Fifth Grave Past the Light

  Slowly, feeling crept into my limbs. My hands were bound behind my back, my ankles tied together. Other than that, I was quite comfortable. The backseat in this thing went on for days. I realized the lights I’d seen were from my abductor’s dash. We were driving, and since I saw no streetlights overheard, we were probably not in the city anymore.

  I tried to make out the driver through the haze. Caucasian with short blond hair. His sleeves were rolled up, and I saw a tattoo of an eight-ball on his forearm. Blond hair and the number eight. Son of a bitch, I was going to die under that bridge. Nicolette had seen me.

  “She filed for divorce.”

  My abductor knew I was awake. I tried so hard to pull out of the fog, but my vision just would not clear. The world kept tilting to the right. I felt drunk and was beginning to wonder if he’d drugged me as Kim had.

  “Now all my planning, all my hard work, means nothing. I can’t kill the bitch now. I’d be the main suspect. Everyone will know.”

  Yes! I’d nailed it! I was an expert at nailing things. Ideas, two-by-fours, men with low self-esteem. If it could be nailed, I could nail it. I should probably change my name to the Nailer. I knew he was that kind of man, out for the insurance money. Maybe I really was psychic. Stranger things had happened.

  “You had no proof that I’d ever slept with another woman.”

  “And I told her that,” I said. My words slurred together, and I realized my jaw wasn’t working right. It hurt like the dickens. And my shoulder. Holy cow. “I said we had no real proof of you cheating.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you fought for me.”

  I tried to roll off my side and onto my back. My left shoulder felt dislocated. Though the world flip-flopped with the movement and my stomach lurched, I did manage to ease the pain a little. A warmth ran down my temple and cheek, and I realized I was bleeding. Ha! I was getting blood all over Marv’s SUV. No getting that stuff out. At least there would be forensic evidence.

  “So I figured if I couldn’t kill her, I’d kill you. No one would make that connection.”

  They would when they brought out the luminol. And he was clearly forgetting the part where he attacked my assistant in a room full of off-duty cops. Why did no one remember that?

  I squeezed my eyes shut to stop the spinning and concentrated, but Angel didn’t pop in. He always popped in when I needed him. I just couldn’t focus, couldn’t assemble my thoughts. They were coming at me too fast and they were fractured, broken and in pieces.

  “Why were you at this bridge?” he asked. “How did you know about it?”

  He looked back at me, but he was shrouded in darkness. I was seeing his aura. I’d caught glimpses of people’s auras before, but this was different. Marv’s was cloudy. Evil. Plain and simple, his aura was evil. It surrounded him, consumed him. He felt no remorse for anything he did to get what he wanted.

  If nothing else came of this, at least I had saved a woman’s life. He had every intention of killing his wife for the insurance money. It took a special kind of asshole to do something like that. To be able to convince a woman that he loved her, to convince her family that he loved her, that he was a loving and devoted husband, and the entire time he plotted her death in the back of his mind. If only he could have kept it in his pants, Valerie Tidwell would never have called me.

  “A dead girl told me,” I said, answering his question at last, “only she wasn’t dead.”

  “You’re about to be. That’s all that matters.”

  I couldn’t take the spinning anymore. The pain shooting through my shoulder, ribs, and hip, and I had a horrible feeling my leg was broken. If it wasn’t, it had a lot of explaining to do. Pulverizing me with that much pain for nothing was not acceptable. But the spinning was the worst.

  Marv pulled onto a rough patch and threw his SUV into park, giving my dislocated shoulder a nice little jerk.

  “What did you give me?” I asked him.

  “A GMC sandwich.” He turned back and glared at me. “How dare you interfere with something that is none of your business.”

  “That’s kind of my job,” I said, but he didn’t hear me. He got out, opened my door, and yanked my legs until I fell onto the dirt. My head hit the frame on the way down, and Barbara screamed in protest. I was right there with her.

  I tried to concentrate on the surroundings, but it was difficult when those surroundings were part of a merry-go-round carnival ride. The one thing that did catch my eye was the bridge. The old, dilapidated bridge for a railroad track that was no longer used.

