“What?”
With a heavy sigh, I said, “I bound him, like tied him.”
He leaned toward me and asked under his breath, “Should you be telling me this?”
“Not like that.” After a backhand to his shoulder, I lowered my eyes, ashamed at what I was about to tell him. “I bound his incorporeal self to his corporeal body. He can’t leave it. He’s bound to it.”
“You can do that?”
“Apparently. It just kind of came to me.”
“Wow.”
“No, what I mean is, he’s mad.”
He paused and leveled an astonished stare on me. “What?”
“He’s kind of furious,” I said, shrugging one corner of my mouth.
Neil worked his jaw a moment, as if trying to figure out what to say. “Charley,” he said, apparently decided, “I’ve seen Reyes furious once, remember? It left an impression.”
“I know and I’m sorry. He was going to essentially commit suicide. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“So you infuriate him then send him back to prison?” he asked, his voice a harsh whisper.
I cringed. He made it sound so bad. “Pretty much.”
“Holy shit, Charley.”
“What’d she do now?”
We both looked up. Owen Vaughn, the guy who tried to maim me in high school, stood over us in his black police uniform. Shiny badge and all.
“Vaughn,” Neil said by way of a chilly greeting.
Owen tapped his badge. “Officer Vaughn,” he corrected. “I need to know what happened in that basement.”
Oh, for the love of Pete’s Dragon. “I gave my statement to Detective Davidson,” I said, challenging him with my eyes.
“Don’t you mean Uncle Bob?”
“That’s the one.”
Owen looked down the hall each way, then leaned down to me. “Would you like to know what I think of you?”
“Um, is that a trick question?”
“Never mind,” he said, straightening. “I’ll save it for a more appropriate time.” He smirked in anticipation. “Like the day I haul your ass to jail.”
As he stormed off, Neil asked, “Seriously, what the hell did you do to him?”
“You were his danged friend,” I said, throwing a palm up. “You tell me.”
Neil stuck around awhile; then Cookie showed up with food and a change of clothes. She tried to get me to go home, but I just couldn’t leave, not before knowing Reyes’s condition. Dad came and went. Gemma came and went. A doctor finally came out, his eyes weary. Reyes was in ICU, but he was doing remarkably well, all things considered. Still, I couldn’t leave. Angel showed up around dark and stayed the entire night with me. He sat on the floor beside my head as I laid claim to a small padded bench and slept as well as could be expected on a small padded bench.
Uncle Bob came back early the next morning, a little annoyed. “Why didn’t you go home?”
“’Cause.” I rubbed my eyes then my back, glancing over at Angel. “Did you stay here all night, babe?”
“Of course,” he said. “That guy over there was eyeing you the whole time.”
“Who, that man?” I asked, pointing to the guy asleep across from me. “I think he just sleeps with his eyes open like that.”
“Oh. That’s just wrong.”
“Yeah. So what’s up?” I asked Ubie.
“We’re going to Ruiz. We were granted a permit to exhume the body of one Mr. Saul Romero.”
“Oh, good. Who’s Saul Romero?”
“The guy Hana Insinga is allegedly buried under.”
“Oh, right. I knew that.”
“So, you in?”
I offered a weak shrug. “I guess. The state won’t let me see Reyes anyway.”
“Then why the hell did you stay here all night?”
I shrugged again. “Glutton. I need a shower.”
“Come on, I’ll take you. We have to pick up Cookie, anyway, and meet the sheriff up there.”
We pulled into the Ruiz Cemetery right behind Mimi and Warren Jacobs. Kyle Kirsch was already there with his father. From the crimson lining their eyes, I’d say neither got much sleep. Kyle’s mother had been picked up in Minnesota and was awaiting transport back to New Mexico. And, sadly, Hy Insinga was there as well, her face the definition of agony. My heart ached for her.
“It’s that one,” Mimi told the Mora County sheriff, pointing to Mr. Romero’s grave. “The second one on the left.”
Two hours later, a team from the Office of the Medical Investigator from Albuquerque was lifting out the twenty-year-old remains of Hana Insinga. The pain on her mother’s face was too much to bear. Grateful she had a friend with her, I went back to Ubie’s SUV and watched as Hy Insinga walked up to a trembling and sobbing Mimi, worried what the outcome of that reunion would be. They hugged each other for a very long time.
Three days later, Reyes Farrow, after showing remarkable and unexplainable improvement, was released into the care of the Penitentiary of New Mexico’s medical team. I drove to Santa Fe to see him, literally quaking in my boots as I stood in line with the other visitors, waiting my turn to be ION scanned for drug residue. But a guard pulled me out of line and told me Deputy Warden Gossett wanted to talk to me first.
“How you holding up?” Neil asked when the guard showed me into his office.
I was getting used to the organized clutter and sat across from him. “I’m good,” I said with a shrug. “Taking a little break from the PI business at the moment.”
“Is everything okay?” he asked, alarmed.
“Oh, yeah. Just nothing too pressing. So what’s up? Can I see him, or is he still in the medical unit?”
Neil glanced down before answering. “I wanted to tell you this myself instead of them telling you in the visitation area.”
My heart lurched in my chest. “Did something happen? Is Reyes okay?”
“He’s fine, Charley, but … he refuses to see you.” He tilted his head in regret. “He had the state deny your application.”
I sat in stunned silence a full minute and absorbed the meaning of what he said. A vise locked around my chest and was inching closed. My periphery darkened. I could barely breathe, and I needed out of there. “Well, I’ll be going, then.” I rose and headed for the door.
Neil rounded his desk and caught my arm. “Charley, he’ll change his mind. He’s just angry.”
I offered a smile. “Neil, it’s okay. Just … take good care of him?”
“You know I will.”
I walked out of the prison with a smile on my face and drove home fighting the suffocating weight of sorrow tooth and nail. Wetness slipped past my lashes nonetheless. It was pathetic. I contemplated my future on the way. What would life be like without Reyes Farrow in it? He could no longer separate from his body. He could no longer come to me, talk to me, touch me, save my ass every other day. After a lifetime of having him practically at my beck and call, I was alone.
By the time I pulled into my apartment complex, I realized in a most deplorable and humbling way that I was now one of those women, one of the hundreds of women who tried to see him, who tried in vain to get close. I was Elaine Oake.
I was nobody.
After trudging to my apartment, I fired up my computer and skimmed a few e-mail messages marked urgent, two from Uncle Bob. Deciding they could wait, I exited and checked my fake e-mail while making up excuses to hit the sack at 11 in the A.M. I wanted to be productive, but lethargy sprinkled with traces of depression was calling to me. A message from Mistress Marigold popped onto the screen. It was probably the exact same message she’d sent Cookie and Garrett. Barely interested at that point — and wondering if I really needed to ever take another breath again — I clicked on the link and read it.
I’ve been waiting a long time to hear from you.
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Second Grave on the Left cd-2 Page 29
