The Dirt on Ninth Grave

  “Hey, hon. Can I get you something to drink?”

  She glanced up at me, the barest hint of recognition flashing across her face, but only for a second. I’d learned not to get my hopes up. Everyone who’d seen me on the news thought I looked familiar.

  “Hi,” she said, giving me a quick once-over. She had a short brown bob and a pretty oval face, but the navy power suit said it all. She was someone important. Or she could have made paper airplanes for a living. Didn’t matter. With that suit on, she could convince anyone of anything.

  “Love the suit,” I said. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  She offered me an appreciative half smile, but what I felt from her was more like… relief? “I’d love water for now. And coffee.”

  “A girl after my own heart.”

  Before I left the table, the blond woman I’d met a day earlier walked in – or, well, stumbled in – and sat at the table across from my customer. I could only hope they knew each other.

  “Hi again,” the blonde said. Her hair was a bit wild and her cheeks bright pink. “Some weather, huh?”

  “Yes, it is. Are you having a good vacation?”

  “This is Kit,” she said in lieu of an answer.

  I stuck out my hand with a chuckle. “Hi, Kit.”

  “I’m Gemma.”

  “I remember.” Clearly Gemma had issues. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Sure.” When I stood there staring at her, she jumped as though startled. “Oh, right, yes. Ummmm…” She looked at the menu. “How about a…” She tapped her fingers. “Oh, I don’t know…” She bit her lip. It was a big decision. “Coffee?”

  “Great choice,” I said, latching onto coffee and running with it before she changed her mind.

  I could practically feel the heat of Reyes’s gaze on me. But better me than Francie. That was my motto.

  The lunch rush was even worse than the day before, and it was only Reyes’s second day. I thought about demanding Dixie hire more help, but since I’d just fallen through her ceiling, I decided against making demands for the time being.

  Reyes glared but made sure I ate. Francie flirted and made sure I noticed. Erin glowered and, well, glowered some more. Cookie only assaulted one customer, and it wasn’t nearly as sexually charged as her normal fare. And Lewis? Lewis was in love. Shayla didn’t come in until five, but I could see him counting down the minutes. My heart wanted to burst little hearts out of its left ventricle for them both.

  With only about thirty minutes left on the clock, I walked into the kitchen to see how Lewis was doing, but before I could talk to him, Reyes looked up and said, “It’s been almost seven hours, and you’re still alive. I’m impressed. Figured you would’ve abandoned all hope by now.”

  I let out a loud sigh, turned on my heel, and left. But I didn’t go far. I went into Dixie’s office, actually. She was out on a bank-slash-nookie run – I was pretty sure she was practicing the popular pastime referred to as an afternoon delight with a boyfriend she kept stashed somewhere – so I helped myself again to the belt from her canvas trench.

  I rolled it into a ball, stashed it in the back of my pants, and went in search of a victim. I stormed into the kitchen so fast, the door ricocheted back and almost slammed into my face. It didn’t. I caught it, but just barely.

  Reyes arched a brow. I strode up to him and pushed, walking him back until we were between the prep counter and the walk-in unit. It allowed us a tidbit of privacy. I continued to push until I had him up against the wall. His dark irises sparkled with interest. Especially when I brought the belt around, gathered his wrists in front of him, and tied him up.

  Tendrils of heat slid beneath my clothes as he looked down at me, and I wondered if he was doing it on purpose. How much control did he have over the heat he emitted, the energy he radiated?

  He wasn’t that much taller than me, not quite a head, but I grabbed Sumi’s stepstool and placed it at his feet. Now we stood eye to eye, and his particularly mesmerizing eyes held both humor and intrigue.

  I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him. He let me. It started out sweet and sensual, but it quickly escalated into a kiss more passionate than I dreamed possible. Then his arms were free and around me. Somehow he managed to reverse our positions so my back was to the wall instead of his, and still keep me on the stool.

