Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet (4 page)

Surprise straightened his shoulders a moment, but he caught himself and shrugged.
“Who?”

He knew exactly who I was talking about. “He was just here a minute ago, standing
outside my apartment building. Where is he staying?”

Frustration slid through his lips. “You’ve stayed away from him for weeks. Why now?”

“He owes me money.”

“Not my problem.”

“It will be when I can’t pay your salary.” To pay for his investigative services,
I sent an anonymous cashier’s check to his mother every month. He couldn’t use the
money in his rather sparse condition, but she could. It was a perfect arrangement.

“Shit.” He disappeared through a wall of boxes. “Every time you get near him, you
get hurt.”

“That’s not true.”

He reemerged but only partly. “What’s a Flowbee?”

“Angel.” I put a finger under his chin and stroked the barely emerging growth of hair
that peppered his jaw. “I need to know where he is.”

“Can I see you naked first?”

“No.”

“You want to see me naked?”

“No. And yuck.”

He straightened, offended. “If I was still alive, I’d be older than you.”

“But you aren’t,” I reminded him gently. “And I’m sorry for that.”

“You aren’t going to like it.”

“That’s okay. I just need to know where he is.”

“He’ll be at Garber Shipping in the warehouse district tonight.”

“At a shipping warehouse?” I asked, surprised. “Is he working there?”

Reyes had money. Lots and lots of money. His sister told me. So why would he be doing
manual labor for a shipping company?

After Angel took a long moment to nibble at a hangnail, he said, “Depends on your
definition of work.”

*   *   *

After being stunned speechless by Reyes’s new job title, I walked toward my front
door, wrapped a hand around the knob, then rethought what I was doing. I was going
to face Reyes Farrow. Unarmed. Reyes had never tried to hurt me directly, but he’d
been out of prison for two months. Who knew what the man was capable of? He’d probably
learned a lot of bad habits since leaving the big house. Like cheating at poker. And
urinating in public.

Even though I wasn’t much for carrying firearms—every time I carried a gun, images
of it being wrestled away from me and used to end my life always flashed before my
eyes—I headed back to my bedroom for Margaret. I figured, when facing a dirty, lying
scoundrel like Reyes Farrow, one couldn’t be too careful. Or too armed. So I slid
a belt through the loops of my jeans, holstered the Glock, then snapped the clasp
closed.

After another deep breath, I headed out the door only to lose steam when I came to
the stairs. The same stairs I’d taken a gazillion times before. They looked steeper
somehow. More dangerous. My hands shook on the rail as I paused on each step, working
up the courage to take the next, wondering what in the name of thunder was wrong with
me. True, it’d been a while since I’d ventured out, but surely the world hadn’t changed
that much.

When I finally made it down two flights of stairs to the first floor, I studied the
steel entrance door to the complex. It sat ajar, not quite closed, and daylight streamed
in around the edges. I forced one foot in front of the other, my breaths shallow,
my palms slick with a nervous energy. I reached a quaking hand for the vertical handle
and pushed. Daylight rushed in, flooding the area and blinding me. My breath caught
and I pulled the door shut. Leaning against the handle for support, I took in long
gulps of air, and tried to calm myself.

One minute. I just needed a minute to gather my wits. They were always running amok,
wreaking havoc.

“Ms. Davidson?”

Without thought, I drew the gun from my holster and aimed toward the voice coming
from the shadowy entranceway.

A woman gasped and jumped back, her eyes wide, gaping at the barrel pointed at her
face. “I—I’m so sorry. I thought—”

“Who are you?” I asked, holding the gun so much steadier than I thought possible,
considering the irrational state of my insides.

“Harper.” She held her hands up in surrender. “My name is Harper Lo—”

“What do you want?” I had no idea why I was still holding the gun on her. Normally,
nice women with no hidden agenda whatsoever didn’t scare me. It was weird.

“I’m looking for Charley Davidson.”

I lowered the gun but didn’t holster it. Not just yet. She could turn out to be psychotic.
Or a door-to-door salesperson. “I’m Charley. What do you want?” I cringed at the sharpness
of my own voice. Why was I behaving so badly? I’d eaten a good breakfast.

“I—I’d like to hire you. I think someone is trying to kill me.”

