Текст книги "Sixth Grave on the Edge"

Автор книги: Даринда Джонс

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

When I opened my eyes, Angel was doubled over with laughter. “Really?” he asked, holding his stomach. “That’s all you’ve got?”

“What?” I stomped my foot. “What am I doing wrong?”

“Do it like you do me. I know you don’t say, ‘Angel, I summon you.’”

“No, I say, ‘Angel, get your a punk ass over here.’”

“You do not.” When I raised my brows, he said, “No, really, you don’t say that, right?”

Without answering, I closed my eyes again and thought about how I summoned Angel and Artemis and even, on occasion, Reyes. I just imagined them there, summoned their energy, and brought them forth. So I thought of this kid, sought his energy, found it in the distance, a luminous glow in the darkness, and brought him forth.

I opened my eyes and before me was a scared kid, hands in pockets, a bullet hole in his chest as well as one in his pant leg. His shoulders were concave, his chin tucked in fear. And despite every attempt to the contrary, my heart went out to him.

“You were a good shot even then,” I said to the captain.

He stood and glanced around before saying warily, “What do you mean?”

“You shot him in the knee. That takes a steady hand even at close range.”

Surprise and awe washed over him. “I was aiming for his head.”

“Oh, then you kind of suck.”

“Is he—is he here?”

“Yes.”

“Did he do it?” he asked. “For certain he did it?”

“I haven’t gotten to that part yet.”

“Are you God?” Kory asked, his voice soft.

“Um, no, but I appreciate the compliment. I’m Charley.”

He nodded and studied me from head to toe.

“I need to know something, Kory. Did you assault that girl?”

“Cindy,” the captain said.

“Did you rape a girl named Cindy?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head.

“Why are you even asking him?” Angel said. “You just have to see it. He can lie to you, but your vision won’t.”

See it? “I see people’s lives when they cross. Is that what you mean? He should cross?”

“They don’t have to cross for you to see them, to see what they’ve done. Just do your thing.”

“What thing?”

“Your reaper thing. Just do it.”

I was growing very tired of being told to just do it. Angel, the captain, the Dealer, Nike. Who next? The Pillsbury Doughboy? Actually, I really liked the Pillsbury Doughboy.

“You need to be honest with me, Kory. Did you sexually assault Cindy Eckert?”

He bowed his head. “No. Maybe. I don’t know.”

“What does that mean?”

“We saw her at the park after school. She was alone on a swing and everyone told me to go talk to her, to pretend to be into her.”

“You’re not winning any brownie points here, Kory.”

“Just wait. I didn’t– I was just kidding with her.” He shoved his hands farther into his front pockets. “She told me she’d always had a crush on me, and I told her the same thing back.”

As Kory spoke, I relayed what he was saying to the captain.

“She told me she had a special room in the woods just beyond the park. She wanted to show it to me. Everyone was teasing me, telling me to go with her.”

The captain’s anger rose. “That was not in the report,” he said. “No one ever said that. According to the police, no one ever saw him with her.”

“Then they lied,” I said to him. “For Kory.”

Kory kept going. “When we got there, she wanted … she wanted to show me…”

“I don’t really want the details,” I told him. “I just want to know what you did to her.”

“She started it,” he said, shame making him flinch every time he started to talk. “She rubbed me and told me to—” He stopped, unable to explain. “Then, right in the middle, she changed her mind. She told me to stop. I– I finished anyway. She didn’t really fight or anything. She just bit me. But, yes, I did it with her. She said no and I did it anyway.”

“That’s very wrong. You know that, right?”

“I didn’t mean for it to go that far. By the time she changed her mind, I was already in her. I just needed a minute. Then she killed herself. I wanted to die. I’d lied to everyone. They all thought I was so cool. Too cool to sink low enough to have sex with Cindy Eckert.”

“Because she was mentally challenged?”

After he nodded, he repeated, “She killed herself because of me.”

“And because of how she was treated afterwards.”

