Eighth Grave After Dark

by Darynda Jones

  “Are guests showing up already?” Cookie asked, panicking. “The food hasn’t arrived yet. The decorators aren’t finished. The flowers are still in the basement.”

  I considered getting up for a look, but that’s as far as it went.

  “Oh,” Amber said. “It’s just your stepmother.”

  Just when my day was going so beautifully. At least my sister, Gemma, would be with her, the silver lining to that dark cloud. My stepmother had also been coming to check on me every day. The woman who’d never lifted a finger to help me in her life, who had so little interest in me, she never glanced in my direction unless I was bleeding profusely, was suddenly vying for Mother of the Year. Gemma begged me to be patient with her. Said she was lonely after my dad’s death. Said she wanted to make amends.

  Maybe she did, but a lifetime of disdain was enough to drive anyone away. I had no interest in anything she had to offer, including an excuse for her behavior. She’d been trying to get me alone to talk to me, but I’d managed to dodge that bullet every time thus far. I just didn’t want to listen to anything she had to say.

  “And someone else is here. A black SUV.”

  I finally rolled off David Beckham to take a gander. “Special Agent Carson,” I said, a little surprised. I hadn’t seen her in months. We’d talked on the phone a few times and emailed quite a bit, but that was it.

  “Oh, the FBI woman. She’s so cool,” Amber said, her voice forlorn. “I want to be in the FBI.”

  “I thought you wanted to be a hairdresser,” Cookie said. “Or a brain surgeon.”

  “I changed my mind. I want a job where I get to carry a gun.”

  That was a scary thought. “Why?” I asked.

  “Guys dig chicks with guns.”

  “Excellent reason,” I said, giving her a high five.

  Cookie shook her head.

  “I’ll go see what’s up. Be back in a jiff.”

  “Wait!” Cookie said, ducking out of Hildie’s grip. “I’ll go, too.” She unsnapped the cape and handed it to Hildie.

  “Cook, no. It’s your wedding day, for goodness’ sake. And Hildie isn’t finished.”

  “Kit might have a case for us. I need to be there to get the lowdown. Hildie can work on Amber.” She raised her brows at Hildie, waiting for confirmation.

  Amber had decided she wanted her hair up, and Cookie was game, provided there was enough time to change the style. Apparently, there was time.

  “Okay, but as much as I love your undergarments, you’re going to need pants.”

  * * *

  Cookie and I went downstairs in our robes and pajama bottoms, leaving Amber to be pampered and primped by Hildie. Artemis bounded down the stairs right behind us as we padded across the wood floor to the front door.

  I opened it and welcomed Kit with open arms. Literally. She eyed me a long moment, then let me give her a hug, patting my back as though she didn’t know what else to do with her hands.

  “You’re very … sparkly,” she said, her voice sounding a bit like she’d sucked helium from a balloon. Probably because I was crushing her larynx.

  I didn’t hug halfway. If someone’s larynx wasn’t being crushed, I was doing it wrong.

  “Am I interrupting something?”

  I set her at arm’s length and took a moment to gaze at her. It made her even more uncomfortable. Score!

  But, truth be told, she looked really nice. Her hair had been curled, her suit fit a little tighter than usual, and she was wearing makeup. Stranger things had happened, but not many.

  “Not yet. We’re having a wedding, but not for a couple of hours.”

  She gasped. “I’m so sorry. I should have called.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, ushering her into the foyer along with another agent I’d never seen before.

  Every move I made, every step I took, was fashioned with a singular focus in mind. I had to be careful not to look at Cookie. Her hair had been only partially teased, which meant it looked like a hairball with spikes on her head. I’d studied something similar in advanced biology in high school. Knowing a virus like that existed in the world had scared me, had given me nightmares. Or it might have if I’d cared. But I was in high school. All I cared about was boys.

  Still, seeing it in person sent a tiny quiver of terror lacing down my spine. Terror that I’d burst out laughing and embarrass her. I had to force myself not to snort every time I looked her way. I had to focus. Concentrate. Channel my inner ninja. They had lots of focus.

