Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet Read Online Free Page A

better view from the living room, from pretty much right where she’d been sitting.
     Nor did I have the heart to tell her that he was already gone.
    “He’s not there,” she said, her voice agitated and panicked.
    “What?” I asked, pretending to be surprised. I hurried over and peeked out the curtains.
     Sure enough, he was gone. “He was there a minute ago.” I scanned the entire area.
    She frowned at me. “You knew he was gone.”
    I cringed, ashamed. “Sorry. You were just so into your gymnastics routine, I didn’t
     want to break your concentration. Do you know how hard it would be to explain to the
     cops if you’d crashed through the window and plummeted to your death?” I refocused
     on the spot where Reyes had been standing. “But I swear, if that man is tailing me—”
    “Hon, you have to go somewhere to be tailed. This would be more like stalking.”
    She had a point. One that I could throw in his face if I were ever going to speak
     to him again.
    I bowed my head as Cookie continued to search the parking lot in the hopes that he
     would show up again. I could hardly blame her.
    “While we’re on the subject, I think he dematerialized his human body.”
    She jumped in surprise. “I thought that was impossible. Are you sure?”
    “No.” I walked back into my cluttered living room, because another thought hit. Freaking
     ADD. “So, be honest. How broke am I?”
    Cookie drew in a deep breath and followed me. She regarded me with a sad expression
     before answering. “On a scale of one to ten, you’re not on it. You’re more like a
     negative twelve.”
    “Crap.” I studied my Jackie Kennedy commemorative bracelet with a great and terrible
     weight on my chest, then opened the clasp. “Here, send this back, too.”
    She took it. “Are you sure?”
    “Yeah. I was only pretending it went well with Margaret, anyway. Now, if it were black
     with skulls on it…”
    “Sadly, I don’t think Jackie wore skulls all that often. You know, we still have a
     couple of clients who owe us.”
    “Really?” This was promising. I wound around boxes to Mr. Coffee. He was the only
     action I’d been getting lately.
    “Yep.”
    When she hesitated, I knew something was up. I refreshed my cup and questioned her
     with a quirk of my brows. “Like who?”
    “Like Mrs. Allen.”
    “Mrs. Allen?” I stirred in creamer and fake sweet stuff. “She pays me in cookies.
     I’m not sure how that will help with the bills.”
    “True, but she didn’t pay us the last time you found PP.”
    PP, otherwise known as Prince Phillip, was Mrs. Allen’s rabid poodle. She should have
     called him Houdini. That dog could escape a locked bank vault. But actually, Cookie
     was wrong. Guilt had me biting my lip as I stirred, averting my gaze.
    She gasped. “Mrs. Allen paid you?”
    “Kind of.”
    “And you didn’t share?”
    “Well—”
    “An entire plate of cookies, and you didn’t share? After I did all the legwork?”
    My jaw fell open. “The legwork? You walked over to the window and spotted him by the
     Dumpster.”
    “Yes, and I walked— ” She crisscrossed her fingers to demonstrate a walking motion, which I found humorous.
     “—to the window with my legs .”
    “Yes, but I was the one who chased that vicious little shit seventeen blocks.”
    “Three.”
    “And then he bit me.”
    “He has no teeth.”
    “Gums hurt, too.” I rubbed my arm absently, remembering the horror of it all.
    “He’s a poodle. How hard can he gum?”
    “Fine, next time you can chase him down.”
    After exhaling loudly, she said, “What about that Billy Bob guy? He still owes us
     money.”
    “You mean Bobby Joe? That guy who thought his girlfriend was trying to kill him with
     peanuts? He traded that out.”
    “Charley,” she said, her tone admonishing, “you have got to learn to keep it in your
     pants.”
    “Not like that,” I replied, appalled. “He painted the offices for us.”
    After a long, exasperated