Better Off Dead in Deadwood

by Ann Charles

  I pursed my lips, not liking his tone at all. If we were going to start sharing information, he needed to soften up a bit.

  “Spill it, please,” he corrected.

  “Everything?”

  He nodded and so I opened my mouth and let ‘er rip, starting with when I heard her sobbing in the bathroom. I went on to tell about her fight with Peter, and then repeated the details from when I ran into her again in that lower hallway. His facial expression rippled and flattened like a sheet in the wind as I shared details.

  In the end, I even threw in what Aunt Zoe had shared about Jane’s past and what Zeb the Zombie had told me at the store, making Cooper pinkie swear that this last bit of information could not be used in court or shared in a report.

  He refused to hold up his pinkie, but gave me his word he’d keep it to himself.

  When I finished, I raised my eyebrows and asked, “What do you think? Did Helen kill Jane, or is she just a pawn?”

  “I think you’ve got chess on the brain,” he said, opening the door.

  “Wait!” I called as he started to leave.

  He paused and looked back.

  “I thought we were going to share information and figure out who killed Jane.”

  “The only things I agreed to were not to yell at you or handcuff you.”

  “What? That’s not fair. I showed you my cards.”

  “I thought we were playing chess, not poker.” When I glared, he pulled out his wallet, flipping it open and holding it out to me. “You see this?”

  “Yeah, it’s a tin star. I’ve seen them many times before packaged with cowboy hats and plastic pistols.”

  “This means that information only needs to flow one way, towards me.”

  “You’re such an asshole, Cooper.”

  He tipped an imaginary hat at me. “Until we meet again, Parker.”

  I grabbed a magazine from a nearby rack and threw it at the door as he closed it behind him.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Friday, September 7th

  When I opened my eyes the next morning, two realizations hit me at once. The light flooding in my window was brighter than it should be for seven o’clock and something was clucking in my closet.

  A glance at the clock confirmed my anxiety was for good cause—I’d overslept by forty-five minutes. My cell phone’s technical difficulties seemed to now include its alarm feature.

  Dang it!

  “Addy!” I scrambled out of bed and stuck my head out into the hall. “Come and get your chicken!”

  Back in my room, I slipped on my robe, shooed Elvis from my closet, grabbed some clean underwear—a matching set today, since I’d be hanging out with Doc—and closed the bedroom door behind me.

  “Addy!” I called from the top of the stairs. My stomach rumbled in excitement at the smell of pancakes drifting up the stairwell. Pancakes? Aunt Zoe must be having a Betty Crocker moment.

  “I’m coming, Mom, sheesh!” Addy tromped up the steps, still in her pajamas.

  “Don’t you ‘sheesh’ me, Adelynn Renee. You know that chicken is supposed to be locked up each night, not roosting in my closet … again.”

  She walked by me grumbling under her breath about chickens getting no respect.

  “And get dressed for school!” I hollered after her then raced down the stairs to corral Layne. When I found him, he was already dressed and sitting at the table, fork in hand, digging into a stack of pancakes covered in powdered sugar and strawberries. Aunt Zoe sat opposite sipping coffee, her plate left with just sugar and syrup residue.

  “You’re late,” Harvey said from his spot by the griddle. Wearing one of Aunt Zoe’s ruffle-lined Betty Boop aprons, he looked extra grizzled this morning after yet another night on the couch. He shoved a plate full of pancakes in my hands, sprinkled on the sugar, and then dumped a ladle full of strawberries over the top.

  “I don’t have time for food,” I told him.

  Harvey pointed a spatula at me, giving me the evil eye under a crinkled caterpillar eyebrow. “Eat. I’ll take the kids to school this morning.”

  Oh, well then … I grabbed my fork, sat next to Layne, and dug in, swallowing a couple of sweet bites before looking up at Aunt Zoe. “Why didn’t you wake me earlier?”

  “I peeked in and you were sleeping so soundly that I didn’t want to bother you. Did you take a sleeping pill last night?”

  “No.”

