Sixth Grave on the Edge

I stood and brushed myself off. Cookie glanced between us, partly relieved and partly confused. “You picked up on that, did you?”

“Yes, Charley, I did.”

“How did you know this was all a setup?”

“Give me a little credit. I am a detective. And neither one of you could lie your way out of a paper bag.” He turned and glared at Cookie. “You need to take a class or something.”

“We are excellent liars,” I said, defending our honor. “And this was my idea, Uncle Bob. Cookie didn’t even want to go along with it.” Had I just blown Cookie’s only chance to hit it with my uncle?

“Believe it or not, I figured that out as well.”

“How?”

“Cookie would never come up with something this harebrained.”

I folded my arms over my chest. “I resent that remark.”

“And she would never go so far as to hire an actor.”

Troy, the actor in question, grinned some more. “How’d I do?” he asked Uncle Bob.

“You have a fine career ahead of you, son.”

“And,” Cookie said, completely offended as well, “Charley may be a horrible liar, but I’m an expert.”

“You keep telling yourself that, sweet cheeks.”

“But how—no when—did you two get together?” I asked him, indicating both Ubie and Troy.

“I subpoenaed your phone records and got the number off them.”

I gasped to show how indignant I was. “That is illegal!”

“So is just about everything you do on a daily basis,” he said to me. “I felt I needed to put you in your place on this one, hon. That’s why I called in Wynona Jakes.”

“You mean the fake psychic was a setup?” I asked—so appalled, I was almost speechless. Almost. “I can’t believe you’d set me up like that.”

“And how does that feel?”

Again, I was almost struck speechless. Almost. “Uncle Bob, we were doing this for your own good. You needed a swift kick in the rear, and you got one. If you’d just asked her out in the first place—”

“Is this an example of that whole ‘blaming the victim’ thing you’re always ranting about?”

I shut my mouth, refusing to answer.

He turned to Cookie, who stood in both shame and humiliation. I sucked so bad sometimes. I thought for sure this would work.

“Well?” he asked her, holding out a hand.

“Well?” she asked back.

“We going out or what?”

Her mouth opened, then closed again. Then opened. Then—

“Yes!” I said for her, sidling up closer to my curmudgeonly uncle. “Yes, you are going out.”

A pink hue blossomed over Cookie’s face. “Yes, we’re going out, Robert. Right now before you change your mind.”

His grateful expression warmed the cockles of my heart. As Cookie retrieved her purse from another onlooker, I wrapped my arm in his and leaned my head against his shoulder. “So it worked, then.”

He pressed his mouth together under his trim mustache, loath to admit it. “Yes,” he said at last, “it worked. But you guys sure went to a lot of trouble for nothing.”

Cookie had stepped forward, and I handed him off to her. “Not nothing,” she said, rising onto her toes and kissing his cheek. “Not even close to nothing.”

A fiery blush suffused Ubie’s face the exact moment a wave of nausea washed over me. I took that as my cue to skedaddle.

* * *

After Garrett dropped Reyes and me off, I brushed my teeth, washed my face, and put on my favorite pair of pajamas. The bottoms were baby blue with little red fire engines all over them, and the bright crimson top read LIFE’S SHORT. BITE HARD. After forcing a goodnight kiss on Mr. Wong’s cheek, I strolled to my room and pulled back my Bugs Bunny comforter.

My room felt so big now. So open. It was weird.

I snuggled deep into the covers, adjusted my pillow until it was just right, then lay down until the top of my head rested on Reyes’s shoulder. He was in the exact same position, only upside down on his bed. We lay facing each other, nose to nose, our breaths mingling. The scent of him reminded me of rain in a forest. I raised a hand to his face, let my fingers brush down his cheek and over his mouth.

He did the same, pushing my hair back with a large hand, tracing my jaw with his fingertips. “Don’t think that just because there’s no wall between us you can take advantage of me.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dare.”

He fell asleep cradling my head, his heat rolling over me in scalding waves, and yet I wasn’t too hot. I fell asleep wondering how that was even possible.

I could sense the sun coming up over the horizon the next morning but fought my body’s natural inclination to rise with the chickens. It was still early; I was certain of it. Surely I could get in another half hour before duty—or the need to visit the little señorita’s room—called. Then I felt it. The undeniable knowledge that someone was looking at me. Someone was sitting and breathing and fidgeting in my space bubble.

I let my lids drift open to reveal the smiling face of a little girl.

“She’s awake!” she screamed, and I bound upright, trying to blink the sleep from my eyes.

A little boy ran into the room and scrambled up on the bed beside his sister. “What happened to your wall?” he asked, his huge dark eyes wide with wonder.