by Ann Charles
Ronnie joined her, looking warm and comfy in her jeans and black cable-knit sweater. “You look good in that outfit.” She brushed something off Claire’s shoulder.
“The skirt is too long. I had to roll it up at the waist.”
Claire should have stuck with jeans and a sweatshirt instead of trying to dress to impress Mac. After he’d risked his life up in that mine for her, she was out to thank him via seduction—actions speaking louder than words and all that jazz. The outfit had seemed to catch his eye initially, but judging from the frowns he kept shooting her way when he thought she wasn’t paying attention, she was stumbling now that she was out of the gate.
She grabbed a bottle of Corona from the beer-filled tub in the corner of The Shaft’s patio.
“We need to talk,” Ronnie said, moving closer.
“If this is about Mom’s current semi-drunken state, my vote is to pour her another cognac and look the other way. She’s less critical when she’s soused.”
“Are you crazy? Butch just pulled her down off the table again while you were in the bathroom. Her latest attempt at dancing the Charleston up there could’ve ended with her in the ER.” Ronnie dragged her gaze from their mother, who was now sitting in Manny’s lap while laughing at something Chester was describing with numerous bawdy hand gestures. “She’s going to have one hell of a hangover in the morning.”
“I don’t ever remember her letting go and getting sloshed with Dad, do you?” Manny seemed to have brought out the rowdy side in their mother.
“No,” Ronnie said. “But enough about Mom; I need to talk to you about Dory Hamilton.”
“Dory who?”
“Hamilton. He works for Tucson Electric Power. He drives a white Chevy pickup around Yuccaville and Jackrabbit Junction checking meters. Does that ring a bell?”
Claire took another drink of Corona, swishing it around in her mouth as she tried to remember where she’d heard that name before. Was it someone who’d come to the campground? One of Ruby’s friends? Someone Mac knew?
Her gaze found Mac again; he was chuckling at something Butch was telling him, the shadows emphasizing the angles on his face. Dory had something to do with Mac, she was pretty sure of it.
Then it hit her. Sophy Wheeler’s house. Mac had been with her. They’d been snooping through Sophy’s place while she had been working down at her diner, the one that was now closed since she was spending her days and nights in the slammer. A Tucson Electric Power pickup had pulled into the drive that day while Claire and Mac had been back in a bedroom filled with stolen antiques. The Tucson Electric Power guy had knocked on Sophy’s door, almost making Claire wet her pants. Then he’d left and they’d gotten the hell out of there, but not before finding incriminating evidence against Joe’s ex-wife that had made Claire certain she was up to more than just no good.
The guy in the white pickup must have been Dory.
“Sure, I think I know who he is,” Claire told Ronnie, watching Jessica flip burgers under Butch’s watchful eye. “Why do you ask?”
“He’s the one who called the R.V. park the other day and left that cryptic message.”
That snagged Claire’s full attention. “Why would this Dory Hamilton call and say some guy is coming for us?”
“You tell me.”
“How should I know?”
“No, I mean you tell me after you find him and ask him.”
“Why me?”
“Because if this is related to the Polar Bear, Dory won’t try to kidnap or kill you.”
“And he might you?”
“Well, that’s what I’m afraid of.”
“How did you figure out it was Dory?”
“Chester and I paid a visit to Dirty Gerties this morning.”
“Are you bikini wrestling part-time now for extra cash?”
Ronnie’s gaze narrowed.
“I thought I noticed mud under your fingernails earlier.”
Ronnie knuckle punched her.
“Ow! I told you to stop using your bony-ass knuckles on me, or I’m gonna wallop you upside the noggin.”
“Chester knows the owner of the place. She told us Dory had been there yesterday morning and she’s pretty sure he was talking on the payphone. Cherry didn’t hear exactly what Dory said, but the timing is right.”
“Cherry?”
“She’s the owner.”
“A strip club with an owner named Cherry? No way is that her real name.”
“Well, I didn’t check her license, but she seemed really nice and was happy to help.” Ronnie wrinkled her nose. “Especially after she found out who our grandfather is.”
