Fifth Grave Past the Light (14 page)

Okay, that threw me. Why was I here? Oh, right. “I work here. My dad owns this bar. My office is right up there.” I pointed to the balcony that overlooked the restaurant. “Why are you here?”

She scoffed. “Like you don’t know.”

Damn. She threw me again. What the hell was I missing? I scanned the room, searching for clues, ’cause that’s how PIs rolled.

Nothing. But I could hardly let her know that.

“Okay, well, it’s been fun. Keep it in your pants, ladies.” I smiled and wiggled my fingers, walking away with as much dignity as I could muster. I hated being out of the loop. Being out of the loop was like being the only kid on the playground without an Xbox.

I took the stairs two at a time and locked my office door behind me, my mind still reeling at what I’d just done. Not with Jessica, but with Rocket and Blue. I sat behind my desk, still shaking, and covered my face with my hands, trying to force myself to calm.

How would I fix this? How would I fix my relationship with Rocket and Blue? I’d only just met Blue, and now she saw me as a bully, a monster. And just why the hell was Jess here anyway? It galled me. As immature as that was, it galled me to no end.

I powered on my iMac and checked the Bunn for coffee. There was just enough left for one cup, so I popped it in the microwave, added all the fixings, then went to work. I needed answers. First off, who owned that building? If it weren’t a Saturday night, I could prance down to the courthouse and find out, but maybe there would be something online about it. I did search after search. Nothing, though I did find a couple of very cool sites that talked about how haunted the asylum was. It talked about how people had seen a glowing light in their cameras or found an object in a different spot than where they’d left it. If they only knew.

My main worry where Rocket was concerned was what if the company that bought it demolished the asylum as well? Where would Rocket go? My walls wouldn’t hold up to the abuse that was Rocket Man and all his knowledge. I needed to find out what their plans were. If demolition was in Rocket’s foreseeable future, I’d have to figure out where to move him to. But I’d cross that suspension bridge when I came to it.

When I came up with nothing, I sat there sipping coffee and wondering about everything. Nicolette the undead. The departed women in my apartment. The fact that Kim Millar was most likely an arsonist and the additional fact that Reyes Farrow would not be happy when I turned in his sister. There had to be another way.

In the back of my mind, one other fact poked and prodded. Trying to worry about other things besides the fact that Reyes had only days to live was like trying not to look at the elephant in the room. He could die. He was slated to die. I took a deep breath and made a decision. When the time came, I would do whatever it took to stop that from happening. He was not going to die. Not on my watch.

Since there was nothing I could do about the Reyes thing for now, having no idea whom I would ask about such a thing, I focused on Kim. Her situation was the only one I had a snowball’s chance of improving. But how?

After two full hours of commiserating, I exited my offices through the front door and took the outside stairs. Knowing my luck, Jessica and her cohorts would still be in there. In the loop. Exactly where I wasn’t. Nor was I in the mood to be reminded of that fact.

I walked around the bar to my apartment building behind it and trudged up the two flights of stairs there. Dead Duff headed me off at the top. His round glasses and backwards baseball cap made me smile despite everything.

“Hey, Ch-Charley.”

“Hey, you. How’s PP?” I asked, inquiring about Mrs. Allen’s psychotic poodle, Prince Phillip.

He scowled, then caught himself. “PP’s fine. He’s not the p-problem.”

“Really? Who is?”

“It’s Mrs. Allen. I’m not sure she’s very s-stable.”

“Ya think? She believes her poodle is royalty. Seriously. How stable can she be?”

“That’s true. I decided to m-move.”

The sticky note on my door read
Ready for round two?
I pulled my lower lip in through my teeth, took the note down, and held it to my mouth. After a quick glance at Reyes’s door, I said, “That sounds logical.”

“I might move here,” he said, pointing to Cookie’s apartment.

“Oh.” That surprised me. “Well, okay, but only if you’ll spy on Cook for me.”

“Cook? Cookie? Your f-friend from the other night?”

“The very one. I’ve been a little worried about her. What do you know about women’s fashion?”

“Not much, but I g-guess I could take a look. Unless, you know, unless you have a spare room or s-something.”

