Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet (8 page)

“Taft,” he said when he picked up.

“Hey, Charley Davidson here.” When he didn’t say anything, I continued. “I have a
client who says you’re her liaison at the precinct. Harper Lowell?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell. So, you’re back?”

“I was never gone. She claims someone is stalking her. Trying to kill her.”

“I know who you’re talking about. We never got anything on any stalker.”

“Do you believe her?”

“I didn’t. Until I spoke to her parents.”

Well, well. I was starting to like him. “Why is that?”

“I don’t know. They seemed a little too eager to convince me their daughter was crazy.”

“I got the exact same feeling.”

“So, she hired you?”

“Yep. Did you ever find any evidence at all?” I couldn’t hide the hope in my voice.

“Nothing that couldn’t be explained away as a crazy woman seeking attention. Stuffed
rabbits aren’t exactly life-threatening.”

“When they’re not stuffed and they’re placed on your bed while you sleep with their
throats cut, they are.”

“Look, I’m not arguing with you. We just never found any evidence to corroborate her
story.”

Just when I was starting to like him. “And I’m sure you tried really hard.”

“I tried, Davidson,” he said, adding a sharp edge to his voice.

“Okay, okay. You don’t have to get obstinate.”

“Have you seen my sister?”

Taft’s sister died when they were young, and she’d recently decided that haunting
me was more fun than following her brother around day in and day out. It took him
a while to believe that I could see her and talk to her and grow uncharacteristically
homicidal by her annoying habit of asking question after question. But once he realized
I was the real deal, he’d decided to keep tabs on her through me. Joy of joys.

“Not lately,” I said. “She’s spending a lot of time at Rocket’s.”

“You mean that abandoned mental hospital where you talk to ghosts?”

“Yes, and I only talk to one ghost. Rocket. He has a little sister, and she and your
little sister get along famously. I’m going to check on them soon. I’ll let you know
how she is.”

“Thanks. I really appreciate—”

Yeah, yeah. “If you hear anything.”

“You’ll be the first to know.”

“In case your sister asks, are you still dating skanks?”

A light chuckle filtered into my ear. “No. Well, not for the most part.”

“Okay. Don’t make me come down there and kick your skank-lovin’ ass.”

“I’ll try not to let that threat keep me up nights.”

“Good luck.”

I hung up and took in a long breath, deciding it was time. Harper’s brother would
have gone home for the day by now, and I still didn’t have a home address on him,
so I’d have to catch him at work on the morrow. If Cookie was right, he worked for
some kind of energy-conservation company, but tonight I had bigger issues. I straightened
my shoulders and tightened my grip on the steering wheel, because tonight I had a
dragon to slay. A dragon named Reyes Farrow.

*   *   *

I steered Misery through the warehouse district of Albuquerque near the railroad tracks
downtown. A cold rain tumbled in sheets down my windshield, but one never complained
about the rain in such an arid climate. Complaining about rain in Albuquerque would
be like complaining about sunshine in Seattle. So I wasn’t complaining so much as
bemoaning the fact that I had to drive in it. Hard rain made it almost impossible
to see the road. Hopefully, whoever owned those trash cans I’d sideswiped would understand
that.

After idling on a side street for a bit, watching through chain link as car after
car entered a fenced-in area, I decided to grow some balls and go through, too. How
bad could this be? I removed Margaret and stuffed her under my seat before heading
in.

A gigantic man in a black plastic poncho held up a hand to stop me the minute I drove
past the entrance. I stopped. Partly because he was massive and partly because pulling
off that look was awe-inspiring.

I unzipped my window, wondering if I should think about getting a car with all the
latest gadgets. I could do without unzipping windows, but Misery was such a part of
me, I couldn’t imagine my life without her. Unless my new ride sported a jaguar on
the hood. Then I’d kick Misery to the curb faster than a crushed aluminum can.

I patted the dash. “Just kidding, girl. I’d never abandon you. Unless you catch fire
and I have to run for my life.”

As if launching a comeback, she sputtered and shimmied before returning back to her
normal purr. Such sass. We were totally made for each other.

“You a cop?” the poncho guy asked.

“No, but I dated one once.”

