by Catie Rhodes
Benny Longstreet used his millions to make bail. He faced a long list of charges for offenses ranging from failure to notify authorities after he found Rae dying to assault and kidnapping. Dean speculated Benny would escape a little poorer but relatively unscathed. I withheld comment. Benny and I had unfinished business. I’d make sure he knew he picked a fight with the wrong Mace.
“Hey.” A hand closed on my shoulder. I tipped my chin and found myself looking right into the bright sun. The person touching my shoulder was lost in silhouette. Then Wade Hill moved and sat down next to me. He pulled me into a one-armed hug and squeezed until I uttered a pained squeak. He let go.
“I’m surprised you came.” And I was. After the smoke cleared, Dean and Wade had some scathing exchanges. Dean suspected Wade had known exactly who killed Rae and where to find them and had followed me around town, trying to keep me out of danger instead of calling the police. Wade told Dean he suffered from short man syndrome.
“I’ve been feeling a million kinds of guilty since that night at Mace House.” I noticed he omitted any mention of the horrid events. Maybe for the best. The nightmares from that night would haunt me for the foreseeable future.
“Don’t. You saved my bacon.” I squeezed his arm to let him know I meant it.
“At least let me explain.” Wade kept his eyes focused on a distant point. “I worked at Long Time Gone because I needed money, but also as a favor to a friend who has a vested interest in what goes on there. I knew exactly who Billy Ryder was the whole time.”
I went still, and then turned my body so Wade got the full force of my glare. His eyes widened, and he developed a case of verbal diarrhea.
“At first, see, my job was to figure out the scam he had going with Olivia. Then I was to either make him pay tribute to the right people or figure out where to find him away from Long Time Gone so he could be…dispatched.” Wade stopped, closed his eyes, and slumped.
I twitched, remembering the rumors of the outlaw biker gang associated with Long Time Gone. I didn’t want to think about how Wade knew them or why he helped them. Some other time.
“Then Rae got killed. Once we figured Billy Ryder did it, my employer changed my job description to leading the cops to Ryder. But I never figured out Billy Ryder and Michael Gage were one and the same. Then you showed up with that drawing, looking for Billy Ryder. I didn’t want to see you end up like Rae. So I quit focusing on leading the cops to Billy Ryder and tried to watch over you.”
“I don’t need anybody to watch over me.” If it wouldn’t have hurt, I’d have put my hands on my hips.
“Peri Jean, please. If anybody ever needed a keeper, it’s you. Believe me on this.” He snorted and shook his head. “And I did a good job. But the night of the street dance, I lost you when you went to Hannah’s apartment. One minute you two were chatting with your grandmother, and the next you disappeared. I went out to your grandmother’s house, figured out you weren’t there, and went back to town. Couldn’t find you anywhere. Finally, I went to talk to Hannah—scared the hell out of her—and we figured out who Billy Ryder was and where to find you. You know the rest.”
I wanted to be irritated with Wade Hill, but he’d risked annoying a dangerous someone to help me. I didn’t even have the energy to think about the rest of what he’d told me. His honorable intent overrode his lack of success. I touched his arm. “Thank you.”
He shrugged. “Just another day in the life of a modern day knight in shining armor. Plus”—he dropped his voice to a whisper and leaned close—“I have an ulterior motive.”
“Oh?” I thought I knew, but his delivery amused me.
“Let’s say it like this: if it doesn’t work out with Mr. Short and Surly over there”—he gestured at Dean—“give me a chance. I’ll show you my tattoos. All of them.”
Wade and I locked eyes for a moment. Again, I wondered what it would have been like to be more than friends. A mischievous smile spread over his face as though he knew my thoughts.
“And I knew it would piss him off if I came.” Wade’s smile widened even more, and his dark eyes twinkled. A shadow fell over us. We both raised our eyes to find Dean standing over us, scowling. His good mood from a few minutes ago had vanished.
“Get up.” Dean narrowed his eyes and turned down his lips when he spoke to Wade.
“No. You might be a cop, but you’re not king of the world.” Wade crossed his arms over his chest.
“I didn’t arrest you for obstruction of justice because Peri Jean begged me not to.” Dean’s voice rose and people turned to watch the three of us.
