First Grave on the Right

CHAPTER 4

I was worried Demon Child would follow me to my apartment and get her freak on, so I made sure she was nowhere in sight before I climbed into Misery and hightailed it home. Just in case, though, I stormed into my apartment, tossed a quick hello to Mr. Wong, then rummaged through my entertainment center to lay out all my exorcism equipment. I kept it in my entertainment center because exorcisms were nothing if not entertaining.

And, no, I can’t actually perform one, even with my auspicious status as the grim reaper. I can only help the departed figure out why they’re still on Earth, then lure them across planes afterwards. I can’t force them to go against their will. At least I don’t think I can. I’ve never actually tried. I can, however, trick them. A few candles, a quick chant, and — voilà—exorcism du jour. The departed fall for it all the time and end up crossing despite themselves. Except Mr. Habersham down the hall. He just giggled when I tried to exorcise him. Old fart.

Despite Mr. Habersham — and, come to think of it, Mr. Wong — I loved living here. Not only does my apartment building, the Causeway, sit right behind my dad’s bar and, thus, my office, it’s also something of a local landmark.

I’ve lived here a little over three years, but when I was young — too young to know that evil existed — this old building became fused into my memory, through no fault of its own. Later, when my dad bought the bar, I stepped into the back parking lot and saw the building again for the first time in over a decade. Looking up at the intricate medieval carvings along the entrance, a rarity in Albuquerque, I stood transfixed as a montage of memories, dark and painful, rushed through me. They made my chest hurt and stole my breath, and I became obsessed with the building from that moment on.

We had a history together, a horrible, nightmarish history that involved a paroled sex offender scoping for a fix. And maybe by living here, I felt I was somehow conquering my demons. Naturally, this worked best when demons didn’t actually come to visit.

I put on a pot of coffee and headed to the bathroom to see if my eyes were as swollen as my jaw. Sobbing like a movie star in rehab was not the best beauty regimen. But I soon realized the red swelling brought out the gold in my eyes. Cool. I turned on the hot water full blast, then waited the requisite ten minutes for it to actually get hot.

And they say New Mexico has a water shortage. Not according to my landlord.

Just then, I heard Cookie, my neighbor-slash-best-friend-slash-receptionist, burst through the door, coffee cup in hand. Cookie was a lot like Kramer from Seinfeld, only not so nervous, like Kramer might have been on Prozac. And I knew she had her coffee cup in hand because she always had her coffee cup in hand. I think she had difficulties forming complete sentences without it.

“Honey, I’m home!” she yelled from the kitchen.

Yep, she had it.

“Me, too!” came another voice, soft and giggly.

I met Cookie when I moved into the Causeway. She had just moved here as well, following an ugly-ass divorce — her words — and we became instant friends. But she had a daughter, Amber, and they came as a package deal. While Cookie and I hit it off immediately, I was a little worried about the kid. I’d never taken to four-foot creatures who had the uncanny ability to point out all my flaws in thirty seconds flat. And just for the record, I can too read without moving my lips. But I was determined to win Amber over, no matter the cost. And after just one game of miniature golf, I was putty in her hands.

“I’ll be right out,” I said from the bathroom. Mrs. Lowenstein down the hall must be doing laundry, because it didn’t take long for the water to reach its usual two thousand degrees. Steam rose up around me as I splashed my face. Then I looked in the mirror and gave up once again. Thank God Dream Guy didn’t have to see me like this. I patted a towel over my eyes, then stepped back as a name glittered and formed in the condensation.

DUTCH.

My breath caught. Dutch. I hadn’t imagined it. Dream Guy, aka Reyes, aka God of Fantasies and All Things Sensual, had really said Dutch to me in the shower. Who else could it be?

I glanced around the bathroom. Nothing. I stopped and listened, but the only thing I heard was Cookie clanking around in the kitchen.

“Reyes?” I peeked behind the shower curtain. “Reyes, are you here?”

“You need a new coffeepot,” Cookie called to me. “It’s taking forever.”

I gave up the search with a sigh and ran my fingers along the path of each letter on the mirror. My hand shook. I snatched it back and, after one last sweep of the area, stepped out of the bathroom, bracing myself for the oohs and aahs my face would elicit.

