More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
As far as my ability goes, there’s nothing particularly special about it. The departed exist on one plane, and the human race exists on another, and somehow—whether by freak accident, divine intervention, or psychological disorder—I exist on both. A perk, I suppose, of grim reaperism. But it’s all quite simple. No trances. No crystal balls. No channel surfing the dead from one plane to the next. Just a girl, a few ghosts, and the entire human race.
Jamie liked this
But for the first time, I heard a whispered utterance, faint and almost imperceptible. “Dutch.”
Never knock on death’s door. Ring the doorbell then run. He totally hates that. —T-SHIRT
I wondered if he knew he had a dead child in his backseat. Probably not.
I would not modify my behavior to appease his delicate sense of propriety in my own office.
“Were you just possessed?” Cookie asked after a long moment, awe softening her voice. “ ’Cause let me tell you, sweetheart, if that was possession, I’m selling my soul.”
Did I do some kind of astral projection thing? I hoped not. I didn’t believe in astral projection. But maybe, just maybe, astral projection believed in me.
“Yes.” She leaned in as well. “Charlotte, he was wearing … a prison uniform.”
Genius has its limitations. Insanity … not so much. —BUMPER STICKER
“He should never have been a boy named Reyes. He should have stayed where he belonged. Martians can’t become human just because they want to drink our water.” His eyes locked on to mine, but he stared past me a long moment before refocusing on my face. “You stay away from him, Miss Charlotte,” he said, taking a warning step toward me. “You just stay away.” I held my ground. “Rocket, you’re not being very nice.” He leaned down to me then, his voice a raspy whisper as he said, “But, Miss Charlotte, he’s not very nice either.”
“Rocket,” I said in a soothing voice, “sweetheart, you’re hurting me.” He jerked back his hands and retreated in disbelief, as if astonished at what he’d done. “It’s okay,” I said, refusing to rub my throbbing arms. It would only make him feel worse. “It’s okay, Rocket. You didn’t mean to.” A horrified expression flashed across his face as he disappeared. I heard three words as he left. “He won’t care.”
I sat in Misery—the Jeep, not the emotion—and waited for the skyline to swallow it completely so I could get on with my breaking-and-entering gig.
My concern, however, was leaning toward homicidal. Hard as I tried, I couldn’t help but get a little hot under my seven-dollar thrift-store Gucci collar. Someone hit me. Someone tried to kill me. Had he succeeded, I could have died.
She inhaled a breath of realization. “He called you Dutch.” “Yes, but how? How could he possibly have known?” “Hon, I’m still working on the day-you-were-born thing.” “Right, sorry. But could you hurry up and get over it? I have questions.”
“So, I look up and there he is.” Cookie held a piece of popcorn at her lips as she listened to my tale, her eyes wide with astonishment. Or possibly primal, bone-chilling fear. It was hard to tell at that point. “The Big Bad,” she said.
Uncle Bob had been the lead detective in the case against Reyes. Well, crap.
I needed to figure out what to do with my day. Should I ditch my APD responsibilities and go to the prison to check on Reyes? Or should I dump all my APD responsibilities on Cookie and then go to the prison to check on Reyes?
What if I didn’t like what I found? What if he was actually guilty? I couldn’t help but hold out hope that his conviction was all some big misunderstanding. That Reyes had been wrongfully accused. That the evidence had been mishandled or even fabricated. Denial was not just a river in Egypt.
For the first night in a month, Reyes didn’t visit me. He didn’t slip into my dreams with his dark eyes and warm touch. He didn’t trail kisses down my spine or slide his fingers between my legs. And I couldn’t help but wonder why. Did I do something wrong?
It all makes sense now. This was the first toxic man i fellnin love with. And the first bad bitch i ever fell on love with.
“Hey, pumpkin head,” she said, her ancient smile bright, albeit toothless. “I heard you stumble your way to the bathroom, so I figured I’d earn my keep and make us some coffee. Sure looks like you could use some.” I grimaced. “Really? How sweet.” Damn. Aunt Lillian couldn’t really make coffee. I sat at the counter and pretended to drink a cup. “Is it too strong?” she asked. “No way, Aunt Lil, you make the best.”
“By the way, how was Nepal?” I asked. “Ugh,” she said, raising her hands in helplessness, “humid and hotter than a june bug in August.” Since the departed weren’t affected by the weather, I had to hold back a grin.
“Hey, what does bombázó mean?” “Uncle Bob,” I said reproachfully, “have you been in that Hungarian chat room again?” I tried really hard not to giggle, but the thought of some Hungarian chick calling Ubie “the bomb” was just too much. I cracked up regardless. “Never mind,” he said, annoyed. I laughed harder. “Call me when you get back to town.”
His height had me looking up as I took his hand. “Neil. You look great,” I said, wondering if it was okay to say such things to persons with whom you weren’t exactly friends. “You look…” He spread his hands in a helpless gesture. I wondered if I should be insulted. It couldn’t have been the bruises. I’d worked really hard on covering them. Was it my hair? It was probably my hair.
He was going to say it. Reyes was dead. Died, what, a month ago? I waited with bated breath for the news. “Farrow’s in a coma. Has been for almost a month.”
