Series: Charley Davidson, #6
Author: Darynda Jones
Published: May 20, 2014
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Blurb:
Few things in life can come
between a grim reaper and her coffee, but the sexy, sultry son of Satan is one
of them. Now that Reyes Farrow has asked for her hand, Charley Davidson feels
it's time to learn more about his past, but Reyes is reluctant to open up. When
the official FBI file of his childhood abduction lands in her lap, Charley
decides to go behind her mysterious beau’s back and conduct her own
investigation. Because what could go wrong?
Unfortunately, another case has fallen into her lap—one with dangerous implications. Some very insistent men want Charley to hunt down a witness who is scheduled to testify against their boss, a major player in the local crime syndicate. If Charley doesn't come up with an address in 48 hours, the people closest to her will start to disappear.
Add to that a desperate man in search of the soul he lost in a card game, a dogged mother determined to find the ghost of her son, and a beautiful, young Deaf boy haunted by his new ability to see the departed as clearly as he sees the living, and Charley has her hands full. The fact that Reyes has caught on to her latest venture only adds fuel to the inferno that he is. Good thing for Charley she's used to multi-tasking and always up for a challenge…especially when that challenge comes in the form of Reyes Farrow.
Unfortunately, another case has fallen into her lap—one with dangerous implications. Some very insistent men want Charley to hunt down a witness who is scheduled to testify against their boss, a major player in the local crime syndicate. If Charley doesn't come up with an address in 48 hours, the people closest to her will start to disappear.
Add to that a desperate man in search of the soul he lost in a card game, a dogged mother determined to find the ghost of her son, and a beautiful, young Deaf boy haunted by his new ability to see the departed as clearly as he sees the living, and Charley has her hands full. The fact that Reyes has caught on to her latest venture only adds fuel to the inferno that he is. Good thing for Charley she's used to multi-tasking and always up for a challenge…especially when that challenge comes in the form of Reyes Farrow.
Excerpt:
SIXTH
GRAVE ON THE EDGE-Excerpt
Chapter
Three
coffee
doesn’t ask silly questions.
coffee
understands.
—bumper sticker
We weren’t back in the office
ten minutes before the door to the front entrance opened. I’d expected Mr.
Joyce, the agitated man with the issues. Instead I got Denise. My evil
stepmother. Thankfully, Mr. Joyce was right behind her. He afforded me the
perfect excuse not to talk to her.
Her pallor had a grayish tint to
it, and her eyes were lined with the bright red only the shedding of tears
could evoke. I honestly didn’t know she had the ability to cry.
“Can I talk to you?” she asked.
“I have a client.” I pointed to
the man behind her to emphasize my point.
Giving her chin a determined
upward thrust, she said, “You’ve had clients for two weeks now. I just need a
minute.” When I started to argue again, she pleaded with me. “Please,
Charlotte.”
Mr. Joyce was holding a baseball
cap, wringing it in his hands. He seemed to be growing more agitated by the
second. “I really need to talk to you, Ms. Davidson.”
“See?” I pinned Denise with a
chastising scowl. “Client.”
She turned on the man, her face
as cold and hard as marble. It was an expression I knew all too well. “We just
need a minute,” she said to him, her tone razor sharp. “Then she’s all yours.”
He backed off, raising a hand in
surrender as he stepped to a chair and took a seat.
My temper flared to life, and I
had to force myself to stay calm. I was twenty-seven. I no longer had to put up
with my stepmother’s insults. Her revulsion. Her petty snubs. And I damned sure
didn’t have to put up with her invading my business and bullying my clients.
“That was not necessary,” I said to her when she turned back to me.
“I apologize,” she said, doing a
one-eighty. She turned back to Mr. Joyce. “I’m sorry. I’m in a very desperate
situation.”
“Tell me about it,” he said,
dismissing her with a wave. He clearly had problems of his own.
With all the enthusiasm of a
prisoner walking up to the hangman’s noose, I led Denise into my office and
closed the door. My temper flaring must have summoned Reyes. He was in my
office, waiting, incorporeally.
Then I remembered. He didn’t
like Denise any more than I did. Blamed her for most of my heartache as a
child. Of course, she’d caused most of it, but Reyes could be . . .
testy when it came to my happiness or lack thereof.
“Want
me to sever her spine?” he asked as I sat behind my desk.
“Can I think about it and get
back to you?” I asked, teasing. Kind of.
Denise looked toward the wall he
was leaning against, the one I was looking at, and naturally saw nothing. But
where her usual response would be to purse her lips in disapproval, she wiped
at her lapel and sat down instead.
“What do you want?” I asked her,
my tone as cold as her heart.
“I’m sure you know that your
father has left me.”
“At last.”
She flinched like I’d slapped
her. “Why would you say such a thing?”
“Are you really asking me that?”
“I love your father.” She almost
came up out of her chair. “I’ve always loved your father.”
She had me there. She’d always
been an attentive wife to him. Of course, attentive included her agenda,
which was manipulative, conniving, and venomous. I couldn’t believe that I
could dislike someone so much, but Denise had always been that splinter in my
relationship with my father. She did everything in her power to keep us apart.
Her jealousy was bizarre and childish. Who on earth was afraid of a father’s
love for his child? It just made no sense to me. It never had.
And yet she was never that way
toward my sister, Gemma. In fact, she and Gemma were fairly close. I had a
feeling Dad’s leaving Denise affected Gemma much more than she was willing to
admit. She knew how I felt about our stepmonster, and the fact that she
couldn’t go to me when she needed support made me a very bad sibling. But the
truth was, she couldn’t. I had no warm and fuzzies where Denise was concerned.
