Optical Delusions in Deadwood

by Ann Charles

“Not yet.”

  “If one comes in any time soon, you’ll let me know?”

  “I can.”

  “Excellent.” He stepped back. “I’ll be in touch soon.”

  I whistled all of the way back to work and practically skipped back into the air-conditioned office. Mona was there when I arrived, the phone to her ear, her fingernails clacking, her jasmine perfume a fresh change from stale cigarette smoke.

  I bounced into my chair, humming happy tunes under my breath. Things were finally looking up, in spite of the nightmares from which only lots of tequila seemed to help me escape. Therapy or alcohol—it was nice to have options.

  By the time Mona hung up, I was busy filing my nails while surfing the Internet for information about Douglas Mann.

  “Having a good day, are we?” Mona asked.

  “Extremely.” It was amazing what great sex and a potential buyer could do for one’s attitude.

  “You’ll be happy to see this, then.” Mona walked over and placed a sticky note on my desk.

  I read it, picked it up, and read it again. “You’re kidding me.” Zeke and Zelda wanted to make an offer on the Carhart place. Where was my wallet? I needed to buy a lotto ticket.

  “I wonder what prompted this.” Last I knew, Zelda had wanted more proof the place was haunted.

  “Call and see.”

  So I did, but I got Zelda’s voicemail. I left a message asking her to give me a call when she had a chance.

  “How did lunch with Douglas go?” Mona asked after I hung up. She must have read the question on my face. “Ray told me Douglas called, and I put two and two together. Did he hit on you?”

  “Not at all.”

  “You’re kidding. He hits on everyone.”

  Everyone? Really? This factoid and Mona’s wide-eyed surprise were doing wonders for my ego. I tucked away another fugitive curl and cleared my throat. “Everyone but me, it appears.”

  “What did he want?”

  “He’s interested in the Carhart place.”

  “What are the chances? Two fish at once. Good for you.”

  “After I get the offer from Zeke and Zelda all written up, I’ll need to let Douglas know about it, I guess.” Although I didn’t really want to. For one thing, I liked Zelda and Zeke and the idea of having them in town. For another, I was beginning not to like Douglas Mann very much. What was it that he didn’t like about me? Was it the curly hair?

  “He may want to make an offer, too.” Mona interrupted my fifth-grade pity party. “Step carefully there. You signed a DLA agreement, right?”

  “Yeah, but I need to freshen up on the details on representing two potential buyers for the same property, make sure I don’t break any laws.”

  I was doing that very thing an hour later when Ray came strutting in through the back door, his too-tanned face sporting a big, shit-eating grin, his beady eyes locked on me.

  “Hey, Slut,” he said.

  “Ray!” Mona chided.

  I sat there sucker-punched, my mouth agape.

  He guffawed—I wanted to cram my phone down his throat when that sound came from it—and said, “Who’d you piss off now, Blondie?”

  I recovered from my moment of surprise. “Go blow a monkey, you jackass.” I turned my back to him before I could follow my gut instinct and launch at his face, claws extended.

  “Don’t shoot the messenger.” His keys rattled as they hit his desk. “I’m only repeating what someone scratched on the side of your Bronco.”

  “On my what?” I jumped up and ran out the back door, dodging rumbling motorcycles and leather-clad tourists as I zig-zagged between parked vehicles. I skidded to a halt next to my driver’s-side door. “Fuck me!”

  There, in big carved letters, was the word SLUT in all caps. An exclamation mark added a final touch. I ran my fingers over the paint. There’d be no buffing this shit out.

  “Who would do this?” Mona had joined me.

  “I don’t—” Natalie! Oh, mother humper! Had Nat found out about Doc and me somehow? Had someone seen us? Had Doc told her because he knew I wouldn’t?

  “Will your insurance cover this?” Mona apparently hadn’t noticed that my breathing had stopped there for a panic-filled moment.

  “No. I only have liability insurance.”

  Mona hugged my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Vi. Maybe Jane has one of those Calamity Jane Realty magnet signs in the storeroom that will cover this. Let’s go take a look.”

