The Dirt on Ninth Grave

  Shirt? I looked down and almost groaned aloud. I’d forgotten I’d put on a shirt that read SAVE A VIRGIN. DO ME INSTEAD! No wonder he was staring at my boobs. This shirt was another Scooter purchase. That man made a killing off me that day.

  With humiliation warming my face, I went to Dixie’s office and closed the door. I’d made up my mind about Mr. V. I had to at least try. To feel out this connection of Bobert’s and see what he could do. What kind of guarantees he could offer.

  I dialed the number and waited.

  A female picked up. “Agent Carson.” I hadn’t expected a female. Actually, I wasn’t expecting anyone to pick up. It was after hours. I figured I’d go to straight to voice mail.

  I panicked and hung up. Anything I said to her could potentially put Mr. V’s family in even more danger. But the phone rang about thirty seconds after I hung up. Was she calling back? Was that even legal? Son of a bitch.

  I cleared my voice and picked up the receiver. “Firelight Grill.”

  “Yes, this is FBI Special Agent Carson, and I just received a call from this number.”

  “Oh, right. Some girl came in, used the phone, then ran out the back. It was weird. But thanks for calling.”

  “Are you Janey?” she asked.

  Damn it. “No.”

  “That’s strange. You sound like a Janey.”

  “Seriously?” What would the odds be that Janey was my real name? It was sort of growing on me.

  She chuckled. “You sound very much like a Janey. I’ve been expecting your call.”

  I let out a long sigh. “Look, I don’t think this is a good idea. I don’t want to get anyone hurt.”

  “By law, you have to report what you know, especially if someone’s life is in danger. I could have you arrested, see how you feel about it then.”

  I gaped at her. Or, well, at the bobblehead Beatles Dixie had on her desk. “Are you threatening me?”

  “I never make threats, Janey. I make promises.”

  This was unreal. “So you would really have me arrested? ”

  “If what Detective Davidson told me is true, then yes I would.”

  “What the hell did he tell you? I hardly said a thing.”

  “He… filled in the blanks.”

  “Great.” I was so calling him Charley Bob. “Before I say anything, I want you to know that Mr. V practically begged me not to try to get help. His family is in real danger. Their captors killed their dog. They mean business.”

  “Mr. V? Is that a name or an initial?”

  I wilted in defeat. “It’s an initial.”

  “And you believe he and his family are in danger why?”

  Here we go. “It was just a hunch at first. There were men digging a tunnel in his store.”

  “A tunnel to where?”

  “The dry cleaners. Look, that’s not the point. The point is that they stand guard and watch his every move. And his family hasn’t been seen for days. And they have a plasma cutter.”

  “How do you know his family hasn’t been seen for days?”

  And that was how the conversation went. Me trying to explain my misgivings without sounding like a mental patient, and Agent Carson probing for more.

  “I happen to be pretty good friends with the head of the FBI in your area,” she said at last. “I’m flying out tonight. I’ll try to keep you out of this unless I have no choice. Is there a way to contact you?”

  “Not unless you have a can with a really long string attached.”

  “Can I call you at this number?”

  “Sure. I work the morning shift, but if I’m not here, you can leave a message.”

  “Okay.”

  “Discretion is key,” I said to her, my voice pleading. “If Vandenberg’s captors suspect anything —”

  “I understand.”

  By the time we hung up, a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Agent Carson really did seem to understand the situation. And she was savvy. I could tell by her questions and no-holds-barred comebacks. I didn’t know where she was coming from, but the fact that she was flying here meant a lot.

  What it didn’t mean, however, was that I couldn’t still try to find out where the Vandenbergs were being held. I fired up Dixie’s computer and did a search. Several articles came up about Mr. V and his store. I found a picture he’d been tagged in of a birthday party they’d had for their son. I couldn’t find a photo that specifically referenced the cabin, although one showed them fishing in an area that looked like it might be nearby.