Oh, my god. Was he asking to move in with me? Figures the first guy who wants to move in with me ever would be dead. “Actually, I’m full up for the moment.” I opened the door and did a Vanna to demonstrate just how full up I was. He winced when he saw the horde. I was just grateful they were staying put in my apartment and not venturing out all over God’s green earth. I’d never be able to round them all up.

And there were more than before. Maybe I’d stay the night with Cookie, too.

No, I needed to stop running and try to get some information from these women. Surely one of them out of the baker’s dozen could clue me in to what was going on. I was out of the loop even in my own abode.

“I s-see that. M-maybe I’ll just go out for a while.”

“Hey, could you talk to them?” I asked. “Figure out what’s going on?”

But his gaze had landed on Mr. Wong. His brows snapped together a microsecond before recognition sank in.

“Um, n-no, I don’t th-think I c-can.”

I couldn’t help but notice his stutter had gotten worse.

“Do you know him?” I asked, surprised.

“W-what? Him? N-no. I-I have n-no idea who th-that is.”

I took hold of his arm. “Duff, who is he?”

“I – I have to g-go.”

Was he scared? Surprised?

“Duff, wait.” I dropped my bag and bent to get it.

But I’d let go. He vanished. To my chagrin.

I stepped into my apartment, closed the door behind me, and gave Mr. Wong the once-over. “Okay, mister, who are you really?”

He didn’t move. He never moved. But how would Duff know him? Mr. Wong didn’t get out much.

I thought about paying my comely neighbor a visit. Reyes, not Cookie. Though Cookie was comely, too, in her own special way. But knowing about Kim and what I had to do, I wasn’t sure what to say to him. And he was going to die soon? I would figure out a way to break the rules, whatever they were, when the time came, but until then, having Reyes so near was wonderful.

It seemed I would be sharing a bed with a beautiful Asian woman. She sat on the far corner facing the wall. Her feet on the ground. Her palms in her lap. Her gaze distant. It seemed wrong to try to get some sleep with all these women mulling about, but I just didn’t know what to do for them. I got on my knees and checked under the bed. The pixie was still under there. Her huge blue eyes stared out at me, and I realized she was the only one who made eye contact. Who saw me.

Out of all the women, she was the youngest by far. It seemed odd to me that a serial killer would kill a child in the midst of older women. Maybe she was an accident. Or maybe he started killing them younger and younger as he went. There was just no telling.

“Hey, hon,” I said.

She scurried back, her movements haunting, her limbs working like a bug’s in the meager space.

“Sweet dreams.”

I finally lay down, my mind racing with the events of the day, and put my hand against the wall that separated my and Reyes’s apartments. Our bedrooms. His heat, scalding and soothing at the same time, leached into the wall. A comforting warmth penetrated my palm, worked its way up my arm, and spread through my entire body.

I fell asleep with only one thought on my mind: Reyes Farrow.

“I want you to know, I’m missing a
Supernatural
marathon,” Cookie said the next morning when she came over for coffee.

“It’s for the greater good, Cook. Four out of five experts agree: Gun safety trumps an eye candy fix.”

“Have they even seen the Winchester boys? Sammy and Dean’s existence proves there is a god and she is a woman.”

I laughed out loud. But she had a good point.

“It’s true,” she said, raising a saucy brow. “I read it on a poster.”

“Then it must be true. What are you doing in class today?”

“We’re going to the range this morning, then back to the classroom later. You were right. Noni’s great. And he has some great stories.”

I felt I should warn her. “You’ll hit some harder stuff this afternoon. Just think about his questions and answer honestly. Noni’s refused to sign off on only two students before because they were a bit too… eager. I think you’ll be fine.”

“Let’s get back to the harder stuff. What’s he going to ask?”

“He’s going to ask you to be honest with yourself. He’ll talk about things like regret. If you do ever have to pull your sidearm, if you ever have to kill someone, how do you think you’ll feel afterwards?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it. The odds have just been so against me actually hitting anything.”

“It’s pretty simple, really. If you fire your sidearm to protect someone you love, you won’t regret it. But if you fire it only to protect yourself, as crazy as this sounds, you’ll probably harbor a lot of guilt.”

“Why would I feel guilty protecting myself?”

“It’s something about our psyche or our genetic code. I don’t know, I think there’s a chromosome in our DNA that prevents us from using violence to protect ourselves if we have another choice. Sadly, as humans are wont to do, we are always second-guessing ourselves. As a result, we end up feeling bad about killing the guy who was going to murder us with an axe.” I shrugged. “You think we’d be okay with that.”

