Second Grave on the Left

  “You mean, when you were tailing me, too?”

  “Yeah. He’d been tailing you for days.”

  “Mr. Chao,” I said, my voice admonishing. “I do have a nice ass, though, huh?”

  “Should we go after him?” Mr. Chao asked, a soft Cantonese accent flowing from his tongue.

  Garrett cut me free, and I fell forward into his arms like a ragdoll. “Where the hell did my bones go?” I asked. This whole upright thing had me stumped.

  “You and your buddy can,” Garrett said, answering Chao. My question had been fairly rhetorical anyway.

  I looked up to see Frank Smith, Mr. Chao’s boss, his charcoal suit impeccable. He had a grin on his face, as though he lived for such events.

  “I just want to get Charles to safety,” Garrett continued.

  “You wearing your Juicy underwear?” Smith asked, clearly humored.

  “How did you find me?”

  Smith gestured with a nod. “Mr. Chao noticed two men loading something large into their trunk in the alley behind your apartment building.”

  “Large?” I asked, suddenly offended.

  “He called me,” Garrett said, trying to help me stand, “to come check out your apartment while he followed the vehicle, just in case. Sure enough, you weren’t home.”

  “By the time we figured out they had kidnapped you, Mr. Chao had called me as well, and we all met behind that hill over there.” Smith pointed out the shattered window. All I saw was a stark brightness.

  “The cops are on their way,” Garrett added.

  “Charley,” Angel said with a startled voice, a split second before a shower of bullets rained down on us.

  * * *

  Garrett shoved me to the ground behind a rather disgusting mattress and box spring, and both the other men took a dive as well. The sound was bizarre. Gunfire from a fully automatic weapon echoed and zinged around us as bullet after bullet punctured the Sheetrock, the paltry furniture, and dinged against the ancient sink. Then it stopped for what I assumed was a reloading. Mr. Chao grunted in pain. He’d been shot, but I couldn’t tell how bad.

  “We have to get help,” I said to Garrett as I tried to stand.

  “Charley, damn it.” He jerked me back down behind the broken and rusted bed. “We have to figure out what to do first.”

  “We could, I don’t know, take Mr. Chao and get the fuck outta Dodge.” The spike in adrenaline must have de-fuzzed my tongue. I was suddenly having no problem articulating my opinion.

  Garrett wasn’t even paying attention to me. For real? We were pulling this shit again? “If we wait it out, the cops will be here any minute,” he said.

  “If we grab Mr. Chao and head for that back window, we could get the fuck outta Dodge and wait for the cops out there.”

  Another round of gunfire blared around us. “Son of a bitch,” Garrett said as bullets ricocheted in every direction. “Who the fuck is that, anyway?”

  “Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that he told me his name. It’s Let’s-Get-the-Fuck-Outta-Dodge Redenbacher.”

  “Here, take this.” He reached behind his back.

  “Is it a get-the-fuck-outta-Dodge-free card?”

  He placed a small pistol in the palm of my left hand.

  “Dude, I’m totally a righty.”

  “Charley,” he said, exasperation filling his voice.

  “I’m just sayin’.”

  “You stay here,” he ordered. He climbed onto his knees, apparently readying himself to do something heroic.

  The first bullet that found its mark inside Garrett’s body sent me into a state of shock. The world slowed as the sound of metal meeting flesh hit my ears. He stared at me, his face a mask of disbelief. When a second bullet convulsed through him, he looked down at his side, trying to find the entry point. By the time the third bullet hit him, I knew what I had to do.

  As a line of rounds paraded across the wall behind us, the gunman’s spray stopped and reversed, careening back in my direction as he did a standard sweep pattern.

  So, I climbed to my feet, locked my knees, and waited.

  Garrett collapsed against the wall, his jaw clenched in agony as each incoming round ripped chunks of Sheetrock out of the threadbare walls, ricocheted against the metal sink, and slashed through the rickety furniture as though it were paper. The room looked like the hapless victim of a Friday-night pillow fight.

