Forbidden Highway (Peri Jean Mace Ghost Thrillers Book 5)

by Catie Rhodes

  I groaned. The food on my stomach congealed into a sickening sludge. I gave Dean a little wave and checked out his date. A young teacher who worked on his campaign and practically drooled every time he got within a foot of her. Hope all your dreams come true, sugar. I took another sharp drag off my cigarette. Hannah twisted in her seat to see who it was. She turned back around and rolled her eyes.

  “Great,” she said.

  “You two know that guy?” Nash tilted his head in concern.

  “It’s my ex.” I smoked the rest of my cigarette in one drag and stubbed it out on my plate.

  “Is there going to be trouble?” Nash glared at Dean.

  “Of course not.” Hannah said it the way you tell somebody aliens don’t exist. “Dean’s the sheriff of Burns County.”

  Dean spoke to his date. Her smile faded, but she nodded. He patted her on the back and walked around our table to stand behind me. He put his hand on my shoulder. I used my dirty fork to push it off me.

  “Dean Turgeau.” He held out his hand to Nash and then to Jay.

  The two men introduced themselves, Jay shifting uncomfortably in his seat. Interesting. I wondered if he had a baggie of marijuana or some other contraband on him.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt your party here, but I need to speak with Peri Jean.” Dean put his hand back on my shoulder. I wanted to bite him.

  “Really, Dean?” Hannah tilted her head and made her sad face. “Go back to your own date.”

  “Mind your own business.” He held out his hand to me.

  I closed my eyes and counted ten. Refusing would only prolong the misery, and I knew it. I took Dean’s hand and stood. “Excuse me.” I pecked Nash on the cheek and let Dean lead me away.

  “Is Nash the guy who bought the Panther Theater?” Dean walked me to the dance floor and put his hand on my hip. We swung into a slow two-step.

  “Yep. That why you wanted to dance? To gossip?”

  “No.” He tried to pull me closer. I resisted. “Come on.” He tugged me again. “The music’s loud, and I don’t want to have to holler.”

  I relented and let him pull me close enough we touched. I waited for the tide of desire that had fueled our romance to rush over me. Nothing. The little spark I used to feel when he touched me was gone. The warmth heating my body was from humiliation, not lust. I said my last goodbye to the longest and most sane relationship I’d ever had and swallowed hard. We danced in silence for a few seconds.

  “You have five seconds to start telling me what this is about, or I’m going to embarrass you in front of all these people.” I didn’t have a plan yet, but I knew too much about Dean not to have power over him.

  He let out one of his poor me sighs. “Michael Gage escaped from the prison hospital ward. He’s been gone a total of one week. The warden just saw fit to put in a courtesy call to me today.” A muscle moved in Dean’s jaw. “The clown had the gall to act surprised. Said he told his secretary to inform me.”

  I stopped dancing and tripped over Dean’s foot. The roaring in my ears overpowered the band. “What?” I yelled.

  He said something, but I heard nothing. His moving lips were the only way I knew he’d spoken.

  “What?” I said louder. People stared at me. Dean pulled me off to a dark corner near the fence separating Bug Juice from the adjoining property.

  “You okay?” He put his hands on my arms and caressed with his thumbs, the way he had when we were together. I wanted—no, needed—to melt against him and lay my head on his chest, only I couldn’t because we were over and it wasn’t appropriate.

  “I didn’t realize he’d recovered enough to escape.” I fingered my black opal necklace, hysteria cutting at the edge of my self-control.

  “They thought he had severe brain damage.” Dean’s mouth twisted with the words. This information must have been a surprise to him too. “According the warden, Gage never spoke or even tried to walk. Until last week. When they did rounds, they found the corpse of a male nurse, his throat cut, stuffed into his bed. Gage was gone. They think someone on the outside helped him, but they haven’t yet figured out who.”

  The world pounded with my heart, and my head whirled. The vision came back to me. I knew in my gut it wasn’t from the distant past. Gage was back, and he wanted to hurt me. What had he made his victim write? Hello, Peri Jean. If his past patterns held, he’d use the Mace Treasure to get to me, and here I was still too amateurish to find it. Tell Dean about the vision. Let him know Gage is here and up to his old tricks.

