Sixth Grave on the Edge(43)

“The shampoo’s under the sink,” Daniel said. “Try not to clog it up.”

Okay, this was getting way kinkier than I’d expected. I’d need therapy when it was all said and done. No, wait, I already needed therapy. Never mind.

As my overactive imagination conjured all kinds of scenarios of why Muffy and I would need shampoo, an adorable Yorkie yapped at me from behind a recliner. “And do her nails,” Daniel said as he plopped into a creaky recliner. “Last time the girl didn’t do her nails.”

Wait? Was he serious? I thought I was supposed to be a prostitute or something.

I scanned the area for other occupants, but he appeared to be alone. “Okay, I gotta text Crystal and let her know I’m here, ya know?”

“Fine, whatever.” He picked up the remote and turned off the mute. A game of some kind was on, the sound of a cheering crowd blared through the room. Good thing. The noise would muffle any ruckus the guys made.

I scooped up Muffy to keep her out of harm’s way, then texted Garrett the situation: One male. Alone. And a Yorkie. Count to thirty. I wanted to get Muffy into another room before they broke down the door.

“I ain’t seen you before,” Daniel called out to me. “You work with Crystal long?”

“Um, yeah, you know.”

He muted the TV. Damn it. What’d I say?

“How long?” he asked. He stood again and came into the kitchen just as I sent the text.

I stuffed my phone into my pocket. “Only a couple of months. She needed someone while Valerie was out.”

“Who the fuck’s Valerie?” he asked, easing into the kitchen. Keep it simple. Keep it simple. But before I could answer, he asked, “Is she that skinny chick that ran off with Manuel?”

I laughed and shrugged. “I don’t know. I never met her.”

“That chick was psycho, man. You should have seen what she did to Muffy’s ears. She just needs a trim, okay? I don’t want no sissy-ass do with bows and shit. Fuckin’ Valerie. I told her that, and she still gave her pink highlights.”

You could give a dog highlights? “Okay. No bows. No highlights. Got it.”

“Okay. Just so we’re—”

The front door crashed open, and I took a dive with Muffy. I couldn’t keep the term muff diver from popping into my head as I did so. Daniel wasn’t stupid. He didn’t hesitate a second before he went for the large kitchen window. He slid the dirty pane up and scrambled headfirst through the thing, his large body deceivingly quick.

“Swopes!” I called out, tossing Muffy onto her pallet and hurrying through the window after him.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that Daniel was a planner. A suspicious sort. He knew if anyone came at him from anything other than the front door, they’d have to take the fire escape up to his apartment, so he’d loosened the rails. No one could come up without it collapsing, and only he knew where to step to get down safely. The poor man’s alarm system.

I never got the memo. Thus, the moment I basically fell through the window, following him onto the rigged fire escape, the railing gave beneath our weight and toppled over, secured to the exterior wall only by the bottom bolts. Daniel clung to a set of bars he’d installed, probably for that very purpose, but without a stable foothold, he couldn’t hang on for long. The railing swayed, metal clanging against metal as the third guy from our party stood in the alley at the bottom, his eyes large as he watched. Daniel grunted as his hands slipped, and he fell onto the rocking fire escape, his weight causing another bolt to go.

In an instant, we dropped a perilous foot. I had a death grip on the bars, my feet dangling as I tried to get a foothold. I looked down again before I remembered the old adage: Never look down. Five stories was freaking high!

“Charley!”

Garrett was hanging out the window above me.

“What?” I asked. “Get me off here before I plummet to my death.”

But he was gone. Seriously?

“Having fun?” Reyes asked me. My adrenaline had spiked, and he was there. It was kind of nice, but he was incorporeal. He couldn’t really help me. Or, well, I didn’t think he could. He was sitting on the railing, his full robe waving like the sails of a flagship in the wind. He pushed back the hood, then let the robe settle around him and disappear.

“Not really.” I heard sirens in the distance.

“Son of a bitch,” Daniel said, trying not to make the metal contraption sway. He was more on the top part of the escape and I was more on the bottom part, hanging on by my fingertips. Memories of the elementary school playground flashed before my eyes. I sucked at monkey bars. I was always the girl who got blisters and fell into the dirt halfway across.