  I tried to remember what I’d done last night after talking to Doc. Oh, right, I’d lain in bed and cursed at the ceiling, frustrated with Cooper for not answering any of my questions about Jane and Helen Tarragon after all I’d shared with him. At some point, mid-rant, I’d fallen asleep.

  I stopped eating for a moment and realized what had changed. “I had no nightmares.”

  That was weird. I hadn’t had a nightmare-free sleep since I’d spent the night at Doc’s house weeks ago. Hmmm. Maybe things were going back to normal. Or maybe my brain was too exhausted even to try to scare the crap out of me anymore. Either way, I’d had a full night’s rest. Add to that the stack of fresh pancakes in front of me, help getting the kids to school, and a date with Doc, and I suddenly felt like swinging my feet under the table. Life was good.

  If only our date weren’t in a haunted house with a ghost who kept trying to get chummy.

  Aunt Zoe watched me eat for several seconds, her face pinched in thought. “Did anything happen yesterday that might have contributed to eliminating the nightmares?” she asked.

  I chewed on her question and a mouthful of pancakes. What had happened yesterday? Let’s see, I’d received a warning from my boss, chatted with a zombie, conjured up a freaky-ass dream at the cemetery, and spilled my guts to Cooper, who might be dating my boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend. Nope, each one of those things should have spurred more nightmares, not gotten rid of them.

  “Not that I can think of,” I told Aunt Zoe.

  Harvey cleared his throat, catching my attention. “Did you pay a ‘social visit’ to your ‘financial planner’?” he asked, making the quote marks in the air while winking at me.

  In other words, did I go to Doc’s and get laid? I scowled at the dirty old buzzard. “No, Harvey, I did not.” Unfortunately.

  He shrugged and went back to cleaning up the griddle.

  I noticed Layne’s eyes on me and chuckled at how he was practically inhaling his pancakes. The poor kid needed a parent who could cook something other than fried eggs and tomato soup from a can. “Slow down, Layne. You’re going to choke.”

  He made a show of eating in slow motion.

  I reached over and messed up his hair. “Did you get all of your homework done last night?”

  He’d been busy with his nose buried in a book called Deadwood’s Dead: True Tales from the Living while I helped Addy with her two-page essay about the book Treasure Island, one of my favorites that she had neglected to read for class.

  “Of course, Mom.”

  Layne was my studious child; Addy was the stubborn one. I’d love to take credit for Layne’s interest in all things brainiac, but he’d gotten that from his father. Addy was filled to the brim with my genes, except for the color of her eyes.

  “That book you were reading about Deadwood—was it for a report you have to do?”

  He shook his head. “I’m trying to see if the rumor Doc told me about Wild Bill is true.”

  Doc? “When did you talk to Doc?”

  “At the library yesterday.”

  It appeared Deadwood’s library was a popular hangout these days. Had I just missed Doc? Was that why Tiffany was there? Were they doing something together in the South Dakota room? Why hadn’t Doc mentioned on the phone last night that he’d seen Layne at the library? Was it because he was hiding that he’d been there with Tiffany and Layne had caught them?

  Whoa! Back ‘er down there, Ms. Cray-cray. I shoved another bite of pancakes in my mouth to keep from asking my son if a pretty red-haired lady had been there with my boyfriend.

>   Doc had not given me any reason to distrust him so far. It wasn’t his fault that my history with men rivaled the Badlands in terms of rockiness. Besides, this time felt different. I was older, Doc was far from my typical picks, and I wasn’t letting the sun rise and set on his attentions. Although I wouldn’t mind letting the sun rise and set while being on the receiving end of his lust-filled attentions.

  With the ugly, green-headed beast in my head chained up again, I asked Layne, “What did Doc tell you about Wild Bill?”

  Was it anything to do with someone trying to rouse Bill from his Mount Moriah beddy-bye with candles and blood? I had yet to tell Doc about my tongue-ripping merriment with Cornelius from yesterday. Some stories were better explained with animated hand gestures.

  “He said it’s rumored that Wild Bill is petrified due to the calcium carbonate in the soil he was originally buried in, but Doc thinks it’s more likely he was mummified or fossilized.”

