Third Grave Dead Ahead (23 page)

The smile on her face didn’t waver. It didn’t falter or fade in the least. But the smile in her eyes, the genuine part of a smile, vanished. Then, like a geyser erupting from her core, panic rose in her and hit me full force, but she sat perfectly still. Motionless. Frozen in the throes of her own fear.

I put a hand over hers instantly and leaned forward. “Kim, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

She blinked, appearing like a mannequin with the emotion that had been painted on her face a little too garish. “You didn’t frighten me,” she said, the lie hanging thick in the air. “What you asked is absolutely impossible.”

I backtracked as fast as I could. “You’re right,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m sorry I even brought it up. I just thought if Reyes was innocent.”

The smile faltered at last. “He’s innocent? Did he tell you that?”

“No!” I lied, literally jumping forward. “No, he didn’t. I—I just wondered why he would escape. I just thought—”

“But you were with him,” she said, putting the facts together. “When he first escaped. I saw it on the news. He carjacked you.”

“Yes, he did. But … that’s not what I meant. He never said—” The fragility that had been there on my first two visits, the crushing sadness, resurfaced, and I was afraid her bones would crumble to dust before my eyes.

She pulled back, her gaze wandering past me to another place and time. “He’s alive, isn’t he?”

“No, hon—”

“I should’ve known Reyes would do that.” Her eyes suddenly shimmered with unspent tears. “Of course he would do that. He’s always done that.”

My thoughts shot from
How do I get out of this?
to
Come again?
“What do you mean? Kim, what did he do?”

She replaced the smile and turned back to me. “He told me he killed him.”

Well, shit. What the hell was going on? Was Earl Freaking Walker alive or not?

“And he lied.” An iridescent pool sat trembling on her lower lashes as she battled her lungs for air.

“Why would he lie about something like that?” I asked, struggling to understand.

After glancing at the hand covering hers, she clasped her fingers around it, then looked up at me as though she felt sorry for my lack of depth. “Because that’s what he does. He protects me. He does anything for me. He always has. Do you know there are pictures everywhere?”

“Pictures?” I asked, fighting past the grief.

With an almost invisible nod, she said, “He kept pictures. Proof. Blackmail.”

“Reyes?”

“Earl.” She shook visibly as memory after memory washed over her. “In the walls.”

I leaned forward, trying to get through to her. “Sweetheart, what pictures?”

She stood, walked to the door, and opened it for me. Reluctantly, I followed. “I’ll get in touch with you the minute I know something,” I promised.

Her breath hitched in her chest, and I realized it was taking all her strength to hold herself together. The kindest thing I could do would be to leave. So I did. She closed the door softly behind me as I walked to Misery. And everything she’d told me before about Reyes and her surfaced. How Earl Walker had used her to get what he wanted out of Reyes. He had abused him in the worst way possible. Had he taken pictures? Wouldn’t that implicate himself?

Then understanding of what she meant about Reyes protecting her dawned. He had gone to prison partly for her. Cleary, she needed to believe Earl Walker was dead with every ounce of her being. And I had just planted a seed of doubt in her mind.

Reyes was going to kill me.

15

If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is
NOT
for you.

—BUMPER STICKER

With a lingering sadness after my visit with Kim still tightening my chest, I walked up to a dilapidated mobile home and knocked on a rusted door. The village of Corona sat nestled in the picturesque mountains of southeastern New Mexico. With less than two hundred people in residence, it had a small-town charm all its own. And it was a good two-hour drive from Albuquerque, which explained why it took me a little over an hour to get there. A man whom I’d assumed to be the last name on Reyes’s list, Farley Scanlon, opened the door, an annoyed scowl bunching his brows.

Well built with shoulder-length brown hair intermingled with a streak or two of gray, a long mustache and goatee, and a strip of leather around his neck with a silver pendant, Farley proved to be one of those men in his late fifties who only looked in his late fifties up close.

“Hello,” I said when he settled his frown on me in question. I noted the hunting paraphernalia in the background of his decrepit trailer. “My name is Charlotte Davidson.” I fished out my PI license because he didn’t look like a man who trusted easily. “I’m a private investigator working on a missing persons case.”

