Fifth Grave Past the Light

  “My god, honey, what did he do?”

  “He was really mad.”

  He struggled to get the binds untied. Lights glowed in the distance. The patrol car was coming.

  “Please, hurry,” I said, mortification settling in.

  “Got it.” He pulled the metal wire off my wrists and helped me stand so I could pull up my pants. He had to help with that, too, gingerly lifting my panties into place, then my jeans as hot tears of humiliation slid down my face. “Your back,” he said, but I shook my head.

  “My shoulder hurts worse.”

  “Why do you smell like gasoline?” But he’d spotted the torch almost the moment he said it. A gasp escaped him when he realized what he was looking at.

  “It’s dislocated. Can you fix it?”

  “What? No, honey.”

  “Please,” I said as the cop car pulled in beside Uncle Bob’s SUV. “I saw you do it to that other cop once. I know you know how.”

  “Sweetheart, you have no idea what kind of damage has been done.”

  “Please.”

  “Okay, lean against the railing.”

  “Detective?” the patrolman said from underneath us. I didn’t know him.

  “Up here, Officer. I need you to get the medical examiner out here as well as a few of your closest buddies.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said. He’d focused his flashlight on me. “Should I call for an ambulance?”

  “We’ll need one, yes, after the medical examiner gets out here.”

  “What about for her?”

  “No,” I whispered to him. “I’m fine. I just want to go home.”

  “We’re okay. If you’ll just get the ME out here.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Are you ready?” he asked me.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, we’re going to take this nice and slow. Just relax.”

  He took my arm, rotated it out, then pulled slowly until my shoulder popped back into place. A sharp spasm shot through me, then relief. It was instant, but with that pain gone, the one in my leg was magnified.

  “Okay, now my ankles.”

  He draped his jacket over my shoulders, then led me back to the ground and knelt in front of me. It took him longer to get the thick wire off my ankles, and I was still dizzy, so I clung to a bracing as he worked.

  “Charley, did he —?” He scraped a hand over his face, then took hold of my chin. “Did he violate you?”

  I was a little surprised that this seasoned detective would use such archaic language for such a heinous act. “No,” I said, my breath hitching. “He tried, but he didn’t get far.”

  Uncle Bob released a slow breath. “Charley, what the hell?”

  But I’d had enough of tough Charley. Tough Charley was going on vacation. I was ready to be the little girl he’d taught to ride a bike. The one he took fishing every summer. The one he’d taught about sex, but that wasn’t really his fault. I’d raided his porn stash when I was ten. I lunged forward and wrapped my arms around his neck. He cradled my head to him, probably afraid he’d hurt me, and held on for dear life.

  “Sir?” the officer said. He’d climbed to the bridge and was waiting for us. “The ME could be a couple of hours, but the ambulance is on the way. Can I get you anything?”

  “No, thank you, Officer. If you could section off this area, I’d appreciate it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He looked down at me. “This might hurt,” he said, his expression full of regret.

  “It’s okay.” I kept my arms draped around his neck.

  As gently as he could, Uncle Bob lifted me into his arms and carried me down to his SUV. The officer rushed forward to help and assisted in maneuvering us down the steep slope to the road below.

  “Is your leg broken?” he asked after he got me settled in the passenger seat.

  “I don’t know. It hurts. But I want to go home.”

  “Okay, after the EMT checks you out. Who was this guy?”

  “The guy in the bar from the other night. The one who elbowed Cookie. He rammed into me,” I said as my lids drifted shut. “He was going to kill his wife.”

  The rest of the night was a blur. Uncle Bob wanted to call Cookie, but I refused to let him wake her up. She would be livid come morning, but she’d get over it. She always did. The EMT kept insisting that I go to the hospital, but I refused, even when Uncle Bob threatened to have me arrested. I had to remind him that I wasn’t like all the other girls in the park. I would heal in a matter of days. He wanted X-rays of my leg, but I had a feeling if it were really broken, I couldn’t have put my weight on it. So he took pictures of my back and other injuries for his statement, then brought me home.

