Sixth Grave on the Edge

5

I’m only here to establish an alibi.

—T-SHIRT

I told Angel where he could find the Dealer, with instructions to just get a feel for him. For his power. “But don’t get too close, else he’ll sup on your soul,” I’d added, after which he’d rolled his eyes. He could be such a drama queen.

I looked back at Mr. Wong and studied him. Power. I just didn’t see it. Duff!

I bolted up again. When Duff, a departed man who’d followed me home from a bar one night—long story—first saw Mr. Wong, he seemed … surprised. Like he knew him. Or recognized him.

Mission for the moment: Find Duff.

I went to the last apartment he’d lived in. He moved around a lot, but the last time we’d talked, he told me he was back in with Mrs. Allen down the hall. She had a vicious poodle named PP. To PP’s credit, however, he did try to fight off a pack of demons for me. I had a soft spot for him now. Super soft. Like Twinkie guts, only not so marshmallowy delicious.

I knocked on Mrs. Allen’s door, waited a bit, then knocked again. PP was yapping up a storm from behind it, but it took Mrs. Allen a bit to travel that distance, even though her apartment was smaller than mine.

She cracked open the door, the chain still on, until she saw me and took the chain down to let me in.

“Hey, Charley,” she said, and I realized immediately she didn’t have her teeth in.

“Hey, Mrs. Allen.” One thing I didn’t think to come up with was an excuse for being there. “Um, I was just wondering how your … heating system was working. Mine is on the fritz.”

“My heating system.” She practically shoved me inside. “It’s awful. Never works right, and poor PP feels the cold. Breaks my heart.”

She hobbled to her thermostat. “See, it’s on seventy-five, and I know it’s not a degree over seventy-three in here.”

“Okay,” I said, searching for Duff. According to the talk on the streets, I could summon any departed, as I had with Angel, but I didn’t know Duff that well. I didn’t want to just drag him away from whatever it was he was doing. Come to think of it, what did the departed do all day?

“Duff?” I whispered, sidestepping a snarling PP and hurrying over to a bedroom door to peek inside. Nada.

“And this stove still hasn’t been fixed. I told that lazy, good-for-nothing landlord about my stove weeks ago.”

I turned back to her. “Your stove isn’t working?” I tried to walk over, but again had to sidestep PP. I glared down at him and the one fang he had left that protruded out of his gnarly mouth. “And here I thought we were friends.” He snapped at me to make sure I understood the truth of it, so I quickly made my way past. Vicious little shit.

No one in the building besides Cookie and Reyes, including the current manager, Mr. Z, knew I was a proud new owner of a run-down apartment building, so Mrs. Allen didn’t know she was talking to the person responsible for all the repairs.

“No, ma’am, it’s not. See?” She turned on all the burners, and none of them heated up. “How am I supposed to make stew?”

“Well, I’m not sure, but I’ll write that down and go talk to Mr. Z about it.”

“Lazy good-for-nothing. He won’t do anything about it.”

He would now. I’d make sure of it.

“Okay, well, thanks. I’ll let you know what I find out.”

“Thank you, honey. PP always liked you.”

PP snapped at me again, barking until I could take it no longer. I rushed out the door and back to Cookie’s apartment. I knew that Duff had spent some time crashing there, too. I’d never told Cook. It’d only freak her out, and as fun as that was to do, I didn’t want to hear how every noise in the apartment was the dead guy. Her imagination would have run rampant.

I went in without knocking, under the guise of checking on her. She was in her room, changing clothes, and from the state of her closet and drawers, she’d done that a lot.

“I just don’t know what to wear,” she said, tossing aside a nice burgundy blouse.

“That would have been great.”

“No. I don’t like the way it fits.”

“How does it fit?”

“Wrong. What about this?”

“You probably shouldn’t wear orange and purple together on a first date. Just thinking out loud.”

“But it’s a fake date. Who cares?” She picked up a glass and downed half the contents before I smelled the alcohol.

“Cookie, what the hell are you drinking?”

“I made a frozen margarita with Amber’s slushy machine. Don’t judge me.”

I stifled a giggle and looked at my watch. “Oh, my gosh. It’s almost six.”

“Oh, good heavens. I haven’t been on a date in years.”

