The Trouble with Twelfth Grave (Charley Davidson #12)(21)

“It was stupid, though. I should’ve told the truth. I just panicked.”

“I’m so sorry about all this. I wish you would’ve told me.”

“Seriously, Chuck? You had enough problems to deal with. How often does your pregnant best friend have to seek sacred ground just to stay alive?”

“Well, there was that.”

“Also, by the time he started harassing me, you’d forgotten all about me.”

“What?” I stabbed her with my best horrified expression before realizing she wasn’t speaking metaphorically. I’d literally forgotten her. In my own defense, I’d forgotten everyone. “This happened during my stint in Amnesia-ville?”

“Yes.”

“Gawd, I’m the worst sort of friend.”

“True. You could try to think of others occasionally.”

“But you know, you could’ve called Uncle Bob.”

“I didn’t want anyone else involved. By that point, I was embarrassed.”

“You’re too hard on yourself.”

“No, I’m too smart for that shit. I mean, money? Seriously? The guy had the personality of bulldozer. But those wheels, Chuck.” She clamped her hands at her heart. “Twenty-inch polished aluminum alloys with Brembo brakes.”

“And some girls like diamonds.”

She snorted. “Please. Give me a 6.5-liter V-12 with a seven-speed manual transmission over a rock any day.”

“So, what happened?”

“A few nights ago, he came to the shop after I’d closed. Tre was back from California, but he’d already gone home for the night. Hector, as usual, was wasted. He attacked me. Said the only way a bitch left him was in a pine box.”

“Dude had serious abandonment issues.”

“Among others.”

I gave her a minute to gather her emotions. It didn’t take long.

“Bottom line, he flat-out tried to kill me.”

I eased forward and took her hand. Tears slid from behind her dark glasses. She swiped at them angrily.

“He was … he was choking me.”

I squeezed her hand to cover up the anger spiking inside me.

“He was so strong. I’ve taken self-defense and martial arts classes my entire life, and I still couldn’t fight him off.” She bit down and turned her face away. “I was on the verge of blacking out when Tre came back to the shop. He’d forgotten his wallet.”

“Thank God,” I said.

She nodded and swallowed hard before continuing. “He hit Hector with a baseball bat I keep for protection, but it barely fazed him. Whatever designer drug he’d taken was powerful. He went after Tre like a raging bull. We fought him for what seemed like hours before Tre finally got him in a headlock. He choked him out, and when Hector came to, he bolted.”

“Wait, he ran out?” I asked, a little surprised.

“Yes. But by the time it was said and done, there was blood everywhere. All over my office. All over the floor. All over the walls. Hector stumbled out after being beaten bloody, and two days later they found his body in the desert.”

“How long had he been dead?”

“According to preliminary reports, about two days.”

“The detective told you that?”

“Not exactly.”

Dread clenched my throat. “Pari, you didn’t.”

“I did.”

“Okay, that’s it. No more hacking government databases until all this blows over. They can trace that shit, you know.”

“I panicked.”

“I don’t blame you. But, Pari, why didn’t you call the police that night?”

“Tre convinced me not to. He knew him. Or, well, he knew his mother.”

“And?”

“Her name is Edina Felix. She’s a very powerful matriarch in El Paso.”

“Matriarch?” An odd term.

“She runs a few legitimate businesses that Tre swears are a cover for a huge crime ring.”

“Oh. That’s … ambitious of her.”

“Let’s just say the mental illness was inherited, from what Tre told me.”

“In what way?” I asked, growing even more concerned.

“They found the last girl who dumped one of her sons bleeding out in an alley with her face slashed.”

I eased back into the chair.

“They never pinned it on Hector, of course, but that poor girl.…”

“You keep saying girl. How old was she?”

Pari pulled off the sunglasses and pinched the bridge of her nose. Waves of terror washed over her. I had never known Pari to be afraid of anything. Or anyone. She was tough, resilient, and irreverent to anyone who tried to control her. But Hector really scared her.

“Pari? How old?”

“Sixteen,” she said at last. “The girl was sixteen.”

A shock wave rocketed through me, causing me to flinch visibly. Sixteen? Who does something like that to a sixteen-year-old?

“It was a few months ago,” Pari added.

“How old was Hector?”

“He was thirty-two.

“So, he was a child molester, too?”

“It would seem so.”