Better Off Dead in Deadwood

by Ann Charles

“Why not?”

  “Someone up there is trying to kill me.”

  He was quiet for a moment then said, “I don’t get the joke.”

  “There is no joke.”

  He shined his phone through the stool legs at my face, as if it were his third eye. “Is there an unhappy ghost up there?” he asked.

  “Probably,” I said, thinking of Helen. “But I’m talking about your girlfriend.”

  “My girl—”

  The metal door I’d entered through crashed open.

  I grabbed Cornelius’s phone to hide the light, my pulse returning to warp speed. She’d found me.

  “Here, kitty, kitty,” Caly called, I could see her flashlight beam swinging around.

  Clack, clack, clack.

  Where I’d turned left along the line of sheets in the darkness, she walked straight, seeming to pass through a wall.

  I made a very quiet “shhh” sound to Cornelius then moved over to the line of sheets, making my way toward the door. If I could just get back upstairs while Caly was down here looking for me, I could run up the street to the police station and get help.

  From my vantage point, I could see glimpses of Caly’s flashlight beam through what looked like a large rectangle cut out of the wall.

  I tiptoed closer to the steel door, listening to the sound of her heels clacking around on the other side of the wall.

  “Come out and play, my little kitten,” she called in a young girl voice, hitting a nine-point-nine on my heebie-jeebie scale.

  I slinked along the sheets. With just two to go to reach the stairs, I heard footfalls coming down the steps.

  Cooper! For once, I felt like hugging him instead of kicking him in the shin.

  “Where is she?” Dominick Masterson said as he stepped through the door holding a lantern-style flashlight.

  The sight of the up-and-coming mayor of Lead shocked me so much that I couldn’t breathe enough to squeak. I sank back behind a sheet, into what looked like a concrete shower stall. His lantern cast soft light through the white sheet, which had a skull and crossbones spray painted on it, along with several bloody handprints and the word Beware.

  Nice. As if I needed a visual reminder of how far up shit creek I was at the moment.

  “She’s down here somewhere,” Caly called out from the other side of the wall. “I can smell her fear.”

  Smell my fear? Who talked like that?

  “Why are you using a light?” Dominick asked her.

  “These contacts you insist I wear interfere with my vision.”

  The light coming through the sheet dimmed as he walked straight past my stall and moved to join Caly.

  I glanced out from behind the sheet. His shoulders filled the rectangle opening. Maybe I could slip out behind him without anyone noticing.

  “We need to find her immediately,” Dominick said, “before we have an even bigger fiasco than the one from your last tantrum.”

  Bigger fiasco? I hesitated, still hiding behind the sheet. Bigger than what?

  “There will be no problem this time. Trust me.” Caly’s cold, hard tone gave me the willies. How could someone so tiny have so much strength? She must be part ant or spider.

  “What do you call what I just found in the elevator?” Dominick asked. “You would have destroyed all I’ve worked to build if anyone else had found it here.”

  “Poor, poor Masterson,” Caly said his name funny, dragging out that last S like a snake hiss. “Shackled by your need to feel civilized.”

  “Do not talk that way to me, fool.”

  “You are the fool. You demand obedience without any reward and then complain when I take what I deserve.” She sighed in an overly dramatic way. “In the old days, you used to let me have more fun.”

  “Times have changed. We need to change as well.”

  Caly scoffed. “They are all beneath us, and you know it. They should be our pets. I’ll start by making this one mine, as soon as I find her.”

  “No.” His tone left no room for discussion.

  “Why not? She’s seen too much, just like the other two.”

  What other two? Helen and … Jane? Had Jane witnessed something after play rehearsals? Had Helen, too? Is that why they were both dead?

  “You should have left Jane for me,” he said.

  For him to kill?

  “And Helen, too,” he added. “I could have changed their minds.”

  “Now there is no need to bother with either. I disposed of both.”

  Caly had killed Jane. Cooper’s case board had had it wrong. So had I.

  “You’re too messy,” Dominick said.

  “Fine. Let me have this pet and I won’t spill a drop.”

  “No.”

  “It’s that or death,” Caly said.

