Fifth Grave Past the Light Read online

  But she still wasn’t convinced. “So, if you were a guy, would you be into me?”

  “Hon, if I were a guy, I’d be gay.”

  “Yeah, me, too. So, what do I do?”

  “Just give it a sec. He’ll probably —”

  “The man at the table behind you would like to buy you a drink, darlin’,” Teri said. Her brows rose as she waited for a response. Sobriety clearly came late in life for her, but she was what my father would call a handsome woman, with long dark hair and striking hazel eyes. Still, she’d seen too many illicit rendezvous, complicated hookups, and bad one-night stands to be overly impressed. Experience had hardened her.

  I could be hard. If I practiced. Gave it my all.

  “Oh,” Cookie said, caught off guard, “I’ll take a whiskey sour.”

  Teri winked and began practicing her magic.

  “A whiskey sour?” I asked Cook.

  “Your f-friend seems nervous,” Duff said, and I agreed with a nod.

  Cookie stared ahead as though standing before a firing squad. “Liquid courage,” she said. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “That’s what they said about nuclear energy on Three Mile Island.”

  She cast me a horrified look.

  I fought a grin and tucked a small mic into the folds of her scarf, pretending to adjust it. “Look, all you gotta do is open the lines of communication. I’ll be able to hear everything he says.” I tapped my ear to indicate the receiver I was wearing. “Just see how far he wants to take things. Unfortunately, him buying you a drink does not prove infidelity.”

  Her pallor turned a light shade of green. “I have to have sex with him?”

  “What? No. Just, you know, see if he wants to have sex with you.”

  “Do I have to make out with him?”

  Oh, wow. I never realized how uneducated Cookie was in the ways of extramarital investigations. She was more of a behind-the-scenes kind of gal. I just figured she’d know what to do.

  Teri set the drink down. Cookie grabbed it and took a long draw.

  “Don’t do anything that makes you uncomfortable,” I said as she took another hearty swig. “Just try to get him to proposition you. Now, turn and offer him a salute. Let him know you’re interested.”

  Before I could coach her further, she did exactly that. She turned to him, her back rigid, and saluted.

  Jessica’s table of airheads burst out laughing. I closed my eyes in mortification and said through gritted teeth, “I meant lift the glass.”

  “What?” she asked through equally gritted teeth. “You said to salute him.” She was starting to panic. I could feel it radiating off her in waves. “I thought maybe he was in the military.”

  “It’s okay, just calm down.”

  “Calm down?” She turned back around. “You calm down. I’m completely calm. I’m like deep water that’s deep and still.”

  I wrapped a hand around her arm and squeezed to coax her back to me. She drew in a long breath and let it out slowly, forcing herself to calm.

  “Better,” I said, giving her another minute to recuperate. “Okay, if he hasn’t penciled you in as a loony, go over there and strike up a conversation.”

  “What? Me? What?”

  “Cook, you can do this. It’s just like high school only without the socially crippling aftereffects of failure.”

  “Right. High school.” She gathered up her courage, eased off her chair, and stepped to his table.

  And she transformed. She became confident. A true mistress of her own destiny. I almost giggled in triumph while I took another bite and listened in.

  “S-so, you’re s-setting him up?” Duff asked.

  I wiped my mouth, then checked the recorder in my pocket to make sure it was set to record. It would suck if we went to all this trouble and ended up with no proof. “Not so much setting up as taking down. He’s the one trolling the clubs with the intention of cheating on his wife. We’re just giving him the opportunity and giving her the proof she needs to move on.”

  It wasn’t until I heard Jessica snickering that I realized I was talking to Duff too openly.

  “There she goes again,” Jessica said loud enough for me to hear. “What did I tell you? Absolute freak.”

  The gossip girls burst out laughing again, but I could hear Jessica’s high-pitched crow above the others. It was the one thing that drove me crazy when we were friends. She had a nasally, piercing laugh that reminded me of the stabbing scene from Psycho. But that could’ve been wishful thinking on my part.