  “You are about to have a nasty fall,” he said, trying hard to sound clever. “But cause of death will probably be strangulation.”

  He clasped my arm – the non-dislocated one, thank god – and dragged me up the side of the incline. Then he shoved me over one track and across the wood slats of the bridge until we stood above the highway. It wasn’t that high. The fall probably wouldn’t kill me. It would just hurt really bad. He was such an idiot. I lost all respect for him.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, “you won’t be my first.”

  He’d killed before. That was so not comforting.

  “My best friend died on this bridge. Everyone thought it was an accident. It’s amazing what people will believe. He just happened to fall when a truck was approaching? Idiots.”

  His best friend. He had a strange idea of friendship.

  He pushed me onto my stomach and straddled me. The next thing I heard was a rip. He tore the back of my shirt open, and the crisp night air swept across my skin. Then he reached around my front and unbuttoned my jeans. Unzipped them. Yanked them and my underwear down to my ankles.

  When I heard his belt coming off, I slammed my eyes shut and tried to concentrate again. Tried to summon Angel. But before I thought too hard, a crack split the air as leather and metal whipped across my back. I gasped at the sting. Gasped again when the belt lashed across my buttocks and thighs. He was whipping me with the buckle, the sharp metal slicing into my skin. Over and over. I couldn’t help it. I cried out, but that only seemed to increase his fervor. His zest for cruelty. My one saving grace was that every point of contact left forensic evidence. But that didn’t help when the metal ripped through my skin. My body seized with every lash. A spasm bolted through me every time the metal struck. I ground my teeth together, tried to breathe through the pain.

  The world spun.

  The pain crippled.

  And the thrashing continued.

  Just when I thought I would lose consciousness, it stopped. He pulled me from the fetal position I’d curled into and straddled my back again, his mouth at my neck, his groin on my ass.

  “You think you’re so much better than me. You have no idea what I’m capable of.”

  He flipped me onto my back, the rough wood cutting into my fresh wounds, and started to undo his pants. Disbelief struck so hard, a wave of dizziness washed over me.

  No. I shook my head. No way. Not rape. Not rape. I had been stabbed. I had been sliced so deep, the knife scored bone. I had been dragged by my hair and had my neck broken. But in all my years getting into every bad situation imaginable, I had never been raped.

  And I wouldn’t be. I couldn’t be. I was the grim reaper, for Christ’s sake, yet I couldn’t clear my head long enough to summon Angel or Reyes. They had no idea I was in trouble. Maybe it was the head injury blocking me somehow. So I did the next best thing. I used my girl powers. With a fierce determination, I knocked him off balance. He fell next to me, and I leaned over as fast as I could and buried my teeth in his neck. With adrenaline rushing through my veins, I clamped down hard and refused to let go. I was going for the nose, but that was out of reach, so the neck would have to do.

  He howled in pain and pushed until I flew off him. Fortunately, the bottom half of the bridge had a lattice barricade also made of metal. I hit it and fell face forward, but I twisted until I was on my back again.

  “Son of a bitch,” he said, anger filling him so completely, his
aura roiled with a murky darkness. Clutching his neck, he scrambled onto his feet and charged forward. I kicked with both legs, a shrill pain shooting through me with the contact. He flew back and tripped on the wooden slats of the bridge, hitting his head on a bolt in the bracing. “Fuck!” He clasped his head, pressed his fingers to his neck, and rocked a moment, doubled over from pain. “You fucking whore.” He glared at me – then, with jaw set, he staggered back down the bridge to his SUV.

  I lay between the barrier and a train track, gasping, pants down to my ankles and barely able to move. The world spun at warp speed as I waited to see what he would do next. Would he just throw me off the bridge? Strangle me as promised? Stab me or beat me with his tire iron next? I felt like the bridge was tilting and I was going to fall off it with my pants down and my shirt ripped almost completely off.

