“Thank you.” Normally I would have offered a wink or something equally flirty, but he looked too young, even for me. I didn’t want to get his pubescent hopes up.

“Not at all, ma’am.” He tipped his hard hat before hefting the board onto his shoulder again.

I stepped carefully over castoffs and debris and walked through the opening where the doors would someday stand. “Mr. Dean?”

A ginormous man stood studying a pile of architectural plans, his shoulders so wide, they actually looked uncomfortable. I knew bank vault doors less intimidating. He glanced up, his cerulean blue eyes only slightly curious. “Yes.”

“Hi.” I walked toward him and held out my hand, hoping he wouldn’t crush it. “My name is Charlotte Davidson. I’m a private investigator working on your sister’s case.”

His face darkened instantly, so I dropped my hand, my instincts for self-preservation being what they were.

“I’ve already told your assistant, I have nothing to say to you.”

The emotional weight behind his response—one full of anger, worry, and resentment—hit me head-on. The force of it stole the air from my lungs, and I had to take a moment to recover as he rolled up the plans and barked orders to a group of men in another room. They jumped to do his bidding. Literally.

“Mr. Dean, I assure you, I’m on your sister’s side.”

The scowl he hit me with could have convinced a seasoned assassin to empty his bladder. “What’s your name again?” The paper in his hand surrendered to the pressure he was placing on it and crumpled as he squeezed his fist closed.

“Jane,” I said, swallowing hard. “Jane Smith.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I thought you said it was Charlotte or Sherry or something.”

“It was. I very recently changed it.”

“Do you know what I do to people who mess with my family?”

“And I’m moving to South America.”

“I hurt them.”

“And possibly getting a sex-change operation. You’d never recognize me, you know, if you ever came looking.”

“Are we finished?”

Damn. Trick question. He turned and headed toward his office. I should’ve said yes, I really should’ve, but I couldn’t leave him with such a bad impression of me. A shaking mass of spineless jellylike stuff. Cookie was wrong. I was going to die at a construction site. I was so coming back to haunt her.

“Look, asshole,” I said. Out loud.

He stopped short of his destination and turned to gape at me. So did pretty much everyone else, but this was between me and the duke.

I stepped closer and lowered my voice. “I get it. You think I’m working for Dr. Feelgood, so you don’t trust me.”

He tilted his head, suddenly interested.

“I’m not. He hasn’t paid me a dime. I’m looking for your sister, and if you don’t want to help me, that’s on you. But if anyone can find her, it’s me.” I fished a card out of my jacket and pushed it inside his shirt pocket. The shirt pocket that covered a really fit pec. Amazed that I was still conscious, I added, “Call me if you’d like to know where she is.”

Then I turned and walked back to Misery before I blacked out.

* * *

“You said what?” Cookie asked, her voice rising an octave in three words flat.

I grinned and repositioned the phone as I downshifted, and said, “‘Look, asshole.’”

“Oh, my goodness. Wait, you said that to Luther Dean or are you saying that to me right now?”

She was funny. “I wanted to go to Rocket’s and check on Teresa Yost’s mortal status, but the Rottweiler was out.”

Rocket was a departed savant who lived in an abandoned mental asylum I had to break into just to see him. He knew the names of every person who’d ever been born and their status in the grand scheme of things. He could tell me if Teresa Yost was alive or if the doctor had already done the deed, a bit of information that would really help about now. But the biker gang who now owned the mental asylum also owned a slew of Rottweilers, and I preferred my limbs attached, thank you very much.

“Ugh, damn that Rottweiler. So do you think he’s married?”

“Well, I don’t know, Cookie, but I’m sure he’d prefer something in four legs.”

“Not the Rottweiler. Teresa’s brother. Oh, your uncle called. He said he needs you to unclog his drain or something. Have you already found a new profession?”

I snorted, then mentally repossessed that snort and replaced it with an epiphany. “You know what? That’s not a bad idea. How would you feel about us becoming plumbers? I have a nice crack.”

“I’ll take a rain check.”

“Are you sure? They have wrenches.”

“Positive. So, how are you doing?” she asked. I could tell by the tone in her voice she’d switched back to our earlier conversation about Reyes.

“I’m okay. That meeting left me with enough fodder to fuel a thousand lonely sleepless nights.”

“Damn it, Charley, will you never learn to document these things? I need visuals, flowcharts.”

“Hey, I’m going to Super Dog for a quick bite and to pass along a message from a dead guy to his girlfriend. You should come with me.”

“I can’t go with you.”

“Is it because of my questionable morals?”

“No, it’s because it’s three o’clock in the afternoon and I have to pick up Amber from school.”

“Oh, right. So the morals thing doesn’t bother you?”

She laughed and hung up.

I called Ubie, my hemorrhoidal, hypertensed uncle and a detective for the Albuquerque Police Department, wondering about his message. Thanks to him, I’d been hired by APD as a consultant and helped him with cases on a semi-regular basis. The pay wasn’t bad. The access to their databases was better.

“What is this about your drains?” I asked when he picked up. “’Cause that sounds almost incestuous.”

“Oh, that was code for call me ay-sap.”

“Really?” I squinted in thought. “You couldn’t just say call me ay-sap?”

“I suppose I could’ve. I was trying to be cool.”

Suppressing an inappropriate giggle, I said, “Uncle Bob, why don’t you just ask her out?”