“Y’all, please stop this…” I trailed off when I realized they were ignoring me.
“And because you knew you couldn’t make anything stick. If I hadn’t walked into that house a few nights ago—”
“We’d have done just fine, you big baboon.” Dean had his hands near his hips like an old west gunslinger.
“What’s going on here?” Darren Fischer leaned into our conversation. His red-rimmed eyes and tear-stained cheeks gave both Wade and Dean pause.
“There’s not enough room for him to sit here.” Dean gestured at Wade. “He’s taking up space reserved for the family.”
“You’re right.” Darren nodded. “Why don’t you two men sit over there?”
Dean, Wade, and I looked in the direction Darren pointed. The back row. Dean flushed and cracked his knuckles. I bit my lip to keep from smiling. For the first time since Chase died, I wanted to laugh. One glance at Dean’s shocked scowl and I dropped my head so he wouldn’t see my amusement. Wade took the rebuke with a smile.
Hannah rose from where she’d been sitting next to Memaw in the row behind us. “Come on, gentlemen. I’ll join you. Make more room for family and people who knew Chase well.”
“After you, Officer Turgeau.” Wade stood and swept his arm out for Dean to pass.
“It’s not Officer,” Dean groused. “It’s Deputy.”
As the two men walked away, Wade said, “I don’t give a shit.”
To my utter shock, Wade and Dean sat next to each other in the back row. Their stiff postures suggested they were not finished sparring. Cords stood out in Dean’s neck, and Wade’s smile was predatory. Hannah sat down beside Dean. She rolled her eyes at me. I smiled at her in thanks, and she winked.
As my eyes swept over the crowd, I noticed Felicia Holze and Chase’s son, Kansas. The boy looked uncomfortable and confused. He’d barely known Chase, I realized. And now he never really would. That brought the grief crashing back, its tide rising until I could have howled. Tears dripped off my chin as I lamented the way life can suck.
That’s when Darren and Jolene sat down on both sides of me. Jolene reached over and grabbed my hand in a death grip. The buzz of conversation trickled into silence as Hooty took his place at the pulpit and fussed with his Bible. When the morning air was still except for the squawk of a few birds, Hooty looked out over the crowd with a solemn expression on his face.
“I knew Chase Lawrence Fischer from the time he was about a week old. He grew to be a sensitive boy with a tender heart who couldn’t quite stand the sadness in the world around him. His sensitivity helped him become an accomplished musician…”
Something moved at the corner of my vision. I took my eyes off Hooty and squinted into the outcropping of tombstones. The air wavered like a heat mirage, and a figure came into view. The lanky body moved with fluid grace. The sun blazed down on blonde hair, creating an impossibly white sparkle. My heart caught in my throat, and the sting of tears burned my eyes. Chase Fisher, younger and healthier than I’d seen him in a long while, stepped to the periphery of his own funeral. Hot tears tracked down my face as we watched one another. The sun damage was gone from Chase’s skin, and he looked the way he had the year he broke my heart—back when he still thought he’d be a rock star. He smiled at me, and a sob jerked out of me. Jolene squeezed my hand even tighter.
“They’re ready for you,” Darren whispered in my ear.
I struggled to my feet, my abused muscles protesting. Darren stood to help me to my feet. Hooty shot out from behind the pulpit and escorted me to it. He adjusted the microphone, gave me a pat on the back and stepped away.
Everyone watched me expectantly. Everyone, that is, except for Wade and Dean who glared at each other in the back row. I turned around to see if Chase’s ghost had left, and the crowd followed my gaze. Chase still stood near a tombstone, watching me. A rustle went through the crowd, and I turned back to them. I opened my mouth to speak, not knowing what I needed to say. The words seemed to come on their own.
“Chase Fischer was the best friend I ever had. I loved him more than I’ve loved anybody…except my Memaw. He wasn’t perfect, but none of us are…” I turned to look at Chase’s ghost again. The glow I saw before Rae winked out blanketed Chase. He raised one hand to wave at me and faded from sight, traveling down his forever road. I choked back a sob and waved goodbye to the best friend I ever had. Confused whispers rippled through the audience. For once, I just didn’t care.
