Third Grave Dead Ahead Read online

  Right to the point. I liked that in an old acquaintance. “Yes. His wife is missing. You may have seen it on the news.”

  “Along with other things.” She smiled sadly, and I realized she’d seen the report of the carjacking. “Are you okay?”

  “Oh, that?” I waved a dismissive hand. “That was nothing. I’ve known the guy for ages. He was a perfect gentleman the whole time he held me at knife point.”

  Suddenly her eyes sparkled with curiosity. “Will you tell me every single thing that happened? Were you scared? Did he threaten you?”

  After a soft chuckle, I asked, “Watch a lot of crime shows?”

  She nodded guiltily. “Sorry. I don’t get out much.”

  “Not at all. Can you tell me what happened with Dr. Yost in college?”

  Taking a deep breath, she said, “We dated for about a year. We were young and it all got serious pretty fast, but my parents refused to let us get married until after I’d graduated. It infuriated Nathan.” She shook her head, remembering back. “I mean infuriated him that they butted in to what he saw as none of their business. His reaction was so bizarre that it knocked me out of my trance. I started to open my eyes to what was really going on. In the year that we’d been dating, I’d lost almost all my friends, hardly ever saw my family, and rarely went anywhere without him. What I saw as charming at first became—” She struggled for the right word. “—well, suffocating.”

  “I hate to say this, but you aren’t the first person to tell me that about him. Why did you press charges against him?”

  “He used to tease me about what would happen to me if I ever left him. He would make it into a joke, and I would laugh.”

  “Can you give me an example?” I had a hard time seeing a threat like that as something either of them would find comical.

  “Well, once he said something like, ‘You know if you ever leave me, they’ll find your lifeless body at the bottom of Otero Canyon.’”

  I offered her my best horrified smile, trying really hard to see the humorous side of that statement.

  “I know,” she said, nodding in agreement, “I know it sounds horrible, but the way he’d say it, it was just funny. Then after my parents refused to let us get married, everything changed. He started pressuring me to elope, asked me over and over how I could let them interfere. And then the jokes became outright threats. He became unstable, and it dawned on me that he’d always been unstable, I’d just learned what to say and what not to say around him.”

  “Did he hurt you?”

  “Me?” she asked, surprised. “No. Not me. That’s not how he does things.”

  My brows knitted in question.

  “It took a lot of counseling for me to be able to say this, to come to this conclusion, but he was controlling me by controlling my environment. Who I hung out with. When I hung out with them. What I could talk about and what I couldn’t. He even monitored my phone calls.”

  Classic domination.

  “He never hurt me directly. He controlled me by hurting those around me.”

  I had to wonder how he did it all. How he could be so controlling with a career like his, with the hours he must have kept. “But he did eventually threaten you?”

  The sad smile she gave me made me realize I was wrong about that, too. She bowed her head and continued her story. “After my parents had put their foot down on the wedding plans, his animosity seemed to grow daily. And when I wouldn’t give in to his requests, he grew more and more furious until one day he just snapped out of it. Like a light switch had been turned off. He just, I don’t know, got happy again.”

  “Sounds suspicious. Or drug induced.”

  “It struck me that way as well, but I was just so relieved, that when he invited my parents to have dinner with us one evening, it never occurred to me that he could be up to something.”

  “Let me guess. He made the dinner.”

  “Yes. And it was wonderful until about halfway through, when my mother became violently ill. So much so, we had to take her to the emergency room.”

  “Your mother?” I asked, surprised.

  She nodded knowingly. “My mother. And while we waited out in the lobby, he leaned over to me and said, ‘It’s amazing how fragile the human body is.’ He looked at me then, practically confessing what he’d just done with a single, satisfied expression.” Her gaze turned desperate. “I was scared, Charley.”

  I could imagine his face, his blue eyes cold and calculating. “Yolanda, anyone would have been scared.”

