The Trouble With Twelfth Grave

  “I’m a god,” I said matter-of-factly.

  “Are you?”

  “That’s how I know.”

  She pulled the net up over her face and removed her hat as the driver started the limo. “And what do you know, Mrs. Davidson?”

  She used my name. Admittedly, that threw me. “You’re very well informed.”

  “I pay to be.”

  The driver drove us out of the cemetery and headed north in the opposite direction of the city.

  Elena smoothed her hair and took out a compact. Checking her lipstick, she continued. “I also know that you’re a private investigator who sometimes consults with the Albuquerque Police Department. Mostly with your uncle, an APD detective.”

  For a split second, I wondered if Taft had told her. But he couldn’t have. Not without blowing his cover.

  “Yes, he told me,” she said when she noticed my sideways glance toward him. “And, yes, before you ask, I know he used to be a cop.”

  I schooled my features to stay neutral, but I’d rarely paid attention in school, so I had no idea if I was doing it right.

  She put her compact away. “We dated in high school. When I saw him at a club a few months ago, I realized how much I’d missed him.”

  Was that what Kit meant when she said she had someone on the inside with a connection?

  “Only he told me he was a security guard at New Mexico State. He lied.” She gave him an admonishing scowl chased quickly with a flirtatious grin. “So, I had my men take him to an abandoned warehouse to … question him. Just a little. Nothing too dramatic.”

  Had she done the same to her brother? Questioned him?

  “They were to kill him afterwards. Davey knows I don’t like being lied to.”

  I glanced at him, but he sat completely stone-faced, giving nothing away.

  I didn’t have to see evidence of his emotional state on his face, however, to know what he was feeling. Underneath the calm, almost robotic exterior beat the heart of a man who was going to kill me if he ever got his hands on me. Anxiety churned inside him. Somehow his cover hadn’t been blown. Somehow it all played into his new role in life. Even so, the situation was sticky. One wrong word could get us both killed.

  “As you might imagine,” she continued, “I wanted to know if he’d been sent. You know, in an official capacity. But before my men could finish the job, he took them out. All three of them. Single-handedly.”

  Her pulse sped up at the thought of her boyfriend taking out three violence-prone men. Probably three of her best.

  “An hour later, he showed up on my doorstep, after disabling two of my personal guards, mind you, and asked me why I sent my men after him when he only wanted to date me.” She giggled and curled an arm into his.

  “How … romantic,” I said.

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  She picked up a glass of champagne that had been ready and waiting for her and took a sip before continuing, and I couldn’t help but wonder if she could be any more of a cliché.

  “Once I showed him how impressed I was with his … abilities, he explained. He told me he hated being a cop. Hated the grayness of it all. He had a unique philosophy, you see. A person is either good or bad, but many cops are a lot of both. He didn’t like the ambiguity of it all, so he’d been looking for a career change, one in private security. He wanted to land a good job before he told me the truth.”

  “A man after my own heart,” I said, not sure if I was supposed to know him at this point or not.

  “When I told him who my family was, what we did for a living, he shrugged and said, ‘I was a cop, not a saint.’” She turned to him and ran a finger under his jaw as though he were her favorite pet. “That’s when I knew I had a keeper.”

  “I’d say. And he told you all about me in the two minutes it took me to make it through the line? I’m impressed,” I said through gritted teeth.

  He didn’t flinch.

  “No,” she said, “his exact words were, ‘That’s the woman I told you about. Be careful.’”

  He ratted me out? Wait, he’d already told her about me? I sat appalled.

  “It seems you’re something of an urban legend.”

  Resisting the urge to blow on my nails and polish them on my shirt, I shrugged.

  “He said you help your uncle with his cases and that his arrest record is impeccable because of it.”

  “I do what I can.”

  She lowered her head to apprise me with more purpose. “He said you’re dangerous.”

  “You know it’s funny. In all the time I’ve known him, he’s never mentioned you.”

