Second Grave on the Left (18 page)

I turned the ignition key. Misery roared to life as Cookie stared out her plastic window.

“Do you have any idea what this means?” she asked.

“Besides the fact that Kyle Kirsch is most likely a murderer?”

“This means that we are about to bring felony charges against a United States congressman. A man who is hoping to be our next senator. A hometown hero and pillar of the community.”

Was Cookie having second thoughts because he was a bigwig? Bigwigs had to follow the constructs of the law just like medium-sized and little wigs.

She turned a starry-eyed expression on me, her aura brimming with a fiery passion. “God, I love this job.”

Chapter Ten

I WAS AN ATHEIST UNTIL I REALIZED I WAS GOD.

—BUMPER STICKER

By the time we stopped at the Mora County Sheriff’s Department, Cookie was on fire. She was taking charge of the investigation and doing a pretty good job of it, too. If you didn’t count the dropped calls, the slow Internet access, and the lashing from an eighty-year-old woman claiming she was Batman when Cookie dialed a wrong number. Cook was getting a little annoyed with my repeated impersonation of the woman. She really shouldn’t have put her on speakerphone if she didn’t want to reap the consequences.

After we climbed out of Misery, she pushed past me and said, “You’re messing with my flow.”

I tried not to giggle—well, not real hard—and asked, “Didn’t you have surgery for that?”

Unfortunately, the current head honcho was out on business. The clerk told us the former sheriff, Kyle Kirsch’s dad, was now living in Taos with his wife, working in security, so we didn’t get to chat with him this go-around. But the clerk did give us copies of everything they had on the Hana Insinga case for the low cost of a round-trip ticket to a dark and dank basement and the shuffling of a few file boxes.

The clerk herself was too young to remember the case, which was a bummer. But I was sure with all the hoopla going on underneath all the hoopla going on up top, we would ruffle a few feathers just for the asking. If nothing else, we would get Kyle’s attention, and fast. Of course, between the fake FBI agents and my new friends from this morning, we may already have revealed our secret hideout and nefarious plans to stop Kyle Kirsch from taking over the world.

I sort of got off on making bad guys sweat. Which was not unlike my love of making good guys sweat, just by very different means.

On the way back, we had to pass through Santa Fe, which gave me the perfect opportunity to have a one-on-one with Neil Gossett, a deputy warden at the prison there. Actually, he’d called while we were en route and pretty much insisted that I stop and see him. He had his assistant schedule us an appointment, as prisons were big on appointments.

“Do you think Neil will give you access to that kind of information?” Cookie asked when she got off the phone with her daughter, Amber. From the sound of things, Amber was having a good time at her dad’s, which seemed to ease Cookie’s concerns. “I mean, aren’t visitation records kind of confidential?”

“First things first,” I said as we drove to the prison. I took out my cell and called Uncle Bob.

“Oh,” Cookie said, tapping keys on her laptop. “Your Mistress Marigold just answered my e-mail.”

“Really? Did she mention me?”

She chuckled. “Well, I asked her what she wanted with the grim reaper, and she said, and I quote, ‘That is between me and the grim reaper.’”

“She did mention me! She’s nice.”

Cookie nodded as Uncle Bob answered, his tone brusque. “What have you got?”

“Besides great boobs?” I asked.

“On the case.”

He was so testy. “Do you want the whole shebang or just a partial?”

“All of it, if you don’t mind.”

Thus I spilled our entire case for the next ten minutes while Cookie did some research on her laptop. She barked out a few details from time to time, apparently dissatisfied with my rendition of
Kyle Kirsch Takes Over the World: The Musical.

After a long pause that had me wondering if he’d finally succumbed to his blocked arteries, I heard some huffing and puffing and a door squeak just before he whispered, “Kyle Kirsch?”

“Where are you?”

“I’m in the freaking john. You can’t go around saying shit like that out loud in public. Kyle Kirsch?”

“Yep.”

“
The
Kyle Kirsch?”

His synapses must have been misfiring. “I have to go to prison now. Let me know when your software has been updated, and we’ll chat.”

“Okay, wait,” he said just before I hung up, “let me look into the missing-girl case. Don’t do anything rash.”