  “What’s up?” I asked Kit as I showed them to our makeshift living room.

  I had a feeling the room had formerly been an area for silent reflection for the sisters. I could only hope God wouldn’t mind that we’d turned it into a place to entertain guests. On the plus side, we’d partied in it only once. Last night, actually. But I didn’t drink, so I was safe from any ramifications we might incur as a result of partying in a house of God. Cookie, on the other hand, was screwed six ways to Sunday. Poor kid.

  “I have something I want you to look into,” Kit said. “But just so you know, Special Agent Waters was very against my coming here.”

  I turned to the man trailing behind us. “You must be Special Agent Waters.”

  “I am,” he said, his tone brusque. The energy radiating off him fairly vibrated. He was seething underneath his starched collar. So this would be fun.

  All in all, he was very nice looking. Medium height. Slim build. Exotic coloring. His accent would suggest a local upbringing. I got the feeling that in his spare time he liked wearing feather boas and singing karaoke. But that could just be me projecting.

  “I’m sorry to hear you won’t be happy with my involvement.”

  “I just don’t think there’s anything you can do. I don’t understand why we’re here.” He shot Kit a hard gaze.

  My protective instincts bucked inside me, but I smiled as graciously as I could. “Well, I hope to disappoint you.”

  I’d startled him. After a moment, he said, “If you can do what Agent Carson says you can, the last thing I’ll be is disappointed.”

  “Wonderful.” I showed them to our limited seating choices, which consisted of a couch, a chair, and a wood bench under a large, bright window. “Then we’re in agreement.”

  The moment we crossed the threshold, I stopped mid-stride, almost causing a three-person pileup behind me. But something had registered in my periphery, and I had to turn to see if my eyes were playing tricks on me.

  They weren’t.

  He was here.

  Mr. Wong was hovering in a corner of my living room, just like back at my apartment in Albuquerque. He had never moved from the corner back home in the three years I lived there. Not once. And he was already there when I’d rented the apartment. I just figured he came with it as an amenity, like granite countertops or radiant heating. But now he was here. Hovering. Nose in the corner as always. Toes inches off the floor. Nothing at all had changed except his location.

  Artemis noticed him, too. Her stubby tail wagged so fast, it blurred like the wings of a bumblebee. She tugged at his pant leg. Crouched down. Barked. Rolled onto her back with a whine as I stood there, stunned. Cookie covered for me, leading our guests all the way into the makeshift living room. I wanted to cry out Mr. Wong’s name, run to him, and throw my arms around him. I’d missed him so. But doing so would probably freak out my unwitting guests.

  Agent Waters took the chair and left us womenfolk the couch. Giving up on Mr. Wong, Artemis trotted to the bench and splayed across it to get some sun. I finally forced one foot in front of the other and strolled over to join the gang. As we sat down, we once again did our best to avoid looking at Cookie. It was rather like trying to avoid the hovering ghost in the room. At least for me.

  “So, what’s up?” I asked Kit after pulling myself together. My mind had instantly jumped to a thousand different reasons Mr. Wong might be there. Departed were showing up by the truckloads, kind of like distant relatives during
the holidays. And now Mr. Wong? Why? How did he get here? How had he even found me? Like sands through the hourglass, those were the questions of my life.

  Some of them. I actually had quite a few more.

  Kit handed me a file. I shook out of my stupor, opened the file, and looked at the picture of a beautiful young girl. She had large, expressive eyes and a sweet smile.

  “Missing persons case,” Kit said. “Fourteen-year-old female. Last seen with friends at a park in Bernalillo. Her parents noticed she was missing when she didn’t come home—”

  “—from school one day,” I finished for her, scanning the file. “I saw this on the news. Faris Waters.” I looked up at Special Agent Waters and saw the resemblance immediately.

  “She’s been gone for two weeks,” he said.

  “Is she your daughter?” The anger and helplessness radiating out of him would certainly indicate that.

