Forbidden Highway (Peri Jean Mace Ghost Thrillers Book 5)

by Catie Rhodes

  Mysti, shaking her head, led the way to her car. She turned to me, tears in her eyes. “I feel like I’m letting you down.” She threw her arms around me. We hugged hard.

  “You can’t do everything.” I released her. “Plus, maybe it’s time I figure some things out for myself.”

  “Turning you loose on your own is harder than I thought it would be. Especially for something this big.” She swiped one hand across her eyes. “You’re not finished learning.”

  I silently agreed but knew I couldn’t ask her to stay. Not when Griff needed her. Mysti leaned into her Toyota sedan and popped the trunk. “Get out the one that looks like a doctor bag.”

  This was the first time Mysti ever invited me to touch the bag where she kept her spelling supplies. I took it to her. She popped it open and rummaged around. She brought her cupped hand out holding a tiny vial, like the kind perfume samples used to come in. I took it and held it up to the sunlight. Wade came to stand next to me. He peered at the thick liquid.

  “Not bad, witch.” He winked at Mysti. She almost smiled.

  “It’s not Good Fortune Oil, but it’ll work for your spell. Remember your intent.” She dug in the bag again. “Here’s the grave dust and holy water.”

  The thick glass vials were so old they had waves and imperfections in the glass. “Do you want me to dump them into something I have here so you can take these home?”

  “No. Keep them. I’m going to show you how to gather these items yourself.” Mysti closed the bag and sat it on the seat beside her.

  Wade took the vials from me and put them in my backpack, securing each under a strap of elastic. Mysti tugged at my hand to get my attention.

  “I believe in you, Peri Jean. You can do this, my sister.” She stared at me, eyes fierce, until I nodded. “Now go get that nettle sap. There’s bound to be some in your woods back there.”

  My heart galloped and fear charged through my body as I watched my mentor drive slowly up the driveway and turn onto the main road. I took my new backpack back into the yard and leaned it against the porch steps. No need to tote it through the woods. Just an extra thing to keep up with.

  Wade went into the shed attached to the carport and came out holding gardening gloves and shears. “You ready?”

  “What can I do to help?” Rainey called from the porch.

  “Go home and lock your door,” Wade yelled back. He dismissed her and dug in his pocket. “You can put the sap in this.”

  I took the pill bottle from him. It was one of Memaw’s from the last months of her life. I ran my thumb over her name, glad she wasn’t here to see all this, but missing her so much it hurt. Rainey appeared at my side.

  “You’ll have to whip me to make me leave.” She glanced between Wade and me. “I’m going to help even if neither of you want me to.”

  I studied Rainey’s set jaw, her aggressive stance. Rainey and I had always understood each other. We’d grown into actual friends over the past few months. Not a demonstrative woman like Hannah, but a loyal one, she had my back. In return, I had hers. She couldn’t be anywhere near me when Michael Gage came to collect his asshole tax. But I also couldn’t offend her.

  “We just want you to be safe.” I tried for the right combination of appreciation and firmness but was too tired to do a good job of either.

  “How is hunting bull nettles going to hurt me?” She stared into my eyes. She had me, and she probably knew it.

  I started walking toward the woods and motioned her to come along with me. We walked several yards, and I felt her gaze wandering over me again. I faced her. “Why don’t you just tell me what’s wrong with the way I look? Get it over with.”

  Wade twisted to glance over his shoulder at us, snorted, and kept walking.

  “You’re different. The look in your eyes. The way it feels to be around you.” Rainey touched my cheek. “Yep. You’re still alive.”

  Chill bumps rashed over my arms. “You thought I was dead?”

  “Not that. Not really. You just seem…” She blew out a breath and rolled her eyes. “Otherworldly. Odd. Like someone I wouldn’t want to make mad.” She cocked her head and narrowed her eyes at me. “I like it. I’m proud you’re my friend.”

  We tromped through the pasture until sweat from the hot autumn sun ran down my back. My impatience grew with each step. I glimpsed movement in the trees bordering the pasture and raised my head to get a better look. What I saw made me do a double take. Paul Mace—my daddy—stood at the edge of the clearing.