“What the bloody heck in Hades for crying out…” Cookie had put the coffee cup down. She picked it up and started over. “What happened?”

“Ooh!” Amber crooned, skipping over to me for a better look. Her huge blue eyes widened as she studied my cheek and jaw. She looked like a wingless fairy, the promise of grace evident in every stride she took. She had long dark hair that fell in tangles down her back, and her lips formed a perfect bow.

I chuckled as her curiosity drew her brows together in deep concentration.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in school?” I asked.

“Fiona’s mom is picking me up this morning. We’re going on a field trip to the zoo and Fiona’s mom is a chaperone so she told Mr. Gonzalez we’d just meet the class there. Does that hurt?”

“Yep.”

“Did you hit back?”

“Nope. I was unconscious.”

“No way!”

“Way.”

Cookie pushed past her daughter and studied my jaw for herself. “Did you get checked out?”

“Yeah, by a hot blond who sat in the corner of the bar and made googly eyes at me.”

Amber giggled.

Cookie pursed her lips. “I meant by a doctor.”

“No, but a balding yet bizarrely hot paramedic said I’d be fine.”

“Oh, and he’s an expert?”

“At flirting,” I said. Amber giggled again. I loved the sound, like a tinkling wind chime in a soft breeze.

Cookie leveled a chastising motherly glare on her, then turned back to me. She was one of those women too big for the one-size-fits-all category, and resented the commie makers of such clothing wear. I once had to talk her out of bombing a one-size-fits-all manufacturing company. Other than that, she was pretty down to earth. She had black wiry hair that hung past her shoulders and lent itself nicely to her reputation as a witch. She wasn’t one, but the furtive glances were fun.

“Any coffee yet?”

Cookie gave up and checked the pot. “Seriously, this is beyond torment. This is like Chinese water torture, only less humane.”

“Mom’s going through withdrawal. We ran out of coffee last night.”

“Uh-oh,” I said, grinning at Cookie.

She sat at the counter with me as Amber rummaged through my cabinets for Pop-Tarts. “Oh, I forgot to tell you,” Cookie said, “Amber wants your dad to get a teriyaki machine so she can sing for all the lonely barflies.”

“I’m a good singer, Mom.” Only a twelve-year-old could make the word mom sound blasphemous.

I leaned into Cookie. “Does she know it’s not called—?”

“No,” she whispered.

“Are you gonna tell her?”

“No. It’s much funnier this way.”

I chuckled, then remembered Cookie’s doctor’s appointment the day before. “How’d your visit go? Any new debilitating diseases I should know about?”

“No, but I have reaffirmed my respect for lubricating jelly.”

“Fiona’s here!” Amber said, flipping her cell phone closed and rushing out the door. She rushed back in, kissed her mom on the cheek, kissed me on the cheek — the good one — then rushed back out again.

Cookie watched her go. “She’s like a hurricane on crystal meth.”

“Have you considered Valium?” I asked.

“For her or me?” She laughed and headed for the coffeepot. “I get the first cup.”

“When do you not get the first cup? So, what’d the doc say?” Cookie didn’t like talking about it, but she’d once fought breast cancer, and the breast cancer almost won.

“I don’t know,” she said with a shrug. “He’s sending me to this other doctor, some kind of guru in the medical community.”

“Really? What’s his name?”

“Dr. — Hell, I don’t know.”

“Oh, him.” I grinned. “So he’s good?”

“Supposedly. I think he invented internal organs or something.”

“Well, that’s a plus.”

She poured two cups, then plopped down beside me again. “No, I’m fine.” She stirred sugar and cream into her coffee. “I think my doc just wants to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself.”

“He’s cautious,” I said, stirring my own cup. “I like that in a person, especially one with the power of life and death at his fingertips.”

“Well, I don’t want you to worry is all. I haven’t felt this good in years. I think you keep me young.” She winked from behind her cup.

After a long sip, I asked, “Isn’t that Amber’s job?”

She snorted. “Amber takes every opportunity possible to tell me how old and uninteresting I am. ‘You’re nothing like Charley,’ she says. Repeatedly. She’s about ninety percent positive you hung the moon.”

