Second Grave on the Left

Chapter Four

I locked the door behind me, essentially leaving the son of Satan in my apartment. Alone. Annoyed. And quite possibly sexually frustrated. A niggling in the back of my mind had me hoping I didn’t make him angry. I would hate for him to catch my bachelorette pad on hellfire.

But really, he was being ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. The whole thing reminded me of my elementary school days when my best friend said, “Boys are yucky and we should throw rocks at them.”

I stomped across the parking lot, allowing the cool breeze to calm my shaking desire, and cut through my dad’s bar to get to the interior set of stairs. My dad was an Albuquerque cop who, like my uncle Bob, skyrocketed through promotion after promotion until they both made detective. With my help, naturally. I’d been solving crimes for them since I was five, though solving might be a strong word. I’d been relaying information from the departed to help them solve crimes since I was five. Better. While my uncle was still on the APD payroll, my dad retired a few years ago and bought the bar I now worked out of. My office was on the second floor. I also lived about two feet from the back door. It was all very convenient.

Dad was in early. A light from his office filtered into the dark lounge, so I wound around bistro tables, cornered the bar, and ducked my head inside.

“Hey, Dad,” I said, startling him. He jerked at the sound of my voice and turned toward me. He had been studying a picture on the far wall, his long thin frame resembling a Popsicle stick clothed in wrinkled Ken-wear. Cleary he’d been working all night. A bottle of Crown Royal sat open on his desk, and he held a near-empty goblet in his hand.

The emotion radiating off him took me by surprise. It was wrong somehow, like when a server once brought me iced tea after I’d ordered a diet soda. The normally mundane task of taking that first sip sent a shock to my system, the flavor unexpected. While Dad had his occasional off days, his flavor was different. Unexpected. A deep sorrow mixed with the overwhelming weight of hopelessness barreled toward me to steal the breath from my lungs.

I straightened in alarm. “Dad, what’s wrong?”

He forced a weathered smile across his face. “Nothing, hon, just getting some paperwork done,” he lied, the deception like a sour note in my ear. But I’d play along. If he didn’t want to talk about what was bothering him, I’d let it slide. For now.

“Have you been home?” I asked.

He put down the glass and lifted a tan jacket off the back of his chair. “Headed that way right now. Did you need anything?”

God, he was a bad liar. Maybe that’s where I got it from. “Nope, I’m good. Tell Denise hey for me.”

“Charley,” he said, a warning tone leveling his voice.

“What? I can’t say hey to my favorite stepmother?”

With a weary sigh, he shrugged into his jacket. “I need a shower before the lunch crowd descends. Sammy should be here soon if you want some breakfast.”

Sammy, Dad’s cook, made huevos rancheros to die for. “I may get something later.”

He was in a hurry to get out of there. Or, possibly, to get away from me. He slid past without making eye contact, despair rolling off him like a thick, muddy vapor. “Be back in a few,” he said, as cheerful as a mental patient on suicide watch.

“’Kay,” I said back, just as cheerfully. He smelled like honey-lemon cough drops, the scent lingering in his office. When he was gone, I strolled inside it and glanced at the picture he’d been looking at. It was a photo of me around the age of six. My bangs were crooked and both of my front teeth were missing. I was eating watermelon nonetheless. Juice dripped from my fingers and off my chin, but what caught my attention, what had caught my dad’s attention, was the dark shadow hovering just over my shoulder. A smudged fingerprint on the glass gave proof that Dad had been examining that same spot.

I glanced down to the top of a bookshelf housed underneath his montage of humorous family moments. He’d set out several photographs of me, each one featuring a dark shadow somewhere in the background, each one smudged with a fingerprint in that exact same spot. And I couldn’t help but wonder what Dad was doing. Well, that and what the dark shadow meant, ’cause even I didn’t know that one. Was it a by-product of grim reaperism? Or maybe, just maybe, it was Reyes, his dark robe almost visible, almost capturable. The thought intrigued me. Growing up, I’d seen him only a handful of times. Had he been there more often? Watching over me? Protecting me?

When I arrived at my office, sure enough, two men in crisp navy suits sat waiting. They stood, each offering a hand.

“Ms. Davidson,” one said. He showed his ID then tucked it away inside his jacket. Just like on TV. It was wicked cool, and I realized I needed a jacket with an inside pocket if I were ever to be taken seriously. I usually kept my laminated PI license in the back pocket of my jeans, where it got bent and crinkled and thoroughly mutilated.

