The Curse of Tenth Grave

by Darynda Jones

  “Why were you so upset about the video this morning?” I asked her.

  “Because, what if—wait, how do you know it’s fake?” She squinted at her screen. “These pictures defy explanation because they can’t be explained. That’s the whole point.”

  The photo she was looking at was of a little girl with a fairy on her shoulder. “Seriously?”

  “Okay,” she said, caving, “but what about this one?”

  It was an image of a man in a straitjacket, levitating off a bed.

  “Fake.”

  “So, levitating crazy men aren’t real, but grim reapers are?”

  She had a point. “’Parently.” I took another bite.

  “Fine, but this next one truly defies—”

  “Fake,” I said the second she clicked the next photo. “Just what, exactly, do you think will happen?”

  “I don’t know. What about this one?”

  “Fake.” It was of a little boy sitting cross-legged and hovering inside an old Radio Flyer wagon. “And I think you do know.”

  “You could be exposed,” she said at last.

  “I’ve exposed myself before. It’s never bothered you.”

  “Not your normal one-too-many-margaritas exposed. And how do you know?”

  “I don’t know. You’ve never told me it’s bothered you.”

  “No, I mean about the picture.”

  I pointed from around my fork at the picture. “Can you see the little boy floating?”

  “Of course. That’s why it’s strange and unexplained.”

  “People don’t float. Not live ones. If he were really floating, he’d be incorporeal. Or an incorporeal entity would be lifting him up. If you can see him, he’s not incorporeal. And if I can’t see an incorporeal entity lifting him up, there isn’t one. And so what if I’m exposed? A little exposure never hurt anyone. It’s not like the grim reaper police are going to arrest me.”

  She clicked again. “I guess, but you don’t know who, or what, that video could attract. Do you think that’s why the Vatican has a file on you?”

  “What, that video?” I took another bite. “According to their watchdog, they’ve had a file on me since the day I was born. So, probably not.” In the next photo, a boy was covered in scales. “Fake.”

  She didn’t bother to ask before clicking again. “What if the wrong forces get ahold of it, though?”

  “Like what forces? Unless you mean the armed forces, because that could get fun. All the other forces know what I am. And I’m a freaking beacon, so they also know where I am. I don’t know how a person could be less hidable. To the supernatural world, anyway. Fake … fake … fake … just creepy … fake…”

  “But what about someone in this world? Someone who doesn’t know but would be very interested? I mean, very, very interested.”

  I could feel her anxiety level rising. “Cook, who cares? What will something like that mean to anyone?”

  “But—”

  “First of all,” I said, totally interrupting, “nobody will believe it. They’ll think it was wires or CGI.”

  She shrugged one shoulder as she studied the next photo.

  “And second, even if someone did take note, I ask you again, what could they do?” I glanced at the next picture. “As fake as the day is long.”

  “You know, you kind of take the magic out of this stuff.”

  “I know. Sor—” I’d started to apologize, but the next image on her screen stopped me mid-grovel. I leaned forward. Squinted. Then stilled. “What is that?”

  Cookie stilled, too, her fork halfway to her mouth. “Don’t even tell me that little girl could really remove her head like that.”

  “Oh, no, that’s totally fake, but that in the background.” I pointed closer. “That little boy. What’s he doing?”

  In the background of a ridiculous picture of a little girl holding what looked like her own head by her long blond locks was a little boy pointing to a storefront window.

  “That little boy?” She pointed to the one in the street, as there were several in the background. He wore vintage clothing. Short pants. Knee socks. Suspenders. A newsboy cap on his head. He was looking straight at the camera and yet pointing at the store window.

  “Yes.” I put down my fork, pushed my plate aside, and leaned all the way over the desk, flashing my cleavage, but Cookie never took the bait. Damn it. She coulda been a contender. “Print that.”

  “Ooooh-kay,” she said slowly, her voice wary. “Do I need to be freaked out?”