  I’d made the mistake of being honest with her when we were freshmen. She seemed to accept the fact that I could see ghosts. But once I told her exactly what I was, that I was the grim reaper and that the departed could cross through me, our friendship shattered like a house of glass, cut as the remnants showered down on me. It left some fairly deep scars. Had I known our friendship was so fragile, had I known it could be severed with a single truth, I wouldn’t have thrown so much of myself into it.

  Afterwards, all bets were off. She told the entire school what I’d said. What I was. Thankfully, no one, including herself, believed it. But the betrayal cut deep. Hurt and vindictive, I went after – and landed – the boy of her dreams, a senior basketball star named Freddy James. Naturally, that did nothing to reconcile our friendship. Her venomous spite multiplied tenfold after I started dating Freddy, but suddenly, I didn’t care. I’d discovered boys on a whole new level.

  My sister, Gemma, knew the moment it happened. She accused Freddy of stealing my virginity. But saying Freddy James stole my virginity would be like saying Hiroshima stole a nuclear bomb from us. Theft didn’t fit into the equation.

  As Jessica and her friends snickered across the way, I ignored them, knowing indifference would bite more than anything I could say. Jessica hated to be ignored and it worked. My disinterest seemed to be eating her alive. The abrasive texture of anger and hatred raked over my skin like sharp nails. That girl had issues.

  “Sorry about the salute,” Cookie said to Tidwell.

  He gestured for her to sit. “Not at all. I found it enchanting.”

  Despite everything, Tidwell was a good-looking man, and clearly articulate. Now I had to worry about another possible outcome altogether: Would Cookie fall for his charm?

  “I’m Anastasia,” she said, and I tried not to groan aloud. Normally noms de guerre were fine on a job, but we were in my dad’s bar. We knew half the people here, which came to glaring light when someone called out to her.

  “Hey, Cookie!” an off-duty officer said as he strolled in and took a seat at the bar. “Looking good, sweet cheeks.”

  Cookie blinked, taken aback, then smiled and said to Tidwell, “But everyone calls me Cookie.”

  A most excellent save.

  “I’m Doug.”

  Oops, incriminating evidence number one. It would seem Marv liked noms de guerre, too. I’d turned so I could see them through my periphery and watched as they shook hands. Cook mumbled something about how nice it was to meet him. He said likewise. And I took another bite of quesadilla, fighting the urge to moan in ecstasy. Sammy had definitely outdone himself.

  Still, I had to get over it. I had a job to do, damn it.

  I turned toward them, my expression one of complete boredom, and snapped a few shots with my phone. Phones made close-up surveillance so easy. I pretended to text while zeroing in on my target. When Tidwell leaned forward and put a hand over Cookie’s, I almost became giddy. Not really a money shot, but pretty darned close.

  But then I noticed something. A darkness in his gaze I hadn’t seen before. The more I watched Tidwell, the less I liked him. Almost everything out of his mouth was a lie, but there was more to my discomfort than his deception. He reminded me of one of those guys who sweeps a girl off her feet, marries her after a whirlwind romance, then kills her for the insurance money. He was a bit too smooth. A bit too personal with the questions. I’d have to do a little more digging where Mr.
Marv Tidwell was concerned.

  “What is that?” Tidwell asked. His voice had hardened and the emotion that dumped out of him startled me.

  “This?” Cookie asked, suddenly less certain.

  He saw the mic I’d hidden in the folds of her scarf. Crap on a quesadilla. Before I could scramble out of my seat, he reached over and ripped it off her, dragging her forward in the process.

  “What is this?” he demanded, shaking it in her face before curling it into his fist.

  I rushed toward them. The investigator in me continued to take a couple of shots for good measure. They’d be blurry, but I had to take what I could get. Cookie sat stunned. Not because she was caught, I was certain, but because of his reaction. I would have been stunned, too. He went from charming admirer to raging bull in a matter of seconds.

  His face reddened and his lips peeled back from his teeth in a vicious snarl. “Is this a game? Did Valerie put you up to this?”