  She let a slow smile spread across her face to let me know just how unimpressed she was.

  The neighborhoods ended, and we drove farther and farther into the country. This was not going to end well.

  “I’m surprised your mother lets you keep him on,” I said, “considering his job history.”

  “Please, some of our best assets are cops. Or ex-cops. Cops are people, too,” she said with a wry laugh.

  “I suppose they are.”

  “So, my question to you is, what did you mean?”

  “Exactly that. I’m a god. It’s hard to believe, but there you have it. Just wanted you to know.”

  “At the grave. What did you mean when you asked, what would my mother think?”

  “Oh, right. I just wonder what she’ll think when she finds out you killed your brother—a.k.a., her son? You know, just one of those random thoughts I have. Why is the sky blue? Why is a green chile green? What will Elena Felix’s mother think when she finds out her daughter killed her son?”

  The more I talked, the tenser Elena grew. A turbulent rage sparked inside her and then a vulnerability. She cast a sideways glance at Taft, who remained impassive, but I felt the jolt of shock rush through him. He didn’t know. She hadn’t used him to get her brother’s body to the country for disposal. Interesting.

  “I just can’t figure out why,” I said, trying to keep her talking. After all, the more she talked, the more Cookie could record. If she hadn’t hung up on me.

  Elena taking my phone worked out perfectly. I could hardly have stuck it down the front of my dress. A dress that fit like a condom. The outline would’ve shown clearly.

  Of course, I had no idea if Cookie had actually picked up. Or if she’d turned on the recorder as was standard protocol anytime I seemingly butt-dialed her. We’d used the technique once before to catch a husband in the process of trying to hire a hit man to kill his wife.

  But our approach was far from perfect. I seemed to possess some kind of disability when it came to butt-dialing people. Like the one time I butt-dialed Cookie, and she recorded an entire afternoon of me trying to learn to Jazzercise. Needless to say, she was not happy. She kept trying to figure out if I was really being attacked or if I was grunting and groaning from exertion.

  “So, how about it? Why did you kill your brother?”

  She scoffed, then raised her chin, annoyed. “Check her.”

  Taft did as ordered. He leaned forward and frisked me, running his hands up my hips and along my waist before reaching between my breasts to check for a wire there. He ran his fingers along the edges of my dress, brushing his fingers along the tops of Danger and Will, who were quite scandalized.

  With his face hidden from Elena, he let a half-second grin slip, letting me know he was having fun. Since Elena could still see my face, I couldn’t glare at him too blatantly, but I did stab him with my best scowl of annoyance.

  Satisfied, he leaned back and nodded.

  “As I was saying,” she continued, “I … I didn’t have a choice.” She looked at Taft as though she weren’t explaining to me but to him. “He’d been arrested. He’d made a deal. He was going to give the feds everything.”

  Ah. Of course. The secret meetings Judianna had told me about. The ones he’d partaken in right before she’d tried to leave him.

  “I had no choice,” she said, practicall
y pleading with Taft.

  He finally broke the stoicism and looked at her. Took hold of her chin and tilted her face up to his. “I would have done it for you, bunny. You should have come to me. But your mother can’t know.”

  She nodded and snuggled against him. Her hero. He was better than I ever gave him credit for. Brad Pitt had nothing on this guy. Besides the fact that he was Brad Pitt.

  “So, you poisoned him?”

  She didn’t answer, but how did she know Hector had made a deal?

  I began to worry there was a mole at the FBI. A mole who had tipped her off. “How do you know all of this?”

  “Hector told me.”

  Unexpected, but it made sense. If there’d been a mole, she would’ve known about Taft.

  “He came to me, crying, saying Mom would never speak to him again. Please. She would never speak to him again?” She scoffed, embittered. “He was her baby boy.” Her pretty face twisted into a sneer at the thought of him. “Her favorite from the day he was born.”

  “I take it you were older?”

