Текст книги "Sixth Grave on the Edge"
Автор книги: Даринда Джонс
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 18 страниц)
Closing my eyes, I ran my hand farther up the wall. The sensation of fire grew stronger as I brushed my sensitive fingertips over the texture. I let it. I welcomed it, urged it closer, absorbed it until it penetrated my skin, soaked my bones to the marrow, and pushed up my arm. It touched my neck, tingled along my cheek like a soft caress, laced across my collarbone, down over my chest and flooded my torso with a tart warmth. Danger and Will struggled against the confines of my T-shirt, their crests jutting out, the texture of the material only serving to harden them more. The friction sent a jolt of pleasure straight to my core, rippling through me, pressing down until the heat dipped low in my abdomen, until it consumed every molecule in my body.
But it was my turn. I was the mad scientist in this scenario. I wanted to do the same to him, to penetrate his body and soul the way he’d penetrated mine. I fought the unimaginable pleasure coursing through my veins and I focused. I pushed. I sent out my energy, let it glide along my nerve endings and up through my arm until it broke through the wall between us. I still couldn’t actually see Reyes, but I could sense him and feel him. I could very much feel him.
I let my energy wash over him. Let it explore the hills and valleys of his muscles as they contracted and released under my touch. I felt the smoothness of his skin, the hardness of the muscles underneath, the tautness of his abdomen. Lower and lower until I was rewarded with a telltale rush of blood.
He sucked in air through his teeth when I grazed his erection. The sense of accomplishment was heady, but I wanted more. I wanted inside him like he’d been inside me. I wanted to make him come from the inside out. I wanted to make him writhe in ecstasy. Beg for release. But he’d put up a guard. A mental block of some kind. Always wary of what I might see if he let me in.
That was hardly fair.
I sharpened my touch. Let my fingernails bite into his flesh. Coaxed and urged him to let me in. His arms were resting above his head, and he curled his hands into fists. Clenched his jaw.
“Dutch,” he said in warning.
I said nothing back. I wasn’t sure if I could. But I pushed again, opening his legs, and let my energy pulse over his body in electric waves. He threw back his head, pressing it into the pillow as his fingers became entangled in the sheets around him.
And he lowered his guard.
The moment he did, I entered him. Our energies collided in a rush of sensuous elation, the atoms pushing and pulling until the friction built to nuclear levels. He arched his back and fought me, each of us struggling to get the upper hand, to send the other over the edge first.
At the same time I was exploring him, he was exploring me. It took me a moment to realize part of what I was feeling was my own skin being caressed. My own fires being stoked. His energy brushed over me and around me and into me like liquid smoke, fusing with every particle in my body as he stirred the arousal crackling inside me. I felt his hunger, hot and urgent between my legs, raw and powerful. The air in my lungs thickened as a series of aching spasms grew stronger with each beat of my heart, siphoning me closer and closer until a white-hot orgasm burst inside me, crashing and tumbling and reeling.
I’d gotten lost in my own swelling desire, but it seemed my climax was all Reyes needed to release his own firestorm. His muscles tensed around me as I felt the sweet sting of his climax spill onto his stomach, the evidence warm on his abdomen.
I felt him claw at his sheets as the orgasm coursed through him, ebbing only for a microsecond until it spiked again in time with his racing pulse. After a few agonizing moments, it slowly ebbed, leaving only Reyes’s labored breathing in its wake. He’d had a death grip on his sheets. He disentangled his fingers and ran them over his face before covering it with one arm.
He spoke to me then, his deep voice husky, spent. “Come sleep with me.”
When I didn’t answer, again unsure if I even could, he rose to clean himself off. I could see him more clearly now, but my touch was still more sensitive in this state than my sight. Something I’d have to work on, would have to strengthen like a muscle.
I stayed with him until he crawled back into bed and dragged a sheet haphazardly over his bottom half. Then he pressed his hand against the wall, and his lids drifted shut almost immediately. Just before I left, he whispered it again. “Come sleep with me.”
