Dead End (Peri Jean Mace Ghost Thrillers Book 8)

by Catie Rhodes

  Dean raised his eyebrows and shrugged, meaning his hands were tied.

  “Hannah was lit up like a Christmas tree. Can’t you arrest her for public intoxication?” Even the couple of hours it would take her to sober up and get out of jail might be enough to get that thing off her. A few hours of cold sobriety would remind her that King Tolliver was the bottom of the lake and Hannah Kessler was no catfish.

  “I’m in a precarious situation.” Dean held his hands a few inches apart. “The Six Gun Revolutionaries cooperate with me on a limited basis. If I start busting them—or their girlfriends—on piddly charges, they’re going to make my job harder than it already is.”

  “So you’re just going to let them have Hannah?” I glared into Dean’s face and felt my power rising. If I got worked up enough, I could probably short out his big-assed TV. “She was your friend before you ever moved to Gaslight City. She helped you get a job as deputy here.” My voice was rising. I forced myself to stop and take a deep breath.

  “Miss Mace?” Megan spoke loudly and clearly, probably the way she did in her classroom. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave our home.”

  I stared at Dean. He put one hand to his forehead.

  “Sweetie, how about some iced tea?” He tried to smile.

  Megan narrowed her eyes and scooted several inches away from him. The tips of his ears turned red. I chuckled, and both of them scowled at me.

  “I apologize for getting excited.” It hurt to say the words because, really, I wanted kick Dean in the shin and fart in his wife’s face. “Is there no way you can help me, Sheriff?”

  Dean frowned and rubbed his mouth while he thought. “If you get her away from that sociopath, there won’t be any charges filed, no matter how it goes down.” We stared at each other a long second.

  I stood. “I’ll be in touch.” I turned to Megan and held out my hand. “Keep him in line and good luck on motherhood.” She gave my hand an unenthusiastic shake and mumbled a relieved-sounding goodbye.

  I got in my truck and drove past Rainey’s law office. Her Mercedes was gone. What was it with people in this town going home early today? I made a U-turn and headed toward her house.

  I sped down the two-lane highway to Rainey’s subdivision, worry eating up most of my brain power. The motorcycle started out as a blip on the horizon. My body tightened at the sight of it. Had King sent someone after me? I had nothing for protection other than brass knuckles and a cigarette lighter.

  The driver waved as he came closer. Then I saw his size. Wade. I relaxed. Wade passed me, turned around in the middle of the road, roared up behind me, swung around, and pulled off in front of a closed down convenience store. He motioned for me to join him.

  What now? Fresh anxiety prickled the ends of my nerves, and every bad thing that could possibly have happened sped behind my eyes. Heart pounding and body burning from the inside out, I parked the truck next to his road hog and sat with him on the sidewalk running in front of the store’s boarded-up plate glass windows.

  “How’d you know where to find me?” I knew Wade’s mojo bag probably led him here but thought he only used it when I was in distress. Though the afternoon had overqualified as truly shitty, nothing horrible or unexpected had happened.

  “Figured you’d ask Sheriff Dean for help. Drove by. Sure enough, there’s your behemoth truck.” He gave me the kind of grin that made me want to kick him. “I knew he wouldn’t do shit and guessed you’d hit up Rainey next. Came out here to wait.” He winked at me.

  “And King let you go running off after me?” I didn’t believe it for a second.

  Wade shook his head. “King sent me out on a tequila run. That bottle you watched him open? Gone.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Across the two-lane road, an orange-burnished sun hung over an overgrown pasture, painting the grass with shadows and golden-hued promise. Sunsets usually put the day in soft focus, hinted that tomorrow might be better. But I’d learned too much on this horrible day to fall for that kind of bullshit. I stared into spreading shadows and saw nothing but darkness coming to swallow me up.

  I zipped my jacket up to my neck and lit a cigarette, too aware of my leg pressing against Wade’s and the heat of him. A silly fantasy, maybe brought on by the sunset, played in my head. In it, Hannah didn’t need my help. Instead, Wade declared his undying love and begged me to ride off into the sunset with him. I snorted at how stupid it was. Things never worked out like that in real life.

  In real life, I needed to figure out a way to tell Wade that King was willing to kill him. I needed to find a way to save Hannah. And I didn’t have a solid plan for doing either one.

  “You upset?” Wade’s deep voice vibrated against me.

  “Huh?” Of course I was upset. Two of my dearest friends were in mortal danger.