The other agent did the same, taking my hand in one of his and flashing his ID with the other simultaneously. They were very coordinated. And they looked like brothers. Though one had a few years on the other, both sported light blond crews and transparent blue eyes that, in any other situation, wouldn’t have been nearly so creepy as I was finding it.

“I’m Agent Foster,” the first one said, “and this is Special Agent Powers. We’re investigating the disappearance of Mimi Jacobs.”

At the mention of Mimi’s name, Cookie knocked over a pencil cup. That wasn’t so bad until she tried to grab it and sideswiped a lamp in the process. While pencils and other writing paraphernalia went flying, the lamp fell halfway to the floor, stopping to crash against the front of her desk when she grabbed the cord. Reacting to the sound, she pulled too hard, and the lamp ricocheted back up, crashing into the back of her computer monitor and knocking off the ceramic wiener dog Amber had given her for Christmas.

Subtle.

After a five-minute trailer of The Young and the Accident Prone—one that would give me the giggles for months to come — I turned back to our guests. “Would you like to step into my office?”

“Certainly,” Agent Foster said, eyeing Cookie like she needed to be locked up.

As I led the way, I flashed her my best incredulous look. She lowered her eyes. Thankfully, the wiener dog landed in the trash can atop a cushion of papers and didn’t break. She fished it out, keeping her gaze averted.

“I’m sorry, but I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of a Mimi Jacobs,” I said, pouring myself a cup of coffee as they took a seat in front of my desk. Cookie was excellent at keeping the coffee fresh and the hugs warm. Or maybe it was the coffee warm and the hugs fresh. Either way, it was a win — win.

“Are you sure?” Foster asked. He seemed like the young cocky type. I wasn’t particularly fond of the young cocky type, but I was trying really hard to get past my first impression. “She’s been missing for almost a week, and a notepad with your name and number scribbled on it was the only thing on her desk when she disappeared.”

She must have written my name and number down when she talked to Cookie. I turned back to them, stirring my coffee in doe-eyed innocence. “If Mimi Jacobs has been missing for almost a week, why are you just now coming to me?”

The older one, Powers, chafed, probably because I’d answered a question with a question. He was clearly used to getting answers with his questions. Silly rabbit. “We didn’t think much of the note until we realized you were a private investigator. We thought she might have hired you.”

“Hired me for what?” I asked, fishing.

He shifted in his chair. “That’s what we’re here to find out.”

“So, she wasn’t in trouble? Maybe with the company she works for?”

The men glanced at each other. In any other situation, I would have shouted eureka. Internally, anyway. But I felt as though I had just handed them the perfect scapegoat. They knew more and were not about to tell me. “We’ve considered that, Ms. Davidson, but we would appreciate it if that information were kept between us.”

So, not the company. One possibility down, twenty-seven thousand to go.

Apparently satisfied, they both stood. Foster handed me a business card. “We need to insist that you contact us if she tries to get in touch with you.” His tone held the slightest hint of warning. I tried not to giggle.

“Absolutely,” I said, leading them back out. I stopped before opening the door that separated Cookie’s office and mine. “Sorry I couldn’t be of more help, and you have to leave now.”

Foster cleared his throat uncomfortably when I hesitated a moment more. “Right, okay. We’ll be in touch if we need anything else.”

As they stood waiting behind me, I turned the knob slowly, jiggled it a little, then opened the door. Cookie was typing away at her computer. If I knew her, she’d been listening in on our conversation through the speakerphone.

“Ms. Davidson,” Foster said, tipping an invisible hat as they walked past.

After the agents left, Cookie turned an exasperated expression on me. “Jiggling the knob? That was subtle.”

“Oh, yeah, grace. Could you have knocked anything else over?”

She cringed at the reminder. “Do you think they suspected anything?”

So many possibilities came to mind: Duh. Ya think? Only if they weren’t complete idiots. “Yes,” I said instead, the lack of inflection in my voice insinuating all of the above.

“But, shouldn’t we be working with them instead of against them?” she asked.

“Not at this precise moment in time.”

“Why not?”

“Mostly ’cause they’re not FBI agents.”

She sucked in a soft breath. “How do you know?”

“Really?” I asked. The last thing I wanted to explain was how I could tell when someone was lying. For the thousandth time.

“Right,” she said, shaking her head, “sorry.” Then she gasped. “You knew they weren’t real FBI agents?”

“I had my suspicions.”

“And you led them into your office anyway? Alone?”

“My suspicions don’t always pan out.”