“Exactly, because I didn’t have the balls to confess to what I’d done.” He looked up at me then. “No one would have messed with her if I’d just told them not to. They did it thinking they were doing me a favor. Am I going to hell?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“That’s enough,” the captain said. “That’s all I needed to hear. I had to know if I got the right guy.”

“And if you hadn’t?”

“I would have gone after the right guy. But since I got him, I can get on with this. Thank you, though,” he said, tossing the entire envelope of pictures to me. “I won’t be needing those anymore.”

“Wait, how do you know I’ll hold up my end of the bargain?”

“It won’t matter. There are some things you can’t outrun. Your past is one of them. Can you ask your uncle to come in here, please?” He sat behind his desk and started straightening papers.

“Why?” I asked, suddenly suspicious.

He tapped a pile of folders until they stood in perfect alignment, just like everything else on his desk. Pristine. Orderly. Everything in its place. “I’m going to turn myself in.”

“What? Why would you do that? That was, what? Thirty years ago?”

“Thirty-five. My mother died last week. She was the only one I was protecting by keeping this secret. Now I can own up to what I’ve done and put it behind me.”

“He doesn’t need to do that,” Kory said. He crossed his arms tightly over his chest, the JV letter jacket he wore crinkling. “It won’t make any difference.” Then he brightened. “Maybe if I fix this, I can go to heaven.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think I’m supposed to make amends, but there’s just no way to do that. But maybe if I stop Cindy’s brother from making a big mistake, I can get in.”

I wanted to tell him he could probably get in anyway, but I decided not to.

“He’s a good guy, right?” Kory asked.

“Yeah, he’s a pretty good guy. Or he was until he set me up like a bowling pin on league night at the alley.” I scowled at him, but only a little, since he was taking the charges off the table. And he’d killed someone. Did I now have a moral obligation to see him brought to justice?

I was torn. On what to feel. On what to do.

Then another thought hit me. “Maybe you are paying for what you’ve done,” I said to him as he straightened yet another stack. “I mean, you help people every day, right? Maybe that is your way of paying society back.”

“But what about Kory’s family?” He stood, put his jacket on, then walked to the door to face the firing squad. “My mind’s made up, Ms. Davidson. If you won’t get your uncle, I will. It’s time this ends.”

“Do your thing,” Angel said.

“What thing?” I asked him for the bazillionth time.

“Your reaper thing. Only you know the hearts of men on earth.”

“Trust me, hon, if there is one thing I do not know, it is the hearts of men. I know they like sex. That’s about it.”

“No, I mean, humans in general. You can see their intentions, and you mark them.”

The captain opened the door, and I couldn’t help but think he was making a huge mistake. I felt it deep inside. This was wrong.

“What do I do?” I asked Angel. The captain was getting away. So to speak.

“Ask him about the dog!” Kory called out to me.

Without another thought, I called out, “What about the dog?”

He stopped, hesitated, executed a slow, military-style about-face, and waited.

I tossed a sideways glance toward Kory. “What about the dog?”

Kory shrugged. “It’s just, I don’t get why he’s so hell-bent on turning himself in for a crime he didn’t commit.”

My eyes widened. Before this got too out of hand, I stepped to the captain, grabbed his jacket sleeve, took a quick peek toward Uncle Bob, who was still talking to the psychic wannabe, and dragged the captain back inside his office.

“Just hold on,” I said, closing the door. “Kory, what are you talking about.”

He shrugged. “This is wrong. He didn’t do anything wrong. I was the stupid one.”

“In what way?”

Exhaling superfluously, he sat against the windowsill and said, “It wasn’t even his gun. It was mine. Or, well, my dad’s. I took it from his drawer. Trying to be all cool and shit once again. When Van found me—”

“Van?” I asked the captain. Even though he seemed to believe everything that was happening, my knowing that surprised him.

