Page 5 of Dirty Valentine (A J.J. Graves Mystery #17)

When I’d hired her a couple of years ago, neither of us had known how desperately we’d needed each other—me after learning of my parents’ betrayal, and her after her husband of twenty-five years had walked out on her after their youngest son had graduated from high school.

She was a hometown girl, so it helped that she usually knew someone in our deceased clients’ family trees.

“We should’ve recommended cremation,” Sheldon said, and then he noticed Jack and me standing suspiciously close to each other, both of us slightly flushed and breathing harder than the situation warranted.

Sheldon was my assistant funeral home director, and the more often I was called out on cases, the more often he was needed to keep the funeral home running and in the black.

He was in his mid-twenties, a few inches over five feet, and doughy in appearance.

He had a comb-over, Coke-bottle-thick glasses, and he always looked like he was playing dress-up in his father’s clothes whenever he was meeting clients.

He was an acquired taste, but he was sweet and his penchant for blurting out random facts was mostly endearing.

“Oh,” he said, eyeing us closely. “Are you both feeling okay? You’re showing signs of an elevated heart rate, and your skin looks feverish.”

Emmy Lu snorted. “They’re not sick.”

“Did you know that people who have high fevers are worse at lying?” Sheldon asked. “It impairs the prefrontal cortex that controls executive function and impulse control. So feverish people are more likely to blurt out the truth.”

“Jack and I were just discussing the case,” I lied.

“If you’re feverish that’s probably the truth,” he said, staring intently at me and blinking owlishly.

I remembered I’d come up for coffee and handed my mug to Jack to fill. I preferred to drink it black, but I took the cream from the fridge to cut the caffeine and give my system time to settle.

“Well,” Emmy Lu said, settling onto one of the stools that surrounded the large square island. “We’ve had an adventurous morning.”

“What happened?” I asked.

A flush worked its way up Sheldon’s neck and cheeks.

“I spent the night at Leena’s house and then she got a flat tire on her way to drop me off at work.

My mom said it’s because I had a sleepover with a girl and it was punishment for living in sin.

Leena said it’s because my mom put a curse on her. ”

Sheldon lives with his mother and doesn’t get out much, though he weirdly doesn’t seem to hurt for female attention.

He’s been seeing a girl that works at Lady Jane’s Donuts.

To say she was interesting was an understatement.

I’d become pretty protective of Sheldon—he was like a puppy and someone had to watch out for him.

But it seemed to me that Leena was only interested in him because he worked at the funeral home.

She was one of those girls who wore black lipstick, thick eyeliner, and painted her nails black. And she liked it when Sheldon wore his embalming coveralls. Leena was a strange one, and if anyone was putting curses out there my money was on her instead of Sheldon’s mom.

“You need to start thinking with the brain in your head instead of the other one,” Emmy Lu said, clucking her tongue. “Besides, that’s not what I was talking about when I said we’d had an adventurous morning. You need to get a grip.”

“What other brain?” Sheldon asked, confused. “I only have one.”

Emmy Lu sighed and shook her head. “Tell them what happened with Mrs. Patterson.”

“Right,” he said, pushing up his glasses. “So Mrs. Patterson calls this morning about arrangements for her mother. Mrs. Abernathy died yesterday at the age of ninety-three. So her daughter comes in this morning to go over preliminaries, but she has this…thing with her.” Sheldon shuddered visibly.

“What kind of thing?” I asked, knowing I was going to regret it.

“Well,” Sheldon said. “She said it was a cat.”

Emmy Lu snorted with laughter. “You should have seen Sheldon’s face when she pulled that moth-eaten furball out of a Louis Vuitton tote like it was a priceless heirloom.”

“It was a taxidermied Maine coon,” Sheldon said. “I might have screamed a little.”

“More than a little,” Emmy Lu said, patting his shoulder. “But it was understandable. I’ve never seen anything more terrifying. She must’ve had that thing taxidermied at the Dollar Store. There was an eye missing, and only a few patches of hair remained.”

“And Mrs. Patterson wants it displayed with her mother at the viewing,” Sheldon said.

“What did you tell her?” I asked, trying to keep my expression neutral.