She thought about that a moment and calmed. “True. Remember that time you tackled the mailman and—”

I held up a hand to stop her. Some things were just better left unsaid. “Cancel looking into the business stuff,” I said, thinking out loud. “I’d bet my virtual farm that’s a dead end. Concentrate on finding a connection between Mimi and Janelle York.”

“Besides the fact that they went to high school together?” she asked.

“No. Let’s start there. Dig into both their backgrounds, see if anything stands out.”

Just then, Uncle Bob walked into the office. Or, well, stormed into the office. He was always so stressed. It was probably time for us to have the talk. He needed a girlfriend before he stroked. Or maybe a blowup doll.

“If you’re going to be a grumpy bear,” I said, pointing to the door, “you can just leave the same way you came in, Mr. Man.” I twirled my finger in circles, motioning for him to do an about-face, make like a sheep, and get the flock outta there.

He stopped short, eyeing me with a mixture of confusion and annoyance. “I’m not grumpy.” He sounded offended. It was funny. “I just want to know what you’ve gotten yourself into now.”

It was my turn to be offended. “What?” I asked. “Why I never—”

“No time for your theatrics,” he said, shaking a finger. That’d teach me. “How do you know Warren Jacobs?”

What the heck? Word traveled fast in the crime-fighting world. “I just met him this morning. Why?”

“Because he’s asking for you. Not only is his wife missing, but a car dealer he stalked and threatened to kill was found dead last night. Call me crazy, but I think there might be a connection.”

Son of a bitch, I thought with a heavy sigh. “Instead of plain old Crazy, can I call you Crazy Bob?”

“No.”

“CB for short?” When I only got a glare, I asked, “Then can I see him?”

“He’s being questioned right now and he’ll probably lawyer up any second. What’s going on?”

Cookie and I glanced at each other then spilled our guts like frogs in biology lab.

We told Uncle Bob everything, even the writing-on-the-wall thing. He took out his phone and ordered one of his minions to check out the diner. “You should have told me,” he said after hanging up, his tone scolding.

“Like I’ve had a chance. But since we’re on the subject, there are two men posing as FBI agents to get to her. And they want her bad.”

Alarmed, Uncle Bob — or Ubie as I liked to call him, though rarely to his face — took down their description. “This is serious stuff,” he said.

“Tell me about it. We have to find Mimi before they do.”

“I’ll get a hold of the local feds and let them know they have a couple of impersonators. But you should have called me when this whole thing started.”

“Well, I didn’t think I would need to, since you’re having me tailed and all.”

His jaw clamped down, totally busted. With a heavy sigh, he stepped closer, towering over me, and lifted my chin gently. “Reyes Farrow is a convicted murderer, Charley. This is for your own protection. If he contacts you, will you please let me know?”

“Will you call off the tail?” I asked in turn. When he hesitated then shook his head, I added, “Then may the best detective win.”

I strode out the door, realizing what a ridiculous statement that was, as Uncle Bob, a veteran detective for the Albuquerque Police Department, was the ace of spades when it came to investigations. I was kind of like a three of hearts.

As I walked down the block to my friend Pari’s tattoo parlor, I scanned the street for the shadow Ubie’d assigned to me, with no luck. It had to be someone good. Uncle Bob wouldn’t send a rookie to watch over me.

I stopped in front of Pari’s shop, not because I particularly needed a tattoo, but because Pari could see auras. I could see auras as well, but I figured maybe I’d missed something over the years. How could I see auras and dead people and sons of Satan and yet in all my days never see a demon? Heck, I didn’t even know demons existed until Reyes told me, much less that they would be fighting tooth and nail to get to me. To get through me. My breath caught as another realization dawned. If demons existed, heck, if Satan himself existed, then angels surely existed as well. Seriously, how could I be so out of the loop?

Hopefully, Pari knew something I didn’t, other than the correct timing for a 1970 Plymouth Duster with a supercharged 440 big block. I didn’t even know cars had timing issues — speaking of which, it was still early in tattoo parlor time, so I was surprised to see Pari’s front door open. I stepped inside.

“I need some light,” I heard her call out from the back.

“On it,” came a male voice.

Then I heard scrambling in the back room as I walked up behind Pari. She was bent under a refurbished dentist’s chair, electrical wires in a heap at her knees.

“Thanks,” she said, quietly deciphering the wires.

“What?” the guy in the back room called out.

Startled, Pari jolted upright and hit her head on the seat of the chair before turning back to me. “Charley, damn it,” she said, raising one hand to shield her eyes and the other to rub the sting from her head. “You can’t just walk up behind me. You’re like one of those floodlights shining from a cop car in the middle of the night.”

