Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet - Darynda Jones Page 0,110
Harper.”
He looked over into a dark corner of the basement. Toward a fresh mound of dirt. “Harper was nice to me.”
I’d mow her lawn, for f**k’s sake. This was honestly about yard work?
She reached up and patted his big shoulder. “I know. I know. But she was going to turn you in to the police. They would have taken you to jail, sugar britches. What would I do without you?”
He shrugged and she cackled in delight, pinching his cheek as if he were four. I was in so much trouble.
Gripping the ice pick like her life depended on it, she looked down at me. “Hold on, though. I have to make sure she’s dead first.”
She bent to one knee beside me, a laborious act that took her enough time for me to ponder what would happen if the polar ice caps melted. After that played out, I wondered if I should make a run for it or try to reason with Dewey. He seemed to be slightly saner than his counterpart.
“Now, where do you suppose her heart is?” said counterpart asked.
Betty White? She was going for Betty?
Instinctively, my hands shot up to cover her. She was so fragile. So vulnerable. And Mrs. Beecher wanted to jab her with an ice pick? Not on my watch.
The woman jumped back in surprise, and I started to scramble toward the stairs when a weight comparable to a cement mixer landed on my back.
“Oh, that’s good, sugar pie. You hold her there. Now, where’d that ice pick go?”
Harper lunged forward, intending to knock Dewey off me, and was surprised when she flew right through him.
Damn. I should have told her. It was hard when people didn’t know they were dead. The realization sent them into a state of shock, and sometimes I wouldn’t see them again for years. But I really should have told her, because the stunned expression on her face as she turned back and reached through Dewey’s head broke my heart.
She locked gazes with me. “I’m dead?” she asked, her voice hoarse with emotion. She sank to the ground, her expression a thousand miles away.
I strained against the weight of Dewey, wondering what the heck his grandmother fed him but thrilled she’d lost the ice pick. “I’m sorry, Harper.” I could barely get out the words. “I wanted to tell you.”
“What?” Mrs. Beecher asked.
“I called the police,” I said, craning my neck. “They’re on the way.”
She scoffed and turned her back to me. “I need more light. Where could that thing have got off to?”
“They killed me?” Harper asked, still in a daze.
I reached out to her and put my hand on her knee. “Yes. I’m not sure who exactly. Do you remember what happened?”
“She’s talking, Grandma.”
“Well, sit harder.”
He took her advice and bounced, and all I could think was, Oh. My. God. Where was Uncle Bob when I needed him?
Feeling like I was in a horror movie, waiting for evil clowns to appear from under the stairs, I tried to focus on surviving this freak show.
“What are you doing?”
I turned to my other side to see Angel. He wore a scowl of disapproval.
“I’m trying to breathe,” I said, trying to breathe. But darkness crept into my periphery.
“Why is that guy sitting on you?” Then he saw Harper. “Oh, hey.” He nodded an acknowledgment, but she was still in shock. She raised her hands and looked at them, turning them over and over.
“I don’t suppose you could push this guy off me?” I asked him.
“I guess I could try.”
“So, like, soon?”
Angel frowned, then focused on Dewey and concentrated. After a few seconds, he pushed. And Dewey went head over heels.
Sweet potato pie.
I scrambled for the stairs again while fighting the tilt of the Earth. It kept throwing me against the wall, and I realized I probably had a concussion. Unfortunately, Dewey recovered and reached over the stairs, grabbing my leg and pulling it out from under me.
This was going to hurt.
Yep. My chin hit a step, clashing my teeth together. This was so much like a thousand horror movies I’d seen.
Dizziness played a huge part when I tumbled right back down the stairs.
I held up my hands and said, “You need to calm down.”
That was when Dewey wrapped his large hands around my throat. Someday I’d realize telling people to calm down had exactly the opposite effect.
“Hold her still, sugar. I can’t find that danged ice pick. I’ll have to use the skillet.”