  I did every search I could think of with every combination of words that might point me in the right direction. I finally found a county assessor’s report on some property Mr. V owned, but it was his house. Nothing about a cabin.

  One thing I did find out was who the Vandenbergs’ closest friends were. If worse came to worst – and it really didn’t get much worse – I could hit up one of them, maybe flirt with an acquaintance, to see if they could tell me anything about the mountainesque property. I wasn’t above flirting.

  Speaking of which, I decided to do one more search. Even though it was almost eleven o’clock, I heard tinkering sounds coming from the kitchen. Reyes was still there. My heart had been racing ever since I saw him earlier. With each passing moment, knowing we were the only two in the place, it accelerated a little more.

  I typed in the name Reyes Farrow and then sat for another hour, reading article after article, taking an emotional hit from each one.

  He’d been in prison for ten years for a crime he didn’t commit. He’d aided in a prison riot, helping employees who would have lost their lives escape. He’d earned several degrees while inside, including a master’s in computer science. And he’d bought a bar and grill in Albuquerque, New Mexico, after he was finally released, because the man he’d been convicted of killing was found very much alive.

  There were even a few pictures of him. Some when he was younger. One from the day he was found guilty for murder in the first degree. His face stone. His expression blank, as though he’d expected them to find him guilty, to think the very worst of someone like him, even though he had done nothing wrong.

  I put a hand over my mouth, the sorrow I felt overwhelming. A lump formed in my throat as I kept searching. I quickly realized that he’d been something of a celebrity in prison and out. While he was incarcerated, men and women from all over the country, all over the world, created what could only be referred to as fan sites about him. One seemed to be more popular than the rest, however. The woman who’d created it, Elaine Oak, claimed to have done personal interviews with him. Her blog revealed that they slowly formed a relationship until, about a year before he got out, they were married.

  I closed my eyes. This woman had professed her love almost to the point of worship and then, when he got out of prison, left him? Had she broken his heart? Maybe she wasn’t able to deal with the real thing. With him behind bars, their relationship was sporadic. Probably fun and exciting. But maybe having a full-time husband wasn’t what she’d signed up for, so she dumped him.

  She’d abandoned him, just like the judicial system. She hadn’t done another post for over a year. One of her lasts posts included a copy of their marriage certificate. Even after all this time, he was still struggling to forget her.

  My heart ached for him, but I fought it. I battled the sympathy threatening to overtake any misgivings I was still clutching. I had too many questions. Too many concerns. None of his history explained why he’d stopped that woman from telling me who I was in the storeroom. She’d known me. She was about to tell me exactly who I was. Exactly where I came from. Why would he stop her? What would he have to gain? And why had he called me Dutch when I fainted yesterday? Was that my name? Did he know me?

  I cleared the history and turned off the computer. If Dixie wanted to know more about him, she’d have to do a search herself. So he’d been here, on earth, just like any other human. But he wasn’t just like any other human, and it was high time to find out w
hy. I just needed a little chloroform and a few cable ties.

  Since I couldn’t figure out where to get chloroform or cable ties this late at night, I decided to go another direction. He seemed fairly amenable to a physical relationship despite his hang-up over his ex. I simply had to seduce him. Or pretend to seduce him. Surely I could distract him long enough to incapacitate him.

  I strode to the kitchen and stopped. He was on his back, halfway under the sink, his lean hips so inviting, his legs bent at the knees and slightly open.

  Good and merciful Lord. The things He could do with a little clay and some spare time. And He’d done an exquisite job with this particular specimen. I could hardly look at Reyes anymore and not feel a sharp tug at my heartstrings.

  He raised up, just barely, from underneath the sink. He stilled. Studied. I could feel curiosity radiate out of him. He let his gaze drop to my chest, but only for a moment.

  “You’re still here,” I said, suddenly remembering what shirt I’d decided to wear. It was pretty much the only thing I had clean.