  We searched, but Jane didn’t have an extra sign. Mona drove home to look in her garage, thinking she might have one from years ago, back when Jane insisted they all use one when they drove customers around.

  Meanwhile, I called Natalie, a boulder in my gut as her cell phone rang and rang. I left a message, just a casual, “Hi, how are you doing today?” I hung up and sent a text that said the same thing.

  Back at my desk, Ray gloated at me while he chatted with Ben, his nephew—and my blind date—on the phone. I barely heard him, though; my focus was everywhere but work. My shoulders scrunched tighter and tighter at the idea that my best friend had somehow uncovered my guilty secret.

  Around quitting time, Mona returned with a car magnet in hand. Thank, God. I packed up my stuff, grabbed my purse and the magnet, and headed out to band-aid my Bronco. Then I’d scurry home to wait for Natalie’s phone call ... or visit, depending on what she knew and how she felt about what she knew.

  I squatted next to my door, nauseated about my best friend. The sun baked my shoulders and crown as I lined up the magnet.

  A shadow fell over me. “I have something for you,” a familiar deep voice said.

  I glanced over my shoulder and did a double-take at the sight of Doc in dark green Dockers and a white button-up shirt with his sleeves rolled up to his forearms. His tie was loose around his collar, his hair finger-messed. A calm settled over me, quelling my anxiety. “You look good.” I left out the finger-licking part.

  “Keep staring at me like that, Boots, and we’ll have to find a back road.”

  My body flushed at the heat in his eyes. “Are you meeting a client?” As in Tiffany, Natalie, or some other woman I should get stapler-throwing jealous over?

  “Already met. What’s going on?”

  I was going to hide the truth from him, but I changed my mind. “See for yourself.” I peeled off the magnet.

  He stared at my door for two breaths. “You have a new enemy. Great. This will help me sleep better at night.” His fingers messed up his hair even more. “Any idea who thinks so highly of you?”

  “No. But I’m worried sick it’s Nat. Did you tell her anything?”

  “I haven’t seen or heard from her all day.”

  “Someone must have seen us last night.”

  “Not in the back room.”

  “I mean at my desk.”

  “I was too distracted to notice.” His gaze dipped down to my chest for a moment, his grin appearing. “Did I mention that I really liked that black dress you had on?”

  “You hinted at it.”

  I started to stick the magnet back on, but he grabbed my arm. “Wait. Let me see that exclamation mark again.”

  He squatted next to me and pointed at the dot on the bottom of the exclamation mark. “Did you notice the symbol here?”

  “No.” I leaned closer, wiping the dust off. “I was kind of stuck on the actual word carved into my paint.”

  Doc sat back on his heels, a frown lining his forehead. “That resembles something I saw in a book recently.”

  “What book?”

  “The one I used to figure out the title of that other book you found in the Carhart house.”

  Lila’s book? “What’s the title?”

  “It’s the name of a particular demonology cult that thrived in the middle of the twelfth century.” He stood up.

  I followed his lead. “No way.”

  “Was there a publishing date in this book you found?”

  “It looked hand-written, with a homemade
binding.” I didn’t think Lila had found it on the shelf at Wally World.

  “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  “You think Lila belongs to some cult?” I asked.

  “It’s possible. She or Junior Carhart. Or both.”

  “Maybe he killed his father because of it?”

  “Maybe.” Doc said.

  “I need to get hold of that book somehow—”

  Doc’s jaw clenched. “Violet.”

  “—and figure out what Lila’s up to before she hurts Wanda and Mi—.”

  “Violet!” Doc grabbed my shoulders, his grip strong. “Stop and think about this. If that is Lila’s book, and I’m right about this being a symbol on your door, you’ve been marked.”

  “Marked for what, though?” And by whom? Lila? Why would she carve “slut” on my Bronco? It made no sense. Unlike my Natalie suspicions ... and guilt.

  “I don’t know. I need to see what’s in that book. At the least, more harassment.”

  “And, at the most?”

