by Catie Rhodes
The house and grounds looked like a TV remake of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. These folks would take one look at me and tell me to get lost. For a moment, I forgot the receipt and the sickening mixture of humiliation and anger I felt over it. It might not be the worst my day had to offer. These folks might get security to escort me from the premises.
Where the hell is Dean in all this? The only logical conclusion was Dean’s family worked here. He said his father got hurt clearing debris washed up by a flood. Sure enough, branches, leaves, and other nature-produced garbage littered the lush, perfectly manicured grounds. Cleaning this up would be no small chore.
I let the huge house intimidate me a moment longer before I grabbed Dean’s gift-wrapped wallet and forced myself out of my beat-up old Nova. I had no idea how to approach a place like this and inquire after people I thought might work here. Was it appropriate for me to knock on the back door? Surely not in the twenty-first century. I loitered next to my car, frozen with uncertainty.
“I knowed you’d be coming.” The voice came from next to my arm, male but high and reedy. I jerked in surprise and twisted around. The man was around Dean’s age—pushing forty—and balding with wispy hair stuck to his head. I recognized the bulbous, broken-veined nose of a drinker. Patchy stubble covered his face. “You here to make things right, ain’t you?”
I recoiled from him, uncertain how to respond. Nobody expected me. And, even if they did, make what things right? That girl on the highway. The image of her popped into my head like a monster coming out of hiding. A chill worked its way through the thick humidity and settled over me. Oh, hell no. Not this shit again.
The man crowded toward me, coming so close I smelled his booze sweat and something else, something animal. He leaned into my face and stared into my eyes. I tried to back away but my butt bumped my car. Trapped by this weirdo, fear zinged through my veins as the adrenaline kicked in. I swung my head side to side. I wanted to end this crazy encounter. But I saw no way out.
The man exhaled in my face, and the foul odor shot up my nose. Rotted teeth and some kind of alcohol. Fuck being polite. I shoved him away from me. He went willingly enough but only a few feet.
“You see ‘em, don’t you? The dead, I mean.” He swayed like someone who just got off a train or a boat.
My mouth went dry. The madness in this man’s eyes could well be from seeing the other side. My life’s fear was going mad, maybe losing myself to drugs or drink, and becoming like this trembling, incoherent creature in front of me.
“Trey?” The voice came from shadows created by a small copse of trees next to the parking area. I squinted into the gloom, heart pounding, praying this weird little man hadn’t brought the wrath of some crazy ghost down on me.
Trey backed away from me, glancing furtively in the direction of the voice. Its owner’s footsteps crunched in the litter of branches, leaves, and uprooted vegetation, the shadows playing over his face until he was upon us. I had to crane my neck to look up at him and almost gasped at his beauty.
There are good-looking men, and there are beautiful men. This guy was one of the latter. Tall, lean, and tawny skinned, his square jaw framed high cheekbones. Dirty blond hair set off bright aqua eyes. He walked at a languid pace, as though daring anything or anybody to ask him to hurry. When he reached Trey, he gripped the shorter man’s arm and yanked him away from me.
“Why are you bothering visitors?” His accent played like music, educated but full of drawn out syllables and soft consonants. Like the gas station attendant’s, only more toe curling. “You get on back to the barn where you belong now.”
Trey lowered his head and scurried away. Gorgeous and I stared at each other. My heart belonged to Dean, but I’d have to be blind—hell, dead—not to appreciate this guy.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said. It was all I could do not to curtsy.
“I hate to admit it, but he scared me.” Just those few words had a coquettish lilt to them. Ugh. I liked ‘em pretty, but this was ridiculous. Even for me.
“Don’t mind him. He’s not right in the head,” Gorgeous said. “You here to see someone?”
“Dean Turgeau?” I heard the question mark after Dean’s name and winced. I sounded like a flirty southern belle out for a hot afternoon with a gentlemanly stranger.
“Just go right on up to the house, ma’am. They’ll help you find him.” Gorgeous half-waved and disappeared back into shadowy trees.
I bet his family owned this place, and he supervised the workers. He had that air about him, the gentleman son of old money. Had he stayed to chat, I suspect I’d have made a fool of myself. One more gander at the imposing house, and I shook off my thoughts and marched up to the front door. I couldn’t tell where my huff over the receipt ended and my dread of encountering the mansion’s inhabitants began.
I punched the doorbell and heard a loud gong in the house. Quickly—so quickly I assumed the woman who answered must have been standing on the other side—the door swung open. The middle-aged woman wore an old-fashioned black and white maid’s uniform. I gaped, never having seen one outside television. She stood in the doorway, a mildly inquiring expression on her face.
“Help you?” She didn’t bother to smile. Goody. This was going just as I thought. I wondered how to address her. She looked young to be Dean’s mother, but I couldn’t think fast enough to figure out who else she might be.
“Mrs. Turgeau?”
The woman tried to hold in her laugher. That just made it escape in snickers and snorts. Heat burned my cheeks, and I didn’t need a mirror to know my head looked like an extra large cherry with black hair. The woman took in my embarrassment and clapped her hands over her mouth. I considered making a run for it.
