The Curse of Tenth Grave

by Darynda Jones

  Having just gotten an answer I’d been hoping for, I stood rather dumbfounded. He truly did not know he was a god.

  What would it do to him, to learn he was created from one of the gods of Uzan? How would he feel knowing he, essentially, had caused the death and destruction of millions of beings on hundreds of worlds? My chest tightened around my heart with the mere thought, and I wondered for the thousandth time if it would change him. If he would revert back to his old ways like an addict who falls off the wagon.

  And then something else hit me. “What did you say?”

  “You’ll outlive me.”

  “No. About everything being—”

  “—in your name. Yes. Didn’t I mention that?”

  “Are you talking about your money?”

  “Our money, yes.”

  “Reyes.” I dragged him over to the bed. I needed to sit down. “Why on earth would you put everything in my name?”

  His head tilted as though he didn’t quite understand the question. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “You can’t just put money in someone else’s name. What if something happens and you need to get to it? You said you put everything in both our names.”

  “No, I said it was our money and assets, not mine. I didn’t say whose name it was in.”

  “But there’s thirty billion at stake.”

  “Not enough?” he teased. “I can make more. I do, actually, on a daily basis. The interest alone is astronomical.”

  Cookie sat at our counter, and I heard papers shuffling. She had information. Was bursting with it. But even she drew the line at barging into our bedroom. Thank goodness, because I was going to have another meltdown.

  “No.” I stood and stepped out of his reach. “I forbid it. I refuse. You go to your seven accountants and you tell them to take it out of my name.”

  “If you’re worried about the taxes—”

  “This isn’t about taxes.” I could not believe this was happening. “It’s about you getting and keeping what is rightfully yours. What you worked for and you deserve.”

  “Well, I am listed on the accounts. You’re just the owner of said accounts.”

  This was not happening. This could not happen. “Reyes, I won’t take that money. Any of it. It’s yours. I can make my own living.”

  “You are the strangest most perplexing human I’ve ever known.”

  I let out a long breath. “Reyes, please, take my name off. It’s yours.”

  “Dutch,” he said, standing in all his naked glory. “I started making that money from prison.”

  “I know. You hacked servers all over the place and made a fortune on the stock market and other investments. You. Not me.”

  “What I’m trying to say is, it’s always been in your name.”

  A gentle breeze could have knocked me over, I was so stunned. “What do you mean?”

  “When I started all this, when I figured out how to hack the markets, I put everything in your name. Well, everything but what I gave Kim and Amador and Bianca. I was always going to take care of you one way or another.”

  I clamped my teeth together. He had never had anything growing up. He had been abused and exploited and framed for murder before he even got a start in life. He worked hard for what he had. He earned every penny. I would not take it from him.

  “Dutch, I’m not changing the accounts. It’s yours. It’s all yours. And that’s final.”

  He started for the bathroom again. I put my hand on his chest. He instantly covered it with his own.

  “Please, Reyes, please take my name off.”

  He bent until his mouth was barely a centimeter from my own and whispered, “Never.” Then he went into the bathroom and closed the door as I stood in the middle of our bedroom on the verge of hyperventilating.

  After I was able to breathe without almost passing out, I rambled into the kitchen.

  “Well?” she said when I took down a clean cup, having left mine in the bedroom. But, hell, I could afford a dozen cups. I could afford a thousand. No, I could afford thirty billion. “How was your night?”

  I put the cup down, ran to her, and cried in her arms for a solid thirty minutes. One for each billion in my bank account.

  21

  Coffee

  Debauchery

  Madness

  One down. Two to go.

  —STATUS UPDATE

  By the time Reyes came out, Cookie and I were at the kitchen counter drinking coffee. Well, I was drinking coffee and going over some articles she’d printed out. Cookie was staring off into space, in total shock. She had a bit of drool leaking from one corner of her mouth. I reached over with a napkin and sopped it up. She didn’t move.

  “You told her?” he asked, getting a fresh cup himself.

  “Should I not have?”

  “Not at all. If anything happens to me, she will be the one you rely on most. She needs to know this stuff just as much as you do.”

  He turned toward me and leaned back against the counter. He wore a dark red button down and his signature jeans. They weren’t tight, but they weren’t loose. They had the perfect fit around his hips. Over his ass. Through his crotch.

  “Do we need to go back to the bedroom?” he asked from behind his cup.

  I straightened and cleared my throat. Then I offered him my best pleading face. “Reyes, please take my name—”

  “No.” He said it softly as though it were a caress. “It’s done. It was done over seven years ago.” He stepped to me, lifted my chin, and brushed his mouth across mine. “No more crying. And I think she might need medical attention,” he said before grabbing his jacket and walking out.

  It took another three cups of coffee to settle my nerves. Once Cookie came to, we went over the papers she’d brought. It was all the news articles she could find on each death at the children’s home.

  “Charley,” she said, still unable to wrap her head around what had happened, “he put your name on the accounts even before he met you? Before he got out of prison?”

  I nodded and closed my eyes, trying not to think of the injustices that had been done to him all his life, including this one. “What would possess him to do such a thing? That’s his money, Cook.” Tears slipped between my lashes, and Cookie grabbed me up again.

