Third Grave Dead Ahead

  Uncle Bob chose that moment to storm the place, and Yost stumbled back in surprise. I rolled over onto my side to catch my breath. Both hands locked on to my head as I curled into a cheese ball.

  “Uncle Bob,” I said in a super annoyed, my head is killing me voice, “you’re too early.”

  I could see Yost out of the corner of my eye, the expression on his face priceless. He glanced at Ubie, then back at me, his mouth open in shock as an officer spouting the Miranda led his hands behind his back to be cuffed.

  “I suppose I could’ve waited until he actually killed you,” Ubie said, helping me up. “With the other evidence, we got plenty, pumpkin.”

  I grabbed for the stability of the shelf as Uncle Bob clutched me.

  He brushed the hair out of my eyes. “You okay?”

  After bringing my other hand forward to gloat about all the gushing blood I’d accumulated, I said, “There’s not a drop.” I turned my hand over in case I missed any. “There’s no blood whatsoever. How am I not bleeding to death right now? ’Cause that freaking hurt.” I said the last through gritted teeth while glaring at Yost.

  In a fit of anger—or epilepsy, it was hard to tell—he ripped his yet-to-be-cuffed hand from the officer and lunged at me. I had no idea what he’d hoped to gain. Half a second before he was slammed onto the concrete floor, he’d grabbed a handful of shirt. The experienced officers took him down fast, and I went with him with a squeak of surprise, my shirt ripping all the way. I prayed to God the hidden-camera recording would never leave the evidence room. Ubie helped me up a second time, and I tried to give the girls their privacy, but with only half a shirt, it was difficult.

  I collected myself the best that I could, then looked down at Yost. “This is so going on my bill.”

  He growled under the officers’ weight as they cuffed him before dragging him to his feet and escorting him out of the hospital. The accumulation of dropped jaws as every head turned to watch in disbelief would have been humorous if my head didn’t hurt so bad.

  Uncle Bob stayed behind with me. “So,” he said, watching them walk away, “are you going to call Agent Carson with the good news, or shall I?”

  “You can do it,” I said, suddenly despondent. Was Yost just being mean, or did I really look stupid? “Just make sure Luther Dean isn’t anywhere nearby when you call her.”

  “Why?”

  “For one thing, he’s big.”

  “And two?”

  “His name is Luther, if that tells you anything.”

  “Got it.”

  24

  If life hands you lemons, keep them.

  Because, hey, free lemons.

  —T-SHIRT

  By the time we finished everything up with Dr. Death, it was late, I was tired, and my head was throbbing. All things considered, Luther took the news that he almost lost both his sisters pretty well. Either that or his sisters had sedated him. I envied him that as I trudged up the stairs to my humble abode with the realization that I needed sleep. Period. Reyes or no Reyes, I had to catch some Z’s. So when I opened my door and found my TV on, a sleeping Amber on the sofa, and a large man sitting on the back of it, holding a gun at her head and watching me with seemingly infinite patience, the fact that I almost blacked out was completely understandable.

  I took in the scene as the man raised a meaty hand and put a finger over his mouth to shush me. Then he gestured toward Amber with a nod. The gun was literally touching her temple, and I could only pray the cold metal wouldn’t wake her. I eased my bag and keys onto the counter, then raised my hands to show compliance. He smiled and summoned me over with another nod.

  He’d aged since the last time I saw him. But his build, the oily gray of his hair, the thickness of his stubby hands, were all unchanged from the time I threw a brick through his kitchen window to stop him from beating a boy to death. His image had been scorched into my memory.

  “I hear you’re looking for me,” he whispered, and my gaze darted to Amber’s sleeping form. “She’s out,” he assured me. “I been here for hours, and she hasn’t moved an inch.”

  My breath shook the next words from my mouth. “Did you do anything to her?”

  “No.” He offered me a chastising frown. “Little girls aren’t really my thing.”

  And I remembered what his thing was. I had proof sitting in the next room, nestled beneath my lingerie. Thinking about what he’d done to Reyes growing up, I could honestly say I’d never hated anyone more in my life.