  The guy even carried me up two flights of stairs.

  I would probably have to stop giving him such a hard time for a while. Maybe a day or two. When I asked him about Misery, he shook his head. My Misery. What would I do without her?

  So, beaten and bereft, I lay huddled in my bed with a very worried Faith underneath it and a very angry Reyes sitting on the floor beside it, his back braced against the wall, legs drawn, arms thrown over knees, and eyes watching every move I made. Every breath I took. He’d heard us come in and was at my door in an instant. He glared at Ubie, but my uncle, being the gallant man that he was, didn’t mind. He seemed relieved to have someone watch over me, since I’d insisted he go home and get some rest.

  And while I’d wanted a shower more than I wanted my next cup of coffee, I just couldn’t manage it. I didn’t have the energy. And I was scared it would hurt. So come morning, my sheets would smell like gasoline even though most of it had burned off, and the whole room would have a singed, crispy aroma to it.

  I could feel Reyes’s anger, a red-hot rage that simmered just below his steely surface. He probably wanted to sever Tidwell’s spine. He certainly had my permission, not that it would do him any good. Then again, he sent Garrett to hell and then wrenched him back out. Just how far did his powers reach?

  But that wasn’t what I dreamed about when I slept. I dreamed about fire. I dreamed about Kim and her recent hobby. I dreamed about Tidwell and his resoluteness that I burn alive. And I dreamed about the man sitting beside me. His fire. The fires in which he’d been forged. How hot would they have had to be to create such a spectacular being? How bright that initial spark?

  And then there was the fire I’d consumed. I’d absorbed it. Bathed in it. Breathed it in and swallowed it.

  I was a dragon. Strong. Tenacious. Lethal.

  Still, the fucker tried to rape me.

  I had to admit, that was a little hard to get past, even in my dreams. But I felt him there, hovering in the shadows. Reyes. Watching over me even in the turbulent realm of my unconscious mind.

  When I opened my eyes, his gaze had not wavered. And my hair could not possibly look good. But there was more. I could see the darkness that surrounded him. It swirled like a gathering storm, building and churning. But in the center of it, where Reyes sat, burned a blue fire that licked across his skin like wispy cerulean snakes.

  “You shouldn’t look at me from that place,” he said.

  I tried to sit up but couldn’t quite manage it. “From what place?”

  “From the realm you’re in now. You’ll see things you probably shouldn’t.”

  “How am I in another realm? I’m right here.”

  “You’re a portal. You can be in whichever realm you choose at any time and be in both at the same time. You should leave it now.”

  “I consumed a fire tonight.”

  “Yes, you can do that,” he said. He laid his head back against the wall. “And I’m made of fire.”

  I could see that now. Of darkness and fire.

  “Is that how you’ll kill me?” he asked.

  A zing of surprise darted through me.

  “Will you consume me?” he continued. “Extinguish my fire with a breath? Suffocate me?”

  “I would never kill you. Why would you even say
that?”

  A sad smile crept across his impossibly handsome face. “I told you a long time ago you’d be the death of me. Surely you know that by now.”

  Did he know about Rocket’s premonition?

  I pondered asking him about it, but another movement drew my attention to a woman standing beside me. Blond. Dirty. But standing. Not curled into herself or rocking back and forth. She was beautiful. African American with long hair that had been bleached to match the landscape at White Sands. She smiled at me as another appeared beside her. Then another and another as all twenty-seven of Saul Ussery’s victims stood beside my bed. They surrounded me, their lovely faces full of warmth.

  I felt bad that their first impression of me was one of a shivering pile of injuries.

  One of them stepped closer. The African-American woman who smiled. I could see the chipped red paint on the tips of her fingernails. Then I felt something. Her. Her essence. She stepped forward and crossed and in that instant I saw her brother spraying her with a water hose in front of the boy she liked in grade school. I saw her sixteenth birthday cake and the mint green gown she wore to the ball her parents threw in her honor. I saw her first child being born. A boy named Rudy. And I saw her appreciation for what I’d done. I’d caught the man who stole all that from her, and she was grateful.

