Read Online Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet by Darynda Jones - Free Book Online Page B

talk to the therapists the Lowells were sending Harper to.
     She’s been seeing them since around the age of five.”
    “That could be difficult.”
    “Are you saying you can’t do it?”
    “No,” she said, a smile in her voice. “I’m saying it’s about time you gave me a challenge.”
    “I was hoping you’d say that.”
    The second I hung up, I called David Taft. Officer Taft worked the same precinct as
     Uncle Bob and had a departed little sister who liked to visit me at the worst times
     possible. Namely any. We weren’t exactly friends, Taft and I. Which might explain
     the cold reception.
    “Taft,” he said when he picked up.
    “Hey, Charley Davidson here.” When he didn’t say anything, I continued. “I have a
     client who says you’re her liaison at the precinct. Harper Lowell?”
    “Doesn’t ring a bell. So, you’re back?”
    “I was never gone. She claims someone is stalking her. Trying to kill her.”
    “I know who you’re talking about. We never got anything on any stalker.”
    “Do you believe her?”
    “I didn’t. Until I spoke to her parents.”
    Well, well. I was starting to like him. “Why is that?”
    “I don’t know. They seemed a little too eager to convince me their daughter was crazy.”
    “I got the exact same feeling.”
    “So, she hired you?”
    “Yep. Did you ever find any evidence at all?” I couldn’t hide the hope in my voice.
    “Nothing that couldn’t be explained away as a crazy woman seeking attention. Stuffed
     rabbits aren’t exactly life-threatening.”
    “When they’re not stuffed and they’re placed on your bed while you sleep with their
     throats cut, they are.”
    “Look, I’m not arguing with you. We just never found any evidence to corroborate her
     story.”
    Just when I was starting to like him. “And I’m sure you tried really hard.”
    “I tried, Davidson,” he said, adding a sharp edge to his voice.
    “Okay, okay. You don’t have to get obstinate.”
    “Have you seen my sister?”
    Taft’s sister died when they were young, and she’d recently decided that haunting
     me was more fun than following her brother around day in and day out. It took him
     a while to believe that I could see her and talk to her and grow uncharacteristically
     homicidal by her annoying habit of asking question after question. But once he realized
     I was the real deal, he’d decided to keep tabs on her through me. Joy of joys.
    “Not lately,” I said. “She’s spending a lot of time at Rocket’s.”
    “You mean that abandoned mental hospital where you talk to ghosts?”
    “Yes, and I only talk to one ghost. Rocket. He has a little sister, and she and your
     little sister get along famously. I’m going to check on them soon. I’ll let you know
     how she is.”
    “Thanks. I really appreciate—”
    Yeah, yeah. “If you hear anything.”
    “You’ll be the first to know.”
    “In case your sister asks, are you still dating skanks?”
    A light chuckle filtered into my ear. “No. Well, not for the most part.”
    “Okay. Don’t make me come down there and kick your skank-lovin’ ass.”
    “I’ll try not to let that threat keep me up nights.”
    “Good luck.”
    I hung up and took in a long breath, deciding it was time. Harper’s brother would
     have gone home for the day by now, and I still didn’t have a home address on him,
     so I’d have to catch him at work on the morrow. If Cookie was right, he worked for
     some kind of energy-conservation company, but tonight I had bigger issues. I straightened
     my shoulders and tightened my grip on the steering wheel, because tonight I had a
     dragon to slay. A dragon named Reyes Farrow.
    *   *   *
    I steered Misery through the warehouse district of Albuquerque near the railroad tracks
     downtown. A cold rain tumbled in sheets down my windshield, but one never complained
     about the rain in such an arid climate. Complaining about rain in Albuquerque would
     be like complaining about