She replaced the smile and turned back to me. “He told me he killed him.”

Well, shit. What the hell was going on? Was Earl Freaking Walker alive or not?

“And he lied.” An iridescent pool sat trembling on her lower lashes as she battled her lungs for air.

“Why would he lie about something like that?” I asked, struggling to understand.

After glancing at the hand covering hers, she clasped her fingers around it, then looked up at me as though she felt sorry for my lack of depth. “Because that’s what he does. He protects me. He does anything for me. He always has. Do you know there are pictures everywhere?”

“Pictures?” I asked, fighting past the grief.

With an almost invisible nod, she said, “He kept pictures. Proof. Blackmail.”

“Reyes?”

“Earl.” She shook visibly as memory after memory washed over her. “In the walls.”

I leaned forward, trying to get through to her. “Sweetheart, what pictures?”

She stood, walked to the door, and opened it for me. Reluctantly, I followed. “I’ll get in touch with you the minute I know something,” I promised.

Her breath hitched in her chest, and I realized it was taking all her strength to hold herself together. The kindest thing I could do would be to leave. So I did. She closed the door softly behind me as I walked to Misery. And everything she’d told me before about Reyes and her surfaced. How Earl Walker had used her to get what he wanted out of Reyes. He had abused him in the worst way possible. Had he taken pictures? Wouldn’t that implicate himself?

Then understanding of what she meant about Reyes protecting her dawned. He had gone to prison partly for her. Cleary, she needed to believe Earl Walker was dead with every ounce of her being. And I had just planted a seed of doubt in her mind.

Reyes was going to kill me.

15

If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is NOT for you.

—BUMPER STICKER

With a lingering sadness after my visit with Kim still tightening my chest, I walked up to a dilapidated mobile home and knocked on a rusted door. The village of Corona sat nestled in the picturesque mountains of southeastern New Mexico. With less than two hundred people in residence, it had a small-town charm all its own. And it was a good two-hour drive from Albuquerque, which explained why it took me a little over an hour to get there. A man whom I’d assumed to be the last name on Reyes’s list, Farley Scanlon, opened the door, an annoyed scowl bunching his brows.

Well built with shoulder-length brown hair intermingled with a streak or two of gray, a long mustache and goatee, and a strip of leather around his neck with a silver pendant, Farley proved to be one of those men in his late fifties who only looked in his late fifties up close.

“Hello,” I said when he settled his frown on me in question. I noted the hunting paraphernalia in the background of his decrepit trailer. “My name is Charlotte Davidson.” I fished out my PI license because he didn’t look like a man who trusted easily. “I’m a private investigator working on a missing persons case.”

He eyed my ID a long moment before returning his steady gaze to me. “Well, I ain’t killed no one, if you’re asking.” The barest trace of a smile slid across his scraggly face.

“That’s good to know.” I smiled back, waited another heartbeat to give him time to adjust, then said, “Unfortunately, there are plenty of other things a man of your reputation can go to prison for.”

His breathing remained calm, his gaze steady. But the emotion that hit me with hurricane force was full of both anger and fear, and I wondered which part of that was directed at me. It was probably too much to hope he was afraid of me.

I took out my notepad and started checking off the itemized list I’d basically pulled out of my ass. “Okay, we have a few months for obstruction of justice. Three years for possession and distribution of a controlled substance. Ten years for conspiracy to commit murder.” I leaned in and smiled. “And that’s if the judge is in a good mood.” He looked like the conspiracy-to-commit-murder type, so I’d taken a chance. He didn’t argue the fact.

“What the fuck do you want?” he asked, shifting away from me.

“Wait,” I said, holding up a finger and continuing to read, “I also have nine months for accessory after the fact, but a good lawyer can probably get that reduced to time served once the trial starts, because it could take a while, if you know what I mean.” I snorted.

The anger quickly overtook the fear.

I closed the pad and eyed him a good twenty seconds. He waited, his jaw working hard.

“Here’s what I can offer you,” I said, and he shifted his weight again, itching to be rid of me. “I’ll give you one chance to tell me where Earl Walker is before I call the police and have your ass arrested on all these charges right here and now.” I couldn’t really have his ass arrested, but he didn’t know that. Hopefully.

The shock that hit me was so palpable, so visible, I felt as if I’d blindsided him with a left hook. Clearly, he was not expecting the name Earl Walker to enter into the conversation. But his reaction had nothing to do with thoughts of lunacy. He was wondering how I knew. Guilt was so easy to sense. It was like picking out the color red in a sea of yellow.

“I don’t have time for this shit,” he said, readying to walk past me.

I put both hands on the doorjamb to block his path.

He cast an incredulous stare at me. “Really, sweetheart? You want to do that?” When I shrugged, he just sighed and said, “Earl Walker died ten years ago. Look it up.”

“Okay, two chances. But that’s my final offer.” I wagged my finger at him in warning. That’d teach him.

“Honey, he’s dead. Ask his son,” he said with a knowing smirk. “His kid’s been sitting in prison ten years for killing him. Ain’t nothing you or the law can do about that.”

“Look, I’m not here to give you any trouble.” I showed my palms in a gesture of peace, love, and goodwill toward men. “You and I both know he’s no more dead than the cockroaches that scurry across your kitchen floor every night.”

His eyebrows seemed glued together.

“This isn’t your fault,” I said with a lighthearted shrug. “No one needs to know your name. Just tell me where he is, and you’ll never see me again.” I was so going to hell for lying. I had every intention of watching the man rot in prison.