“I feel so violated.”

“About the phone or the honey?”

“You know that whole payback’s-a-bitch thing. Hey, you never called me back after your meeting with Reyes. How’d it go?”

“Oh, it went super.” I looked over at Uncle Bob, who sat waiting for a report. “Well, that explains that,” I said as I closed my phone midsentence.

“Charley, I’ve said this before, but I’m going to say it again. The man is a convicted murderer. If you’d seen what he did to his father…” He trailed off, shaking his bed head.

I decided to confide in him despite the state of his hair. “Uncle Bob, is it possible that the man in that trunk wasn’t Earl Walker?”

His brows slid together. “Is that what Farrow told you?”

“Is it possible?” I asked again.

Ubie lowered his head and turned the engine off to his SUV. “He’s like you, isn’t he?”

His question surprised me, and I wasn’t sure what to say, but I should have been expecting it. He’d seen Reyes’s body after the demons got a hold of him. He’d seen how fast he healed. The doctors were calling the fact that Reyes survived at all a miracle. And two weeks later, he’s walking around in gen-pop at the prison like nothing happened. I would have bet a large mocha Frappuccino Ubie was keeping tabs on Reyes. I would’ve been after what I saw.

“You have this uncanny ability to live through the most impossible situations,” he continued. “You heal faster than anyone I’ve ever seen. You move differently sometimes, almost like you’re not human.”

He’d been keeping track.

“I have to ask you something, and I want you to be totally honest.”

“Okay,” I said, a little worried. I was not at my best. I hadn’t had caffeine in like three hours. And he was definitely putting two and two together.

“Are you an angel?”

And coming up with twelve. “No,” I said with a chuckle. “Let’s just say, if I ended up in the lost-and-found bin at the airport, I don’t think the Big Guy upstairs would come down to claim me.”

“But you are different,” he said, his tone matter-of-fact.

“I am. And … yes, so is Reyes.”

A long sigh slipped through his lips. “He didn’t kill his father, did he?”

“First, Earl Walker is not his real father.”

Ubie acknowledged that with a nod. That fact had come out in the trial.

“Second, I’m beginning to believe the man isn’t even dead.”

After staring out the window for a long moment, he said, “It’s possible. Not likely, certainly not probable, but possible. There are ways.”

“Like switching the dental records?” I asked.

He nodded.

“And the fact that Earl Walker’s girlfriend at the time was a dental assistant at the very office the authorities obtained those records from didn’t strike anyone as odd?”

I knew Ubie had been the lead detective on the case, so to say I was skating on thin ice would have been more than appropriate. And I sucked at ice skating.

His lips thinned under his thick mustache. “Are you helping him?”

“Yes.” There was no reason to lie. Uncle Bob wasn’t an idiot.

I felt a spike of adrenaline emanate from him when I answered, the surprise he felt, but I think he was more surprised that I was being honest. So he tried again. “Do you know where he is?”

“No.” When his brows slid together with a hint of doubt, I added, “That’s why he handcuffed me, to get a head start. He didn’t want to put me in that position.”

“And he hit you because?”

“I called his sister a doody head.”

He fixed an exasperated gaze on me.

“He’s very sensitive.”

“Charley—”

“He wanted it to look good, you know, for the cops.”

“Aw. Did you have anything to do with his escape?”

“Besides getting carjacked? No.”

“Are you going to fill in the details that you so conveniently left out for the sergeant on duty?”

“No.” I couldn’t tell him about Amador and Bianca or the super-spy plan they’d concocted to get him out of there.

“Do you think Cookie is up?”

I refrained from rolling my eyes and glanced over at Misery. Apparently, Amador had her delivered sometime during the night. Thoughtful of him.

Maybe the unholy union of Cookie and Uncle Bob wasn’t such a bad idea. They’d started flirting recently, and as much as it caused this burning sensation in my stomach, they were both healthy, responsible adults, capable of making their own bad decisions that resulted in years of couple’s therapy and, eventually, court fees.

It would be disturbing to watch, though. I could just pack up all my worldly possessions and live in Misery. The Jeep, not the emotion.

I glanced back at Uncle Bob, at his pathetically hopeful expression, and decided to negotiate. “You gonna get that tail off my ass?” I gestured toward the car parked across the street with a nod.

His face fell. “No. It’s good for your ass.”

“So is taking the stairs, but I take the elevator every chance I get.” When he shrugged, I added, “Cookie’s asleep,” right before exiting the vehicle.

11

Mistakes were made.

Others were blamed.