  I carefully pulled the chunk of mirror from my pocket, gripping it in my satin-wrapped palm. I wasn’t going to be anyone’s “pet,” nor was I going down without a fight. God, I wished I had listened to Harvey and brought Bessie along with me tonight.

  “You’ve wreaked havoc in my territory, usurping my authority,” Dominick said, his voice tight with what sounded like anger. “I decide the measures, not you.”

  “Your solution with the first did not go well. Your peers whisper behind your back. They laugh about the blatant rejection from the Duzarx.”

  I’d have to ask Harvey if he knew anyone named Duzarx. If I lived long enough to ask, that was. I stole a look through the gap between the sheet and wall, able to see the black outline of Dominick’s profile, nothing more.

  “You know nothing of my peers,” he said. “You’re a mere beast of burden. A—” he said something that came across as a mixture of a hiss and a growl. The hair on the back of my neck rose at the sound of it.

  A cry of rage came from the other side of the wall. Caly flew at Dominick, her flashlight shoved in his face. “I do not belong to you anymore!”

  “You will always be mine, Calypso.”

  “Do not call me by that name,” she said through gritted teeth.

  “You will heel to me, or you will suffer the consequences.”

  She tsked him. “So trite. Your control is fading. Can you feel it slipping away? Soon, you will belong to me, and I have such special plans for you.”

  What in the hell were they talking about? Something told me this wasn’t some torrid affair gone sour. It had my muscles tense, agitated—ready to pounce.

  Cornelius.

  Crap! I was supposed to be getting some help, not standing here with my ear pressed against the sheet. Easing out from my hiding spot, I inched toward the door. I had just grabbed the door when a clattering sound rang out from down near Cornelius. A muffled thud followed.

  I winced. Oh, no! What part of “shh” didn’t he understand?

  Caly giggled in that creepy, tear-the-legs-off-spiders-for-fun tone. “There’s my little kitten now.”

  I barely made it back into my shower stall before their lights came closer. I cringed back into the corner, afraid she’d see my shoes—or smell me. Her heels clacked as she passed.

  The light grew dimmer. Sticking my head out from behind the sheet, I watched them approach the hole in the wall. I looked to my right. The escape path was wide open, beckoning. It was now or never. I slipped out, tiptoeing toward freedom.

  “Oh, look,” Caly said, her voice full of mirth. “It’s my favorite stick-insect. I think I’ll keep him, too.”

  I stopped, silently cursing at the ceiling. Why couldn’t Cornelius have stayed quiet?

  Screw it! It was his fault I was here. I’d be damned if I were going to get sliced to pieces because he had to have his damned hat. I had two kids depending on me to come home tonight and tuck them into bed. I pushed the door open wide enough to squeeze through.

  “Caly?” I heard Cornelius say as I stuck my foot through the opening. “You’re so pointy tonight. Are those real?”

  I hesitated, straddling the threshold. As much as I wanted to run far and fast, I coul
dn’t leave him. Not after what I’d witnessed happen to Helen. Maybe I could try to stall Caly long enough for Cooper to get here.

  What if Cooper wasn’t coming?

  I squashed that thought and pulled my leg back into the darkness. Instead of returning to my favorite stall, I moved through the dark rectangle cut out of the wall where Dominick had stood moments before.

  It was pitch black inside. I risked lighting Cornelius’s phone screen for a second and got a picture in my mind of where I was standing—inside of the pool. To my left, the ground sloped upward. A 3 Foot sign had been painted on the far wall.

  The pool had been split in half lengthwise by a supporting wall that held up the new metal floor joists for the concrete overhead. Another narrow rectangular doorway led to the other half. I rushed through that doorway and shined my light inside, frowning at what looked like a bunch of bales of straw partially covered by a tarp to my right in the deep end. To my left were more boxes stacked on pallets.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” I heard Cornelius say in a garbled voice. “What is wrong with you? Ouch! Oh, my God! Stop!”

  That was my cue. “Here Caly, Caly!” I called out.

  Silence followed. Then I heard Caly say, “Stay with him.”