But he was out. It was odd sensing everything about him and yet not actually seeing him with my eyes but only in my mind’s eye. I could suddenly understand why, when he was growing up, he never knew if I was real or not. He’d thought I was a dream. That was exactly how this felt. Dreamlike. Real and yet not real. Tangible and yet untouchable, as though he would slip through my fingers if I actually tried get hold of him. But I’d done just that. Touched him. Caressed him. Milked him until he came.
I fell asleep immersed in his essence, in his taste and texture and earthy scent. I also fell asleep with my hand against the wall, his heat warming my palm not six inches away from his.
8
Clothes? sufficient
Keys? found ’em
Coffee cup? full
Sanity? sanity?
—T-SHIRT
I woke up what seemed like seconds later to a hand over my mouth, and that’s just never a pleasant way to wake up. Alarm spiked so fierce and so fast, Reyes was there instantly, incorporeally, engulfed in his black robe. It grew like a tidal wave around me, and I heard the sing of a blade being drawn. But I didn’t know what was happening. I held up a hand to stop him, trying to gain my bearings. A man in a black ski mask stood over me, a gun in his right hand, the tip of which was lodged against my left temple. A fact that made me very uncomfortable.
Reyes growled, and I could feel his visceral need to slice through the man, to overtake him. He pushed it back. Swallowed it down. But it wasn’t easy, and his control wouldn’t last long. Which meant I didn’t have long.
I forced myself to relax, to control my reactions, and sought the intruder’s intentions. Did he want me dead? If so, I was about to unleash an enraged son of Satan on his ass. But I recognized the reason for his presence instantly. He was carrying out orders. I could feel obligation, along with a disturbing sense of enjoyment, rush through him. He was a messenger, a fact that raised the question, whom was the message from?
The man laid a piece of paper on my chest, then used that hand to clutch my throat. “You have forty-eight hours to find out where they’re keeping her or your friend dies.” He shoved into me, crushing my larynx and jamming the barrel into my temple as a warning. “And no cops.” He shoved again, pushing off me; then he was gone.
Only as he was leaving did I realize there were two of them. They bolted through my bedroom door, having no idea how close they’d come to having their spines severed.
I coughed and drew in a deep breath as Reyes’s robe disappeared. He rushed to me. “Who the fuck was that?”
I held my neck, tested my throat with a quick swallow. “I have no idea. But I’m okay.”
“Like hell you are.”
“Wait, my friend?”
Dread sent a rush of adrenaline shooting up my spine. I jumped up and ran to Cookie’s apartment. She’d locked it, thank God. I pounded on the door, then went back for my key, but she opened the door before I could find it.
“Charley!” she said, hurrying forward. “What happened?”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.” Cookie glanced around, wondering why she wouldn’t be.
“Amber,” I said a second before scrambling to Cookie’s apartment to check her room.
Cookie was right behind me, as was a flesh and blood Reyes Farrow. He’d thrown on a pair of jeans and come out of his apartment. I opened Amber’s bedroom door and turned on the light. She was sound asleep, her long dark hair tumbling over her pillow like a princess from a fairy tale.
Cookie whispered behind me. “Charley, what? What’s going on?”
I turned off the light and closed the door. “I’m so sorry, Cook. Two men just broke into my apartment.”
“Why the fu—?” Reyes began, his voice loud enough to wake Amber.
“Reyes,” I said in a breathy hiss, “not here.” He was angry with me once again. Men and their mood swings. Women had nothing on them.
I led them both back to my apartment, and the minute I closed the door, he tore into me. “What the fuck was that?”
He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and the button on his jeans had yet to be fastened, so it took me a minute to respond. “What? They threatened a friend. They said if I didn’t find some chick in forty-eight hours, my friend was dead.”
“And?” he asked, getting closer to me. His anger undulated around me, hot and pulsing.
