First Grave on the Right Darynda Jones Read Online

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For Annette.

My cute sis.

You are similar sunshine:

bright,

incandescent,

and oddly irritating at times.

Just what else are sisters for?

Acknowledgments

A huge, heartfelt thank-yous to:

My amazing amanuensis, Alexandra Machinist. Thank you for assertive in this book and for putting up with me. Your energy is infectious. If you could canteen it, you'd make a fortune.

My brilliant editor, Jennifer Enderlin. Your enthusiasm is humbling. Your difficult work, inspiring. Your incredible savvy, priceless.

Every member of my family, even the unstable ones. Where would I be without such extraordinary kin? The Eakins Clans, the Duartes, the Joneses, the Campbells, the Scotts, the Swopeses, Dooley and Snick, and last but never, e'er to the lowest degree, the Mighty, Mighty Jones Boys: Danny, Jerrdan, Casey, and our newest addition, Konner Mason. You all have my heart and undying gratitude.

The goddesses of LERA, each and every one, especially my critique goddess, Tammy Baumann.

My Crimson-Slippered Sisters, the 2009 RWA Gilded Heart finalists. Your warmth and support have been invaluable. Thank y'all for your friendship and sisterhood.

A special thanks to those who take read my work and take lived to tell the tale. I am especially grateful for the feedback from: Annette, Dan Dan, DD, Ashlee, Tammy, Sherri, Bria, Kiki, Emily, Klisty, Gabi, Carol, Melvin, Cathy, Michael, Kit, Danielle Tanner (aka D2), and to my pimp, Quentin. I cherish all your input. And so do my books. And I accept to give thanks Mike Davidson for his unending patience.

Speaking of those who have lived to tell the tale, a gargantuan give thanks-you to J.R. Ward, MaryJanice Davidson, Jayne Ann Krentz, Gena Showalter, and Kresley Cole. I cannot thanks enough. I considered sending fruit baskets, only even produce falls short when trying to limited the depth of my gratitude. Thank you from the nethermost regions of my heart.

And to Mom. Promise your trip up was magical. May your hips always sway to Tom Jones. Say hey to Dad for us.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Observe

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter 3

Affiliate Four

Chapter Five

Affiliate Six

Chapter 7

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Xi

Affiliate Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Affiliate Xix

Affiliate Twenty

Chapter Twenty-i

Copyright

Chapter One

Amend to see dead than be dead.

—CHARLOTTE JEAN DAVIDSON, GRIM REAPER

I'd been having the same dream for the past month—the i where a night stranger materialized out of fume and shadows to play doctor with me. I was starting to wonder if repetitive exposure to nightly hallucinations resulting in earth-shattering climaxes could take any long-term side furnishings. Death via farthermost pleasance was a serious concern. The prospect led to the post-obit dilemma: Do I seek assist or buy drinks all around?

This evening was no exception. I was having a killer dream that featured a gear up of capable hands, a hot mouth, and a artistic employment of lederhosen when two external forces tried to lure me out of it. I did my darnedest to resist, but they were fairly persistent external forces. Commencement, a frosty chill crept up my talocrural joint, the icy caress jolting me out of my cerise-hot dream. I shivered and kicked out, unwilling to acknowledge the summons, and then tucked my leg into the thick folds of my Bugs Bunny comforter.

Second, a soft but persistent melody played in the periphery of my consciousness like a familiar vocal I couldn't quite place. After a moment, I realized it was the cricketlike chime of my new phone.

With a heavy sigh, I pried open my optics just enough to focus on the numbers glowing atop my nightstand. Information technology was 4:34 A.M. What kind of sadist called another man at 4:34 in the morn?

A throat cleared at the foot of my bed. I turned my attending to the dead guy standing at that place, and so lowered my lids and asked in a gravelly vocalization, "Tin can you get that?"

He hesitated. "Um, the telephone?"

"Mmm."

"Well, I'1000 kind of—"

"Never mind." I reached for the phone and grimaced as a jolt of hurting ripped through me, reminding me I'd been browbeaten senseless the night before.