  “My niece.”

  I bowed my head. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry we’re wasting your time when you clearly have better things to do.”

  “Not at all,” I said, ignoring his double meaning—as in, I was wasting their time—as I thumbed through the pages, looking for the vital clues. A dark green pickup with tinted windows was seen driving through the area for hours at a time several days before Faris’s abduction. It hadn’t been seen since. “According to this, she was supposed to meet some friends to go to a party after school, but she never showed up.”

  “Her parents didn’t know anything about the party, but her texts would suggest that was her plan. A classmate was having a birthday party that Friday afternoon.”

  “I’ll need those texts and all her emails,” I said without looking up. “I’ll also need a list of her closest friends and their contact information.”

  Kit took out a memo pad and started taking notes. “You got it. I’ll get you everything we have by the end of the day.”

  Agent Waters stood and turned to look out the window. His frustration level showed in the rigid set of his shoulders.

  “Agent Waters,” Kit said, a hard edge to her voice.

  He turned back. “Why are we here? We’re wasting time. What can she do that we haven’t already done?”

  Kit stood. “Jonny, I told you. She solves cases. It’s what she does. She’s very good at it. These two ladies,” she said, pointing to both Cookie and me, “have solved cases that were considered unsolvable. They have closed three cold cases for me over the past year. They found evidence where no one else thought to look. Remember that scumbag in Alaska? That was them.”

  I was thrilled that she’d included Cookie in her praises. I couldn’t do anything without my sidekick.

  Agent Waters, or Jonny, raked the fingers of one hand through his hair. I was surprised he had any left when he was finished.

  “Now, sit down and pay attention,” Kit continued. Her tone was alarming and very curious. These two clearly had a history, especially if the glare he gave her was any evidence.

  He rounded the chair and sat back down.

  “Have you interviewed all her friends?”

  This time the glare was directed toward me. Agent Waters was taking my questions as an indication that he was incompetent. I didn’t mean that at all, but he was clearly sensitive about the case.

  “Why the guilt?” I asked him. I felt it there, weaker than the other emotions shooting out of him, but it was there nonetheless.

  “What?” He acted as though I’d slapped him.

  “You feel guilty. Why?”

  When he spoke next, he did so through gritted teeth. “Fuck you.”

  I braced for an attack. If that upset him, what I was about to say was likely to send him over the edge. “Until you explain why you feel guilty, I’m going to have to consider you a suspect.”

  Both Cookie and Kit gasped aloud. Cookie did that a lot, but Kit was normally so unflappable.

  “Charley,” Kit said as Cookie placed a hand on my arm. It was an involuntary reflex when Agent Waters stood to tower over me. Not that he was that tall, but I was sitting down. Our positions gave him a distinct advantage. I’d definitely have to go for the crotch if he swung at me. “Jonny—” She caught herself and started again. “Agent Waters was working in the field office in Dallas when this happened. He’s been there for two years.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said to her, still doing my best to egg the man on. I hadn’t been kidding. Until I knew why Jonny felt so guilty about his niece’s disappearance, I was going to have to assume he had something to do with it. “But you two have clearly had a relationship in the past. Your assessment can’t be trusted at this point in time.”

  That did it. He came unglued and I prepared for war. Then again, would he really hit a pregnant woman? He lunged forward and I felt certain he would. Reyes exploded into the room incorporeally, his heat like a nuclear blast over my skin. I held up a hand, and though it was meant for Reyes—he had a tendency to sever spines first and ask questions later—Agent Waters stopped instantly. By then, his face was mere inches from mine.

  “You are treading in unsafe waters.”

  Kit rushed between us, pushing the agent back. It was too bad, really. I wanted to see what he was capable of.

  “What are you doing?” she asked him.

  The agent turned his back on her, and Reyes dissipated only to walk up to the doorway physically and lean against the jamb. He watched Agent Waters, but I nodded my head toward Mr. Wong, trying to clue Reyes in to his presence as nonchalantly as I could. Reyes didn’t bite. He wasn’t about to let his gaze stray one iota off his target. He had the best attention span.