“And if they are holding a friend of mine, I couldn’t have you severing their spines, now, could I?”
He whirled away from me with an angry growl.
Cookie was holding a hand to her chest, not sure what to make of everything. “Two men broke in?” she asked, glancing around.
“Yes. Oh! The paper.” I hurried back to my room and brought out the paper he’d practically stabbed into my chest. It was a picture of a woman with a name underneath. That was it. “Okay, I have forty-eight hours to find this woman or my friend dies.” I shrugged. “Like I only have one. Which friend?”
“I don’t know,” she said, lowering herself onto a chair. “Maybe we should call everyone we can think of. Make sure all of your acquaintances are okay. I mean, did it sound like they were actually holding a friend of yours?”
“Kind of,” I said, thinking back. “I’m not sure. It happened so fast.”
Reyes was busy pacing like a caged animal, and I couldn’t help but note the fact that he was becoming more attuned to my emotions. He’d appeared the moment alarm rose within me. It was uncanny.
“I’m sorry, hon,” I said, walking to him. “I just couldn’t take the chance. I needed to know why they were there before I sentenced them to life in a wheelchair.”
I stopped talking when I noticed the look on his face. He was still angry, but his expression had softened.
I reached up and tucked a lock of hair behind his ear. “What?”
When he spoke, his voice was hoarse, ragged. “You called me hon.”
A soft laugh escaped me. “It’s a term of endearment.”
He blinked as though he didn’t know what to think.
“Hasn’t anyone ever called you hon before? Honey? Sweetheart?”
“No.”
I wondered what his human parents had called him when he was a baby. “I bet you have, you just don’t remember.”
“You should have let me rip them to shreds.”
“That may be and I may regret that later—in fact, if my track record holds true, I’m fairly certain I will—but for now, I’m fine.”
He ran a finger down my forearm, not wanting to show too much in front of Cook, most likely.
“Shouldn’t we call the police?” Cookie asked.
“They said no cops. I’ll call Uncle Bob and fill him in tomorrow morning.”
She nodded and rose to go back to her apartment.
“Yes,” I said, following her out. “Go, get some rest.”
“Rest?” She pointed to Mr. Coffee. “You start the coffee and I’ll get dressed. We’ll start making phone calls immediately.”
God, I loved that woman.
* * *
We called every friend I’d ever had since the day I was born. Not really, but it felt like it. My friend Pari, a tattoo artist who’d been banned from computers for hacking, complained for twenty minutes that I’d woken her. After an eternity, she finally shut up long enough for me to ask her if she was being held hostage by a group of men in ski masks. Then I had to suffer through another twenty minutes of what a stupid question that was.
“It wouldn’t have seemed stupid if you really were being held hostage by men in ski masks,” I’d argued. Either way, that was the last time I’d call her at four in the morning.
By six, I was pretty much out of people that I could call friends. Not that it took me that long to go through the list. It just took that long for people to answer their phones. We had to call some repeatedly, a fact that they did not appreciate one bit.
Next time, I’d just let the bad men keep them.
Uncle Bob came over around six thirty, and we explained what had happened. He kept checking out Cookie, worried about the events but dying to know how her date went. I wasn’t about to tell him.
“I’m hitting the shower,” Reyes said, nodding to Ubie.
“Don’t hit George.” I scowled at him. His shower was magnificent. I’d named him George because he just didn’t look like a Tom, Dick, or Harry. “What did he ever do to you?”
Despite Reyes’s rocky disposition, his full mouth showed traces of a smile that reached all the way up to his sparkling mocha-colored eyes, the green and gold flecks brilliant even in the artificial light. He offered me a soft kiss, his mouth brushing across mine before he took it farther, showering tiny kisses along my cheek until he came to my ear. His warm breath stirred my hair as he whispered, “George misses you.” Then he stood and winked playfully.