  “No matter.” She looked up into the face of her one true undercover love. Poor thing. “I’m taking over soon, anyway.”

  “The family business? Mazel tov. Does your mother know?”

  Taft smiled down at her, so good he almost convinced me. If I couldn’t feel every emotion pouring out of him, I would’ve bought it, too. “She won’t know what hit her.”

  Elena’s smile turned to one of almost worship. I was certain she reserved that particular smile for when they were alone. Any woman that hungry for power would never flaunt her weaknesses so openly.

  She reached over and knocked on her window.

  The driver obeyed instantly. He pulled to the side and rolled to stop. “This is where you get out.”

  The driver had taken a side road with little to no traffic. There wasn’t another car in sight. Or house. Or animal, for that matter. The Franklin Mountains rose to the north, and the Rio Grande sat to the west.

  “Can you call me a cab?” I asked.

  That calculated smile spread again. “You won’t be needing one.”

  Uh-oh. Now it was my turn. For Taft’s sake, I had to make it good.

  I pretended to just now catch on, as though reality were finally sinking in. I straightened and looked around, fear rounding my lids.

  “You don’t have to do this,” I said. “They’ll know. Plenty of people saw me at the funeral. They saw me get in with you.”

  “What people? You mean my family and friends?”

  Pretty much. I began to pant, my gaze darting around, looking for an escape. “My car. My car is at the cemetery. They’ll find it.”

  “Your car is being taken care of as we speak.”

  No. Not Misery. She was innocent! “Taft, tell her. Tell her I can keep a secret.”

  She raised her brows at him in question.

  He scowled at me. “She’ll burn you the first chance she gets.”

  Her grin turned triumphant. “Would you mind taking care of this, sweetheart?”

  Relief flooded every cell in his body. He may have been worried she’d have the vault door up front do me. “Not at all.” He took hold of my arm and started to drag me out the door.

  I put up as much of a fight as I could without actually damaging him. I did manage a punch to the side of Elena’s face. She totally deserved it.

  Taft took a handful of my hair and slammed my head into the doorjamb, somehow managing to hit only his hand but making a loud enough thud to convince our audience that he’d knocked me out.

  I collapsed, growing listless as he continued to drag me out of the car and into the desert surrounding us. I came to just enough to help him half walk, half drag me toward an incline of rocks where no one passing by would see my body.

  “No one’s going to see me out here,” I said, pretending to plead with him.

  “That’s kind of the point.”

  “They’ll never find my body. I’ll decompose and be all icky. And my ass. What’ll happen to my ass? I mean, have you seen it?”

  He almost grinned, jerking me along with him as I slipped and stumbled. “It’s hard to miss in that dress.”

  “Right? Cookie chose it. I can barely move.”

  “I’m surprised you can breathe.”

  I stumbled again, wrenched my arm free and tried to run. He easily caught me and steered me closer to the rock barrier.

  “Cactus!” I yelled.

  He swerved.

  “Hey, did you really take out all of her men when they abducted you?”

  “Yes.” He glared at me as though I were judging him. “I didn’t have a choice, Davidson. They lived. You know, in case you’re wondering if I’ve gone totally dark.”

  “They may have lived, but will they ever walk again?”

  “Two will,” he said with a shrug. “Eventually.”

  “Who knew Davey Taft was such a badass?”

  He flinched and shoved me forward. I pretended to fall, which was hard unless I actually fell. So I fell, then turned and pleaded with him. He grabbed my arm and manhandled me to my feet quite impressively.

  “Your sister is looking for you,” I said, as we got closer and closer. “She can’t find you.”

  “What? Why?”

  “My guess? She doesn’t recognize you anymore.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you are either very good at your job or you’ve really gone bad.”

  “Good. She doesn’t need to see me like this.”

  I nodded in understanding. “You know, I can tell her it’s all a show. She’ll understand.”

  He shook his head, ashamed. But why? He was doing a bang-up job. I would totally have bought it.

