He was also easy on the retinas. He had short black hair, wide shoulders, skin like Mayan chocolate, and smoky gray eyes that could capture a girl’s soul if she stared into them long enough.
Thank God I had the attention span of a gnat.
If I had to guess, I would say he was only half African-American. The lighter skin tone and gray eyes screamed hybrid. I just didn’t know if his other half was Latino or Anglo. Either way, he had a confident walk and easy smile that turned heads wherever we went. So, looks were certainly not an area he needed to work on.
No, Garrett was a consummate pain in the ass for other reasons. As I stepped into the light, he looked at the bruises on my jaw and smirked. “Blind date?”
I did that thing where you scratch your eyebrow and flip someone off at the same time. I’m good at multitasking like that. Garrett just smirked. Again.
Okay, it wasn’t his fault he was an ass. He used to like me until Uncle Bob, in a drunken stupor, told him our little secret. Naturally, he didn’t believe a word of it. Who would? That was about a month ago, and our friendship took a nosedive from barely there to nonexistent. He’s pretty much slotted me for the loony bin. And Uncle Bob, too, for believing I can actually see the departed. Some people have no imagination.
“What are you doing here, Swopes?” I asked, a little more than annoyed that I had to deal with him.
“I thought this might be one of my skips.”
“Is it?”
“Not unless meth heads wear three-piece suits and fifteen-hundred-dollar Crisci loafers.”
“That’s too bad. I’m sure it’s much easier to collect your fee when the skip is dead.”
Garrett shrugged, semi-agreeing.
“Actually,” Uncle Bob said, “I asked him to stick around, you know, for an extra set of eyes.”
I was doing my darnedest to keep my own eyes off the body—dead people I could handle, dead bodies not so much—but a movement in my periphery had me zeroing in on that very thing.
“So, are you getting anything?” Uncle Bob asked—he still thinks I’m psychic—but I was too busy staring at the dead guy in the dead body to answer.
I inched over and nudged the body with my foot. “Dude, what are you still doing in there?”
The dead guy looked at me with wide eyes. “I can’t move my legs.”
I snorted. “You can’t move your arms either, or your feet or your freaking eyelids. You’re dead.”
“Jesus H.,” Garrett said through clenched teeth.
“Look.” I turned to face him head-on. “You play on your side of the sandbox, and I’ll play on mine. Comprende?”
“I’m not dead.”
I turned back. “Hon, you’re as dead as my great-aunt Lillian, and trust me, that woman is now in a perpetual state of decomposition.”
“No, I’m not. I’m not dead. Why isn’t anyone trying to revive me?”
“Um, because you’re dead?”
I heard Garrett mutter something under his breath, then stalk off. Nonbelievers were such drama queens.
“Okay, fine, if I’m dead, how am I talking to you? And why are you so sparkly?”
“It’s a long story. Just trust me, mister, you’re dead.”
Just then, Sergeant Dwight walked up, all crisp and formal looking in his APD uniform and military buzz. “Ms. Davidson, did you just kick that dead body?”
“For heaven’s sake, I’m not dead!”
“No.”
Sergeant Dwight tried his hand at a death stare. I tried not to giggle.
“I got this, Sergeant,” Uncle Bob said.
The sarge turned to him, and they eyed each other a full minute before he spoke. “Would you mind not contaminating my crime scene with your relatives?”
“Your crime scene?” Uncle Bob asked. A vein in his temple started pulsing.
I considered popping the rubber band at his wrist, but I still had doubts as to its efficacy. “Hey, Uncle Bob,” I said, patting his arm, “let’s go over here and talk, shall we?”
I turned and left without waiting, hoping Uncle Bob would follow. He did. We strolled past the spotlights to a tree and assumed innocuous conversational positions. I tossed a smile to Sergeant Dwight Yokel that leaned heavily toward smart-ass. I think he growled. Good thing I wasn’t into people-pleasing.
“Well?” Uncle Bob asked as Garrett reluctantly rejoined us.
“I don’t know. He won’t get out of his body.”
“He what?” Garrett raked a hand through his hair. “This is classic.”
I ignored him and watched as Sussman walked over to a third dead person on the scene, a striking woman with blond hair and a fire engine red skirt suit. She screamed femininity and power. I liked her instantly. Sussman shook her hand. Then they both turned to look at the only dead person present lying in a pool of his own blood.
“I think they know each other,” I said.
“Who?” Uncle Bob asked, glancing around as if he could see them.
“You got an ID on this guy?”
“Yeah.” He fished out his notebook, reminding me I needed to dash into Staples. All my little notebooks were filled to maximum capacity. As a result, I kept writing pertinent information on my hand, then accidentally washing it off. “Jason Barber. A lawyer at—”
“Sussman, Ellery, and Barber,” Sussman said in unison with Uncle Bob.
“You’re a lawyer?” I asked him.