  I ducked behind several uncovered bales of straw near the entrance and waited, mirror shard at the ready.

  Clack, clack, clack, clack. She didn’t even try to keep quiet as she stalked.

  I took a deep breath. A calming numbness spread throughout my limbs. Okay, all I had to do was keep hidden a bit longer, give Cooper and his men a little more time to find us. Just one more round of hide and seek.

  I heard Caly step into the first section of the pool and stop, her flashlight beam swinging around. “You want to play, do you?” she said. “That’s good. I like that in a pet.”

  She stepped more slowly now, moving around, and then her clacks drew near. “Where are you hiding, my curly-haired kitten?”

  The room grew brighter around me. I could hear her breathing. I peeked out. She had her back to me, her flashlight on the stack of boxes. Something nudged me forward. Before I realized what I was doing, I stepped up on a bale and lunged at her back.

  She spun while I was mid-air, her lips pulling back in a hiss. I tackled her and we slammed to the floor, her body taking the brunt of my weight. The flashlight spun away. She shoved me off, throwing me into the straw like I was some waif. I popped right back up with the mirror shard in my hand at the ready. She rushed me, her claws slashing. I ducked a little too late, feeling fingernails scratch across my cheek as I spun away.

  “Come here, you bitch,” she said and attacked, catching a handful of my hair and yanking me toward her. Her hand latched onto my throat, lifting me up off my toes. The pain made my eyes water.

  I’d seen this act before and didn’t like the way it ended. I gripped the piece of glass in my hand and swung, burying it in her forearm.

  She screeched and let me drop, clutching her arm, shrieking in pain.

  Surprised at Caly’s reaction, I scrambled to my feet as Dominick dragged Cornelius into the room by the collar.

  How could a piece of glass make her scream when Helen shoving a knife in Caly’s shoulder hadn’t even made her wince?

  Caly held her arm in front of her. Her eyes widened as her wrist turned black, and then her hand and elbow, the blackness spreading outward from the blade. I watched in shock as her fingers shriveled and then turned to ash and swirled away.

  Dominick flung Cornelius aside and grabbed Caly’s bicep above the shard and the blackness, his face wrinkled in concentration, his eyes closed.

  The blackness creeping up Caly’s arm stopped, but her forearm had already turned to ash; the chunk of glass fell to the floor shattering upon impact.

  Caly’s shrieking stopped. In the silence, my gaze lifted to her face. As I stared, her lips pulled back and her face stretched, elongating, her nose sinking inward, her nostrils growing wider. Her forehead pushed out, becoming bulbous, her lower jaw protruding.

  I couldn’t look away; I couldn’t move. I could only watch, my lungs locked in terror.

  She raised her remaining hand and rushed at me, her long teeth snapping.

  I raised my arm to shield myself, but at the last second something jerked Caly back, as if she’d reached the end of her chain.

  Dominick held her by the back of the neck like a kitten. Then he lifted her off the floor, as she had done with Helen. She thrashed and hissed, clawing the air, squealing. One of her spiked heels almost slashed my shoulder in the bedlam.

  “Be still,” Dominick ordered, but Caly only thrashed harder, growing more feral, like a wild cat. “Be still or I will send you back.”

  Caly stopped suddenly. Then she looked over her shoulder at her captor. “To hell with you,” she said and brought her heel around, catching Dominick in the stomach.

  He dropped her, but she scarcely hit the ground. With a hiss, she flew from the room, the steel door crashing in her wake.

  In the silence, I looked over to where Cornelius lay on the ground, his eyes wide, his jaw dangling. His gaze connected with mine. “Well,” he said, “that was a bit alarming.”

  Dominick’s hand locked onto my arm, his touch so hot it practically burned my skin. My stomach roiled instantly, convulsing. I struggled as he tugged me toward him.

  “Hold still, Violet,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  I didn’t believe him, but his grip wasn’t allowing me to go anywhere so I obeyed, fighting a bout of nausea that made my knees want to buckle.

  He took my satin-covered hand and unwrapped it. He gouged the center of my palm with his thumbnail, slicing my skin.