“When he found me, he was madder than a diamondback during roundup. He hit me and I pulled the gun on him. He just wanted me to confess. This kid who meant nothing to me. He wanted me to confess to what I’d done. When I refused, he got so mad, he was crying and shaking. He was a tiny shit.” He looked the captain up and down. “I can’t believe he turned out that big. We started fighting and my dog jumped on us. The gun just went off. Hit me square in the chest. He wanted to help me get to a hospital, but I screamed at him to leave. If my dad found out I’d taken the gun, he would’ve killed me.”

“If you were shot in the chest, how did you get that wound?” I asked, pointing to his knee.

“When I was trying to find a place in our barn to hide the gun, I was in so much pain that I got really light-headed, and I shot myself in the leg on accident. Van didn’t have anything to do with that.”

I turned to

Van

. Who named their kid Van? “I know exactly what happened,” I told him, my expression stern.

“Yeah, but his family doesn’t. I killed him. I pointed the gun—”

“That’s not the way Kory remembers it. He said you two wrestled for the gun and it went off. It was an accident.”

He looked down in thought.

“You were only seven, Captain. And it all happened very fast, I’m sure. You didn’t do this.”

“Look,” he said, clearly having made up his mind, “I’ve made up my mind.”

Nailed it.

“Nothing you say is going to change that,” he continued. “His family deserves to know what happened.”

“Screw that,” Kory said. “If he goes forward, everyone really will think I did it.”

“You did do it, Kory. You did sexually assault an innocent girl.”

He bowed his head and whispered, “Yeah, but they don’t know that. They always believed me.”

“So, it’s okay for her name to be run through the mud, but not yours?”

“What will it change? He could go to jail for something that was my stupid fault.”

I had to agree with him. Even if he didn’t go to jail, his career would be over. He was good at his job. “Give me some dirt,” I said to Kory. “I need something to blackmail him.”

The captain crossed his arms over his chest in bored contemplation.

“Dirt? I didn’t know him. He was just a scrawny kid.”

“Darn.” I looked at the captain in desperation. “I’ll help you,” I said, scanning my memory for any bit of information I could use on him. Something popped up immediately. “I’ll help you with the Loretta Rosenbaum case.”

He gave me a dubious look. “That case has been cold for a decade.”

“And I’ll warm it up. I have connections,” I said, wriggling my brows. “I can get to people you can’t.”

“Ms. Davidson—”

“Okay,” I said, raising my hands when he tried to get past me, “let’s tell all this to Uncle Bob, just like you said, and get his opinion. Just hear him out, yes?”

He nodded. “I’m going to tell him either way. I would prefer that he arrest me instead of Marsh. Marsh is a dick.”

I almost chuckled at his reference to a detective nobody in the office liked. Poor guy. “I agree.”

I stepped out and waved Ubie over to us. The fake psychic was gone, and though I was dying to ask him about her, I had bigger fish to can.

16

Danger: Attitude subject to change without notice.

—T-SHIRT

Uncle Bob had been distant when he walked in and was even more so now. It was very, very unlike him. We explained the entire situation, even the part where Captain Eckert manufactured evidence and the fact that he knew my deepest, darkest secret. Well, okay, not

that

deepest, darkest secret, but the one right next to my deepest, darkest secret. My ability to communicate with the departed. If only they knew why.

Uncle Bob listened with a quiet resolve, his poker face excellently placed and maintained throughout, and then he said the unthinkable: “Charley, can you leave us alone for a minute?”

I gaped at him. It was like he was speaking a foreign language—except I knew them all, so that wasn’t the best analogy. “I’m sorry?”

“The captain and me. Can you leave us alone for a minute?”

“I don’t understand.” Ubie had never asked me to leave the room. He usually argued incessantly to let me stay in every situation.

“We need to talk in private.”

“No,” I said, completely offended. “I’m in this thanks to Van over there, and I’ll stay right here, thank you very much.”

Ubie raised a hand and gestured for a uniformed officer to come in. I didn’t recognize him, but he was big and blond and big.

“Could you escort Ms. Davidson out of the building, please?”