  Where was a son of Satan when you needed one? Maybe he was still mad at me. Maybe he wouldn’t be there this time—he didn’t show up when the parolee intent on cutting out my heart attacked, a first—but it was a risk I was willing to take, for Garrett.

  I waited for one of two things to happen. I would either be shot dead right then and there, or Reyes would come. He would save the day. Again. And all of this, all the noise and chaos, would end. I felt the concussion of gunfire ripple over my skin, the heat of an object moving faster than the speed of sound vibrate along my nerve endings.

  I closed my eyes and whispered softly, unable to hear myself over the gunfire. “Rey’aziel, I summon you.”

  The reverberation of a round thundered past me. And another. They were getting closer. The next one would hit me in the neck, possibly severing my jugular.

  I opened my eyes, braced myself for the impact, and watched in astonishment as the world slowed even more. The debris hung in midair like ticker tape frozen in time as a line of bullets pushed slowly through the atmosphere toward me. I studied the one closest. The one that had my name on it. The metal was white hot, the friction of traveling so fast heating the metal instantaneously. Then the world came crashing back as a powerful force threw me to the ground, knocking the breath out of me. The bullets I’d been watching sank into the wall over my head with popping sounds.

  And everything darkened, starting with my periphery and closing in around me until I fell into a beautiful black oblivion.

  What seemed like seconds later, my eyes fluttered open and I found myself floating toward a crumbling ceiling I didn’t recognize. I looked back at my body, at the pool of blood growing in an arc around my head. Then I looked up at the dark figure lifting me toward the heavens and I ground my teeth together, curled my hands into fists.

  Freaking Death. I was so going to kick his ass.

  I jerked my arm out of his grip and fell back to Earth. Reyes was in front of me at once, his dark robe undulating around him. But I had already been in full swing and clipped him on the jaw.

  “What the hell was that for?” he asked, lowering his hood to reveal his perfect face.

  “Oh.” I shrugged sheepishly. “I thought you were Death.”

  A grin slid across his face, bringing to light his charming dimples, which in turn caused a shiver to dance along my spine. “That would be you,” he said, eyebrows raised teasingly.

  “Right, I’m Death. I knew that.” I looked down at my body sprawled unappealingly across the floor. “So, am I dead?”

  “Not hardly.” He inched closer, placed his fingers underneath my chin, and turned my head side to side to check out the damage from Evil Murtaugh. “You should have summoned me earlier.”

  “I didn’t even know that I could. I just took a chance.”

  His brows furrowed. “Usually you don’t have to. I can feel your emotions before they surface.”

  “They drugged me. I was really happy.”

  “Oh. Next time summon me earlier.”

  I lowered my head, hesitant.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I was attacked the other night by a guy with a knife, and from what I remember, my emotions were pretty strong then. You weren’t there.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  I blinked up at him in surprise. “You were?”

  “Of course I was there. You were doing just fine by yourself.”

  I couldn’t help but snort. “Apparently, you went to some other chick named Charley’s attempted stabbing, ’cause I was almost killed, mister.”

  “And you dealt
with it. Told you, by the way.”

  “Told me what?”

  “You’re capable of more than you think.” A most sensual grin tipped the corners of his mouth, and he closed the distance between us. “Much more.”

  “Garrett!” I shouted, and woke up an instant later beside him. Back in my body, I scrambled up and looked around for Reyes. Had I dreamt all that? It would be just like me, really. But the gunfire had stopped. “What happened?” I asked Smith.

  “The gunman is dead,” he said, helping Mr. Chao. “And the cops are almost here, so we’re leaving.”

  “Wait, did you stop him?”

  He pulled a groaning Mr. Chao to his feet and wrapped his arm around him. “Not me.”

  “Wait, Garrett,” I said as he wrestled his colleague out the door. An SUV pulled up with André the Giant, aka Ulrich their third man, at the wheel.

  “The cops are almost here. Apply pressure.”

  “Thanks,” I said at his back. Turning to Garrett, I realized the blood I saw in an arc around my head was not mine but his. I sought out the worst of his wounds and, well, applied pressure.

