Darynda Jones - First Grave on the Right

“Reyes Farrow?” he asked, his teeth clamped together. “Do you know who Reyes Farrow is?”

“Do you?” I countered, trying to control the worry in my voice.

“I do.”

“So you two are tight?” I asked hopefully.

He cast me a dubious scowl. “I don’t usually hang with murderers.”

Snob. “I just need to get some information on him.”

“He beat his father to death with a baseball bat then threw him in the trunk of his Chevy and set it on fire. What more do you need to know about a person, Charley?”

I let out a huff of air, stalling for time to come up with a good argument. Where the heck were my lawyers when I needed them? Nobody was better at arguing than a lawyer. When nothing jumped out at me, I decided to let Ubie in a little further. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

“He wouldn’t have done that,” I said in a hushed whisper.

“You weren’t there. You didn’t see—”

“He wouldn’t have had to.” Leaning closer, I said, “He’s … different.”

“Most murderers are.” Ubie wasn’t budging without some earth-shattering bit of evidence.

After taking a deep, deep breath, I said, “It was him. Today. The spinal cord thing? He did it.”

“What?”

Uncle Bob didn’t want to hear me, to listen, but he couldn’t help it. His curiosity always got the better of him. And I knew one surefire way of getting his complete and undivided attention.

I curled my fingers into his blazer and said, “You have to promise not to tell Dad.”

Uncle Bob was suddenly salivating to know more. I explained as quickly as possible how Reyes was more than human. How he looked and moved. How he had been there on the day I was born — at which point, I was sure Ubie went into some bizarre kind of trance brought on by the stress of it all.

I left out the other two spinal taps and, well, the whole nightly seduction thing. He didn’t need to know how deep my feelings for Reyes ran.

“What is he?” he asked at last.

With a shake of my head, I said, “I wish I knew. But he’s going to die in two days if we don’t stop it. And the only way to do that for sure is to find his sister.”

“But, if he’s this … powerful being—”

“In human form,” I corrected. “I don’t know what will happen to him if his body dies.” I knew what would happen to me, though. I didn’t want to live without him. I didn’t know if I could. Not at this point.

Fifteen minutes later, we had printouts of Reyes’s class schedule along with a roster for each course.

“Do you remember him?” I asked Ms. Tarpley.

She ripped her gaze off Uncle Bob to settle it on me. “I’ve only been here ten years,” she said.

“And there are no other Farrows in the system?”

“No. I’m sorry. Perhaps his sister wasn’t in high school yet.”

“That could be. And he only came here three months.” I looked back at the file I had on Reyes. “But this says he graduated from here.”

“Not from this high school,” she said. “Wait.” Her fingernails clicked on the computer keys. “We do have a record of him receiving a diploma, but that’s impossible.”

I leaned over to Uncle Bob. “Not for an expert hacker.” I was beginning to piece together how Reyes put his intelligence and computer skills to work.

“Thank you so much for this, Ms. Tarpley,” Ubie said, taking her hand in his.

She made googly eyes. He made googly eyes. It was all quite romantic, but I had a missing person to find. I elbowed Uncle Bob. “Shall we hit the road?”

After a soft protest, he turned back to her and said his good-byes. Just as we started out the door, I skidded to a halt. “Oh,” I said, bringing forward a note, “I found this in the corner over there. It looked … important.”

“Thank you,” she said, opening it.

As we passed by the front of the building, I looked in her window. She was clutching the note to her breast and crying. It must have been the lily pad thing.

We swung by my office to give the class rosters to Cookie. She’d cross-reference the students Reyes’d had classes with and try to contact a few of them, fishing for a hit on the mysterious sister. Now that I could get into my office again, I grabbed my Glock out of the safe, slid into a shoulder holster, and snapped it in. With my leather jacket, it was hardly noticeable. I’d never actually had to pull it on anyone. I just wanted the feel of it against my body, to know it was there, if only for a little while.

On the drive back to the station, two of my lawyers popped into Uncle Bob’s SUV. I’d been driving earlier, but after a little mishap, Ubie insisted on taking over.

The blond-haired, ruby-lipped Elizabeth Ellery sat behind him. “Hey, Charlotte.”

“Hey, there.” I turned to them. “How are you two doing?”

Jason Barber shrugged his brows. “My mom’s upset.”

“Are you surprised?” I asked, watching Uncle Bob shift uncomfortably in his seat. He never really got used to having them around. It was a situation in which he had zero control. He didn’t like zero control. He didn’t even like zero-calorie soft drinks.

“Well, yeah, kind of.”

“Is your uncle okay?” Elizabeth asked, concern in her blue eyes.

With a dubious grin, I said, “He’s mad at me.”

Uncle Bob straightened. “Are you talking about me?”

“Elizabeth and Barber are here with us. She just asked if you were okay.”

His knuckles turned white as he gripped the steering wheel just a tad tighter than was probably necessary. “You are never driving this vehicle again.”

I did my signature rolling of the eyes. “Puh-lease. That sign was totally superfluous. Honestly, Uncle Bob, how many times do we need to be reminded of the speed limit? No one’s gonna miss it.”

He pulled in a deep, soothing breath. “I’m getting too old for this crap.”

“Ah, yes. Impotence, decrepitude. Still, you’ll always have Werther’s Originals.” I watched as Uncle Bob’s face went from a pale, post-fender-bender white to a flushed shade of rosy pink. I had to laugh. On the inside, because he really was mad at me. “Where’s Sussman?” I asked the lawyers.

Elizabeth lowered her eyes. “He’s still with his wife. She’s having a very difficult time.”

“I’m sorry.” I didn’t just hate the people-left-behind part. I hated talking about the people-left-behind part. Unfortunately, it was often necessary. “How is your family?”

“My sister is doing remarkably well. I think she’s on drugs. My parents … not so much.”

“Your sister isn’t sharing?”

Elizabeth shook her head.

“I can’t imagine how hard this must be for them.”

“They’ll need closure, Charlotte.”

“I agree.”

“We have to find who did this. I just think it will help.”

She was right. Knowing the whys and hows of any crime often helped the victims cope with what was done to them. And putting those responsible behind bars was like the icing on the cake. Justice may be blind, but she was an awesome elixir.

I looked back at Barber. “Oh, I took seven flash drives out of your office, but they were all yours. Do you remember what you did with the one Carlos Rivera gave you?”

He patted his jacket. “Damn, what did I do with that thing?”

“Maybe they took it? Maybe they knew he gave it to you?”

“I guess that’s possible.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry, I just can’t remember.”

That happened often. Especially when the subject had two bullets in his head. Since we couldn’t rely on the flash drive, we’d have to rely on our mad skill.

“Well, our former suspect and current informant, Julio Ontiveros, stated that he’d given a friend a box of ammunition after he sold his own nine millimeter. That’s the only way he could see his fingerprints showing up on casings at a crime scene.”