Third Grave Dead Ahead (3 page)

For the most part, he was okay. For the rest, he could bite me. But as a skiptracer, he was phenomenal and came in super-duper handy at times.

“A case, huh?” That sounded intriguing. And slightly more profitable than sitting around twiddling my thumbs. “Maybe I’ll just run over there and talk to him about it in person.”

She stopped halfway out the door and looked back at me. “It’s a quarter past four.”

A huge smile slid across my face.

Her own expression turned dreamy again. “Can I come?”

“No.” I pushed her out the door. “You have to get some sleep. Somebody has to be sane during regular office hours, and it’s not going to be me, missy.”

*   *   *

A little over fifteen minutes later, as I stood knocking on Garrett Swopes’s door in my Juicy Couture pajamas and pink bunny slippers, I realized I may have died on the way over. I was so tired, I could no longer feel life flowing through me. My fingers were numb. My lips were swollen. And my eyelids had dried to the consistency of sandpaper, their sole purpose to irritate and drive the will to survive right out of me.

Yep, I was most likely dead.

I knocked again as a shiver rippled down my spine, hoping somewhere in the back of my mind that my probable deadness wouldn’t keep me from performing my supernatural duty, which was basically to stand there while dead people who hadn’t crossed immediately after their deaths crossed through me. But as the only grim reaper this side of forever, I provided an invaluable service for society. For humanity.
For the world!

The door swung open and a grumpy skiptracer named Garrett stood glowering at me with a fury I found difficult to describe, which meant I probably hadn’t died after all. He looked like he had a hangover. When hungover, Garrett could barely see elephants, much less the departed. He managed to growl a question from between his clenched teeth. “What?”

“I need ibuprofen,” I said, my voice distant and unattractive.

“You need therapy.” It was amazing how easily I could understand him, considering he had yet to unclench his teeth.

“I need ibuprofen,” I said with a frown, in case he didn’t hear me the first time. “I’m not kidding.”

“I’m not either.”

“But I wasn’t kidding first.”

With a loud sigh, he stood back and motioned me inside the bat cave. I looked down at my bunny slippers, silently begging them to hop forward, when Garrett curled his fingers into my Juicies and eased me inside.

It helped. With the momentum I’d gained, I crossed his carpet straight to his kitchen cabinets, flipping light switches along the way.

“Do you have any idea what time it is?” he asked.

“Not especially. Where are your over-the-counter drugs?” I’d recently developed a headache. Possibly when I hit that telephone pole on the way over.

Garrett’s bachelor pad was much tidier than I’d expected. Lots of tans and blacks. I rummaged through cabinet after cabinet in search of his drug stash. Instead I found glasses. Plates. Bowls. Okay.

He stopped short behind me. “What are you looking for again?”

I paused long enough to glower. “You can’t be this slow.”

He did that thing where he pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. It gave me a chance to size him up. Mussed dark hair in need of a trim. Thick stubble along his jaw also in need of a trim. Manly chest hair also in need—

“Oh, my god!” I said, throwing my hands over my eyes and hurtling my body against the counter.

“What?”

“You’re naked.”

“I’m not naked.”

“I’m blind.”

“You’re not blind. I’m wearing pants.”

“Oh.” That was embarrassing.

He shifted his stance in impatience. “Would you like me to put on a shirt?”

“Too late. Scarred for life.” I had to tease him a little. He was so grouchy at four thirty in the morning. I went back to scouring his cabinets.

“Seriously, what are you looking for?”

“Painkillers,” I said, feeling my way past a military-issue canteen and a package of Oreos. Oreos just happen to fall under the category of brown edibles. I popped one in my mouth and continued my noble quest.

“You came all the way over here for painkillers?”

I gave him a second once-over while crunching. Other than the bullet wounds he now sported on his chest and shoulder from when I almost got him killed a couple weeks ago, he had good skin, healthy eyelashes, six-pack abs. Cookie may have been on to something. “No, I came over here to talk to you,” I said, swallowing hard. “I just happen to need painkillers at this moment in time. They in the bathroom?” I headed that way.

“I ran out,” he said, blocking my path, clearly hiding something.

“But you’re a bond enforcement agent.”