  I hurried toward him, so glad to see him I almost forgot the grim hours ahead. Seeing my daddy never got old even though he was a ghost. He motioned me to follow him into the woods. I took off walking. Wade and Rainey, both with longer legs, kept pace.

  Paul’s apparition appeared and disappeared between the dense shadows of the trees. He led us through a strand of brush to an open field full of tall weeds and wild flowers and stopped near the middle of the clearing and motioned to the ground. I glanced down to see a patch of bull nettles waiting for us.

  “Thanks, Daddy.” I wished I could hug him but knew it wasn’t possible.

  “Who are you talking to, Peri Jean Mace?” Rainey’s voice was low and scared.

  “Paul. You want to see him? If you hold my hand, the black opal will let you see him.”

  “Oh, I do.” Wade came toward me so quickly I didn’t have time to do anything but let him grip my hand. “I sense him all the time.”

  I glanced at Rainey, figuring she’d get as far away from us as she could. Instead she hurried to my side and took my other hand. The black opal heated on my chest. I focused my vision of Paul and willed Rainey and Wade to see it just like Mysti taught me. Rainey gasped and jerked her hand away.

  “I never…” She trailed off and put her hand to her mouth.

  Wade gripped my hand harder, squinting at the ghost. He grinned. “He looks like you. He also looks like he’s trying to tell you something.”

  Together, Wade and I watched my daddy’s lips move, and his hands wave. I concentrated on him, the mantle pushing him into sharp focus. His words came through, clearer than I’d ever heard them.

  “Just stay out here and hide, baby. Don’t go back. You don’t have to.” My daddy made a pleading motion with his hands.

  “I’ve got to, Daddy. Hannah’s depending on me.”

  Wade’s hand tightened on mine. “She won’t give up, but I promise I’ll give my life protecting your daughter.”

  Paul’s head swiveled in the direction of the house, and he disappeared.

  What the hell? Did I piss him off? I glanced at Wade, and he shook his head.

  “Let’s just get this nettle sap and get out of here.” He dropped my hand and knelt next to one of the plants and regarded its spiky leaves with distaste. “Put on the gloves. They won’t fit me.”

  I hesitated.

  “Do it.” Wade dipped his chin for me to hurry up. “You’ve only got a couple of hours before Gage calls to pick up the treasure.”

  I used the garden shears to cut a few of the stalks. Rainey put on the other set of gardening gloves and helped me milk the sap into my pill bottle. I had no idea how much to get and didn’t stop until I had what looked close to a teaspoon. We walked back the way we came. When we stepped out of the woods and into the back pasture, we both stopped and stared, too shocked to move.

  A black cloud of smoke rose toward the sky. It seemed to be coming from the direction of Memaw’s house. Bad as that was, the sight in front of me was far worse. It flat out turned the contents of my bowels to liquid.

  Joey Holze and five other people, all folks I tangled with at Enchantment Emporium, waited on us. Each of the four members of the Holze family held some sort of club. Myrtle Gaudet and Loretta Brent both held short lengths of chain. Of all the things I’d feared, I never anticipated this one. I had a feeling my luck had just run out.

  17

  “What do you assholes want?” Wade tensed, knees slightly bent, and shift
ed his weight foot to foot.

  “We’re here to talk to Peri Jean Mace about the theft of my property.” Joey Holze waddled to the front of the pack. His breath came in sharp pants, and he leaned heavily on his cane.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, you nasty old slug.” Despite my fear, I tried to stare him down, difficult with anybody who has ever worked in law enforcement. Joey’s cold fish eyes never wavered.

  “She’s lying.” Carly Holze, a bitch in her own right, pointed the rolling pin she held at me. “When she was a student at my school, she caused trouble every day.”

  “Your school?” I laughed. It sounded as fake as it was. “That school belongs to the citizens of this county. You got away with acting like a piss-ant dictator there only because they couldn’t afford to hire anybody decent.”

  “Oh no.” Rainey moaned next to me.

  I glanced at her and found her with her hand over her mouth, staring in the direction of the smoke. A column of black smoke billowed from Memaw’s house. A tongue of orange flame licked at the sky. Fear bucked and reared in my chest. I turned to Wade. “Memaw’s house is on fire.”