  Chapter Sixteen

  NATIONAL SARCASM SOCIETY:

  LIKE WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT.

  —BUMPER STICKER

  It was late when I slipped into Garrett’s hospital room. He was still asleep, so I decided to help myself to his tray. I’d been admitted for a concussion and he’d been admitted for three gunshot wounds. So he won. This time.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, his voice gravelly from fatigue and medication.

  “I’m eating your ice cream,” I said through a huge mouthful of vanilla delight.

  “Why are you eating my ice cream?”

  Really, he asked the silliest things. “Because I already ate mine. Duh.”

  He laughed then cringed in helpless agony. He’d been in surgery for-like-ever, then in recovery, but they put him in a room because, despite the amount of blood loss, his wounds were no longer life threatening. “You here to get in my pants?” he asked.

  “You’re not wearing any pants,” I reminded him. “You’re wearing a girly gown with a built-in ass ventilator.” I was in a similar outfit, but Cookie had brought me a pair of sweats to wear underneath.

  My doctor was reluctantly dismissing me after making Ubie and Cookie promise not to let me fall asleep for twelve hours. He was doing the paperwork now. It was late, but really there was no reason for me to sit in a hospital when my computer was clearly in my apartment and I could just as easily sit there. And pass the time looking at pictures of Reyes on the Web.

  I put the ice cream down and crawled into bed with Garrett. “You’re not a blanket hog, are you?”

  I could feel Reyes close. I could feel him tense when I climbed into bed with Garrett. Was he jealous? Of Garrett? I was there for a friend. Period. To console and comfort him.

  “I’m very uncomfortable,” Garrett said with a groan.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. My presence alone is comforting.”

  “Not especially.”

  I reached an arm over his head and pulled it onto my shoulder.

  “Ouch.”

  “Please,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  “I got shot in the shoulder you’re leaning on.”

  “You’re on pain meds,” I said, patting his head roughly. “Suck it up.”

  “Sanity’s not really your thing, is it?”

  I let go of his head with a loud sigh and scooted away from him. “Better?”

  “It would be if I could fondle Danger and Will Robinson.”

  Ignoring the surge of anger that crackled in the room like static electricity, I covered the girls protectively. “You certainly may not,” I said, thumping him on his IV’ed hand.

  Garrett chuckled again, then grabbed his side in pain. After a moment of recovery, he asked, “Do any other body parts besides your breasts and ovaries have names?”

  I’d introduced him just last week to Danger, Will Robinson, Beam-me-up and last but not least, my right ovary, Scotty. “As a matter of fact, my toes were recently christened in an odd game of Spin the Bottle and one-too-many margaritas.”

  “Could you introduce me?”

  I hefted myself upright and wrestled off my socks, wiggling the bed just enough to elicit soft gasps of agony from Garrett. “You’re such a whiner,” I said, lying back beside him and lifting my feet. “Okay, starting with my left pinkie toe, we have Dopey, Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Bashful, Sneezy, Sleepy, Queen Elizabeth the Third, Bootylicious the Patron Saint of Hot Asses, and Pinkie Floyd.”

  After a thoughtful moment, he asked, “Pinkie Floyd?”

  “You know, like the band, only not.”

  “Right. Did you name your fingers?”

  I turned an incredulous look on him. I was a master of incredulity. “That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “What?” he asked, all offended like.

  “Why on planet Earth would I name my fingers?”

  He looked at me with a drug-induced glaze. “It’s your world,” he said, his consonants slightly slurred, and I knew that last bit of morphine was kicking in.

  I leaned into him and kissed his cheek just as his lids closed. I expected another blast of anger from Reyes, but I realized he was gone. His absence left an emptiness in the general vicinity of my upper torso.

  * * *

  After a night of hospitals, uniforms, and questions, I was finally released on my own recognizance. Since I had no idea what recognizance meant, I felt it would be unfair to hold me accountable later should I screw it up. Garrett was in stable condition, and I was once again superglued back together. Or, at least my head was. A dull ache pounded continually to remind me what getting knocked out felt like.