I chuckled as she fumbled for her sunglasses. “You said you needed light.”

Pari was a graphic designer who’d turned to body art to keep the bill collectors at bay. Luckily, she’d found her calling, and she did the profession proud with full sleeves of sleek lines, tiger lilies and fleur-de-lis. And a couple of skulls thrown in to impress the clientele.

She’d designed the grim reaper I now sported on my left shoulder blade. It was a tiny being with huge, innocent eyes and a fluid robe that looked like smoke. How she managed that with tattoo ink was beyond me.

She slipped her shades on, then looked back at me with a sigh. “I said I needed light, not a starburst. I swear you’re going to permanently blind me one day.” As I said, Pari could see auras; mine was just really bright.

She grabbed a bottle of water off the counter and sat on the broken dentist’s chair, propping her hiking boots onto two crates on either side of her and resting her elbows on her knees. I grabbed a water out of a small fridge and turned back to her, struggling not to crack up at her indelicate position.

“So, what’s up, Reaper?”

“I can’t find the flashlight!” the guy yelled from the back room.

“Never mind,” she called back before grinning at me. “All beauty, no brains, that one.”

I nodded. She liked beauty. Who didn’t?

“Okay, so you’re pretending to be all cool and collected,” she said, studying me with a practiced eye, “but you’re about as serene as a chicken on the chopping block. What’s going on?”

Dang, she was good. I decided to get right to the point. “Have you ever seen a demon?”

Her breathing slowed as she absorbed my question. “You mean like a hellfire and brimstone demon?”

“Yes.”

“Like a minion of hell demon?”

“Yes,” I said again.

“Like—”

“Yes,” I repeated for the third time. The subject made my stomach queasy. And the thought of one torturing Reyes … not that the little shit didn’t deserve to be tortured just a tad, but still.

“So, they’re real?”

“I’m going to take that as a no,” I said, my hopes evaporating. “It’s just, I think I have a few after me, and I was hoping you might know something I didn’t.”

“Damn.” She glanced at the floor in thought then refocused on me. At least I think she did. It was hard to tell with her shades on. “Wait, there are demons after you?”

“Sort of.”

After she stared a long time, long enough to be considered culturally insensitive, she bowed her head. “I’ve never seen one,” she said, her voice quiet, “but I know there are things out there, things that go bump in the night. And not just the prostitute next door. Scary things. Things that are impossible to forget.”

I tilted my head in question. “What do you mean?”

“When I was fourteen, a group of friends and I were having a slumber party, and like most fourteen-year-olds do eventually, we decided to have a séance.”

“Okay.” This was going nowhere good.

“So, we went down into my basement and were all séancing and chanting and conjuring a spirit from beyond when I felt something. Like a presence.”

“Like a departed?”

“No.” She shook her head, thinking back. “At least I don’t think so. They’re cold. This being was just sort of there. I felt it brush up against me like a dog.” One hand gripped the opposite arm in remembrance, a soft shiver echoing through her body. “No one else felt it, of course, until I said something.” She glanced up at me, a dire warning in her eyes. “Never tell a group of fourteen-year-old girls having a séance in a dark basement that you felt something brush up against you. For your own safety.”

I chuckled. “I promise. What happened?”

“They jumped up screaming and ran for the stairs. It freaked me out so, naturally, I ran, too.”

“Naturally.”

“I just wanted away from whatever had materialized in my basement, so I ran like I had a reason to live despite my suicidal tendencies.”

Pari had been Goth when Goth wasn’t cool. Kinda like now.

“I thought I was in the clear when I reached the top stair. Then I heard a growl, deep, guttural. Before I knew what was happening, I fell halfway down the stairs, spraining a wrist and bruising my ribs. I scrambled up and out of there without looking back. It took a while for me to realize I didn’t fall. My legs were pulled out from under me and I was dragged.” She lifted her pant leg and unzipped her knee-high boots to show me a jagged scar on her calf. It looked like claw marks. “I’ve never been so scared.”

“Holy crap, Par. What happened then?”

“When my dad found out why we were all screaming, he laughed and went down into the basement to prove to us nothing was there.”

“And?”

“Nothing was there,” she said with a shrug.

“Did you show him the wound?”

“Oh, hell no.” She shook her head like I’d just asked her if she ate children for breakfast. “They’d already filed me in the F’s for ‘freak of nature.’ I wasn’t about to confirm their suspicions.”