  Agent Waters scraped another hand through his hair, sat back down, then began to rub the palm of one hand with the thumb of the other. “This may be my fault.”

  Kit had started to sit down again, but she rose to her feet with his confession. “What do you mean?”

  He pressed his mouth together before saying, “I think she was trying to figure out who was following her.”

  “You never said anyone was following her.” She snapped up the file and thumbed through it.

  “No, I— I didn’t want my brother and his wife to know she’d come to me.”

  Kit sank back onto the couch.

  “About a month ago, she emailed me. Asked me how to tail someone. Said that there was a strange man hanging out in their neighborhood, and could I run his plates?”

  “Why isn’t that in the report?”

  “It wouldn’t have helped,” he said, his ire—and guilt level—spiking again. “She never gave me any more information than that. Just that some creepy guy was hanging out near the park she and her friends hung out at. She’s always wanted to join the FBI, and I think she was going to try to investigate this guy on her own.”

  “What did you tell her?” Cookie asked.

  “I told her—” He bowed his head. “I told her that it was illegal for me to run the plates for her. I told her to let her parents know about the man.”

  “That’s not anything to feel guilty about,” I said.

  He shook his head. “No, but she emailed me again a few days later. She said she figured out who the guy was and asked if I could come to New Mexico and arrest him.”

  “And?” Kit asked.

  “And I told her to give all the information she had to her parents and have them call the police. I told her I didn’t have time.”

  While it sounded pretty legit to me, Kit bolted out of her chair. “You selfish asshole,” she said, her jaw locked in anger. “You know how much you mean to her.”

  Like a dog being scolded, he ducked his head even lower.

  “You know how much she admires you,” Kit continued. They definitely had a past. “And you know she would do anything to get you to move back here.”

  “Exactly,” he said, raising his head at last.

  Kit let that sink in, then scoffed at him. “That’s it, isn’t it? You thought she was just doing all that to get you
to come home.”

  When he lowered his gaze again, Kit turned away from him in disgust.

  “Were you close with your niece?” I asked him.

  “Before I moved away, yes. Very.”

  The interesting part about that statement was not his emotions, but Kit’s. The rigid line of her back softened and a sorrow swept over her. Kit straightened her shoulders again, then said, “Now tell her the rest.”

  For a moment, he didn’t understand her meaning; then his gaze narrowed. “Are you kidding me?” When she didn’t answer, he asked, “What does that have to do with anything?”

  She turned back. “Either you tell her, or I will.”

  “It doesn’t mean anything, Kit. Why even bring it up?”

  She stepped closer. “A year ago, I would’ve said the same thing. Then I met Charley.”

  His gaze bounced from Kit to me, then back again.

  “Tell her.”

  “Jesus Christ.” He stood again as though unable to face me when he gave the next bit of information. “She’s been telling everyone for years, since she was about four, she’s going to die before she turns fifteen.”

  I blinked, confused. “And when does she turn fifteen?” I asked.

  The next word was spoken so softly, I almost didn’t hear it. “Tomorrow.”

  Cookie placed a hand on her chest in shock.

  Kit turned to me. “Like I said, a year ago, I wouldn’t have given her premonition a second thought.”

  “Then you met me.”

  “Something like that. Do you think it has any merit?”

  “Let’s just say, I don’t believe in coincidences.”

  “I need to get some air,” Agent Waters said. He stood and started for the door, stopping short when he came face-to-face with my husband. My angry husband. As far as he was concerned, Agent Waters had almost attacked me. The agent stopped long enough to let the full effect of Reyes’s glare make its point, then stepped past him and strode out the front door, his movements brusque and sharp.

  After he closed the door, I turned to Kit. “All right, what gives?”

  “What?” she asked.

  “I’m sensing a lot of hostility between you two. What’s going on?”

  She glanced toward the door, then said, “Jonny’s my ex.”