I narrowed my eyes, took in her appearance. Long dark hair. Tall and curvy, full figured
in a very pretty way. Soft features. Neat clothes. She had a baby blue scarf tied
loosely at her neck, the ends tucked into her dark blue coat. Her eyes were large,
warm, and captivating. All in all, she didn’t look crazy. Then again, neither did
most crazy people.

“You’re looking for a PI?” A girl could hope. I hadn’t had a job in two months. Apparently.
I glanced up toward Cookie’s apartment.

“Yes. An investigator.”

I took a deep breath and holstered Margaret. “I’m kind of in between offices at the
moment. We can talk in my apartment, if that’s okay.”

She nodded briskly, fear evident in every move she made. Poor thing. She clearly didn’t
deserve my surly side.

With head hung in shame, I started back upstairs. They were much easier to climb than
to descend. That wasn’t usually the case. Especially after a two-month veg-a-thon.
My muscles should have atrophied by now. “Can I get you anything?” I asked when we
reached my apartment. I was only slightly out of breath.

“Oh, no, thank you. I’m fine.” She was eyeing me warily. Not that I could blame her.
My people skills needed a good honing. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m fine. The wheezing will go away in a minute. It’s been a while since I took those
stairs.”

“Oh, does this building have an elevator?”

“Um, no. You know, I’m not sure it’s wise to go into someone’s apartment who just
pulled a gun on you.”

She’d been busy perusing the mess that was my office-slash-apartment-slash-ballroom-area-when-the-dancing-bug-hit.
She dropped her gaze in embarrassment at my words. “I guess I’m a little desperate.”

I offered her the chair and I took the couch. Thankfully, Aunt Lillian still wasn’t
back from Africa. After picking up a notepad and pen, I asked, “So, what’s going on?”

She swallowed hard and said, “I’ve been having strange things happen to me. Bizarre
things.”

“Like?”

“Someone has been breaking into my house and leaving … things.”

“What kinds of things?”

“Well, for one, I found a dead rabbit on my bed this morning.”

“Oh.” Taken aback, I crinkled my nose in disgust. “That’s not good. But I’m not sure—I
mean, maybe it was suicidal.”

She rushed in to stop me. “You don’t understand. A lot of things like that have been
happening. Rabbits with their throats cut. Brakes with their lines cut.”

“Wait, brakes? As in car brakes?”

“Yes. Yes.” She was starting to panic. “The brakes on my car. They just stopped working.
How do brakes just stop working?” She was scared. It broke my heart. Her hands shook
and her eyes filled with tears. “And then my dog.” She buried her face in her hands
and let the emotions she’d been holding at bay rush forth. “She disappeared.”

Now I really felt bad about the Margaret thing. I chastised her with a glare. Margaret.
Not Harper. Sobs racked her body as all her fears spilled forth. I scooted forward
and put a hand on her shoulder. After a few minutes, she began to calm, so I started
my questions anew.

“Have you called the police?”

She pulled a tissue from her coat pocket and dabbed at her nose. “Over and over. So
much so, they actually assigned an officer to vet my calls.”

“Oh, really? Which officer?”

“Officer Taft,” she said, a hard edge leeching into her voice. Definitely no love
lost there.

“Okay, I know him. I can talk to him to get—”

“But he doesn’t believe me. None of them do.”

“What about your brakes? Surely they could tell if they’d been tampered with?”

“The mechanic couldn’t say it was foul play specifically, so they just dismissed that
like they did everything else.”

I leaned back and tapped my notebook in thought. “How long has this been going on?”

She bit her lip, glanced away in embarrassment. “A few weeks now.”

“What about your family?”

Her fingers smoothed the edge of her scarf. “My parents aren’t really the supportive
type. And my ex-husband, well, he’d just use it against me every chance he got. I
haven’t told him.”

“Do you suspect him?”

“Kenneth?” She scoffed softly. “No. He’s an ass, but he’s a harmless ass.”

Proceeding with caution, I asked, “Is he paying you alimony?”

“No. Not any. He has no reason to want me dead.”

I wasn’t so sure about that, but decided to go along with it for now. “What about
work colleagues?”