Cookie put down the drink and started trying on blouses again while I looked for Duff, who was missing in action here, too. She tossed the fifth blouse aside when I walked back in.

“What was wrong with that one?”

“The color. You just said—”

“Right, right. But at this rate, you’re going to be late for January. Get a move on, missy!”

She glared at me. It was the alcohol talking. I could tell. “Hey, do you have any repairs you need done? I’m making a list.”

“Oh.” She straightened and started ticking off a list with her fingers. “My refrigerator is making a funny sound. The faucet in the bathroom leaks.”

“Hold on.” I ran back to my apartment and returned with a pen and paper. “Okay, fridge, faucet.”

“Yes, and the floor in the living room squeaks. Amber’s window lets in a lot of cold air. The ceiling still needs to be painted after that disastrous pool party you tried to have on the roof.”

“That wasn’t my fault. And it was a kiddie pool, for goodness’ sake.”

“Oh, and those bar things in my closet need to be rehung.”

“Bar things … in clos … et,” I said while writing. “Is that it?”

“I’ll think of more. I forgot you’re now responsible for all that.” She blinked in thought. “That’s kind of scary.”

“Tell me about it.”

I hit the rest of the building, under the guise of making a list of demands for the new owner on what repairs needed to be made. Of those who were home, which was only about half—and excluding a woman on the first floor, who kept calling me Bertie and throwing ramen noodles at me—I now had a list of about seventy-two items that needed to be replaced or repaired. Seventy-two! This ownership thing could become a hassle. Luckily, I had a man who was apparently made of money. He bought the building for me in the first place. Making good on the purchase was the least he could do in my worthy yet humble opinion. But Mr. Z was the one who’d actually do the repairs.

I’d make one last stop at his apartment, also on the first floor. He probably told that lady about me. I’d never even seen her before. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe she was a shut-in who didn’t like people invading her turf. I could understand that, but why Bertie?

After all that, no Duff. I was worried I’d have to summon him whether he wanted to be summoned or not, but first, I needed to see the resident manager slash maintenance man. Mr. Zamora opened his door wearing a pair of overalls and a graying T-shirt, the TV blaring in the background. Instead of a greeting, he pursed his lips—the ones that resided directly under a thick mustache—in annoyance. I took that as my cue.

“Hey, Mr. Z. I have a list—”

The door slammed in my face before I could finish. Right in my face.

I stood there in a shock a solid minute before I tried again, knocking harder this time to let him know I was not going away.

He opened the door again, eyed me up and down, then started to slam the door.

I stuck my booted foot in it, preventing it from closing completely.

“I’m off,” he said, swinging the door wide. “Can’t you see I’m having dinner?”

I looked inside, and sure enough, there on the table sat a feast fit for a king. If that king was really fond of hot dogs and potato chips.

“I’m sorry to bother you, but I have a list of repairs that need to be made to various apartments in this building.”

“Oh, yeah?” he said, taking the list from me. He read it over, then crumpled it up in his hand and tossed it at me. “I can’t do any repairs without prior authorization. You have to go through the management company.”

The paper had hit me in the chest, and after I got over how amazingly rude he was being, I decided to file assault charges. I grabbed my chest and doubled over, moaning in agony as he looked on.

“Are you about finished?” he asked, completely unmoved. “My show is on.”

I hopped up to see over him. He was watching a rerun of Breaking Bad. At least he had good taste in television. “I love that show,” I said, trying to look past him to see which one it was. “I take Misery to their car wash all the time.”

“So, you’re okay? You didn’t get a paper cut, did you? Should I call an ambulance?”

“Okay, fine, be that way. Just tell me exactly what the procedure is to get repairs made.” I picked up the paper and smoothed it out on my stomach.

“I told you. You have to go through the property management company. I work for them now. They work for the owner.”

“I’m not sure you should be treating tenants like that.”

“Like what?” he asked, offended.

I leaned in to him. “Like slamming doors in their faces.”

“I’m off. I told you.”

“It doesn’t matter. These are tenants. These are people who make it possible for you to draw a paycheck. They deserve a little respect.”

“Listen, Charley. If you want respect, you gotta show some.”

“What?” I asked, my turn to be offended. “When have I ever been disrespectful to you?”