“At least someone thinks so,” I said with a shrug of my brows.

“Uh-oh,” she said, putting her cup down. “Did you have another run-in with that hot skiptracer?”

I slumped back into my chair, annoyed that he’d even been mentioned. And in my own apartment, no less. “He’s such a jerk.”

“You did,” she said, her face brightening. She had quite the thing for Garrett. It was … disturbing. “So, spill.” She scooted closer. “What did he say? Did you two have words? A fistfight? Angry sex?”

“Ew,” I said, crinkling my nose. “Not even if he was the last hot skiptracer on Earth.”

“Then what? You have to tell me.” She grabbed my shirt collar with her free hand. I tried not to giggle. “When will you realize I live vicariously through you?”

“You do?”

“Duh.” She smoothed my collar and went back to her coffee. “I have a teenage daughter. I have no social life. No agenda that doesn’t involve the Disney Channel. And sex,” she said with a dramatic wave of her hand. “Don’t even get me started. I haven’t had sex with anything non-battery-powered in years. I need details, Charley.”

After I recovered from the non-battery-powered comment, I said, “I tried to set you up with Delivery Dave.”

“The bread guy?” She thought about it, her mouth a grim line. “I guess I could do worse.”

A chuckle escaped me, and she smiled.

“So, are you gonna tell me what happened last night?” she asked.

“Ah, yes. Last night.” I went into the whole evening with Rosie’s asshole husband, assuring her I’d gotten Rosie on the plane and safely out of the country. Then I told her about my morning with the other asshole, Garrett the skeptic skiptracer. Then I told her about my disastrous time with Elizabeth’s sister. Then I told her the best part. The Reyes part.

“So, Reyes, huh?”

“Yeah.”

She laughed. “Could you say that with a little more sigh?”

I grinned and scooped a layer of strawberry cream cheese onto a blueberry bagel, getting a serving of grains, dairy, and fruit in one shot. “The first and only time I’ve ever seen him was that night in the South Valley with Gemma.”

“What night?” Then Cookie’s eyes widened. “You mean?”

“I mean. If I’m not mistaken, it’s him.”

She knew the story. I’d only told her a dozen times. At least. As Cookie sat speechless, I thought back to what I knew about Reyes. Unfortunately, I didn’t know much.

I was a freshman in high school the one and only time I’d seen him, and my psycho sister Gemma was a senior. Ever true to form, she was trying to graduate high school a semester early so she could start college full-time, but graduating early involved a class project she was too chicken to pull off by herself. Enter Charlotte Davidson, supersister, saint, and project getter-doner.

Not, however, without complaint. Oddly, I could remember our conversation like it was moments ago. But twelve years had passed since that terrible and beautiful night. A night I would never forget.

“If you ask me,” I’d said, mumbling through the red scarf wrapped around my nose and mouth, “no class project is worth dying for, even with that whole ten-points-extra-credit thing going for it.”

Gemma turned to me and lowered Dad’s camera to push back a blond curl. The cold of December at midnight added a metallic luster to her blue eyes. “If I don’t get this credit,” she said, her breath fogging in the icy air, “I don’t graduate early.”

“I know,” I said, trying not to sound annoyed. “But seriously, if I die two weeks before Christmas, I’m totally coming back to haunt you. Forever. And trust me, I know how.”

Gemma shrugged, unconcerned, then turned back to the autofocused images of Albuquerque. Luminarias lined sidewalks and buildings, casting eerie shadows over the deserted streets. For a final on community awareness, Gemma opted to make a video. She wanted to capture life on the streets of Southside. Troubled kids in search of acceptance. Drug addicts in search of their next high. Homeless people in search of sustenance and shelter.

So far, all she’d managed to get on tape was a skateboarder wiping out on Central and a prostitute ordering a soft drink at Macho Taco.

Our curfew had come and gone and still we waited, huddled together in the shadows of an abandoned school, shivering and doing our best to be invisible. We kept getting hassled by gang members who wanted to know what we were doing there. We had a couple of close calls, and I got a couple of phone numbers, but all in all, the evening had been pretty quiet. Probably because it was thirty below out.

