Seventh Grave and No Body

  “Are they ever? It struck me recently that if you put an A in front of a word, it negates that word. Like amoral or asymmetrical.”

  “Yes —”

  “I mean, I knew that, naturally. I just don’t think we’re taking full advantage of the precedent.”

  “Right. I got the list. But I don’t think a-smart is a real word.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about. It should be a real word. And it’s nicer than saying dumb.”

  “Did you call your uncle Bob?”

  “Not yet. But I could use a paycheck since, you know, I have to pay you. Eventually.”

  “That’d be awesome. I could eat this month.”

  “Well, now, I didn’t say I was going to pay you enough to eat the whole month long. You might want to ration your food. And get rid of that kid. She eats entirely too much, now that she’s turned thirteen.” The part I was leaving out, of course: Amber was roughly the size of a twig in winter.

  “Right? I don’t know what to do with her.”

  “Don’t get me started,” I said, pulling my hand out of Reyes’s grasp to wave it around dramatically before he took hold of it again. “She’s so demanding. Food. Water. Next thing you know, she’s going to ask to be unchained every time she has to go to the bathroom.”

  Cookie scoffed. “Like that will happen. So, Robert is at the courthouse this afternoon, but he asked that you call him later.”

  “This whole suicide-note thing sounds suspicious. I think this is a ploy to get me to call him.”

  She laughed softly. “Honey, you need to talk to him.”

  “You’re just saying that because you’re dating the guy. You have to be on his side now.”

  “I’m not on anyone’s side.”

  “Oh yeah? Two weeks ago, you would’ve had me kicking him to the curb.”

  “No, I wouldn’t have. And you know it.”

  I let out a deep, annoyed sigh. “Whatever. I’ll just go by the courthouse and talk to him face-to-face. Make him squirm like the rabid dog he is.”

  “Oh,” she said, hesitating. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  Interest level: 10. “Intriguing response. And why is that?”

  “He’s observing the trial of one of his cases.”

  “And?”

  “And the presiding judge is, well, not your biggest fan.”

  “The Iron Fist?” I screeched. “Holy cow, I am so there.”

  “Charley,” she said, her tone warning, “you know what happened last time you saw her.”

  “Pfft. Water under the bridge, Cook. It’s a-relevant.”

  “Isn’t there already a word for that?”

  “A-relevant again. You’re on a roll.”

  Kit dropped us off in front of Calamity’s, the bar and grill Reyes bought from my dad. Her pallor had turned a chalky shade of white, but she said she’d have a team at the campgrounds immediately. She’d make something up. Tell them we found the remains somehow.

  I wanted to set her mind at ease, but we both had work to do. Explanations would have to wait. It was still pretty early and Calamity’s wouldn’t open for another hour, but Reyes had a lot of work to do as well. I decided to remind him.

  “You have a lot of work to do,” I said as we walked behind the bar to our apartment building, where my cherry red Jeep Wrangler, aka Misery, sat waiting for me.

  “I told you. I hired a manager.” He was trying to sound all nonchalant, but I could feel the tension in his body. Better yet, I could see it. His arms corded with sinew and thick muscles, flexing in reaction to every sound – and on Central, that meant a lot of flexing. But he had a killer poker face, his gait relaxed, his smile charming.

  “Right. I keep forgetting. Wait,” I said, coming to a stop, “who did you hire?”

  “Teri,” he said with a shrug.

  “No way.” I started walking again, digging for my keys through the used Louis Vuitton I’d gotten off eBay – because a used Louis Vuitton was better than no Louis Vuitton – and mulling over the fact that Teri was the new manager of Calamity’s. She had been a bartender for my dad forever, and even though she was a little rough around the edges, I couldn’t think of anyone more suited for the job. “She’s awesome.”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “And she’s honest.”

  “I know.”

  “And she’s been sober for over five years. It’s crazy, though. Why would an alcoholic become a bartender? Isn’t that setting the bar a little high? Pun intended, of course.”

  “I suspect for the same reason a person like your sister with extreme OCD might become a therapist. To help others.”