  And Renee, her name was Renee, left me something in parting. As did the next.

  I blinked past the dizziness I still felt and watched. Another woman stepped to my side, held out a foot, and dropped as though she were walking off the edge of a diving board. She fell through me, Blaire was her name, and I saw her tie-dyeing T-shirts at summer camp, riding horses on her grandfather’s farm, and kissing a boy named Harold under the bleachers at a football game.

  Next came a woman named Cynthia. She baked apple pies for her mom when she was little but got into drugs after her dad left them. Lisa had a turtle named Leonardo and dreamed of being a ninja. Emily had been born with a mild case of autism. Despite the obstacles life had thrown at her, she had made it to college. Her mother cried her first day there. She cried more on her thirtieth, when Emily had forgotten her room key and a nice maintenance man named Saul opened her door for her.

  LaShaun. Vicki. Kristen. Delores.

  I breathed in their gift, and it rushed through me like a tidal wave.

  Maureen. Mae. Bethany. One by one, over and over until only Faith stood beside me.

  Their gift was strength. They’d given me all they had left, all the power and energy to heal they could conjure, they left it behind for me. It coursed through me, warming and mending.

  When all but Faith had crossed, Reyes stood and walked to the bathroom. Faith petted my hair, then ducked back under my bed, unwilling to follow the others just yet. I heard water running, felt his arms as he lifted me, his chest as he carried me. He peeled my clothes off gently. I had some minor burns, but they didn’t compare to my back and my injured leg. When I was completely undressed, he lifted me again and lowered me into the water.

  I braced myself as it rushed over the slashes along my back. Who knew a belt buckle could do so much damage? After a moment, I realized my fingernails were digging into his flesh. He didn’t seem to mind, but I relaxed and released my hold as I sank farther into the water. He took the bar of soap and began to lather his hands. I should have been embarrassed, but I wasn’t. His touch was so gentle as he washed me, his large hands roaming over my body, and yet there was nothing sexual about his caress. This time it was nurturing, not demanding. It was healing, not expectant. He laid me back and massaged shampoo into my scalp, rinsed, then lifted me out of the water.

  I felt a thousand times better. The gasoline smell had subsided and was replaced with a fresh, fruity blend of scents. The strength of Saul’s victims raced through me as Reyes dried me off, wrapped me in a blanket, and laid me on Sophie while he changed my sheets. I just barely remembered being carried back to my room, being slid between fresh sheets, being given a pain medication of some kind.

  The one thing that seemed to hold true, no matter the circumstances, was that when I was injured, I got really sleepy. The more severe the injuries, the sleepier I got. So I slept the entire next day, only waking to give Uncle Bob the bare bones of what would become my statement – minus the whole almost-being-raped thing, which I couldn’t talk about just yet – and to chat with a very distraught Cookie, who swore she would never, ever, ever forgive me for not waking her.

  But every time I woke up, Reyes was there, sitting against the wall next to me, holding my hand, and giving me room to heal. Artemis kept a watchful eye on me as well. Literally. Like her head sat constantly perched somewhere on my body, and that thing had to weigh thirty pounds. Faith stayed under my bed, and I wondered how she was doing. All her friends had crossed, but when I tried to talk to her about it, she shook her head, signed the word more, then scurried back under my bed, so I left it alone.

  I needed to contact Nicolette, tell her she was right, someone did die on that bridge. I felt a very strong desire to open her up and study her, but looking through her innards would probably get me nowhere. Still, she could be a valuable asset. I’d have to save her number in my phone. And I had yet to smooth things over with Rocket and Blue. That debacle would take some time.

  On the upside, my eyesight went back to normal. Reyes said I could see things from my other realm, the one that I was bound to as a portal. I wondered if I could see into that other realm. If I could spy on heaven. I put it on my to-do list as something to try when total boredom set in. Fortunately – or unfortunately, depending on one’s perspective – that didn’t happen often. In fact, boredom might be a nice reprieve from the daily bump and grind that was life as a grim reaper.