  While chewing, I tried to imagine what a petrified century-plus old body would even look like. I’d lay my bet on Bill being a dusty old mummy.

  Addy raced into the kitchen, dressed for school with her chicken under her arm. She set Elvis outside the back door and turned to me. “Mom, can I stay over at Kelly’s tonight?”

  It was a Friday night, but … “You didn’t read the book you were supposed to for school, remember?”

  “Awww, come on, Mom. That’s the past, let’s just move on with our lives and find happiness in love and forgiveness.”

  Aunt Zoe chuckled and stood, squeezing my shoulder as she passed me on the way to the sink. “Your mother would be proud of her for that one,” she told me with a wink.

  “Good try, Addy,” I said, pushing my empty plate away. Emulating her hippy grandmother was not going to help her cause. “I’m sorry to punish Kelly by keeping you away from her, but you have a book to read.”

  “But I have another book to read and write about for next week.”

  “Well, I guess you’ll have to skip TV this weekend, too.”

  An explosion of whining and foot stomping followed. After I’d said my piece, I headed upstairs to get ready for my date with Doc and Prudence. I heard Harvey’s pickup rumble away as I stepped from the shower.

  When I got back downstairs, Aunt Zoe was nowhere to be seen, which probably meant she was out back in her glass shop, so I grabbed my purse and left. The fewer people who knew what I was up to today the better. I’d especially made sure to cover my ass with Jerry, leaving him a voicemail that I was showing a house to a client this morning and would be in sometime after lunch. Not exactly a lie, since I’d be showing Prudence to Doc in a house.

  Doc was leaning against the trunk of his Camaro behind Calamity Jane’s when I chitty-chitty bang-banged into the parking lot. Dressed in a dark maroon flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a pair of faded blue jeans, and brown cowboy boots, he was just a Stetson hat short of throwing his leg over a saddle and riding off toward the horizon.

  I admired the view, letting my imagination ride off with him and then some. My body responded in fine mating form, throbbing in places that left me tingling.

  Jeez! What was wrong with me? Was I ovulating?

  I pulled up in front of him and cranked down my window, telling myself to play it cool—no drooling.

  “Hey, stranger,” I said, pushing my sunglasses up. “Looking for a ride?”

  Doc strolled over and leaned on my window frame. His hair gleamed in the morning light, looking almost blue-black. Shadows angled his face, adding an air of ruggedness that made me want to explore the texture with my fingers.

  “That depends,” he said, his voice throaty, his gaze locking on my lips.

  The heady scent of him drifted inside the cab, making my pheromones bounce around like Mexican jumping beans.

  His eyes traveled down my neck, darkening as they slid into the deep neckline of my pink cardigan. “Are you glittering?” he asked.

  I looked down at where the silver zipper tab lay nestled in my cleavage. The sunlight streaming through the Picklemobile’s front window hit me at chest-level, making the shiny flecks infused in my new coconut-scented lotion sparkle.

  “Let’s see,” I said and made a point of peeking down the front of my sweater. “Hmmm.” I let my sweater fall back into place and dragged my fingernail along the swell of my breast, flirting with him from under lowered lashes. “It appears I am—all over.”

  His focus jerked back to my face, his lust in plain sight. “Prove it.”

  My heartbeat got all hectic. “You’re smoldering again.”

  “I haven’t stopped smoldering since you dropped your skirt in front of me, Boots.”

  “Oh, really?” I purred. I should probably end this little game of seduction before someone lost control and melted all over her seat, but Doc was so fun to tempt. “Do you like to watch me take my clothes off?”

  “I like to watch you, period. Touching is even better.”

  “Prove it,” I threw back at him.

  His grin surfaced, looking both playful and seductive. “I will, vixen. I will. And when I do, you’re going to pay for all of the cold showers I’ve been taking lately.”

  “We could skip our visit to Prudence and go back to your place.”

  Doc shook his head at my suggestion. “I think it’s your turn to smolder for a bit.”

  “I don’t smolder.” I just plain combusted, like a Phoenix, only with less flash and more screams.

  His hand slipped down to trail up my pant leg, from my knee along my inner thigh. “Are you sure about that?”

