by Ann Charles
Natalie’s teeth glowed along with her boney lips. “No problem, Thing and I will sit here and have a drink while we wait.” She stole one of Claire’s empty Corona bottles and wrapped the fake fingers around it, then clinked the neck of her bottle against it. “Come here often, stud?”
Before Doc led me to the dance floor, I introduced him to Claire and Katie. He charmed them each with some Gomez wit, his accent spot on, and then led me out to the dance floor.
“You’ve been practicing your lines.”
“Nah. I’ve been a fan of the show since I was a kid.” He’d barely pulled me into his arms before his lips were on mine, the moustache tickling my upper lip as his hands fanned down my sides. “I had a monster crush on Carolyn Jones.”
“So you like my costume then?”
He looked down at me, his eyes full of wicked intent. “I’m going to rip it off of you later.”
A quiver of excitement rippled through me, its epicenter south of my bellybutton. “Good answer.” I dragged his mouth down to mine again so I could show him how much I’d missed him lately.
His muscles strained beneath the pin-striped suit by the time I’d finished, his groan when I pulled back sounded raw, guttural. “Christ, Boots. You taste like tequila and sex all wrapped up in a tight package.”
“And that’s just my mouth.”
“Minx.” Doc ran his hands over my ribcage, his thumbs tantalizingly close to where I wanted them to be. “Natalie is waving us over.”
“She has rotten timing.” I pressed into him, moving my hips with purpose.
“You need to stop rubbing against me like that, Tish.”
I did it again. “Does it bother you, Gomez?”
The song we were supposed to be dancing to switched to something fast, loud, and throbbing. Or maybe it was me who was throbbing. I couldn’t tell for sure with Doc’s hands all over me.
“Violet,” he leaned down and spoke in my ear. His warm breath caressed my neck, making me steam everywhere else. “I’m going to taste all of you before the night is out.”
I stood there sputtering until he took mercy on me and tugged me along behind him, leading me back to the table.
Unfortunately, James Bond arrived about the same time we did. His squint tagged along behind him. As soon as Doc headed to the bar to get more drinks and introductions had been made around the table, Cooper corralled me off to the side.
“What did you do to Uncle Willis?”
“Nothing, why?” At least nothing more than usual when it came to our adventures at the Carhart house.
“He was off his feed when he came home.”
“I thought you were staying at Doc’s.”
“I sleep there. My stuff is still at home.”
“What do you mean Harvey was off his feed?” Maybe the tuna sandwich Rosy had brought him had been bad.
“He was quiet with no smartass remarks or dirty jokes.”
Oh, off his feed that way. I bet it had something to do with our albino-filled future. “I don’t know what’s going on with your uncle,” I lied.
Cooper’s jaw tightened. “I don’t believe you, Parker.”
“Okay, Double-oh-seven, then try this on for size: Your uncle and I had a run-in with an aggressive ghost who tore out my coworker’s tooth and gave it to me as a gift.”
He took a step back. “That’s nuts.”
“Welcome to my world.”
Doc returned with another margarita, his gaze bouncing back and forth between Cooper and me.
“What’d Tish do now, old man?” he asked Cooper in his Gomez accent.
“She’s telling ghost stories.”
“Of course, her favorite kind.” Doc handed me the drink rimmed with salt, just the way I liked it. “How’d your visit with Prudence go?”
“Not good.”
He watched me lick salt off the rim, loosening his collar. “What happened?”
I glanced at Cooper, who was all ears and suspicious eyes. “What about him?”
Doc shrugged. “If we’re going to do a séance in front of him, he needs to get used to this.”
“All right.” I took a drink first, and then dove in, starting with the teeth I’d returned. I skipped the whole bit about my being a killer and focused on Prudence’s more neutral comments about the clock cuckooing a death bell toll and something having been unleashed in the hills.
“You’re leaving something out,” Doc said when I finished. He knew me and my tics too well.
“Nothing important,” I fibbed in front of Cooper, holding my margarita glass in front of my tell-tale twitchy nose. “It isn’t relevant to this.”
“You told me you didn’t go in Ms. Wolff’s apartment,” Cooper said.
“I could hear the cuckooing clock through the door,” I shot back, which was the truth. His squint challenged me. I smiled in response, refusing to go head to head with him.
“Prudence really ripped out Ray’s tooth?” Doc asked.
I nodded. “Lucky for me Harvey was there as my alibi, or Ray would probably have called Cooper and cried about assault.”
James Bond took a drink from the shot of whiskey Doc had brought him. “How can a ghost rip out a tooth?”
I looked to Doc for the answer, since he was way more familiar with the ectoplasmic world than me.
“I suspect that Prudence was able to control Ray enough to have him pull out his own tooth.”
Frown lines creased Cooper’s face from hairline to chin.
“You think she’s growing stronger?” I asked. “She’s never been able to control you like that.”
“I fight her every time up here,” Doc tapped on his temple. “Ray wouldn’t have seen her coming. She swept in and took over the controls.”
“Or he’s just a weak-minded, poo-flinging primate.”
Doc grinned. “I can see you two have been romancing each other on the job again.”
