Darynda Jones - Third Grave Dead Ahead

“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.”

I stopped and hit her with my best glower of astonished disappointment. “You stole a can of coffee from the office?”

“I borrowed a can of coffee from the office. I’ll buy another with my next paycheck.”

“I can’t believe this.”

“Charley…”

“Just kidding. Don’t worry about it,” I said with a wave of my hand. “It’s not like I pay for the stuff.”

She had started out the door but stopped again. “What?”

“The coffee. I don’t actually pay for it.”

“Where do you get it?”

“I swipe it from Dad’s storeroom.” When she flashed me a look of shock and disapproval, mostly disapproval, I held up my hands and did the time-out gesture. “Hold up there, missy. I solved cases for that man for years. The least he can do is provide me with a cup o’ joe every now and then.”

My dad had been a detective with the Albuquerque Police Department, and I’d been helping him solve crimes since I was five. For some reason, it’s a lot easier to solve crimes when you can ask the victim who did it. While my dad retired a few years ago, I still did the same for my uncle Bob, also a detective with APD.

“You steal our coffee from your dad?”

“Yep.”

“I drink stolen coffee?”

“On a daily basis. Do you remember that morning about a month ago when we were out of coffee and then that guy came in with a gun and tried to kill me, and Reyes materialized out of nowhere and sliced his spine in half with that ginormous sword he keeps tucked under his robe, and Uncle Bob came with all those cops, and my dad started questioning the whole spinal cord thing?”

After a long moment, she said, “Barely,” her voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Well, I needed a cup of coffee after that near-death experience like you would not believe, and we didn’t have any. So I took a can out of Dad’s storeroom.”

“Charley,” she said, looking around as if someone were listening, “you can’t just steal your dad’s coffee.”

“Cook, at that moment in time, I would have sold my body for a mocha latte.”

She nodded in understanding. “I can certainly see why you did it that one time, but you can’t keep doing it.”

“Oh, so it’s okay for you to steal, but not me?”

“I wasn’t stealing. I was borrowing.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, Bonnie. Say hey to Clyde for me.”

With a loud sigh, she headed out the door again. Just before I closed the bathroom door, I called out to her, “By the way, he answered the door shirtless.”

After a loud gasp, she said, “Thank you.”

I took a quick shower, pulled my hair into a ragged ponytail, and dressed in a pair of comfortable jeans, a loose black sweater, and a pair of killer boots I got off a biker for a lap dance. He was pretty darned good, too, after I got past my aversion to back hair.

“I’m leaving the whole shebang in your hands, Mr. Wong!” I shouted as I gathered up my paraphernalia. Mr. Wong had come with the apartment and acted as part roommate and part creepy dead guy hovering in the corner. I’d never actually seen his face. It was difficult to see with his nose buried in the corner day after day, year after year. But his plain, gray clothing suggested he’d likely been an immigrant from the 1800s or even a Chinese prisoner of war. Either way, I liked him. I just wish I knew his real name. I called him Mr. Wong because he looked more like a Mr. Wong than a Mr. Zielinski. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Cookie had taken her daughter, Amber, to school then walked the thirty-something feet to work earlier. Our business was on the second floor of Calamity’s, my dad’s bar, which sat right in front of our apartment building. The short commute was nice and rarely involved rabid raccoons.

I strolled to the office, my thoughts wandering, as they always did, to Reyes Farrow. The moment I closed my eyes, he was there, and it seemed like neither of us had any control over that fact whatsoever.

I was smack-dab in the middle of reviewing our last encounter in my mind, my girl parts tingling at the mere thought of him, when a wave of sadness drew me out of my musings. As a reaper, I could feel emotion radiate off people, but normally the emotions of the everyday person didn’t interfere with my thoughts. I’d learned long ago to block them out, like white noise, unless I purposely wanted to read them, to study the aura of someone I was investigating. Today, however, the heart-wrenching emotions emanating from a car across the street caught my attention. Oddly, they seemed to be directed my way. I glanced over. An older-model Buick sat idling half-obscured by a delivery truck, and I could just make out a woman with dark hair and large sunglasses as she watched me cross the parking lot. The reflection of the early morning sun made it impossible to gather any specifics.

While I normally entered through the back entrance of the bar and took the interior set of stairs to my office, today I decided to go around to the front in hopes of a better look at her.

I was doing my best nonchalance, glancing to the side as much as the next person would, when the woman shifted into drive and took off. The sadness and fear she’d left in her wake saturated the air around me, and I couldn’t help but breathe it in.

I paused on the sidewalk and felt inside my pocket for a pen to write down her license plate number on my palm. Alas, I had no pen. And I’d already forgotten several of the six digits. There was an L, I think. And a 7. Damn my short-term memory.

Without giving it another thought, I hiked up the stairs to the office. The front door led directly into the reception area, fondly referred to as Cookie’s God Danged Office so Keep Your Dirty Feet off the Stinkin’ Furniture. Or CGDOSKYDFOTSF for short.

“Hey, hon,” she said without looking up from her computer.

I hoofed it to the coffeepot that resided in my own little slice of official heaven. The offices of Davidson Investigations were a tad dark and dated, but I had high hopes wood paneling would come back into style eventually. “The oddest thing just happened to me.”

“You remembered the night you lost your virginity?”

“I wish. There was a woman parked in the street watching me.”

“Hmmm,” she hmmed, only slightly interested.

“And she reeked of sadness. It just consumed her.”

Cookie looked up at last. “Do you know why?”

“No, she took off before I could talk to her.” I scooped enough coffee grinds into the filter to give it the taste and texture of unrefined motor oil.

“That is strange. You know your dad’s going to figure out you’re stealing his coffee. He was a detective for over twenty years.”

“See this?” I asked, showing her my pinkie between the doorways. “I have that man wound tight around this baby. So don’t sweat it, chiquita. ”

“Don’t expect me to visit you in prison.” A tinkling bell sounded as the front door opened. “Can I help you?” Cookie asked as I walked into the reception area for a look-see.