His brows snapped together. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Come on, Swopes,” I said, my voice sharp with accusation, “I know you track down drug dealers when you’re not watching
Debbie Does Dallas.
You have access to all kinds of drugs. You can’t tell me you don’t pocket a little crack here, a few prescription-strength Motrin there.”

After scrubbing his face with his fingers, he strolled to a small dining room table, pulled out a chair, and sat down. “Isn’t your sister a psychiatrist?”

I stepped into his bedroom and switched on the light. Besides the rumpled bed and clothes strewn about the room, it wasn’t bad. I hit the dresser first.

“Actually, I’m glad you’re here,” Garrett called out. “I might have a case for you.”

That was exactly why I’d come over, but he didn’t need to know that. “I’m not cleaning out your truck in search of some mysteriously lost object again, Swopes. I caught on.”

“No, a real case,” he said, a smile in his voice, “through a friend of a friend. Seems this guy’s wife went missing about a week ago and he’s looking for a good PI.”

“So why send him to me?” I asked, stumped.

“Are you finished in there?”

I’d just gone through his nightstands and was headed for the medicine cabinet in his bathroom. “Just about. Your choice of porn is more eclectic than I thought it would be.”

“He’s a doctor.”

“Who’s a doctor?” Nothing of use in his medicine cabinet. Absolutely nothing. Unless nondrowsy allergy medication could be considered a painkiller.

“The guy whose wife is missing.”

“Oh, right.”

Who on planet Earth didn’t have aspirin in the house? My head ached, for heaven’s sake. I’d nodded off on the way over to Garrett’s place and veered into oncoming traffic. The honking horns and flashing lights had me believing I’d been abducted by aliens. Thank goodness a well-placed telephone pole put a stop to that nonsense. I needed stronger coffee to keep me awake. Or maybe something else entirely. Something industrial.

I peeked around the door and asked, “Do you keep syringes of adrenaline on hand?”

“There are special programs for people like you.”

In a moment of sheer terror, I realized I couldn’t feel my brain. It was just there a minute ago. Maybe I really was dead. “Do I look dead to you?”

“Does your sister have an after-hours emergency number?”

“You’re not helping,” I said, making sure the disgust in my voice was unmistakable. “You would suck as a customer service representative.”

He unfolded himself from the chair and headed for the fridge. “Want a beer?”

I shuffled to the table and stole his seat. “Seriously?”

A brow arched into a shrug as he twisted the cap off a bottle.

“No, thank you. Alcohol is a depressant. I need these lids to stay open for days.” I pointed to them for visual confirmation.

“Why?” he asked after a long swig.

“Because when they’re closed,
he’s
there.”

“God?” Garrett guessed.

“Reyes.”

Garrett’s jaw pressed shut. Probably because he wasn’t horridly fond of Reyes or our unconventional relationship. Then again, nobody ever said consorting with the son of Satan would be easy. He set the beer on the counter and strode to his room, his movements suddenly sharp, exact. I watched him disappear—he had a nice tapering thing going on—and reappear almost instantly with shirt and boots in hand. “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”

“I came in Misery.”

“Exactly, and I think you’ve caused enough.”

“No, my Jeep. Misery? Remember her?” Sometimes people found it odd that I’d named my cherry red Jeep Wrangler Misery, but Gertie just didn’t seem to fit. “She’ll be upset if I just leave her here on a strange side street. Alone. Injured.”

He looked back at me, startled. “You wrecked your Jeep?”

I had to think about that one. “I can’t be entirely certain. There was a telephone pole, screeching tires, the strong possibility of alien life. It all happened so fast.”

“Seriously. I need your sister’s number.” He shrugged into the shirt as he hunted down his keys.

“Desperate much? Besides, you’re not my sister’s type.”

After Garrett escorted me to his truck none-too-gently, he climbed into the driver’s side and brought the vehicle to life with a roar. The engine sounded pretty good, too. I gazed out the window as we swam through Albuquerque, the night thick with an almost impenetrable darkness. The tranquil serenity didn’t help my current predicament. My scratchy lids were like lead and grew heavier and heavier with every minute that passed. Every second. Despite the discomfort, I fought with all my strength to keep them open, because this was better than the alternative: Reyes Farrow being drawn into my dreams against either of our wills, like an invisible force pulled him toward me every time I closed my eyes. And once inside my head, all our anger and inhibitions washed away into a sea of sensuality where mouths scorched and hands explored. Which sucked because we were both quite annoyed with each other.