  “I don’t know.” I hurried over to the printer and grabbed the image before it was done printing, so I played tug-of-war with the printer until it gave in. Then I sat back down and pointed again. “Look at that store window. What do you see?”

  “Dirt. Well, mud, actually.”

  “Like in a pattern? Like in a strange font or perhaps pictographs?”

  “Not really. Just splotches of mud. It’s all pretty Rorschach-y. Why?” When I continued to study the picture without answering, she said, “Charley, what? What do you see?”

  “That little boy standing there in vintage clothing? His hands are muddy, like he wrote on the plate glass window. It’s what’s on the window that caught my attention.”

  “What’s on the store window?” Cookie said, growing more fascinated, and more wary, by the second.

  “It’s angelic script.”

  “Angelic script? Is he an angel? The boy?”

  I almost laughed. “Not exactly. At least, I don’t think so.”

  “Can you read the script?”

  “Oh yeah,” I said, dread slithering up my spine like a snake made of ice.

  “And?”

  This was unreal. It didn’t make sense.

  Cookie reached over and put her hand on mine to draw me back to her. “What does it say?”

  “It’s a message, but how?”

  “From who?”

  “If I’m not mistaken, that little boy is Rocket.”

  “Rocket? Our Rocket? From the asylum Rocket?”

  “Yes.” I looked closer at the round face and the boyish features. He would have been a boy right about that age at the time.

  “What does it say?” Cookie leaned closer, trying hard to see what I was seeing. “I don’t understand. How do you know it’s him?”

  “First, it looks like him, only younger. And second, it says, ‘Miss Charlotte, what’s bigger than a bread box?’”

  She looked up, still confused.

  “He’s the only one who calls me Miss Charlotte. But I have no idea what he means and how on earth he got a message to me. He wouldn’t have died for another twenty years after this was taken. And I wouldn’t meet him for over fifty more.”

  “The store is a bakery. It’s painted to look like a bread box.”

  “Okay.” I’d have to take her word on that.

  “My grandmother used to have one just like this. See, there’s the handle.”

  It did begin to resemble a bread box with a handle across the top. And over that was a sign that read MISS MAE’S BREADS AND CONFECTIONS.

  “So, then, what’s bigger than that building?” I asked. “I don’t get it.”

  “Me neither. And how is that even possible?”

  “Well, actually, there are a lot of things that could be bigger than that building.”

  “No.”

  “A bigger building, perhaps?”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “A skyscraper?”

  “Charley.” Cookie was trying just as hard to figure it out as I was. “This picture has to be from the forties or something.”

  “It’s the thirties, to be exact.” I studied him harder and became more and more convinced that Rocket was sending me a message from the past. “I need you to find out everything you can about this picture.”

  “You got it, boss. Boy, the creep-factor in this room just spiked tenfold.”

  “That’s because your husband is about to walk in.”


  She looked around and then back at me in awe. “You really are psychic.”

  “Yeah.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her I’d seen a shadow pass, so I looked up to see his blurred image slide across the glass on the picture behind her desk. It would ruin the moment, though why anything about me would surprise her at this point, I had no clue.

  I jumped up to grab my jacket. “First, find out all you can about our murder victim, Emery Adams.”

  “Right.”

  “And then figure out who my husband is paying child support to.”

  “On it.”

  “And then—”

  “Go,” she said, still studying the photo. When the door opened, she looked up at my ramshackle of an uncle.

  I dived in for the first hug, making him horridly uncomfortable. Which was exactly why I did it. He patted my back and then almost, almost hugged me back, his tall, only slightly overweight frame the epitome of male etiquette. Men didn’t hug. It was against their code of manly conduct unless they were in the throes of frat party. Or an even manlier event. Like touch football. Or backyard grilling. It was okay to hug in American guydom as long as one or both of the participants had grilling tongs in hand.

  They also didn’t hasten to their wives to plant big wet ones on them, which was exactly what Ubie did.

  I would have waited until they came up for air, but there were only so many hours in the day. I decided to risk it. “I forgot to ask, Cook. Who’s Valerie?”

