfully it was my own. This was so not happening. If I had to call my uncle Bob, an Albuquerque Police detective, in the middle of the night one more time to get me out of one of these ridiculous altercations I tended to have with random cops, he was going to kill me. He told me so himself. With an orange peeler. Not sure why.

  “Is there a problem here, ladies?” the officer asked.

  Cookie scowled at me. “Why don’t you tell him there’s not a dead body in that trunk? Hmmm?”

  “Cook, really?”

  She threw her hands on her hips, waiting for an answer.

  I turned back to Dirty Harry. “Look, Officer O. Vaughn,” I said, glancing at his name badge. “I know what Cookie said sounded bad, but she was speaking metaphorically. We would never really h-have…” I’d looked back at his face, at the almost contemptuous expression lining his mouth, and a vague familiarity tingled along my spine. In a Stephen King’s It sort of way. “You wouldn’t happen to be related to Owen Vaughn?”

  His mouth thinned. “I am Owen Vaughn.”

  No way. For reasons known only to him, Owen Vaughn tried to kill me in high school. With an SUV. Though he later told the police he was only trying to maim me, he refused to tell them why. I’d apparently rained buckets on his parade, but for the life of me, I never figured out what I’d done.

  I decided to play it cool. No need to throw past criminal activity in his face. Time to let bygones be bygones. Mostly ’cause he had a gun and I didn’t.

  I smiled and socked him in the arm like we were old friends. “Long time, no see, Vaughn.”

  It didn’t work. He tensed, took a moment to examine the place where my fist had made contact, then let his gaze wander back to me, zero in on my eyes like he wanted nothing more than to strangle the life out of them.

  Awkward.

  Then I remembered he’d been friends with Neil Gossett in high school. I’d recently become reacquainted with Neil, and decided to use that bit of info to break the block of ice Vaughn was encased in. “Oh, hey, I just saw Neil the other day. He’s the deputy warden at the prison in Santa Fe.”

  “I know where Neil Gossett is,” he said, the contempt in his voice undiluted. “I know where all of you are.” He leaned toward me. “Don’t ever doubt that.”

  I stood in shock a solid minute as he turned and walked to his patrol car. Cookie stared, too, her jaw slightly ajar as she watched him drive away.

  “He didn’t even check the trunk,” she said.

  “Is it just me,” I asked, gazing at his disappearing taillights, “or was that a really stalkery kind of thing to say?”

  “What the hell did you do to him?”

  “Me?” I placed a hand over my chest to demonstrate how much her words hurt. “Why do you always assume it’s my fault?”

  “Because it always is.”

  “I’ll have you know that man tried to maim me in high school. With an SUV.”

  She turned to me then, her expression incredulous. “Have you ever considered moving to another country?”

  “Oddly, yes.”

  “Trunk. Dead body.” She walked to the car and unlocked the trunk lid.

  I dived toward her, closing the lid before the dead guy could see me.

  “I knew it,” she said, backing away from the car again. “There’s a dead body in the trunk.”

  Trying to shush her with an index finger slamming against my mouth repeatedly, I whispered, loudly, like drunks do in a singles bar, “It’s not a dead body. It’s a dead guy. There’s a difference. And if he realizes I can see him, he’ll be all up in my face, trying to get me to solve his murder and crap.”

  Suddenly her expression turned accusing. “You were going to let me drive around with that guy in my trunk forever.”

  “What?” I said with a snort. “No way. Well, not forever. Just a few days, until I figured out who he was.”

  She stepped forward until we stood toe to toe. “That is wrong on so many levels.” Then she turned and started walking home.

  Darn it. I jogged up behind her, marveling at how much ground a large pissed-off woman could cover in so short a time. “Cookie, you can’t walk home. It’s still dark. And we’re on Central.”

  “I would rather meet ten bad guys in a dozen dark alleys than ride in that car.” She pointed behind her without missing a step.

  After doing the math in my head, I asked, “What about dark parking lots? Or dark breezeways? That would be scary, too, huh?”

  She trod onward, continuing her noble quest to avoid the departed by getting herself knifed for the five dollars in her back pocket. While I couldn’t quite see the logic, I did understand the fear. Wait—no, I didn’t.

  “Cookie, I have dead people around me all the time. They’re always in the office, sitting in the waiting room, hanging by the coffeepot. Why is it suddenly a problem now?”

  “That’s just it. You have dead people around you all the time. Not me. And not my car.”

  “I probably shouldn’t tell you about the little boy in your apartment, then, huh?”

  She skidded to a halt, an astonished expression on her face.

  “No. Right. Forget I mentioned it.”

  “There’s a dead boy in my apartment?”

  “Not all the time.”

  She shook her head, then took off again, and I found myself struggling to keep up with her in my bunny slippers. With a sigh, I realized I was getting way too much exercise. I’d just have to counteract it later with cake.

  “I can’t believe I have a dead boy in my apartment and you never told me.”

  “I didn’t want to alarm you. I think he has a crush on Amber.”

  “Oh, my god,” she said.