  “Well, I doubt the sacrifice will involve Addy’s chicken.”

  I looked up into his dark eyes and gulped. “When you say it like that, you really make me hope it is just Nat pissed at me for breaking her heart.”

  “That makes two of us.” He slid his hands down my arms, catching my hands, pulling me closer. The aroma of his cologne, mixed with the concern crinkling his face, made me swoon for a moment. Then I remembered where we were. “Doc,” my eyes darted around, on the lookout, noticing passers-by glancing our way. “We’re in public.”

  “So?” He kept pulling.

  I tugged on my hands. “We can’t do this here. It’s too risky.”

  “Damn, Boots. That just makes me want to do it more.” But he let go of me with a groan.

  I clasped my hands to keep them from touching him. “Can I have a rain check?”

  “That depends.”

  “On what?

  He leaned against the Bronco and crossed his arms, looking underwear-commercial hot. Maybe we should find a back road. “Your lunch today with the town womanizer. What happened?”

  My mouth fell open. “How did you know about that?” Then I remembered my bodyguard. “Harvey called you, didn’t he?”

  Doc just chuckled. “So, did this Mann guy try to get into your dress?” His eyes roved down the front of my body and back up again. “Or get you out of it?”

  “Neither. He was a perfect gentleman.”

  A smirk curved his mouth. “All the more reason not to trust him.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Really? Let’s see. Did he compliment you?”

  Douglas’ comment about my hair didn’t fit the compliment bill. “No.”

  “Did he ogle your chest or ass?”

  Only my necklace. “Not that I noticed. I’m telling you, Douglas isn’t interested in me at all, except as a Realtor.”

  Doc’s eyes narrowed. “A well-known womanizer takes you out to lunch while you’re wearing that hot little number and doesn’t try to hit on you once. Doesn’t that make you suspicious?”

  It made me feel like the hunchback of Notre Dame, but I didn’t want to tell Doc that and sound shallow and insecure. “I think folks around here have him pegged wrong.”

  “I think he’s manipulating you.”

  “Why? What’s in it for him?”

  “I haven’t figured it out yet, but give me time.”

  I smiled and leaned closer, pretending to remove a piece of lint from his shirt. “So, you think this dress is hot, huh?”

  “I think you’re hot. The dress just looks like it’d be fun to peel off you.” Doc jammed his hands in his pockets. “So what did Mann want, then?”

  “He’s interested in the Carhart house.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No. He knows I’m representing them. He mentioned doing a walkthrough sometime soon. But I don’t think that matters now.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because some of my other clients are going to put an offer on it.”

  “The ghost lovers?”

  “That’s them.”

  “I thought they wanted more proof first.”

  “They did, but they changed their minds. I guess you can hold off on looking up more information about that list I gave you with all the previous owners’ names.”

  One of Doc’s eyebrows arched. “What’s so great about this house?”

  “It’s a beautiful house.”

  “There has to be more to it than that. These people do know a murder-suicide took place there, right?”

  “I’ve made a full disclosure.”

  “I want to see it.”

  “The disclosure?”

  “No, the house.”

  I cocked my head. “You mean from the outside? Like drive by it?”

  “I mean I want to walk through it.”

  I quelled the urge to jump up and down with glee. “Why?”

  “Curiosity.”

  “To check for ghosts?” I prodded.

  He leveled a stare at me. “I thought you didn’t believe in them.”

  “I believe in you.” That popped right out of my mouth, surprising me by how much I meant it.

  Doc lips curved into a grin. “Good.” He reached out and tugged on a loose curl. “If I do this walk through, will you promise to keep your nose out of Lila’s business? Stay out of trouble?”

  I crossed my fingers behind my back. “Sure.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Wednesday, August 8th

  The next morning, I was pondering my own chicken sacrifice due to new peck marks on my favorite leather sandals when I shoved open Aunt Zoe’s screen door and found my Bronco listing to the side like a drunken sailor.