Just then I noticed a kid huddled under the steps of the school. He wore a semi-white T-shirt and dirty jeans. Even though he wasn’t wearing a jacket, he wasn’t shivering. The departed weren’t affected by the weather.

“Hey, there,” I said, easing closer.

He glanced up, shock plain on his young face. “You can see me?”

“Sure can.”

“No one can see me.”

“Well, I can. My name is Charley Davidson.”

“Like the motorcycle?”

“Something like that,” I said with a grin.

“Why are you so bright?” he asked, squinting.

“I’m a grim reaper. But don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it sounds.”

Fear crept into his eyes anyway. “I don’t want to go to hell.”

“Hell?” I said, sitting beside him and ignoring Gemma’s sighs of annoyance that I was once again talking to air. “Trust me, hon, if you’d been penciled in for a personal interview with evil incarnate, you wouldn’t be here now.”

Relief softened his expressive eyes.

“So, you just hanging?” I asked.

It didn’t take long to find out that the kid was a recently departed thirteen-year-old gangbanger named Angel who took a nine millimeter to the chest during a drive-by. He was the driver. His redemption, in my eyes, came when I learned that he had no idea his friend was going to try to kill the puta bitch vatos trespassing on their turf until the bullets were flying. In an attempt to stop his friend, Angel actually wrecked his mother’s car, then wrestled his friend for the gun. In the end, only one person died that night.

While I was busy lecturing Angel on the benefits of bulletproof vests, a scene in a distant window caught my attention. I stepped out of the shadows for a closer look. A harsh yellow glare illuminated the kitchen of a small apartment, but that wasn’t what got my attention. At first I wondered if my eyes were playing tricks on me. I blinked, refocused, then sucked in a deep breath as shock crept up my spine.

“Gemma,” I whispered.

Gemma’s saucy “What?” was quickly followed by a gasp. She saw it, too.

A man in a filthy T-shirt and boxers had a teenage boy pinned against a wall. The boy clawed at the man’s hand clenched around his throat as a meaty fist shot forward. It slammed into the boy’s jaw with such violent force, his head whipped back and hit the wall. He went limp, but only for a moment. His hands drifted up blindly to fend off the attack. In the span of a heartbeat, the boy’s disoriented gaze seemed to lock on to mine. Then the man hit him again.

“Oh, my god, Gemma, we have to do something!” I screamed. I ran for an opening in the chain-link fence that surrounded the school. “We have to do something!”

“Charley, wait!”

But I was already through the fence and running toward the apartment. I glanced up in time to see the man wrestle the boy onto the kitchen table.

The steps to the apartment building weren’t lit. I stumbled up them and pounded on the locked entrance door to no avail. A postage stamp window revealed a dark, deserted hallway.

“Charley!” Gemma was standing in the street outside the apartment. Because the window was set high, she had to stand back to be able to see in. “Charley, hurry! He’s killing him!”

I ran back to her, but I couldn’t see the boy.

“He’s killing him,” she repeated.

“Where did they go?”

“There. Nowhere. They didn’t go anywhere,” she said in a rush of emotion. “He fell. The boy fell, and the man—”

I did the only thing I could think of. I sprinted back to the abandoned school and grabbed a brick.

“What are you doing?” she asked as I scrambled through the fence and rushed back to her.

“Probably getting us killed,” I said as I took aim. “Or worse, grounded.”

Gemma stood back as I hurtled the brick through the kitchen window. The huge plate glass splintered but held steady for a breathless moment, as if shocked at what we’d done. Then it shattered the quiet night air with a roaring crash as shards of glass cascaded onto the sidewalk. The man appeared instantly.

“I’m calling the police, you bastard!” I tried to sound convincing enough to scare him.

His glared down at us, anger twisting his features. “You little bitch. You’ll pay for that.”

“Run!” Instinct took hold. I grabbed Gemma’s arm. “Run!”

While Gemma tried to head down the street, I dragged her toward the very apartment building we were trying to get away from.

“What are you doing?” she screeched, fear raising her voice several notes. “We need to get to the car.”

