Eleventh Grave in Moonlight (Charley Davidson #11)(9)

She pursed her lips and sat back down. “I don’t know. I feel like something is wrong.”

“It’s the chafing. Once you turn it the right way—”

“No, not with the blouse.”

“Of course.”

“I was trying to be sexy. He didn’t even notice.”

“Our Lord and Savior?”

“Robert.”

“Oh, yeah, that makes more sense.”

Every time I spoke with Sister Mary Elizabeth, my thoughts tended to lean toward Catholicism for a few days. She and my uncle Bob had gotten hitched a while back—Cookie, not Sister Mary Elizabeth—so it made sense that she would try to be sexy for him.

I leaned closer and put on my best sympathy face. “Cook, what’s up?”

“I think I’m losing him.”

“Oh, please. You couldn’t lose him if you were seventeen, on a date with Thor, and he was your virginity. The man is so into you, Cook.”

She filled her lungs. “Maybe at one time. I think he’s having an affair.”

If I’d been drinking coffee, I would’ve spit it out in a fit of coughs. Thank God for small miracles. “Oh, hon, you know that’s impossible, right? He has ED.”

She gaped at me. “He most certainly—” When she realized I was teasing, she stopped gaping and glared instead.

She was right. ED was no joking matter. “Okay, he doesn’t have erectile dysfunction, but it’s fun to say out loud, and the thought of Ubie having an affair is hilarious either way.”

“Why? Because he loves me so much?”

“No. Well, yes. But seriously. There’s just no way. That man is head over heels, and he would never do anything to hurt you like that.”

“I don’t know.” She punched a few keys on her keyboard. “He hasn’t touched me in three days.”

It was my turn to gape. For a solid minute.

“What?”

“Three days?”

“Yes.”

“You’re ready to call it quits after three days in desert conditions? The key is hydration. And possibly a vibrator.”

“What? No, I’m not ready to call it quits. I’m just worried is all.”

“Oh, good, ’cause I ain’t taking him back. He’s yours now. You signed all the appropriate documents. In triplicate. I witnessed, remember?”

“I know. He’s just been so preoccupied.”

“Well, he is a detective for the Albuquerque Police Department. That comes with a certain amount of stress, hon.”

She shook her head. “No, there’s something else. Something’s bothering him. I just can’t put my finger on it. It’s like, I don’t know, like he’s in another world all the time. And he’s had—” She caught herself. Cleared her throat. Shook her head. “Never mind. You’re right. I’m just being silly.”

“Oh, no, you don’t. He’s had what?” No way could she leave me hanging now.

“I don’t want to worry you.”

“Cook.”

“He’s had a bit of a temper.”

This time, I was stunned. Uncle Bob? He’d always had a bit of a temper, but never with Cookie. “What happened?”

“It’s nothing. Really.”

“Cookie Kowalski Davidson.” If he did anything to hurt my best friend or her daughter, blood be damned.

“He burned a roast last night.”

“Oh, well, I guess that could be considered abusive. For the roast, anyway.”

“When he pulled the pan out of the oven, he cursed and threw it across the kitchen and into the sink.”

“He threw it?”

“Hard. It actually scared Amber. Then he stalked off to our bedroom and refused to come out even after I’d heated up some leftovers for dinner.”

My blood came to a slow simmer. It didn’t reach a full boil. I understood frustration as well as the next girl. But that whole macho temper tantrum bullshit didn’t fly with me. “I get your point, but that’s not affair behavior. That’s something else. Something is eating at him.”

Did he know?

One of the cool—or not-so-cool, depending on one’s perspective—things about my husband being born in hell was that he could see when a person was slated for his homeland and what he or she did to get the short end of the stick.

I’d found out only days ago that my uncle Bob was slated for that very destination because of something he did for me. Something he did to save me from a Colombian drug baron who believed that cannibalizing people with any kind of supernatural ability would transfer that ability on to him.

He was wrong, of course, but he believed it, and there was no telling how many people died as a result of his obsession.

When some of his henchmen found out about me and my connection to the supernatural realm, they’d planned on gifting me to him to slither into his good graces. But Ubie had found out, somehow, and from what Reyes told me, he’d killed them all in a shoot-out before they could inform the baron about me.

That was a few years ago. The reason it came up at all was because, unbeknownst to me, Uncle Bob was scheduled to die at the hands of a low-level thug named Grant Guerin. In fact, he was destined to die two days ago, but we’d thwarted the attempt.