I’d embarrassed her again. She blanched under my questioning gaze. “I don’t really—I
don’t work. I haven’t had a job for a while now.”

Interesting. “How do you pay your bills?”

“My parents are very well off. They basically pay me to stay away from them. It works
out well for the both of us.”

I couldn’t help but conclude that if she weren’t around, they’d no longer have to
carry her. Perhaps her parents were even less supportive than she imagined.

“What do they think of this situation?”

She shrugged. “They believe me even less than Officer Taft.”

She had me at Officer Taft. While we weren’t exactly enemies, we weren’t really friends
either. We’d had an encounter once that ended in him cursing at me and storming out
of my apartment. I tended not to forget such encounters. That one involved his sister,
who’d died when he was very young. He got testy when I told him she’d stayed behind
for him. Some people were so touchy when I told them their departed family members
had taken up stalking.

“Okay,” I said, “I’ll take this case on one condition.”

The tension seemed to ooze out. I wasn’t sure if that was because I was taking her
case or she really was that afraid for her life. “Anything,” she said.

“You have to promise to be honest with me. Once I take this case, I’m on your side,
do you understand? Think of me as your doctor or your therapist. I can’t repeat anything
you tell me in confidence without your express permission.”

She nodded. “I’ll tell you everything I can.”

“Okay, first, do you have any idea, any suspicion at all of who would want you dead?”

Most people, when threatened, did, but Harper shook her head. “I’ve tried and tried.
I just have no idea who would want to hurt me.”

“Fair enough.” I didn’t want to push her too hard. She seemed fragile as it was, and
my shoving a gun in her face couldn’t have helped.

I took down the names of her closest family and friends, anyone who might be able
to corroborate her story. Attempted murder was no laughing matter. Neither was stalking
or harassment. The fact that her immediate family wasn’t taking her seriously alarmed
me. I’d have to pay them a visit ay-sap.

“Do you have a place to stay besides your house?” I asked when I was done.

Her hair fell forward with another soft shake of her head. “I haven’t thought about
it. I guess I really don’t. Not anywhere safe.”

That could be a problem. Still … “You know, I might have just the place. It’s like
a safe house, only it’s a tattoo parlor.”

“Oh … kay.”

She seemed open to the idea. That was good. “Awesome. You sit tight while I get this
information to my assistant across the hall, then I’ll take you over.”

With an absent nod, she studied a box on the sofa beside me of collectible Kiss action
figures.

“Yeah,” I said, agreeing with her bewilderment, “a lot of caffeine went into that
decision.”

“I can imagine.”

I started across the hall, thrilled about the prospect of rubbing my new client in
Cookie’s face—not literally, though, as that could be awkward—and almost ran down
Mr. Zamora, the building’s superintendent.

“Oh—hey, there,” he said. He was shorter than me, pudgy with salt-and-pepper hair
that always seemed to be in need of a good conditioning. And he always wore sweatpants
and T-shirts that had seen more abuse than narcotics. But he was a good landlord.
When my heater stopped working in mid-December, it took him only two weeks to get
it fixed. Of course, it took me knocking on his door in need of a warm place to sleep
to get it that way, but one night on his sofa, where I’d suddenly developed night
terrors and epilepsy, and that puppy was running like a Mercedes the next day. It
was awesome.

“Hey, Mr. Z.”

He was carrying a small ladder, a drop cloth, and a gallon of paint. And he was headed
to the apartment at the end of the hall. What the heck? When I’d first moved in, I
wanted that apartment. I begged. I pleaded. But no. The owners weren’t willing to
shell out the money it would take to renovate it. And now he was renovating it? Now
they were willing?

“What’s going on?” I asked as nonchalantly as possible.

He drew to a stop in front of me, key at the ready. While Cookie’s apartment and mine
were right across the hall from each other, the end apartment spanned the length of
both of ours with the door perpendicular to the main hall. It was like taking both
of ours and putting them together. Since it’d suffered major water damage a few years
ago and the owners lost the insurance money at the casinos before they could finish
the renovations, it’d sat vacant for years. Which made no sense to me whatsoever.

“Finally finishing up this apartment,” he said, pointing with a key. “Got some construction
guys coming in this afternoon. Might get noisy.”