He squared his shoulders. “You’re loud. You throw parties. You invite strange people over at all hours. And you call me Mr. Whiskers behind my back. It makes me sound like a friggin’ cat.”

“I most certainly do not. I call you that to your face just as often as I do behind your back. And I haven’t had a party in months.”

He pressed his mouth together. “Look, no matter, you gotta go through the proper channels for me to fix anything on that list. But I gotta warn you. We have a new owner. I’m not sure what he will do with all that.” He pointed to my list.

“I’m not sure either.” I didn’t think about that. I needed working capital. I needed a sugar daddy. Or Reyes Farrow. Either way.

“Fine,” I said, folding my note and stuffing it in my pocket. “I’ll just go to the new owner directly.”

“You know him?” he asked, surprised. Of course he would think the new owner was a him. Reyes bought the building before transferring ownership over to me, a fact that still boggled my mind. Giving me an apartment complex was like giving a twelve-year-old a Fortune 500 company and saying, “Now, take good care of it.”

“I sure do, and I plan on giving him an earful of how I’ve been treated here today.”

“Yeah? And I’ll tell him about the ostrich.”

I gasped. “That was one time. And she pulled through it just fine.”

“Mm-hm. Can I finish my dinner now?”

“Yes.” I turned and stalked off to show him how angry I was. Ostrich, my ass. She was fine once the vet removed the Tupperware.

As I made my way to Reyes’s apartment, hoping he’d be home from work, I called out to Duff. Darn him. One minute I can’t get the man out of my hair, and the next he’s impossible to find. Like a ghost.

Laughing at my own sense of humor, I knocked on Reyes’s door. Someone had to laugh, and I was pretty much the only one who got me. It was a lonely life.

The door opened, and a seemingly annoyed Reyes stood on the other side. What’d I do now?

“Hey,” I said, about half a second before the door slammed in my face. What the—? I knocked again, this time pounding.

The door opened wide as he leaned against the frame and crossed his arms at his chest. He really liked that pose. I really liked that he liked that pose.

“What was that for?” I asked.

“Why didn’t you use the key?”

“Because.” I’d thought about it, but I still had a hard time just barging in on him. I handed him the list. “I thought you were at work.”

“Was. I’m not now.”

“A man of few words. Well, I got a few words for you.” I pushed it into his hands. “I need working capital.”

He scanned the list. “What will you do for a new stove in Mrs. Allen’s apartment?”

“Jump around and sing ‘Oklahoma’? How do I know? It’s a stove.”

“I’m going to need some kind of incentive program if I’m going to fork out this kind of money.”

I held back a laugh. “Incentive program, huh? So what’s a stove worth these days?”

“Depends. Do you have a nurse’s uniform?”

I raised a mischievous brow. “No, but I have a Princess Leia slave costume.”

A deep hunger flashed in his irises. It caused a warmth to flood my abdomen, and only partly because he knew what a Princess Leia slave costume consisted of.

“That’ll do,” he said. “And this is already taken care of.” He handed me back the list. “Just give this to the management company.”

“They won’t give me the runaround?”

“Not if they want to remain your management company.” He had a point. “Are you still insisting on paying the Dealer a visit?”

As he spoke, a shadow nearby caught my attention. Sometimes ADD was a good thing. I turned in time to see Duff appear by my door, then disappear just as quickly.

“Hold that thought,” I said to Reyes as I spun around and scanned the hallway. “Duff!” I called out. “Show yourself this instant.”

He did, but he materialized at the other end of the hall.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

“N-n-nothing. J-j-just s-standing here,” he said, his stutter more pronounced than usual. But he wasn’t looking at me. He was keeping his watchful gaze on Reyes and resembled a rabbit ready to bolt.

“Look,” I said, walking toward him, “I just have a few questions. I wanted to talk to you. Will you come here?”

“I-I’ll s-stay here, thank you v-very much.”

Aw, he was sweet. “You’re so welcome. But, really, I need to talk to you—”

I’d started to gesture to my door when I caught Reyes’s scowl in my periphery. I turned back to him. “What are you doing?”

“What?”

“You’re intimidating him.”

“I’m standing here.”

“Yes, intimidatingly.”

One corner of his mouth lifted playfully. “And just how should I stand?”