  “Oh, no!” My blueberry Pop-Tart lodged in my gullet. I raced down the porch steps and rounded the front of the Bronco. The sight of two flat tires on the passenger side made me want to strangle a teddy bear. “Oh, come on!” I yelled, startling a pair of crows out of the pine tree overhead, and threw my purse at the back flat.

  The tires must have gotten punctured when I took that shortcut through the glass-littered alley behind the Piggly Wiggly to avoid the motorcycle-filled streets.

  Perfect. Just freaking perfect. I had one spare, and that wasn’t going to do me a lick of good at the moment. Of all mornings, it had to be one when I had an appointment first thing with Zeke and Zelda to sign an offer.

  I kicked the front tire, cursing in the clear, pine-scented air until my tongue turned blue.

  “Kiss your mama with that mouth, girl?” Harvey asked, crossing the street toward me. I’d been too busy ranting to hear Ms. Geary’s screen door slam. At least he was wearing pants today, thank God.

  I glared at him just because he was there and breathing and smelled like bacon. “I need a ride again.”

  He snorted at me. “Withdraw your teeth from my ass first.”

  “Sorry.” My shoulders sagged under the warm sunshine. “I’m just pissed.”

  “What happened to your tires?”

  “I ran over some glass.”

  He leaned down and prodded the sidewall on the front flat. “No, you ran into some trouble.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This tire’s been slashed.”

  “It has?”

  He bent over the back tire. “This one, too.”

  “Shit.” Chills chased away my frustration. Being late for my appointment no longer seemed so important.

  “Girl, do you go lookin’ for enemies? Or do you just come by them naturally?”

  “Are you sure they’re slashed?

  “Well, nobody left a note behind spellin’ it out, but these here are sure-fire slices, and you don’t get them from rollin’ over broken glass. Whose tail did you step on now?”

  Natalie’s? No, she wouldn’t do this to me. Or would she? I’d seen her bash out a windshield with a tire iron once, but that was back when we were in our early twenties
and the scene involved a cheating boyfriend, which I wasn’t.

  But I was her cheating best friend. I cringed.

  Harvey watched me, all squinty eyed. “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Who?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Cough it up, if you want a ride to work.”

  “I don’t know who did it ... yet.” That was the truth. I still hadn’t fully written off Lila, but surely me touching her creepy book wouldn’t spur this retaliation. Natalie hadn’t returned my call from yesterday yet either, so nothing was definite there. But things weren’t looking good, and neither was I after spinning in my sheets all night long over the whole mess. Nothing was taking the red out of my eyes this morning. Certainly not two flat tires.

  Harvey picked up my purse, dusted it off, and grabbed me by the elbow. “Come on. Let’s get you to work.”

  The ride down the hill passed in a blur. Before I knew it, Harvey was idling next to Calamity Jane’s back door and asking for my keys. When I just blinked at him for several clock ticks, he poked me hard in the thigh.

  “Ow!” Jerking away from him, I rubbed my leg. “What are you doing?”

  “Draggin’ your ass back to Earth. Give me your keys.”

  “What for?”

  “I’m going to fix your tires.”

  “You don’t have to do that, Harvey.”

  “I know. Now give me your damned keys, woman.”

  I dropped them in his open palm, hesitating with my hand on the door handle. For such an ornery cuss, he sure could be loveable. Should I hug him?

  His gold teeth shone through his whiskers. “I’ll take a pot roast with all the fixin’s and homemade strawberry pie. Now get your bony ass to work.”

  “But I don’t bake,” I said as I hopped out.

  “Not my problem.”

  His cloud of exhaust chased me inside. I stopped by the bathroom to wash my hands and squeeze a few drops of Visine into my red eyes before heading to my desk.

  Mona had the phone to her ear when I strode past her.

  “Okay, will do.” She hung up and looked over at me. “Morning, Vi. Zelda Britton called earlier. So did Jeff Wymonds. I left their numbers on your desk.”

  “Thanks.” I picked up the message with Zelda’s phone number, my gut tightening as I lifted the receiver to call her. The way today was already shaping up, she’d probably changed her mind about the offer. “Sorry I’m late.”