Reyes Farrow. Because perfection is a dirty job, but someone has to do it. —CHARLOTTE JEAN DAVIDSON
“I was just a guard then, fresh out of training, positive I was hot shit. I almost pissed my pants when I saw those men heading toward Farrow, not that I knew who he was at the time. I called for backup, but before I even finished the request, three South Side members lay on the ground in pools of their own blood with this twenty-year-old kid … I don’t know … crouched on a table, ready to spring at anyone else who came near him, eyeing the inmates with absolutely no emotion, no fear whatsoever.”
“But … he didn’t move like a normal man moves, Charley. He was a blur, so fast it was impossible for my eyes to follow him. Then he was crouched on the table like an animal, powerful, dangerous.” Neil shook his head again, as if still not believing his own eyes. “That’s how he got his name.” “His name?” I asked, even more intrigued. “No one ever touched him again,” he continued. “In all the years I’ve been here, I’ve never seen anything like it. He’s a legend to these men, almost godlike.” I scooted closer to his desk, almost drooling. “You mentioned a name?” “Right,” he said, snapping to
...more
“I can let you see him, if you’d like.” My heart skipped a beat and seemed to rise physically in my chest. “But I have to tell you, Charley, he won’t pull through. He’s brain-dead.” Just as quickly, it plummeted to my toes and the floor seemed to slip out from under me. Brain-dead? How could that be?
“Oops,” the nurse said. “Got her?” “I had her the first time. She just keeps slipping out of my grip. She’s like really heavy spaghetti.” “What?” I shrieked, jerking to my senses. “How heavy? What happened?”
Flipping on the living room light, I was in the middle of a quick hello to Mr. Wong when Reyes turned toward me. Reyes, standing regal and godlike in front of my living room window. Reyes Farrow. The same Reyes Farrow who was lying in a coma in Santa Fe an hour away. He turned back to stare out the window, giving me a chance to put my stuff on the snack bar.
“Rocket’s afraid of you,” I said, my voice suddenly hoarse. When he paused at Danger and Will Robinson, I asked, “You wouldn’t hurt him, would you?” Then his gaze, piercing and turbulent, locked on to mine.
Maybe he’d been born with a purpose, a job, but then his life turned out bad like Rocket’s and he’d never been able to fulfill his duties.
He turned suddenly, breaking the spell he had me under, as if something had demanded his attention. Then he was in front of me, his sensual mouth barely inches from mine. “You were tired,” he said, disappearing in a swirl of dark mass before he’d even finished his statement.
Angel and I had hooked up soon after I met him on the Night of God Reyes, as I liked to call it. He’d followed me through high school, college, and eventually into the Peace Corps. When I finally opened my own investigations business, we negotiated a deal where I sent his mother the money he would have made working for me—anonymously, of course—and he became my top, number one, and only investigator.
In the time it took to split an atom, Bad severed Herschel’s spinal cord. I knew this because he’d done it before. But at the same time, the tip of his silver blade sliced into my side. The moment I realized I had been nicked by Bad’s blade, Herschel flew back and crashed against the gate of the elevator so hard it rattled the building. Then Bad turned to me, his robe and aura fusing together as one undulating mass, his blade tucked safely into the folds of the thick black matter. I realized then that I was falling. The world rushed to meet me at the exact moment arms locked around my waist,
...more
My heart stopped a moment when I realized, once again, that Bad and Reyes were the same being. The same creature of destruction.
He’d laid me on the ground. Reyes. When he caught me, he’d laid me back on the ground, looked me over, paying special attention to where the tip of his blade sliced, then dissolved into nothing before my eyes with a growl.
He was right. This wasn’t the first time, or the second. It would seem Reyes Farrow had been my guardian angel for quite some time.
“Poltergeists are just pissed-off dead people. It’s really not that mysterious,” I said. But I was lying. Reyes was about as mysterious as it got.
He pulled in a deep, soothing breath. “I’m getting too old for this crap.” “Ah, yes. Impotence, decrepitude. Still, you’ll always have Werther’s Originals.”
After sucking in an appalled breath, I tried to wrench free of his grip. I pretended to pretend like I was pretending to be confident when I said, “I’m leaving.” He had just confessed to conspiracy. No way on Earth was I getting out of that office alive.
In the seconds before I felt consciousness slip completely away, I realized Price had broken my neck. Asshole.
“So, can I go watch the strippers now?” I peeked over Ubie’s shoulder at a grinning, wingless Angel. I would have hugged him, too, but it looked odd when I hugged the dead in public.
“I gotta tell you, Davidson, I’m impressed,” he said, his eyes glued to the screen. “That took balls.” “Please,” I said with a snort, “that took ovaries. Of which I have two.”
Crossings from my perspective were a little like watching people disappear before my eyes. I felt them as they drifted through me. Their emotions. Their fears. Their hopes and dreams. But I had yet to feel hatred, animosity, or jealousy. Mostly, I felt an overwhelming sense of love.
“I’m not him,” he said through gritted teeth, unable to meet my eyes. He was lying. There was no other explanation. “Who else bears that mark?”