Dead Guy cleared his throat once again.

"Hello," I croaked.

Information technology was my uncle Bob. He bombarded me with words, of all things, apparently clueless to the fact that predawn hours rendered me incapable of coherent thought. I concentrated super duper difficult on concentrating and fabricated out three salient phrases: busy nighttime, two homicides, ass downward here. I even managed a reply, something resembling, "What twirly nugget are you lot from?"

He sighed, conspicuously annoyed, then hung up.

I hung upward back, pressing a button on my new phone that either disconnected the phone call or speed-dialed the Chinese takeout effectually the corner. And then I tried to sit down up. Similar to the coherent-idea trouble, this was easier said than done. While I normally weighed around 125 … ish, for some unexplainable reason, between the hours of partially awake and fully awake, I weighed a solid 470.

After a brief, beached whale–like struggle, I gave upward. The quart of Chunky Monkey I ate after getting my ass kicked had probably been a bad idea.

In too much pain to stretch, I let a lengthy yawn overtake me instead, winced at the soreness shooting through my jaw, then looked dorsum at Dead Guy. He was blurry. Not because he was dead, but considering it was 4:34 A.M. And I'd recently had my ass kicked.

"Hi," he said nervously. He had a wrinkled suit, round-rimmed glasses, and mussed hair that made him expect part young-wizard-we-all-know-and-honey and part mad scientist. He likewise had 2 bullet holes on the side of his head with blood streaking down his right temple and cheek. None of these details were a problem. The problem resided in the fact that he was in my bedroom. In the wee hours of dawn. Standing over me like a dead Peeping Tom.

I eyed him with my infamous death stare, 2nd only to my infamous fluster stare, and got a response immediately.

"Sorry, lamentable," he said, stumbling over his words, "didn't mean to frighten yous."

Did I expect frightened? Clearly my death stare needed work.

Ignoring him, I inched out of bed. I had on a Scorpions hockey jersey I'd snatched off a goalie and a pair of plaid boxers—same team, different position. Chihuahuas, tequila, and strip poker. A night that is forever etched at the top of my Things I'll Never Do Again list.

With teeth clenched in agony, I dragged all 470 throbbing pounds toward the kitchen and, more important, the coffeepot. Caffeine would chisel the pounds off, and I'd be back to my normal weight in no time.

Because my apartment was roughly the size of a Cheez-It, it didn't take me long to feel my way to the kitchen in the dark. Dead Guy followed me. They always follow me. I could only pray this one would go along his mouth shut long enough for the caffeine to kick in, merely alas, no such luck.

I'd barely pressed the ON button when h

eastward started in.

"Um, yeah," he said from the doorway, "it'southward just that I was murdered yesterday, and I was told you were the one to see."

"You were told that, huh?" Perhaps if I hovered over the pot, it would develop an inferiority complex and brew faster just to show it could.

"This child told me you lot solve crimes."

"He did, huh?"

"Y'all're Charley Davidson, right?"

"That'southward me."

"Are you a cop?"

"Not especially."

"A sheriff's deputy?"

"Uh-uh."

"A meter maid?"

"Look," I said, turning to him at final, "no criminal offence, just y'all could have died thirty years ago, for all I know. Dead people have no sense of time. Zero. Zip. Nada."

"Yesterday, October eighteenth, five thirty-two P.Yard., double gunshot wound to the head, resulting in traumatic brain injury and expiry."

"Oh," I said, reining in my skepticism. "Well, I'm non a cop." I turned dorsum to the pot, determined to break its iron will with my infamous decease stare, second only to—

"So, so, what are you lot?"

I wondered if your worst nightmare would sound silly. "I'grand a individual investigator. I hunt down adulterers and lost dogs. I do not solve murder cases." I did, actually, only he didn't need to know that. I'd but come up off a big case. I was hoping for a few days' respite.

"But this child—"

"Affections," I said, disappointed that I didn't exorcise that picayune devil when I had the take a chance.

"He was an angel?"

"No, his name is Angel."

"His name is Affections?"

"Yes. Why?" I asked, condign disenchanted with the Angel game.