I balked. “It’s—it’s that fake psychic chick, isn’t it? You think she’s going to solve cases for you? She’s as fake as your hairline.”

Ubie scowled at me. I scowled back, all the way to the front door of the station, where I proceeded to wrench free from the officer and brush myself off. “That was so uncalled for,” I said to him. He stood there and watched me go.

My phone rang when I got to Misery.

“Are you okay?” Cookie asked.

“Yes. I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound fine.”

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound fine.”

“I’m so not fine!” I said, collapsing into a blob of sniffling nerves. “Something is up with Uncle Bob. I think he’s … he’s mad at me.”

Cookie gasped. “Robert is never mad at you.”

“I know. I just don’t know what to think.”

“Me neither. On the bright side, you can talk it over with your therapist. Your appointment is in half an hour.”

“I can’t go to therapy. That woman needs more therapy than I do.”

“Most therapists do, hon. You still have to go. If you miss again, your sister will kill you.”

“Cook, I have a thousand cases going on at once. My life has been threatened. My apartment has been ransacked. A half-human, half-demon stole a priceless dagger from me and won’t return it until he gets together with Swopes so they can talk prophecies. And I was just almost arrested for drug possession and kiddie porn.”

“Your sister won’t care.”

“My sister is at a conference in D.C.”

“And you think that would stop her?”

I changed lanes to head back the direction I’d come. “Fine. I’ll go.”

“Good girl. We need coffee and creamer at the office.”

“Okay.”

“And I need an orange bra and a tennis racket. It’s a new home-defense thing.”

“Okay.”

“And I thought about having sex with Garrett on my desk.”

“Okay. But really, why do you think Ubie is mad at me?”

“I don’t know, hon. He adores you. He’ll get over it.”

“He even called in a fake psychic. When he has me! You’re going to do what, where, and with whom?”

“Just never you mind. Go to your appointment.”

“Okay.”

* * *

I sat through another pointless session of talking about my feelings when all I could think about was Uncle Bob. Hopefully, he’d talked the captain into putting his plans on hold, but I wondered if I was doing the right thing. There was still a dead kid. True, he died thirty years ago and his death was accidental, but wouldn’t his family want to know what happened to him?

I had Cookie track Garrett’s whereabouts and parked at my apartment building to walk the block and a half to the Frontier. He was sitting at a booth in the middle room of the meandering restaurant, reading the paper, a green chile burger with fries and iced tea on his table.

I sat across from him and decided to get right to the point. “What if you knew someone killed someone else decades ago, but it was more like an accident and now the person who accidently killed the other person wants to turn himself in and ruin a pristine career in law enforcement.”

He didn’t look up from his paper. “I’m assuming there’s a question in there.”

“Yeah. What would you do? What would you recommend he do?”

“It was an accident?”

“Yes,” I said, stealing a fry off his plate.

“And this was how long ago?”

“Thirty years, give or take. They were just kids. But the man has done a lot to help people. He’s a good person. If he goes forward, he’ll ruin his career and negate all the good he’s done over the years.”

“That’s a tough one. If it’s eating him alive, that tells me he probably is a good person. He can do more good in law enforcement than in jail, if he went to jail.”

“See. That’s what I was thinking, but my moral compass doesn’t always point north. You said earlier, right after I almost plummeted off that fire escape to my death, you had a condition? You scratch my back, I scratch yours.”

“And why am I scratching your back again?” he asked.

“I need you to meet with someone for me. He’s very knowledgeable and wants to work with us on all this prophecy stuff. Just do not let him talk you out of your soul. He’s really good at that.”

“I doubt he would want my soul.”

“Okay, so you have a condition as well?”

He put down the paper and took another bite of his burger. “I do, but it will be tricky.”

I shimmied down in my seat. “I like tricky. Tricky is my middle name. No, wait, that’s trouble. Trouble’s my middle name. My bad.”

“Do you remember the woman I told you about?”