  Valerie Tidwell was Marvin’s wife and my client, and clearly he suspected that she suspected his extracurricular activities. The entire bar fell silent as I hurried forward, weaving around tables and chairs, snapping shots as I went, wondering why on earth Cookie was digging into her purse. I didn’t have to wonder long. Just as I got to her, she pulled a gun, and all I could think was holy freaking crap.

  “Cookie!” I said as I skidded into her.

  But before I could do anything, Tidwell lunged across the table and grabbed Cookie’s wrist. He knocked her back into me and we all three started to tumble to the ground the exact moment a sharp crack splintered the air.

  2

  I intend to live forever. So far, so good.

  —T-SHIRT

  The world slowed, as it had so many times before, the instant the sound of the gun going off reached me. I realized then that when Tidwell grabbed for it, he’d pushed it until it was pointed directly at my heart.

  Naturally.

  Because where else would it be pointed?

  I had been charging forward, but when the world slowed, I decelerated and watched the bullet burst out of the barrel of Cookie’s pistol, mere inches away from me, with a puff of fire behind it. It traveled straight toward my chest as I reared back.

  But time was different here. Gravity didn’t work quite the same. The laws of physics broke. As the bullet crept forward, I tried to shift my weight away from the projectile rocketing toward me, but it seemed like all I could do was stare at it.

  From my periphery, I could see the beginnings of panic in many of the patrons’ faces. Some were in the middle of raising an arm to duck and cover. Some were still oblivious, looking on with only mild concern. And some, cops mostly, jumped into action, their expressions calm as their training took over.

  The bullet kept coming, centimeter by centimeter, the air behind it rippling with friction. I needed more time. To figure out what to do. To figure out how to dodge a bullet. Literally. Feeling as though I were swimming in cement, I made a minute amount of headway, falling back in the direction I’d come, pushing off Cookie’s shoulder. But not fast enough. If the world came crashing back now, the round would enter the left side of my chest just under my collarbone. And unfortunately, I was never able to slow time for very long. It had a way of bouncing back, like a rubber band snapping into place, when I least expected it.

  Just as I felt my hold slipping, as the bullet gained a precious inch too quickly for my eyes to track, as sound skipped forward like a scratched record jumping across grooves, a hand, large and masculine, wrapped around the slug and pulled it out of my path. A heat as familiar as the sun bathed me in its warmth. And another hand slid around the back of my neck as Reyes Alexander Farrow palmed the bullet and pulled me into his arms.

  And what beautiful arms they were. Forearms corded with sinew and tendon. Biceps sculpted with the hills and valleys of well-defined muscle. Shoulders wide and powerful beneath a khaki T-shirt.

  My gaze traveled up until I was looking into the face of an angel. Or a fallen angel. Or, well, a fallen angel’s son. Reyes’s dad just happened to be public enemy number one, the first and most beautiful angel to fall from heaven, Lucifer. And Reyes had been created in hell, literally forged in the fires of sin. Which would explain his allure.

  His dark eyes glistened with humor as he asked, “This again?”

  My knight in shining armor. Someday I was going to be able to save my own ass. Then I wouldn’t have to owe people. People like the son of Satan.

  I fought past the primal urges that surged through my body every time Reyes was near and said as nonchalantly as I could manage, “I totally had this.”

  An evil grin, probably one he’d inherited from his evil father, spread across his face, and I found myself trying not to drool for the second time that night. He glanced at the chaos surrounding us. “Yeah, I can see that. What’s she doing with her tongue?”

  I tore my gaze off him and looked at Cookie. Her face was frozen in horror, her features contorted, her tongue poking out from between her teeth.

  “Oh, my god. Will my camera phone work? I have got to capture this moment.” I could blackmail her for years with a shot like that.

  He laughed, a deep rich sound that sent shivers racing down my spine. “I don’t think so.”

  “Damn, if ever there was a Kodak moment.” I looked back at him and his ridiculously long lashes. “That bullet was traveling pretty fast,” I said. “What’s it going to do to your hand when time bounces back?”

  He dropped his gaze to my mouth, let it linger there a long moment before saying, “Rip through it, most likely.”