  Wade took his eyes off the threat for just a second to see what I meant. It was enough. Scott Holze, almost as tall as Wade and at least as heavy, stepped forward and swung his metal baseball bat at Wade’s head. Wade had time to raise his arm. He took the blow on his forearm. The clang of metal against bone rang against the wall of trees behind us. Wade grunted and went down on one knee. Pain flared behind his eyes, but he held it in. I shoved my way between Wade and Scott.

  “Hit me with that damn thing, you loser.” I took a deep breath and spat at him.

  Scott didn’t hesitate. He reared back and swung the bat, connecting with my hip in a meaty thump. I slumped against Wade.

  Chain rattled behind me. Rainey cried out. I twisted but was too late to see who struck Rainey. By the time I looked, she had her hands up to protect her head. I held out my arm and Rainey scuttled over to huddle next to Wade and me.

  Rainey’s body vibrated against mine. The smell of fear radiated off her. More than anything, I wished she wasn’t here. She didn’t have a dog in this fight, other than haters pretty much hate everybody.

  Joey’s half-assed mob surrounded us, cutting off our escape back into the woods. Vile, ugly hate radiated from them. I stared into each face, searching for sanity or even a little fear, but mean, flat eyes stared back at me. Felicia Brent Fischer Holze popped the bat she held against her open palm, showing me her sharp little teeth.

  “What are you people doing?” Rainey ground out the words. To the casual bystander, I was sure she sounded like an angry dog, but I heard the tremor in her words.

  “Peri Jean Mace, you and your entire bloodline is a taint on this county.” The ex-sheriff of Burns County pointed his cane at me. “You’re a witch. Unholy. We’ve come to exterminate you.”

  “You’re crazy,” Wade muttered.

  “We got sense,” Felicia shouted. “We can research just as good as Eddie Kennedy. It wasn’t too hard to figure out you’re related to that witch in Hooty Bruce’s awful journals.”

  “Ever’body here had ancestors present at that lynching.” Myrtle Gaudet let her chain swing next to her leg. “Sometimes history repeats itself for a damn good reason.”

  “Evil runs in families, especially Peri Jean’s.” Felicia rocked back and forth, her bat held in both hands. The bitch couldn’t wait to start swinging.

  My mind clouded with the unreality of it all. I stared out at the swell of smoke pushing into the sky. I wouldn’t find the treasure. I wouldn’t save Hannah. Hell, I wouldn’t even live to see another day.

  “You can’t believe this garbage!” Rainey jabbed her finger at them. “Are all of you really this stupid?”

  None of them would look at us. They all found a great deal of interest in their clodhopper shoes.

  Joey recovered first. Considering how lousy a sheriff he’d been, it made sense he wouldn’t see the wrong in his ways now. He waddled two steps toward me, barely able to keep his balance on the uneven ground. Despite my dislike for him, I recognized his bad health. Diabetes was eating him alive. Why wasn’t his family helping him manage it? They were too busy doing shit like this, that’s why.

  “Peri Jean, as former sheriff and as a religious leader in this community, I sentence you to death by beating. You don’t fight, it’ll go quick.” He said the words like he really believed them. Cold crept over me. Joey shifted his gaze to Rainey. “I’m sorry you’re in the middle of this, but this county’s better off without you too.” He threw Wade a glance. “And you’re just trouble.”

  “You really like hearing yourself talk, don’t you?” The words spilled out of my mouth, hot with fury. This was such an unfair end to things. “The real evil in this county is standing right in front of me holding baseball bats and chains.”

  “Liar,” Carly Holze screamed.

  “Oh, I ain’t lying.” I rested my gaze on her. “Your ancestors were murdering shit, and so are all of you.” A dangerous red rage boiled in my veins.

  The dreams I’d been having for the last month, the ones of Priscilla Herrera’s last moments on the gallows, flashed behind my eyes. Had the dreams been a warning of what was brewing? If so, I hadn’t paid close enough attention. I thought of the way Priscilla Herrera faced the end of her life.