  21

  According to scientists, alcohol is a solution.

  —T-SHIRT

  Two days later, I was about as spic-and-span as a surly girl with a limp could be. My hair smelled better, and I could almost walk without wincing. Cookie and I went to pay our final respects to Misery, but I couldn’t just leave her there. I called Noni Bachicha, who, besides being a gun fanatic and concealed carry instructor, just happened to be the best body man in the Southwest. And he also happened to be the only body man I knew. He said her frame was bent. Apparently, that was bad, but my frame was a little bent, too. I told him we’d be even more perfect for each other. I begged. Pleaded. And I may have thrown in a small fit for good measure. So he picked up Misery for me and took her to the car hospital, where he promised to give her the best of care.

  On the bright side, Noni was now a little scared of me.

  After that, I’d promised Dad a few days ago I would tend bar for him, so Cookie and I headed back that way. It was nice working almost side by side with Reyes. The room overflowed with patrons once again. Sadly, Jessica was among them. Who knew the best thing Dad could ever do for his business was to hire a sexy, falsely convicted ex-con?

  I glanced up to see FBI Special Agent Carson walk in.

  “I thought you worked upstairs,” she said, taking a seat in front of me.

  “Yeah, I’m tending bar tonight. My dad’s shorthanded. How’s the serial killer thing going?”

  She grinned as I continued to wipe down the bar. “Thanks for solving that, by the way. You sure make my job easier.”

  “You are very welcome. Can I get you anything?” It was nice having her there. She took my mind off the small, laserlike glances I kept getting from Jessica.

  “What’s your specialty?”

  “Oh, you know. Madness. Mayhem. Debauchery. And even with all that going for me, I can still make a mean mojito. Or —” I held up an index finger. “— if you’re feeling really adventurous, I make an incredibly decadent Death in the Afternoon.”

  Her brows shot up. “Color me intrigued.”

  I laughed and started preparations for my masterpiece. “This drink was invented by Ernest Hemingway,” I explained, pouring champagne into a fluted glass. “And it was considered quite av
ant-garde in the thirties.”

  “God, I love history.”

  “Right? Especially when it involves Papa.” I took out an absinthe spoon, set it across the top of the flute, placed a sugar cube on top of that, and trickled absinthe over the sugar cube until it dissolved into the champagne. The gorgeous lime green liquid rose to the top, sat there a few seconds, then slowly emulsified, blending with the champagne until the entire concoction had an iridescent milky shine. I removed the spoon and handed it to her.

  She examined it, took a deep breath, then drank. She waited. Thought about it. Took another drink. Thought about it again.

  “You’re killing me, Smalls,” I said.

  “I like it.”

  “Don’t sound so surprised,” I said, adding a grunt. “You’ll give me a complex.”

  “As if.” She took another drink. Thought about it. Took another.

  I cleaned up my mess and started on a new order before looking down at the file folder in her hand.

  “So what’s up?”

  Her fingers tightened around the file. It was old, its edges frayed, but it wore its coffee stains like a champion. Clearly, it had been read and reread dozens of times. “Remember my telling you I had a few cold cases I wanted you to look at?”

  I put out a tray of mixed drinks for Sylvia to deliver, although she hated when I called her that. “I sure do. I thought you were talking about beer,” I said, teasing her.

  “Well, this is the main one I would love to see solved. It wasn’t even my case. It was my father’s, and it haunted him until the day he died.”

  “Uh-oh, now I’m intrigued.” I opened the file for a quick look.

  “Kidnapping case,” she continued, “about thirty years ago. Nothing added up, from the parents’ testimony to the suspects to the kid himself. It was just a bizarre case from day one.”

  “The kid himself?” I asked, even more intrigued. What would be odd about the kid?

  “A ten-month-old baby was taken out of his crib while his mother napped.”