Third Grave Dead Ahead

  18

  There are very few personal problems that can’t be solved with a suitable application of high explosives.

  —T-SHIRT

  When I got to the sheriff’s department, I jumped out of Misery and hit the ground running. My plan worked. I was in an interrogation room before Garrett could get inside. I told the sheriff everything I knew. Farley Scanlon was a bad guy. He practically threatened me with a knife and then left when he saw Garrett, then he slashed my tires while we ate. It wasn’t a difficult story for them to swallow, but I still had to account for every minute of the night, and they wanted to talk to Garrett to confirm.

  So, while they interrogated him, I took off back out to Farley Scanlon’s house, the weight of Uncle Bob’s story still heavy on my chest. Or it could have been the fact that if Earl Walker was still at Farley Scanlon’s place, or happened to stop back by the scene of the crime, I’d just ditched my best defense. That would suck.

  My cell sang out. I answered it. “Hey, Cook. I just ditched Garrett.”

  “Good for you. You two weren’t really right for each other anyway.”

  I grinned.

  “So, here’s the word off the street.”

  “I love it when you talk dirty.”

  “Yolanda Pope’s niece almost died after having a routine tonsillectomy.”

  “No way.”

  “Way. Minutes after the good doctor showed up on the ward.”

  “Which is suspicious because?”

  “He had no patients that day. He’d performed no surgeries and had no one to check in on, yet he checked onto the ward. Yolanda’s niece went into cardiac arrest minutes after he checked out.”

  “Oh, my gosh. How old was she?”

  “Twelve. They chalked it up to a reaction to the anesthetic, but she makes it through the entire surgery just fine, then has a reaction over an hour later?”

  “Not likely. I can understand why Yolanda suspects him.”

  “Do you think he knew she was Yolanda’s niece?”

  “Positive. Poor Xander,” I said, remembering her older brother with fondness. I couldn’t imagine what Yost put him through. “How did you get this information so fast?” I asked her.

  “I just happen to know the charge nurse who was on duty that morning.”

  “Sweet.”

  “Yeah, but none of it can be proved. The nurses just found the whole thing odd. Nothing was ever reported, but they believe Yolanda overheard the nurses talking about it, which is why she suspects him.”

  “Well, all this leads to one conclusion. Nathan Yost is more aggressive than I thought. I’ve never met anyone who could pull off such malice with such skill. The man is absolutely evil.”

  “I don’t understand what he hoped to gain by it, though,” Cookie said.

  “Revenge. He’s an opportunist, saw his chance. Yolanda left him. He was paying her back. Speaking of evil, I’m going out to get a look around Farley Scanlon’s trailer. Obviously, Earl Walker was close, possibly even staying with him.” The one time I’d seen him years ago, beating the fuck out of Reyes, was enough to last a lifetime. The mere thought of that man being close by made me lose consciousness a moment. Either that or the lack-of-sleep thing was catching up with me.

  “And you’re going out to his house because it’s been days since someone has tried to kill you?”

  With a weary grin, I said, “Of course. This everyday mundane stuff is getting old.”

  “Can you at least wait for Garrett?”

  “Can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t like him.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “And I have to visit a biker gang this afternoon.”

  “If I had a nickel for every time you said that.”

  We hung up as I pulled into Farley’s lot. The mobile home was little more than a tin can, and while I liked mobile homes as much as the next girl, this one left a lot to be desired. Like Spam. It should be ham, but it just ain’t.

  I picked the lock and ducked under the police tape just as a car slowed in front of the house. They didn’t stop, thankfully, but they were probably calling the police at that very moment, or performing some other civic-minded duty. Then again, they could’ve just been checking out my ass. Which, who could blame them?

  A huge, misshapen bloodstain sullied the olive green carpet and wood paneling that stood as a bold testament to the hideous décor choices of the seventies. Since I’d lacked the forethought to bring gloves, I found a set of oven mitts and quickly searched through stacks of papers and filthy trash cans, no easy feat in oven mitts. I realized Earl Walker was probably not using the alias Earl Walker anymore. There were a couple of bills with the name Harold Reynolds. Sounded like a fake name if ever I heard one. I stuffed the bills into my bag and continued rummaging through the insanity of it all.