  “Oh, yeah. That makes sense. Teri’s really good at spotting people who have had one too many. They call her the key thief. So, are you going to relax anytime soon?” I stuck my key into the lock and opened the door.

  Reyes stepped behind me and shut it. Keeping his arm braced against the door, he pressed against my backside. “Is that an offer? I am feeling a little tense across my shoulders.”

  I turned to face him. “I thought you were mad at me.”

  “I am.”

  “Well, I make it a rule never to have sex with anyone who’s mad at me.”

  He arched a brow. “It’s a wonder you’ve ever had sex at all.”

  “Right? Okay, I’m going to the courthouse. I have a case. And I have to give Uncle Bob hell.”

  “What did he do now?”

  “He – He —” I shook my head, unable to say the words out loud. “I can’t talk about it. It’s too painful.”

  A dimple appeared at one corner of his mouth. I so very much wanted to kiss it. “That bad, huh?”

  “Worse. I don’t know how we’re ever going to get past this.”

  “So, all the times he’s saved your ass, come to your rescue, helped you with cases —?”

  “Null and void.” I turned to open the door again. He shut it again. “Reyes, I’m never going to get there at this rate.”

  “Were you planning on going somewhere without me?”

  I twisted around again. “It’s daylight. You said that even if the Twelve really are here, they can’t go into direct sunlight.”

  “And the fact that you were just almost attacked by one?”

  “I told you. I never saw anything. I just heard a growl. It could have been my stomach, for all I know.”

  His expression hardened. “They aren’t like regular demons, Dutch. I don’t know exactly what they can and cannot do. Thus,” he added, swiping my keys, “I’m driving.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” I said, jumping for the keys as Reyes raised them above my head. I felt like I was in second grade and Davey Cresap was holding my juice box just out of my reach. Until I kneed him in the groin. He damned sure never did that shit again.

  I tried the same move with Reyes, but he was way too fast. He easily caught my knee and raised it until my leg was practically encircling his hips. It was such a nice fit.

  He backed me against Misery again, pushed into me, whispered into my ear. “Next time you try to sneak out without me,” he said, curling a hand around my buttocks and pulling me against his crotch, “we are going to have a serious discussion about the well-being of your ass.” He squeezed, causing an infusion of warmth to flood my nether-neaths.

  I wrapped my hands around his steely buttocks, pulled him into me, and said, “Next time you threaten my ass, you’d better have your own covered. I can swing with the best of them.”

  He leaned back. “Did you just threaten to spank me?”

  A bark of laughter bubbled up out of me. “As a matter of fact —” I left my sentence hanging as I playfully swatted a steely derriere. I could only hope he felt it. Freaking son-of-Satan crap. He was like a boulder with zero pain receptors. But I was super good at the whole denial thing. Pretending my swat registered, I said, “Maybe you should remember that the next time you threaten me.” I pulled my lower lip between my teeth, then added, “Or my exquisite ass.??
?

  He sobered, his gaze dropping to my mouth. It lingered there, a delicious glint in the gold flecks of his irises. “I can assure you, Dutch,” he said, his voice husky and deep, “I will never forget it. Shotgun!” he added. He dropped my leg, tossed me back my keys, and strolled to the passenger side.

  I stood stunned a moment before his statement registered. Gawd, that man was beautiful. After climbing in, I looked over at my intended, all sexy and… waiting for me to unlock the door. Wearing the mother of all smirks, I started the engine and put Misery in reverse.

  “You do realize,” he said through the closed window, “I could rip this door off its hinges.”

  I gasped. “You wouldn’t.”

  His lids narrowed in challenge, and my mother of all smirks fizzled. Withered like a begonia in the Sahara. I unlocked his door and glared.

  He didn’t care. He laughed. It was a very uncaring laugh.

  Freaking son of Satan.

  3

  I’m diagonally parked in a parallel universe.