  “No, I was terrified,” she said, shaking her head. “I could hardly breathe. When I got up to leave, he told me to sit back down. I refused, and he grabbed hold of my wrist, looked me square in the eye, and said, ‘She’ll be in the hospital all night. One stick is all it will take. Her heart will stop in seconds, and no one will be able to trace it back to me.’”

  When Agent Carson had told me that over the phone, I’d just assumed he was talking about Yolanda. But he’d threatened her mother. “Yolanda, I’m so sorry.”

  Nathan was beginning to sound like Earl Walker, and I wondered if the two were related. Earl would control Reyes by hurting his sister, Kim. Nathan would control his girlfriends and wives by hurting those around them as well. But neither Luther nor Monica had implied that he’d threatened them. They said he was controlling, manipulative, but he hadn’t harmed any of her family. Still, every sign did point in that direction. Teresa’s social activities had dropped to near nonexistent. She had to see her own sister in secret. Maybe he’d threatened them, but Teresa never admitted it, especially considering what Luther might do.

  Yolanda’s fingers pressed to her mouth while she took control of her emotions. Sadness had permeated the interior of the car, saturating everything in it. “I sat back down and stayed by his side all night long, scared to death to leave him alone even for a minute. Then when they released my mother, I waited until he went to work, packed my stuff, moved back home, and filed charges against him.” She looked back at me. “But I think, as a way of getting revenge, he tried to hurt my niece.”

  I blinked in surprise and angled to face her. “Why? What happened?”

  She shook her head as though chastising herself. “It’s silly. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  I decided not to push her, but my gut told me her gut was not far off the mark.

  “He’s a monster, Charley,” she said, her voice breathy with suspicion, “and I would bet my life he had something to do with his wife’s disappearance.” She frowned hard. “If he couldn’t control her one way, he’d find another.”

  Maybe he’d found out about Teresa seeing her sister every day and realized he couldn’t control her as well as he thought. Clearly, his answer to that was murder.

  “Anyway,” she said, shaking off the sadness, “I knew I had to come talk to you, to warn you about him.”

  “I appreciate this so much, Yolanda.”

  “I think it’s so great what you’re doing.” She offered me an excited grin, apparently able to block pain and switch emotions in the blink of an eye. We were more alike than I’d ever imagined. “I mean, a private investigator? That’s like the epitome of cool.”

  How sweet. Perhaps I shouldn’t have thrown spaghetti sauce in her hair that one night she was out with my sister and a group of their friends. “Thanks,” I said, all smiles.

  “By the way, did you throw spaghetti sauce in my hair that one night I was out with your sister and a group of our friends?”

  “What? No,” I said, feigning offense.

  She snorted. “You’re not a very good liar.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that. It was meant for Gemma. She’d stolen my sweater.”

  “Then clearly she deserved a little marinara in her golden locks,” she said with a giggle.

  “I know, right?”

  * * *

  I left Yolanda with a hug and a promise that I’d do everything I could to bring Dr. Nathan Yost to justice. But first, I simply had to f
ind Teresa. Whatever he’d done with her, to her, it couldn’t be good.

  As I walked back into the building, I looked again to my left, trying to figure out who had been in the shadows before. It couldn’t have been the intruder. I felt no resentment or desire to slit my throat with a big-ass hunting knife. Normally, I might have tried to discover the shadowy spy’s identity, but I was too tired and didn’t much care.

  By the time I walked back up to my apartment, Cookie was standing smack-dab in the middle of it, her pajamas askew, her eyes wide in astonishment. She’d probably come over to discuss what happened in Corona and walked right into the war zone. I had no choice but to accuse her.

  “Seriously, Cookie,” I said, walking up behind her. She jumped and turned toward me. “Was the cupcake remark really that offensive?”

  “I didn’t even hear an intruder,” she said, gawking at the surroundings. “How did I miss this? What if Amber had come over to watch your TV?”

  She had a point. “I’m sorry, Cookie.” I started picking up papers off the floor. “Being close to me is sometimes a very dangerous place to be.”