  I sat concentrating on a photo of a man in a hat with antlers when the doorknob jiggled. After a quick curse, I rushed down the narrow hall and ducked into the bedroom at the end of the house. The front door opened, skyrocketing my heart rate into near panic. If the cops caught me out here, it would probably look bad.

  Hoping I wouldn’t seize and make a ruckus, I peeked through the slit between the door and the wall. A man stood there with gun drawn, but I could only see part of his backside. The sun streaming in through a dirty window just past him made it impossible to see what kind of clothes he was wearing, but it didn’t look like a police uniform. Then a hand covered my mouth from behind, and I struggled to keep that last cup of coffee from coming back up.

  “Shhhh,” the intruder whispered in my ear as his other hand slid over my stomach and down to the button on my jeans. The heat from his body left a white-hot trail wherever it tread, and I rolled my eyes, partly in relief and partly in annoyance.

  I was going to kill him. Reyes Farrow. How the hell did he get out here? He eased me against him, his heat saturating my clothes and hair. He was scalding, and I couldn’t help but let my head drop back against his shoulder and breathe him in. Then he started to unfasten the button on my pants, and I rushed back to attention, fighting him with both my mitted hands. He caught them and pressed into me, his steely arms wrapped tight.

  “It’s your boyfriend,” he said into my ear. When I fought his attempts a second time, wrapping my hands awkwardly around his solid wrist as his fingers deftly unbuttoned my jeans, he shushed me again with a playful nip at my ear.

  “Reyes,” I whispered as softly as I possibly could as he slid the zipper down. Now was hardly the time.

  “Are those oven mitts?” he asked as he placed hot kisses down my neck. Then his hand dived inside my panties. I couldn’t stop the gasp that escaped when his fingers dipped between my legs, and footsteps sounded in the hall a moment later.

  “Don’t take this personally,” he said with a disappointed sigh, and I felt a knife at my throat instantly.

  My sudden voracity crashed and skidded across the ground like the bad landing of a hot air balloon. Again with the knife? Really?

  Reyes walked back toward the far wall with me, his arms locked around my body like a straitjacket. Then Garrett walked in. He took one look at us and instinctively raised his gun, the tight quarters closing in on us fast.

  I felt Reyes’s head tilt to the side, as though questioning him. Garrett’s silvery gaze darted between the two of us. He hesitated, pressed his jaw closed in anger, then lowered his gun, helpless to do anything else.

  In my periphery, I saw Reyes grin. He lifted his hands in a gesture of mutual surrender, lowered his own weapon and dropped it on the ground. Then, with the gentlest of pushes, he eased me aside. I realized what he was doing the instant Garrett raised his gun again.

  “Garrett, no,” I said, but it was too late.

  In the space of time it took a cobra to strike, Reyes relieved Garrett of the weapon and had it aimed at his head point-blank, an appreciative smile on his face.

  Garrett blinked, realized what happened, then
stumbled back with arms raised.

  “Reyes, wait,” I said, a harsh warning in my voice.

  “Back,” he said to Garrett, gesturing with the gun.

  Garrett backed down the dark hall as Reyes pulled me into the threshold between us. He looked down at me, able to see both Garrett and me at the same time.

  “I don’t kill people, Dutch,” he said, as though disappointed that I’d worried. “Unless I have to.” He said the last while studying Garrett. Without taking his eyes off him, he took my chin into his hand and placed the softest kiss on my mouth.

  Then he was gone. In a heartbeat, he was out a window about the size of a postage stamp, like an animal, a blur of sleek fur and muscle.

  Garrett rushed past me to the window. “Son of a bitch,” he said, biting back the anger that consumed him. He turned toward me. “Nice.”

