Darynda Jones - Third Grave Dead Ahead

“Yes, by passing along anything you get to your uncle.” He leaned forward. “And staying out of it.”

“I can’t do that.”

His shoulders deflated, anger and regret churning inside him. “Will you please just think about it?”

I stood dumbfounded by the whole idea. My own father asking me to give up my livelihood. My calling. I should’ve known something was up when he tried to have me killed.

He turned to leave, so I cornered the desk and clutched his arm much more desperately than I’d have liked. “Dad, what brought this on?”

“You can’t guess?” He seemed surprised that I’d asked.

I fought to pinpoint his exact meaning. This was my dad. My best friend growing up. The only person I could turn to, who believed me, in what I could do, without looking at me like I was a sideshow freak. “Dad, why?” I tried to squelch the hurt in my voice. It didn’t work.

“Because,” he said, his voice harsh, “I can no longer sit idly by and watch as you’re beaten, kidnapped, shot at … hell, you name it, and it’s happened since you started this business.” He raised his hands, indicating my office — his second floor — as though the building were somehow at fault.

I stepped back and plopped back into my chair. “Dad, I’ve been solving crimes since I was five, remember? For you.”

“But I never put you in the thick of things. I kept you out of it.”

I couldn’t help the harsh bark of laughter that escaped me. Of all the asinine things to say. “Two weeks ago, Dad. Or have you already forgotten the target you painted on my back?” It was a cheap shot, but so was his coming in here and basically demanding I quit my job.

The guilt that seemed to swallow him whole bit into my resolve. I fought it. No matter what his intentions had been when that ex-con came after us, he’d handled it poorly, and now he was taking it out on me.

“Fine,” he said, his voice soft, “I deserve that, but what about the others? The time that angry husband came after you with a gun. The time those men kidnapped you and beat you to a pulp before Swopes showed up. The time that kid hit you and sent you crashing through the thirty-foot roof of a warehouse.”

“Dad—”

“I could go on. For quite a while, in fact.”

I knew he could, but he didn’t understand. Those were all very explainable. I lowered my head, feeling oddly like a pouting child, amazed that my father could make me feel so small. Amazed that he would. “So, your answer is to ask me to give up everything I’ve worked for?”

He exhaled slowly. “Yes, I guess it is,” he said as he turned and started for the door. “And stop taking my coffee.”

“Do you really believe my leaving this business will alleviate your guilt?”

He didn’t even slow his stride, but I’d stung him. I felt it in one quick burst before he disappeared around the corner.

After stewing a few minutes — only partly because of the coffee thing — I gathered myself up and walked back into Cookie’s office.

“We’re so busted. He knows about the coffee.”

“He’s wrong,” she said without looking up from her computer, almost as though her feelings were hurt.

“No, I’ve really been taking his coffee.” I sat in the chair across from her.

“I’m not overqualified.”

“Yes, hon, you are,” I said, hating that whole honesty-is-the-best-policy business.

She stopped typing and focused on me. “No. I love this job. Nobody does what we do. Nobody saves lives like we do. How could anyone ask for more?” Her passion surprised me. I’d never realized how she felt about what we did.

I forced a smile across my face. “He’s just upset. He’ll calm down. Well, maybe not about the coffee.”

Cookie thought a moment, then said, “Maybe … maybe if you told him.”

“Told him what?”

“I mean, he knows you can see the departed, Charley. He would understand. Really he would. Even your sister knows you’re the grim reaper.”

I shook my head. “I can’t tell him something like that. What would it to do him? To know that his daughter was born the grim reaper?” The death-incarnate gig had such a bad rap.

“Give me your hand.”

I glanced down at my hands, then eyed her warily. “Did you get into palm reading again? You know how I feel about that stuff.”

She chuckled. “I’m not going to read your palm. Give me your hand.”

I did, reluctantly.

She took it into both of hers and leaned toward me. “If Amber were capable of what you’re capable of, I would be so proud of her. I would love and support her no matter how creepy her job title.”

“But you aren’t like my dad.”

“I disagree.” She squeezed lovingly. “Your dad has always supported you. All of this negativity, this pent-up aggression and self-loathing—”

“I hardly loathe myself. Have you seen my ass?”

“—all of it is because of your stepmother, the way she’s treated you. Not your father.”

“My stepmother is a bitch,” I said, semi-agreeing. “But I don’t know if I can tell Dad. Not that. Not the grim reaper thing.” I pulled my hand back.

She let me. “I just think it might make him feel better about all of this, if he knew you had more on your side than just your ability to talk to the departed.”

“Maybe.”

“So, seriously, your accountant is crooked?”

“As a do-it-yourself haircut,” I said, grateful for the change in subject. “It took me forever to find an accountant with flexible morals.” I added a double wink to get my meaning across. “Apparently there’s this whole code-of-ethics thing they have to get past.”

My cell rang. I fished it out of my front pocket and checked the caller ID. It was Neil Gossett, a friend I’d gone to high school with who was now a deputy warden at the prison in Santa Fe.

“Hello?” I said, because Charley’s House of Pasties seemed wrong.

“Reyes wants to talk.”

“A long time ago, in a galaxy pretty much exactly like this one, a little girl was born to a set of wonderful parents named Mom and Dad.”

“I already know this part.”

“She had a head of dark hair,” I said into my phone, ignoring Gemma, my slightly OCD sister, as I steered Misery onto the interstate toward Santa Fe. Hopefully, there were no cops around, because I really didn’t need another ticket for talking on the phone while driving.

Garrett had dropped off Misery after he checked for any mechanical damage from the fender bender, and Misery seemed to have forgiven me, so we were good to go. I set Cookie on the mundane task of checking out the good doctor’s background, then tore out of the office so fast, papers went flying behind me.

“And she had shimmering gold eyes that the nurses cooed over for days,” I continued.

“The nurses cooed? That’s what you’re telling people?”

“The mom so loved her daughter, she sacrificed her life to give the little girl a chance at one.”

“I don’t think it was really a choice.”

“On the day her daughter was born, the mom died and crossed through the infant, as the girl was made of magic and light, but this saddened her father. Not the light thing. He didn’t know about that. But the mom passing thing.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

I charged past a trucker who clearly didn’t get that ninety was the new seventy-five. “And the little girl lay in the nursery for three long days.”

“Three days? Are you sure?” Gemma asked, doubtful.

Gemma and I had been sisters my whole life, and she’d always known that I could see the departed, that I’d been born the one and only grim reaper this side of the Milky Way, which resulted in my assisting Dad and now my uncle Bob with their cases. But we’d never been particularly close. I figured my whole status as death incarnate had put her off, and I’d only found out recently that it wasn’t my job title that kept her at a distance, but my insistence that she stay far, far away. I never dreamed she’d take me seriously.