  He raised a hand to my jaw and lifted, exposing my neck so he could place blisteringly hot kisses on it. I gasped and tilted my head farther to give him more access. An arc of heat followed his trail, and I curled his hair into my fists, pulling him closer, begging him not to stop.

  “I’m sorry, Dutch,” he said, doing the exact opposite.

  My body screamed in protest.

  “For this.”

  I thought he was apologizing because he’d stopped. He was apologizing for the almost translucent bruises he left on my throat. They were barely visible, but he ran his fingers over the ones he could see. It caused the most amazing sensations to race down my spine and dart between my legs.

  I refocused on him. On his full mouth. On his clenched jaw. On his serious expression.

  “I claim you,” I said, sounding silly, but I didn’t care. After I ran my fingers over his mouth, I said, “You’re mine.”

  “I always was. But what about your suicidal tendencies?”

  “None of that other stuff matters right now.” I tightened my arms around his neck.

  He moved one hand to my lower back. The other rested on my rib cage. “It does if you were serious. Which you were.”

  “Temporary insanity. It’s gone now.”

  “Is that a promise?”

  “I don’t suppose ‘Cross my heart and hope to die’ would be an appropriate response?”

  He pulled me closer. “Only if you want me to tie you up next time.”

  The thought sounded way more appealing than I let on. “Okay, then I promise.”

  Dixie walked in, and I stiffened as though I’d been caught making out with the quarterback during recess.

  “What’d I miss this time?” she asked.

  “She tie him up,” Sumi said, her voice forlorn. And she had a tiny speckle of drool at the corner of her mouth.

  “Janey, would you stop tying up my cook and get back to work?”

  After offering Reyes a whispered apology, I bounded past him and out the door, mumbling another apology to the woman who signed my paychecks along the way. All fifty-six dollars’ worth.

  By the time I got off work, my body was thrumming with excitement. Reyes was mine. Mine, all mine. I did a little hip twitch and ran to get his jacket. While I would have killed to spend the afternoon with him, there was a whole other place just begging to be broken into. And I had the keys.

  “What are you making?” I asked him before heading out. Officially, he was off the clock, too, but he seemed to enjoy the heck out of cooking. And keeping busy in general.

  “Posole,” he said, flashing me a crooked grin that dissolved my kneecaps.

  His hands were busy chopping stuff, so I rose onto my toes and whispered into his ear. “You are so trying to win my heart through my stomach.”

  “Is it working?”

  “Hell, yes.” Then I put my mouth squarely on his.

  I jumped and whirled around when a plate shattered behind me. Francie was standing there, her mouth open in shock. Embarrassed, she turned and ran out.

  “Crap,” I said. “I’ll go talk to her.”

  “About what?” he asked, and the fact that he was genuinely confused made me fall down the rabbit hole of crazy-for-Reyes just a little bit farther. “Do you know what you do to people?”

  He lifted a powerful shoulder. “I guess. But what are you going to tell her that will make her feel better?”

  He had a point.

  “I have no idea, but I have to try.”

  His expression turned to astonishment. “You’re still so —”

  “What?” I asked when he didn’t continu
e.

  “You’re so caring, even when people don’t care about you.”

  “Clearly you know next to nothing about me. I bought a Rolex from this guy named Scooter in the Walmart parking lot and it was a fake. I don’t even like him anymore. Seriously.”

  A dimple appeared on his right cheek as he tried to fight a grin. “But if he were in trouble and needed your help with something?”

  “Oh, well, I might help him. But only if he gave me a refund. Two bucks is two bucks.”

  He released a breathy laugh that was part bewilderment and part admiration.

  I’d take it.

  “I’m sorry, Francie,” I said, walking into the storeroom. “I didn’t mean to just flaunt that in front of you. I wasn’t thinking.”

  She scoffed. “Like I care.” She finished applying lip gloss and started out the door. “I could get a date with a different guy every night of the week if I wanted to.”

  I wanted to say, “If you wanted to look like a ho?” What I said was “I know. I didn’t mean it that way.” But Francie was already out the door.