He eyed my ID a long moment before returning his steady gaze to me. “Well, I ain’t killed no one, if you’re asking.” The barest trace of a smile slid across his scraggly face.

“That’s good to know.” I smiled back, waited another heartbeat to give him time to adjust, then said, “Unfortunately, there are plenty of other things a man of your reputation can go to prison for.”

His breathing remained calm, his gaze steady. But the emotion that hit me with hurricane force was full of both anger and fear, and I wondered which part of that was directed at me. It was probably too much to hope he was afraid of me.

I took out my notepad and started checking off the itemized list I’d basically pulled out of my ass. “Okay, we have a few months for obstruction of justice. Three years for possession and distribution of a controlled substance. Ten years for conspiracy to commit murder.” I leaned in and smiled. “And that’s if the judge is in a good mood.” He looked like the conspiracy-to-commit-murder type, so I’d taken a chance. He didn’t argue the fact.

“What the fuck do you want?” he asked, shifting away from me.

“Wait,” I said, holding up a finger and continuing to read, “I also have nine months for accessory after the fact, but a good lawyer can probably get that reduced to time served once the trial starts, because it could take a while, if you know what I mean.” I snorted.

The anger quickly overtook the fear.

I closed the pad and eyed him a good twenty seconds. He waited, his jaw working hard.

“Here’s what I can offer you,” I said, and he shifted his weight again, itching to be rid of me. “I’ll give you one chance to tell me where Earl Walker is before I call the police and have your ass arrested on all these charges right here and now.” I couldn’t really have his ass arrested, but he didn’t know that. Hopefully.

The shock that hit me was so palpable, so visible, I felt as if I’d blindsided him with a left hook. Clearly, he was not expecting the name Earl Walker to enter into the conversation. But his reaction had nothing to do with thoughts of lunacy. He was wondering how I knew. Guilt was so easy to sense. It was like picking out the color red in a sea of yellow.

“I don’t have time for this shit,” he said, readying to walk past me.

I put both hands on the doorjamb to block his path.

He cast an incredulous stare at me. “Really, sweetheart? You want to do that?” When I shrugged, he just sighed and said, “Earl Walker died ten years ago. Look it up.”

“Okay, two chances. But that’s my final offer.” I wagged my finger at him in warning. That’d teach him.

“Honey, he’s dead. Ask his son,” he said with a knowing smirk. “His kid’s been sitting in prison ten years for killing him. Ain’t nothing you or the law can do about that.”

“Look, I’m not here to give you any trouble.” I showed my palms in a gesture of peace, love, and goodwill toward men. “You and I both know he’s no more dead than the cockroaches that scurry across your kitchen floor every night.”

His eyebrows seemed glued together.

“This isn’t your fault,” I said with a lighthearted shrug. “No one needs to know your name. Just tell me where he is, and you’ll never see me again.” I was so going to hell for lying. I had every intention of watching the man rot in prison.

Farley’s mouth formed a grim line as he took out a hunting knife that would have made Rambo proud and began cleaning his nails with the tip of the blade. Like Rambo might have had needed a manicure. The move was very effective. My first thought was how much it would hurt when the blade slid into my abdomen, pushing easily past the muscle tissue and through those ovaries with which I had no intention of procreating. Then Farley looked past me and stilled. With the reluctance of a man who forgot to take his Viagra before his weekly visit with his favorite prostitute, he slipped the blade back into its sheath.

He must have seen Garrett parked in the distance, not that I dared take my eyes off him to check. He reached over and grabbed a jacket.

“I don’t have anything else to say.”

“’Cause you’re a big fat liar?” I asked. It was a fair question. That scum-of-the-universe Earl Walker was alive.

A wave of anger washed over him. He probably didn’t like to be called fat. I giggled, but because I wasn’t stupid, I did it on the inside. On the outside, I raised my brows, waiting for an answer.

“No, because Earl Walker is dead.”

I nodded in understanding. “Possibly. Or it could be you’re just a big fat liar.”