  “He loves you, hon. He’s always loved you. Even if you’d never met, he was looking out for you.”

  “But I don’t deserve it.”

  “Charley.” She set me at arm’s length. “He believes you do, and quite frankly, so do I. That money will come in handy. And if nothing else, Beep will be an heiress.”

  A hiccup of laughter escaped me. “Okay, that makes the whole thing worth it. But I’m still not comfortable with it.”

  “I doubt you ever will be. I can’t even imagine that much money.”

  “Right? So, seriously, how many Dumpsters do you think that would fill?”

  A knock sounded at the door.

  “Come in!” I yelled. “It’s your ball and chain.”

  “Ah.”

  Uncle Bob walked in, looking very masculine in his brown suit and tie. “Looking good, Ubie.”

  “Thanks, pumpkin. Court,” he said by way of an explanation.

  “Up for murder again?”

  “Not my court. I have to testify in court.”

  “Oh, of course. Sorry.”

  “I just wanted to let both of you know, I’m going to ask you one more time who hired you before I get a warrant and/or have you arrested.”

  “Aw, thanks for the heads-up, Uncle Bob.”

  Cookie simply raised her brows at him, completely content in the knowledge that she would win in the end.

  He let out a frustrated sigh. “I’ll do it.”

  “I’m sure you will. But if Joplin is so worried, why hasn’t he asked me himself? And if he’s harassing you about it, why don’t you tell him to fight his own fights?”

  “Because I’m not in the third grade, and he’s a control freak. He is very,
very interested in who hired you and why.”

  “That’s strange. Why don’t you tell him to mind his own bees wax and ask him why he’s so worried?”

  “Because I’m not in the third grade, and he’s a control freak. Are you even listening to me?”

  “Maybe he doesn’t want Team Davidson showing him up.” Cookie and I high-fived, we were that good.

  He shrugged. “He said something about you blowing the case.”

  “Sounds to me like Joplin is worried he doesn’t even have a case and he’s trying to blame it on someone else.”

  “You’re probably right. Still, the two of you might want to pack an overnight bag.”

  “As if they allow those in jail.”

  He leaned down to kiss his wife, then walked out.

  “See you later, hon,” Cook said. “If I go to jail, don’t forget to pick up Amber from school.”

  When she received nothing but a grunt and the sound of a door closing, she giggled. “It’s driving him crazy that we won’t give him a name.”

  “It’s the little things.” I thumbed through the papers. “The nurse at the home?” I asked, steering her back.

  “Okay.” She pointed at one paper in particular. An employment record for the nurse in question. “She’s worked there for years, but check this out. She left for several months to take care of her ailing mother. While she was gone, there were no deaths. Now, I know what you’re thinking,” she said before I could say anything. “The deaths were spread out over years. But as soon as her mother died and she went back to work at the home, another child passed away of an asthma attack.”

  She showed me an article.

  “She’s the common thread. Well, one of them. The home still has the same director, a few of the house parents, and a groundskeeper that it’s had since the deaths began. I just found it odd that a boy dies right before the nurse goes on leave, and then another one a week after she comes back.”

  “That is certainly worth looking into.”

  The article called the nurse heroic after she tried to save the boy by administering CPR on him for over an hour before someone found her and help arrived. The picture that accompanied the article showed the nurse, bereft and sobbing and falling into a coworker’s arms, as an ambulance took the nine-year-old kid away. The caption read, NURSE COLLAPSES AFTER CHILD DIES DESPITE HER BEST EFFORTS TO SAVE HIM.

  “Very dramatic,” I said, finding all kinds of things wrong with the picture. “Exactly the kind of attention a certain type of person thrives on.”

  “I thought so, too.”

  “Well, looks like I know what I’ll be doing today.”

  “Me, too. Figuring out how many Dumpsters it would take to stash thirty billion dollars in.”

  We high-fived before I headed for George. Reyes’s shower. No. I closed my eyes and let happiness shudder through me. Our shower.

  * * *

  By the time I left for the office to check in again with Cookie, I was dressed quite spiffily in a black sweater, jeans, and ankle boots. Which was pretty much what I wore every day during the winter.

  Reyes had texted me a thumbs-up, which had become our code for, “I’ve checked with Osh. Beep and the gang are okay.”

  Walking across the parking lot to the office, I noticed a familiar neon-green minivan parked down the alley. It was the bungling ghost hunters. The adorable ones that I wanted to adopt.

  I resisted the urge to hightail it to their van and give them a piece of my brain. Partly because it would be bloody and painful and all I had in my bag was a box cutter, but mostly because I didn’t care. If they wanted to waste their time, fine. I was actually surprised they’d stuck around after our chat. Hopefully, I’d scared the French crew off. They were the dangerous ones.

  My phone rang as I headed up the outside stairs to the office. Pari’s picture filled my screen, complete with bug-eyes sunglasses. She never rose this early. My mind immediately jumped to Heather. “Is everything okay?”

  “Groovy. Are you okay?” she asked, her voice groggy and muffled.

  “I’m fine. Why are you up? And where are you? Your voice is muffled.”