But what he did next surprised everyone in the room. He bent down, kissed Cookie on the cheek, and whispered something in her ear, too. I sat stunned. That was the second time he’d kissed her cheek in as many days. After a curt nod to Ubie, he strode out the door.
“Is there something I need to know about you two?” I asked Cookie.
It took her a moment to travel back to Earth. When she did, a soft pink glow suffused her face. “He thanked me for being a good friend to you.”
I put a hand over my heart. That guy. “He can be the sweetest thing when he’s not killing demons and shit.”
“True,” she said.
The kiss affected Ubie even more than it did Cookie. I could feel a tinge of jealousy in the mix of emotions radiating out of him. Among them were insecurity, worry, and doubt. Poor guy. If he’d just ask Cookie out, all this would be over. It would only take one of them to be bold enough to make the first move. Freaking wusses.
“Yeah, I’ll go now, too,” he said, clearing his throat as he stood. “I’m going to send over a uniform—”
“Uncle Bob, you can’t. They said no police. Just find out what you can about the woman in that picture. We have lots of protection right here.”
Ubie cursed under his breath, then said, “I’ll send over a plainclothes. I know just who to send. He can be your nephew, Cookie. Do not let him leave your side.” He took a minuscule step closer to her. “Promise me.”
“Thank you, Robert. I promise.”
“I’ll come back by this evening to check on you girls.”
“Oh, well, you could,” I said, thinking ahead, “but Cookie won’t be here. She has another date. Like I said, popular.” I winked at him.
“Are you sure that’s wise?” he asked. “Considering the circumstances.”
Cookie was busy giving me the evil eye when she pasted on a smile and turned back to him. “Right, yes, I do. I almost forgot. But if you want to drop by, I could cancel.”
“Oh, no,” I said, waving a dismissive hand, “Uncle Bob wouldn’t want to ruin your evening just to come by and talk shop—right, Ubie?”
It took him a moment to force the words past his clenched teeth. “Right. No, you’re right. You go have fun.” He started for the door. “I’ll call this evening to make sure you’re okay.”
“There’s really no need,” I said to him. My sentence was followed by a slight squeak when Cookie kicked me in the shin. I waved to Ubie, then turned on her. “What are you doing?”
“What am I doing? What are you doing?”
“What do you mean what am I doing? I asked you first.”
“He was coming over,” she said, pointing toward the door. “He wanted to spend time with me.”
“BS, Cook.” I got up and took my cup to the sink. But only to rinse it out and pour a fresh cup.
“BS?”
“Yes, BS. He comes over all the time. He practically lives over here some weeks, but has that gotten you two anywhere? Are you any closer to dating? To making out on my couch? To having hot monkey sex in the bathroom stalls at the Sizzler? I think not.”
Her shoulders deflated. Slowly. Like a balloon with a tiny pinprick that made the slightest of squeaks as air escaped it. Only she didn’t squeak. “You’re absolutely right.”
“I am?” I stopped and thought about it. “That doesn’t happen very often.”
“I know. Enjoy it while it lasts.” When I gaped at her, she said, “What? Everyone knows I’m the brains of this here operation.”
She had a point. “Okay, I’m going to shower the residue of smoky back rooms and men in ski masks out of my hair.”
Cookie got up and started washing my dishes.
“Oh, no, you don’t have to do that. Please, stop.” I added a touch of melodrama to be more convincing. “Really, Cookie.”
“Okay, I’ll stop.”
“I’m just kidding. Wash away. Someone’s got to do the dishes, and God knows Mr. Wong isn’t pulling his weight.” I glared accusingly at him before heading to the bathroom.
“I’ll just wash these while Amber finishes getting ready.”
Amber, who was doing her hair at my kitchen table because Cook refused to leave her alone after our most recent adventures, protested. “I could’ve gotten ready in my own bathroom, Mom.”
“We have to get a move on,” she said, ignoring her offspring, “or you’ll be late for school again.” She quirked a quizzical brow. “It’s weird how much that annoys them.”
