already told me.”
I gasped. “Uncle Bob ratted me out?”
“I’d like to talk to you later, if you have a minute.”
“I’m pretty booked today,” I said, sunglasses still on my smiling face, “but I can try to come down in a bit.”
“I’d appreciate that. I’ll leave you to your business.” He nodded to Luther and Monica, then strode away to his office.
After questioning the Deans a little while longer, I said good-bye and took the stairs up to the office two at a time, excited to share the latest with Cookie. Was this an insurance scam? Surely Dr. Yost found out about the policy his wife took out. Maybe he saw it as an opportunity. I needed his financial records. But for that I needed a subpoena. No, I needed Agent Carson.
I started across the balcony that looked down into the bar. My office was just past the elaborate iron elevator, but the little girl with the knife stood blocking the way. I stepped around her and inside my office.
“Oh, I’ll get you some coffee,” Cookie said really loudly. She rushed into my office where the coffeepot was and waved at me, her eyes wide.
I smiled and waved back.
She rolled her eyes, hurried to the coffeepot, and gestured toward her office with a nod. “Do either of you U.S. Marshals take cream?”
Oh. Close call. I backed out the way I came in and inched the door closed. Whew. The little slasher girl was gone. Our encounters were fleeting yet meaningful. I was certain of it.
Not really in the mood to talk to Dad either, I snuck past his office and out the back door. Uncle Bob called my cell phone as I booked it to Misery.
“You ratted me out,” I said, skipping the pleasantries.
“I did no such thing.” He seemed really offended, then said, “Well, okay, I probably did. To whom did I rat you out?”
“Dad. Duh.”
“What? The Reyes thing?”
“Did you know he wants me to quit?” I dug my keys out of my bag because Misery lacked the technology to sense my DNA and open the door when I approached.
“Quit what? Your gym membership?” He laughed out loud.
I slid the key into the lock. “That was so amazingly offensive.”
“What?” He sobered. “Don’t tell me you actually have a gym membership.”
“Of course I don’t have a gym membership. He wants me to quit work. My job. The investigations business.”
“Get outta here.”
“No, I’m telling you.” I threw my bag in the passenger’s side floorboard and climbed in one-handed. “He’s lost it. He really wants me to quit. So I’m thinking either professional wrestling or belly dancing.” Nor did Misery say things like,
“I’ll talk to him. In the meantime, I got a flag on the doctor.”
“Like, an American flag?”
“In the database. Nothing ever came of it, but his name was mentioned in some kind of a forgery investigation. I can give you the detective’s name who was in charge. He retired last year. I know him. Plays a lot of golf now.”
“Cool. He probably deserves it. I’ve got two U.S. Marshals in my office,” I said as Misery purred to life. No voice recognition software or retinal scanning required.
“What do they want?”
“No idea. I already talked to a marshal last night, so I snuck out the back way.”
“In true Davidson style.”
“Hey, can you check on Dr. Yost’s financial situation? I’ve already got Cookie on it, but I need official stuff that I can’t get without a warrant.” I steered Misery onto Central. Steered her. Like with my two hands.
“Don’t have to. He’s rich. Have you seen his house? His monthly water bill would feed a small country for a month.”
“Well, how do you know he’s rich if you haven’t checked his bank accounts?”
“You really want me to check into his finances?”
“Is the pope Catholic?”
“Did I mention how behind I am on my paperwork?”
“Did I mention how much you owe me?”
“Finances, it is.”
Chapter 12
Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong.
I’d parked Misery on a side street half a block away from the abandoned mental asylum and did a crouch run to the nearest Dumpster, where I dived for cover behind a group of evergreen bushes. Then I waved my arms about wildly and spit a few times when I realized the bushes were covered in spiderwebs. After a shiver of revulsion, I gathered myself, summoned my
I pried open my throbbing fingers and scanned the area. Nary a Rottweiler in sight, so I jumped down and booked it to the basement window I used to sneak into the place. I turned the latch I’d rigged to unlock the window and pulled. Normally, the window opened out and I could do a drop-and-roll kind of thing into the basement, which was kind of like a duck-and-cover thing with less concern over radiation poisoning resulting in permanent hair loss, but the window was stuck. I pulled harder and it gave. For about half a second before it slammed shut again. What in the name of Zeus’s testicles?
Before I could try again, Rocket appeared, his nose pressed against the glass like a giant kid in a nightmare version of peekaboo. He grinned. “Miss Charlotte!” he yelled, as though I were a thousand miles away.
“Rocket,” I whispered, jamming an index finger over my mouth, “shhhhh.” I glanced around, waiting for the pitter-pat of Rottweiler paws. I had no idea if canines could hear the departed but figured this was not an ideal situation to find out. “Rocket, let me in.”
He giggled again. “Miss Charlotte, I can see you through the glass!” he yelled louder, pointing to it over and over in case I missed it. “Can you hear me?”
Oh, for the love of Godsmack. I crawled onto my stomach and inched the window open. “Rocket,” I said through the open slit, “you have to let me in.”
“You can’t come in. I have company.”
“Company? Seriously?” Rocket had died sometime in the fifties. How many people could he know? “There are huge dogs out here, and I have to give you some names.”
He brightened. Like literally. It was weird. He pushed open the window another inch and poked his nose and mouth out. “Names?” he whispered.
“Yes, names of people. I need to know if they’ve passed or not.” I could lose him any second. Keeping Rocket’s attention for more than several seconds was similar to winning the lottery, minus the monetary gain.
He pushed the window frame against his face to scrunch it and was making fish faces at me. “Hellllllloooooo, Miss Charlotte.”
I drew in a deep, calming breath. “Rocket, where are Strawberry and Blue?” Blue Bell was his sister who died in the thirties from dust pneumonia. I’d never met her. Apparently, she didn’t want to be introduced to the grim