She’d made sure of that from day one.
“I—I need you to talk to him.
He’s been sick and, and he’s not thinking straight.”
“And what do you want me to
say?”
She leveled an exasperated glare
on me. “I want you to convince him to come back home where he belongs. He’s
still weak. He still needs medical attention.”
“I’m sorry,” I said with a soft,
humorless chuckle, “you want me to convince my father to stay with you? The
bane of my existence? The woman who made my childhood a living hell? After
everything you’ve put me through, you want my help? Are you insane?”
Too bad Gemma, a licensed
psychiatrist, was at a conference in D.C. I’d call her and schedule an
appointment for Denise ay-sap.
“What have I ever put you
through?”
My temper flared again, and I
bit my tongue, literally, to keep my emotions under control. When I lost
control, the earth shifted beneath me. An earthquake in the middle of
Albuquerque would do no one any good.
Reyes
straightened as though worried I’d lose control as well. I closed my eyes and
took several gulps of air. This wasn’t me. I didn’t hate people. I didn’t make
them pay for their misdeeds. Too many departed had crossed through me. Too many
times I’d seen what people went through, what they’d endured that made them
become the people they were when they died. Until I’d walked a mile in her shoes, I could not judge Denise so completely. That would make me no better than she was. I opened my eyes to her stone face, the face that brought nothing but hurt feelings and knotted stomachaches. Maybe two miles.
“I just have one question,” I
said, trying to hold the resentment from my tone lest I sound like her. “Why?”
“Why?”
“Yes, why? Why did you hate me
from day one? Why did you treat me like a thorn in your side? What on God’s
green earth did I ever do to you?”
She sighed in frustration and
let her true colors show through. Her impatience with me, with anything I had
to say. “I did no such thing, Charlotte. I don’t hate you. I never have.”
I leaned forward and gave her my
best Sunday smile. “I’ll tell you what. When you can admit that you hate me
with every fiber of your being, I’ll help you win back Dad. How does that
sound?”
“I will never say such a
horrible thing.”
I’d offended her. Sweet. “So you
can feel it, you just can’t admit to it?”
She squeezed the pocketbook in
her lap, her fingers flexing involuntarily. “Charlotte, can we talk sensibly?”
“Wait a minute,” I said as
understanding dawned. “You’re here because Dad is fed up with the way you treat
me, and you’re thinking that if we become besties, he’ll come back to you.”
“I’m here because I want us all
to get into counseling together. Not just Leland and me, but all four of us,
including your sister.” Reyes crossed his arms over his chest and went back to
holding the wall up while I stood simmering in my astonishment.
She was a piece of work. “How
about you go into counseling for you? Get over yourself. And when that happens,
when you can be honest with me, we’ll talk again.” I was being so mean. I
wanted to applaud myself. I wasn’t a mean person by nature, so it took a lot of
energy to bring out the beast in me and stick with it for more than thirty
seconds. Damned ADD. But I was so proud of myself. No more being a carpet for
someone else to walk on. I was my own girl, and no one was walking on this
carpet but me.
“Charley,” Cookie said through
the intercom.
I poked the button. “Yes,
Cookie?”
“Um, are you almost done? I need
coffee.”
“Oh, sorry! I’ll get it made and
bring you a cup.”
“Thanks. And can you bring me
the box of Nilla Wafers while you’re at it?”
“Can do.” I jumped up and headed
for the Bunn. “Priorities,” I said to Denise. “That’s what life is all about.”
Author Bio:
NYTimes and USA Today Bestselling Author Darynda Jones has
won numerous awards for her work, including a prestigious Golden Heart®, a
Rebecca, two Hold Medallions, a RITA ®, and a Daphne du Maurier, and
she has received stellar reviews from dozens of publications including starred
reviews from Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist, and the Library Journal. As a born
storyteller, Darynda grew up spinning tales of dashing damsels and heroes in
distress for any unfortunate soul who happened by, annoying man and beast
alike, and she is ever so grateful for the opportunity to carry on that
tradition. She currently has two series with St. Martin’s Press: The Charley
Davidson Series and the Darklight Trilogy. She lives in the Land of
Enchantment, also known as New Mexico, with her husband of almost 30 years and
two beautiful sons, the Mighty, Mighty Jones Boys. She can be found at www.daryndajones.com.
Author Links:
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Seventh Grave and No Body
Blurb:
Twelve. Twelve of the
deadliest beasts ever forged in the fires of hell have escaped onto our plane,
and they want nothing more than to rip out the jugular of Charley Davidson and
serve her lifeless, mangled body to Satan for dinner. So there’s that. But
Charley has more on her plate than a mob of testy hellhounds. For one thing,
her father has disappeared, and the more she retraces his last steps, the more
she learns he was conducting an investigation of his own, one that has Charley
questioning everything she’s ever known about him. Add to that an ex-BFF who is
haunting her night and day, a rash of suicides that has authorities baffled,
and a drop-dead sexy fiancé who has attracted the attentions of a local
celebrity, and Charley is not having the best week of her life.
A tad north of hell, a hop, skip, and a jump past the realm of eternity, is a little place called Earth, and Charley Davidson, grim reaper extraordinaire, is determined to do everything in her power to protect it.
We’re doomed!
A tad north of hell, a hop, skip, and a jump past the realm of eternity, is a little place called Earth, and Charley Davidson, grim reaper extraordinaire, is determined to do everything in her power to protect it.
We’re doomed!
Coming October 2014