I shook my head, befuddled as well as I entered my bathroom and closed the door. Then and only then did I let the tremors wash through me, did I acknowledge the blurred vision and rapid heartbeat that hit me every time I thought of those men in my room, of that gun to my head. I looked in the mirror. I was better than this. I could overcome it. Fear would not take hold of me again. Not ever.
I took out my toothbrush and squeezed a line of toothpaste over the bristles. But I was shaking, and the tube caught on the bristles as it glided past. When they bounced back, they flung a speck of toothpaste in my eye. Mint-flavored toothpaste with fluoride and tooth-whitening grit and shit.
I screamed and covered my eye with both hands, falling back and knocking my Little Mermaid figurine off the shelf. “My eye!” I cried, trying to focus past the pain. “My left eye! It burns!”
Before I could regroup, the door to my bathroom was ripped open and Reyes was standing on the other side. He stood there panting, his alarm causing adrenaline to rush through him in hot waves.
“Holy mother of God,” Cookie said, her hands encased in plastic yellow gloves.
That was the exact moment I realized Reyes was as naked as the naked dead man sitting in my Jeep. And he was wet. Very, very wet.
Reyes turned to her as she gaped at him.
“Oops,” I said, realizing what I’d done. I’d practically summoned him with my screams of agony.
He just stood there like an anointed god, not even trying to cover his junk, and said, “I was in the shower.”
“How is George?” I asked, but before he could answer, we all turned slowly to the fairy princess standing behind her mother.
Amber stood with jaw dropped and eyes like saucers. Huge, happy saucers. Cookie dived toward her and attempted to cover said eyes with those big yellow gloves, but Amber was quick. She stepped to the side and easily thwarted her mother’s plans, receiving a full frontal of the son of Satan for a solid twenty seconds.
That was dangerous on any level.
I bolted into action the minute I could tear away from his perfect physique: wide shoulders, steel buttocks, and that ever-popular dip in the hip. But I had a job to do. I rushed in front of him and couldn’t miss the playful wink Reyes gave Amber as Cookie ushered her out. She blushed and giggled under a cupped hand.
“Holy crap, Reyes,” I said in my best scolding tone. “You can’t just expose yourself to twelve-year-old girls.”
Cookie hurried back in to grab her things. “That’s right,” she said, fumbling with her list of things to do for the day while trying to avoid Reyes’s sleek, naked body sparkling in front of her.
I rolled my eyes, retrieved a towel, and wrapped it around his waist. He smirked as he watched me from underneath his lashes, not bothering to help in the least.
A hopeless sigh slid through Cookie’s lips as she finally looked at him. “You’ve set the bar too high now. No one will live up to—” She gestured to all of him. “—all of that. You’ve ruined my daughter.”
“Sorry,” he said, but he wasn’t. I could tell.
A smile broke across Cookie’s face. She pointed an accusing finger at him. “No, you aren’t.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, not really.”
“Rascal,” she said before she closed the door behind her. Or tried to. It just kind of hit the doorframe and bounced back. She tried again with the same result. Then again. And again.
“Cook, it’s okay,” I said, peeling the injured door out of her hands, which were still covered in yellow rubber. “I’ll get the door.” When she nodded and started across the hall, I added, “I’ll need those gloves back.”
I examined my door. It was fine. The doorframe, however, had seen better days. “Did you do this?” I asked him. “How can I lock my door if I can’t even close it?”
“That is a problem.” He’d come up from behind and reached a long arm over my head, imprisoning me. “Guess you’ll have to stay at my place.”
I fluttered my lashes. “Or Cookie’s.”
He handed the towel back to me, a wicked expression on his face as he walked back to his apartment. Naked. All shimmery and sleek. Cookie had nailed it. Holy mother of God.