  She flipped me off. She literally gave me the naughty finger while she molested my uncle. I was so proud. Even prouder than she was that time she got food poisoning and lost seven pounds in two days. But I took that as my cue to slip out. There was only so much PDA I could handle when a relative was involved. Especially one who manhandled my BFF in his spare time.

  I stepped out to what had become a dreary, misty gray day. My very favorite kind. Clouds had rolled in from the northeast and were hovering low over the Sandias, spilling over the peak, making the entire mountain look like a witch’s cauldron. One would think that image alone would lift my spirits. Or the fact that the entire mountain was covered in sparkling white snow would at least garner a smile, but I had a lot on my mind. I was afraid. So very, very afraid. It curled around me and slipped into my lungs, making it impossible to breathe.

  I stopped halfway to Misery, my cherry red Jeep Wrangler. Why was I afraid? I’d been afraid before, but not like this. Not like deathly afraid.

  Yet fear swirled like a fog around me. I took inventory. Looked myself over. Patted my pockets and my jacket and my girls. Nope, not me. So, if it wasn’t my fear nigh paralyzing me, whose was it?

  I glanced around. There weren’t many people in the alley. Many businesses on this part of Central had a back entrance, and with the college right across the street, the area got quite a bit of traffic despite the alley status, but there were only a couple of students cutting through the alley on their way to campus.

  I started walking, trying to home in on the source, fighting the urge to sniff like I was searching my kitchen for an odd odor. It happened.

  When I rounded a Dumpster, I spotted it. Or her. A young homeless girl, actually, and most likely a runaway. Her fear hit me full on, and concern lifted the hairs on the back of my neck.

  The girl sat cross-legged, her black sneakers as tattered as the dingy once-pink blanket wrapped over her shoulders. She had pixielike dark hair, spiked but in more of a bed head kind of way, and pale youthful skin. She couldn’t have been more than fourteen. Fifteen at the most. She was fiddling with the lid to a yogurt cup with granola. A plastic spoon sat next to her along with a cup of juice. Her fingers were shaking, and she couldn’t get the wrap off.

  “Can I help?” I asked, softening my voice as much as I could.

  Her head jerked up, anyway. Her gaze, wild with surprise and fear, paused on me for only a second before it darted around, wondering if I were with anyone. God only knew what she’d gone through, being a very young, very pretty teen. And God only knew what, or more likely who, sent her to live on the streets. What had pushed her to such a rash decision.

  Satisfied we were alone, her gaze raked over me, but mine had drifted back to the snack in her hands.

  “Where did you get that?” I asked, suddenly more curious about her food than her circumstances. If she’d panhandled, she probably wouldn’t have bought anything quite that healthy. Most kids lived for chips and pizza, and that had come from Boyd’s Mini Mart on the opposite corner of our building.

  She had no intention of answering me, but her eyes answered for her. She glanced ever so quickly toward Boyd’s, and I had to tamp down a spike of anger.

  “Mr. Boyd? Did Mr. Boyd give that to you?”

  Her brows slid together, and I almost scoffed aloud.

  “I bet he said you could stay in his storeroom, too. You know, if you ever need a place to sleep? To get out of the cold for a while?”

  She volunteered nothing, but I felt recognition flood through her. She had the wherewithal to know she’d been had and the intelligence to look sheepish.

  “Dude’s a perv, hon, through and through.” I stepped closer, and she stiffened again. Probably due to the edge in my voice. “Stay away from him,” I ordered, because that’s what a homeless kid on the run needed. More adults ordering her around. Telling her what to do. Trying to run her life. Or, more to the point, taking advantage of her.

  She rose slowly, and I realized I’d gone too far. I was going to lose her.

  I held up both hands, showing my palms. “Wait—”

  But she rabbited. Bolted down the alley, leaving her belongings and her breakfast behind.

  Good job, Davidson.