  “Everything okay here?” Nash's voice came from behind me. He put a proprietary arm around my waist. His touch jolted my logic back into working order.

  I couldn’t tell Dean about the vision. He was mentally incapable of believing in anything supernatural. He’d rather lie to himself, even when the facts were right in his face. I fingered the black opal necklace again. Only good thing to come out of our relationship.

  “We good?” I asked Dean. He nodded.

  “Call if you need me.” He walked back to his table and gave his date a kiss.

  “Are we at a point where we can get the fuck out of here?” I asked Nash.

  “Already paid the bill. Hannah and Jay are waiting in the car.” He took my hand and walked me outside. Hannah and Jay were lip locked in the backseat. They pulled apart and adjusted their clothes as we got in.

  “What’d he want?” Hannah asked.

  “Tell you when we get back to the museum,” I said.

  “Actually, I was thinking about going to Jay’s apartment for a nightcap.”

  After she acted so snotty about my one-night stand with Corman Tolliver? Give me a break. I turned in my seat and stared at her. Her cheeks darkened, but she held her gaze steadily on mine. I hated to say it in front of Nash and Jay, but she had to know so she could be on the lookout.

  “Michael Gage escaped from prison.”

  Hannah began to cough and sputter.

  “Who’s Michael Gage?” Jay pounded Hannah on the back, and she elbowed his arm away.

  “A murderer. He killed my cousin and my best friend. He wanted to…hurt me.” My nether parts recoiled as I remembered exactly how Michael Gage said he wanted to hurt me. I glanced at Nash to find him watching me. My cheeks heated. “Sorry to spoil the evening.”

  “Hey, don’t worry about it.” Nash patted the arm where I had my raven tattoo. My skin twitched in response, and I leaned away from him. He pulled back his hand. “I’ve got a ton of work to do back at the Panther.”

  “Maybe I can get a rain check on the nightcap?” Hannah spoke to Jay. “Peri Jean and I need to go back to the museum to talk about all this.”

  Jay agreed, but the frown on his face suggested he wasn’t too happy about it.

  4

  Nash pulled the Caddy up to the curb in front of the museum, and I spotted a familiar, erect figure standing at the front door. Rainey Bruce stepped into the light and raised one hand in greeting. A three-legged figure, that of her dog Ugly, limped out next to her. I faced Nash. Please don’t try to kiss me, I prayed.

  “I’m sorry everything turned to shit. Tends to happen with me.” I tried to smile, but my lips felt like wet clay.

  “Don’t be.” He shrugged. “What would you say to me calling you sometime?”

  I wanted to say not to bother, but Hannah glared at me, so I exchanged cellphone numbers with him.

  Hannah and I climbed out of the car. Rainey rushed to us, somehow able to hold on to the poise that once earned her the title of Miss Texas and wrangle her excited dog at the same time.

  “Dean called me about Gage. You know he’s headed this way, still looking for a way to get his hands on the Mace Treasure.” She gave me a hard poke. “This is why you should have already found the treasure. I brought my research on Priscilla Herrera. Figured we could do some of the work you’ve been putting off while you hung out with the Six Gun Revolutionaries, trying to act cool.”

  Hannah and I exchanged a glance. She bit back
a smile. I nibbled my cheek to keep from laughing. It would have infuriated Rainey, and she might decide not to help me.

  The three of us filed into the museum and went straight for the winding staircase and Hannah’s apartment. Ugly didn’t want to climb the steps. His three-leggedness had nothing to do with it. He climbed the steps to Rainey’s office more days than not. This was stubbornness, pure and simple. Rainey and I took turns carrying him. It was a long walk to the fourth floor.

  Hannah unlocked the door to her apartment and marched to the kitchen. She took a bottle of Kentucky bourbon off a high shelf and a got out a small glass. She poured two fingers, her hand trembling so hard she sloshed some of it on the counter, and gulped it down. Then she poured another, bigger drink and sat down on the couch. She held the nearly full glass to her chest but didn’t drink. Rainey got Ugly settled in one corner and sat on the couch next to Hannah.