“For starters, you can stop scowling at him.”

He let his gaze travel back to Duff, slowly, menacingly, then said, “But it’s fun.”

“Reyes Alexander Farrow.” I marched back to him. “Can you be nice to the departed or not?”

He lowered his head, pretending to be repentant, then looked at me from underneath his long lashes and said, “But Duff here isn’t just any departed, are you, boy?” He leveled another cold stare on him, and Duff disappeared.

“Damn it,” I said, backhanding Reyes’s shoulder, albeit lightly. “How do you know him?”

“Duff and I are old friends. He used to come visit me in prison.”

“What?” I glanced over my shoulder, but he was still gone. “Why?”

“He was keeping an eye on me.” He reached out and let his fingers glide along my stomach.

“Why would he do that?” I asked. I was always out of the loop.

“He was worried about you. Seems he’s smitten.”

Oh, man. Seriously? “He’s a departed, Reyes. It’s not like we can actually have a relationship.”

“If any human could have a relationship with a departed, it’d be you. And he knows it.” He slid a finger into my belt loop and tugged.

“Reyes, he’s harmless. Be nice to him.”

He ran a hand around to the small of my back, the heat of him almost too much to bear. It soaked into my skin and my hair, and caused goose bumps to lace over me, it was so hot. “I love that about you,” he said, picking up a lock of my hair and rubbing it between the fingers of one hand while pulling me closer with the other. “Your inability to see the bad in people until it’s too late.” He was being awfully flirtatious, almost as though he were trying to change the subject.

“Are you saying Duff is a bad person?”

“I’m saying you’re too good for him.”

I finally molded to him, letting him press against me. “I’m too good for you, too,” I said, teasing. But he didn’t take the bait.

“Agreed,” he said instead, a second before he lowered his mouth to mine, fusing us together like an arc welder. He wrapped his arms around me, the hold viselike, unyielding. The heat was blistering and surreal at once, and I felt it all the way down to my toes. He broke off the kiss and nipped at my ear. “I guess it’s a good thing you can have a relationship with a departed,” he said.

“Why’s that?”

“We can still see each other after I die.”

I tried to lean back to look at him, but Reyes went from cruising at a solid twenty-five miles per hour to flying faster than the speed of sound. In an instant, he had me pinned against the wall, the long fingers of one hand bracing both wrists above my head while the other slipped beneath my sweater. His hand slid around my waist and up my spine, his fingertips tracing the hollow line of my vertebrae.

“Probing for a weak spot?” I asked him softly, well aware of his penchant for severing spines.

“I know exactly where your weak spots are,” he said, and he proved his point by slipping his hand underneath my bra and cradling Will Robinson, teasing her crest with a soft squeeze.

Arousal leapt inside me so fast, I felt the world spin.

“And I know exactly where to probe,” he continued. He pushed my legs apart with his hips and pushed against me, the friction of our jeans causing a nuclear heat to build in my abdomen.

I tore one wrist free of his grasp and planted my hand on a steely buttock to pull him closer. He let a husky growl escape him. The deep sound reverberated through my bones, crashing like spilled wine against them. And like wine, the effect was intoxicating.

Someone, a man, cleared his throat nearby.

It took me a moment to realize we had company. When I did, I broke our hold with a startled jump. “Uncle Bob,” I said, smoothing my clothes and straightening to face him. “You’re early.”

“I’m late, actually.” He stood there in a brown suit and loosened tie, looking both uncomfortable and cautious.

I glanced at my watch. It was 6:10. “Oh, wow, the time must’ve slipped away from me.”

“Must have,” he said before raising the bag he was carrying. “Hungry?”

“Famished.” I looked back at Reyes, who was back to scowling, this time at Uncle Bob. “What about you?” I asked him. “Want to join us?”

“No, thank you,” he said, stepping back into his apartment. A burst of cool air rushed between us with his absence. “I ate at the bar.”

“Okay, well, we can discuss our business for tonight later?” The card game didn’t start until nine, so we had some time to come up with a brilliant plan that would keep us both alive. And hopefully one that would let us keep our souls as well.

I didn’t want a demon supping on my soul.