  “Let me take her home,” I whispered, “then I’m all yours.”

  “Do I look stupid?” he asked.

  “Hardly,” I said quickly, placating him. “That’s why I made the suggestion. You’re supposed to be dead. You certainly wouldn’t want anyone to see you here. If they find your fingerprints, this game that you’ve been playing for over a decade will end. Where’s the fun in that?”

  His scrutinized me from head to toe, sizing me up, before saying, “Fingerprints aren’t usually a problem when I burn the place down.”

  “That makes you a smart man.”

  “Don’t patronize me,” he said, the warning in his tone unmistakable. He leaned in, his hot breath fanning over my face. “We’re going to wake her up and walk her to the door. If either she or her mother comes back, they’re both dead. I’ll kill the first one through the door, then go after the next. Do you understand?”

  I swallowed hard. “Completely.”

  He moved the gun just enough so I could raise her up. If it were just my ass on the line, I could’ve made a run for it the moment I saw him, but not with Amber. I would never have risked her life like that.

  “Amber, honey,” I said, shaking her softly. “You better get to bed, munchkin.”

  She blinked and tried to focus her sleepy eyes on me.

  “Your mother’s going to wonder where you are.”

  “Okay,” she said, her voice groggy and spent. “I’m sorry. I fell asleep.”

  I smiled. “That’s okay, hon. I just don’t want your mom to worry.”

  I helped her to her feet and led her as she padded to the door, thanking all things holy she didn’t even notice the monster with the snub-nosed .38 in the room. After one attempt for the closet and one for the pantry, she finally made it out the right door. Walker grabbed my arm then, not allowing me past the threshold. Thankfully, her door was unlocked. She opened it and went inside without another thought.

  In the second I had to think about it, I contemplated running. Would he really go after Amber and Cookie? Of course not. He’d come after me. But what if he caught me? What if I didn’t make it? In that case, I had no doubt whatsoever he’d come back to fulfill his promise. And I would be dead in the parking lot or the alley, unable to stop him.

  About one-point-five seconds after Amber closed the door, I felt a sharp pain explode in my head for approximately the third time that day, and I knew the decision had been made for me.

  * * *

  “Dutch.”

  I heard Reyes’s voice from a distance. I tried to reach out and take his hand but found that my own was like smoke, a swirling white mass. “Reyes.”

  “Shhhh,” Earl Walker said as I jerked to consciousness, not that he was actually trying to keep me from screaming. He hadn’t taped my mouth, hadn’t gagged me in any way. He’d just warned me.

  After he’d dragged my limp body to a chair and fastened my arms and legs to it with cable ties, it occurred to me that I could be in trouble. “Have I mentioned how much I hate torture?” I asked, fighting for every consonant.

  He put the gun on the end table to his left and scrunched my face in his thick hand. Which really wasn’t so much torturous as annoying. “Here’s how this is going to go,” he said, speaking softly, slowly, so I would understand. “I cut, you bleed. You can scream if you think it’ll help, but the first person through that door will die. Your pretty little receptionist’s throat will be slit before she even knows I’m here.” He leaned closer, his hot bre
ath sour against my face. “And who will come running in next?”

  Amber. He didn’t have to say it.

  “Amber.”

  Or maybe he did.

  “And let me make something very clear.” He leaned in farther so he could whisper in my ear. “Hurting children makes me happy.”

  He’d probably had a really bad experience as a child.

  Twenty minutes later, he was proving how skilled he was with the scalpel, one slice at a time. I couldn’t help but wonder why he didn’t become a surgeon.

  A sharp burn shot straight to my core as he cut me again, this time on the inside of my thigh. Jeans. No jeans. He didn’t care. I welded my teeth together, my eyes rolling back in my head as I felt the nick he’d placed along a tendon. The cut was deep that time and very near my femoral artery. Or right on it. I could no longer see. Blood from the wound on my scalp was streaming into my eyes and clinging to my lashes.

  “One more time,” he said, seeming a little annoyed.

  Well, join the club, buddy.

  “Why were you looking for me? How did you know I was still alive?”