  “I’m in bed. It’s muffled because I can’t quite lift my head yet. And I called because you butt-dialed me ten thousand times last night. Did you get drunk?”

  “What? No.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Chuck.”

  “Maybe a little. Is Heather okay?”

  “She’s good. I think she’s getting better. The doc put her on a lot of liquids to hopefully flush any toxins out of her system. I think it’s helping.”

  “Pari, thank you so much for keeping her.”

  “Not a problem, but I will say that a tattoo parlor is probably not the best place for an impressionable twelve-year-old.”

  “I know. I’ll try to come up with other accommodations today.”

  Her voice cleared instantly. “What? That’s not what I said. I just meant, you know, she could be scarred for life, but really, she’s fine here. I don’t mind.”

  “Really? You sure?”

  “Of course. She’s sleeping right now. Or I hope she’s sleeping. She took off with one of my regulars at around one this morning, but I’m sure she made it back.”

  I so didn’t fall for that. “I’m so not falling for that.”

  “It was worth a shot.”

  “Totally. Call me if anything comes up. I’m heading to the children’s home to do some interviews today.”

  “Ten-four. Over and out.”

  “Over and—bye.”

  With both Heather and Beep safe, I could concentrate on my cases. But before I could head out to the children’s home, Parker called.

  “How’s the case going?”

  “Sensational, but you may have been made. Joplin is trying to get a judge to force me to say who hired me. He’s way too interested.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” His explosive temper exploded. Thank god I didn’t have him on speakerphone when I walked into the office. A deliveryman was just leaving.

  I waited for the door to close, then I put him on speakerphone. Expletives, the really colorful ones, filled the air around us like dirty butterflies. Cookie and I cracked up as we listened. When he finally got around to telling me why he’d called, I was having a hard time keeping a straight face. Or voice since we were on the phone.

  “I need this done, Davidson. I would suggest you close this thing. Quickly. Isn’t that what you do?”

  “Did you call just to threaten me, Parker?”

  “What? No. One of Emery Adams’s coworkers called. She has some information that might pertain to the case. I need you to go talk to her.”

  “What’s her name?”

  I took down the information he gave me on the coworker and asked Cook to look a little more into the nurse’s background. The one from the children’s home. Specifically, look for a history of mental illness or a history of physical ailments. Both could be a sign of Munchhausen’s. If she was killing those kids and taking the glory for trying to save them, that would be a form of Munchhausen syndrome by proxy. Either way, it’s hard to detect and even harder to prove.

  “We could have an Angel of Death on our hands,” I said.

  “Whatever works. We just have to stop her.”

  I hurried downstairs, made out with my husband for about three minutes, then went in search of one of Emery’s coworkers named Cathy Neville. It was actually on the way to the children’s home, so that worked out well.

  The Presbyterian Hospital sat down the road from our offices. It didn’t take long to find Cathy. She was on break outside the lab, sitting on the edge of a chair in the waiting area, punching buttons on her phone.

  “That’s her,” another tech said.

  She rose the minute I walked up to her. “Are you with the DA’s office?”

  “Of a sort. I’m working Emery’s case.”

  She nodded and stuffed the last chip in her mouth before trashing the bag. “Sorry
to drag you down here. I told them I could just talk to someone over the phone. Can you tell me how the case is going? I mean, do they have the guy?”

  “There’s been an arrest but, no, they don’t have the guy.”

  She cast me a confused expression and then continued. “Well, I just wanted to let the cops know that I think Ms. Adams was in trouble.” She rolled her eyes. “Obviously. But, I mean, I think she was in trouble before she disappeared.”

  “How so?” We walked down the hall toward the lab where she worked.

  “I didn’t say anything to anyone. I didn’t want to insinuate anything, but I found her in the lab the other night after we’d closed. She was crying.”

  “Was anyone in there with her?”

  “No. I’d forgotten my phone. I do that. So I had to have Estelle let me in.”

  “Estelle?”

  “Custodian. Sweetest lady ever.”

  “Did Estelle let Ms. Adams in?”

  “Oh no. She’s the administrator. She has keys to the whole place.”

  “Right. Did she say what happened?”

  “No, Estelle didn’t even know Ms. Adams was in there.”

  “I mean, did Ms. Adams say what happened?”

  She shook her head. “No. She apologized, grabbed her bag, and hurried out. But I know how she feels. Sometimes you just have to cry and there’s nowhere private in this whole place. I couldn’t blame her for coming here after hours like that.”

  “I agree. Did you notice anything else? For example, was Ms. Adams disheveled in any way like she’d been attacked?”

  “I don’t know. I really never knew her that well. But now that you mention it, I think someone might have hurt her.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “She had blood on her skirt. Not a lot. Just like a drop that she’d tried to wipe off.”

  “Okay,” I said while turning in a circle and scanning the area for cameras. “Why didn’t you tell the police this before?”

  “Oh, I’ve been on vacation. Just got back. I had no idea what happened to Ms. Adams until I walked in the door today. And then I knew I had to tell someone.”

  “I appreciate that. Thank you.” I shook her hand. “Can I call you if I have any questions?”