  I rolled slightly, trying to get my own weight off my back, but everything hurt, so I gave up and rolled back against the rough wood. The metal bracings overhead were beautiful, intricate, like a spider’s web glistening in the night, spinning with the stars, blurring. A movement captured my attention, and I saw Faith. Little Faith, out from under my bed and about to watch me die. She was on one of the metal bracings above, looking down at me, her expression one of mild curiosity. I heard nothing for a long time. That probably meant I was in for a whole lot more trouble, but I was just glad to be rid of him for a minute. I wished I could have signed to Faith.

  Marv walked up until he was standing over me. He could have been swaying, but most likely, I just couldn’t see straight. He had patched up his neck with a rag, like the kind mechanics used.

  “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  Like I’d never heard that before.

  Then he brought around a handheld torch. Like the kind mechanics used. And I knew my life was about to get a whole lot worse.

  “Let’s see how you like this,” he said, pulling the trigger on the small torch until the tip emitted a blue glow. It made an airy sound like the low hum of a gas leak. With a seething hatred glittering in his eyes, he knelt beside me. The Y at my crotch caught his attention and he paused. Still thinking about it. I looked up at Faith again, but she was gone. No, not gone. I looked to my right. She was beside me, watching with a calm dread, her chin puckering.

  I couldn’t let her see this.

  The flame from the torch left blue streaks in the air. I could not steady my world, but I couldn’t let Faith see this.

  “If you’ll spread your legs, I’ll put this torch out and we’ll enjoy the rest of your life together.”

  “I’d rather burn, thank you.” Big words coming from someone so scared, she was about to piss herself, but giving him the satisfaction of seeing the terror trembling inside me was more than I could bear at that moment. Of course, once that pinpoint flame seared a lovely pattern into my flesh, I’d probably change my mind.

  “Too bad.” He put the torch down. The flame died the minute he released the trigger. Then he rose again, picked something else up, and walked back. “You could have lived another hour or two.”

  He took a red plastic gas can into both hands and shook it, dousing me in the freezing liquid. Ironic since it was about to burn me alive. Damn it. Nicolette didn’t say anything about being burned to death. I curled into a ball and tried to avert my face, to keep it out of my eyes. It stung when it hit the open flesh on my back and buttocks, and I screamed through gritted teeth and closed mouth.

  He put the gas can down and picked the torch back up. Lit it with one click of the trigger. Stepped closer. Knelt down.

  I’d always wondered, bizarrely, what it would feel like to burn to death. I had seen people set themselves aflame on TV. The act horrified me. Did they regret it once the fire started?

  I wanted to apologize to Faith, but my hands were still expertly tied at my back. I had no idea what he’d used, but I could not get out of it.

  The torch loomed closer and Faith’s eyes grew rounder until I saw her through a sea of fire as I burst into flames.

  20

  I came into this world covered in someone else’s blood and screaming. I’m not afraid to leave it the same way.

  —T-SHIRT

  No.

  This was not going to happen.

  I still had a lot of shit to do.

  I gathered what little strength I had, let it swirl and build inside me, then sent it out to swallow the heat like a dragon. I absorbed the fire, breathed it in, reveled as it soaked into every inch of my body. As fast as the fire had ignited, it extinguished that much faster. I thought about waiting for Tidwell’s reaction, watching to see if his expression was more surprise or murderous rage. But I figured while I was here, I would finish the job I’d started. I reached out from somewhere deep within, clasped on to either side of his head, and twisted. His neck snapped before he even realized I’d extinguished the fire, and he dropped hard, his face slamming into the train track and bouncing back until he settled in a heap of lifeless flesh and blood.

  This would make two men that I’d killed. Two men that I sent to hell. Reyes’s dad would be proud.

  Faith sprang forward and wrapped her tiny arms around my neck. I almost laughed, but the flesh and blood me was back, and pain had permeated every nook and cranny of my body. And my pants were down.

