The Trouble With Twelfth Grave

  He shrugged. “Even if they could, why would they? I mean, demons don’t really kill people. They possess them. To be totally honest, I’m not sure they can kill someone on this plane. They use other humans to do their dirty work.”

  “You can,” I said, lifting one brow.

  “Yeah, well, I’m special. And part human, so…”

  “This does beg the question,” Garrett began, but I stopped him before he got any further.

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  “Charles—”

  “No. I just … no. Reyes is not doing this.” But even as I said the words, doubt sprang inside me.

  “It’s just something we need to consider.”

  I bowed my head, mortified at what was happening. I had to tell them everything. That this could all be my fault.

  Uncle Bob put a hand on my shoulder. “What is it, pumpkin?”

  After a long, thoughtful moment, I said, “Reyes came out of that hell dimension, as well as all those innocent souls. But I know of at least three other beings that were trapped inside.”

  “How do you know?” he asked.

  “Because I put them there. Well, two of them, at least. One was a kind of supernatural assassin named Kuur, and one was a malevolent god named Mae’eldeesahn.”

  Osh nodded. “Holy shit, I forgot about that. You didn’t feel either one come out?”

  “No. I only felt the victims of the priest. And according to legend, the priest was in there, too. He didn’t cross through me, though. I’m pretty sure he went straight down. But I just don’t know what happened to the other two, and they are supernatural beings more than powerful enough to do something like this.”

  I wasn’t so love smitten that I refused to consider the possibility Reyes was behind the deaths. We needed to consider all angles. It just hurt my heart too much to consider it for very long.

  “Have you found any kind of connection to the victims?” I asked Uncle Bob.

  “None at all. We have an accountant, a recording artist, and Mrs. Yeager, a clerk at district court. No familial connections. Nothing in their backgrounds that would even suggest they knew each other.”

  “So, the killings are either completely random, which scares the crap out of me, or there is a connection we aren’t seeing.”

  “Exactly.” Uncle Bob took a copy of the recording and dropped it into an evidence bag.

  If the murders were completely random, there would be no way to track the killer’s next move. If there was a connection, we had to find it. We had to get ahead of this.

  Just then, a woman’s screams could be heard outside. We glanced at each other, then shot out of the tiny office and through a set of glass double doors to find a distraught woman trying to push her way past the officers.

  Uncle Bob and I hurried over as an officer tried to subdue a young brunette, her expression full of terror and her emotions drowning in anguish.

  “You need to leave the area, ma’am,” the hapless officer said.

  “No! That’s my wife’s car! They said the woman who owned that car had been killed in the restroom!”

  I had to stand back as another officer joined his colleague in trying to subdue the poor woman. Her agony was so strong it wrapped around my chest in a viselike grip, squeezing the air out of my lungs. I put my hands on my knees and fought to refill them as a wave of dizziness washed over me.

  The cops finally wrestled the woman back with Uncle Bob’s help, even though a cameraman who was recording the entire altercation caused them to trip.

  “Get back,” the officer said, his voice like a razor, but it did nothing to stop the intrepid reporter and her stalwart cameraman.

  “Keep recording,” she said, her gaze glistening with the fodder she’d have for the evening news.

  And the poor woman whose wife lay dead on a convenience store’s restroom floor fought blindly, begging the officers to let her pass.

  As nonchalantly as I could, I walked over to them, put a hand on her shoulder, and let a soothing energy flow from me and into her. She calmed almost instantly, collapsing against her captors, but her face was still flushed and her saucerlike eyes still wild.

  “What’s your name?” I asked her when the officers forced her to sit on the back of an ambulance.

  The EMT checked her pulse and blood pressure and slipped an oxygen mask over her face.

  “Maya,” she said, trying to catch her breath.

  Uncle Bob sent an officer after a bottle of water, then stood beside me.

  She lowered the mask. “Is it her?” she asked, her voice pleading. “Is it Patricia?”

  “We believe so,” he said to her, and she broke down, sobbing and shaking her head.

  “No. That’s not possible. I just saw her.”

  Another woman came rushing up then and threw her arms around Maya. They looked too much alike not to be sisters. They cried together while Ubie questioned a couple more potential witnesses. But I needed to know why this woman was attacked. If it were human and random, that was one thing. But supernatural and random was a completely different situation.

  After a while, Maya had calmed down enough for me to talk to her. She was still crying, and a big part of her was still in denial—she wanted to see the body to make sure—but at least she was more coherent.

  “Maya?” I asked, easing closer. “Can I ask you a couple of questions?”

  She sniffed as her sister handed her a cup of water.

  Maya had brown hair cropped short and a tattoo of SpongeBob SquarePants on her arm. She also wore strings of leather around her wrist with different charms. One had her wife’s name engraved on it.

  “Did Patricia seem anxious lately? Worried? Maybe someone was harassing her or calling and hanging up?”

  Maya shook her head. “No.” She looked at the water in her hands. “Everyone loved Patty. She was just that kind of girl, you know?”

  The sister agreed with a nod before squeezing Maya to her.

  “Why would someone do this?,” Maya continued. “She’s been through so much, but she just picked herself back up and shook it off. She was so special. She was so … unique. It’s like killing a mermaid or a unicorn. Why would someone do that?”