His free hand curled into a white-knuckled fist, but his face remained neutral. All things considered, he was pretty good. Probably played a lot of poker. “I have a meeting.”

He forced his way past me even though I was blocking the door, his shoulder hitting mine in a desperate act of machismo.

I called out to him as he stalked to his truck. “Is it the weekly Big Fat Liars Anonymous meeting?” Nothing. He climbed in and slammed the door, but his window was down, so I took another pot shot. Mostly because I could. “Big Fat Liars bridge club?”

He glared as his engine roared to life.

“A Big Fat Liars Tea and Recognition Ceremony?” When he pulled the gearshift into drive, I shouted, “Don’t forget to stick out your pinkie!” Teas were so tedious.

After he drove off, I glanced over at Garrett. He’d exited his vehicle and was leaning against it, his legs crossed at the ankles. For once, I was glad he was there, but I refused to let him know that. I climbed into Misery and called Cook.

“Are you still alive?” she asked.

“Barely. This one liked big knives.”

Her startled gasp sounded in the phone. “Like Rambo’s?”

“Exactly.” Either she was getting better at this, or we really did have ESPN. “And even though he wouldn’t give me the time of day if my life depended on it, he knew one thing for certain.”

“Big knives are scary?”

“Earl Walker is alive.”

The phone was silent for a moment; then she said, “Wow, I’m not sure what to say. I mean, Reyes said he was, but—”

“I know. I don’t know what to think either.”

“So, Earl’s girlfriend, the dental assistant, switches dental records so the cops think it’s really him,” she said, thinking out loud.

“Yes, and Earl picks someone with the same general facial structure and build, murders him, puts him in the trunk of his car and burns it.”

“And he makes sure Reyes is arrested for his murder,” she said.

“Then kills his girlfriend one week after Reyes is convicted.”

“So, was this Farley Scanlon with the big knife an accessory?”

“That part’s not quite as clear,” I said, sliding my key into the ignition, “but he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt Earl Walker is still alive.”

“Well, we have to find him. We have to get Reyes out of jail. Well, really out of jail. Not just escaped out of jail.”

“I agree. I’m going to grab something to eat at this little café—”

“Oh, you love small-town cafés.”

“I do. I’ll be back in a couple.”

“You know, I had a thought about that,” she said, her voice hesitant.

“Yeah?” I pulled out of Farley’s dirt drive. Circling back around, I missed dismembering Garrett by a hairsbreadth as he jumped back into his truck, then offered me a questioning glare in my rearview. It made me smile.

“Yeah. Why don’t you ride with Garrett and we can pick up Misery tomorrow?”

“Why would I do that?” I asked, appalled.

“Because you haven’t slept in fourteen days.”

“I’m good, Cook. I just need a little coffee.”

“Just make sure he stays close. And make sure Rambo doesn’t come after you. They always come after you.”

I tried to be offended, but just couldn’t muster the energy. “Okay.”

“How was your visit with Kim?”

After a long, labored sigh, I said, “She was really happy when I got there. I’m pretty sure she was suicidal when I left.”

“You do have that effect on people.”

*   *   *

I pulled into the lot of a small café with about two customers to its name. Garrett pulled into the other side of the lot, turned out his lights, and waited. He had to be hungry, but no way was I inviting him in. He could bite my sexy tailed ass.

“Sit wherever, honey,” a round waitress in jeans and a country blouse said when I walked in.

A bell overhead sounded as I closed the door. The café had all the country charm I loved with none of the commercialism. Antique kitchen items together with farming equipment hung on the walls and sat perched on barn wood shelves. Vintage tins punctuated the décor, everything from saltine crackers to sewing oil, and the nostalgia brought back memories from my childhood. Or it would have, had I been born in the thirties.

It did bring back the memories I’d gleaned off a man who’d crossed through me when I was a child. He’d raised sheep in Scotland, and castrating sheep is a big part of that occupation. Unfortunately, once something is seen, it cannot be unseen.

After a few minutes, the bell sounded again and a tall bond enforcement agent with a fetish for midget porn strolled in like he owned the place.

“Hello, handsome,” the woman said, making me grin. “Sit wherever you’d like.”