“Oh, I’ll get you some coffee,” Cookie said really loudly. She rushed into my office where the coffeepot was and waved at me, her eyes wide.

I smiled and waved back.

She rolled her eyes, hurried to the coffeepot, and gestured toward her office with a nod. “Do either of you U.S. Marshals take cream?”

Oh. Close call. I backed out the way I came in and inched the door closed. Whew. The little slasher girl was gone. Our encounters were fleeting yet meaningful. I was certain of it.

Not really in the mood to talk to Dad either, I snuck past his office and out the back door. Uncle Bob called my cell phone as I booked it to Misery.

“You ratted me out,” I said, skipping the pleasantries.

“I did no such thing.” He seemed really offended, then said, “Well, okay, I probably did. To whom did I rat you out?”

“Dad. Duh.”

“What? The Reyes thing?”

“Did you know he wants me to quit?” I dug my keys out of my bag because Misery lacked the technology to sense my DNA and open the door when I approached.

“Quit what? Your gym membership?” He laughed out loud.

I slid the key into the lock. “That was so amazingly offensive.”

“What?” He sobered. “Don’t tell me you actually have a gym membership.”

“Of course I don’t have a gym membership. He wants me to quit work. My job. The investigations business.”

“Get outta here.”

“No, I’m telling you.” I threw my bag in the passenger’s side floorboard and climbed in one-handed. “He’s lost it. He really wants me to quit. So I’m thinking either professional wrestling or belly dancing.” Nor did Misery say things like, Hello, Charley. Shall I arm the missiles for you?

“I’ll talk to him. In the meantime, I got a flag on the doctor.”

“Like, an American flag?”

“In the database. Nothing ever came of it, but his name was mentioned in some kind of a forgery investigation. I can give you the detective’s name who was in charge. He retired last year. I know him. Plays a lot of golf now.”

“Cool. He probably deserves it. I’ve got two U.S. Marshals in my office,” I said as Misery purred to life. No voice recognition software or retinal scanning required.

“What do they want?”

“No idea. I already talked to a marshal last night, so I snuck out the back way.”

“In true Davidson style.”

“Hey, can you check on Dr. Yost’s financial situation? I’ve already got Cookie on it, but I need official stuff that I can’t get without a warrant.” I steered Misery onto Central. Steered her. Like with my two hands.

“Don’t have to. He’s rich. Have you seen his house? His monthly water bill would feed a small country for a month.”

“Well, how do you know he’s rich if you haven’t checked his bank accounts?”

“You really want me to check into his finances?”

“Is the pope Catholic?”

“Did I mention how behind I am on my paperwork?”

“Did I mention how much you owe me?”

“Finances, it is.”

12

Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong.

—T-SHIRT

I’d parked Misery on a side street half a block away from the abandoned mental asylum and did a crouch run to the nearest Dumpster, where I dived for cover behind a group of evergreen bushes. Then I waved my arms about wildly and spit a few times when I realized the bushes were covered in spiderwebs. After a shiver of revulsion, I gathered myself, summoned my Mission: Impossible chi, and scaled a chain-link fence to the top of a dilapidated shed. Once there, I curled into an embryonic ball and whimpered. Chi or no chi, scaling fences sucked, mostly ’cause it hurt.

I pried open my throbbing fingers and scanned the area. Nary a Rottweiler in sight, so I jumped down and booked it to the basement window I used to sneak into the place. I turned the latch I’d rigged to unlock the window and pulled. Normally, the window opened out and I could do a drop-and-roll kind of thing into the basement, which was kind of like a duck-and-cover thing with less concern over radiation poisoning resulting in permanent hair loss, but the window was stuck. I pulled harder and it gave. For about half a second before it slammed shut again. What in the name of Zeus’s testicles?

Before I could try again, Rocket appeared, his nose pressed against the glass like a giant kid in a nightmare version of peekaboo. He grinned. “Miss Charlotte!” he yelled, as though I were a thousand miles away.

“Rocket,” I whispered, jamming an index finger over my mouth, “shhhhh.” I glanced around, waiting for the pitter-pat of Rottweiler paws. I had no idea if canines could hear the departed but figured this was not an ideal situation to find out. “Rocket, let me in.”

He giggled again. “Miss Charlotte, I can see you through the glass!” he yelled louder, pointing to it over and over in case I missed it. “Can you hear me?”

Oh, for the love of Godsmack. I crawled onto my stomach and inched the window open. “Rocket,” I said through the open slit, “you have to let me in.”

“You can’t come in. I have company.”

“Company? Seriously?” Rocket had died sometime in the fifties. How many people could he know? “There are huge dogs out here, and I have to give you some names.”