Black Opal (Excerpt)
Peri Jean Mace Ghost Thrillers #2
My throat burned from too many cigarettes, but that didn’t stop me from lighting my last one. The acrid smoke filling my vintage Chevy Nova fit my foul mood. Few kinds of trouble are more angst-ridden than boyfriend troubles.
“It’s all your fault,” I croaked at the troublemaking slip of paper fluttering in the fresh morning breeze. The offending piece of paper came from Wolfgang Puck’s Five Sixty in Dallas and listed two of every item, including champagne. The tip and final total were written in Dean’s blocky handwriting. I didn’t know who he took there, but he sure as hell didn’t take me.
Maybe I need to back up. This all started when Dean Turgeau’s father, a man never spoken of before yesterday, broke his arm and had a heart attack scare. My boyfriend of six months took leave from his job as a sheriff’s deputy in Gaslight City, Texas, and rushed to his hometown in South Louisiana. A few hours later, I got a hysterical phone call from him. Well, hysterical for Dean, anyway. For once, he sounded like he didn’t know exactly how to control a situation.
“You gotta help me.” He paused, breathing hard.
“What is it? Did you have an accident?” Fear kicked my imagination into high gear. Perhaps this was really Dean’s ghost calling me. After all, my connection with the spirit world created more problems than it solved.
“No, no. It’s my wallet. I forgot it, and I just spent my emergency cash on gas. I have no ID, no credit cards, nothing.” His voice wavered on the last word.
I nodded and then remembered he couldn’t see me. This wasn’t about the wallet at all. It was about Dean, the most in-control man I’d ever met, losing control. No doubt he feared losing his father. Caring for my terminally ill grandmother, the only family I had left, made me hyper-aware of such things.
“Hey, it’s all right. I’ll overnight it to you. Use that key you gave me,” I said. Dean had given me an extravagantly wrapped key to his house. Now would be the perfect time to break it in. Whatever response I expected was a far cry from the one I got: complete, total, and utter silence. After a long enough pause for me to regret offering, Dean finally stuttered out a few words.
“Y-yeah. I guess that’s fine.” He trailed off but came back sounding more confident. “Sure. Do that.” He rattled off an address in Louisiana. Busy writing it down, I never stopped to think about his weird reaction until I found the receipt.
My search for a box and tape took me to the detached garage. The first thing I saw in there sent my suspicions into a tailspin. Dean’s vintage Smokey and the Bandit era Trans-Am sat in the middle of the stifling little room. The sight threw me for a loop, the kind where I felt my stomach fall thirteen floors. The Trans-Am was—to the best of my knowledge—Dean’s only car. So what did he drive to Louisiana? Looking for some answers, or maybe just being nosy, I slid into the Trans-Am and opened the glove box. The receipt fluttered out, setting the stage for a mega meltdown.
Seething, I wrapped the wallet like a gift, complete with white paper and a curlicue green ribbon. I resisted the urge to put the receipt in the box like a cherry on top of Dean’s wallet. Then I packed a bag, got in my car, and drove most of the night.
Now I was close to the end of my three-hundred-mile journey with no clear idea what I wanted to say to Dean. My pissed off level hovered in the red. Between that and eating no food since I found the receipt, my stomach sizzled and burned. I felt miserable and would be until Dean Turgeau gave me an explanation.
The lush South Louisiana landscape unfurled like a flower, growing more exotic and mysterious as I drove deeper into the state. But I had a hard time enjoying it. The trees draped with Spanish moss brought to mind romance novel covers, which just added to the whole pissed off thing. Views stretching out into tree-studded bayous looked like postcards advertising an enchanting weekend getaway. My mind supplied endless ideas about who Dean really came down here to see.
After all, he left his prized 1980s Trans-Am in his garage back in Gaslight City. Maybe his other girlfriend didn’t like vintage cars. Maybe she drove them here. What a fool you are not to have seen this coming, Peri Jean Mace. Feeling foolish nestled at the root of my anger. I did everything I could not to let people make a fool of me. Look at me now.