  “Ow!” I yanked my arm, but he held me tight, staring down at my palm and then sniffed it.

  When he looked up, his eyes were all black, no white showing at all.

  I gasped.

  In a blink, his eyes returned to normal. He let my hand drop, his expression grim. “Now it’s in your hands.”

  What was in my hand? What had he done to me?

  Before I could ask, the sound of a single gunshot echoed down the stairwell.

  Dominick glanced in the direction of the stairs, then took off in a blur toward the shallow end of the pool. There was a loud BOOM, then the crash of stone on stone. When the dust cleared, a gaping hole in the concrete marked his exit.

  I gaped, pointing at the hole Dominick had made. “He just busted through that concrete wall like it was made of graham crackers.”

  “Yeah,” Cornelius stood. He brushed off his pants, moving over next to me. “I hadn’t thought to try that escape route.”

  Flashlights hit us, blinding me.

  “Here we are again, Parker,” Detective Cooper said from the other side of the light. “I have another dead body, multiple incidences of property damage, and what appears to be a hole from a bomb blast in the side of a goddamned historic building. I can’t wait to hear your explanation for this mess.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I’d run clean out of logical explanations. All that remained were bizarre descriptions that sounded wacky to my own ears, and Cooper was having none of it. No surprise there.

  “You expect me to believe any of that?” the detective asked, glaring at me, his hands on his hips.

  I sat on the edge of the theatre stage in the opera house, lights glaring down from over my head. Cooper had moved me and Cornelius into the theatre for questioning, getting us out of the way of his investigation team.

  “Knowing you,” I said to Cooper, “not at all, except for the part about my having to pee. But I’m telling you the truth.” Well, I’d left out a few details about Caly and Dominick that were too messed-up sounding to say aloud. “That’s what happened.”

  Cooper threw up his arms, obviously frustrated, and walked away, trailing a string of muttered curses. He crossed over the boarded up musician’s pit to where Cornelius sat in the third row of theatre seats, one of his
arms wrapped in a bandage. He was talking to a female zombie, who turned out to be an undercover police officer. Where had she been when Helen needed help? Not in the first floor bathroom, that much was sure.

  I looked over at Doc, who leaned back against the stage to my right, not touching me but never leaving my side. He’d been right behind Cooper when they’d found us in the pool. But after a couple of sniffs, he’d paled and held onto the wall marked DEEP for support while taking several deep breaths, which I’d found ironic and begun to giggle—hysterically, with tears running down my cheeks. After Cooper hauled me over to join Doc against the wall and ordered me to take several deep breaths of my own, I calmed down and got control of myself.

  Claiming he’d been fighting a bout of the flu lately, Doc had then disappeared up the stairs to wait in the props room for us. My guess was his flu symptoms were caused by Cornelius’s ghost-boy, who must have been hanging out with us enjoying all of the good times and excitement.

  As for my giggling fit, that was a no brainer. I could still feel the manic tremors in the back of my throat, just waiting for me to open the flood gates again.

  “I’m trying to be honest with Cooper,” I told Doc. “But he’s not the most receptive person when it comes to this kind of stuff.”

  His gaze remained fixed on Cooper, who was now talking to the female officer. “You left out a few bits,” Doc said, not really accusing me, more like stating facts.

  Doc could read me too well. Unfortunately, when it came to reading him, I’d have more luck deciphering hieroglyphs. I had yet to figure out whether his reason for our lack of physical contact since he’d joined Cooper, Cornelius, and me down in the pool had to do with Cooper and his team milling around, the fight we’d had, or something else.

  “I skipped only the parts I don’t understand,” I said, waggling my fingers at Cooper when he squinted in my direction.

  Doc didn’t say anything for a handful of seconds. “Are you okay?” he asked, still not looking at me, not touching.

  I rubbed my arms, missing his warmth. “I think so. I could use a drink, though.” And something to eat. After all of the blood and violence I’d witnessed tonight, I suddenly had a craving for a thick, juicy burger. How deranged was that? There was probably a psychological label for wanting to eat meat after spending time in an elevator with a dead woman dressed as a zombie bride.