  “Hey,” I said to his back as he stalked out of the room and down the hall. “I didn’t know he was here. And you didn’t have to come in.”

  “I was worried about you,” he said, an ice-cold contempt in his voice as he looked back and let his gaze wander to the front of my jeans.

  I threw the oven mitts aside and refastened them quickly, but he scoffed, shaking his head, and started for the door again.

  “Cookie called me,” he continued. “I cannot believe you were stupid enough to come out here by yourself.”

  “Fuck you,” I said. I didn’t have to explain my actions to him.

  He turned on me, anger sizzling around him. “And you’re at the scene of a crime, fucking an escaped murderer.”

  “We weren’t fucking, and Reyes didn’t kill his father,” I said, frustration sharpening my voice.

  “Not his father. Farley Scanlon.”

  I blinked in surprise. “What? You think he killed Farley Scanlon?”

  He laughed, the sound harsh as it echoed off the cheap wood paneling. “If the razor-sharp blade fits.”

  “Garrett, wait,” I said, running after him as he stalked to his truck.

  “We have to get the cops here before he gets too far.” He took out his phone and dialed 911.

  “No,” I said, grabbing his phone before he could stop me. I closed it, hoping the call didn’t make it through.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” He reached for his phone.

  I jerked it back. “Keeping it for a while.” I hurried to Misery and started her up. He followed me and opened the driver’s door before I could lock it.

  “Give me the phone,” he said from between clenched teeth. It was not a suggestion. The anger seething inside him had turned his aura to a smoky black. I’d never seen Garrett so furious before.

  I held the phone away from him, hovering it over the passenger’s seat, which was stupid, since his reach was almost double mine.

  “Charles, I swear—”

  Since he couldn’t get past me and the steering wheel to the phone, he clutched on to my arm and literally dragged me out of Misery. I had no choice. I kicked his shin to divert his attention, then threw the phone as hard as I could. Garrett cursed and raised his leg, but oddly, the sound of a watery plop brought us both up short. We stilled and turned to the sound as a cold dread crept up my spine.

  I stood there stunned and more than a little surprised by the fact that there was a pond beyond the tall grass and weeds. We both stared a long moment, then slowly, menacingly, Garrett turned to me, his expression hovering between shock and utter rage. Before he could do something we’d both regret, I jumped back into Misery and locked the door. A microsecond later, he pulled the handle hard enough to rock the Jeep. Considering the fact that my windows were made of plastic, I started Misery and tore out of Farley Scanlon’s lot like I had a reason to live. In my rearview, I saw Garrett stand there glowering a good ten seconds before he sprinted to his truck.

  I was so dead. I was so amazingly, inarguably dead.

  I called Cookie. “Hey, Cook,” I said, my voice light and airy.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. Apparently I was a little too light and airy.

  “Well, Reyes held me at knifepoint, but that was just a ruse to get Garrett’s gun away from him, which he did and then proceeded to hold the gun to Garrett’s head point-blank right before he kissed me, then jumped through a freaking window.”

  After a long moment, Cookie said, “So, it went well?”

  “Damn straight. Garrett’s a little hot under the collar right now, though. I’m giving him time to cool down. Oh, and I stole his phone and threw it into a pond, so don’t bother calling him again.” My voice turned accusative.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was just so worried about you. How the heck did Reyes get out there?”

  “Who the bloody hell knows? He probably ran. God, that man is fast.”

  “My goodness. Garrett on one end and Reyes on the other. It’s like a really hot, melty s’more.”

  “Did I mention that Garrett is really pissed?”

  “Oh! I just found out that Ingrid Yost’s mother died one month before she did.”

  “No way. Who’s Ingrid again?”

  “Dr. Yost’s first wife?”

  “Right. I knew that. Wait, how did her mother die?”

  “Same way she did. Heart attack.”

  “That was convenient.” Nathan Yost was turning into quite the serial killer.

  “And I talked to your uncle. Are you ready?”

  “Is that a trick question?”