I knew we would get back around to this. I’d been dying to know more. “The one who used your body then threw you away like a toothbrush you had to use to clean the toilet because you couldn’t find your scrub brush?”

“Well, yeah.”

“And then you saw her out a year later and she’d had a baby who just happened to have your eyes?”

“That’s the one.”

“No. I don’t remember you mentioning her. You should go order a sweet roll. Those are to die for. And a

carne adovada

burrito.”

His mouth thinned. “Should I order something else to drink?”

“Yes! A diet whatever. No! A mocha latte. No!” I held up my hand to put him in pause so I could think. “Yes. No. Yes, a mocha latte.”

“Are you finished?” he asked, rising to go place his order. He was really hungry.

“Yes. No! Yes. I’m good with that. I have a busy afternoon ahead of me, and I need all the energy I can get. And I need you to be my wingman.”

“This should be interesting,” he said, sauntering off like he owned the place.

By the time he got back, his fries had disappeared. It was weird.

“So, what about her?” I asked.

“Marika,” he said, scooting into the booth. “That’s the sticky condition.”

I leaned in and did my best Italian accent. “You want I should off her?” I slid my index finger across my throat in the universal gesture for murder.

“Not exactly.”

“Wait!” I said, holding up my hand before he continued. “What’s your number? I’ll keep watch for you so your food doesn’t get cold.”

He checked the receipt. “Fifty-four.”

“Got it. Okay, hit me with the sticky.”

“I need you to get samples of both Marika’s and the boy’s DNA.”

I took a long moment to stare in disbelief. He stared back, but his stare was more matter-of-fact.

“Are you insane?” I asked him at last, considering it a real possibility. “How the bloody hell am I supposed to get DNA samples from them?”

He lifted a shoulder. “Not my problem.”

Making a mental note to ask my therapist how I got myself into these situations and accuse her of sucking at her job because I was clearly not getting better, I said, “Have you put any thought into how it could be done?”

“Not really. Why do you need a wingman?”

“I have to go talk to a notorious crime lord and accuse him of sending men after me and trying to put a hit out on his ex-girlfriend, who is the only witness to a murder he committed.”

“Do I have time to finish my burger?”

“I guess. But why are they called crime lords? Why not crime douche bags? Or crime asswipes? Why do they have to sound so cool?” I glanced up at the marquee. “Oh, your number’s up.”

He scooted out of the booth again. It was kind of charming.

“And hurry up before your food gets cold.”

He turned the corner and flipped me off at the same time. See? Men could multitask. I was so proud of him. Since I sat there with nothing better to do than watch the man in the next booth argue with his ketchup, I summoned Angel. I told him about my latest dilemma, gave him some rather explicit orders, then listened to him curse in Spanish before he asked if he could see me naked. When I said, “Only if you can navigate time and watch my perilous journey through my mother’s birth canal,” he vanished to do my bidding.

“Why me?” Garrett asked when he sat back down with his food.

I took a bite of his burrito. “Wow,” I said, rolling my eyes in ecstasy, “excellent choice. And why you what?”

“Why not get your boyfriend to be your wingman?”

“He’s cooking this afternoon. Sammy had to go get his cast off.” The regular cook had broken his leg trying to ski off his roof. Tequila often gave people the desire to tackle the impossible. It did not, however, make the impossible possible.

“Who’s the crime lord?”

“Phillip Brinkman.”

“The car salesman? He’s a crime lord?”

“Apparently.” I stopped and gaped at him. “Did you just take a bite of your sweet roll?”

“I paid for it.”

“And?” I took the plate and slid it out of his reach. Not really, though, because he had a ridiculous reach, which he demonstrated when he stole another bite with effortless ease. Thankfully, their sweet rolls were big enough to feed a small country.

“If Mr. Car Salesman of the Year was going to send men to my apartment carrying suppressed Glocks, the least he can do is offer me a discount on a new Porsche.”

“Should we, I don’t know, devise a plan?”