“Me?” I was only a little offended.

“You stir up more hornets’ nests than a twelve-year-old boy with a baseball bat. You’re like Lois Lane on crack.”

“Well, I never. So, do you have anything else for me?”

“No.”

“Darn.”

“Are you going to stay out of trouble?”

“What? K-shhhhhhh. You’re breaking up.” I hung up before he could say anything else. If I was Lois Lane, then Reyes Farrow was definitely my Superman. I just had to find him before the kryptonite demons finished what they started. The fact that I hadn’t seen him all day did not escape me. Did he die? Was he already gone? The mere thought caused a crushing weight to push against my chest. I breathed in deep, calming breaths as we pulled up to the main gate of the prison.

“According to the write-up in the paper, Janelle York is survived by a sister, but she lives in California now,” Cookie said.

“Wow, that’s a bit far to drive. We’re here to see Neil Gossett,” I told the guard.

He scanned a clipboard, his posture like a soldier at attention. “Do you have an appointment?”

“Sure do,” I said, letting a flirtatious smile slide across my face. “My name is Charlotte Davidson, and this is Cookie Kowalski.”

A grin threatened the corners of his mouth. He was too young to be jaded and too old to be naïve. A darned good age, in my book. “I only have you down, Ms. Davidson. Let me call up,” he said.

I widened my smile, which in my experience could open more doors than an AK-47. He forced his mouth to stay grim, but his eyes smiled right back before he turned and strode to the guardhouse.

“Maybe Janelle’s sister came down for the funeral,” Cook added. “I’ll call the funeral home, try to get the contact information.”

As she typed in a search for the number, the guard walked back to us, the grin still trying to push past the harsh line of his mouth. “You’re clear. If you’ll just follow this road around,” he said, pointing to the right, “it’ll take you right to his building.”

“Thank you.”

Ten minutes later, I found myself once again in the state pen. Well, in Neil Gossett’s office in the state pen, anyway. Cookie stayed in the outside office to do some more research and make a few calls. She was so productive. I heard Neil coming. He greeted Cookie then stopped to speak with Luann, his administrative assistant, the one who met us at the entry and eyed me like I was out to kill her puppy every time I visited. She had pale skin that revealed every bit of her forty-plus years and contrasted starkly with her short black hair and dark eyes. I’d always wondered why she glared at me every time I came in. Never enough to ask, but still. All I got in the way of emotion was distrust, but thinking back to the first time I’d met her, I didn’t even feel that until she found out I was there about Reyes. She seemed almost protective of him, and I suddenly wondered why.

Neil thanked Luann, then started toward his office. He and I went to high school together, but our paths had rarely crossed. Mostly ’cause he was a jerk. Thank goodness prison life had matured him. And because of an incident that happened when Reyes first arrived here ten years ago, which involved the downfall of three of the deadliest gang members the prison population had to offer in about fifteen seconds flat, Neil knew a smidgen about Reyes. Whatever Neil saw left an impression. And he knew just enough about me to believe anything I said, no matter how crazy it sounded. That had not been the case in high school, where I had been called everything from schizoid to Bloody Mary—which was odd ’cause I was rarely covered in blood. But now I could use his newfound faith in my abilities to my advantage, and I was counting on that trust to make my case.

He stepped into the office and cast a knowing glance my way before settling behind his desk. Neil was a balding ex-athlete who still had a fairly nice physique despite his obvious fondness for libation.

“Have you seen him?” he asked, getting right to the point. He was going to be all business for the time being. That worked. And it made sense that he wanted to know where Reyes was, him being the deputy warden of the prison Reyes essentially escaped from and all.

“I was going to ask you the same thing.”

“You mean, you don’t know where he is?” He sounded agitated.

“No.” I tried to sound agitated right back.

He breathed a weary sigh, dropping his deputy warden persona, and his next statement surprised me more than I wanted to admit. “We have to find him, Charley. We can’t let the U.S. marshals get to him first.”

Alarm spiked within me. “What makes you say that?”

“Because it’s Reyes Farrow,” he said, his tone sardonic. “I’ve seen what he’s capable of. I’ve seen what he can do with pure skill. God only knows what he could do with an actual weapon in his hands.” He scrubbed his face with his fingers, then added, “You know better than I do what he’s capable of.”