  She extracted her revenge by setting a trap—the curse on the Mace Treasure—to hurt the people who hurt her. Her angry actions destroyed a lot of other people, people in her own family. Ever since learning the truth about the Mace Treasure curse and how it came to exist, since understanding the fate Priscilla Herrera suffered in her afterlife for creating such bad karma, I had asked myself what I would have done.

  I knew now. Facing death at the hands of these losers, these human jokes, I would do the same thing if I could, no matter what it cost me. My hate for my killers burned me from the inside out. There was just one problem. I didn’t have a way to curse the vigilantes in front of me. Maybe Priscilla and I weren’t so different after all. I opened my mouth to say something inflammatory, but Rainey spoke up.

  “Let’s just calm down.” Rainey’s voice sounded the same as it did in the courtroom. The woman had more self-control and more inner strength than I ever would. “I’ve worked a lot of criminal trials in this county, and it isn’t like you see on TV.” She moved her gaze over the faces in the crowd, lingering on some until they squirmed. “You’re going to get caught. No matter how well you think you have this planned out, no matter who’s willing to lie for you—”

  Loretta Brent whipped her chain in Rainey’s direction. The steel caught her across the legs. Rainey yelped, her composure lost. Her teeth chattered as she tried to stare down her murderers. I leaned into Wade’s warmth and whispered. “Get ready.”

  “Yeah.” He shifted his body and snaked his arm to the small of his back where he kept his pistol.

  “Okay, fine. I’m an asshole.” I held out my hands in surrender. “But Rainey Bruce is innocent. Let her go. Now.”

  “Guilt by association,” Felicia yelled.

  “Shut up, dumbass,” I hollered back. Someone shoved me from behind. I whipped around, doubled up my fist and got ready to unload. Rainey gripped my wrist, squeezing too hard. I yanked her close and spoke into her ear. “I’m going to create a distraction. I want you to run when I do. Get to your car and get out here.”

  She got very close to my face. “They’re going to kill you.”

  “But if you run, they won’t kill you. You have to promise. Now. When I do what I’m going to do, you run.” I stared into her scared eyes. “Promise?”

  She nodded and let go of me. “I promise.”

  “Felicia, did you know Chase and I fooled around while y’all were still married?” The words were a lie, but I relished saying them way more than I should have. Felicia’s mouth dropped open. Hurt flooded her mean eyes. “He said he felt sorry for you. That was the only reaso
n he stayed as long as he did.” This part was true.

  Felicia took several running steps toward me, her wooden baseball bat held aloft. She swung it wildly. I threw up one arm to protect my face. The blow stunned me numb all the way to my shoulder. Those few seconds were bliss compared to the throbbing ache that spread through my arm, working its way up to my shoulder and down into my fingertips. They tingled like they did when I fell asleep on my hand. She drew back for another swing. This one came straight at my head. I caught it with my hand and tried to wrench the bat away from her. Her grip was too tight. I settled, instead, for using the bat to shove her back into the rest of them. She knocked Joey off balance.

  “You evil witch,” Felicia screamed.

  I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath and let it out as slowly as I could. Once my lungs were empty, I shifted my weight to the balls of my feet. Felicia stood in front of me holding her bat like she was Billy Bob Badass. I stared at her and let myself get mad.

  All the times Felicia hurt me—the silly pranks, the rumors, the schoolyard torture, the way she stole my first love away from me and soured things between him and me forever—floated behind my eyes. The memories stoked the flames building inside me. My rage heated and boiled. I no longer felt my injured arm. A red haze filled my head. I let it take away all reason.

  My war cry came from deep within my belly, raw with the rage of years of hurt. I launched myself at Felicia, praying in some sane part of my mind Rainey would run, and slammed into my old nemesis like a football player.

  She went down, and a sea of legs closed around us.

  “She’s running, Joey. Rainey Bruce is running.” Myrtle Gaudet sounded like a blue jay squawking.

  Thank goodness. I pushed myself away from Felicia enough to rear back one fist and punch her in the throat. My other fist buried itself in her soft gut.

  “Bring that bitch back,” Joey screamed. “Go! She cannot live to tell what happened here. We’ll all go to prison if she does. You hear me?”

  The sound of feet slapping in the dirt met the ex-sheriff’s command. Good. Got rid of at least one more of them.