  I hadn’t expected such an honest answer.

  A dimple appeared. “Don’t worry, Dutch. I’ve had worse.”

  And he had. Much worse. But when would it be too much? Why should he have to endure any amount of pain for me? For a predicament I’d gotten myself into?

  He raised his head. “Here it comes.”

  And come it did. Time bounced back like a freight train crashing through the bar. The sound ricocheted through me. The force, like a hurricane, knocked the air from my lungs, left me gasping.

  Reyes held me to him as though we were caught in the center of a tornado until we joined the same time-space continuum as the rest of the world. Then he set me at arm’s length, keeping hold of my shoulders until I gained my balance. Screams and shouts echoed through the room as people ducked and scrambled out of the way. Several patrons dived behind the bar while a couple of the off-duty cops tackled Tidwell and Cookie to the ground. Tidwell would not be a happy camper. Cookie would enjoy every moment of being groped by a hot cop. She was such a hussy.

  When another cop had similar plans for me, Reyes jerked me out of the way, and in one smooth movement, he used the cop’s own momentum to slam him to the ground. He did it so fast, no one could’ve said what really happened should it come to that, and since the cop was in plainclothes, I doubted they could charge Reyes with assaulting an officer of the law. But I’d recognized this particular cop, as I did most of the cops who came into the bar. This one was a semi-friend.

  I grabbed his arms and said, “Reyes, wait,” before he did any real damage. He stilled but kept Taft pinned to the ground with an arm twisted behind him and a knee on his back.

  Taft groaned and, having no idea who had taken him down, tried to break the hold. With effortless ease, Reyes stayed as solid as a boulder as Taft squirmed beneath him. I kneeled next to the off-duty officer. He’d probably lunged my direction more for my protection than anything since we were kind of, sort of, friends.

  “It’s okay,” I said to Reyes. “He’s a cop.”

  Reyes’s expression was so unimpressed, I had to glare at him to get him to loosen his hold. Of course, I knew he wouldn’t care that Taft was a cop, but I wanted Taft to believe that had Reyes known, he wouldn’t have dropped him like a sack of potatoes on Sunday morning.

  “You okay, Taft?” I asked, nudging Reyes with my shoulder. Finally, and with deliberate s
lowness, he let Taft up.

  Once he gained a little wiggle room, Taft pushed Reyes off him and scrambled to his feet. Reyes straightened as well, his full mouth straining to keep a grin in check when Taft stepped nose to nose with him.

  I jumped to get between them, but a scuffle caught my attention. Cookie kept still as one cop held her bent over a table, hands behind her back, but Tidwell was fighting the officers and continued to do so even after they identified themselves. His face glistened red with anger. Still, the officers took him down without too much fuss. Clearly Tidwell had an intellect rivaled only by kitchen utensils. And he had a temper to boot. He knew Mrs. Tidwell put us up to this. What would he do to her? Would she be in danger?

  The room began to calm and suddenly all eyes focused on me. Like this was my fault. I raised my hands to assure everyone all was quiet on the Southwestern front.

  “Don’t worry,” I said, patting the air to console it. “Cookie is an excellent shot. None of you were ever in any danger.”

  If there was a special place in hell for liars, I was so going there.

  I looked back to make sure Reyes and Taft hadn’t started World War III only to find my uncle Bob strolling in, his shirt collar unbuttoned, his tie loosened, and his brows drawn in mild curiosity.

  He started toward me, then spotted the cop who had Cookie pinned to the table, the same cop who’d called her sweet cheeks earlier. “Christ in a Crock-Pot, Smith, let her up.”

  He did, brushing Cookie off apologetically, but said in his own defense, “She had a pistol. It discharged when that man lunged for her.”

  “Only because he attacked me,” Cookie said, pointing at Tidwell, who was still struggling under the weight of one of the cops. “Jerk.”

  Uncle Bob was more than alarmed. Anger rushed through him like wildfire, and I could only imagine what he would think when he found out I’d used Cookie on a job that almost got her shot. Maybe I’d leave that part out.