  I watched as she knocked over a trash can, rounded a corner, then headed toward Central before I gathered up her belongings and stashed them behind the Dumpster. She’d be back. And our encounter wasn’t a total loss. I’d caught her … scent, for lack of a better phrase. Her emotional fingerprint. Her frequency. I could feel her. If she didn’t come back, I could use that to find her. I was a bloodhound. Through and through.

  6

  I can never remember if I’m the good sister or the evil one.

  —T-SHIRT

  I stepped over to Misery. She now had her own carport, another upgrade thanks to Mr. Farrow. It was funny how much I’d enjoyed seeing her again when we got back. All red and shiny and ready to do my bidding. I’d had another object that fit that description perfectly back in college, but it vibrated. And fit in my pocket. And its name was most definitely not Misery. It was rather appropriately named Han Solo.

  I drove to the station in Misery. The Jeep. And possibly a little of the emotion.

  Parker had already cleared me to interview Lyle the Boyfriend, and though the detective on the case was a little surprised, he didn’t argue. He simply led me back to an interview room where a very distraught, very devastated Lyle Fiske sat waiting.

  And, not to my complete surprise, the man was as innocent as a freshly driven snowplow. He may have been a bit dirty underneath the hood—did snowplows have hoods?—but he’d been driven hard. Without regular oil changes.

  He sat cuffed to the table in the interview room. I wondered if they’d had to subdue him again.

  When he looked up at me, his pale caramel eyes didn’t quite seem to comprehend the situation. He was somewhere else. His dark auburn hair hadn’t been slept on, and from what Parker had told me, they’d arrested him the night before. He’d probably paced the entire time, a sure sign of innocence. Only the guilty slept after being arrested.

  “Mr. Fiske,” I said, holding a hand out. “I’m Charley Davidson, a private investigator and consultant for APD. I’ve been hired to look into your case.”

  He didn’t take my hand at first. He stared at it instead for a solid thirty seconds before he finally took it into his.

  “You were hired?” he asked, trying to wrap his head around everything that had happened to him in the last week.<
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  I stopped to take inventory myself. His girlfriend had been murdered in her car sometime between 6 and 11 P.M. just under a week ago. According to the report Parker gave me, Lyle was going to propose to Emery Adams the night she was killed. He miraculously found her car in the middle of nowhere and had called the cops himself. His fingerprints were found all over the car, and Emery’s blood was all over him. Oh, and just to add insult to injury, the couple had been spotted arguing the day before.

  This was not going to be easy.

  “Yes, the people who hired me”—the same ones who didn’t want Lyle, or anyone else for that matter, to know they’d hired me—“believe quite strongly that you are innocent of the charges against you.”

  He laughed softly, the sound containing no humor whatsoever. “Like that makes any difference.”

  I hadn’t figured him for a cynic when I walked in. Something had happened to him. Something had set him against the universe.

  “Can you tell me what happened that night?”

  “My girlfriend was murdered, and they think I did it. Isn’t that why you’re here?”

  “But you didn’t?” I asked, just to gauge his reaction for the record.

  Instead of answering, he leveled those hauntingly pale eyes on me and asked, “Does it really matter?”

  His cynicism sparked a burning curiosity. I needed to look deeper into his background, much deeper, to try to understand his animosity. I got the feeling he was a good guy. Then again, he’d been friends with Nick Parker. Maybe my feelers were wrong this time.

  “Mr. Fiske,” I said, trying to get him to trust me if only a little, “try to think of me as your best friend. I am here for you, and if anyone can prove you didn’t do this, it’s me.”

  “I already have a lawyer. I heard he’s the best public defender taxpayer money can buy.”

  “Christianson. He’s good,” I assured him. “He’ll give us some leeway as far as asking for more time and what have you.”

  “More time?”

  I folded my arms on the table. “Before it goes to trial.”

  “So, you want me to sit in here longer than I would anyway? It’s not like they granted me bail. It’s not like I’m twiddling my thumbs in the comfort of my own home, so what does it matter?”