  He rose to his feet, the movement effortless, a charming smile lighting his impossibly handsome face. “So are you.”

  I moved to the side when he reached for a tool I was blocking. His heat enveloped me, and I bit down, tried to ignore my own heat gathering in places it had no right to gather, assembling unlawfully.

  I decided to make myself useful and marry the ketchups, a term I found hilarious. “Why are you still here?” I asked when he turned to examine his handiwork. He wore a black T-shirt stretched taut to accommodate his wide shoulders, and jeans that fit snugly over his hips and the curvature of his sextastic ass. The bandages around his midsection left a soft line across his waist, and I wondered how badly he’d been hurt. I also wondered how he’d been hurt period.

  “I’m still here because you are,” he said matter-of-factly.

  Wonderful. Now I felt guilty. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

  “That’s good, because no babysitter alive should have the thoughts I have about you.”

  His admission stirred something deep inside me. I was pretty sure it was a little-explored area just right of my spleen called stark raving lust.

  “You were married,” I said, empathy and jealousy battling for world domination.

  Surprised, he turned back. “I was, yes.”

  Standing close to him was like standing next to a jaguar. Well, a jaguar made of fire. Every move he made was powerful. Exotic. Hypnotizing. Or I was ovulating. It was a toss-up.

  “I’m so sorry it didn’t work out. She seemed so devoted to you. Almost like she worshiped you. And then she, what? Broke it off? It makes no sense.”

  His lids narrowed to glittering slits, as though he had no idea who I was talking about. “Who are you talking about?”

  Nailed it.

  “Your ex-wife. Elaine Oak.” When he didn’t respond, I added, “And I’m sorry about… about everything else, too.”

  He stepped closer. “Everything else?”

  “Yeah, you know, like… prison.”

  A scorching heat wave slammed into me, and he closed the distance between us. “Where are you getting your information?”

  My defenses rose. “I know what a Google is. I can use a computer.”

  He lowered his head, his jaw straining against the force of his bite.

  I wanted to explain. I understood. “The articles said that you were there for a crime you didn’t commit. That your conviction had been overturned. They weren’t bad.”

  The next expression he graced me with was disappointment. But I felt something else radiate out. Pain. Had I hurt him? Surely a man of his experience couldn’t be so easily wounded. “Then by all means,” he said, his voice dangerously low, “find out what you can about me via the Internet. Because everything on the Internet is real. Except alien abductions. They’re bullshit.”

  He turned away from me and lowered himself to the ground to continue whatever it was men did under sinks.

  Awareness of him hummed through me, pulsed like a living thing, throbbed with a combination of fear and desire. He was so off-limits it was unreal. I needed to interrogate him, not pleasure him. And yet all I wanted to do was test those limits. To push them. To push him.

  I wanted to play. To explore. But that would require him wanting to do the same in return. For some reason, I didn’t want to give him that much control. Not now. Not over me.

  Was there a way to keep him at arm’s length while I, for lack of a better phrase, had my way with him? Would he let me? Would he want me to? Or would he be repulsed by my advances? Judging from what I took to be his extreme interest, I thought not, but one never knew. Men were weird. Especially men made of tempered steel and fire and perpetual darkness. Or men with penises. Either way.

  I let the ketchups practice cunnilingus virtually unsupervised as I devised a plan. He was simply too big, too powerful for me to overtake him. To tie him up. I doubted even sex would distract him that much. No, I needed to incorporate the restraints. Men loved that shit. Also, I just wanted to see him tied up.

  I sat beside him and watched him work. He stiffened, paused his efforts to twist the round thing onto the other round thing.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  He slowly resumed his work. “I’d rather you ask me than Google.”

  I snorted. “Please. You wouldn’t have told me half of what I learned on the Web, and you know it.”

  He didn’t argue. “What did you want to ask?”

  “First, you have to promise you’ll do it.”

  He ducked under the cabinet doorframe and sat up, one hand resting on a knee. We were mere inches from each other. “I don’t trust you.”