“Holy crap, Par,” I repeated.

“Tell me about it.”

“So, what makes you think it was a demon?”

“I don’t. It wasn’t a demon. Or, well, I don’t think it was. It was something more.”

“How do you know?”

She twisted the leather straps at her wrist. “Mostly because I knew its name.”

I froze for a moment before saying, “Come again?”

“Do you remember what I told you about my accident?” She glanced at me, her brows drawn together.

“Sure I do.” Pari had died when she was six in a car accident. Thankfully, an industrious EMT brought her back. After that, she could see auras, including those of the departed. She’d learned that if she saw an aura with a particularly grayish tint and no body attached, it was the soul of someone who’d passed. It was a ghost.

“When I died, my grandfather was waiting for me.”

“I remember,” I said, “and thankfully he sent you back. I owe him a fruit basket when I get to heaven.”

She reached over and squeezed my hand in a rare moment of appreciation. Awkward. “I’d met him only once,” she said, wrapping both hands around her water. “The only thing I remembered about him was that he had Great Danes taller than I was, yet I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt he was my grandfather. And when he told me it wasn’t my time, that I had to go back, the last thing I wanted to do was leave him.”

“Well, I for one am glad he sent your ass packing. You would have been hell on wheels in heaven.”

She smiled. “You’re probably right. But I never told you the strange part.”

“Most people find near-death experiences pretty strange.”

“True,” she said with a grin.

“So it gets stranger?”

“A lot stranger.” She hesitated, drew in a long breath, then rested her gaze on me. “On the way back, you know, to Earth, I heard things.”

That was new. “What kinds of things?”

“Voices. I heard a conversation.”

“You eavesdropped?” I asked, a little amazed such a thing was possible. “On celestial beings?”

“I guess you could call it that, but I didn’t do it on purpose. I heard an entire conversation in an instant, like it just appeared in my head. Yet I knew I wasn’t supposed to hear it. I knew the information was dangerous. I learned the name of a being powerful enough to bring about the end of the world.”

“The end of the world?” I asked, gulping when I did so.

“I know how it sounds, believe me. But they were talking about this being that had escaped from hell and was born on Earth.”

My pulse accelerated by a hairsbreadth, just enough to cause a tingling flutter in my stomach.

“They said that he could destroy the world, he could bring on the apocalypse if he so chose.”

I knew of only one being who had escaped from hell. Only one being who had been born on Earth. And while I knew he was powerful, I couldn’t imagine him powerful enough to bring about the freaking apocalypse. Then again, what was? I totally should have paid attention in catechism.

“And so the night of the séance, in all my teenaged wisdom, I decided to summon him.”

I gaped, but only a little. “Right. Because that’s what we want to do. Summon the very being who can destroy every living thing on Earth.”

“Exactly,” she said, spacing my sarcasm. “I thought I might convince him not to. You know, talk some sense into him.”

“And how did that work out for you?”

She stopped and pursed her lips at me. “I was fourteen, smart-ass.”

I tried to laugh, but it didn’t quite make it past the lump in my throat. “So, for real? This being is going to bring on the apocalypse?”

“No, you’re not listening.” She pressed her lips together before explaining. “I said he is powerful enough to bring on the apocalypse.”

Okay, well, that was a plus. No prophecies of mass destruction.

“And so that night during the séance, I summoned him. By name.”

Goose bumps crept up my legs and over my arms in anticipation. Either that or Dead Trunk Guy had found me again. I glanced around just in case.

“But, like I said,” she continued, “he’s not what you think. He’s not a demon.”

“Well, that’s taking a frown and turning it upside down.”

“From the gist of the conversation, he is something so very much more.”

He was more, all right. “Pari,” I said, growing impatient, “what’s its name?”

“No way am I telling you,” she said with a teasing sparkle in her eyes.

“Pari.”

“No, really.” She turned serious again. “I don’t say it aloud. Ever. Not since that day.”

“Oh, right. Well—”

Before I could say anything else, she grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled onto it. “This is it, but don’t say it out loud. I get the feeling he doesn’t like being summoned.”

I took the paper, my hand shaking more than I’d have liked, and gasped softly when I read the name. Rey’aziel. Rey’az … Reyes. The son of Satan.

“It means ‘the beautiful one,’” she said as I read it over and over again. “I don’t know what he is,” she continued, unaware of my stupor, “but he caused quite a stir on the other side, if you know what I mean. Chaos. Upheaval. Panic.”

Yep. That would be Reyes. Damn it.