I ran for the cover of shadows. Pulling Gemma between the apartment building and a dry cleaning business, I dragged her down the narrow opening. “We can go across the arroyo. It’ll be faster.”

“It’s too dark.”

My heart pounded in my ears as I negotiated around boxes and weathered crates. The cold was no longer an issue. I felt nothing but the need to get help. To save him.

“We have to get to a phone,” I said. “There’s a convenience store across the arroyo.”

When we emerged from the passageway, another chain-link fence blocked our path.

“What now?” Gemma whined helpfully.

The dry arroyo lay on the other side, and the convenience store beyond that. I pulled her along the fence, searching for an opening. Even with a security light behind the dry cleaning shop, we slipped and stumbled along the frozen, uneven ground.

“Charley, wait.”

“We have to get help.” That single thought blinded me to all others. I had to help that boy. I had never seen anything so violent in my life. Adrenaline and fear pushed bile up to sting the back of my throat. I swallowed hard and breathed in the crisp air to calm myself.

“Wait. Wait.” Gemma’s breathless plea finally slowed my progress. “I think it’s him.”

I stopped and whirled around. The boy was on his knees beside a Dumpster, holding his stomach, his body convulsing with dry heaves. I started back. This time Gemma grabbed my arm and struggled to keep her footing as she trudged behind.

When we got to him, the boy tried to stand, but he had taken a harsh beating. Weak and shaking, he fell back onto his knees and braced a hand against the Dumpster for support. The long fingers of his other hand dug into the gravelly earth as he tried to catch his breath, gulping huge rations of cold air. He wore only a thin T-shirt and a gray pair of sweats. He must have been freezing.

With empathy tightening my chest, I knelt beside him. I didn’t know what to say. His breaths were shallow and quick. His muscles, constricted with pain, corded around his arms, and I saw the smooth, crisp lines of a tattoo. A little higher, thick dark hair curled over an ear.

Gemma raised the camera from around her neck to illuminate our surroundings. He looked up. Squinting against the light, he lifted a dirty hand to shade his eyes.

And his eyes were amazing. A magnificent brown, deep and rich, with flecks of gold and green glistening in the light. Dark red blood streaked down one side of his face. He looked like a warrior from a late-night movie, a hero who’d charged into battle despite ridiculous odds. For a moment, I wondered if I’d made a mistake and he was actually dead; then I remembered Gemma had seen him, too.

I blinked and asked, “Are you okay?” It was a stupid question, but it was the only one I could think of.

He fixed his gaze on me a long moment, then turned his head and spit blood into the darkness before looking back. He was older than I had originally thought. Perhaps even seventeen or eighteen.

He tried to stand again. I jumped up to help, but he backed away from my touch. Despite an overwhelming, almost desperate, need to assist him, I stepped aside and watched as he struggled to his feet.

“We have to get you to a hospital,” I said once he was standing.

It seemed like a perfectly logical next step to me, but he eyed me with a mixture of hostility and distrust. It would be my first real lesson on the illogic of the male population. He spit again, then started down the narrow opening we’d just come through, hugging the brick wall for support.

“Look,” I said, following him down the passageway. Gemma had a death grip on my jacket and jerked on it occasionally, clearly not wanting to follow. I pulled her along regardless. “We saw what happened. We need to get you to a hospital. Our car isn’t far.”

“Get out of here,” he finally said, his voice deep and edged with pain. With effort, he climbed onto a crate and grabbed a high window ledge. His lean, muscular body shook visibly as he tried to peer into the apartment.

“You’re going back in there?” I asked, appalled. “Are you crazy?”

“Charley,” Gemma whispered at my back, “maybe we should just leave.”

Naturally, I ignored her. “That man tried to kill you.”

He cast an angry glare at me before turning back to the window. “What part of get out of here don’t you understand?”

I admit, I wavered. But I couldn’t imagine what would happen if he went back into that apartment. “I’m calling the police.”

His head whipped around. A beautiful agility took hold of him, as if he was suddenly unfazed by the beating, and he leapt from the crates to land solidly before me.