He raised a flashlight and scanned Misery’s innards. Sadly, all he’d find was a mishmash
of files, a couple of jackets, and basic survival gear that consisted mainly of Cheez-Its
and an emergency stash of Thin Mints. Frickin’ Girl Scouts. Those things were way
too addictive. They had to be laced with crack.

I couldn’t see Poncho Guy’s face past the darkness of the night and the shadows of
his hood. But he did the menacing bit well. His head tilted to the side. “Were you
sent here by cops?”

“Not today.” I smiled, pretending rain was not pelting me in the face.

“Did you get an invitation?”

“I got an invitation to Nancy Burke’s slumber party in the sixth grade. We played
spin the bottle. I had to kiss a turtle named Esther.”

“Yeah? Well, I don’t know you, and I don’t give a shit.”

“Oh!” I jutted my hand out of the window. “I’m Charley.”

He backed away and motioned for me to turn around. “No entrance. Go back the way you
came in.”

Damn. I totally should have dressed sexy and called myself Bunny. “Wait!” I felt under
the dash for my emergency mocha latte money. “I’m just here to talk to Reyes Farrow.”

He seemed unimpressed. “Farrow doesn’t talk. Now go or I’ll drag your ass out of your
vehicle and beat the shit out of you.”

That was totally uncalled for. As if in involuntary reaction, my fingers felt blindly
along the door until they found the lock. Just in case. Then I held out the fifty-dollar
bill and decided to play his game. The forlorn girl so in love with the god Reyes
that I’d do anything to get in. Anything to see him. “Please. I just want to see him.
I just … want to watch.”

With a loud sigh, he took the fifty out of my hand. “If I catch you recording anything,
I’ll drag your ass out of that building and beat the shit out of you.”

Holy cow, he liked to drag and drop. “Thank you.” I blinked a few times in concession,
only partly because rain was still pelting me in the face. “Thank you so much.”

He frowned and swept the flashlight to the left, showing me where to park. I followed
his directions, grabbed one of the cast-off jackets from the backseat as a makeshift
umbrella, saluted a good-bye to the kid sitting there, staring off into his own little
space station, then hurried to a side door, where I’d seen a couple run in earlier.
Sadly, I was stopped again. By another big guy in a black plastic poncho. Who wanted
money.

“Fifty bucks,” he said, his tone flat.

No way. “Fifty bucks? I just gave that guy a fifty to get in.”

I could just make out the lower half of the guy’s face. He smiled. “That was just
to park. To get in, it’s another fifty.”

Well, crap. Being broke sucked ass. I pulled out my wallet while a group of men moaned
behind me.

“It’s raining, lady. Hurry it up.”

“This is going to be so badass,” another said, ignoring his friend.

“No shit. I hear he’s undefeated.”

“Damn straight he’s undefeated. Have you seen that guy? He moves like a fucking panther.”

Knowing exactly who they were talking about, I tore through my wallet, looking for
my
other
emergency mocha latte stash. This was the last of anything and everything I had,
and it’d damned well better be worth it.

“I don’t know. I think I could take him,” another guy said.

I looked over my shoulder as his friends gaped at him.

The guy grinned. “If he were unarmed and I had an AK-47 in my hands.”

They laughed along with their buddy until they noticed I’d stopped looking for money.
One of them shouldered me, pushing me a solid three feet forward. “C’mon, honey. We
have an ass-kicking to watch.”

“Fuck, it’s already started.”

I heard a loud roar as an audience cheered beyond the door.

“Here,” one of them said, handing the guy a fifty, then sidling past me. The others
followed suit, and I soon knew what it felt like to be a washing machine in spin cycle.
They pushed me into Black Poncho Guy number two, and oddly enough, a fifty-dollar
bill just sort of materialized in my hand. Probably because I jacked it as the last
guy slid past me, in that moment where both the giver and the receiver thought the
other had it.

“Here it is.” I held up the fifty with a little too much enthusiasm. The bouncer didn’t
seem to notice. He snatched it out of my hand, then offered me help inside by way
of a none-too-gentle shove. Geez. I stumbled forward as more people entered behind
me, so I hurried toward a bright spotlight in the middle of an otherwise very dark
and very empty warehouse. The smell of dirt mingled with the aromas of beer and smoke
and manly cologne. I liked manly things. Especially cologne.

Still, I strode forward on high alert.