  I felt the sting that rocketed though her when she saw us. It wasn’t what I wanted for her.

  Erin stood a few feet away. “You’re just a ray of sunshine, aren’t you?”

  “I can be,” I said, defensive. “And what the hell, Erin? I took a couple of extra shifts you’d asked for. It’s not like you can work both shifts all day every day.”

  “Is that why you think I can barely stand the sight of you?” she asked.

  “Pretty much.”

  “You’re so clueless.”

  She turned to leave, so I rushed to say, “Then what?” I stepped closer. “What did I do?”

  After releasing a sigh of annoyance, she said, “When I was little, I went to a palm reader set up at the state fair.”

  An alarm sounded in my head with the words palm reader.

  “She told me I’d have three children and all three would die before they were a year old.”

  The clanging got louder.

  “The first would die when all the land became water. Hailey died after a huge flood five years ago.” She stepped closer to me. “The second would die after my mother’s heart broke. Carrie died two days after my mother had a massive heart attack.”

  “Erin, that doesn’t mean —”

  “The third one would die after a girl with no past showed up. No past! I thought, everyone has a past. Surely we can have a baby now. But no. In walks a woman with no. Fucking. Past.”

  She turned and stalked away. I stood in shock, trying to breathe air that had vacated the room. This sucked on every level imaginable.

  I had to figure out what was going on, and I had to do it now. Then I planned on hunting down that bitch palm reader and asking her how she lived with herself, saying shit like that to a little girl. Who does that?

  I picked up a couple of sandwiches, said hey to Mr. P and the stripper, who’d come in for a late lunch, then started for home. And, naturally, the man and his trusty steed followed me. I pretended not to notice the thousand-pound animal or the headless guy atop it. Mostly because I had too many blisters to run from them again.

  “I can do this all eternity,” he said. In perfect English. “Follow you around. Fuck with your head. Speaking of which, did you know there’s an old guy with a telescope watching you?”

  How the fuck was he talking? And his vocabulary was way more modern than I would’ve expected. If he was really the man from Mr. Irving’s story, he’d adjusted well to modern life.

  “I’m not kidding. All. Eternity.”

  I finally stopped but refused to turn around. To acknowledge him. “Look, I’m sure your story is tragic, but I don’t know where your head is.”

  He started laughing. “I think I have that covered. Would you just face me?”

  With the reluctance of a food taster for a king hated by all, I turned toward him, but I only looked as far as his black riding boots.

  “Look up.”

  I raised my gaze to his black pants.

  “A little farther.”

  I finally focused on where his head should have been. Or where one would expect his head to be. The man talking to me was actually in the coat.

  “It’s a costume,” I said. I hadn’t thought of that.

  “That it is.”

  “So you don’t want me to find your lost head?”

  “Seriously, I could do so much with that. Have you ever met a man?”

  “Oh, right, sorry. But then why are you following me?”

  “Firstly, because you are who you are and —”

  “Wait, you know who I am?”

  That tripped him up. “No. Not really. I just know you can see people like me.”

  “Yes, I can.” I walked up and nuzzled his horse before restarting my journey to James’s place. “And secondly?”

  “Secondly, I need a favor.”

  Headless guy followed and explained as we went, so that by the time we arrived at James’s cardboard palace, I knew that his name was Henry, that he’d been an actor re-creating a scene from “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” for Halloween a couple of years ago, and that he and the horse, Gale Force, were killed when the bridge they rode across gave way. They ended up falling into the frigid water, and Henry couldn’t get out of the costume. The fall broke Gale’s neck on impact. Henry drowned. It was a tragic freak accident. Nothing more.

  “That’s awful,” I said, oddly enough a little more sad about the horse than the guy. I nuzzled her again.

  “I need a favor.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “My best friend designed the costume, and he’s blamed himself for my death ever since.”

  “Oh, no, he couldn’t possibly have known.”

  “I know. I just want him to know it’s okay. That I’m okay.”