* * *
After the plainclothes got to Cookie’s apartment, I let him walk her over to the office while I sought out Misery. Cook would have a busy day with everything I’d thrown at her, and I had enough to do to keep me busy for minutes. Probably half hours.
I needed a man. A man I could push around and shout orders to like a military commander. I needed a man named Garrett Swopes. He was the only one of our group who’d visited hell. Besides Reyes, of course. I excavated my bag for the keys to Misery, which were brand-new and not like my old keys at all, and headed that way. I unlocked Misery with the fob. That was new, too. Misery had never had remote anything. She’d been old school. Stick the key in. Turn. I was surprised I didn’t have carpal tunnel with all the sticking and turning. But now, I just pushed a button. It was so
Jetsons.
I made that whirring sound every time we took off down the street.
After opening the door, I tried to climb inside. I would have succeeded, too, if an eighty-pound Rottweiler hadn’t been sitting in the driver’s seat.
“Artemis,” I said as she panted happily, her stubby tail wagging as fast as bumblebee wings flutter, “you can’t drive. The last time you drove, we almost killed a mailman.”
She whined and put a paw possessively on the steering wheel, her huge brown eyes pleading.
I leaned over and checked Mr. Andrulis. He didn’t seem to mind Artemis. I rubbed her ears. “Okay, look, I know traditionally your species and the mailman variety of my species have never really gotten along, but we can’t kill them. We can’t target them.” I was never sure if she did that on purpose or not.
She let out a loud bark, indicating something just over my shoulder. I let my gaze wander in that direction and realized we had company. A man in his early thirties dressed in a gray hoodie and fatigues stood watching us. Well, me, since he couldn’t see Artemis.
I nodded congenially before turning back to Artemis and saying through gritted teeth, “Seriously, girl, you have to move.”
“I’ll wash it for you,” the guy said, taking a couple of steps forward. I’d recently had a gun to my head and wasn’t in the mood for any more shenanigans from the penis-endowed gender. I reached into a side pocket of my bag as nonchalantly as I could and wrapped my fingers around Margaret, my Glock.
“I’m sorry?”
If he was homeless, he hadn’t been for long. He was clean, his clothes almost new.
“Your Jeep. I can wash it. I have a side business.” He took another step toward me and handed me a homemade business card. It’d been printed on regular paper, then cut out with scissors. Apparently by a preschooler.
“Well, thanks, we’re good for now.”
“You wouldn’t happen to have a couple of bucks on you?” he asked, sniffing into a knit fingerless glove.
“You take a few steps back, and I’ll look.”
“Really?” he asked, excited. “Thanks.” He stepped back, and I once again excavated my purse for a wallet as I let my gaze slide past him.
I’d been having a lot of odd encounters with homeless people of late. Well, lots of my encounters with homeless people were odd. Especially the one where that guy threw a mustard burger at my windshield as I sat at a stoplight. I didn’t even do anything to that man. He was all screaming through my plastic window.
But maybe these encounters were a sign from God. Maybe he wanted me to work with the homeless. Or, and I was thinking outside the box with this one, maybe they were all some kind of elaborate setup to take pictures of me with these people, so that they could later blackmail me into doing something illicit. Normally my thoughts wouldn’t have veered in quite that direction, but they did this time. Probably because there was a man sitting in a beige sedan parked down the street with a wide-angle camera pointed directly at me.
Oddly enough, I’d been seeing that same beige sedan a lot lately, too.
He seemed to have snapped the shots he wanted. He lowered the camera and was scrolling through the shots when I knocked on his window. Hard.
He jumped and flailed a bit at being surprised.
“Who the fuck are you?” I said, practically screaming at him. I was not going to take being set up lying down.
Of course, there was an added benefit to screaming. With any luck, it would garner the attention of anyone who happened to be close by. If he came at me, I’d have witnesses.
I took two quick seconds to scan the area. Probably something I should have done before provoking a stranger who could’ve had an AK-47 stashed in his undies, for all I knew. Luckily, there was a man taking out the garbage of a little café that sat beside Calamity’s. He paused from his task to look on with mild interest.