"I just thought information technology might accept been his occupation."

"It's his proper noun. And believe you me, he is annihilation just."

Later on a geological epoch passed in which single-celled organisms evolved into talk show hosts, Mr. Coffee was nonetheless holding out on me. I gave up and decided to pee instead.

Dead Guy followed me. They always—

"You're very … bright," he said.

"Um, cheers."

"And … sparkly."

"Uh-huh." This was nothing new. From what I'd been told, the departed see me as something of a beacon, a vivid entity—emphasis on the vivid—they can see from continents away. The closer they get, the sparklier I become. If sparklier is a give-and-take. I've always considered the sparkles a plus of being the only grim reaper this side of Mars. And as such, my task was to lead people into the lite. Aka, the portal. Aka, me. But it didn't always go smoothly. Kind of like leading a horse to water and whatnot. "By the way," I said, glancing over my shoulder, "if you do run across an angel, a existent one, run. Quickly. In the opposite management." Not really, just freaking people out was fun.

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. Hey—" I stopped and twirled to confront him. "—did you lot affect me?" Somebody practically molested my right talocrural joint, somebody common cold, and since he'd been the only dead guy in the room …

"What?" he said, indignant.

"Before, when I was in bed."

"Pffft, no."

I narrowed my eyes, let my gaze linger menacingly, then resumed my hobble to the bathroom.

I needed a shower. Bad. And I couldn't dillydally all day. Uncle Bob would stroke.

Merely as I stepped toward the bath, I realized the worst part of my morning—the allow there be low-cal part—was fast approaching. I groaned and considered dillydallying despite the country of Uncle Bob'south arteries.

But suck information technology upwards, I told myself. It had to be done.

I placed a shaky hand on the wall, held my breath, and flipped the switch.

"I'm blind!" I yelled, shielding my eyes with my arms. I tried to focus on the flooring, the sink, the Clorox ToiletWand. Nothing but a vivid white blur.

I totally needed to lower my wattage.

I stumbled dorsum, caught myself, so forced ane foot in front of the other, refusing to back downwards. I would non be stopped past a lightbulb. I had a task to exercise, dammit.

"Did you know you have a dead guy in your living room?" he asked.

I turned dorsum to the dead guy, and then glanced across the room to where Mr. Wong stood, his dorsum to us, his nose buried in the corner. Looking dorsum at dead guy number i, I asked, "Isn't that a bit similar the pot calling the kettle African-American?"

Mr. Wong was a dead guy, too. A teeny-tiny one. He couldn't have been more than than five feet tall, and he was gray—all of him, almost monochrome in his translucence, with a gray uniform of some sort and ash gray hair and pare. He looked like a Chinese prisoner of state of war. And he stood in my corner twenty-four hours after day, year afterwards twelvemonth. Never moving, never speaking. Though I could inappreciably blame him for not getting out more than with his coloring and all, even I idea Mr. Wong was a nut task.

Of course, the mere fact that I had a ghost in the corner wasn't the creepiest part, and the moment Dead Guy realized Mr. Wong wasn't actually continuing in the corner, just was hovering, toes several inches from the flooring, he'd freak.

I lived for such moments.

"Good morning time, Mr. Wong!" I semi-shouted. I wasn't sure if Mr. Wong could hear. Probably a skilful matter, since I had no idea what his existent name was. I merely named him Mr. Wong in the acting between creepy dead guy in the corner and normal walking-effectually expressionless guy he would someday go if I had anything to say most information technology. Even expressionless people needed a healthy sense of well-being.

"Is he in time-out?"

Skillful question. "I have no idea why he'due south in that corner. Been there since I rented the flat."

"You rented the apartment with a expressionless guy in the corner?"

I shrugged. "I wanted the apartment, and I figured I could embrace him up with a bookcase or something. Simply the idea of having a dead guy hovering behind my copy of Sweet Cruel Dearest gnawed at me. I couldn't but leave him there. I don't fifty-fifty know if he likes romance."

I looked back at the newest incorporeal being to grace me with his presence. "What's your name, anyway?"