“Are you still being invaded?”

“Yes. How’d you guess?”

“It’s freezing in here.”

“Sorry. Dead people are so impolite.”

Amber popped her head in the door. “Can Quentin come over?”

“No!” we said simultaneously.

“Why? He doesn’t have to be back at school until tonight.”

Cookie did her mommy face. “No boys at the apartment when I’m not there, Amber.”

She rolled her eyes as only a twelve-year-old can and closed the door.

“So, what did she sign last night?” Cookie asked.

“You so very much don’t want to know.”

She cringed. “That bad?”

“Worse. Let’s just say we might should get her on the pill soon.”

“Wow.”

“Either that or we need to have her second-grade teacher investigated for solicitation. Wait, how does she know he doesn’t have to be at school until tonight?”

“Apparently, they’re texting.”

“Oh.” I could hardly blame Quentin, but he was sixteen to Amber’s twelve. True, she was a tall, exotic-looking twelve, but a twelve nonetheless. I’d have to be careful there. Offer a few well-timed death threats should he decide to take things further than just texting. “I guess that’s okay as long as there’s a
T
in front of that word and not an
S.
”

I tried calling Gemma a couple of times, then gave up and tracked her phone. Illegally. According to the app, she was at her office, which would explain why she wasn’t answering. Still, she never saw clients on a Sunday. Maybe she was in trouble. That would be my excuse when she inevitably got mad for my illegally tracking her phone.

Sure enough, when I got to her office, her Beamer was parked out back. I parked in front beside a white GMC pickup, noted the take-out bags thrown haphazardly about its interior, then let myself in with a key I had also illegally obtained. She should’ve never lent me her keys when she got pneumonia that one time. Did she not know I’d make a copy? I could hardly be held responsible for my actions when everyone around me gave me every opportunity to sink to their low expectations.

The door to her secret lab where she shrank heads was closed, so I picked up a magazine and waited. A few minutes later, she walked out the door and started when she saw me.

“Charley,” she said, closing the door behind her, “what are you doing here?”

“I came to ask you a few questions.” I looked past her. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s my office.” She blocked my view. “How did you know I was here?”

“GPS. I tracked your phone. PIs can do shit like that. That’s how we roll.”

“That’s so wrong.”

“And yet it feels so right. Why are you here on a Sunday?”

“I’m seeing a clie —”

Before she could finish, the door opened again. A tall man, broad with sandy hair, stepped through. He was a cop if his uniform was any indication.

“Charley, this is Officer Pierce.”

He held out his hand, and I immediately noticed three scars on his face. They were how I remembered him. He became a cop about the same time I became a college graduate. There was a case I was helping my uncle with, and he’d been a rookie back then.

“Charley,” he said, his mannerisms congenial. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“We’ve met, actually.” I shook his hand and immediately noticed something shady about him. He seemed agitated underneath his cool exterior.

One corner of his mouth tilted up, puckering the scars that ran across his cheek, two right below his left eye and one along his jaw, like he’d been scratched by an animal, and scratched deeply enough for the scars to be permanent. “I didn’t think you’d remember.”

“I do. You were a rookie when we met.”

“Yes, ma’am. That was some case.”

Uncle Bob had called me to the crime scene of a family who had been murdered. “It was tragic.”

He lowered his head as he thought back, then looked at Gemma. “I’ll see you next week?”

“Absolutely. Next week.”

Gemma seemed nervous. Did he scare her?

He headed toward the door.

“And,” Gemma added, “think about what we talked about.”

He looked at me as though worried I would hear something I shouldn’t. “I will, Doctor.”

After he left, Gemma led me into her secret lab. I took the couch, making myself completely comfortable.

“Do you want some coffee?” she asked.

“Seriously?”

“Right.” She walked over to her small kitchenette. “What are you doing here? Is everything okay with Dr. Romero?”

“Sure.” I straightened and leveled a death stare on her. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“What?” she asked, becoming defensive. She handed me a cup of coffee. I took it without breaking the spell of my gaze.

“What did you tell her?”

She turned suddenly, stirring her coffee. “Nothing. Why?”

“Because she seems to know an awful lot about me.”