“Do you think that’s wise? I’ve always just kind of winged it.”

“No,” he said, his faux surprise chafing.

* * *

I strolled into the dealership wearing the wire Garrett had pinned to my bra between Danger and Will. Thankfully, Reyes never had to know that little fact. After pretending to browse a few minutes, and turning down a very enthusiastic salesperson, I made my way back to Phillip Brinkman’s office. The man was facing murder charges, and yet there he was at work, nary a care in the world. He was a cool one. And he looked about as much like a crime lord as my great-aunt Lillian. He looked more like an accountant with dark hair, pale skin, and eyes too large for his face.

I took a seat across from his desk. He looked up from his paperwork, a little startled. No, that was fear in his eyes. A lot startled. He’d either had too much coffee or he was expecting someone else.

He scanned the area past his office then asked, “May I help you with something?”

“You may. If you’re going to send men in black masks to my apartment and have them point a gun at my head so I’ll find your girlfriend, I suggest you pick better men.”

I’d confused him. The fear was still there, but I’d definitely confused him. Damn it. He had no idea what I was talking about.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

Back to square one. Then again, this guy was up for murder. And the men in masks wanted the whereabouts of the woman set to testify against him. That was a little more than a thin connection.

I frowned at him. Maybe if the cops had a body, it would help their case.

I leaned forward, and a wave of fear washed through him. His poker face was worse than mine. His too-large eyes rounded exponentially. “Where’s the body, Brinkman?”

“Are you a cop?”

“Depends. Would you be more likely to tell me where the body was if I were?”

“No.”

“Nope. I am not a cop. Not even a little. Now, where’s the body?”

“They’re looking for Emily?”

“Depends. Who’s Emily?”

“My girlfriend.”

“Oh! Right, then yes they are.” Fear and something painfully close to a full-on panic attack rolled out of him in waves. “Are you gonna talk or am I going to have to—?”

“Why would they go to you?” he said, interrupting. Dang it, and I had a really good threat planned. It involved fire ants, sandpaper, and a cement mixer.

I crossed my legs. “I don’t know. Maybe because I have a sign on my head that says ‘aim here.’ Or it could be because I have access to information through different sources. They must think I can get her address. But it’s WITSEC we’re talking about here. It doesn’t matter who I know, I am not getting that kind of info. You need to tell them that.”

He rubbed his mouth and kept his hand there a long moment. Sweat ran down his temples, and his stomach churned in protest to the stress.

“Look, Phillip,” I said, changing my tactics, “you made a mistake. It happens. Trying to kill your girlfriend will not rectify anything.”

He nodded. “You got one thing right,” he said absently, “I made a mistake. Lots of them, but Emily was not one of them. Is she—is she okay?”

He was genuinely concerned about her. Clearly, he had no involvement in the attempt to locate or, most likely, kill her.

“As far as I know, she’s fine, but she won’t be for much longer. If you’ll just tell me what happened, where to find the body, I can help you, Phillip.”

He grew wary. “I thought you weren’t a cop. How can you help me? Did he send you? Is this a setup?”

The word

setup

seemed to be appearing a lot lately. I shook my head. “No setup. I’m just trying to help put you away so your girlfriend can get on with her life and not have to worry about those goons trying to kill her.”

He opened his desk drawer, pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, and took a hardy swig. Hardy as in half the bottle. Because he might be more inclined to help me if he were drunk, I didn’t stop him.

“But you seem genuinely concerned about her. If you didn’t send those men, who did?”

After another swig, he wiped a shaking hand over his mouth. “You need to leave,” he said, his voice cracking.

“Oh, I get it. Watch your own back but no one else’s. Am I in any real danger?”

He scoffed. “Let’s just say you do not want to be on their naughty list.”

“What happens if I get on it?”

“Not death, if that’s what you’re worried about. But you’ll pray for it before they’re through with you. This has just gotten so out of hand. So much bigger than we’d planned.”

“We?” I asked, letting him take another drink before answering.