  “Nathan Yost has property in Pecos.”

  “Really?” Score. “That’s the best news I’ve had all day.”

  * * *

  Since I had quite the drive ahead of me, I decided to call my BFF at the FBI.

  “Agent Carson,” she said, all sharp and professional sounding.

  “Dude, you’re so good at that.”

  “Thank you,” she said, suddenly perky.

  “Did you know that Dr. Yost might have tried to kill Yolanda Pope’s niece as a way to get revenge on her?”

  “No,” she admitted.

  “And that he killed Ingrid Yost’s mother one month before he flew to the Cayman Islands and killed her?”

  After a moment of thought, she asked, “Can you prove any of that?”

  “Not even. But the bodies are racking up. This guy needs to be stopped. Have you found any evidence that Teresa Yost was planning on leaving him before she disappeared?”

  “None. According to everyone on the planet, they were the perfect couple.”

  “Yeah, didn’t everybody think the same thing about him and his first wife as well, until she fled the country and filed for divorce?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “She knew she was in danger,” I said. “That’s why she went to the Cayman Islands. To get away from him. Apparently, he has abandonment issues.”

  I filled her in on everything Yolanda told me, including the part about her niece and what we’d found out since; then I told her about Yost’s alter ego, his alias Keith Jacoby, before adding, “Again, I can’t actually prove any of that. We should try to get ahold of that forger. He was doing business in Jackson, Mississippi, last we heard.”

  “So, this Keith Jacoby was in the Cayman Islands at the same time as the late Mrs. Yost?”

  “Yep.”

  “Okay, I’ll try to get someone in the Jackson office to have a talk with your forger.”

  “Yost also has land in Pecos.”

  “Yeah,” she said absently, clicking away on a keyboard, “we had a team check it out. He has a cabin there, but we couldn’t find anything.”

  “I’m on my way to interview a biker gang right now. I want to look the property over, just in case, but it may be tomorrow before I get to it.”

  “Knock yourself out,” she said, then added, “Wait, you’re joining a biker gang?”

  19

  I am an instrument God uses to annoy people.

  —T-SHIRT

  With an extremely annoyed Garrett back on my ass, I took the Coal Street exi
t and steered Misery toward the Bandits’ hangout. The sun hovered low over the horizon, preparing for a good night’s rest, when I pulled to a stop in the front of their house. It sat beside the asylum itself, which was kind of cool, but I’d always wondered how a biker gang went about buying property. Whose name goes on the mortgage? A handful of leather-clad bikers sat on the front porch. A few more tinkered with their bikes in the dusky light. Loud music leached outside the cracks in the walls, of which there were many. Bikers were probably really hard on dwellings. Either that or this really was a crack house.

  I’d never seen so many bikers there at one time before. Donovan must have called them in for the witch hunt.

  “You’re late,” one of them said from a shadowy porch. I couldn’t tell who was talking to me, but every man there stopped what he was doing and turned toward me.

  I pulled my jacket tight and stepped closer until I spotted Donovan. He sat leaning back in a lawn chair on the porch, his booted foot on the railing, a beer in hand.

  “How is she?” I asked, stepping past several unsavory-looking fellows, my very favorite kind. They were probably all sweethearts deep down inside.

  The prince was there. He braced an arm on the railing as I tried to get past and spent a very long minute checking out the girls.

  I faced him head-on, refusing to be intimidated, though I couldn’t keep the wave of anxiety from rushing over my skin any more than I could keep the sun from rising the next day. Mafioso patted him on the shoulder and led him back so I could pass.

  “Beer?” Donovan asked.

  “No, thank you. Is she okay? Did something happen?”

  “No,” he said, taking a long swig. “She’s still at the animal hospital. They wanted me to put her down. I said no.”

  I sank into a rickety chair beside him. “I’m so sorry, Donovan.”

  “Who’s the tail?”

  I glanced toward the big black truck parked down the block. “Just one of my many fans. He’s harmless.”