The Dirt on Ninth Grave by Jones Darynda

Author:Jones, Darynda [Jones, Darynda]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780349411408
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2016-01-11T08:00:00+00:00

12

Signs you drink too much coffee:

Your eyes stay open when you sneeze.

—INTERNET MEME

Cookie and I did get pedicures and mucho grande mocha lattes. On her, though. She’d insisted. I wasn’t sure I’d ever had one, but I knew damned well a pedicure was going to become one of my weekly routines. The phone might have to wait. Apparently I was made to be pampered.

After my toenails turned a pretty shade of Mocha, which bizarrely matched Reyes’s eyes, we drove to the Rockefeller mansion. We’d been talking about going out there for two weeks, but the mansion only opened at certain times during the year. Thankfully, Cookie got us on a list, and when the caretakers were giving a special tour to a group of third graders, they’d called and invited us to join them.

Cookie was a little worried about the kids, but they were third graders. I assured her I could take them if it came to that. And I was certain I could. As long as they didn’t gang up on us, we were good.

The mansion itself, a National Historic Landmark, was absolutely stunning. The Rockefellers had completed construction of Kykuit – Dutch for “lookout” – in 1913. Sitting north of Sleepy Hollow, it was a sprawling, forty-room stone mansion with gorgeous architecture and incredible gardens. Every room we entered wrenched a tiny moan of ecstasy out of me.

Thankfully, the kids were great. Besides a few odd looks, and one kid informing me that he knew how to satisfy a woman – Seriously? That shit started in the third grade? – we had a wonderful time looking at all the furnishings and artwork.

“I have to start saving my tips,” I told Cookie. “I want this.” I raised my arms and indicated my surroundings with the gusto of inspiration.

“You want this bathroom?” she asked me. We were in the bathroom at the time. “I know a good decorator. He could make your bathroom look like this one.”

“No. I want it all. Someday.”

“Right? This would rock, but I’m not sure it’s really your style.”

“Why not? You think I don’t have enough blue blood?”

She crinkled her nose in thought. “I think you don’t have enough of a competitive spirit. Or enough arrogance. I heard that John D. Rockefeller Jr. built it only because his brother built a 240-room estate nearby.”

“Oh. I might have agreed with you if not for the pedicure.”

She chuckled as she powdered her nose. “The pedicure?”

“Yep. You’ve spoiled me, introduced me to the finer things in life. I need to be pampered. To have my nails done by someone else. To have my feet massaged.”

“I think I know someone who would massage your feet free of charge.”

A tiny thrill laced up my spine at the thought. “I don’t know, Cook. I think he’s pretty hung up on his ex.”

“I get that, but he is so into you, it’s unreal. Surely you can see it.”

“Sure I can, but that doesn’t make him any less hung up on his ex.” I leaned closer to the mirror, wondering where the dark circles came from.

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