Eleventh Grave in Moonlight

by Darynda Jones

  He had some really good points. I sat across from him, defeated.

  “Besides, if it really is god glass, I doubt you can just break it with a hammer.”

  Another good point.

  “Does it bother you that I have it?”

  “Should it?”

  I draped my body over his desk. He could be so frustrating.

  He laughed under his breath.

  “I suppose you have to work.”

  “Nothing urgent. Do you want to tell me how you ended up stranded in Scotland?”

  I shrugged, his coat heavy on my shoulders. “I just got angry.”

  “At me?”

  “At men in general.”

  “Ah.”

  “Do you know when I was born?”

  “Come again?”

  “You know. Like what era? How old am I? Are we talking the Mesozoic, or do we have to go back as far as the Paleozoic?”

  “I don’t know. Your dimension is much older than this one.”

  I bolted upright. “Older?”

  “That’s not how it works, anyway. Time isn’t the same on every plane. This plane’s chronological structure doesn’t mesh with the one from your dimension. It would be impossible to tell.”

  “Is that a polite way of saying I’m so old, I’d have to be carbon-dated to figure it out?”

  “Yes,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “That’s it exactly.”

  “Okay, what about you, then? How old are you? You and Jehovah? And how are you brothers? Like, did you have a mom and dad?”

  His brows cinched together, but only for a moment. “I don’t remember. I don’t think it works that way.”

  “I’m sorry. What do you remember?”

  He filled his lungs and sat back in his chair. “I remember I treated you like shit. And I know you don’t remember, because if you did, you’d hate me.”

  “Doubt it. Why did you treat me so badly, then?”

  He pulled his lower lip between his teeth in thought. “You know how in grade school a boy pulls the hair of the girl he likes?”

  “You liked me? Wait. You pulled my hair?”

  “You were, for lack of a better phrase, out of my league.”

  I snorted before I realized he was serious. “I find that really hard to believe. Have you looked in the mirror lately?”

  He studied me, then asked, “If you do ever remember, will you forgive me?”

  I walked around his desk. Propped my ass against it. Studied him a long moment.

  He let me.

  How were this perfect man and I even in the same orbit? I was out of his league? Not likely.

  He reached forward, put a hand on my thighs, and slid my skirt up until it bunched above my hips. Then he looked up at me. “Say yes,” he said, his voice smooth and deep.

  “Yes.”

  Anticipation fluttered in my stomach.

  He propped me against the desk again and sat back, letting his gaze travel over me, stopping at my crotch, then continuing down my legs.

  The outline of his cock through his jeans quickened my pulse.

  Before I could do anything about it, he lifted my booted foot and braced it on the arm of his chair. Then he did the same with the other, anchoring it before reaching up and parting my knees. He took hold of my ankles, my boots only a few inches high, and sat back to study me again.

  Thankfully, Sammy had closed the door. Otherwise the patrons would be getting dinner and a show.

  He locked his intense gaze with mine. “Wet your fingers.”

  I lifted a hand to my mouth.

  “Not there.”

  Surprised, I reached between my legs and slid my fingers inside my panties, my chest rising and falling as I pushed them inside.

  “Farther.”

  I pushed them deeper, the sensation swirling in the pit of my stomach.

  His breaths grew labored as well. “Rub your clit.”

  I did, the hunger I saw on his face more erotic than my own touch.

  He watched a long moment, shifting in his chair as though his jeans were suddenly too tight.

  Then he said, his voice deep and smooth, “Come.”

  It was a simple command. I had never masturbated in front of anyone before. But the look on Reyes’s face, the desire shimmering in his eyes, convinced me I had absolutely nothing to lose.

  I rubbed my clit with two fingers, watching as his erection grew more pronounced. As his hands clenched around my ankles. As his jaw flexed. When he reached up and slid my panties aside for a better view, arousal spiked inside me. My cunt was so swollen and sensitive at that point, the softest brush of his fingers would have pushed me over the edge, but he only watched.

  He turned his head and sprinkled the inside of my knee with soft, feathery kisses. My skin was so tight, the endearments were almost painful. And I wanted more. I wanted his mouth on me. His cock in me.

  But he only watched as I worked. At first. I’d started slow, but as the embers sparked to life and the fire spread, my fingers moved faster.

  Unable to sit idly by, he stood between my legs, opened my shirt, and slipped my bra down, giving him access to my hardened nipples. He bent and seared first one, then the other with his mouth. His tongue scorched as he covered the crest and suckled.

  The sensation was like a string pulling taut nipple to clitoris. One tugged at the other, and the pressure built. His audible breaths quickened with each stroke. I grabbed the side of the desk with my other hand and held on, shaking uncontrollably, until the familiar sting exploded low in my abdomen, so sharp it seized every muscle in my body, so hot it flooded every cell.

  He wrapped an arm around the curve of my back and held me as I arched against him.

  I had no idea if I’d been too loud, but when Reyes unfastened his jeans, I didn’t care if I’d screamed his name from the top of my lungs. He pushed between my legs, and his rock-hard erection slid easily inside me. The waves of orgasm were still pulsing in rhythm with my thundering heart, the aftermath exquisite, when his cock, so perfectly placed, coaxed a second one to rise and crest the instant he entered me, opening the floodgates again, spilling molten lava, sweet and hot and sensual, into my core, rewarding my body with the most delicious sensations on Earth.