As I drew closer to the action, I realized the crowd was way bigger than I thought
it would be. People, mostly men, stood cheering around a chain-link cage like the
ones on TV, only rougher. The crude structure had no padding around the bars, and
the gate to get in was chained and locked from the outside. That couldn’t be good.

By the sounds of the crowd’s cheers, they thirsted for blood more than the beer that
flowed freely. Drinks were bought. Bets were made. Fists were thrown. I was actually
rather surprised at how many women were present, then realized they weren’t cheering
like the men. They were watching, all eyes focused on one thing. That’s when I saw
it. Him. Reyes Alexander Farrow. Through the grid of chain link, I focused on the
action, the show the crowd had come to see.

5

Hi. I’m Trouble.

I heard you were looking for me.

—T-SHIRT

Angel wasn’t kidding. Reyes had taken up cage fighting. It was such a foreign concept,
I thought he’d said cat fighting at first. I pushed my astonishment aside and hurried
closer for a better view, shouldering through the crowd. The fighters didn’t wear
traditional boxer’s shorts. Reyes’s opponent wore sweats while he wore jeans and nothing
else. His hands had been taped, and he had bandages around his torso and over one
shoulder. An injured fighter would never have been allowed to compete in a sanctioned
fight. This was about as legal as shoplifting.

The moment he felt me close, his eyes raised from the task at hand—a task that involved
blood and sweat and a three-hundred-pound opponent—and locked on to mine. The surprise
that flashed across his face was so minute, so fleeting, I doubted anyone saw it but
me. He caught himself instantly. His expression hardened, his corded muscles tensed,
and the guy he had folded into a full-body lock yelled out in pain a split second
before he tapped the floor of the cage, indicating his surrender.

It must’ve been hard for a man like that, clearly a seasoned fighter, to tap out,
to admit defeat, but the pain Reyes inflicted had to be excruciating.

And yet Reyes didn’t stop. He didn’t let up. A makeshift referee ran into the cage
as the guy tapped again. The pain twisting his features had me cringing inwardly,
but Reyes’s eyes wouldn’t leave mine. He stared, his sparkling gaze angry, his jaw
set as he tightened his hold even more. The ref was going crazy, trying to drag Reyes
off the opponent. Two other men rushed into the cage, but they didn’t have nearly
the enthusiasm the ref did. They approached more warily as the crowd roared in excitement.
Begged for blood. Or, well, more blood. The man’s pain was too much. It pulsed in
sharp, liquid waves through my veins as surely as hemoglobin did.

I lowered my head but not my eyes and whispered, “Please, stop.”

Reyes released the man immediately and fell back on his heels, a salacious warning
glimmering across his impossibly handsome face.

He didn’t want me there—that much was obvious—but it was more than that. He was angry.
He who’d set me up just to watch me fall. He who could bite my lily-white ass a thousand
ways to Sunday was mad at me. Of all the nerve.

The opponent lay on the canvas wheezing and writhing in agony. That last little exertion
on Reyes’s part must’ve damaged something. Reyes ignored him. He also ignored the
ref, who was pummeling him with verbal warnings, and the guy who started to put a
hand on his shoulder for support before thinking better of it. Jumping to his feet,
he strode out of the cage like he had somewhere else to be. Cheers and congratulatory
whoops abounded as he navigated through the crowd. He ignored those, too. Thankfully,
the crowd had enough sense to move out of the way when he got close.

He swam through it with ease, then ducked inside a door that led to a large, boxy
construction in the far corner. Offices, maybe. The trainers helped the other guy
to his feet and led him away in the opposite direction while a custodian mopped blood
off the mat.

My feet followed where every eye led. To the rooms in the corner. I shoved past the
feral crowd and lovelorn women. Several of them hovered near the door but didn’t dare
go inside. The fact that the door was completely unguarded surprised me. Another guy
walked out, shorter and stockier than Reyes, his hands wrapped in tape, his fists
at the ready as he shadowboxed his way to the cage.

And the crowd went wild.

I stepped through the door into a type of industrial locker room. Not the kind in
gyms, clean and bright, but the kind in old factories, dingy, dark, and dirty. Three
rows of the metal units cut the steam-filled room in half. On the left were several
walled offices and a desk. On the right—