  “Not only is Michael Gage back, I think he may have already killed someone as a sort of message to me.” I took my usual wicker chair and told Rainey about my vision. She held onto her composure until I got to the part where the girl got her throat cut. Her lips turned gray, and she held up her hand for me to stop.

  “Maybe you had the vision about Michael Gage because Priscilla Herrera was trying to warn you.” Hannah took a dainty sip of her drink.

  “I doubt it. She’s not that helpful.” I crossed my ankles, uncomfortable in my fancy dress and shoes. “She probably let me see that to scare me into working harder to find the Mace Treasure.”

  All the while, Michael Gage roamed Burns County, a ravenous animal ready to devour my friends and me. My imagination conjured up an image of Hannah screaming and in pain, of Michael Gage laughing his awful whinnying laugh. Cold fingers crept up my spine. I shivered.

  Rainey gave me her patented attorney glare. I crossed my eyes and stuck my tongue out at her. She took off one shoe and threw it at me. I batted it away before it smacked me in the face. Ugly raised his head from the floor and gave a soft woof but didn’t bother to do anything else.

  “Bring me up to speed on the Priscilla Herrera situation.” Rainey opened her bag, which was actually a small, stylish briefcase, and took out a legal notepad and a black pen.

  I talked for the better part of five minutes. Rainey winced when I told her about the mantle.

  “Priscilla is being absolutely unreasonable.” Hannah took a sip of her bourbon and set it back on the coffee table.

  “Don’t badmouth her.” I held up one hand. “No telling what she’ll do if it pisses her off. She got me good at her cabin.”

  Hannah paled at the thought. I took out my cigarettes, set them on the coffee table, and gave Hannah a pleading stare.

  “Don’t you dare.” She pointed one finger at me.

  “I don’t think she’s being unreasonable.” Rainey opened the flat leather bag she brought in with her and took out a laptop. “She simply wants you to become what you’re supposed to be.”

  “I’m going to change.” I stomped into Hannah’s bedroom and changed back into my blue jeans, t-shirt, and cowboy boots. I stuck the rose pin Nash gave me on the inside of my backpack and hoped I didn’t forget about it. It was a nice gesture. I took a few seconds to calm down before I went back out to face Rainey. She always went for the jugular, pushing me to fly my freak flag high. She couldn’t possibly understand the ramifications of what Priscilla Herrera wanted me to do.

  “Peri Jean? Coming out?” Rainey called from the living room. “Or are you going to sulk in there all night?”

  I took another deep breath and strolled out of the bedroom.

  “Sit over here so you can see this stuff.” Rainey scooted closer to Hannah and waved her hand at the empty spot.

  I did as she asked, but she closed the laptop before I could see what was on the screen.

  “Before I show you what I’ve got here, why don’t you explain to me what you hope to achieve with this information?” She put one hand over her laptop, guarding it until she deemed me worthy.

  “I want to find Priscilla’s burial place on my own, without having her spirit lead me to it, and get the spelling stones.” The idea of rummaging through a human corpse made my skin crawl, but I knew I’d have to do it when the time came.

  “Which will allow you to take the curse off the treasure.” Her fingers twitched on top of the laptop. “Assuming you have the spell.”

  “It’s in her grimoire.” I didn’t bother to mention parts of it were in another language neither Hannah nor I could identify. “Plus I saw her do it when I had those first visions of her.”

  Rainey nodded like a queen giving a court jester a pass for farting in her presence. She opened the laptop, and her dark fingers flew over the keyboard. Soon, a site for online document storage came up on the screen. Rainey clicked a folder, and it opened to show several file entries, each beginning with PH. “While the two of you have been running around like chickens with your heads cut off, I’ve learned a great deal about Priscilla Herrera.”

  “What made you decide to research her?” I reached for the keyboard, planning to open one of the files.

  Rainey slapped my hand away. “The picture. You know I collect vintage photographs, especially those of carnival workers or sideshow oddities.” She nudged me with one sharp elbow.

  “One of your more endearing hobbies.” The pictures in Rainey’s collection ranged from uncomfortably odd to nightmare material.

