Shallow Grave-J Collins 3 by Lori G. Armstrong Read Free Book Online Page A

kept us busy as bees and in the black.
    “I thought they had an investigative fi rm in LA who handled that end of things.”
    “Evidently we’re considerably cheaper so they’re out-sourcing to us. Could be slim pickin’s in the next few months so we need to hedge our bets and pad our bank account.”
    “Th
    ey give you a timeframe?”
    “As soon as possible.”
    No complaint from me. My salary as a fulltime PI more than paid my bills. It wasn’t like I’d had much of a social life in the last two months anyway.
    Kevin shrugged into his jacket. “I’ve got meetings with three new potential clients in the next week. I 55

    wanted to make sure we’re caught up fi rst.”
    “I’ll hold down the fort while you’re out schmoozing.”
    “You gonna be okay tonight?”
    “Yeah. I’m wiped. Since we’re working tomorrow I’ll probably just go to bed.” Alone. It’d be nice to have the distraction of a warm body next to me.
    Kevin read my transparent thoughts. “Any idea when Martinez will be back?”
    I shook my head.
    “Call me if you need anything. See you in the morning.”
    I set my home alarm system and indulged in a long, hot shower. After self-medicating myself with more tequila, I crawled in bed and fell into a surprisingly dreamless sleep.
    M M M
    Th
    e next morning line two rang, which meant Kevin was on line one.
    “Wells/Collins Investigations. How may I help you?”
    Cough cough . “I’m lookin’ for Julie Collins,” the female slurred.
    I couldn’t identify the voice. “Th
    is is Julie.”
    “Don’t sound like you.”
    “Who’s this?”
    56

    “June.” I heard her exhale, or rather, hack up a lung.
    “June Everett.”
    God. I needed to quit smoking. June wasn’t that much older than me. How long before my voice became that raspy wheeze?
    “Hey, June. How are you doing?”
    “Shitty.” A couple of loud sniff s.
    “What can I do for you?”
    “Got to thinking and realized I never said thanks to you. For yesterday. When Lang . . .” A rumbling laugh. “Can’t even make myself say it. You didn’t feed me a buncha bullshit ’bout why you was really out here.
    I ’preciate it.”
    What the hell was I supposed to say? “You’re welcome?”
    Another gravelly laugh dragged into silence.
    “June? Is there anything else?”
    She sighed. “Yeah. I was feelin’ guilty that I didn’t tell the cops everything yesterday.”
    “Whoa. Stop right there. I’m obligated to report anything you tell me.”
    “I know.”
    A snick of a carbonated can echoed in my ear. My gaze traveled to the hand-painted saw blade clock on the wall—a birthday gift from my pawn shop owning, weapons dealing, half-psycho friend Jimmer. Was June sucking down a couple of cold ones? At 10:00 in the morning?
    57

    Granted, it was a Saturday. “June, are you drinking?”
    “Wouldn’t you be?”
    No self-righteous answer tumbled from my mouth.
    “I miss him,” she said softly.
    I so did not want to deal with this. “What is it you want to tell me?”
    “It’s ’bout the hole that killed Lang. Remember I said I didn’t know why it was there? You looked at me funny, like you knew I was lyin’. And I was.” Slurp slurp . “Lyin’, that is.”
    Dealing with a drunken, grieving woman wasn’t an auspicious start to my workday. Yet, something had bothered me about the sudden appearance of that hole and why Lang hadn’t known it was there.
    “Why did you lie?”
    “Trying to cover our asses. Now that Lang is dead it don’t seem so important.” She coughed. “So despite my constant drunken state in the last twelve hours, I’m confused on why someone would go diggin’ that up again.”
    I counted to ten. “Digging what up?”
    “Th
    em bones that was buried there.”
    “What?”
    “Human bones were buried on that ridge. We didn’t know what to do with ’em, so we sort of covered ’em back up and . . .” She sniff ed. “Lang wanted to call the cops.
    None of the rest of us did. Th
    ought