Uncle Bob’s timing could not have been more perfect. Right as we turned to go into my apartment, Cookie’s date rose in the stairwell beside us. He nodded to us and went straight to Cookie’s door to knock. Uncle Bob stopped in his tracks. He surveyed the man from the top of his neatly trimmed head to the tips of his wing tip toes. It was funny. Kind of. On one hand, I felt sorry for him. On the other, it was his own fault. Cookie wasn’t going to wait around forever. She needed snuggle time.

He turned back to us as he waited for Cookie to answer the door. I winked at him. Barry was an old friend from college. We’d had a couple classes together, including one on jazz appreciation. We’d bonded over the fact that going in, neither one of us was particularly fond of jazz, but we’d learned to love it. Especially the history.

I stepped to my door and turned the knob slowly, taking my time, waiting for Cookie to answer hers. When she didn’t answer immediately, I began to get a little worried. But when she did answer, all my fears dissipated. She looked fantastic. She wore a dark burgundy pantsuit with a cream-colored throw around her shoulders. If that didn’t get Uncle Bob’s attention, I didn’t know what would.

Uncle Bob made a point of speaking to me in a louder-than-necessary voice. He asked me once again if I was hungry.

I chuckled and said just as loudly, “Why, yes, I am, Uncle Bob. Like I said before. But thanks for the recap.”

“Oh, hey, Cookie,” he said, pretending to just notice her. As if his eyes didn’t almost pop out of his head the minute they landed on her. He was so bad at this flirting gig.

Cookie offered him a brilliant smile as she shook Barry’s hand. “Hello there yourself, Robert. I see you brought dinner. I’m sorry I’ll miss it.”

Uncle Bob followed me inside, almost stumbling when I paused at the threshold of my apartment to give him more time. He cleared his throat in embarrassment and said, “I’m sorry, too.”

Barry led her to the stairs, taking her hand as they descended them. Uncle Bob noticed. I thought he would break his neck, trying to watch them walk all the way to the next landing.

“So, what do you know about Dad that I don’t?”

He pulled out two trays from the bag: one with spaghetti and one with lasagna. I dived for the spaghetti before he could get to it.

He shrugged, took his lasagna, and headed for my kitchen table. “I probably don’t know much more than you do. But I’ve noticed a distinct change in his behavior.”

At first I just kind of stared at Uncle Bob, not sure what he was doing. Then I realized he was using a kitchen table for its intended purpose. Weird. “Well, duh. I could have told you that. His bout with cancer and his sudden remission made his telling me he was going on a trip plausible. He said he was going to learn to sail. But Denise seems to think otherwise. What could he possibly be up to?”

I sat beside Ubie at the table. It felt strange. I’d never eaten at my kitchen table. This was an experience for me.

“I hate to make assumptions,” Uncle Bob said as he stabbed at his lasagna. “But if I were to guess, I’d say it had something to do with you.”

“Me? Why me?” I twirled spaghetti around my fork.

“Didn’t you notice how, after going to all the trouble of having you arrested just to try to get you out of the PI business, he seemed to give up pretty easily?”

“I noticed him trying to shoot me. The rest is kind of a blur.”

“I’m just finding everything he’s done lately pretty suspicious. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was investigating something. He’d get like that in the old days. When he was on the scent of something big, he’d get secretive. Defensive. I haven’t seen him like that in a long time.”

“But what kind of case can he be working? What can he possibly investigate? He’s not even a detective anymore.”

He put down his fork and extended me his full attention. That meant he was about to tell me something I probably didn’t want to know. “Let’s just say he’s been asking a lot of questions about your boyfriend.”

I put down my fork, too. “Reyes? Why would he be investigating Reyes?”

“I don’t know, pumpkin. I’m probably wrong. So, Cookie has a date?”

At last. I was wondering when he would bring her up. “Yeah. I think she joined some kind of online dating service. From what I understand, she’s very popular. She has a date every day this week.”

“With a different guy?” he asked, appalled.

“With a different guy.”

After that, Uncle Bob seemed to lose his appetite. He barely touched his lasagna and left with a grim expression on his face. We definitely got him thinking, contemplating what his lax attitude toward a delicious creature like Cookie was costing him. Now I just had to worry about one thing: Uncle Bob’s penchant for investigating. If he figured out what we were doing, he’d disown me. And possibly sell me to a Romanian count.