“She knows Gramps?”
“He used to have a loyalty punch card there.”
Claire made a gurgling gag noise. “I didn’t need to know that about our grandfather.”
“Neither did I, but you and I are in this together. We have to share and share alike.”
“So we figure out where Dory Hamilton lives and pay him a visit tomorrow?”
“I thought maybe you could take Katie with you to question him.”
“What happened to share and share alike?”
“You two have always played good-cop bad-cop better without me there.”
She was right. Ronnie’s acting sucked. “You’re just a chicken shit.”
“Am not.”
“Are too. You’re afraid you’ll wind up in jail with us.”
“And why will the Morgan sisters be gracing my holding cell this time?” Sheriff Harrison’s deep voice made both her and Ronnie whirl around.
Grady was out of uniform. Dressed in a cream-colored shirt unbuttoned at the neck, dark blue jeans, and black cowboy boots, he looked fresh off the rack and ready to break some hearts.
One look at Ronnie’s flushed-faced, slack-jawed expression told Claire exactly whose heart was on the way to the chopping block.
“Will it be more of the usual shenanigans?” he pressed, his attention focused on Ronnie with only a sparing glance in Claire’s direction. “Or are you three clowns going to try a new circus act with dare devils, flaming hoops, and freak shows?”
“I actually prefer the act where a bear rides on a teeny tiny tricycle,” Claire told him. “How about you, Ronnie?”
“My favorite is when monkeys dress up like rootin’ tootin’ cowboys and ride horses around the circle.”
Claire laughed. “Cowboy monkeys? I’d love to see that.”
“The ones I saw even had toy pistols.” Ronnie eyed Grady up and down. “They were quite adorable but not nearly as cute as Sheriff Hardass when he’s all duded up in his cowboy hat, gun belt, and shiny star.”
Grady’s lips twitched. “You two are already on a roll tonight, I see.” He held an envelope out to Ronnie. “This is for you.”
She reached for it, but he pulled it back out of reach. “But first you need to explain why my Aunt Millie is having me play delivery boy.”
“That’s from your Aunt Millie?” Ronnie stared at the envelope as if weighing the chances of it biting her fingers if she reached for it again.
“She sealed it shut and made me cross my heart that I wouldn’t open it before I gave it to you.”
Ronnie laughed.
Grady didn’t. “I’m serious. Make sure you tell her it was sealed when I handed it over so that she doesn’t have Greta put some old German gypsy curse on me again.”
“Again?” Claire asked.
He shook his head at her. “You don’t want to know. Just trust me when I tell you not to cross that crazy Hutzel.” He turned back to Ronnie, holding up the envelope between them. “Why is Aunt Millie sending you letters now?”
Ronnie’s gaze met Claire’s for several beats, making Claire wonder if Ronnie had been blabbing her mouth about one of their so-called secrets to a particular sheriff’s aunt, damn it.
“Well,” Ronnie licked her lips. Claire could practically see the gears turning behind her sister’s eyes. “Not that it’s any of your business, She
riff, but since I don’t have an email address or cellphone, it’s one of the ways we communicate. I’m old fashioned that way.”
The lines fanning from the corners of his eyes said plenty regarding his feelings about the level of bullshit in Ronnie’s reply, but he handed her the envelope anyway.
Ronnie quickly folded it and stuffed it in her back pocket.
“Aren’t you going to open it?” he asked.
“I’ll save it for later.”
“Why?”
Her sister’s gaze darted to Claire’s, which unfortunately made Grady’s frown include her in its scope. “Because I want to focus on the task at hand,” Ronnie told him.
“Which is what?”
“Getting you to kiss me.”
Claire glanced away, grinning. Smart girl, distracting the Sheriff with her body yet again.
“In front of your sister?”
“Claire doesn’t care.”
“She’s right. I don’t care.” Out of the corner of her eye, Claire saw Ronnie catch his hand and pull him toward her.
“She knows what’s going on,” Ronnie added.
“She does?”