  “What?” After my meaning sank in, she said, “Don’t be silly.”

  I stood with an armful of notes and magazines. “Okay, but you’re raining on my parade. Being silly is kind of what I do.”

  She bent to help me.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” I said, scolding her. I took what she’d already gathered and led her out the door. “I’ll do this. You get some sleep.”

  “Me?” she said, protesting. “You’re the one who’s taken up insomnia as a hobby.”

  Since my arms were full, I nudged her out the door with my shoulder. “It’s not so much a hobby as a burning will to hold on to every ounce of self-respect I have left.” When she frowned, I added, “Admittedly, that’s not saying much. Oh, and tomorrow I want you to check out a Xander Pope.”

  “Xander Pope. Got it,” she said without taking her eyes off the chaos. “Wait, why?”

  “Because I think something very bad happened to his daughter, and I need to know what it was.” Yolanda only had one brother, so the niece she spoke of must be his. I wanted to know what happened.

  “Ah,” she said, nodding. “Do you think Yost had something to do with it?”

  “Yolanda does, and that’s good enough for me.”

  17

  Cleverly disguised as a responsible citizen.

  —T-SHIRT

  After convincing Cookie I was fine and that I had every intention of getting some sleep—not—I spent the rest of the night straightening and cleaning the war zone. I found a book I’d been looking for that I’d given up on finding and bought again. Then I found that copy, as I’d lost it as well and had to buy the book a third time. But I never found the third copy, apparently gone forever.

  Mr. Wong was a mess as well. He still hovered in the corner with his back to me, saying nary a word, but he just seemed a bit shaken up by the whole ordeal. Either that or I was projecting.

  Even though it seemed nothing was taken, unless the culprit took that third copy of Sweet Savage Love, I felt strangely violated, as if my apartment was no longer the safety zone I’d imagined it. Like when I found out Santa wasn’t real or that candy was fattening once you got past the age of nineteen.

  The little girl with the knife looked on as I cleaned. I’d never considered that she could have been the one who had slashed my tires. I might owe one Mr. Big Fat Liar an apology. Then again, could a spirit slash tires? I tried to talk to her, but she’d have none of it. She watched what I did but never looked directly at me. I considered pushing my luck, trying to find out who she was and convince her to cross, but I felt the need to avoid a stab wound imperative.

  Somewhere between three thirty and get-your-ass-to-bed, I slipped into the shower, wondering where Reyes was, what he was doing, where he was sleeping. It must be hard to be an escaped convict with your picture on every television set in three states.

  My cell phone rang, and I reached around the curtain for it.

  “Ms. Davidson?” a man asked.

  I didn’t recognize the number or the voice. “That’s me.”

  “This is Deputy Meacham with the Corona Sheriff’s Department. We spoke earlier.”

  “Right, my slashed tires.”

  “I’m sorry to wake you, but can you come in today?”

  I took a mental step back. “If I have to. I actually needed new tires anyway, so it’s not that big a deal.”

  “The man you had the altercation with, Farley Scanlon, was found dead in his home early this morning.”

  Holy crap. “Seriously?” Maybe Earl Walker was tying up loose ends again, and my poking around had gotten a man killed.

  “I rarely joke about these things.”

  “Okay, yes, I can be there. But I’m not sure how I can help.”

  “We need to ask you a few questions,” he said, his tone sharp.

  “Wonderful. So I’m a suspect?”

  “If you’ll just come in, ma’am. Immediately.”

  I blew out a long breath. “Okay, fine. Wait,” I said as a thought hit me, “do you have a time of death?”

  “If you’ll just come in.”

  “Deputy,” I said, letting the frustration I felt edge into my voice, “my apartment was broken into last night while I was in Corona dealing with the whole tire mess. I thought it was Farley Scanlon, but maybe not.”

  He hesitated, but only for a moment. “The closest we have is sometime between eight and ten. The medical examiner will have a more exact time of death later this afternoon.”