  But he didn’t move inside me. He held me tight against him, clamped down on me, rendered me immobile, and let the convulsions of my climax squeeze and massage his cock, milking him until he exploded. He grabbed a handful of hair. Pulled me tighter. Rocked against me. And groaned aloud. The combination so pleasurable, so ethereal, I almost came again.

  We stayed locked together, riding the last of the waves down together, enjoying each other’s touch until the tremors subsided.

  Reyes squeezed me to him again and whispered, “Fucking hell.”

  I agreed. And I was not ready to let him go. Not just yet.

  Instead of getting dressed, he lifted me off the desk and sat down with me still straddling him. With him still inside me.

  “Kiss me,” he said, in yet another command I was willing to obey. But just this once.

  I felt his smile behind the kiss as I pressed my mouth to his.

  I pulled back and licked my lips. Then smacked them and licked them again. “You taste like cotton candy.”

  He pleasured me again with a satiated grin. “Do I?”

  “You do.”

  He licked his own lips and put his head back in thought. “You taste like—”

  “Pot roast?” I offered.

  He chuckled.

  “Chiles rellenos? Cinnamon rolls? Battery acid? I’ve got to stop eating those things.”

  “Salt,” he said at last. “From the sea.”

  “From Scotland?”

  He nodded, and I burrowed closer.

  “I can’t believe I’ve been to Scotland. Think about all the plane fare we’re going to save. Oh, I think we should name your penis the Vampire Lestat.”

  “Really? I was thinking Angry Johnny.”


  I stifled a giggle. “Maybe we should sleep on it.”

  As we sat there, the door opened, just barely, and a hand slid inside and dropped a set of keys on a side table. My keys. Reyes must have had Garrett pick up Misery. That’d save me a trip.

  “Thanks, Garrett!” I called out.

  He gave me a thumbs-up and closed the door.

  “How do you suppose he knew we were performing sexual favors on each other?” I asked, snuggling against my man again.

  “Possibly because you screamed my name about seven times.”

  I bolted upright and gaped at him.

  He’d brought out his most wicked grin. “But that’s just a guess.”

  11

  I never said I’d die without coffee. I said other people would.

  —MEME

  After Cookie picked Amber up from school, she and I went over everything she’d found out so far about the Fosters before going home. She’d hit a brick wall, but apparently she had a friend on it. I didn’t know she had any friends.

  But she did find out about the other two adoptions that the shady adoption agency, the Divine Intervention, filed paperwork for.

  “Okay,” she said, handing me a sheet of paper, “they were both adopted in Albuquerque. One boy and one girl. The boy died a few years ago in a fire. The fire inspector ruled it arson, but they never found who did it.” She pointed to the other name. “And this one. The girl. She’s your age and still living here. Oh, and I also found whose name was on the lease for the building.”

  She handed me that information as well.

  “Thanks, Cook.”

  She seemed tired, and that worried me. Cookie didn’t get tired.

  “How is Uncle Bob?”

  She shrugged. “Not living with me.”

  “He moved out?” I asked, shocked.

  “No, I mean emotionally. It’s like he hasn’t really been home in days.”

  I covered her hand with mine. “It’s a case, Cook. Classic symptoms. I promise you.”

  She nodded and went home early. I went to see a girl about a building.

  * * *

  The woman who’d leased the building the adoption agent worked out of lived in Taylor Ranch, so I headed that way despite the hour. Nothing sucked the life out of a day like rush-hour traffic. Fortunately, it wasn’t that bad. The woman, a Karen Claffey, lived off Montano in a small white stucco with faded plastic flowers lining the drive.

  I knocked on the door and heard a small dog barking inside when a car pulled up. A woman in her fifties got out and went around to her trunk to grab her groceries.

  I smiled and waved as she walked from her drive to the front door. “Hi. Karen Claffey?”

  She nodded and shifted her bags to get the door open.

  “My name is Charley Davidson. I’m a private investigator looking into the Divine Intervention Adoption Agency, and—”

  “I don’t know anything about that.” Her brusqueness threw me, but only for a moment.

  “Really?” I took out the file. “According to city records, you leased the building the agency worked out of.”

  “Not me. I don’t know anything about it.”

  If she had a sign around her neck, it would be flashing LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE.

  “No problem. But I should probably warn you, I’m working with APD on this. I have to turn in my findings, so they might show up in the next couple of days. Just routine stuff. Nothing to worry about.” I started toward Misery. “Have a good day.”

  “I didn’t have anything to do with that agency.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Annoyance mixed with a healthy dose of fear washed out of her. “It wasn’t me. They just put the lease in my name on account of I went to their church and we became friends.”

  “Who, Mrs. Claffey?”

  “Eve and Abraham. The Fosters. They needed the building but didn’t want it in their names.”

  I stepped back to her. “Did they say why?”