  — BUMPER STICKER

  I tried to convince Reyes to sit outside the courtroom, that I’d only be a minute, but he insisted on going in. We emptied our pockets for the guard, went through the metal detector as my purse was inspected, then went inside. Ubie – that’s the nickname I used to call him before I changed it – sat in the third row, his shoulders straight as he listened in rapt attention. I tiptoed to sit beside him. The captain was on his other side. And like any delinquent forced to enter a courtroom, Reyes chose a seat in the back of the room. He spread out, threw an arm over the back of his pew, and made himself comfortable. Ubie, on the other hand, looked anything but comfortable. He glanced over at me, slid his brows together in consternation, then returned his attention to the witness on the stand.

  “Yes,” the Caucasian man in the prison uniform said. “I met Vikki about a year ago at a bar and we started sleeping together soon after. She told me she’d been slowly poisoning her husband, Steve, for several weeks for the insurance money.”

  Vikki must have been the defendant, the one staring at him like he had two heads. The man’s testimony shocked her. And I felt that shock to my core. It rippled through me, knotted my stomach, made me feel woozy with nausea and utter disbelief. Either that or the morning sickness was kicking in.

  “And we’re just supposed to believe you?” the female defense attorney asked. “A convicted felon who has perjured himself to get a reduced sentence before.”

  “I’m telling the truth.”

  I doubted that. The man in his late thirties seemed about as trustworthy as that guy who was selling pre-owned underwear out of his trunk the other day. I was with the defense attorney on this one.

  Without looking at my scumbag uncle, I whispered, “He’s lying through his teeth. What do you want, Traitor Joe?” That was his new name: Traitor Joe. Because he was a traitor, and he was mean. A joke was one thing, but —

  He cleared his throat, obviously uncomfortable talking at a trial. “I have a case for you,” he said back, his voice low. “And what do you mean, he’s lying through his teeth?”

  I was busy concentrating on the defendant as she sat at a large table to the left of us. She was a heavyset woman, young with soft brown hair pulled back from her face. She wore an ill-fitting dress, the sleeves too tight around her arms. Wringing her hands in front of her on the table, she looked the type to feel more at home in jeans and cowboy boots than a dress. And her hands were rough. She was a worker. A hard worker. On top of that, she was completely innocent.

  “Is this your case?” I asked Joe.

  “Yes. We’ve spent months building it.”

  “Well, then maybe you shouldn’t be hiring Wynona Jakes to help you solve cases. Because the woman sitting at the defendant’s table is as innocent as my left pinkie toe.”

  My uncle shifted in his seat. I felt dread saturate his entire body.

  The captain frowned at us. I could feel his knee-jerk reaction to my statement, that reaction 100 percent negative. But he’d learned a lot about me during our last powwow. He knew I could sense things others couldn’t.

  “What are you talking about, pumpkin?” Joe asked, so patient with me even when I was doing my darnedest to be mean. But he’d been mean first. “I told you, I never hired Wynona Jakes. It was a setup. Payback, remember? For when you set me up?”

  Fine. I set him up.

  For happiness!

  He wasn’t asking Cookie out when he’d so clearly wanted to, so I constructed a scenario that would change his mind. The plan was to send Cookie on a few dates to make him so jealous, he’d feel compelled to ask her to dinner. Only he figured out what we were doing. For payback, he’d brought in a fake psychic to consult on a case. Or he pretended to, anyway. Thought he’d ruffle my feathers a bit. I got that. I understood. I was setting him up. He set me up. But what he did next – unforgivable.

  “You know what you did,” I said to him, crossing my arms over my chest.

  “I really don’t.”

  I closed my eyes, counted to ten, then said as calmly as I could, “The book.”

  After taking a moment to absorb my meaning, he doubled over into a fit of coughs to suppress his laughter. Everyone looked, but he recovered quickly, coughing into his handkerchief, his face red with humor. “She did it?” he asked from behind the white material. “Wynona Jakes sent you the book?”

  “I didn’t even know she had a book out,” I said, my words a hiss through my teeth. “She is as fake as a porn star’s orgasm. How did she get a book deal?”