Talking about Prudence and Ray’s tooth reminded me that I needed to tell Doc about Mr. Black, but not in front of Cooper. As much as I couldn’t stand Ray, I got the whole “don’t tell the cops” wavelength. Nothing good would come of that since their badges and guns were pretty much worthless against the Mr. Blacks of the world.
“Uncle Willis witnessed this whole ghost shit?”
“Front and center, sitting right there next to me.”
“It must have rattled him and he didn’t want to tell me.”
“That’s probably it.” Or maybe, like me, Harvey was wondering how much longer he was for this world.
Natalie called my name, rescuing me from Cooper’s suspicions and dragging me back to the party. I lugged Doc along with me. When Cooper tried to leave, Natalie would have none of it and made him join the fun, insisting he take the seat next to her. Truth be told, the detective didn’t fight her too much and actually loosened up enough with a couple of whiskey shots to entertain us with some rookie cop anecdotes.
The next hour or two passed in a blur. Between the repeating rounds of margaritas and laughs, Katie’s cursing about the bartender after each trip for more non-alcoholic drinks, and Doc’s teasing touches and heart-palpitating whispers, I was able to forget my life sentence as an executioner for a while.
Midway through the evening, the disc jockey decided to slow things down a bit and played Patsy Cline’s I Fall to Pieces.
Doc leaned toward me. “Another dance, cara mia?”
I stood, a little light-headed after that last margarita, and waddled after him onto the dance floor. He wrapped me up in his arms, surrounding me with his scent and strength. Everything else faded into gray.
When Patsy wrapped up, Dusty Springfield’s Son of a Preacher Man started up, seducing me along with Doc’s touch as his palms crept down over my hips on the darkened dance floor. He pulled me closer, his body rigid, his hands hot through my satin dress. Apparently, I wasn’t alone when it came to craving more than just a waltz in the dark.
I slipped my hand down between us, my fingerna
ils teasing a groan from him. “Damn, Boots. That’s torture.”
His body’s quick response made me feel impish. I touched him through his trousers again, pressing this time.
He stilled my hand, staring down at me with a fierceness that made me gulp. “It’s been too long, Violet. Watching you in that dress all night has me fantasizing about dragging you into the back alley and taking you fast and hard.”
I pictured that scene for a moment, considered how short life might be for me now that I was albino bait. I pulled him down to my lips and whispered in his ear, “I’m not wearing any underwear.”
He jerked back, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Without another word he led me off the dance floor, past the pool table graveyard, and through a windowless door that led into a shadow-filled stairwell lit by only a single flickering sconce.
Doc looked up the stairs then back at me. “Can you climb stairs in that dress?”
“If I bunny hop. I thought you said the alley.”
“I changed my mind.” He hauled me against him and kissed me, his mouth demanding a response.
I gave as good as I got, leaning into him as I met his tongue thrust for thrust. I gasped as his thumbs brushed over me through the satiny material, wishing he’d tear it off and touch skin on skin.
“Are you wearing a bra?” he asked, his mouth sliding along my jaw.
“You’ll have to see for yourself.”
“Okay.” He reached over my head and grabbed something from the top of the sconce’s brass base.
“What’s that?”
“A key.”
Before I knew what was happening, he had picked me up and carried me up the stairs.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to see for myself.”
At the top of the stairs, he set me down, unlocked the door, and pushed it open. “After you.”
Once inside, he kicked the door closed behind us. The click of the lock echoed in the long, empty room. A coppery glow from one of the back alley street lights poured through curtain-free windows across the wood plank floors. At the other end of the room, I could see a neon Vacancy sign from a hotel just down Main Street through one of the three tall windows. The plaster walls were water-stained in spots and zig-zagged with cracks.
“What is this place?” I asked. It smelled of dust and old paint. “It has such a lovely mustiness.”
“Part of the old Badlands’ brothels. They separated this section off a couple of years ago when they remodeled the Purple Door. Before that, the upstairs rooms were connected so that the girls could move from one building to the next.”
“Aren’t the brothels supposed to be haunted?”
“Some of the sections are, but the ghost stays mainly in the other end for some reason. I have yet to sense her down this way.”
“You’ve been up here a few times?”
He nodded. “I know the owner.”
“Is he a client?”
“And a fellow Deadwood history fan.”
“So that’s how you knew about the key?”
“He lets me come up here whenever I want so long as I lock up when I leave.” He backed me into the wall next to the door.
I raised an eyebrow. “Do you bring your waltz partners here often, Gomez?”
“You’re the first and only, Tish.” Doc played with a lock of black hair from my wig. “Is this thing attached?”
“With a couple of bobby pins.”
“Take it off.”
“That will ruin your Morticia fantasy, won’t it?”
“I stopped thinking about her the first time we danced tonight.” He tugged gently at the wig. “Take it off.”
I obeyed, shaking out my curls. “Anything else?”
“Kiss me.”
I pointed at the moustache. “Your turn.”
He peeled it off. “Better?”
“Let me see.” I went up on my toes and softly placed my lips on his, playing the part of a sweet and innocent maiden. “It doesn’t tickle anymore.”
