Grave Reservations by Cherie Priest

Author:Cherie Priest [Priest, Cherie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria
Published: 2021-10-26T00:00:00+00:00

16.

Thursday afternoon, Leda Foley and Niki Nelson met their new detective friend not far from Castaways—in a bar that used to be a mortuary and now had barstools pulled up to the nooks and crannies where cremated remains once were housed. For the umpteenth time, Leda groused, “I don’t understand why this bar isn’t gothier. It feels like it should have black curtains, silver crosses, and more candles.”

Grady shrugged. “I see plenty of candles.”

“They’re tea lights!” she argued. “And there’s all these cutesy little martinis with cutesy little stirring sticks and umbrellas, and weird chunks of fruit on skewers.”

Niki leaned forward, to talk around Leda’s head. “She does this literally every damn time we even walk past this place.” Then, imitating her friend’s voice, she said, “I want to see vampires! Ghosts! Bats! I want to fear for my life every time I order a drink!”

“I never said that.”

“Sure you did. More than once. So where is this woman?” Niki asked. “I thought she was meeting us here.”

“She is.” The detective glanced at his phone, sitting on the small, round table between them all. “She’ll be here any minute. She works out of an office a block away.”

“I thought she was rich? Why does she still go to work?” Niki’s eyes scanned the scene below, where there weren’t many customers yet. The floors were stone, and the ceilings were high. Every click of a woman’s heels, every drop of a plate, clink of silverware, shake of a martini in progress, and friendly toast bounced off every surface.

“I don’t know that she’s rich,” Grady said. “There’s money, and then there’s money. Maybe she doesn’t have enough money to stay rich if she doesn’t work. Or maybe she just likes having a job. Some people get bored, left to their own devices.”

Leda asked, “What does she do?”

“She’s a financial consultant with a big firm, but I think she only has a few clients. Big-name ones.”

“Money,” Leda said, nodding to herself. “Must be nice.”

Over the echoes of early happy hour, all three heard the distinctive sound of hard-heeled footsteps on stairs. They collectively swiveled their heads, and soon there appeared a tall, attractive white woman in her fifties. Janette Gilman wore a gray lady-suit with a midi skirt and heels that were just a hair too high to call sensible. Her hair was auburn—a very good, expensive dye job in Leda’s estimation. She’d been hiding her own baby grays with a box from Walgreens for years. It probably showed, but she didn’t care too much and didn’t have too much to hide.

Grady stood, like a proper goddamn gentleman, and then Leda hastily did likewise in order to participate in the round of handshakes that opened the conversation. Janette Gilman’s hands were soft of skin, smooth of grip, and nicely manicured. But they didn’t trigger any interesting insights.

“Oh, no,” Janette said to Niki—who was still trying to stand, with the plastic boot stuck beneath the table. “Please, stay there. I don’t want to make any trouble for you.

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