  His admission surprised me. I blinked up at him. Tried to figure out why he wouldn’t trust me, of all people. He was the powerful one, after all. “No offense, but what on earth could I ask of you that would be a great hardship?”

  His gaze rested on my mouth before making its way to my eyes again. “You could ask for the world, and then where would civilization be when I conquered it and laid it at your feet?”

  I stilled. He was dead serious, and I realized I’d greatly underestimated his power. He was a supernatural being, yes, but he was more than that. So very much more. I breathed in his emotion and realized he’d done it. He’d conquered a civilization. Possibly more than one. His confidence was not derived from conceit. He was not arrogant. Not in the least. He was… experienced.

  That knowledge sent another shudder through me, but not of revulsion, as it should have. As it would have any normal person. It sent a shudder of awe rocketing through my veins, and my plan solidified right then and there.

  I stared at him with a new determination, but I still needed a guarantee. “If I promise not to ask for the world, will you do as I ask then?”

  It took him a moment, but he finally agreed with a curt nod of his head. Apparently he took his promises very seriously. I liked that.

  Down to the wire. My nerves sprang to life, and I almost chickened out. Two things drove me forward. I was desperate for answers and, again, I really wanted to see him tied up.

  I chewed on my lower lip a moment. He watched me.

  Drawing in a deep breath for encouragement, I said, “I was wondering if, maybe, you know, if you weren’t doing anything at the moment and you liked me – as in liked me liked me – if you might consider letting me tie you up and have my way with you. For fifteen minutes.”

  Gawd, I was good at this shit. I should’ve been a lawyer.

  When he only stared, I looked away and tried to force the heat that crept up my neck and face back down. Humiliated was not my best look.

  “But I understand if you don’t want to. It’s kind of sudden.”

  I scrambled to my feet and was about one step from the threshold when an arm shot out to block my path. I didn’t even hear him move.

  He stood at my back, his breath stirring the hair I’d stuffed behind my ear, whi
ch was probably as red as the rest of me.

  “What happens after fifteen minutes?” he asked.

  A surge of adrenaline laced up my spine. The soft fire that bathed his skin reached out to lick over mine. To caress. To punish just a little. I watched for a moment as it brushed over my exposed skin. The flames lapped like a thirsty animal, stretching as though to further its reach.

  Reyes stood waiting for an answer. As always, I felt many things from him, but desire topped the list. It was like a white-hot pinpoint of blinding light in a sea of absolute blackness. And yet he didn’t make a move. He didn’t reach for me. He didn’t touch me.

  Perhaps he didn’t want to scare me off. Whatever the reason, I was glad for it. I would only have refused his advances. Not that I didn’t want them. I wanted him as badly as he wanted me, butI didn’t quite trust him, any more than he trusted me. Not with all of me. Not with control over me. And I most definitely didn’t trust him with my heart.

  But if we just played… Surely there was no harm in playing.

  I turned to him but kept my head down, afraid that if I peered into the sparkling depths of his eyes, I’d be lost.

  He had one hand braced on the doorframe. He braced the other on the counter at my side, locking me in. “What happens after fifteen minutes?” he asked again, his voice smooth and full of challenge. It tugged at something deep and primal. I fought my reaction to him. Tamped it down. Forced my bones to stay solid.

  I craned my neck to look at him, but he didn’t accommodate me by moving back. He stood his ground, and I stood mine. “Nothing,” I said, both confident and drunk with anticipation. “You’ll be completely spent by then.”

  The small, incredulous grin that lifted one corner of his full mouth sent every nerve in my body springing to life. He’d just presented me with a challenge I couldn’t refuse.

  “I’m not pubescent, darlin’. I’m pretty sure I can last more than fifteen minutes.”

  “And I’m not a giggling schoolgirl. I’m pretty sure you can’t.”

  His features darkened with the challenge I threw back at him, anticipation like sparks of electricity in the air.