“I just wanted out.”

Now we were getting somewhere. “You’re being investigated for fraud. Is that what this is all about?”

“I’m being investigated?”

“Well, yeah, for that and murder, of course.”

He leaned back in his chair and scrubbed his face with his fingers. If anyone was in over his head, it was Phillip Brinkman. I couldn’t imagine what he’d gotten himself into. Maybe the death was self-defense or even accidental. Maybe his girlfriend was lying.

“Phillip, I can help you if you’ll let me.”

“Mr. Brinkman?” a pretty brunette said from the doorway. “Is everything okay?”

The fear I’d felt earlier came back full force. “Yes, Lois,” he said, his exterior a picture of serenity, “everything is fine.”

“Can I get you anything?”

“No. No, I’ll just be a minute.” After she left, he glared at me. “You need to leave. Now.”

“’Fraid I can’t do that. Those men are planning on killing a friend of mine if I can’t come up with your girlfriend’s whereabouts.” I hated to bring out the big guns, but he’d practically handed them to me, locked and loaded. “I need answers, Phillip, and if those men come to me again and I have nothing to give them, I’m telling them you and your girlfriend were in it together.”

“What?” he asked, appalled. “Emily has nothing to do with this.”

“Yeah, but they don’t know that. You seem to want to stay under their radar. What’ll happen if they think you two set this whole thing up?” What thing, exactly, I had no idea.

He raked his fingers through his hair.

“Just talk to me,” I said, my voice placating. “I promise you, whatever you’ve gotten yourself into, I can help you get out of it. I’m a private investigator. I have connections.”

After a very long stare into the bottle of Jack, he said, “Not here. There are eyes and ears everywhere.”

The possibility that he might actually talk to me sent a sharp thrill racing over my skin.

He wrote quickly on a piece of paper and handed it over to me. It had an address on it and the words,

Meet me here in half an hour. Alone.

I shook my head. “So I can suffer the same fate as that poor man you killed? I think not.”

He leaned over and whispered, “It’s a friend’s apartment. He’s out of town.”

“And that’s supposed to set my mind at ease?” I whispered back.

“I’ll tell you everything.”

“Meet you there in thirty.” I rose and walked out the door. When I passed by his secretary Lois’s desk, I opened up to get a full read on her. Burning curiosity was all I got. She was curious about me. She lifted her phone and pretended to text, but I was about 90 percent positive she snapped a shot of me. I’d executed that very move a hundred times, only just now realizing how fake it looked. No one texted like that. I’d have to get a new technique.

I climbed into Garrett’s truck. “Did you get all that?” I asked him.

“I did. Where we meeting him?”

“At an address on Candelaria near Lomas.”

He started his truck. “What did you get off him?”

“The more important question is what

didn’t

I get off him.” When he raised his brows in question, I said, “Guilt.”

17

Oh, my. What a lovely shade of bitch you’re wearing today.

—T-SHIRT

We waited in front of the apartment for Phillip to show. He was over fifteen minutes late, and I was beginning to worry we’d been stood up when he pulled around to the side of the building. The two of us got out and walked over to meet him. But when he spotted Garrett, he started to rethink.

He was about to get back in his car when I got to him. “This is a colleague,” I said to him, holding up my hands in surrender. “He’s also a PI and the best tracker I’ve ever met. You can tell him anything you’d tell me.”

I felt a wave of appreciation drift off Garrett. It was so much nicer than the annoyance or frustration I normally felt come off him.

“This was a mistake,” Phillip said, edging back into his car.

“I’m sorry to do this, Phillip, but I will tell those men anything they want to hear if you don’t let me in on this.” I decided to hit him with my big question and gauge his reaction. “Did you kill that man?”

He raised his chin. “Yes, I did.”

I gasped and glared at him. “You’re lying. You never murdered anyone.”

He jammed an index finger over his mouth to shush me. “Do you want the whole neighborhood to hear you? You’re going to get us all killed.”