Kim came out after a few minutes and had clearly been crying. She’d pulled her hair into a hairband and changed her clothes. She went from fragile schoolmarm to international spy, covered in black from head to toe.
I raised my brows at her as she sat on the sofa again, but when she sat down, a wave of dizziness overtook me. A warmth started at the back of my neck and spread throughout my body, and I realized I hadn’t eaten since lunch several hours earlier. My blood sugar was dropping fast. Maybe I’d force Reyes to cook me something when I got back. Then again, if he knew what I was planning, he might poison it for real.
Poison.
I blinked down at my tea. It blurred and tipped to the side, spilling over my hand and onto the carpet. Then Kim’s arms were around me. She pulled me onto the couch, laid me across it the best she could. I still felt crooked as she looked down at me.
“I’m so sorry, Charley. There’s one left.” Her brows knitted in thought. “And this one will be tricky.”
“You… you drugged me?”
“There’s just one left and then this will all be over. I’ve arranged everything. The money is in Reyes’s name. If he wants to pay back the insurance companies, fine. That will be up to him.”
My lids drifted shut.
“Wait,” she said, patting my cheek.
I blinked back to her.
“All the papers are in my desk in the kitchen. And here is a note for Reyes.” She held up a note. It blurred across my line of sight. “I don’t want the cops getting it,” she said, stuffing it into the pocket of my jeans. “Please, just tell him I’ve loved him since the first time I saw him.”
I knew the feeling.
“And, and tell him —” She thought a moment, then grinned. “Tell him I’ll see him on the flip side.”
Her voice blurred, too, and faded as I fell into a warm, fuzzy darkness.
“Unle Blob,” I said, fighting my tongue’s refusal to work right.
“I know you’re upset, Charley, but that’s no reason to call me names.”
“No, lou lon lullerland.” What the hell did I just say?
“What the hell did you just say?”
It sounded like You don’t understand when I thought it in my head. I gritted my teeth and fought harder. “Le larson.” Wonderful, now I was French. “The. The arson… ist.”
“The arsonist?” he asked, suddenly very interested in what I had to say.
Sadly, “Lelally,” was what he got. No idea. I swallowed and stumbled out the door. Putting one foot in front of the other and trying to talk at the same time became quite the challenge. The cool air seemed to help. I shook my head. “The arsonist. I want to make a leal. A deal. Only, I don’t have a lot of time.”
“Why not?”
Crap. Kim was so going to ruin my plans for her. “Another building or house or something is about to go up in lames. Just alert the flyer department,” I said. “I’ll try to find the arsonist before lat happens.”
“Who, Charley?” he asked, his voice hard, brooking no argument.
Then again, I could brook with a fence post. “I’ll meet you and the DA first ling in the morning. I promise. Everything will be explained.”
“Tell me now or I swear I will have you picked up on aiding and abetting.”
“Uncle Bob, lat is so unflair.”
“Let me at least put a BOLO on the car.”
That was an excellent idea. Unfortunately, I didn’t know Kim even owned a car. There wasn’t one registered to her. I’d looked.
“Just call me the minute you hear anything about a flyer.” Hopefully Ubie could translate.
“Charley, you are placing innocent people in danger.”
He was disappointed in me. “She won’t hurt anyone. You know she won’t.”
“She?”
“Just call me.”
“I don’t need to. There’s been another fire. Same MO.”
Already? How long had I been out? “Where?”
“Tell you what. I’ll share when you do.”
Before I could brook more arguments, he hung up. In my face. I rolled my eyes, almost ate the sidewalk as a result. I called Cookie to find out where the flyer… fire was. Who thought in slurs?
“There’s a grass fire,” she said after listening to the emergency band thanks to the wonders of the Internet. “That’s all the chatter for now.”
“A grass fire?” That was strange.
“Oh, wait, yes, there’s a grass fire but some kind of underground structure burned.”
“Like a bunker?” I asked.
“Possibly. They’re trying to put it out. That’s what started the grass fire.”
Did Earl have them living in a bunker at some point? I wouldn’t have put it past him. And Kim had been right. That would’ve been tricky. How did one burn down an underground building? Clearly, she was getting good at the whole arson thing. Maybe that would give her street cred if my plan failed miserably – which my plans tended to do – and she ended up in the big house.
I started to back out of the parking space when Kim appeared in my headlights. I threw Misery into park and got out, a bizarre sense of indignity sparking my own fire.
“You drugged me!” I said, incensed.
A lady walking her dog paused to listen, then ducked her head when we looked at her and kept walking. She had the decency to look ashamed. Kim, not the woman.