"Oh, how rude of me," he said, straightening and walking forward for a handshake. "I'm Patrick. Patrick Sussman. The 3rd." He stopped short and eyed his paw, then glanced back up sheepishly. "I don't gauge nosotros can really—"

I took his hand in a firm shake. "Really, Patrick, Patrick Sussman the Third, nosotros tin."

His brows drew together. "I don't understand."

"Yeah, well," I said, going into the bath, "join the gild."

As I closed the door, I heard Patrick Sussman III freak out at last.

"Oh, my god. He's just … hovering."

Information technology'south the simple things in life, and all that crap.

* * *

The shower felt like heaven covered in warm chocolate syrup. Steam and water rushed over me as I inventoried each muscle, calculation a mental asterisk if it ached.

My left biceps definitely needed an asterisk, which made sense. The asshole in the bar last nighttime wrenched my arm with the apparent intention of ripping information technology off. Sometimes beingness a individual investigator meant dealing with guild's less-than-savory characters, similar a client's abusive husband.

Adjacent, I checked my entire right side. Yep, it ached. Asterisk. Probably happened when I fell against the jukebox. Stealth and grace, I own't.

Left hip, asterisk. No idea.

Left forearm, double asterisks. Virtually probable when I blocked asshole's punch.

And so, of grade, my left cheek and jaw, quadruple asterisks, where my block proved utterly useless. Asshole was but also strong and too fast, and the punch had been besides unexpected. I went down like a drunken cowgirl trying to line dance to Metallica.

Embarrassing? Yes. But strangely enlightening as well. I'd never been KO'd earlier. I idea it would injure more than. Somehow, when y'all're knocked senseless, the pain doesn't southward

how upwards till afterwards. So it'due south a common cold, heartless bitch.

Still, I'd made information technology through the nighttime with no permanent damage. Always a good matter.

Equally I tried to work some of the soreness out of my neck, my thoughts turned to the dream I'd had, the same dream I'd been having every night for a month. And it was proving harder and harder to trounce the remnants afterwards I woke, the lingering touches, the fog of hunger. Every night in my dreams, a homo appeared from the darkest recesses of my heed, equally if he'd been waiting for me to fall comatose. His oral cavity, full, masculine, would sear my flesh. His tongue, like flames beyond my pare, would send tiny sparks quaking through my body. And so he would dip south, and the heavens would open and a chorus singing hallelujah would ring out in perfect harmony.

At first the dreams started small. A bear on. A osculation light as air. A smile I could see only in the periphery of negative space, finding dazzler where I'd never expected. And then the dreams adult, became stronger and frighteningly intense. For the starting time time in my life, I'd actually climaxed in my slumber. And not just once. In the terminal month, I'd come up often, on more nights than not, in fact. All at the easily—and other body parts—of a dream lover I couldn't see, non fully. Yet I knew he was the epitome of sensuality, of male magnetism and allure. And I knew also that he reminded me of someone.

I figured my dreams were being invaded, merely past whom? I've had the ability to come across the departed all my life. I had been born a grim reaper, after all. The grim reaper, though I didn't find that trivial precious stone until I was in high school. Fifty-fifty so, the departed have never been able to enter my dreams, to brand me quake and quiver and, I acknowledge, beg.

As far as my ability goes, in that location's cypher particularly special most it. The departed exist on 1 plane, and the human race exists on another, and somehow—whether by freak accident, divine intervention, or psychological disorder—I exist on both. A perk, I suppose, of grim reaperism. But it's all quite simple. No trances. No crystal balls. No channel surfing the dead from one aeroplane to the next. Just a daughter, a few ghosts, and the entire human race. What could exist easier?

And yet, he was something more, something … not dead. At least he seemed that manner. The person in my dreams radiated heat. Dead people are cold, merely similar in the movies. Their presence volition fog your jiff, brand you shiver, stand your hair on terminate. Just the human in my dreams, the dark, seductive stranger I'd become fond to, was a furnace. He was like the scalding water rushing over me, sensual and painful and everywhere at once.

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