“Sweet Jesus, you’re such a temptress.” He took my face in his hands and proceeded to kiss the breath right out of me, not stopping until I was a moaning, writhing hot mess.
The fast pounding beat of the music in the bar downstairs matched the tempo of my pulse. I wanted to rub my leg up and down his, wrap them around him, but both were trapped by the damned tight dress.
“Doc,” I whispered as he licked and nipped my earlobe, “touch me.”
He caught my wrists, laced our fingers together, and held both hands captive against the wall on each side of my head. With his body alone, he seduced me, putting pressure in all of the right spots. I whimpered, angling my hips for more, but was thwarted by the dress and his evasive teasing.
“Were you serious about not wearing panties?” He traced my collar bone with his tongue.
“I don’t kiss and tell,” I said between gasps.
His mouth burned across the swells of my chest, tickling the skin rimming the neckline of my dress. I arched my back, aching for his mouth to move lower and caress the throbbing parts of my body, to kiss and bite me through the satin. Need built inside me, making me hot and ready for everything he had to offer.
I moaned again, my body longing for more of him. If only this damned dress weren’t in my way. Next year, I was going to make sure I was easily accessible to his touch.
If there was a next year.
That thought sobered me, bringing me back to a simmer. Maybe it was the margaritas loosening my tongue, or maybe it was Prudence’s warning surfacing, but suddenly I needed to clear the air.
“Doc.”
He must have sensed something had shifted, because his body stilled and he looked up at me. Whatever he saw on my face prompted him to release my hands. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s something I need to tell you.”
“What?”
I looked out the window at the Vacancy sign, trying to come up with a smooth way of spilling the truth.
In the end, I just let it fly. “I’m a killer.”
Chapter Twenty
Meanwhile, back in a haunted brothel …
Doc cocked his head to the side as if he weren’t sure he’d heard me right. “Are you playing Morticia again?”
I wished. “No. Aunt Zoe told me the truth after I ran into the juggernaut’s twin outside of Ms. Wolff’s apartment, the day Layne’s photo went missing.”
“She told you what truth?”
I pushed away from the wall, restless with dread at how this conversation would end. “I’d been avoiding Aunt Zoe.” The floor boards creaked underfoot as I walked over to the windows and looked out over Main Street. “Avoiding the truth ever since she first told me.” The sidewalks were filled with people dressed from macabre to sexy, none of them worried about being hunted down and brutally murdered. “But last night she made me face it. She made me understand how this has been in my family for too many generations to count.”
“Your family has been killers for generations?” Doc still stood by the door, his face rippled with shadows.
“Not all of my family, just the females. It skips generations, sometimes several.”
“But it didn’t skip you.”
“Nope.”
“Executioner,” he tried it on for size. “Ms. Wolff knew.”
“That and more, I suspect. Unfortunately, she’s too dead to explain how.”
He crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall. “Who do you kill?”
“Non-humans mostly, I guess.”
“Like the Juggernaut.”
I nodded, searching the crowded sidewalks below. Were they down there? Watching? Waiting for me to step outside, vulnerable in a drunken stupor?
“And the others,” I added.
“What others?”
“I don’t know yet.” I looked over at him, trying to gauge his reaction to my news, but the shadows hid too much. “According to Aunt Zoe, I’ll find out soon enough. What I d
id to Mr. Black’s twin alerted the others that I’m here. They’ll be coming for me now.”
“Mr. Black?”
“The twin I didn’t stab at Mudder Brothers that night.”
“His name is Mr. Black?”
“Yes, but you can’t tell a soul or he’ll come for Ray.”
“Your coworker, the jackass?”
“Yes. He’s the one who told me the other one’s name.”
“Ray Underhill actually helped you?”
“Crazy, I know, but these are cuckoo times.”
Doc nodded slowly. “Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because when Prudence confronted me today, she reaffirmed Aunt Zoe’s warning about my family being a target.”
“This warning was what you left out earlier when you told Cooper about what happened at the Carhart house.”
I wrapped my arms around my midsection, holding in the weight of this killer business. “Harvey heard Prudence’s bleak prophecy about my future. He understands the risks now. I suspect that’s what had him off his feed, as Cooper put it.”
“The risks to you and your kids.”
“To him, too, if he and his shotgun continue to act as my so-called bodyguards.” I looked down at the street, swallowing the trepidation that was making me hesitate to continue. “And to you,” I added in a quiet voice.
Over a growing din leaking through the floor from the bar below, I heard the sound of clothes rustling. “You’re worried about me?”
“Of course.”
“Why?”
Just one word from him, and yet so many answers flooded my head, none of them safe for my heart’s sake. “Do I have to spell it out for you?”
Footfalls came toward me, floorboards creaking. “I like to hear you spell.”
I turned. He’d come halfway and then stopped.
“They didn’t just kill Prudence’s son, the last of her line.” My voice wavered. I cleared my throat. “They murdered her husband, too.”
His poker face gave no reaction. Didn’t he get it?
“Doc, I’m a killer from a long line of killers. An executioner lacking in finesse, according to Prudence, who shared my vocation before they slaughtered her and her family. Hanging around me could be bad for your health.”
