Eighth Grave After Dark

He rounded the chair and sat back down.

“Have you interviewed all her friends?”

This time the glare was directed toward me. Agent Waters was taking my questions as an indication that he was incompetent. I didn’t mean that at all, but he was clearly sensitive about the case.

“Why the guilt?” I asked him. I felt it there, weaker than the other emotions shooting out of him, but it was there nonetheless.

“What?” He acted as though I’d slapped him.

“You feel guilty. Why?”

When he spoke next, he did so through gritted teeth. “Fuck you.”

I braced for an attack. If that upset him, what I was about to say was likely to send him over the edge. “Until you explain why you feel guilty, I’m going to have to consider you a suspect.”

Both Cookie and Kit gasped aloud. Cookie did that a lot, but Kit was normally so unflappable.

“Charley,” Kit said as Cookie placed a hand on my arm. It was an involuntary reflex when Agent Waters stood to tower over me. Not that he was that tall, but I was sitting down. Our positions gave him a distinct advantage. I’d definitely have to go for the crotch if he swung at me. “Jonny—” She caught herself and started again. “Agent Waters was working in the field office in Dallas when this happened. He’s been there for two years.”

“I’m sorry,” I said to her, still doing my best to egg the man on. I hadn’t been kidding. Until I knew why Jonny felt so guilty about his niece’s disappearance, I was going to have to assume he had something to do with it. “But you two have clearly had a relationship in the past. Your assessment can’t be trusted at this point in time.”

That did it. He came unglued and I prepared for war. Then again, would he really hit a pregnant woman? He lunged forward and I felt certain he would. Reyes exploded into the room incorporeally, his heat like a nuclear blast over my skin. I held up a hand, and though it was meant for Reyes—he had a tendency to sever spines first and ask questions later—Agent Waters stopped instantly. By then, his face was mere inches from mine.

“You are treading in unsafe waters.”

Kit rushed between us, pushing the agent back. It was too bad, really. I wanted to see what he was capable of.

“What are you doing?” she asked him.

The agent turned his back on her, and Reyes dissipated only to walk up to the doorway physically and lean against the jamb. He watched Agent Waters, but I nodded my head toward Mr. Wong, trying to clue Reyes in to his presence as nonchalantly as I could. Reyes didn’t bite. He wasn’t about to let his gaze stray one iota off his target. He had the best attention span.

Agent Waters scraped another hand through his hair, sat back down, then began to rub the palm of one hand with the thumb of the other. “This may be my fault.”

Kit had started to sit down again, but she rose to her feet with his confession. “What do you mean?”

He pressed his mouth together before saying, “I think she was trying to figure out who was following her.”

“You never said anyone was following her.” She snapped up the file and thumbed through it.

“No, I— I didn’t want my brother and his wife to know she’d come to me.”

Kit sank back onto the couch.

“About a month ago, she emailed me. Asked me how to tail someone. Said that there was a strange man hanging out in their neighborhood, and could I run his plates?”

“Why isn’t that in the report?”

“It wouldn’t have helped,” he said, his ire—and guilt level—spiking again. “She never gave me any more information than that. Just that some creepy guy was hanging out near the park she and her friends hung out at. She’s always wanted to join the FBI, and I think she was going to try to investigate this guy on her own.”

“What did you tell her?” Cookie asked.

“I told her—” He bowed his head. “I told her that it was illegal for me to run the plates for her. I told her to let her parents know about the man.”

“That’s not anything to feel guilty about,” I said.

He shook his head. “No, but she emailed me again a few days later. She said she figured out who the guy was and asked if I could come to New Mexico and arrest him.”

“And?” Kit asked.

“And I told her to give all the information she had to her parents and have them call the police. I told her I didn’t have time.”

While it sounded pretty legit to me, Kit bolted out of her chair. “You selfish asshole,” she said, her jaw locked in anger. “You know how much you mean to her.”

Like a dog being scolded, he ducked his head even lower.

“You know how much she admires you,” Kit continued. They definitely had a past. “And you know she would do anything to get you to move back here.”

“Exactly,” he said, raising his head at last.

Kit let that sink in, then scoffed at him. “That’s it, isn’t it? You thought she was just doing all that to get you to come home.”

When he lowered his gaze again, Kit turned away from him in disgust.

“Were you close with your niece?” I asked him.

“Before I moved away, yes. Very.”

The interesting part about that statement was not his emotions, but Kit’s. The rigid line of her back softened and a sorrow swept over her. Kit straightened her shoulders again, then said, “Now tell her the rest.”