  Those dark, dark eyes of his nearly suckered me into grabbing his hand and hurrying him along. Instead, I stopped his hand just before he hit the point-of-no-return. Responsible mothers didn’t participate in foreplay in parking lots, I reminded myself, and neither did employees at risk of losing their jobs. I made a T with my hands. “Time out.”

  One of Doc’s eyebrows lifted.

  “It’s been too long and I’ve been aching for you way too much, especially after last night’s call.” His detailed description of his latest shower-idea had left me writhing. “If you keep traveling up that path, I won’t want you to stop, and with my luck, my boss will drive by right about the time I start screaming your name.” I removed Doc’s hand from my leg and placed it back on the door frame.

  “You’ve been aching for me, huh?”

  I was too discombobulated from his flirting to play it cool, but I was still armed with sarcasm. “I haven’t reached the point of writing your name with little hearts around it on my notebooks yet, so don’t get all cocky on me.”

  “Cocky?” Doc’s grin spread, creasing his eyes, which sparkled with mirth. “I’ll try, but you do make it hard.”

  Good looks and quick wit—it was no wonder he’d had me at “I want to buy a house.”

  My cheeks warmed as if my brain weren’t totally corrupted by now. I matched his grin. “Then try to keep your cockiness in your pants so I don’t get into any more trouble with my boss. I’d bet my mother’s collection of John Denver records that Jerry’s official rule book doesn’t allow foreplay in Calamity Jane’s parking lot.”

  “Jerry has a rule book?” Doc asked.

  “We’re talking at least another foul. Maybe two.”

  “What do you mean ‘another’ foul?”

  “I already have one for going to jail.”

  Doc scoffed. “He’s giving you fouls now?”

  I nodded. “Life is one big basketball game to Jerry. He used to play for the pros, you know. His nickname was The Slammer.”

  Doc snapped his fingers. “That’s where I know him from.”

  “I got one foul for going to jail. Four more and I’m done. I can’t afford to foul out.”

  He shook his head. “You need a new boss.”

  “Don’t say that too loud. After what happened to my last boss,” poor Jane, “Cooper might hear you and throw you in jail, too.” That reminded me of something I
forgot to ask Doc last night on the phone. “Is Cooper dating Tiffany?’

  He shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  “So Tiffany didn’t mention Cooper the last time you talked to her?” And when exactly was the last time Doc had talked to the hussy? Yesterday in the library?

  Doc chuckled and tugged on one of my loose curls. “Violet, the last time I talked to Tiffany was in front of The Old Prospector Hotel with you standing there next to me. I don’t recall her mentioning Cooper’s name at that time, do you?”

  I frowned, wanting to stuff my insecurities in a box and toss it down one of Homestake’s mine shafts. “Was I that obvious?”

  “Your eyes gave you away.”

  I looked away, trying to hide my peepers from him. “I wish you’d picked an uglier ex-girlfriend,” I grumbled.

  He caught my chin and turned me back toward him, rubbing his thumb along my bottom lip. “I wish I’d met you first and avoided that pothole altogether.”

  “Yeah, but I’m full of potholes.”

  He tipped his head to the side as if considering my words. “You’re not a pothole—more like the Grand Canyon.”

  What did that mean? “That doesn’t seem like a good thing.”

  “You’re looking at it through the wrong lens.”

  What lens should I be using? Probably a wide-angle one after all of those pancakes I gorged on this morning.

  Doc stepped back from my window. “Now are we going to see a ghost or not?”

  “Might as well since we’re not gonna have sex.”

  He laughed aloud. “I’m going to enjoy watching you smolder, Boots.”

  I pointed my thumb toward the passenger side. “Get in before I shut off this damned truck and drag you off behind a tree.”

  I’d planned to drive to the Carhart’s for good reason. If Prudence’s show and tell session today was anything like the one Doc had experienced last time, we’d be returning with him half comatose in the seat next to me.

  Doc zipped around the back of the Picklemobile and climbed in next to me.

  I waited for him to belt himself in before asking, “Is there anything we need to do to prep for this?”