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“Beet red,” Faith replied. “It was adorable.”
Missy laughed. “I can see why you love him.”
Faith’s smile faded. “Oh. No, we’re not together.”
“Really?” Missy sounded genuinely surprised. “Well, you should be. The way you two looked at each other, I thought you had already figured that out.”
“Well, actually we… I’ll think about it.” Faith decided it wasn’t worth trying to explain that they had already dated and decided they were better as friends.
“Don’t think too long,” Missy replied. “Someone will snatch him right up if you don’t get him first.”
Too late, Faith thought, then frowned. That didn’t come out right.
She reminded herself that it didn’t come out at all and said, “We’ll let you know what we find. Thanks again for the list.”
“You got it, sugar.”
Faith hung up and looked at Michael to see him grinning. “Now why areyoublushing?”
“Screw you,” she said genially. “Finish your breakfast. We have suspects to eliminate.”
“Does that mean I get to use my gun?” he asked gleefully.
She looked incredulously at him. “What is wrong with you?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
“I thought you ‘slept like a baby,’” she noted. “Whatever. Just drink your coffee,” she added.
He finished his coffee and Faith grabbed a few sausages for Turk. While Turk happily ate the maple-flavored links, she and Michael looked over the names Missy sent. There were more than she expected, thirty-five in all. Most of them worked for the much larger Houston cemetery. Only a half-dozen worked for the Humble graveyard.
But the most interesting name was the man who worked for both. Well, notforboth, butatboth. At several other cemeteries, in fact.
Emilio Benitez, 36, was an independent contractor who worked as a gravedigger for cemeteries across the Houston area. Most recently, he had dug graves for the Houston Hillside Memorial Cemetery and the Humble Memorial Lawn.
And ten years ago, he had been arrested for aggravated assault with grievous bodily injury.
“Looks like we found our first suspect,” Michael said.
“I think you’re right, Prince Charmless,” Faith replied.
Michael ignored the jibe and took down Benitez’s phone and address.
Faith looked over at Turk and said, “Come on, boy. Finish your sausages and let’s go.”
CHAPTER NINE
“Got it,” Faith said. “Thank you, I appreciate it. No, that’s all right. I’ll call back later.”
She hung up and said, “He’s digging a grave at a cemetery in Bellaire right now.”
“Where’s that?”
“About ten minutes away,” Faith said. “Close to the city proper.”
“Address?”
Faith gave it, and Michael punched it into the GPS. “Well, itwouldbe ten minutes away,” he said, “in no traffic. We’re looking at twenty this time of the morning.”