  I couldn’t just show up and tell him his best friend was okay; it probably wouldn’t go over very well. “What if I wrote him a letter?” I asked.

  “Honestly, I don’t care how you do it. He isn’t doing well. He needs to know that I don’t blame him.”

  “I think I can do that.” Gale Force whinnied and nudged me when I stopped stroking her neck. I laughed and asked, “Anything else?”

  “Oh, yeah, just one more thing. Stay away from that cop you’re seeing.”

  “What?” I asked, surprised. “Why?”

  “I don’t like him. Never have.”

  Sounded legit. “I’m not seeing Ian. So you don’t have to worry.”

  “Yeah,” he said with a scoff. “That’s what the last girl said.”

  “What last girl?”

  Gale Force reared up. I gasped and stepped back. She was so beautiful.

  “Tamala Dreyer,” he called out as he turned and spurred her forward. “Look her up!”

  “Wait! Why did you let me run from you yesterday? Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “Dude, I’m the headless horseman. I live for that shit.”

  He took his job way too seriously. But he pulled it off well. As they galloped down a side street, black cloak billowing out behind him, he looked as headless and creepy as ever.

  16

  Coffee has given me unrealistic expectations of my productivity.

  —T-SHIRT

  I dropped off a sandwich at James’s box and listened to his version of “Don’t Fear the Reaper” for a while before taking the other sandwich to Mable. She had to tell me the latest on her great-nephew, and I was suddenly glad I didn’t have a drug problem. He’d have to spend a lot of money if he was going to cover the tat of a vagina he got on his neck during a three-day binge. On the bright side, he was now in rehab and feeling pretty stupid.

  I borrowed the car and drove to Erin’s house. I knew her husband had similar hours, so after knocking, I took the key I’d stolen and opened the door. The house was small, but neat and tidy. I started in the living room, and sure enough, almost every picture there was of the old creepy lady. Her e
yes were solid white, and her toothless mouth hung open in a scream or a laugh, I couldn’t tell. She did seem angry, though.

  The only pictures that didn’t feature the old lady were of Erin and her husband or other family members. One, an older one of a young girl with teased bangs and laser lights shooting behind her, had to be her mother. The eighties were a scary time. Another one of a young girl with cat’s-eye glasses and a bouffant, could have been her grandmother. Or possibly a beloved great-aunt. But for the most part, the Clarks were living in what I would consider a house of horror. Every picture was disturbing on new and escalating levels.

  Then I realized they might not all be of baby Hannah. Some of them could be of Erin’s first children. Was someone or something haunting Erin? Was a ghost targeting her children for some reason? And if so, for what reason? What would a ghost have to gain by killing children?

  I wish this seeing dead people had come with a manual of some sort. Or a diagram. A flow chart would have been nice. I might have to go to the library and look up Fifty Reasons Ghosts Kill. Or How to Tell if You Have a Poltergeist in Ten Simple Steps.

  Poltergeist. Could that be it? Weren’t they different from, like, regular dead people? I wracked my amnesic brain. What did I know about honest-to-goodness poltergeists? They were angry. I knew that. They often attached themselves to a place, an object, or a person. They lived, in a manner of speaking, for scaring the crap out of people.

  But if that was the case, Headless Henry fit the definition as well.

  Wait, no he didn’t. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t using his power for evil. He had an evil sense of humor, but that didn’t make him a bad guy. This woman, the woman targeting Erin and her family, was bad.

  If I were being the least bit honest, I would have admitted that I had no idea whether a ghost could actually kill. It seemed wrong in the grand scheme of things. But it was the only explanation. Other than the obvious one that any normal person would adhere to: Erin’s children died of SIDS. Plain and simple and what I considered one of the most tragic of all losses. Pretty much any bad event that happened to a child made no sense. Everything from kids with cancer to the ones who’d been abused or abandoned. The mere thought ripped at my heart. And the idea of Erin losing another child squeezed it like a vise.