But for him to say that I’d summoned him just didn’t make sense. I’d have to look into that one.

“How long have you been awake?”

I snapped back to Garrett and looked at my watch. Or, well, my wrist where my watch would have been had I remembered it. “Um, about thirteen days.”

He seemed to still beside me. I couldn’t be sure, though. I was drifting in and out of reality, if the little girl with the kitchen knife on his hood was any indication. I suppose she could have been a departed, but they rarely rode on hoods.

“Look, I realize you’re different than the average human,” Garrett said, his tone guarded, “but thirteen days without sleep can’t be good for anyone, not even you.”

“Probably not. Did you buy a new hood ornament?”

He glanced at his hood. “No.”

“This doctor have a name?”

He reached across my lap into the glove box and pulled out a card. “Here’s his info. He’s supposed to go to your office this morning if you make it in.”

Dr. Nathan Yost. “I’ll make it in. Is he a friend of yours?”

“Nope. He’s an asshole. But everyone else on planet Earth seems to worship him.”

“All righty, then.” I tried to stuff the card into a pocket, then realized I didn’t have any. “Hey, I left my bag in Misery.”

Garrett shook his head. “The things you say, Charles. Oh, I keep meaning to tell you, I’ve been working on a special list of things one should never say to the grim reaper.”

I chuckled. “I have so many comebacks to that, I don’t think I can pick just one.”

“I’ll start at the bottom,” he said with a grin. “Are you ready?”

I shrugged my right eyebrow. “As I’ll ever be.”

“Okay, number five,
I’m dead tired.
”

“So, it’s not a particularly long list.”

“Do you want to hear the list or not?” he asked as we pulled into the parking lot of my apartment building.

“I’m weighing my options. This list could either be a revelation of apocalyptic proportions or a complete waste of my limited brain fuel. I’m leaning toward the latter.”

“Fine, I’ll tell you the rest when you’re in a better mood. It’ll make it more suspenseful.”

“Good idea,” I said with a thumbs-up. Suspenseful, my ass.

“Nobody recognizes true talent anymore.” He escorted me upstairs. “Are you going to get some sleep?” he asked as I inched the door closed between us, leaving him in the hallway.

“Not if I can help it.” At least he’d been of some use to me. I’d made it through another hour without sleep.

Just as I closed the door and turned toward the coffeepot, he reopened it, muttered, “Lock this,” then closed it again.

I trudged back and locked the door only to hear keys jiggling in the lock about two seconds later. Either that, or I’d fallen asleep standing up again. Since Reyes hadn’t appeared to offer me an earth-shattering climax, probably not.

Cookie burst in, walked right past me, and headed straight for the coffeepot. “Did you talk to Garrett?”

I followed her. “Yep. I think there was a clown in my apartment this morning.”

“Are my pajamas that bad?” she asked, surveying the pj’s she still wore.

“No.” I blinked back to her. “A dead clown.”

“Oh. Like a departed?”

“Yes.”

“Is he gone?” she asked, glancing around in concern.

“Yes. He crossed.”

“Well, that explains the clown comment. I just thought you were being a smart-ass.”

That trip made me super sleepy. Maybe I really did need a shot of adrenaline. “Hey, I thought you were going back to bed.”

“I was, but visions of sugarplums kept dancing through my head. Sugarplums of the male variety, if you know what I mean. Speaking of which,” she said, taking a long draw on her java, “was Garrett naked?”

“Why would Garrett be naked?” I asked, carefully placing a frown on my face to camouflage the giggle bubbling up inside.

“I was just wondering if he sleeps naked.”

“I have no idea if he sleeps naked. He would hardly answer the door that way.”

She nodded in thought. “That’s a good point. Oh, crap, I have to get Amber up for school.”

“Okay, I need a shower anyway. I still smell like coffee. And I need to run by Super Dog sometime today. Don’t let me forget.” I headed for the bathroom.

“You got it. Oh,” Cookie said, pausing at the door, “I meant to tell you, I borrowed a can of coffee from the office.”