The Curse of Tenth Grave
Page 14I blinked at him. He’d told me he could no longer feel my emotions. Not since I’d learned my celestial name. Not since I’d dematerialized my human body and come into my powers more fully. Surely he couldn’t sense my dilemma now. “I don’t understand.”
He lowered his head. “Then I can’t help you.”
“Reyes—”
“Eat,” he said, pushing the plates into my hands. They were scalding hot, as though they’d just been taken out of an oven, and I wondered if he’d done that. “I’ll send Valerie to pick up the plates.”
He turned and left a half second before I said, “Valerie?”
But he kept walking, taking the stairs three at a time, his movements quiet, lithe, and powerful. After a moment, I went back inside and took Cookie her plate, because while Reyes may have been raised in hell, I did not quite have the aptitude for scalding heat like he did.
“Hot,” I said, my voice breathy as I practically dropped the plates on her desk.
“You can’t ply me with food.” She didn’t even bother to look up from her computer.
“Reyes made it.”
“Oh!” She jumped out of her seat to get forks and napkins, then headed for the Bunn to refuel.
I sat across from her chair. We often ate in the reception area. It let potential clients know we were human, too. We had to eat. And hydrate. And dehydrate in the form of pee. Just because they wanted us to stake out their wandering spouses at the most ungodly hours known to man did not mean we didn’t need a potty break every so often. There were laws, even! We had rights!
Just kidding. We ate in the reception area because it had the best view of the UNM campus. People watching was fun and educational.
“We have a new case,” I said when she came back with a full cup.
“So you said, but what about our old case?”
“Oh, I solved that last night. I just have to work up the nerve to meet with Mrs. Abelson.”
Cookie’s face fell. “Her husband is cheating?”
“Worse. He’s been hanging with a group of college kids, playing video games and experimenting with cannabis.”
“Have you met Mrs. Abelson?”
“Oooooh,” she said, drawing out the syllable in understanding. “Gotcha. Want me to set up a time to meet?”
“No.”
“Great, I’ll call now.”
“I don’t think I can deal with her.”
“Well, somebody has to deal with her, and it’s not going to be me.”
“No.”
She picked up the phone and was dialing the woman’s number through my protests.
“Please, no?”
“Rip off the Band-Aid,” she said, punching numbers in with her pen.
“I don’t want to.”
“Of course you do.”
“I like the Band-Aid right where it is.”
“You’ll feel better.”
“Bandages make me look noble.”
“Just rip that puppy off.”
“So will a lawsuit when Mrs. Abelson finds out you made her suffer with doubt longer than she had to.”
I gasped. “She can’t sue me.”
Cookie’s brows inched heavenward. “Have you met Mrs. Abelson?”
I caved, crestfallen. With wilted shoulders, I held out my hand for the receiver.
After setting up a meet for later that day, I decided to pester my assistant. Well, pester her more than I already was. “What are you looking at?”
“Nothing.”
She reached up and turned off her monitor. So, naturally, I reached over and turned it back on.
“I was working, I swear,” she said through a mouthful of tortilla, eggs, papas, and red chile. “Then, a few clicks later, I was lost in the devil’s lair.”
“You got lost in our apartment again?” I filled my own mouth, paused to let the fact that I’d just eaten a tiny piece of heaven sink in, then leaned closer to examine the photograph on the screen. “It’s fake.”
She’d been looking at strange and unexplained photos from the past. All black and white. All admittedly creepy. I’d fallen down that rabbit hole a few times myself. It was hard to blame her when the majority of our workdays of late had consisted of sharing cute cat videos and clips of Ellen on YouTube.
“Why were you so upset about the video this morning?” I asked her.
“Because, what if—wait, how do you know it’s fake?” She squinted at her screen. “These pictures defy explanation because they can’t be explained. That’s the whole point.”
The photo she was looking at was of a little girl with a fairy on her shoulder. “Seriously?”
“Okay,” she said, caving, “but what about this one?”
It was an image of a man in a straitjacket, levitating off a bed.
“Fake.”
She had a point. “’Parently.” I took another bite.
“Fine, but this next one truly defies—”
“Fake,” I said the second she clicked the next photo. “Just what, exactly, do you think will happen?”
“I don’t know. What about this one?”
“Fake.” It was of a little boy sitting cross-legged and hovering inside an old Radio Flyer wagon. “And I think you do know.”
“You could be exposed,” she said at last.
“I’ve exposed myself before. It’s never bothered you.”
“Not your normal one-too-many-margaritas exposed. And how do you know?”
“I don’t know. You’ve never told me it’s bothered you.”
“No, I mean about the picture.”
I pointed from around my fork at the picture. “Can you see the little boy floating?”
“Of course. That’s why it’s strange and unexplained.”
“People don’t float. Not live ones. If he were really floating, he’d be incorporeal. Or an incorporeal entity would be lifting him up. If you can see him, he’s not incorporeal. And if I can’t see an incorporeal entity lifting him up, there isn’t one. And so what if I’m exposed? A little exposure never hurt anyone. It’s not like the grim reaper police are going to arrest me.”