With just enough force to let me know it was there, he placed a hand around my throat and pushed me back against the brick building. For a long moment, he only stared. A plethora of emotions flashed across his face. Anger. Frustration. Fear.

“That would be a very bad idea,” he said at last. It was a warning. A cutting desperation laced his smooth voice.

“My uncle’s a cop, and my dad’s an ex-cop. I can help you.” Heat drifted off him, and I realized he must have had a fever. Standing out in the frigid cold with only a T-shirt could not be good.

My audacity seemed to astonish him. He almost laughed. “The minute I need the help of a sniveling brat from the Heights, I’ll let you know.”

The hostility in his tone threw my determination askew, but only for a moment. I recovered and charged forward. “If you go back in there, I’m calling the police. I mean it.”

He clenched his jaw in frustration. “You’ll do more harm than good.”

I shook my head. “I doubt it.”

“You don’t know anything about me. Or him.”

“Is he your father?”

He hesitated, stared impatiently as if trying to decide how best to get rid of me. Then he made a decision. I could see it on his face.

His features darkened. He stepped closer, pressed the length of his body against mine, leaned into me, and whispered in my ear. “What’s your name?”

“Charley,” I said, suddenly afraid, too afraid not to answer. Then I tried to say Davidson, but he pulled the scarf down to see my face better, and Davidson came out as one mangled syllable that sounded more like—

“Dutch?” he asked, scrunching his brows together.

He was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. He was solid and strong and fierce. And vulnerable. “No,” I said in a whisper as his fingers drifted down and brushed intrusively over my breast. “Davidson.”

“Have you ever been raped, Dutch?”

The knowledge that he was aiming for pure, no-holds-barred shock value didn’t lessen the question’s impact. I was stunned and thoroughly terrified. I tried to resist the urge to run, tried to stand my ground, but self-preservation was a difficult thing to squelch. A quick glance at Gemma for support did little to help. My sister stood wide-eyed with mouth agape, absently holding the camera as if it still mattered, and somehow managing not to get a single moment on tape.

“No,” I answered breathlessly.

His cheek brushed across mine as his hand eased back up to lock on to my throat. To an ordinary passerby, we would look like lovers playing flirtatiously in the dark.

He forced a hard knee between mine and spread them, gaining access to my most private area. I gasped at the intimate contact as his free hand dipped between my legs, and knew instinctively I was in way over my head. I grabbed his wrist with both hands.

“Please, stop.”

He paused but kept his fingers cupped at my crotch. I put a hand on his chest and pushed gently, coaxing him off me. “Please.”

He eased back and looked into my eyes. “You’ll leave?”

“I’ll leave.”

His gaze remained locked with mine a long moment; then he raised both arms and braced them on the brick wall above my head. “Go,” he said harshly.

It wasn’t a suggestion. I ducked under his arm and ran before he changed his mind, grabbing Gemma along the way.

As we rounded the building, I turned back and stopped. He’d climbed onto a crate and was sitting atop it, staring up at the window. With a forlorn sigh, he rested his head against the wall, and I realized he wasn’t going back into the apartment. He just wanted to keep an eye on that window.

At the time, I had wondered whom he’d left inside. I found out two days later when I spoke to an angry landlady. The family in 2C had moved out in the middle of the night and stiffed her for two months’ rent and the costly replacement of a plate glass window. That whole self-preservation thing kept me from mentioning the particulars of the window. When I finally got her to stop harping about lost revenue, she told me she’d heard the old man call the boy Reyes, so Reyes it was. But the burning question was whom he’d left inside. Then the landlady told me.

A sister. He’d left a sister inside. And she had been alone. With a monster.

“I can’t believe it,” Cookie said, pulling me back to the present. “Is he, you know, dead?”

Cookie found out long ago that I could see the departed. She’s never held it against me.

“That’s what’s weird,” I said. “I just don’t know. This is so different from anything I’ve ever experienced.” I checked my watch. “Crap, I have to get to the office.”

“Oh! That’s probably a good idea.” She chuckled. “I’ll be there in a jiff.”

“Okey dokey,” I said, rushing out the door with a wave. “See you in a few. Hold down the fort, Mr. Wong!”