First Grave on the Right

and over the roofline with brackets every few feet for stability. Perfect footholds.

“Hey, give me a boost,” I whispered.

“What? No,” Garrett argued, eyeing the post faithlessly. He shoved me aside nonetheless. “I’ll go up.”

“I’m lighter,” I argued back. “This pipe won’t hold you.” Even though I was pretty much arguing for argument’s sake, the pipe did look a tad flimsy. And it had more rust than a New Mexico sunset. “I’ll go up and check out the skylights. Odds are I won’t be able to see in, but maybe I can find a hole. Maybe I can make a hole,” I said, thinking aloud.

“Then the guys inside will make a hole as well. In your obstinate head. Probably two if history is any indication.”

I studied the pipe while Garrett ranted something incoherent about holes and history. I’d chosen that particular moment not to understand a word he said. When he was finished, I turned to him. “Do you even know English? Give me a boost,” I added when his brows furrowed in confusion.

Shouldering past him, I gripped the pipe with both hands. He let an annoyed breath slip through his lips before stepping forward and grabbing my ass.

Thrilling? Yes. Appropriate? Not on your life.

I slapped his hands away. “What the hell are you doing?”

“You said to give you a boost.”

“Yes. A boost. Not a cheap thrill.”

He paused, looked down at me a long, uncomfortable moment.

What’d I say? “Cup your hands,” I ordered before he got all mushy. “If you can get me to the first bracket, I can take it from there.”

Reluctantly, he put one hand in the other and bent forward. I’d brought my gloves to go with my black-on- black ensemble, so I slipped them on, placed one foot in Garrett’s cupped hands, then hoisted myself up to the first brace. Easy enough with his upper body strength and all, but the second was a tad trickier. The sharp metal of the brackets tried to cut its way through my gloves, making my fingers ache instantly. I struggled to hold on to the pipe, struggled to keep my footing, and struggled to lift my own weight to the next bracket. Surprisingly, the worst pain centered in my knees and elbows as I used them for leverage against the metal building, slipping and squirming far more often than was likely appropriate.

A decade later, I pulled myself up and over the roofline. The metal cap scraped agonizingly into my rib cage as if mocking me, as if saying, You’re kind of dumb, huh? I collapsed on the roof and lay completely still a full minute, marveling at how much harder that had been than I thought it would be. I’d have hell to pay in the morning. If Garrett had been half a gentleman, he would have offered to climb the pipe in my stead.

“You okay?” he whispered into the radio.

I tried to respond, but my fingers were locked in a clawlike position from clinging on to the brackets for dear life, and they couldn’t push the little button on the side of the radio.

“Davidson,” he hissed.

Oh, for heaven’s sake. I pried my fingers apart and pulled the radio out of my jacket pocket. “I’m fine, Swopes. I’m trying to wallow in self-pity. Would you give me a minute?”

“We don’t have a minute,” he said. “The doors are opening again.”

I didn’t waste time with a response. After rolling to my feet, I hunkered down and crept to the skylights. They were actually greenhouse panels, but they were old and cracked and had more than one peephole I could see through. To do so, however, to be able to see down into the warehouse, I’d have to almost lie across a panel. A thin beam of light shot up through one of the cracks and I leaned into a push-up, my wobbly arms braced on either side. As long as the metal frame held, I figured I wouldn’t fall through the roof. Which would be a plus.

The van was driving out of the warehouse when I peeked down. Two men were boxing up papers and files from an old desk. Other than the desk, the warehouse itself, at least fifty thousand square feet of space, was completely and startlingly empty. Not a candy wrapper or cigarette butt in sight. My concerns had been well founded. Whoever owned this warehouse cleaned it out the moment Carlos Rivera met with Barber.

My arms still shook from the climb, and I was deeply regretting the tacos and forty-four-ounce soda I’d inhaled. Forty-four ounces was forty-four ounces. Calorie-free or not, it weighed the same. Time to make like a sheep.

As I inched back on the metal frame, I rehearsed my told-you-so speech to Uncle Bob. The warehouse was empty. Yes, just like I said it would be. I know I was right, but— Really, Uncle Bob, stop, you’re embarrassing me. No really, stop it. I’m not kidding.

It was about the time I was imagining my reluctant appearance and off-the-cuff speech at the Really, Really Right Awards Ceremony that my mind processed movement. Something flashed in my periphery, a fist possibly, and was quickly followed by a burst of pain in my jaw. Then all I could think as I fell through the skylight was, Holy crap!

CHAPTER 9

You know you have ADD when— Look! A chicken!

— T-SHIRT

I first saw him the day I was born. His hooded cloak undulated in majestic waves like the shadows cast by leaves in a soft breeze. He’d looked down at me while the doctor cut the cord. I knew he was looking down at me, even though I couldn’t see his face. He’d touched me as the nurses cleaned my skin, though I couldn’t feel his fingertips. And he’d whispered my name, husky and deep and soft, though I couldn’t hear his voice. Probably because I was screaming at the top of my lungs, having recently been evicted.

Since that day, I’d seen him only on the rarest of occasions, all dire. So it made sense that I would see him now. The occasion being dire and all.

As I fell through the skylight, the cement floor rushing toward me at the speed of light, he was there, looking up at me from below — though I couldn’t see his face. I tried to stop in midair, tried to pause my descent, to hover for a better look. But gravity insisted that I continue my downward journey. Then somewhere in the dark and scary — and some would say psychotic — recesses of my mind, I remembered. I remembered what he’d whispered to me the day I was born. My mind instantly rejected the idea, because the name he’d whispered wasn’t mine. He’d called me Dutch. On the very day I was born. How did he know?

While I was busy reminiscing about my first day on earth, I’d forgotten that I was falling to my death. Damned ADD. I was reminded quite effectively, however, when I stopped. I hit hard, and the air rushed out of my lungs. Yet he was still looking up at me. That meant I hadn’t made it to the ground. I hit something else, something metal, before flipping back and crashing onto steel grating.

An excruciating pain exploded in my midsection and ripped through me like a nuclear blast, so severe, so startlingly intense, it stole my breath and darkened my vision until I felt myself liquefy and slip through the grates. And as darkness crept around the edges of my consciousness, I saw him again, leaning over me, studying me.

I tried so hard to focus, to block out the pain watering my eyes and blurring my vision. But I ran out of time before I could manage it, and everything went black. An inhuman growl — angry and full of pain — echoed off the walls of the empty warehouse, shook the metal of the building until it hummed like a tuning fork in my ears.

Though I couldn’t hear his voice.

* * *

It seemed like the moment I lost consciousness, I found it again. It certainly wasn’t where I’d left it. Still, I was breathing and coherent. Amazingly, the old saying was right: It isn’t the fall that will kill you, but the sudden stop.

I tried to pry open my lids. I failed. Either I wasn’t really conscious or Garrett had found a tube of Super Glue and was getting even for the salsa incident. While I waited for my eyelids to realize they were supposed to be in the upright position, I listened to him babble into the radio, something about my having a pulse. Always a welcome