  He bent toward me and said in an understanding whisper, “Is that what all this is about?”

  “Maybe.” I stared straight ahead, unable to meet his gaze.

  “She asked if I thought you’d like a copy of her book.”

  “She knew damned well I didn’t want one. I made my opinion of who she was and what she did perfectly clear the day we met.”

  People like Jakes were dangerous. Period. And those who followed her, who believed the cockamamie lies she dished out… well, I felt sorry for them. There was the real deal, and then there were the charlatans. She’d ruined people’s lives and refused to take responsibility, to come clean to the public. Maybe someone would have to expose her. Or, I thought, conjuring a plan, I could just have Reyes sever her spine.

  No. Severing spines rarely solved anything. And I couldn’t turn to his spine-severing service every time I needed to incapacitate someone. The consequences were so permanent.

  “I didn’t know she actually sent you a book, pumpkin. Is that why you’ve been ignoring my calls?”

  “I haven’t ignored all of them,” I said, defensive.

  “Okay, well, when you do pick up, you pretend like we have a bad connection.”

  My shoulders concaved.

  “Sweetheart?”

  “I thought you were making fun of me. Of my reaction to her.”

  “Like you have anything to worry about from someone like Wynona Jakes.”

  “But she’s making money, Uncle Bob. Off innocent people.”

  “And she’s the first?”

  “Detective,” the captain whispered, his impatience palpable. “The defendant.”

  Ubie nodded. “Right. Back to this. Are you telling me this woman is innocent?” He gestured toward the defendant.

  I nodded. “Completely.”

  The captain cursed under his breath and leaned toward me. “This isn’t a game, Davidson.”

  Before I could say, Really? ’Cause it looks so much like tennis, the judge cleared her throat. Loudly. My gaze snapped to the front of the courtroom to see the witness being led away in cuffs on his way back to prison.

  The judge, a large African American woman who could kick my ass so fast, I’d need CPR – she’d done it before – leveled a hard glare on me. Refusing to take all the blame, I pointed to Uncle Bob.

  “Mizzz Davidson,” she said. Her voice, loud and razor sharp, echoed against the wood wal
ls. Everyone turned to look at us. At me.

  Judge Quimby always called me Miz Davidson, buzzing out the Z sound like a bee to let me know just how unimpressed she was with my existence. And, like the sound of running water, it had a way of making me want to pee myself.

  I clenched Virginia just in case. “Your Honor,” I said, my cheeks burning in mortification.

  “Would you care to enlighten me as to why you are in my courtroom when you have been banned from ever stepping inside my humble hall of justice until the day one of us dies?”

  I refrained from mentioning the fact that if I died first, the point would be moot. “Oh, that,” I said, adding soft laughter. “I just —”

  I glanced over at the defendant. She was the only one in the entire room not looking at me. She sat with her head bowed as absolute misery washed over her. The man had lied and she was filled with anger, hurt, and hopelessness. Two women who bore a striking resemblance to the defendant sat directly behind her. One looked like her mother. Same soft brown hair pulled back. Same work-hardened hands as she wiped at a tear and leaned forward to rub the defendant’s shoulder. But the one next to the older woman caught my interest the most. The emotions rolling out of her were filled with deception. I strained to single out her feelings, which were stronger than most of those around her.

  Gloating.

  She was gloating on the inside, quite enjoying the defendant’s agony. It took a special kind of evil to enjoy the agony of others. She put a hand on her chest and wrapped her fingers around something just beneath the sweater she wore. A necklace of some sort, it had special meaning. It made her happy knowing she had it near, as though she wore it on purpose.

  “I just —,” I started again, unable to tear my gaze away from her. “May I call for a recess?”

  Part of the room gasped in horror. The rest simply looked on in horror, probably afraid to gasp aloud in the presence of the Iron Fist, a nickname Judge Quimby had earned her first year on the bench. I hoped it had more to do with her judging principles than, say, her ability to beat scrawny white chicks to a bloody pulp. I always saw the cup half full like that. Tried to see the good in any situation.