Glancing over my shoulder at the blacktopped parking lot and my car, I calculated the number of seconds it would take to reach it and how many steps I’d have to take before I could no longer see the woman’s amusement. That held highest priority. It reminded me too much of my school years.
A voice came from within the house, “Nadine, who’s at the door? If it’s Father Reilly, send him back.”
Nadine took her hand off her mouth to speak. “No, ma’am. I think it’s for you.”
“Fine,” the voice said, “I’ll be out in a moment. Show them into the foyer and close the door before the house fills with bugs.”
Throughout this exchange, my mortification intensified. I knew whatever was about to happen would end with me looking like the biggest idiot in the world.
Nadine looked me up and down. For the first time since I chose my traveling clothes, I became aware of the faded t-shirt with the crusty rock band emblem still clinging to it and the cut-off blue jean shorts I wore. She muttered under her breath, but loud enough for me to hear, “Unbelievable. Come on in.”
The tap-tap of high heels rang on the pinkish marble floor. From the sound of it, more than one person was on the way to greet me.
A woman who could have been on the cover of a magazine entered first. She wore her shining dark hair long and in a style that must have taken hours and required complex tools to create. Her makeup was one of those complicated jobs designed to make her look younger, with very light colors surrounding her eyes. She took one look at me, wrinkled her nose, and quickly covered it with a ’possum grin.
An older woman sauntered into the foyer behind her, and I suddenly understood what amused Nadine the maid so much. It only took one glance to know this was Dean’s mother or a very close relative. What next, universe? The oval face, the straight bridge of her nose, the full lips, and dimpled chin resembled Dean so strongly, it was eerie. This woman walked at a pace saying she didn’t have to hurry for anybody. Diamonds and rubies twinkled at both ears and at her throat. She glanced at Nadine, who still giggled with her hand over her mouth, and cocked her head to one side. Even her demeanor was Dean at his haughtiest.
Oh lordy, Peri Jean. Just what have you gotten yourself into this time?
“This must be De
an’s girlfriend we’ve all been waiting on. She thought I was you. ” Nadine chuckled again but, when she saw Mrs. Turgeau did not share her amusement, cut it off.
Dean’s girlfriend? Were they expecting me? The lady of the manor continued to stare at Nadine, her face still and impassive, until Nadine scurried out of the room. Then she walked toward me, a smile curving her lips and crinkling her eyes. Also like Dean, she seemed to switch emotions on a dime. She held out her hand. My heart thudded so hard, I worried it might jump out of my mouth if I spoke. I kept my lips firmly sealed just in case.
“You must be Peri Jean. Your grandmother called Dean and told him to expect you. I’m Julienne Turgeau, Dean’s mother.” We shook. I could do no more than gulp and nod.
A college-aged woman wearing a sweat-ringed tank top and running shorts sped into the room, her eyes comically wide. Her workout shoes squeaked as she came to a sudden stop on the marble floor. She studied me from my canvas lace-up shoes to my short pixie cut. Her lips, a feminine version of Dean’s, curved into a smile, and she stuck out her hand.
“I’m Maddy—Madeleine, that is—Dean’s baby sister.”
“Peri Jean. Dean’s girlfriend.” I couldn’t help but return her smile as I gripped her sweaty hand in a brief handshake.
The other woman, who I guessed was another of Dean’s sisters by her age, stepped forward and held out her hand. “I am Lisette David-Turgeau-Carter. I was Dean’s wife for about fifteen years.”
Every cigarette I smoked on the trip picked that moment to make me gag and cough. The receipt from Five Sixty in Dallas flashed in my memory, and things clicked into place. Taking a bath in buffalo doo doo would have had more appeal than living through the next few minutes.
End of Sample
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The Peri Jean Mace Ghost Thriller Series
Rear View (Book #0)
Forever Road (Book #1)
Black Opal (Book #2)
Rocks & Gravel (Book #3)
Rest Stop (Book #4)
Forbidden Highway (Book #5)
About the Author
Catie Rhodes is the author of the Peri Jean Mace Ghost Thrillers. Her short stories have appeared in Tales from the Mist, Allegories of the Tarot, and Let’s Scare Cancer to Death.
Catie was born and raised behind the pine curtain in East Texas. Her favorite memories of childhood are sitting around listening to her family spin yarns. The stories all had one thing in common: each had an element of the mysterious or the unexplained.
Those weird stories molded Catie into a purveyor of her own brand of lies and legends. One day, she found the courage to start writing down her stories. It changed her life forever.
Catie Rhodes lives steps from the Sam Houston National Forest with her long-suffering husband and her armpit terrorist of a little dog.
When she’s not writing, Catie likes to cook horribly fattening foods and crochet or knit stuff nobody wants as a gift. She also reads a whole helluva lot.
Find me online:
www.catierhodes.com
Forever Road
Peri Jean Mace: Book 1
Copyright © 2013 Catie Rhodes.
All rights reserved.
Published by: Long Roads and Dark Ends Press
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without express written permission from the publisher. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover artwork by Book Cover Corner Content Editing by Annetta Ribken Copy Editing by Jennifer Wingard Proofreading by Julie Glover
First Printing, 2013 Rhodes, Catie. Forever Road/ Catie Rhodes. — 1st ed.