  But my heart beat. My blood pulsed. No doubt about it, I was alive. Then the evening hit me. I’d never been quite that close to death – well, me – before. My eyes stung from emotion and from gasoline and I buried my face in Faith’s matted, muddy hair. But I was still tied up and the binds were cutting into my wrists. If I didn’t know better, I’d have sworn he used some kind of steel cable. So there I lay, half naked and bound. I could break a man’s neck, but I couldn’t untie myself.

  I didn’t dare summon Angel, if that were even possible yet. He always wanted to see me naked, but not like this. Seeing me like this would bother him for a long time to come. And I didn’t want to summon Reyes, either. I didn’t even know if I could. I certainly didn’t want Cookie or Gemma here. They would never get over it. No, the only one I could let see me this way was Uncle Bob. We had an understanding, and he would be able to live with seeing me like this in a way the others couldn’t. He understood the dangers of the job. He lived with that knowledge every day.

  I felt the impression of my phone in my front pocket, more than a little shocked Tidwell hadn’t taken it. With Faith clinging to my neck, I twisted my bound hands around, pulling one arm across my back like a contortionist, until I could retrieve it. My dislocated shoulder protested. Pain shot through me until I almost cried out, but I locked on to the phone with thumb and index finger and pulled. Glancing over my hip, I could barely see past Danger and Will. I held it carefully in my shaking hands, scared I’d drop it through the railroad ties to the road below. Then I twisted my head until I could see the screen. It was cracked, but the phone still seemed to work. Faith sat back, balancing on her toes as she liked to do, and kept a hand on my head as though to let me know she was there.

  The world had slowed, but my sight was still blurry, my position still twisted enough to make finding Ubie in my contacts difficult. On a scale of one to for-the-love-of-god-this-is-hard, I would’ve given this a twelve. I scrolled to what looked like the U’s and found his name at last. Then, after trying to wipe my eyes on my barely there shirt, I pushed his number, dropped the phone on a railroad tie, and scooted until I could hear him pick up.

  “Charley?” he said when I was finally in position. “Did you butt-dial me again?”

  His voice caused a wave of relief to rush over me. “Uncle Bob,” I said, my voice cracking and weak.

  “Charley, where are you?” He was now on full alert, but I’d started crying.

  I rested my head against the metal track and said, “I need —” My voice broke, and it took me a second to recover. “I need you to come get me.”

  “I’m on my way. Where are you, pumpkin?”

  “At the bridge,” I
said, my breath catching in my chest. “But only you, okay? Only you come.”

  Faith petted my hair as I tried to stay conscious, the fumes from the gas making me even more light-headed.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked, and I heard his engine start in the background.

  “I killed a man,” I replied, right before I fell into darkness.

  Over the next twenty minutes, I woke at odd intervals. This had to be the least traveled road in all of New Mexico. I could see between the ties, but the only car I saw pass under me was a faded red Pinto with a chicken coop on top. The other times I woke to the sound of crickets or birds’ wings brushing together overhead.

  “Charley, talk to me!”

  I blinked, tried to clear my head. Uncle Bob was still on the phone, screaming at me. “Okay.”

  “I called for a patrol car to meet me out here.”

  Shame consumed me as quickly as the flames had. My pants were down. That was all I could think about. My pants were down. “Only you,” I said again, pleading with him.

  “I’ll get there first. Whatever has happened, we will deal with it together. But I need to know, do I need to call an ambulance?”

  “No. I’m okay.”

  “I’m almost there. I can see the bridge. Can you see my headlights?”

  I rolled over and almost cried out at the pain. “Yes,” I said.

  “What? Charley, where are you?”

  I had to endure another roll to get back to the phone. “I’m here. I can see your headlights.”

  “Black GMC SUV,” he said, remembering my earlier encounter with that exact same vehicle. “Where are you?” He had slid to a stop and was running now.

  “I’m on the bridge.”

  His next word was just a whisper. “Charley,” he said. It took him a moment, but his footsteps restarted.

  And shame engulfed me again. Faith had taken up her post on the bracing as Uncle Bob rushed to me, gun drawn. He first checked Tidwell’s pulse. Finding none, he holstered his gun and knelt beside me.