No Reyes, though. I guess the only thing he sensed, the thing that called him to me, was a spike in adrenaline. I tried to stay calm so as not to summon him. He’d had a busy night what with all our sexual energies colliding like atoms in the sun. And then there were the men in masks. Add to that the whole toothpaste debacle, and Reyes should be about as exhausted as I was.
I refocused on the paparazzi. “What the fuck, dude?” I yelled when he turned to put his camera on the passenger seat. He put his key in the ignition, and for some reason—my reflexes being so catlike and all—I tried to open the door. I had every intention of dragging him out by his hair and beating the truth out of him. Thankfully his door was locked, because at some point during my walk over, I lost all sense of reality. His engine roared to life, and before I could utter another curse word, he peeled out, narrowly missing my toes.
I stood stunned for a solid minute. He was not just on some mission to set me up—as he drove past, I saw his jacket in the backseat. It had a badge clipped to the pocket. He was a cop.
9
I don’t know what I’d do without coffee.
Probably 15 to 20 in the state pen.
—BUMPER STICKER
Son of a bitch.
Were the cops setting me up?
I hurried back to Misery, hoping to catch the other guy, as he was clearly part of whatever was going on—but he was gone as well. I slammed the door shut and cursed under my breath before realizing my bag was still there. The guy could so easily have taken it. Thank God for small wonders.
When I opened the door again, Artemis had moved to the backseat. She stared straight ahead, pretty as she pleased, as though she’d really wanted the backseat the whole time. “I’m sorry, girl,” I said as I climbed in. “Mr. Andrulis, I don’t usually yell and slam doors, but being surveilled in what clearly is some kind of setup makes me cranky.”
He didn’t answer and I was really starting to feel bad for the guy. He had to be chilly.
I started up Misery, let her idle a solid five seconds—which was four seconds longer than usual—then backed out of the parking lot in search of a man with an inferiority complex.
* * *
When I stopped by the bond enforcement agency Garrett Swopes most often worked out of, the receptionist told me he was on a sting to apprehend a fugitive. I asked the pretty girl, who was far too young to be working at a bond enforcement agency, where that would be.
“Oh, I can’t tell you that, Ms. Davidson,” she said, popping her gum. “My uncle would kill me. He told me so. Said he’d cut my throat in my sleep if I ever gave you any information on any of our cases.”
“Wow. That’s a little harsh. Your uncle, huh?”
“Yeah. He hired me temporarily to see if I’d work out.”
“Do you?” I asked, giving her the once-over. “I mean, you look like you do.”
She blinked, trying to grasp my meaning. “Do I what?”
“Work out.”
“Oh,” she chuckled. “Yeah, they warned me about you. But I can’t tell you where he is. You won’t get anything out of me.”
She went back to popping her gum and filing her nails, and I nodded. “I think you’ll work out just fine, honey. Swopes wouldn’t happen to be at an apartment complex on the corner of Girard and Lead, would he?”
Her mouth dropped open. “How—?”
Well, that was all I needed. “Thanks, hon. Tell your uncle hey for me.” I waved as I went out the door. Poor thing. She had all the details written in triplicate in front of her. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I could read upside down.
Hopefully she’d figure it out eventually. She’d have to learn fast if she planned on working for her uncle. He was quite the skiptracer himself in his day. He’d had a rep for having hard knuckles and a jaw made of steel. Sadly, his nose was not made of the same indestructible substance. It’d been broken more than once and sat slightly to the left of his face, but he was a cool guy.
Still, why would he tell his niece not to give me any info? We’d been friends for a long time. And I’d apologized for that whole pineapple debacle months back. He really needed to let it go. Resentment like that tended to fester. He’d get an ulcer if he wasn’t careful. That was kind of my specialty, though. Causing ulcers. Everyone had to be good at something.