  She opened her front door and stood halfway inside as though hinting she had better things to do. “Just that they were going to adopt some kids and wanted to start their own agency. As far as I could tell, no agency ever went in. The building stayed empty the whole time. I would get the mail for them and drop it off at their house. That’s all. I didn’t have anything to do with the rest.”

  “Mrs. Claffey, I have to ask: What rest?”

  She bowed her head in thought. Or prayer. She was down quite a while.

  After enough time passed for me to have ovulated, twice, she gestured me inside.

  She had a dachshund named Marley. I only knew that because she yelled at her seventeen times to shut up. But Marley continued her reign of terror, barking at me for a good three minutes before deciding I was okay. Then it was all belly rubs and toy tubs. As in a tub of toys. She had to bring out each and every toy, and we had to fight to the death for it until she got bored and went for the next one. I wondered if Mrs. Claffey would notice her missing after I left.

  Karen put the bags on her kitchen counter, then started a pot of coffee. The smell sent me skyrocketing to my happy place called Coffeeland.

  “There was some hubbub a while back,” she said, talking over the dog growls as we battled for a pink mouse with one ear. “An investigator came by saying he worked for a public defender and that he needed everything I had on the agency. I tried to tell him I didn’t have anything. The lease was in my name, true, but that was it. I had nothing to do with the business.”

  After almost losing a hand, I asked, “Did he say what they were investigating?”

  She busied herself putting groceries away. “A woman was arrested for the disappearance and murder of her child. But she says she didn’t kill her. She said that a couple from an adoption agency approached her. Then, twenty-five years later, the remains of the baby are found not fifty yards from the house she was living in at the time.”

  I stood and walked to her. Or, well, hobbled. Marley took a liking to my ankle boots. Had the Fosters adopted this woman’s child only to kill it? Why go to such lengths? “Do you believe the Fosters capable of such a heinous act?”

  She snorted. “Of course. The woman’s story is too … accurate.”

  I bowed my head in sadness and in thought. I needed to talk to that investigator. “Mrs. Claffey—”

  “Just Karen.”

  “Karen, did the investigator leave a card or give you a contact number?”

  “He did, but I threw it away. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay. I can find out. Thank you so much, Karen.” I took her hand and pressed a card into it. “If you think of anything else.”

  She took my card, and I was about 90 percent certain she’d throw it away the minute I left as well.

  Right before I headed for the door, I realized I needed to warn her. To let her know she could be in danger. “Karen, I don’t want to scare you or sound all dire, but please don’t say anything about this to the Fosters. I don’t want this coming back on you.”

  She bit down and I felt a mixture of outrage and animosity. “I never see them anymore. I quit going to their church a while back.”

  “Care to tell me what happened?”

  She turned away. I’d been doing this long enough to know that I’d lost her. “No.”

  Fair enough. “What is their church called?”

  “People of the Divine Path.”

  “They really like the word divine.”

  “Yeah, they think they are.” She leveled a serious stare on me. “Divine. Anointed. Godly.”

  “Don’t we all?” I asked with my best self-deprecating smile.

  I gave Marley one last scrub, then left.

  I had Cookie on the phone before I even got to Misery. “Cookie, I need you to find out who’s on trial for murdering her baby twenty-five years ago. They just found the—”

  “Veronica Isom.”

  I stopped. “Wow, that was fast.”

  “It’s been all over the
news.”

  I really needed to jump on that whole evening news movement. “Thanks, Cook. Can you find out where she’s being held?”

  “Sure, hon. Give me five.”

  “You got it.”

  I climbed into Misery but didn’t start her up. Instead, I waited for the little beastie in the passenger seat to announce her intentions.

  I knew the kid. She was a blond-haired, blue-eyed beauty who’d drowned when she was nine years old. She lived with my friend Rocket and the gang at an abandoned mental asylum, so I really didn’t see her much. She had her friends and no time for boring old me.

  Strawberry, a.k.a. Strawberry Shortcake based off the pajamas she wore, sat pretending to eat ice cream from a bowl. She would take a bite, then give a bite to her doll. The bald one.

  Strawberry had a thing for dolls’ hair. Well, hair in general. She was always wanting to brush mine or braid it or give me a quick trim. After seeing her doll collection, I decided to go to a professional.

  “Do you like dolls?” she asked out of the blue.

  “I like blow-up dolls. Does that count?”

  “Oh, I do, too. My friend Alex had one, and we would punch it in the face, and then it would bounce back up again.”

  We were so not on the same page. “Hey, sweetness, what are you doing here?”

  “I saw you driving and came over.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “Have you seen Angel?” She’d developed a bit of a crush on my thirteen-year-old investigator.

  “Not for a while.”

  “Oh. I need you to talk to my brother.”

  Her brother, David Taft, was an APD officer I liked to occasionally harass. “Yeah? Dating skanks again?”

  She shook her head. “He fell, and now I can’t see him anymore.”

  I froze. “Strawberry, what do you mean, he fell?”

  “I don’t know. I just saw him fall, and now I can’t find him. I need you to look.”

  Okay, if there was one thing the departed excelled at, it was the cryptic message. Strawberry was no different, but if she couldn’t see him …

  Alarm slipped up my spine. Had he really fallen? Had he died? Had he crossed?