  Maybe that was the problem. Maybe he enjoyed the role too much.

  “I’ll tell her you’re fine. That you’ll be back soon.”

  “That’ll work.”

  “If all went as planned, Cookie recorded that whole thing. I’ll make sure Agent Carson gets a copy.”

  “Okay, but first, run.”

  I took off again, and a gunshot pierced the air with startling clarity. I fell forward as he stalked toward me.

  “I shot you in the calf.”

  “Oh, I’m not dead yet?” I asked, surprised.

  He leaned closer to grab my arm again and took the opportunity to stuff my phone down the front of my dress. Then he recited a number, and said, “Send it there, too.”

  I fought him as he hauled me to my feet. “Whose number is it?”

  “Elena’s mother.”

  I limped along as he steered me behind the barrier of rocks so no passersby would happen to see me from a vehicle, but not so far that Elena wouldn’t see the job finished. That way, she wouldn’t have anyone check later.

  “Okay,” I said when we came to a stop. I fell to my knees in front of him and begged, getting the bizarre impression he was enjoying it. “I just need to know. Are you shooting me in my head? Because I’m not having the best hair day as it is.”

  He slid a nine millimeter out of a shoulder holster inside his jacket.

  “This is going to have to be close, hon.”

  I couldn’t believe it. He felt bad for what he was about to do. Fake kill me to save my life and probably his, too.

  Then again, maybe he wasn’t faking.

  I narrowed my eyes in suspicion.

  He grinned, aimed the gun, and said, “Say hello to my sister.”

  When he pulled the trigger, I realized he could have meant that in a couple of ways.

  The loud crack thundered against the rock wall. I jerked my head back and collapsed onto the uneven ground. My hair would never be the same.

  He fired two more times into the dirt beside my head to make sure he’d finished the job. That time I concentrated on not reacting.

  As he turned and walked off, I said softly, “Be careful, Taft.”

  He holstered his gun and kept walking.


  18

  They say it’s what’s inside that counts.

  I agree, but I’m keeping my hair appointment just in case.

  —T-SHIRT

  I waited a good ten minutes after they drove off just to make certain I wasn’t still being watched. It was a tough ten minutes. Half my face was in the dirt, being poked by all kinds of native plants. My hair covered the other half. And trying to breathe without looking like you were breathing was harder than I’d imagined. Playing dead sucked. Especially when things started crawling on me.

  All that was bad enough, but when Artemis appeared, excited I was on the ground ready to play, the whole plan turned south. Thankfully she only attempted CPR once by taking a diving leap onto my sprawled body. I grunted and finally gave up the game. Mostly because a coyote had come sniffing, trying to decide if he could dig in or if he needed to wait a while longer.

  I sat up, startling the ragged animal, and attempted to brush some of the dry desert dirt off. I scowled playfully at the gorgeous creature. “Not today, buddy.”

  He ran off a short distance, then turned back to watch me. To calculate when his next meal would keel over for good.

  After making it to a shaded boulder, I dug the phone out of my cleavage.

  I put it to my ear and asked, “Did you get all that?”

  “Charley, damn it.”

  I got that so often.

  “What the hell?” she asked, clearly relieved I was still alive. “I didn’t know what to do. It’s been an hour since the gun went off.”

  “Ten minutes.”

  “Close enough!”

  “Sorry, hon. But it was Taft. You knew I’d be okay, right?”

  “No. How could I know you’d be okay? He fired a gun. Four times.”

  “Yeah, I think he was enjoying that. Did you get the conversation?”

  She let out a long sigh, then confirmed target was acquired. God, I loved technical speak.

  “Every word. What do I do with it?”

  I looked around, ignoring the sullen god lounging on top of the rocky protrusion I’d almost died behind, and tried to figure out how I was going to get a ride back to Albuquerque.

  “At first, I was thinking Joplin, but I can’t risk all of that getting into the wrong hands. Send the whole thing to Kit with my apologies.”