I thought I’d learned to read Dean over the past six months. So much for my intuition. Now I saw the error in my thinking. When a man, one I thought I might love, gave me a key to his house in a gold box with a purple ribbon tied around it, that really meant I needed to watch out. How could you be so dumb? I crumpled the receipt and shoved it in my pocket. I’d know next time.
I exited I-10 south of Baton Rouge, still practicing how I’d confront Dean, and did a double take at the change in scenery. Clear-cut farmland, the ground turned to expose the fertile black soil, stretched into the distance and a white haze of humidity floated like a premonition on the horizon. Roadside signs advertising historic plantations loomed over dilapidated shacks. Boarded up gas stations, their wood grayed and bowed, lingered forgotten in overgrown fields. Glimpses of the grand Mississippi twinkled in the distance, peeking through the dense trees.
So this is where Dean grew up, in this mysterious world of shadows and contrast. This is where he learned how to love, hate, and buy expensive, clandestine dinners for persons unknown. Mind reeling, I pulled into a gas station to buy more cigarettes, ask directions, and fuel up.
Back in my car, I drove along at a snail’s pace, looking for a white brick mailbox.
“You can’t miss it, ma’am. Biggest mailbox I ever seen.” The gas station attendant’s drawl rolled over the vowels in a way mine didn’t and made me feel farther from home than all the miles of highway put together.
The road followed the bend of the river, undulating and winding lazily along. My impatience to get this show on the road made me want to drive faster, but I didn’t dare. Rounding a sharp curve, I came up behind a young woman, maybe a teenager, walking in the grass on the roadside. What the hell? I pulled into the middle of the road to give her plenty of room.
This chick looked like she’d gotten on the wrong side of something or other. Black streaks and cuts ran up and down her legs, and the bottoms of her bare feet matched the road. I spotted a gash on one of them. She held her head at a funny angle, as though it hurt. It didn’t take a degree in rocket science to know something was wrong.
I slowed even more, traveling at nearly a crawl. The desire to stop and offer my help was almost too strong to resist. Common sense kept me from acting on it. I am a woman traveling alone in a strange state, in a strange town. Leaving the address with my terminally ill grandmother didn’t count when she was three hundred miles away. I drew alongside the girl and leaned over the seat to look at her. She walked staring straight ahead. Can’t she see and hear my car creeping along beside her?
A horn tooted and jerked my attention back to the road. The driver of an approaching truck glared at me f
rom behind the windshield, evidently wanting his share of the road. Irritation flashed. Doesn’t he see this girl is in a bad way? I glanced back at the girl, ready to shake my fist at the truck driver, but she had disappeared. Instead, I saw the white mailbox.
The gas station attendant didn’t lie. It would have been impossible to miss. The mailbox, built of white-painted brick, resembled a turret on a castle. The pea gravel driveway was right next to it. It was either turn now or miss it altogether, and this road didn’t have too many places to turn around. I didn’t have time to think about where the teenage girl went so fast.
I whipped into the driveway, the tiny rocks rolling and popping under my tires. The driveway traveled at an incline, so I couldn’t see the house right away. When I got to the top of a little hill, a big, white elephant of a house unfolded in front of me. I jammed on the breaks and gaped at it.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I said to the empty car.
Four columns ran across the front, framing a second-story balcony. The monstrosity sat on a brick foundation taller than a man, topped by a porch running the entire length of the house’s front. Elaborate wrought-iron railings embraced two sets of curved steps, one on each end of the porch. The windows lining the house’s front stood at least ten feet tall and sported stained glass panes of blue and purple at their tops. One word came to mind: never-ending. Everywhere I looked there was more house.
“Holy shit.” I counted four chimneys rising from different parts of the house, each adorned with elaborate masonry designs around the top. Every piece of the house was just so. I saw not an inch of flaking paint or even one board that looked rotted. Who has money for something like this? A blacktopped parking lot surrounded by a wrought-iron fence sat a distance from the house. I pulled in and parked, shocked by the cars. The least expensive was a new Cadillac SUV. I fumbled another cigarette into my mouth, hoping it would cool off my perception of all this. It couldn’t be all that bad. But it sure looked like it was.