Her shoulders tensed.

When she turned back, I was in the middle of a sip, so I had to lock my laser glare on her from behind my cup and pray I didn’t look silly.

“I told her only what she needed to know to treat you.”

I put my cup down. “Which was?”

She chewed her bottom lip a moment, then said, “I told her you were a supernatural being with special powers and that you’d try to use them to deter her treatment.” When my jaw fell open, she rushed to add, “Don’t worry. I didn’t tell her you were the grim reaper.”

“Gemma,” I said, adding a singsong whine to my voice, “now I can’t scare her. You can’t go around telling people about me.”

She sat beside me. “No, this is perfect. She is bound by confidentiality. She can’t tell anyone.”

“Unless she thinks I’m a threat.”

“That’s true. But she doesn’t. I told her that you help people and would never intentionally hurt an innocent person.”

“That makes me feel so much better. Why are you here on a Sunday?”

“Sometimes I see city employees and I try to work with their schedules.”

She was totally hiding something. I felt the air around her wobble.

“And I figured I could get some paperwork done, too,” she added.

“Are you scared of him?”

She turned back to me. “Officer Pierce? No. Why?”

That got me nowhere fast. “Fine. Who are you seeing?”

“What? No one.”

“Gem,” I said, rolling my eyes so far back, I almost seized, “you can’t lie to me.”

She put her cup down and pointed at me. “That is so unfair. Even when we were kids, you cheated.”

“Cheated?”

“Yes. You shouldn’t get to use your powers on just anyone.”

“I didn’t. You have an infinity symbol drawn on the inside of your wrist.”

“Oh.” She blushed.

“You only do that when you’re seeing someone.” She’d picked up the habit in grade school, and I quickly learned that when she started drawing infinity symbols, she was secretly in love. I couldn’t believe she still did it. She was like thirty or something. Who did crap like that? I nonchalantly covered the letters
R-E-Y-E-S
I’d drawn on my knuckles.

“I do not only do this when I’m seeing someone. I’m thinking about getting some ink. Making this permanent.” When I thinned my mouth, she caved. “Damn it. I’m not seeing him. I just would like to.”

“Bummer. Unrequited love sucks ass. So, who is this mystery idiot who clearly has no taste if he hasn’t asked you out yet?”

“No one. And you’re not meeting him. Ever.”

I placed a hand over my heart. “Are you ashamed of me?”

“Yes.”

“No.” I held up my palm. “Don’t hold back. I can take the truth.”

“I’m ashamed of you,” she said, sitting behind her desk and shuffling through papers.

“Give it to me straight.”

“I’m embarrassed to have you as a sister.”

I slammed my eyes shut. “Just be honest with me, for the love of applesauce, Gemma.”

“I’m mortified that we came from the same womb.”

“So, who’s the cop?” I asked, taking another swig of the good stuff.

She put down the paper she was studying. “I thought you knew him.”

“I met him once. On a rainy night. Our love was all-consuming for about five minutes. Then it kind of dwindled. Much like my bank account.”

She hitched one corner of her mouth. “Didn’t give you the time of day?”

“Not even when I asked nice. And I was serious. I’d forgotten my watch. What can you tell me about him?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

“How did he get those scars?”

She finally gave me her full attention. “Charley, I can’t talk about my clients.”

“Just making small talk. Holy cow. Besides, I thought he moved to Montana or something.”

She gave me her best glower. If I’d had cards to hold up, I’d give it an 8.5 with higher marks for a crisp execution.

“What’s he need a shrink for?”

After releasing a long breath, she said, “Since this is nothing you can’t get off the Internet, he had to return fire at a crime scene and an innocent man was killed in the cross fire.”

“Oh, I remember that. How’d he get the scars?”

“I don’t know.”

She was lying. Whatever. “So I have a problem.”

“Just one?” she asked. “Aren’t we being a bit unrealistic?”

“My apartment has been invaded by a plethora of departed women who seem to have been strangled by a serial killer.”

She stopped.

“They are all blond but different ethnicities and ages and such.” She wasn’t a profiler, so I didn’t go into the details much. “But they are absolutely terrified. I need to know how to get through to them. I can’t get any information from them like they are. They won’t talk to me.”

“What behaviors are they exhibiting?”

“Think the psych ward from that horror movie we snuck into in grade school.”

