The Trouble with Twelfth Grave (Charley Davidson #12)(22)

“Did the girl die?”

“Tre didn’t know. He didn’t think so, but her family moved away.”

“I need to talk to Tre.”

“Good luck. He’s gone.”

“What do you mean?”

“He didn’t stick around to be sliced up and left in an alley,” she said in his defense. “He took off the day after Hector attacked me.”

“He just left you here?”

“What? No. It wasn’t like that. He begged me to go with him. It’s a little different when you have a business. I can’t just abandon my customers and leave town.”

“You can, actually,” I said, encouraging that very thing.

“Chuck, you know I can’t.” Her expression urged me to look for the deeper meaning, and it took me a moment to realize she was talking about the terms of her probation.

“Pari, even people in your situation can leave town with permission.”

“Not me. My probation officer’s a dick. I’m thinking about asking him out, though. He has an incredibly sexy sneer.”

I laughed softly. “Do you have a number where I can reach him? I have some questions.”

“For the love of God, Chuck, you’re a married woman. Why do you need to talk to my probation officer?”

“Tre,” I said, coughing on a half-sipped, half-inhaled sip of coffee. “I need to talk to Tre.”

“Oh. Okay.”

I handed her my phone, and she typed it in. “So, which detective came to see you?”

“Is godlike one or two words?” she asked, concentrating on my phone.

“Tre’s that good in bed?”

“Yes. Yes, he is.” She finished and handed it back. “Oh, and it was a Detective Joplin.”

I groaned aloud. Could this day get any worse? “Joplin hates me.”

“He didn’t seem the most pleasant sort of guy. He seemed … dogged.”

Pari was still terrified. It trembled just beneath her colorful yet steely surface. I could hardly blame her. Joplin terrified me, too. She needed answers. And closure. And I needed to pray that Hector’s death was not the result of the fight. Knowing she’d killed someone, even in self-defense, would devastate her.

“Okay, if Joplin comes back, don’t give him anything. He’ll take the slightest crumb and run with it, so don’t say a word. Lawyer up and call it a day.”

“But won’t that be admitting something happened?”

“If he comes back a second time, hon, he’ll already know. But don’t worry. I’ll find out if Hector died as a result of the altercation. In the meantime”—I scanned the walls of her cluttered office—“how much do you like this building?”





7

I’ll tell you what’s wrong with society.

No one drinks from the skulls of their enemies anymore.





—T-SHIRT


Pari refused to let me burn down her place of business-slash-apartment to get rid of the evidence. Blood splatter was impossible to scrub away. So, instead of solving a crime, I was going to have to cover one up. But I had an inkling how to do exactly that. I just needed a little help from a friend.

Thus, I tried repeatedly to call said friend, a clairvoyant named Nicolette Lemay who could see people’s deaths through their eyes via a series of hellacious dreams. Thank God for psychotherapy.

Since she didn’t pick up, I could only assume she’d either blocked my number—understandable—or she was at work. Hoping for the latter, I hightailed it back to the office, hopped in Misery, then drove to Pres, where she worked in post-op.

Ten minutes later, I was standing in front of a nurses’ station, waiting for her to pop out of a door. Any door would do. When she did, choosing to emerge from one appropriately marked Gastroenterology: Exit Only, she took one look at me, then slowed her step in surprise.

She only knew the bare minimum where I was concerned, but it was enough to set her on edge. She recovered after a moment and picked up her pace again, but it was a long hall.

A natural beauty, Nicolette had cinnamon-colored skin and hip-length black hair currently pulled back and stuffed under a cap. Her crowning achievement, however, were her eyes. Large. Dark. Seductive. The kind people paid a fortune for in liners and false lashes to try to duplicate.

“Charley,” she said, stopping in front of me. “What are you doing here?”

This may have been a bad idea. She was nervous to see me. It radiated out of her rather like the perspiration covering her brow and upper lip.

“I just came by to say hi.” This was going to be awkward to get out of.

“No, you didn’t.” Her lids narrowed. Then she leaned closer and whispered. “Did something happen?”

“Well, yes, but not in that way. Speaking of which, you seem really nervous. Is everything okay?”

“No, I just thought I might’ve been dreaming there for a minute.”

“Hopefully not,” I said, leaning in for a hug. “Every time you dream of someone, they die a few days later.”

“Not always.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, sometimes they die that very day.”

I laughed softly at her teasing. “So, how’s that going?”