  I found it interesting that she used mythical creatures to describe her wife.

  “She was just so special,” she repeated, her breath hitching. “You have no idea.”

  After that, Maya broke down again and crumpled into her sister’s arms. They both sobbed, and when the ME finished with the scene and brought out the body in a body bag, it took another team of officers to keep her back. She would be able to see her, just not until after the autopsy.

  6

  I always carry a knife in my purse …

  you know, in case of cheesecake or something.

  —T-SHIRT

  Uncle Bob and Angel stayed behind to continue the investigation, but Osh, Garrett, and I left the gas station feeling even more frustrated than when we’d gotten there. Reyes had gone feral, the world was being devoured by an alternate hell dimension, and a supernatural entity was killing humans on this plane.

  We pulled behind Calamity’s in Garrett’s truck.

  “I need food,” Osh said. “And a shower.”

  “Late night?” I asked.

  “Very.”

  “You aren’t winning souls at the card tables again, are you?”

  “What?” He winked at me, then opened the door and stepped out so I could vacate the premises. Garrett was going to give him a ride home.

  “Are you going to be okay?” Garrett asked, his voice soft with concern.

  Osh scoffed. “You know she can kill you with her pinkie, right?”

  “I’ll be fine,” I said, ignoring him. “Let me know if you find out anything new.”

  “Will do, if you’ll return the favor.”

  “Of course.” I started to scoot out, but he put a hand on my arm.

  “Charles,” he said, his voice edged with warning, “that’s
the deal. We share info, right?”

  I narrowed my lids. “Right.”

  “And I don’t mean three days after the fact.”

  Ah. He was still bent about that. “So, the same day. Gotcha.”

  I gave him two thumbs-ups, then scooted across the seat and out the door. Osh offered me an encouraging grin before he climbed back in.

  “Do we need to move this up?” Garrett asked.

  We’d planned on luring Reyes into a trap the next day. Garrett had to get a few supplies first.

  “No. We’ll stick with the plan and meet up tomorrow morning.”

  “You got it,” he said.

  The truck roared away, as trucks are wont to do, and I headed around front to the outside stairs. I was just about to take said stairs, my mouth watering at the thought of a hot cup of java juice, when my friend Pari called.

  I pushed a nifty button on my phone. “Hey, Pari, what’s up?”

  “Hey, Chuck. I’ve been meaning to call. See how you were. See if you’ve managed to destroy any small countries.”

  “Hey, I’ve only destroyed parts of small countries. Never a whole one.”

  “Yeah, whatever helps you sleep at night, babe.” She was pretending to be okay. I could hear a slight tremble in her voice. Pari was not exactly the trembling sort.

  “Pari, what’s going on?”

  “Oh, not much. The usual. Could you drop by sometime today? There was a detective here.”

  Alarm shot through me. Pari had a habit of hacking government facilities. “A detective? What happened? Are you okay? Did you hack the Pentagon again?”

  “I’m fine. And no. He just had a couple of questions. You know, the usual stuff. Where were you on the night of the fifteenth between the hours of 9:00 P.M. and 4:00 A.M.? Can anyone corroborate that? Is there any particular reason you don’t want to take a polygraph test?”

  “I’ll be there in five.”

  “’Kay. Thanks.”

  I hung up, wondering if I should run upstairs and tell Cookie, but her car hadn’t been at our apartment building. I’d tell her later.

  I walked the two blocks to Pari’s shop and went in the back door. She’d prepared for my visit. Door to the public area closed. Shades on. Coffee brewed. Good girl.

  The minute I stepped inside, however, I felt it. The tremble in her voice may have been slight over the phone, but the tremble in her emotions felt like the earth shaking under my feet. Alarm rushed up my esophagus and tightened around my throat, almost cutting off my air supply, which was a rather extreme reaction to Pari’s emotional state.

  Then I realized I was mimicking her physical response to whatever had her on edge. It had to be bad. Pari was as cool as a cucumber in the Arctic. Her vocabulary didn’t include the word panic.

  I feigned nonchalance and strolled into her office. She was sitting at her desk, pretending to work in a red, sleeveless halter that showcased her ink.

  She looked up and acted surprised to see me so soon, but I felt relief flood every cell in her body.

  “Oh, hey,” she said, all sunshine and smiles.

  She stood to hug me, then gestured toward a chair. I sat across from her and took the cup she offered. She made a killer cappuccino.

  “How have you been?” I asked in lieu of moaning aloud after my first sip.

  “Good,” she lied. She sat back down, chewed at her lips for a few minutes, then stabbed me with the most serious expression I’d ever seen her wear. Not that I could see much of it from behind her dark glasses, but still.

  “I may have inadvertently murdered someone.”

  I choked softly, then questioned her with raised brows.

  “They found a body.”

  “I guess that’s better than losing one.”

  “A guy’s.”

  “Okay.”

  “The only thing he had on him was a card from my shop.”

  “Well, you do own a tattoo parlor. It’s not odd that somebody would have your card, right?”

  “Right.” She twisted her hands together. “There’s that, but I’d written my name and cell number on the back.”