“Holy sh – Really?” Despite her best efforts, her face showed the horror she felt at the memory. She’d never been the same after that movie, which luckily for me made scaring the bejesus out of her all the easier. She cleared her throat and began again. “How many did you say there are?”

“About twenty. I don’t know for certain. There are more every time I look. They are completely despondent, frantic, and/or catatonic. But there is one, a young girl around seven —”

“Seven?” she asked, her face the picture of heartbreak.

“Right? Serial killers are ass-hats. Anyway, she made eye contact. Other than her, however, none of them have made any kind of connection at all. Besides the one who kept her hand on my foot all night. I nigh froze to death.”

I couldn’t miss the shiver that rushed over her. “Okay, so you need information on what happened to them?”

“Yes. I mean, why are they in my apartment?”

“Well, you are the grim reaper.”

“But none of them seem particularly interested in crossing.”

“I think your best bet is to focus on the girl who made eye contact. A child’s mind is more pliable than an adult’s. Their brains can heal in ways ours can’t. Maybe you can get through to her.”

“Okay, focus on the kid. So what do I do? She’s like a little bug, scurrying around, making scratching sounds. They all are, really.”

“What?”

A wave of fear hit me. “Well, they’re everywhere. Climbing up my walls. Clinging to the ceiling. One has discovered my shower. Do you know how difficult it is to shower with a departed woman trying to dig through a porcelain tub? It ain’t gonna happen. I tried to tell her that.” I stopped when I noticed Gemma’s face go white. I was freaking her out, but someone had to do it, damn it. “This doesn’t bother you, does it?”

“You are evil.”

“Me?”

“Wait. Are you kidding about all of this?”

“About the women? Why would I kid about something like that?” When she pressed her lips together, I said, “Oh, right, I would, but I’m not. I need to find out what happened to them so they can move on. You know, far away, out of my apartment.”

“It sounds kind of awful, Charley.”

“It is. For them. Can you imagine?”

“Does Uncle Bob have anything?”

“I heard he has an STD.”

“I mean, on the women.”

“Oh, I have no idea if they have any STDs.”

“You’re still evil. I’ll never get to sleep tonight.”

“Dude, you take industrial-strength sleeping aids.”

“And whose fault is that?” she asked, coming out of her seat and slamming a palm on her desk. Unglued would be an accurate term for her condition. It was fun to watch.

I stood, too, and pretended to get huffy. “You’re always blaming me for your inability to sleep just because I introduced you to a few departed people when we were kids. If I’d known that describing their head wounds as they stood over your bed at night would be so traumatic, I wouldn’t have done it.” When she cast me a look of doubt, I recanted my testimony. “Okay, I would have. Either way, I think you’ll be fine.” I sat back down and crossed my legs. “It’s not like knowing there were really departed people out there stunted your emotional growth or anything.”

Gemma went back to work while I pondered our sisterhood. Growing up, everyone thought I was the evil sister. I never fell for that story myself. True, I spent my days in school promising not to incite rebellion and to never again bring plastique to school – it wasn’t even real – while she was busy being her perfect little self.

Maybe a little too perfect, if you know what I mean.

After harassing Gemma for another half hour or so, I headed to Misery with several options for my Sunday. I could watch the
Supernatural
marathon and torture Cookie about it later. I could try Gemma’s methods on the kid under my bed. I could try to figure out how to save Reyes, but from what? From whom? I could go talk to Kim about her habit of setting fire to the world, but it was still early. I didn’t want to wake her, to put her on the defensive before I even had a chance to tell her my plan. Or I could try to figure out why Nicolette, the possible zombie, wasn’t dead.

Since I had a soft spot for zombies and my curiosity was killing me, I opted for plan Z.

I got a text from Cookie. Misery purred to life as I checked my phone.

I texted her back.

Then reality sank in. This was Cookie. The last time she did a Dirty Harry impersonation, she came away with a strange bra and a broken ankle.

But for the love of marinara,
I typed,
don’t shoot anyone.

Aw, she was so nice. But Nicolette’s state of aliveness was still eating at me. Maybe she was in danger and would die soon. Rocket could predict someone’s death. He knew exactly when it would happen. Maybe Nicolette had predicted her own demise and decided to visit me, the grim reaper, in advance? To what end? This was just so weird.