“I do,” Claire confirmed, focusing on Mac to give them a little privacy. He was staring out at the desert again, a frown lining his brow. She knew very well what was going on with Ronnie and Grady, but she worried her thumb over the lip of her beer bottle and wondered what was going on with Mac and that promotion.
“But Mom doesn’t know.” Ronnie said. “So unless you want her to find out, you’d better hurry up and kiss me. She stumbled off to the ladies room when you walked up.”
“But what about—” Grady started.
“Oh, for crissake!” Claire growled, glaring over at them. “Would you two hurry up and kiss so that I can ask him about Dory?”
They obliged a little too noisily. Claire made a face and went to get another beer while they had at it. A few lusty sighs from Ronnie later, Claire had stood all that she could of their public display of affection. She cleared her throat. When that didn’t separate them from their lip-lock, she poked Ronnie in the ribs. Twice. “Jeez, break it up already. This isn’t a breath freshener commercial.”
“Ouch. Damn it, Claire.” She backed out of Grady’s arms and tried to knuckle punch her again, but Claire dodged and weaved away.
Grady shook his head as if to clear away the spider webs Ronnie apparently had woven during their reenactment of a nickel peep show.
Claire gave him a moment to collect himself before asking, “Do you know Dory Hamilton? He works for Tucson Electric Power.”
The Sheriff dragged his gaze from Ronnie, who was busy dabbing her lips with some gloss she’d borrowed from Jess. “Sure. Why?”
“Any reason you can think of for why he’d want to prank call Ruby’s place and try to scare your girlfriend?”
“I’m not his girlfriend,” Ronnie clarified, capping the lip gloss. “At least not as far as the rest of the world knows.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot that you two have this deranged, half-baked non-relationship going that includes criminal acts, jail threats, and sex with bondage.”
Grady turned on Ronnie. “You told Claire about that?”
“No, Katie did.”
“Christ! Don’t you three know how to keep secrets?”
“Oh, we know all about keeping secrets, Sheriff Hardass,” Ronnie snapped back.
Resisting the urge to knock her sister upside the head for admitting that to the freaking Sheriff, Claire tried to cover Ronnie’s faux pas with, “Nothing you or your deputies would find interesting, though.”
“I’m sure you’d spike the lie detector needle with that one.” He crossed his arms over his chest, looking very cop like in spite of the missing badge and gun. “What did Dory say when he called?”
“He’s coming for you,” Ronnie told him.
“How do you know it was Dory? Did he tell you his name?”
“Of course not. It was a prank call.” Ronnie grabbed two beers from the cooler. “Claire did one of those call back tricks and it rang on a payphone at Dirty Gerties.” She held out a beer to Grady. “Chester and I talked to the owner this morning, and she told us Dory had been there yesterday morning at the same time we received the phone call.”
“Cherry Hayworth was certain about the time of day when Dory was there?”
“How do you know Cherry?” Ronnie asked, her eyes shrinking to suspicious slits.
“We go way back.”
“Way back to sex?”
“Ronnie!” Claire shot her sister a keep-it-together look before appealing to the Sheriff, “I move to strike that question from the record.” Claire had little doubt that Grady knew everyone in the red light district by their first names since he was in charge of patrolling it.
After taking a deep breath, Ronnie continued. “Cherry was positive. She said she heard him talking but thought nothing of it at the time. Does Dory have any history of harassment or assault or stalking?”
He drank on that, watching Ronnie as he swallowed. “I’m pretty sure his record is clean—in Cholla County anyway.”
Shit-sticks. Claire scratched at her neck, grimacing up at the stars. Dory’s clean record didn’t help their case, and now she’d gone and alerted Grady so that if anything happened to Dory “by accident” while she was questioning him—anything like a bent-backwards pinkie finger or lightly blackened eye—she’d be at the top of the Sheriff’s list of suspects.
“I guess that means we’re back to square one,” Claire said.
“Which is where you two need to stay,” he warned. “Let me talk to Dory next week and see what I can find out.”
Claire nodded, agreeing to let Grady think she was going to do nothing about Dory. What the Sheriff didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
“I could ask Mississippi if the FBI has anything on Dory in their files,” said Ronnie.
