“Good. Stay that way. Your spine will thank you.”

On the way to the office, I told Garrett all about Cookie’s stowaway and he took down the make, model, and VIN as we passed her car in the parking lot. He could track down its previous owners while I investigated my two missing persons’ whereabouts, Mimi and Reyes. I really needed Angel on this, but the least I could do was get Cookie to check the hospitals to see if any injured males—dark, early thirties, super hot—had shown up in the last few hours. Maybe he’d already been found and just didn’t want me to know. But I’d have to do it discreetly.

After Garrett took off, I strode up the stairs beside Dad’s bar, paused before entering Cookie’s office to scan the area, then snuck inside. Cookie looked up, and I immediately slammed an index finger over my mouth to shush her. Used to the departed showing up willy-nilly, she stilled, glanced around the room warily, then turned back to me, her brows raised in question.

I kept the finger over my mouth, tiptoed over to her—not sure why, it just felt right—and grabbed a pen and paper off her desk. After another quick glance around the room, I scribbled a note, asking her to check the hospitals for Reyes, and handed it to her. That’s when I heard a throat clear beside me. I nearly jumped out of my go-gos, scaring the bejesus out of Cook in the process, then turned to see Reyes leaning against the wall beside her desk. Damn he was good.

“Pig latin?” he asked, incredulity lining his handsome face.

I snatched back the note and glared at him. “It’s the only foreign language she knows.”

“You were hoping to stump me with pig latin?”

I looked down at the note and cringed. It really wasn’t the best idea I’d ever had. I turned toward him. “So, what? You gonna sever Cookie’s spine, too?”

Cookie gasped aloud, and I pinched the bridge of my nose with my fingertips. She didn’t need to hear that, especially with the dead stowaway in her trunk.

Between heartbeats, Reyes dematerialized and rematerialized in front of me, anger clear on his face. “What’s it going to take, Dutch?”

“For me to stop looking for you?” I didn’t wait for an answer. “You don’t know what will happen if your body dies, Reyes. I’m not going to stop.”

I could feel frustration rise inside him, simmer and bubble just beneath his perfect surface. He leaned toward me, but before he could do anything, he paused, grabbed his chest, then looked back at me in surprise.

“What?” I asked, but he clenched his jaw shut, his body tensing to a marble-like state, almost as if he were waiting for something. Then I saw it. His image changed. Deep gashes appeared across his face, over his chest, staining his shredded shirt with blood instantly. And he was wet, soaked with a dark liquid I couldn’t identify. He grunted through his teeth and doubled over.

“Reyes,” I cried out, and lunged for him. Just as our eyes locked, he was gone. In an instant, he vanished. I slammed both hands over my mouth to keep a scream at bay. Cookie rushed around her desk and knelt beside me. The agony of what he was going through shone so clearly in his expression. And he didn’t want me to find him?

I would tear apart hell itself to find him.

Chapter Six

NEVER BE AFRAID TO DART AROUND IN PUBLIC,

HUMMING THE MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE THEME SONG.

—T-SHIRT

After parking my cherry red Jeep Wrangler, also known as Misery, half a block away, I swooped back into Mission: Impossible mode to traverse the dangerous domain tucked within the borders of the southern war zone. Gangs proliferated in the poverty-stricken area surrounding the asylum. And the asylum itself, abandoned by the government in the fifties, was now owned by an established biker gang known as the Bandits. For the most part, they were old school, their primary colors reflecting a loyalty to God and country.

I scanned the area, paying special attention to the Bandits’ main house beside the asylum, also known as a Rottweiler den of iniquity—the Bandits loved them some Rottweilers—then I started up the fence as fast as I could. Admittedly, it wasn’t very fast. In all the years I’d trespassed on Bandit turf, the Rottweilers had been out on patrol only a handful of times. The gang usually kept them inside during the day. Praying my luck would hold, yet keeping a weather eye, I clawed and slipped my way to the top of the fence, cringing as the metal wire dug into my fingers. Guys made this stuff look so easy. The only things I liked to scale on a semi-regular basis were those same guys who made this stuff look easy.

Dropping to the other side, I had to stop and regroup, partly to wallow in self-pity and partly to take inventory of my throbbing fingers. Fortunately, they were all present and accounted for. Losing a finger in the line of fence scaling would suck.

After another quick glance at the house, I dashed to the basement window I’d been using to gain illegal access to the asylum since I was in high school. Abandoned asylums had always been a particular fascination of mine. I toured them—also known as breaking and entering—regularly after accidently discovering this asylum one night when I was fifteen. I’d also discovered Rocket Man that night, a relic from 1950s science fiction, when spaceships looked steam driven and aliens were as unwelcome as communists. And I discovered that Rocket was somewhat of a savant in the fact that he knew the names of every person who had ever died, millions upon millions of names stored in his childlike mind. Which came in really handy at times.

I scooted through the basement window on my stomach and dropped into a somersault, landing on my feet on the cement slab of the basement. ’Cause that’s how I roll.