Graves' end

garment.

Thock!

Lia turned at the unexpected noise. She knew the sound of wood being chopped, the thud of the axe head when it bit into the grain followed by the quick clatter of two half-logs tumbling to the ground. The familiar sound reached her again:

Thock!

Lia headed toward the woodpile at the back of the Yard. She came out of the trees in time to see Dexter-a living, vital Dexter-bringing down his axe to bifurcate another length of wood.

Thock!

He was shirtless and sweating a bit from exertion. Lia liked watching the way the muscles worked in his back and arms when he swung the axe. He was built like a long, inverted triangle: broad at the shoulders, tapering down to small hips.

Thock! Another log cracked and split. Dexter bent to pick up the halves and set them aside, and that’s when he noticed Lia.

He straightened up, not saying a word, giving her that knowing look and that lopsided grin. He was quite a bit taller than she was, big and solid through the chest, with a flat, firm stomach. Lia didn’t quite realize she was biting her bottom lip while she eyed the point where his flesh disappeared behind the crisp front of his well-fitted work pants, just below his navel. He had an appealing air of genial masculine beastliness about him. A certain quiet confidence and maturity that Lia found lacking in so many of the other men she knew or regularly saw, when she compared them.

Dexter set the axe aside as Lia padded over the soft earth to stand before him, opening her weightless leaf- robe and letting it fall back from her shoulders. Dexter stepped closer, put an arm around her, and drew her to him, chest to chest. She was sure he must’ve felt the thudding rhythm of her heart both under her left breast and right through the planes of her back.

At that moment a jolt of alarm straightened Lia’s spine. Dexter let her go and stumbled back-almost recoiling, you could say.

Lia looked down and was horrified to see her own hands stripped bare of flesh, the bones bleached to a chalky white. The leaves that made up her robe were all brown and dead and curling.

She willed the images and sensations away, but that driving urgency only intensified. There was something happening back in the waking world that needed attending to. She could feel her friends’ distress over it quite keenly now, and she began the long upward struggle back toward them and toward consciousness, leaving her strange, intimate moment with an impression of Dexter Graves unconsidered. She didn’t understand what the vision meant, but didn’t feel like she could spare the time to wonder about it, either.

Chapter Thirty-One

Graves stepped in close to Hannah when she checked the front display on Lia’s wireless telephone. Riley and Black Tom also crowded in and craned their necks to look over her shoulders. Lia was still sleeping soundly on that massive four-poster bed, behind them.

“Someone you know?” Graves asked, pitching his voice low so as to not disturb Lia’s rest. “Those tiny phones are goddamn amazing, by the way, that they tell you who it is that’s calling…”

“No,” Hannah said, frowning over the caller ID. “It says Ingrid Redstone. Not a name I’ve heard before.”

“Ingrid Redstone?” Graves repeated. He didn’t think he could’ve heard her right.

“It’s been ringing,” Riley said. “This must be at least the third re-dial.”

“Should I answer it?” Hannah asked.

“Yeah, do it,” Graves said. “But keep it vague. Wish there was an extension I could listen in on.”

“I can put it on speaker,” Hannah offered.

Graves nodded his approval, quietly impressed.

Hannah unfolded the phone. “Hello?”

The caller hesitated for a long while. Then, “…Lia?”

“Ah, no,” Hannah said. “No, Lia’s not, ahh, Lia can’t come to the phone right now, but I’ll be happy to give her a message, if you like.”

“Who’s this?” the caller asked sweetly. Her name was Ingrid Redstone, if the ‘caller ID’ was to be believed, and Graves had to admit that the honeyed voice did sound the way he remembered.

“I’m, uh… Lia’s boss,” Hannah said. Graves guessed she was being mindful of Lia’s wariness regarding names, which he figured was probably smart. She was improvising, although she was neither a performer nor a deceiver by nature.

“Lia’s boss at Potter’s Yard?” the woman calling herself Ingrid asked.

“Umm, yeah,” Hannah said, after a longish beat. “Yeah, that’s me, all right.”

She was at a loss for more to say. Graves folded his arms, frowning and thinking.

“Well,” Ingrid continued, “my name is Ingrid, Ingrid Redstone, and I was really hoping I might speak with Lia. Do you know when she’ll be available?”

“Well, she, she’s a little busy right now,” Hannah said. She was floundering, not quite sure what was required of her, or even what was going on. Graves had a notion rattling around in his head, but he wasn’t ready to let the rest of them in on it yet.

“She’s organizing a lot of new stock, you know, waaay out back,” Hannah continued. “She forgot her phone up here in the office.”

“Oh, did she?”

“Yeah, yeah, she did,” Hannah lied. “And it’s a pretty big place, so I’m not exactly sure where she is right now, but I’ll sure tell her you called, miss, ah, Redstone, was it?”

“That’s right, Ingrid Redstone. Lia’s been working on a… a project for me, and it’s really quite important that I speak with her as soon as possible.”

Graves could stand the charade no longer. “Yeah, I just bet it is, Ing,” he snarled down at the little phone Hannah was holding up. “Tell me-this ‘project’ of yours gonna end with Lia’s gray matter spattered all over Hardface’s door, or was that just how things shook out with me?”

“Dexter,” Ingrid said, after a moment. “That’s you, isn’t it?”

“In the… well, hell, I was gonna say ‘in the flesh,’” Graves said, aware of the inadequacy of the expression. “But yeah, it’s me. How’ve ya been, dollface? Hope the years’ve been kinder to you, ’cause they’ve sure taken a toll on me.”

“Welcome back,” Ingrid said, and Riley and Hannah exchanged a glance. “Dex,” Ingrid hesitated on the other end of the wireless phone line. “I–I want you to know that what happened, back in 1950? That was… well, it was a complicated situation. What I did to you, I didn’t do lightly.”

“Glad to know you didn’t blow my brains out on a goddamn whim, Ingrid.”

“Dexter, I had no other choice,” Ingrid exploded, suddenly emotional. “You have no idea what would’ve happened if you’d gone through that door!”

“I sure didn’t then,” Graves said. “My horizons have broadened since.”

“You may think they have,” Ingrid shot back, “but you still don’t know what’s really at stake.” When she spoke again she pitched her voice very low. “Dex, this isn’t the very best time for me to talk about all this. But there are things you need to know. You and Lia both. And you need to know them before dark.”

“Yeah, regarding Lia,” Graves said. “You come anywhere near her, and my head won’t be the only one with a hole in it. You get me?”

“Nyx will be coming at sunset,” Ingrid warned. “And Lyssa, and the Tzitzimime, too. None of them are finished with you, and they’re not the last Caradura has to send. Meet me before the sun goes down-”

“Nuts to that, sister!” Graves said. “Our social life ended when you pulled that trigger.”

“How’s Lia feeling, Dexter, why don’t you tell me that?” Ingrid challenged, trying a different tack. “Still on her feet?”

Everyone in the guest room looked over at unconscious Lia, and then back to Graves.