Third Grave Dead Ahead

apartment, and neat-but-out-of-date attire, I was beginning to think she needed to get out more. She was beautiful. Slim with auburn hair and silvery green eyes.

I padded up the walk to her turquoise door. The complex was styled to look like authentic Pueblo with round-edged adobe walls, flat roofs, and stepped levels, each one with vigas along the roofline, heavy timber beams extending through the exterior walls. Every door was painted a different Southwest color, from bright blues, reds, and yellows to the more earthy tones of terra-cotta and rich umber.

The last time I visited Kim, Reyes got a little upset. I tried not to let that worry me. He was bound now. He’d never know. Still, I couldn’t help but hesitate before I knocked. But knock, I did. A few moments later, the door opened. Kim stood there, pencil in hand. I flinched. Not because she was gripping the pencil like a switchblade and my sister had tried to stab me with one once — a pencil, not a switchblade, her grip quite similar — but because if I thought she’d looked fragile before, she looked ten times that now. I regretted my decision to come here instantly.

Her huge green gaze landed on me, worry and despair saturating the air. “Ms. Davidson,” she said, her voice soft and surprised. She glanced around, and I could feel the hope carried in each glimpse, each hesitant blink of her eyes.

“He’s not with me,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“But you’ve seen him.”

Her grip tightened on the pencil and I forced myself to stand my ground. This time, I glanced around, then looked back at her and offered the slightest hint of a nod. Her eyes widened. She pulled me inside and slammed the door shut.

“They’ve been here already,” she said, closing curtains and leading me to her small living room.

“I figured they might come here.” Those U.S. Marshals were nothing if not thorough.

She turned back to me after closing one last set of curtains. “Do you think they’ve bugged the place?” she asked, sitting next to me on the sofa.

Despite the fragility that seemed to encase her like a thin layer of crystal, she had a healthy glow, a soft blush on her porcelain skin. She seemed almost excited.

I couldn’t help but smile. “I don’t know, but I don’t really want to say too much.”

“I saw on the news where he escaped.” She was way too happy when she said that.

“Yes,” I said with a chuckle. “Do you think he’ll come here?”

“Heavens no. Remember, no contact. Like it matters anymore. The authorities know all about me.”

I’d wondered how the marshals had discovered her in the first place. There was nothing to connect Kim with Reyes. Then, a couple of weeks back, I found a reference to the possibility of a sister on one of those prisoner groupie sites and figured that’s where they caught her scent. Of course, the fact that fan sites existed at all for prisoners stunned me to my toes. And when I found out there was not one, but several dedicated to one Mr. Reyes Alexander Farrow … to say I’d been taken aback would’ve been the understatement of the millennium.

Still, it was the only explanation I could think of to explain how the U.S. Marshal’s office had become aware of Kim’s relation to Reyes. Like I’d said, thorough.

I thought I should warn Kim about Reyes’s attitude toward our friendship. “Kim, the last time I came to see you, Reyes was none too happy.”

Startled, she asked. “Did he … did he threaten you?”

“Oh, no. Well, maybe a little.” He’d actually threatened to slice me in two if I ever came to see her again, but I doubted he really meant it.

She rolled her eyes. “He won’t do anything. He’s all bark, that one.”

Her newfound boldness floored me. She was so excited and open. “You seem really happy.”

“I am.” Glancing down at the hands in her lap, she said, “Now he can go to Mexico or Canada. And he can live.” Her hopeful gaze landed on mine. “For the first time in his life, he can live. But I need to give you something.” She was glancing around again and went for the pencil. I braced myself, but she also went for paper. Thankfully. She scribbled a note, then handed it to me. “Can you get this to Reyes? This is the account number and the password. It’s all there. Every penny.”

“The account number?” I asked, studying the line of digits.

“It’s his money.” When my brows slid together in question, she said, “Well, my money. But he gave it to me. I just live off the interest. And I take only a little bit of that. It’s his. All of it. He could live like a king in Mexico with this.” She rethought her statement. “He could live like a king anywhere in the world with this.”

I folded the paper and held it in my hands. “Where on earth did it come from? How—?” Shaking my head, I realized I would never understand how Reyes did the things he did, so I switched gears. “I’m assuming this is a bank account?”

She nodded, a huge smile on her face.

“How much is in there?”

She looked up in thought, pursing her lips. “Last I checked, a little over fifty million.”

I stilled.

She giggled.

I slipped into a mild state of shock.

She patted my shoulder, said something about the account being in Switzerland.

I grew light-headed.

She waved a hand in front of my face, offered me a paper bag.

I knew Reyes was good at computers. He’d hacked into the NM Public Education Department’s database and given himself a high school diploma so he could take online classes while in prison, and with it, he’d gotten a master’s degree in computer information systems. And the first time I’d met Amador and Bianca Sanchez, Reyes’s aiders and abettors, they’d explained how he’d helped them get their house, how he’d studied the market, told them when to buy stocks and when to sell. But $50 million?

I pressed the paper back into her palm. “Kim, if he did this for you, then this is your money. I know him. He won’t take any of it from you. But more importantly, you can’t trust anyone with this information, even me.”

She pushed it back. “You’re the only one I’d trust with it. You’re the only other person on the planet he’d want to have it if anything should happen to me.”

I stuffed the paper in my pocket reluctantly. “What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing,” she said, a reassuring smile on her face. “Just in case. You know.”

My brows slid together in concern. She wasn’t lying so much as not telling me everything. “Hon, is everything okay?”

She blinked in surprise. “Absolutely, why?”

Okay, that wasn’t a lie. “No reason. I just wanted to make sure. You seem to be cooped up a lot.”

Glancing around her apartment, she said, “I get out. Probably not as much as I should. I go walking around the grounds every day. We have a pool.”

Part of me wanted to comment on how many pools she could have with 50 million dolares in her bathing suit, but she seemed comfortable here. Who was I to suggest a house on a beach in Hawaii?

She was feeling so good, so calm, I almost didn’t bring up the reason I’d come. But I needed to get her opinion on the matter. I just wasn’t sure if Reyes was seeing things clearly.

“Can I ask you something?” I said, pulling her attention back to me.

“Of course.” She’d pinned that smile back onto her pretty face.

I scooted closer and braced myself for any reaction she might have. “Do you think it’s possible that Earl Walker is still alive?”

The smile on her face didn’t waver. It didn’t falter or fade in the least. But the smile in her eyes, the genuine part of a smile, vanished. Then, like a geyser erupting from her core, panic rose in her and hit me full force, but she sat perfectly still. Motionless. Frozen in the throes of her own fear.

I put a hand over hers instantly and leaned forward. “Kim, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

She blinked, appearing like a mannequin with the emotion that had been painted on her face a little too garish. “You didn’t frighten me,” she said, the lie hanging thick in the air. “What you asked is absolutely impossible.”

I backtracked as fast as I could. “You’re right,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m sorry I even brought it up. I just