  “So, you knew him?”

  “I told the cops I didn’t.”

  “You lied to them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Care to explain why?”

  “Because, like I said, I may have killed him. Well, Tre and I may have killed him. But we didn’t mean to.”

  “Then I think technically that would be manslaughter. Not murder. I’m sure they’ll understand,” I said, tossing my own lie into the conversation.

  “What? Oh, right. Manslaughter. Is it still manslaughter if it’s self-defense?”

  “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”

  She gathered her resolve in one shaky breath and plowed headlong into her story. “Well, as you know, Tre and I have been seeing each other off and on for a while now.”

  “How is Tre?” Tre was one of her artists. One of her tall, dark, delicious artists. “Still painfully gorgeous?”

  “Oh, yes. Among other things.”

  “Okay, I’m with you so far. Off and on. Painfully gorgeous.”

  “So, it was during one of our off times that I met a man named Hector Felix. Tre had gone to California to visit family for a few days when Hector comes in with a couple of his friends wanting a tattoo. A Native American symbol for prosperity. Or maybe porn. I can’t remember. Anyway, I gave him some ink that night, and he was just so charming.”

  “Aren’t they all?”

  “And thoughtful.”

  “Yep.”

  “And, well, loaded.”

  “Ah.”

  “He asked me out, and I just thought it would be nice to be taken somewhere special for once.”

  “Macho Taco not doing it for you anymore?”

  “We went out, but it didn’t take long for me to realize he was bat shit. In the most sincere sense of the term. Guy was crazy, Chuck. Certifiable. He was possessive and jealous from day one. Like he didn’t even try to hide it. You know, most of the time, the really bad ones at least put on a show at first. Make you think they won’t break into a jealous rage just for you thanking the waiter.”

  “When it’s obvious like that, it’s an entitlement thing.”

  “Makes sense. I’m not sure what came over me, why I did it, but I went out with him a second time.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “I did.”

  “You shouldn’t have.”

  “I shouldn’t have. I should have broken it off immediately.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  One dark strand fell loose from her hairband. She tucked it behind her ear. “You’ll think I’m shallow.”

  “Pari, there’s no shame in wanting something secure.”

  “Oh, no, that wasn’t it. I just wanted to drive his Lamborghini.”

  I fought a grin. “Ladies and gentlemen, the Pari we all know and love. Speed freak.”

  “It was so stupid of me. I broke it off after the second date.”

  When she mentioned the date, I felt a ripple of repulsion shudder through her. “What happened?”

  She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Bottom line: nobody leaves Hector without Hector’s permission.”

  “He actually said that?”

  “Repeatedly. He harassed me for weeks, but he didn’t do anything that the cops could trace back to him. Nothing I could call and report him for. Everything he did would have been his word against mine, and it started out small. The mirror on my car had been broken off. There were bullet holes in the plate glass windows up front. Then it all just escalated. My electricity got turned off. One of my regulars was assaulted when he left the shop. Then one day I came home to find all my clothes cut into pieces.

  “When I confronted him, he said he tried to warn me. That I could never prove a thing. And that he had a lot of friends who could attest to his whereabouts.”

  “So, you did try to report him?” Normally, filin
g a police report would be the first thing I’d tell a client to do, but this situation had gone beyond that. I grew worried there would be a police report out there with both their names on it—a.k.a. evidence.

  “No. I wasn’t born yesterday, Charley. I know how these things work. He has money and connections and shady friends. Nothing I accused him of would’ve stuck.”

  “That might be a good thing since you told the detective you didn’t know him.”

  “It was stupid, though. I should’ve told the truth. I just panicked.”

  “I’m so sorry about all this. I wish you would’ve told me.”

  “Seriously, Chuck? You had enough problems to deal with. How often does your pregnant best friend have to seek sacred ground just to stay alive?”

  “Well, there was that.”

  “Also, by the time he started harassing me, you’d forgotten all about me.”

  “What?” I stabbed her with my best horrified expression before realizing she wasn’t speaking metaphorically. I’d literally forgotten her. In my own defense, I’d forgotten everyone. “This happened during my stint in Amnesia-ville?”

  “Yes.”

  “Gawd, I’m the worst sort of friend.”

  “True. You could try to think of others occasionally.”

  “But you know, you could’ve called Uncle Bob.”

  “I didn’t want anyone else involved. By that point, I was embarrassed.”

  “You’re too hard on yourself.”

  “No, I’m too smart for that shit. I mean, money? Seriously? The guy had the personality of bulldozer. But those wheels, Chuck.” She clamped her hands at her heart. “Twenty-inch polished aluminum alloys with Brembo brakes.”

  “And some girls like diamonds.”

  She snorted. “Please. Give me a 6.5-liter V-12 with a seven-speed manual transmission over a rock any day.”

  “So, what happened?”

  “A few nights ago, he came to the shop after I’d closed. Tre was back from California, but he’d already gone home for the night. Hector, as usual, was wasted. He attacked me. Said the only way a bitch left him was in a pine box.”

  “Dude had serious abandonment issues.”

  “Among others.”

  I gave her a minute to gather her emotions. It didn’t take long.