That earned her two glares—one from Claire, who was not thrilled to have the FBI nosing around in her business, and another from Grady.
The Sheriff spoke his objection first. “Keep the FBI out of this. They’ll only make things worse.”
“I don’t want the Feds coming around the R.V. park,” Claire added. They’d see some of the illegal treasures down in Joe’s office and start sniffing around Ruby, too.
“You’re both paranoid. Mississippi isn’t your usual FBI asshole.”
“If you believe that, sister dear, you’ve been drinking the FBI Kool-Aid. Let’s ask Kate what she thinks of your FBI pal.” Claire would bet that the mention of those three letters would turn Kate into a rabies-infected version of Mr. Hyde.
“Where is your pool-playing buddy anyway?” Grady asked, scanning the patio like he was checking for roaches.
“I don’t know,” Ronnie told him. “I’m not his babysitter.”
“Could’ve fooled me.” His voice was cool, but his gaze was anything but when it returned to Ronnie.
“What’s that supposed to mean, Sheriff Hardass?” she challenged.
Oh God, Claire shook her head in disgust. Here they went again.
“It’s pretty clear. You’ve been spending a lot of time with the FBI these days.”
Chin raised, eyes flashing, Ronnie got in his face. “Are you in charge of my calendar now?”
His only response was clenching his jaw.
Stepping back, Claire gave her sister plenty of room in case she started swinging.
Ronnie went up on her toes. Gripping the front of Grady’s shirt, she pulled him down to her nose level. “Because if you are I’d like you to replace the scheduled flyovers by the Sheriff of Cholla County with actual touch downs, maybe even an overnight layover now and then.”
“Oh, man.” Claire groaned. “Come on! You two have an audience here.” She turned her back on them. “I can’t watch.”
“Overnight layover, huh?” she heard Grady ask.
“Give me a few hours for once, Sheriff, and I’ll make it worth you
r time.”
“That’s it.” Claire was not sticking around to hear any more. Across the patio, Mac now lounged in a chair between Jessica and Chester, both of whom were chowing down on burgers. She needed a solid dose of level-headed normalcy, something Mac offered in spades. “I’m outta here.”
Her ears would bleed if she had to listen to Ronnie make those lovey-dovey sigh sounds again. They sounded too much like what she’d heard coming from their mother recently whenever Manny got handsy, which seemed to happen more often than not when the two lovebirds were screwing around in the kitchen while Claire was working on the rec room. She’d been tempted more than once to hit herself in the head with her hammer … on purpose this time.
She was halfway across the patio when Kate rushed out The Shaft’s patio doors carrying two glasses of amber colored liquid. She made a beeline for Claire, intercepting her course to Mac’s side.
In the glimmering light from the tiki torches and string of lights draped around the edge of the patio, Kate’s face looked less worn, the shadows under her eyes not so heavy. But her hair bun sat crooked on her head, and two of her fingers had been bandaged together since Claire had seen her only thirty minutes ago.
“Claire,” Kate shoved the two drinks at her. “Take these to Mom and Manny for me.”
“Damn it,” Claire held the glasses away from her, frowning down at the splashes of what smelled like cognac now on Ronnie’s jean jacket. “Ronnie is going to cream you for that.”
“She’s got bigger problems than stained clothes.”
Claire’s frown lifted. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Chester told me about the prank phone call.” Kate leaned forward, her eyes wide and darting. “I bet the Polar Bear hired Dory to get Ronnie all flustered. He’s trying to flush her out of her hiding spot.”
“She hasn’t really been hiding.”
Kate chewed on her lower lip. “He probably likes his victims to run.” She nodded, agreeing with herself. “The thrill of the hunt, you know.”
“You’re insane.” Claire didn’t mince words.
“Big predators are into hunting down their prey.”
“Seriously, Kate.” Claire set the drinks down on a nearby table. “You need to stop this erratic behavior before the Sheriff or Deputy Dipshit locks you up until that baby comes out.”