  “Look,” I said, grabbing her jacket and pulling her to a stop, “let’s just get your car home, then I’ll deal with this. We can’t leave it there. Someone will steal it.”

  Her eyes lit up. “You think? No, wait, maybe I should go back and put the keys in it. You know, make it easier for them.”

  “Um, well, there’s an idea.”

  She took off toward her car, a new purpose driving her. I was only a little worried. At least she was going in the right direction.

  “If you don’t count that time I went skinny-dipping with the chess club,” I said, only a little out of breath, “this has been the busiest night of my life.” I looked up in thought, tripped, stumbled, caught myself, then glanced around like I’d meant to do that, before saying, “No, I take that back. I think the busiest night of my life was the time I’d helped my dad solve the mystery of a gas explosion in which thirty-two people died. Once the case was solved, they all wanted to cross. At the same time. All those emotio
ns swirling inside me simultaneously took all night to get over.”

  Cookie slowed her stride but had yet to look my way again. I could hardly blame her. I should’ve told her about the little boy long ago. It wasn’t fair to blindside her with that kind of information.

  “If it hadn’t been for that man who saw a college student vandalize the gas pipes, that case may never have been solved. But I was only seven,” I explained, hoping to distract Cookie with small talk. “I had a hard time understanding it all. Hey, at least your car’s safe.” I pointed to it.

  She strode to her Taurus then turned toward me. “I’m sorry, Charley,” she said.

  I paused and offered a suspicious glower. “Are you about to make a tuna joke? ’Cause I had my fill of those by the time I was twelve.”

  “Here I am freaking out over a dead body in my trunk—”

  “A dead guy. Guy.”

  “—and you’re just doing the best you can. You never told me that story.”

  “What story?” I asked, still suspicious. “The explosion story? That was nothing.” I’d just told her about it to take her mind off all the dead people running amok.

  “Nothing? You’re like a superhero without the cape.”

  “Aw, that’s really sweet. What’s the catch?”

  She chuckled. “No catch. Just tell me there’s not a dead body in my trunk.”

  Reluctantly, I took the key and lifted the trunk lid. “There’s not a dead body in your trunk.”

  “Charley, you can be honest. It’s okay.”

  I blinked in surprise. He was gone. “No, really,” I said, scanning the area. I took a step back for a better look and ran into something cold and unmoving. The temperature around me dropped, sending a chill down my spine. It was like walking into a freezer, but I didn’t want to alarm Cookie. Again.

  “Nope,” I said, shrugging my shoulders, “no dead guy in there.”

  Her mouth thinned knowingly. I stepped to the side and looked around as if searching the area. From the corner of my periphery, I studied the tower standing beside me. Dead Trunk Guy was staring down at me yet not seeing, his face completely void of emotion. I resisted the urge to wave a hand, to snap my fingers. It would probably only irk him anyway.

  “Is he standing beside you?” Cookie asked.

  I must have looked at him too intently, because she’d picked up on my façade of nonchalance. With a sigh of guilty resignation, I nodded.

  “Hurry.” She snatched the keys and rushed to the driver’s-side door. “Charley, hurry, before he gets back in.”

  “Oh.” I booked it to the passenger’s side and slid in. Cookie still thought it was possible to outrun the departed. I let her believe it as she started the engine and tore out of the parking lot like a banshee hell-bent on doing whatever banshees do.

  “Did we ditch him?” she asked.

  I was torn. On one hand, she needed to know, to understand how the other world worked. On the other, I had a burning desire to make it home alive with little to no car parts protruding from my head or torso or both.

  “Sure did,” I said, trying really hard not to stare. The situation reminded me of the time in college when I was headed to class, turned a corner, and came face-to-face with the resident streaker. It was hard not to stare, then or now, mostly ’cause Dead Trunk Guy had taken up residence in her lap.

  “Brrr,” she said. She leaned forward and turned up the heat even though we were already pulling into the parking lot of our apartment building.

  “I’m going to take a shower, then find out what happened to Janelle York,” she said when we reached our second-floor apartments. It was barely four thirty. “Why don’t you get some more sleep?”

  “Cook,” I said, inching to the left, as Dead Trunk Guy was invading my personal bubble. I had a thing about my bubble. “I’ve had three-plus cups of coffee. There is no way I can go back to sleep at this point in my life.”

  “At least try. I’ll wake you up in a couple of hours.”

  “Are you going to throw clothes at my face again?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, but I’m telling you, I will never be able to get back to sleep.”

  I awoke two hours later, according to my clock. Almost seven. Just enough time to shower, make some coffee, and look at hot guys on the Internet for a few. Apparently, Dead Trunk Guy needed a shower as well.

  Chapter Three

  WITH GREAT BREASTS COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY.

  —T-SHIRT

  “This is one Froot Loop beyond certifiable.”

  I stood in the shower, the water as hot as I could get it, and still goose bumps textured every inch of my body. That tended to happen when dead people showered with me. I looked up into the unseeing eyes of the departed homeless guy from Cookie’s trunk. He had shoulder-length hair, mop-water brown, a matted, ragged beard, and hazel green eyes. I was such a magnet for these types.