“I told her we’d do our best to honor her mother’s wishes while maintaining the dignified atmosphere our other families expect,” Sheldon said carefully. “But between you and me, I wouldn’t be opposed to it finding its way to the crematorium. No one should have to look at that.”

“Agreed,” Emmy Lu said. “She left it in my office. Now I have to go back in there and throw salt around or something to clear out the evil spirits.”

“I’m proud of you, Sheldon,” I said. “That was a very professional response.”

“Except for the screaming,” Jack said under his breath, making me smile.

“On that note,” I said, glancing toward the basement, “I should probably get started on our John Doe.”

“And I’m going to deal with the media circus and see if any missing persons reports have come in.”

“You’re a day late and a dollar short on that front,” Emmy Lu told him.

“I caught the story on the news already. Imagine finding a body on Bridget Ashworth’s grave.

” She shivered. “It’s just creepy. I used to drink Boone’s Farm and make out with Roger Shofer around there when I was fifteen. Those memories will never be the same.”

“Cemeteries are real aphrodisiacs,” Sheldon said wisely.

Emmy Lu nodded as if this were common knowledge instead of completely weird. “If you go to the cemetery at night you can hear her talking when the wind blows through the headstones.”

“You think she was a real witch?” I asked.

“I’m just saying, there’s been too many strange things that have happened around her grave over the last three centuries. Everyone knows that.”

“Hmm,” I said, deciding I’d need to do a Google search on Bridget Ashworth once I got finished with my autopsy.

Jack kissed me and headed toward the mudroom door, but he paused and looked back at me with an expression that promised our interrupted moment would be continued later.

“We’ll finish our earlier discussion tonight,” he said.

“I’m counting on it.” Heat rushed to my cheeks, and I didn’t bother trying to hide it. “I’ll let you know as soon as I’m finished with him.”

Jack was almost to the mudroom door when his phone buzzed against his hip. The sound cut through the kitchen’s warmth like a blade. He glanced at the screen and I watched his expression shift from heated promise to razor-sharp alert in the space of a heartbeat.

“What is it?” I asked, recognizing the look that meant our afternoon was about to take a very different turn.

“Text from Martinez,” Jack said, all traces of our earlier flirtation evaporating like morning mist. “They found something at the cemetery.”

The kitchen went tomb quiet. Emmy Lu’s coffee mug froze halfway to her lips, and Sheldon’s nervous fidgeting stilled completely. Even the old house seemed to hold its breath.

“What kind of something?” I asked, though my stomach was already dropping with the certainty that I didn’t want to know.

Jack’s jaw tightened as he scrolled through the message, his face growing grimmer with each word. “After the CSI team finished processing the scene, they expanded their search. Found a fresh carving on another headstone about twenty yards away. Jonathan Blackwood, died 1725.”

“Same year as Bridget Ashworth,” I said. “That can’t be a coincidence.”

“Someone carved a message into his headstone.” Jack’s eyes found mine across the kitchen, and the blue depths held shadows I didn’t like. “It said, The first stone has been cast .”

A shiver worked its way down my spine. “The first stone?”

“Could mean anything,” Jack said. “I need to get back out there and see it for myself. Martinez is securing the area. Call me the second you find anything unusual with our victim. If someone’s defacing graves and staging murders, every detail matters.”

“Jack,” I called after him, my voice smaller than I intended. “Be careful.”

“Always am,” he said, and then he was gone, leaving nothing but the echo of his footsteps.

I stood there in the kitchen, surrounded by the familiar comfort of afternoon sunlight and the gentle hum of the refrigerator, but something had shifted.

The very air felt charged with possibility—and not the good kind.

Whatever had started with our John Doe on Bridget Ashworth’s grave was connected to something much older and infinitely more dangerous than a simple murder.

Behind me, Sheldon cleared his throat with the nervous precision of a man about to deliver bad news. “Did you know that the practice of public stoning was designed to distribute guilt among the community? No single person was responsible for the death because everyone participated.”

I turned to face him, watching his face grow pale behind his thick glasses. “What are you saying, Sheldon?”

“I’m saying,” he stammered, adjusting his glasses with fingers that trembled like autumn leaves, “that historically speaking, when someone carves casting the first stone at a murder scene, they’re probably planning to cast more.”