“What about —?”

“That wasn’t blackmail, Cook,” I said, shutting her up. “That was a mutually beneficial arrangement. And can you keep trying my dad? He’s not picking up.”

“Maybe your stepmother’s psycho and he really is sailing the ocean blue,” she offered.

“My stepmother is psycho. That’s never been in question. But not about this. Dad always makes sure we can get ahold of him. This just isn’t like him.”

A woman’s voice drifted to us from inside my office. “They told me you were up here.”

We turned as she walked through my office door. The one that led to the stairs that led to the bar that Reyes usually ran. She wore four-inch heels and sauntered up to us like she owned the place.

“You,” she said, pointing toward Reyes, “are a difficult man to catch.” When Reyes didn’t answer her, she turned toward me. The woman whose back he’d been caressing. She held out her hand. “So nice to see you again.”

“And in real clothes this time,” I said, still flinching over the fact that our first meeting involved pajamas and bed head.

She hooked her fingers around mine as though she expected me to kiss her hand. “Aren’t you darling?” she asked.

That wasn’t patronizing at all. “Well, thank you. My fiancé seems to think so.” I leaned back into his shoulder, at which point he placed an appreciative kiss on my head. Right on cue. It kind of hurt, since Barbara had exploded from lack of caffeine, but I sucked it up.

While Cookie looked on longingly and a soft sigh escaped her, Sylvia Starr’s emotions were more along the lines of sociopathic. They leapt inside her, and a boiling hatred spilled out in hot, razor-sharp waves. Yet she managed to keep her cool. That superstar smile plastered on her face didn’t waver an inch. It was creepy.

Feeling the same thing I did, Reyes wrapped his arm all the way around my waist and pulled me close. How did she even get in? It was eight o’clock in the morning and the restaurant wasn’t open yet. She was a sweet-talker. Neil had been right. She probably knew how to talk her way into any situation. Or out of one.

“I’m Cookie,” my faithful assistant said, standing behind her desk and holding out her hand. “I see you on TV all the time.”

“Well, thank you.”

I wasn’t sure how that was a compliment, but okay.

The sugary texture of her voice was making my teeth ache, but she turned back to Reyes and spoke again nonetheless. “I was wondering if now would be a good time for that interview.”

Anger welled within him, so I intervened. “Actually, we have some people to interview ourselves. We’re on a case at the moment, but thanks.”

“A case?” she asked. Not me. She had yet to speak directly to me. It was weird how everything she said, even to other people, was directed toward Reyes. As though he had to answer for us simple girl-folk.

“A case,” I said, pointing to the front door, the one she didn’t come through, that had my name on it.

“Oh, right. You must be the Davidson in Davidson Investigations.”

Oh, my god. She didn’t even look at me when she said it. It was as though she would almost look at me, but her gaze would stay locked on Reyes.

“If you’ll excuse us,” I said, gesturing toward the door. The front door.

“Another time,” she said, turning and going back the way she’d come in.

I stood stunned. Not for very long, but still. “She’s nuttier than a pecan tree.”

Reyes didn’t say anything. He just glared.

“Okay, well, that was fun,” I said to Cook.

“I liked her, except her homicidal attachment to your affianced,” she said.

“You noticed that, did you? I wasn’t sure you would with all the work you’re doing.”

“Mm-hmm.” Cookie sat concentrating on her computer screen, really into that game of spider solitaire.

I patted her cheek, and said, “Okay, then. I’m off to affect somebody’s life in an irreversible devastating way.”

“Good luck,” she said without looking up.

I think it was her lack of caffeine that morning that made her zone out. “And get some work done. I’m not paying you minimum wage to play solitaire.”

“I’m on it, boss.”

Gawd, she was good.

“I was hoping to avoid that,” Reyes said as we made our way to Misery. Sometime during the evening, Uncle Bob had had Noni detail her innards, removing the blood I’d smeared across her seats and floorboard. I must’ve resembled Carrie when I left the asylum that first time yesterday. And the second time. And red was not my best color. Thank the gods Ubie’d had her detailed, because blood simmering under the New Mexico sun was never a good scent choice for cars. I preferred pine. Or plants of the tropics. But I was most fond of the one I had now, mocha cappuccino. Odd how that flavor came in a scent for one’s car. It turned the inside of Misery into a little coffeehouse on wheels. A decaf coffeehouse, sadly.

Our first stop was the widow of yesterday’s suicide-note victim. Of course, she didn’t know she was a widow yet. I’d have to be very, very careful with my words.

“Since you’re going to follow me around all day, I’ve decided to pretend you’re my bodyguard,” I said to Reyes as he followed me up the walk to the woman’s house. “And I am very, very wealthy. So wealthy, I need a bodyguard.”