  I wanted to answer him—I really, really did—but I couldn’t seem to push my voice past the crushing pain. I knew if I opened my mouth to answer, I would scream. Cookie would come. Amber would follow. And my world would cease to exist.

  Once again, I had placed the people I loved most in mortal danger. Maybe my father was right. Maybe I needed to give it up, become an accountant or a dog walker. How much trouble could I get in then?

  Reyes was always here for me, but I’d bound him. I’d kept him from killing himself and killed myself instead. It was a sad testament to my ineptitude that I could hardly go two weeks without needing him to save my ass.

  “Your choice,” he said, a microsecond before I felt a fiery slash on the underside my left arm.

  I felt tendons snap apart that time, and my head fell back as I bit my tongue to keep from screaming. But the pain overwhelmed me. My eyes rolled heavenward as I tumbled back to Reyes.

  “Dutch,” he said from somewhere in the darkness. “Where are you?”

  “Home,” I muttered, fighting to stay with him.

  “Unbind me,” he commanded breathlessly, and I had the distinct feeling he was running. “I won’t get to you in time. Charley, damn it.”

  “I don’t know h—”

  “Say it!” he ordered through gritted teeth. “Just say the words.”

  “I’m sorry.” Helplessness washed over me as I felt myself leaving him again. For the first time in my life, I believed I was going to die and there was nothing he or I could do about it.

  The scalpel sent another shock wave skirting over my nerve endings. I blinked past the blood pooling in my lashes as a jolt of the most unimaginable pain I’d ever felt brought me skyrocketing to the surface again. I breathed in deep, as if coming up for air from the bottom of the ocean.

  Walker had sliced up my rib cage, the scalpel running along the bones like a kid with a stick and a white picket fence. Shaking so hard I wondered if I was seizing, I clutched the chair and forced my teeth to stay locked. But trying so desperately to stay in control of certain bodily functions had me losing control of others, and I felt the warmth of urine seep between my legs and pool underneath me, mingling with the blood already there.

  He bent over me and was poking around the cut on my thigh. Then he turned, looked right into my eyes. I could barely focus, but he was frowning, studying. “Reyes,” he said, and I blinked back to him. “You’re like him. You heal like he did.” He pressed the scalpel against my cheek, readying for his next strike. “What are you?”

  He didn’t wait long for an answer before blood was streaming into my mouth and down my throat. I tried to spit it out, but that would require the unclenching of my jaw, a risk I wasn’t willing to take.

  “I wonder what would happen,” he said, prying my hand off the arm of the chair, “if I took a finger.”

  Just as he started to do that very thing—the sharp sting of metal slicing through flesh becoming mind shattering when it hit bone—we both heard someone running up the stairs in the hall.

  “Finally,” I heard the monster say. He smiled and turned back to me. “It’s our little escaped convict, isn’t it?”

  Half a heartbeat later, the door crashed open and the silhouette of a large man stood framed in the doorway.

  Reyes. No.

  Before I could say anything, before I could think, the gun went off. Walker had been waiting for him, knowing he would come. And I closed my eyes and stopped the spin of the Earth on its axis.

  When I opened them, the bullet was inching through the air halfway between Walker and Reyes. It crawled forward, and I struggled with every ounce of my being to keep my grip on time, but it slipped through my fingers like smoke in a summer breeze.

  I could only watch as it crept forward, its target still unaware of its existence, and the words came to me in a flash.

  “Rey’aziel,” I said, forcing my teeth apart. “Te libero.”

  In an instant, Reyes materialized beside me as time crashed through my barrier with a vengeance. I heard another gunshot a microsecond before I heard the shiiiiing of Reyes’s sword.

  His robe, thick and undulating like an ocean wave, swallowed half the room as his blade sliced through Walker with the grace of a seasoned golfer.