  “I was positive I’d seen her face before, and I decided to try to find more pictures of her.” Rainey clicked the laptop’s keyboard.

  I leaned close expecting to see a new picture of Priscilla Herrera. Instead I saw a document with an official seal, covered in sloppy handwriting. “A marriage certificate?”

  “I suspected Priscilla Herrera worked in a circus before she ended up here in Gaslight City. My first research attempts, using the name Priscilla Herrera, failed.” She gave her patented attorney’s pause to generate suspense and interest, which I knew good and well she practiced in the mirror. “Then, one of my online contacts suggested I try to see if Herrera was a married name, since we know she had children.”

  She zoomed in on the marriage certificate and turned the screen where I could see. It had been issued in Nacogdoches County, Texas. Priscilla Alafare Gregory of Orleans Parish, Louisiana married Cristobal Eduardo Herrera of Barcelona, Spain on June 3, 1891. Priscilla’s age was listed as forty-one, while Cristobal’s was listed as twenty-seven.

  “Damn. Priscilla Herrera was the original cougar.” I grinned at Hannah. She giggled.

  Rainey shook her head. “You two are like teenage girls. Dumb ones.”

  I read the rest of the information. Nothing caught my eye other than the officiant’s name, Robert Skanes. It sounded vaguely familiar. Before I could give it much thought, Rainey closed the file and opened another one.

  “Priscilla Gregory worked for a traveling circus in the late 1800s. Both as the tattooed lady and a fortune teller.” She stopped to give me a meaningful glance. “A guy named Robert Skanes owned the circus.”

  “Wasn’t a Robert Skanes listed on the marriage certificate?” The name wiggled again in my mind. I knew it from somewhere else.

  “Good catch. Skanes married Priscilla and Cristobal.”

  “In Nacogdoches.” I rubbed at my chin, as though it would knock loose the piece of information camping out in the dark forest of my mind.

  “By 1890, Skanes was an old man. He retired to Nacogdoches and sold his traveling circus to two brothers named Lakeworth.” Rainey sounded like she was addressing a courtroom. “In the final years of his life, Skanes compiled a history of his circus. Someone who owned a copy of it was kind enough to share some of the features with me.” Rainey opened another file, zoomed it, and let Hannah and I read for ourselves.

  “Priscilla Gregory joined me when she was just fifteen, and I still ran a medicine show with a monkey as our special feature. This kind of work usually means you can’t go back to the
same town very often. But ‘Cilla changed all that for me. ‘Cilla knew about making healing potions, said she learned from her mother. We sold one for a while made out of sassafras root and some stuff ‘Cilla called goddess root. She never would let me go look for goddess root with her. We called it Vigor in a Bottle. I never got run out of another town again, unless I got myself in some other kind of trouble. ‘Cilla changed the way I did business. Later on, a man who did tattoos joined us and talked ‘Cilla into letting him draw tattoos on her. We picked up another fella who ran a shill game, and we quit being a medicine show and started just entertaining folks. ‘Cilla read fortunes with playing cards, and she was good. Sometimes she warned me of towns we needed to avoid. I learned to listen and listen good.”

  Rainey waited until Hannah and I finished reading to open another file, this one a picture. It showed a wizened old man sitting with a cane in front of him. Both hands were folded over the cane’s head. The room, the way the light streaked into it, seemed familiar. A hazy memory flashed in my mind but faded before I latched on to it. Rainey opened another picture set in the same room.

  This one showed the older Priscilla Herrera I’d seen in the vision where I watched her curse the Mace Treasure. On one side of her sat two serious-faced, dark-haired toddlers. Robert Skanes sat next to them, grinning, hands still on the top of his cane.

  The memory came together for me. “Robert Skanes is who Priscilla sent her children to live with the day she died. She told them to go to Nacogdoches and find a man named Bob Skanes. Has to be the same dude.” More of the fragments bounding around my mind clicked into place. “I know this room too. When I got into trouble in high school, Memaw sent me to stay with Reba Skanes.”

  “Sure enough. I remember going to see you at this house.” Rainey snapped her fingers at me and peered at the picture. “Sure looked different when I saw it.”