  When the cops arrived at the abandoned motel, the gunman was dead. His neck had been broken when he apparently slipped off the back of his car while shooting at us. Okay. That worked for me. I told them that Garrett, worried they might have taken me, had followed the men out there. When he realized they had, he called the police and came in with guns blazing, shooting one of the kidnappers dead. Evil Riggs.

  But the dead gunman outside did not have crystal blue eyes. Thus, he was not who I suspected Evil Murtaugh to be. Namely one of my fake FBI agents. The one Garrett shot was apparently the supposed Agent Foster. He turned out to be a petty criminal from Minnesota. So then, where was my other fake FBI guy? Special Agent Powers? He must’ve gotten away. And the gunman was new. I’d never seen him.

  I had yet to hear from my Juicy fan Mr. Smith and hoped Mr. Chao was okay. I couldn’t tell Uncle Bob to check the hospitals for him without letting him know there were more people on scene than I’d let him believe. Hey, if they didn’t want to be identified, who was I to blab?

  As Cookie and Ubie walked me to my apartment, I stopped off at my neighbor Mrs. Allen’s place and knocked. It was late, but she crept around her apartment all hours of the night, and I needed to make sure they hadn’t hurt her when they took me. She cracked her door open.

  “Mrs. Allen, are you okay?”

  She nodded, her expression heavy with fear and regret. I found out that she’d called the police after they took me, but she couldn’t describe the car or the men. At least she’d tried.

  “All right. If you need anything.”

  “Are you okay?” she asked, her voice quivering with age and worry.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “How’s PP?”

  She looked over her shoulder. “He was so worried.”

  I offered her the biggest, most reassuring smile I could conjure. “Tell him I’m just fine. Thank you so much for calling the police, Mrs. Allen.”

  “They found you?”

  “They found me.” I promised never to take that woman or her poodle for granted again as Uncle Bob and Cookie escorted me to my apartment.

  “Okay, looks like it’s going to be a lot of coffee for us.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” I said as Cookie h
eaded for the maker. Well, not the Maker, not like God, but the coffeemaker. “You get some rest. I won’t fall asleep, I promise, and you are not staying up one more minute on my account.” It was almost midnight, and this week had been the most chaotic of my life, if I didn’t count the time I was investigating a missing tourist during Mardi Gras.

  She and Uncle Bob eyed each other doubtfully.

  “How about I take the first watch?” he said to her. “You get some rest, and I’ll wake you in a few.”

  She pressed her lips together then headed to the pot anyway. “Okay, but I’ll put some coffee on to brew. It’ll help. And you have to promise to wake me up in two hours.”

  He grinned at her. Like grinned. Like flirty-grinned. Ew. I had a concussion, for heaven’s sake. I was already a bit queasy.

  And she grinned back! Calgon!

  “What is this?” Cookie asked, her voice suddenly razor sharp.

  “What?”

  “This note. Where did this come from?”

  Oh, it was the threatening note from that morning. “I totally told you about that,” I said, my face a picture of innocence.

  She gritted her teeth and strode toward me, note in hand. “You asked me if I left you a note. You never said anything about it being a death threat.”

  “What?” Uncle Bob jumped up from the sofa he’d just sat on and took the note from her. After reading it, he cast me an admonishing scowl. “Charley, I swear if you weren’t my niece, I’d arrest you for obstruction of justice.”

  “What?” I sputtered a little to make it look good. “On what freaking grounds?”

  “This is evidence. You should have told me about this the moment it arrived.”

  “Ha,” I said. I had them now. “I have no idea when it arrived. It was on my coffeepot when I woke up.”

  “They broke in?” he asked, flabbergasted.

  “Well, it’s not like I invited them in.”

  He turned to Cookie. “What are we going to do with her?”

  Cookie was still glaring at me. “I think I should turn her over my knee.”

  Uncle Bob brightened. Would Cookie never learn? “Can I watch?” he asked under his breath. Like I wasn’t standing right there.