He was right. I knew a hell of a lot more than he did. If Neil was anywhere near the town of Clued In, he’d really be freaking.

“They won’t be able to stop him,” he continued, his expression dire. “And when they can’t stop him, they will use any means necessary to bring him down.”

The thought of Reyes being taken down by a group of marshals clamped and glued my teeth together for a long moment, squeezed the chambers in my heart shut. Reyes said it himself. In human form, he was vulnerable. He could be taken down. I wasn’t sure how far Neil would go to help me help Reyes, but I was about to find out. And if I wanted him to trust me, I’d have to trust him. Though the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth would be too much and could do more harm than good, Neil had seen enough to know Reyes was a different animal. I would use that knowledge to reel him in while leaving those pesky little facts that incorporated words like
grim
and
reaper
and
son of Satan
for another day.

“I don’t know where he is,” I said, taking a gargantuan leap of faith, “but I do know he’s being hunted and he’s hurt.”

What I said startled him. While his expression remained impassive—a true connoisseur of the ever-popular poker face—his emotions lurched at my statement, and I knew in that moment I’d found a true ally. He wasn’t angry with me for having such knowledge about Reyes or hungry for the hunt that would bring his prisoner down. No visceral lust shimmered in his eyes at the thought of the accolades he would receive for capturing an escaped convict.

No, Neil was afraid. He seemed to genuinely care for Reyes. The realization surprised me. Neil worked with hundreds of convicts on a daily basis. Surely compassion fatigue played a big role in his profession. One would think frustration alone would keep any feelings of true concern at bay. But I could feel it. I could feel the connection he had with Reyes. Maybe he’d formed an attachment after having Reyes as a prisoner for so long, knowing all the while he was something more, something not entirely human. Either way, I could have kissed him on the mouth right then and there if he hadn’t been such a jerk to me in high school. Relief at having Neil on my side through this, on Reyes’s side, eased the tension in my stomach, if only minutely.

“How do you know he’s hurt?” he asked, and I could literally feel the emotions warring within him. Concern. Empathy. Dread. They pushed forward and swirled through me like a suffocating smoke.

I blinked through it and concentrated. “I’m going to tell you something,” I said, hoping that leap of faith wouldn’t come to a crash landing in a cactus patch. ’Cause that shit was painful. “And you know that whole open-minded thing you’ve got going here?”

He hesitated, wondering what I was up to, then offered me a wary nod.

I leaned forward, softened my voice to hopefully lessen the blow. “Reyes is a supernatural entity.” When he didn’t react, didn’t even blink, I continued. Mostly ’cause I really, really needed his help. And a little because I was curious how far I could go. How far he would go to learn the truth. “I mean, I have a little supernatural mojo myself, but I’m nothing like him.”

After a long, thoughtful moment, he covered his face with his palms and looked at me through his splayed fingers. “I’m losing it,” he said. Then, rethinking his verb tense, he added, “No. I take that back. I’ve lost it. It’s a done deal. There’s no hope for me now.”

“Okey dokey,” I said, shifting in my seat. I figured I’d just go along with it. No judging. No jumping to conclusions. No buying him a straitjacket for Christmas.

He pressed a button on his speakerphone.

“Yes, sir?” came the immediate response. She was good.

“Luann, I need you to have me committed ASAP. Yesterday, if possible.”

“Of course, sir. Any particular program?”

“No,” he said with a shake of his head. “Anything will do. Just use your best judgment.”

“I’ll get on it immediately, sir.”

“She’s a good egg,” he said when Luann disconnected the call.

“She seems like it. And you’re having yourself committed because?”

He scowled at me like his mental breakdown was my fault. “As much as it pains me to admit this, I believe you.”

I fought to keep a relieved grin from surfacing.

“No, I mean, I
believe
believe you. As if you’d just told me you had a flat tire or it was cloudy out. Like what you said is just an everyday thing. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to get worked up about.”

Man, he had changed a lot since high school. And I didn’t just mean the beer pooch and receding hairline. “And that’s bad?”