  Walker froze, his eyes wide with disbelief as he glanced down, wondering what was wrong, because Reyes sliced from the inside out. No external trauma. Nothing distasteful like gaping wounds or gushing blood. So the fact that he had been drenched in pain and could no longer move boggled him. I wished he could see Reyes, the massive presence of his robe and what lay beneath it. Since he couldn’t, he’d have no idea what was now picking him up and throwing him across the room. The walls shook when Walker hit, and I realized I could no longer see Reyes’s corporeal self. I could only hope the bullets were less strategically placed than Reyes’s blade. It would take more than a couple of bullets to bring him down.

  Then he turned toward me and lowered the hood of his robe, revealing the most beautiful face I’d ever seen. He kneeled and took mine into his hands. “Dutch, I’m so sorry.”

  “Sorry?” I tried to say, but I realized my mouth and throat were too full of blood to say anything. Then I tumbled back into oblivion and slept at last.

  25

  An integral part of any best friend’s job is to

  immediately clear your computer history if you die.

  —T-SHIRT

  “I think you’re right. Should we get a doctor?”

  I tried to focus on the voice by my side, male and distinctly Uncle Bob–ish, but I couldn’t quite place the source. Then another one chimed in, so I tried to focus on it instead.

  “Definitely, yes, go get someone.”

  Cookie was on my left. She had my hand in hers, which was silly. We rarely held hands in public. Before I could comment, I realized someone had superglued my eyelids shut. Damn it. I tried to protest, but my mouth seemed to have suffered the same fate. After someone stuffed cotton into it.

  I frowned, and an unattractive moan escaped me.

  “Sweetheart, it’s Cookie. You’re in the hospital.”

  “Mm-mm,” I said. And I meant every word. This was ridiculous. I’d never actually been admitted into a hospital before, like in a room with a view—or without a view, since I couldn’t be sure, but I felt the distinct presence of a bed beneath me.

  “Is she awake?” I heard a bustle of people entering the room and my sister’s voice. “Charley?” she asked, and I had so many comebacks, it was unreal. Damn the inventor of superglue.

  “What do you think?” Gemma asked, and I wanted to tell her exactly what I thought about this whole freaking situation, but a nurse interrupted before I got the chance.

  “Her sutures look good. The surgery went well. She should have the full use of her arm back with therapy.”

  My arm? What the fuck happened to
my arm?

  Someone walked out and Gemma followed, asking questions.

  “Hey, pumpkin head,” the Uncle Bob voice said. I totally could not put a face to it. “Can you hear me?”

  “Mm-mm.”

  He chuckled. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  I lifted my free hand and tried to feel my face. It was gone! Then Cookie led my hand a little farther left.

  “Here you go,” she said.

  Oh, thank God. I had some kind of headband on, which was slightly mortifying as those went out in the eighties, and half my face was covered with a huge bandage. That couldn’t look good.

  What the hell happened to me? Then I remembered. “Oh, my god!” I mumbled, and tried to sit up.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” that voice said, and I was beginning to think it might have been Uncle Bob.

  “Walker,” I said, though it sounded more like muffler.

  “Did you get that?” Ubie must have asked Cookie. “Me neither.” He leaned closer and talked really loudly, enunciating each syllable. “Do you want some water?”

  After a strong wince, I took my hand and felt for his face.

  “I’m right here,” he nigh yelled.

  When my hand came into contact with his face, I covered his mouth and said, “Shhh.”

  Cookie giggled.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, taking my hand into his.

  “I can’t see.”

  “Here, I have a warm cloth.” Cookie wiped my eyes and face, at least the part that wasn’t bandaged, and I was finally able to pry my lids apart.

  I blinked and tried to focus. Uncle Bob was on my right, and I reached up and felt his face again, his dark mustache tickling my palm. Cookie was on my left and had my other hand, but I couldn’t squeeze.

  “Reyes,” I said, and she glanced at Uncle Bob.

  “He’s fine, honey. Don’t worry about him.”

  So I didn’t. I drifted off again, in and out for hours. People were there one minute only to be replaced by other people the next. When I finally awoke without feeling like a house had fallen on me—well, no, I still felt like a house had fallen on me, but I was able to stay awake for more than ten seconds—the room was dark with only a soft light glowing from the instrument panel beside me. And empty, save one. Reyes.