  My breath fogged in the air, and vapor bounced off the shower walls. I resisted the urge to look toward the heavens and raise my arms slowly while steam rolled up around us in waves, but pretending to be an oceanic goddess would have been cool. I could totally have thrown in some opera for effect.

  “Come here often?” I asked instead, humoring no one but myself. So it was totally worth it.

  When he didn’t answer, I tested his lucidity by poking his chest with an index finger. The tip pressed into his tattered coat, as solid to me as the shower walls around us, yet the water dripping from my finger went straight through him to splash with all the others on the shower floor. My prodding didn’t elicit a reaction. His unseeing eyes stared straight through me. Which was odd. He’d seemed so sane huddled in Cookie’s trunk.

  Reluctantly, I leaned back to rinse the conditioner from my hair, forcing my eyes to stay open, watching him watch me. Sort of. “Have you ever had one of those days that starts out like crazy on whole wheat and goes downhill from there?”

  Obviously the insane silent type, he didn’t answer. I wondered how long he’d been dead. Maybe he’d been walking the Earth so long, he lost his mind. That happened in a movie once. Of course, if he was really homeless when he died, mental illness could’ve already played a big role in his life.

  Just as I turned off the water, he looked up. I looked up, too. Mostly ’cause he did. “What is it, big guy?” When I glanced back, he was gone. Just disappeared as dead people are wont to do. No good-bye. No catch ya on the flip side. Just gone. “Go get ’em, boy.” Hopefully he’d stay that way. Freaking dead people.

  I reached past the curtain for a towel and noticed droplets of crimson sliding down my arm. I looked back up at a dark red circle on my ceiling, slowly spreading like the bloodstain of someone who was still bleeding. Before I had time to say “What the f—,” someone fell through. Someone large. And heavy. And he landed pretty much right on top of me.

  We tumbled to the shower floor, a heap of torsos and limbs. Unfortunately, I found myself plastered underneath a person made of solid steel, but I recognized one thing immediately. I recognized his heat, like a signature, like a harbinger announcing his arrival. I struggled out from under one of the most powerful beings in the universe, Reyes Farrow, and realized I was covered in blood from head to toe. His blood.

  “Reyes,” I called out in alarm. He was unconscious, dressed in a blood-soaked T-shirt and jeans. “Reyes,” I said, clutching on to his head. His dark hair was dripping wet. Large scratches slashed across his face and neck as if something had been clawing at him, but most of the blood stemmed from wounds, deep and mortal, on his chest, back, and arms. He had been defending himself, but against what?

  My heart thundered against my chest. “Reyes, please,” I said. I patted his face, and his lashes, now dark crimson and spiked with blood, fluttered. In an instant, he turned on me. With a growl, his black robe materialized around him, around us, and a hand thrust out and locked on to my throat. In the time it took my heart to beat again, I was thrown against the shower wall with a raz
or-sharp blade glistening in front of my face.

  “Reyes,” I said weakly, already losing consciousness, the pressure around my throat so precise, so exact. I could no longer see his face, just blackness, the undulating robe that was so much a part of him protecting his identity even from me. The world blurred then spun. I fought his hold, his grip like a metal brace, and as much as I wanted to believe I fought the good fight, I felt my limbs going limp almost immediately, too weak to hold their own weight.

  I felt him press against me as a total eclipse crept in. I heard him speak, his voice winding around me like smoke. “Beware the wounded animal.”

  Then he was gone and gravity took hold and I collapsed onto the shower floor once again, this time face-first, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew it was going to suck.

  * * *

  The strangest thing happened on the day I was born. A dark figure was waiting for me just outside my mother’s womb. He wore a hooded cloak. It undulated around him, filling the entire delivery room with rolling black waves, like smoke in a soft breeze. Though I couldn’t see his face, I knew he was watching when the doctor cut the cord. Though I couldn’t feel his fingers, I knew he touched me when the nurses cleaned my skin. Though I couldn’t hear his voice, I knew he whispered my name, the sound deep and husky.

  He was so powerful, his mere presence weakened me, made air difficult to draw into my lungs, and I was afraid of him. As I grew older, I realized he was the only thing I was afraid of. I’d never been plagued with the normal phobias of childhood, probably a good thing, since dead people gathered around me en masse. But him, I was afraid of. And yet he showed himself only in times of dire need. He’d saved me, saved my life more than once. So why was I afraid? Why had I dubbed him the Big Bad growing up when he seemed anything but?

  Perhaps it was the power that radiated off him, that seemed to absorb a part of me when he was near.

  Jump ahead fifteen years to a frigid night on the streets of Albuquerque, the first time I’d seen Reyes Farrow. My older sister, Gemma, and I had been on recon for a school project in a rather bad part of town when we noticed movement in the window of a small apartment. We realized in horror that a man was beating a teenaged boy. At that moment, my only thought was to save him. Some way. Somehow. Out of desperation, I threw a brick through the man’s window. It worked. He stopped hitting the boy. Unfortunately, he came after us. We tore down a dark alley and were searching for an opening along a fence when we realized the boy had escaped as well. We saw him doubled over behind the apartment building.