  That couldn’t be right. “Are you sure?” I asked. “Because that would mean he couldn’t have broken into my apartment.”

  “We’ll need the gentleman you were with to come in, too.”

  “Okay, I can be there in a couple of hours.” Naturally, I’d call Uncle Bob first and fill him in, just in case. He came in so handy when accused of murder. “Was Farley, by chance, beaten to death with a bookend?”

  That was how Earl Walker had killed his girlfriend Sarah Hadley, after all, but since he was reportedly dead at the time, he was never actually charged.

  “No, ma’am.”

  “A baseball bat?”

  “No.”

  “A lawn mower?” I was trying to get every last drop out of the guy. Knowledge was power, baby. “You know, investigator to investigator.”

  He cleared his throat, and I couldn’t help but notice his voice was a little softer when he spoke. “His throat was cut.”

  “Oh. Okay, be there in a while.”

  We hung up, and I went back to rinsing my hair. Farley Scanlon’s throat was cut. I didn’t think the guy they found in Earl Walker’s trunk, who was supposedly Earl Walker, had his throat cut. But he was also burned beyond recognition, so who was to say for sure? Murderers usually stuck to one MO. Earl Walker had beaten that man to death with a baseball bat and, months later after Reyes’s trial, had beaten his girlfriend to death with a bookend. But there was never any mention of cut throats. Maybe the knife was just handy.

  Wait a minute. I may have gotten a man killed. I was indirectly responsible for a man’s death. Maybe Farley Scanlon was my guardian, the one Sister Mary Elizabeth was talking about. I hoped not, because he really didn’t like me. Then again, it hadn’t been two days, eleven hours, and twenty-seven minutes. I still had time to be indirectly responsible for someone else’s death. Thank the gods of Olympia.

  “I like what you’ve done with the place,” I heard a deep voice say.

  Startled, I swiped at the water on my face and glanced around the shower curtain. Reyes Farrow stood leaning against my vanity, arms crossed over his wide chest, his hair mussed, his jaw unshaven, quite possibly the sexiest thing in existence. My knees weakened as a slow grin spread across his face.

  He scrutinized the curtain. “Didn’t I get rid of that?”

  He was referring to my last shower curtain, which he’d slashed through when he
was still able to leave his body incorporeally and wreak havoc across the lands with his ginormous sword thingy, not to be taken metaphorically. I’d refused to come out from behind the shower curtain, and the shower curtain paid the price for my impudence.

  “This one is new,” I said, a warning in my voice. “And I like the length.”

  He smiled. “Thank you.”

  “I was talking about the curtain,” I said, though my heart skipped a pertinent beat at the reminder.

  He waited a long moment to answer, studying what he could see of me. “Right.” He was wearing a green army jacket and camouflage fatigues, probably had hit a Salvation Army store, and he looked tired. There was a slight discoloration under his eyes, and I found myself wondering again where he’d been staying.

  I turned off the water and reached for a towel. He wrapped a large hand around my wrist and stepped closer, his mahogany eyes glittering with interest. “You look good in wet.”

  I fought to cover myself and to control my racing pulse. His heat snaked up my arm as he opened my hand and kissed my palm. His stubble tickled against it.

  “How’s your wound?” I asked, mesmerized with his mouth and the incredible things it could do to a simple palm.

  The intense look that landed on me was so powerful, it took my breath away. “Better than other parts.” His voice, deep and rich, felt better than the warm water that had been rushing over me moments earlier.

  Since I didn’t have an ETA on the hand he’d taken captive, I dropped the shower curtain and grabbed a towel with the other. His head tilted to the side for a better look.

  “One of the men on the list you gave me was found dead this morning. Murdered.”

  He thought a moment, then wrapped my hand into one of his and dropped his gaze to the floor.

  “Farley Scanlon,” I continued. “You might have warned me good ole Farley was psychotic.”

  “He was a friend of Earl Walker’s. I’d have thought it apparent,” he said with a shrug. “Besides, your faithful dog was on your ass the whole way, right?”