Eleventh Grave in Moonlight (Charley Davidson #11)(29)

What had ADA Parker meant when he called me a god eater? I mean, Reyes was a god and I liked to nibble on him, but what an odd thing to call someone. Unless I was drunk when I hit an all-night drive-through and ordered chicken McGodlets—with fries, of course—I’d never eaten a god in my life. Still, I bet they’d be good with ketchup.

And hell was going to freeze over? I just thought that was a saying.

Then there was Uncle Bob. No idea what got his panties in a twist, but he’d best iron them out pronto. And Reyes. I could only take men ordering me around for so long. It was like we were in the Middle Ages. If they’d had programmable coffeemakers. And cell phones. And water bras.

But possibly the most important question mark bouncing around my brain was that of Dawn Brooks, the little girl who was very likely abducted by the Fosters. If that were the case, however, where was she now and why would Shawn corroborate their alibi?

I needed to bring in my FBI BFF ASAP, but I doubted Agent Carson got to the office before eight o’clock. I checked my Bugs Bunny watch. Two hours to go.

Which meant I had two hours to get to know the newest member of our clan. When Reyes remodeled, he opened up the storage units on top of the building, leaving the metal beams exposed and turning the whole thing into a massive skylight.

But there was something else really special Reyes had left exposed. A little blond boy. As in tiny. As in way too young to be hanging out—literally, his feet dangling over the side of whatever beam he happened to be on—in the scaffolding of a twenty-four-foot ceiling. He’d been there since we moved back in, and I had yet to coax him down. Although, admittedly, throwing bread at him was probably not the best way to win his trust, but I was afraid to throw anything harder. Huge plates of glass overhead.

I looked up. He was climbing again. When he wasn’t dangling his feet over the side of a beam, he was climbing one, then sliding back down it. Over and over again.

Every time he slid, however, my heart ended up in my throat. The boy couldn’t have been more than two years old. He was just a baby, climbing and sliding and dangling from beams that stood twenty-four feet high in the center of our living room.

But this time I was prepared. I’d hauled a ladder up from the basement. The kind that elongates and props up against whatever structure one wishes to scale.

Having finished my first cup, which was really like an appetizer, I dragged the ladder out from the butler’s pantry, where I’d stashed it. It was metal and noisy no matter how quiet I tried to be. I cringed when I knocked it against a wall, waited to make sure the man of the house wasn’t going to come check on me, then pulled the two parts until it was as long as it would go. The next part was a bit trickier. I tried to balance it against one of the beams overheard, but it was still too short.

The angel, who’d been ignoring me completely, looked on with something akin to mild interest, while I did some cyphering in my head. Never a good idea. Still, the way I saw it, I could use Captain Kirk to give me those extra inches I needed to reach the beam and climb up to the boy.

I put the ladder back down, almost strained a kidney moving the captain into place, then picked up the ladder again, knocking over a lamp in the process. I cringed again, but miraculously, it didn’t break. And who better to perform a miracle than a celestial stalker-like being?

I glanced back at the angel. He was the ginger in the black leather kilt. “Did you do that?”

The only indication that he even heard me was the fact that one imperious brow arched.

Of course he didn’t. He was far too above saving a lamp for little old me.

I tossed a blanket over the captain to protect his silky fabric, then leveraged the ladder onto one of his cushions. Still not quite enough. By the time I got done, I’d piled on an end table, a wingback chair, and a set of encyclopedias to hold it all in place. It worked. The ladder reached one of the bottom metal beams. I could get to the kid at last.

Now, if my luck held, Reyes would sleep another half hour while I tried to get to know our new roomie. I ascended my creation with the vigilance of a mountain climber scaling a wall of ice, ignoring the creaks and tiny slip to one side when I was about halfway up. Another two inches and I’d have been sipping my meals through a straw for the next few weeks. And wearing one of those hideous neck braces. Those things were impossible to accessorize.

By the time I got to the top, my arms were shaking, my feet hurt from the thin rungs of the ladder, and I had to pee. I totally should have gone before I left.

I crested the beam and wrapped both arms around it, resting my face against its cool surface. The little boy watched me the whole time. He giggled and ran toward me. Ran. On a beam that couldn’t have been more than ten inches wide.

I bolted upright to catch him should he fall, but he stopped short to take me in, to assess the intruder. His smile was the sun. His blue eyes the ocean. A tiny Viking so full of life, he glowed.

He pointed to my chest, and said, “Yite,” but he was not quite within arm’s reach. I wanted to grab him and take him back down with me. He’d probably just climb the walls back to his playground, but I had to try. I had to coax him closer.

I offered him my best Sunday smile. “What’s your name?”

He pointed to his pajamas, blue with brightly colored fish on them. He poked a goldfish. “Ishy.”

“Fishy?”

He nodded and pointed to one on his chest. Then his knee. Then his elbow.