  “Yeah, you are. I should have told you Dean got married to a pregnant woman. You want to tell me off, I’ll take it.” Ah, Wade was talking about Dean and his stupid wife. I hadn’t even thought about how his marriage and impending fatherhood made me feel.

  My visit to Dean and his new wife’s nice little home had been weird and embarrassing, sure. But everything that happened with Dean was weird and embarrassing. It was what I got for blindly latching on to him just because he was stable, honest, and wore a pretty wrapper. And because the sex was good. Can’t forget that last one. It kept me in the relationship long after I should have left.

  I remembered Wade had asked if I was upset. “Why would I be upset? Dean and I have been done for months.”

  Wade shrugged, the momentum of it moving my shoulder too. “Don’t give me that shit. It’s one thing to break up with somebody. It’s another to know they’re having a kid with somebody else.”

  He was right. This new chapter of Dean’s life didn’t just shut the door on the relationship he had with me. It burned down the house. I let out a sigh I hadn’t realized I was holding in. “Dean and I were wrong for each other in about six thousand ways. I never thought we’d get back together, but going in that house, seeing them there…”

  Wade said, “You feel left behind.”

  I couldn’t tell Wade what really bothered me. It had too much to do with him. Seeing Dean married and expecting his first child contrasted sharply, painfully, with my own nonexistent love life. If stubborn, neurotic Dean could find lasting love, and I couldn’t, how much worse did that make me? Answers, none of them good, flooded my mind.

  I stopped the analysis of my shortcomings midway through. There was more to life than fiascos with men. And there were worse things than being alone. Dean was a great example. “Maybe I do feel left behind. But I don’t want to be where Megan is right now, on a steady diet of Dean. Can you imagine raising a child with him?”

  Wade chuckled. “Peri Jean, you’re teaching this baby bad habits. It’s lazy parenting. Let me show you what you’re doing wrong.”

  A loud cackle escaped me. I clapped my cigarette-free hand over my mouth, but Wade threw back his head and bellowed at the sky. We laughed until I was out of breath and holding my sides, and Wade gasped for air.

  I caught my breath. “Peri Jean, you’re engaging in self-destructive behavior again. I thought we’d covered this. You’re not a loser. Stop treating yourself like one.”

  When I’d started talking, I’d meant to inspire another gale of laughter. But Wade’s giggles dried up as I talked. He sat staring at the dying sunset, which had gone a deep orange red with banks of charcoal-colored clouds spreading out from it. His eyes narrowed, and his lips thinned.

  He spoke softly. “You’re not a loser. You’re just unformed. You’re still figuring out where you’re going.”

  I stared at his profile, marveling at the way the shadows played over his face like a mask, darkening some parts, highlighting others. “What about you? Have you figured out where you’re going?”

  Wade twisted to look at me. Our faces were so close together, his beard tickled me. My heart picked up speed. He slipped one arm
around me. My pulse thundered in my throat, almost taking my breath away. This was it. He was going to kiss me. I parted my lips. He leaned closer until our lips brushed. I put one hand behind his neck and tried to deepen the kiss. He pulled away but left his arm around me.

  “I’m already where I’m supposed to be. End of the line.” His dark eyes locked on mine, and he ran one rough thumb over my jawline. I shuddered from his touch, considered begging, and clamped my lips shut. He turned away. “I need to get back to Long Time Gone.”

  “How long did you wait to see how I fared with Dean?” I forced a smile onto my face, even though I wanted to scream at him to run far away from King Tolliver. All they’d do was lead him down a long and winding road to a dead end. But in Wade’s own words, that awful man and the Six Gun Revolutionaries were his life. Anything I said to the contrary would spark an argument. Not worth it until it had to happen.

  “Doesn’t matter. It was worth it to sit with you, to tell you I’m glad we’re friends.” Wade crushed his cigarette under one giant, black engineer boot. He pulled me to him again, dodged my lips, and gave me a firm kiss on my forehead. Then he stood and held out his hand. I took it and let him pull me to my feet. He went to my truck and held open the door. I climbed inside because I knew he’d put his hands on my waist when I did. He stood in the open door, and I really thought he’d kiss me again. Okay, it was just hoping.

  Instead, he said, “We need to do something about Hannah fast. Call me mid-morning tomorrow. I’ll cook you breakfast.”

  I nodded and started my truck. He slammed the door and ambled to his motorcycle. I watched him go through the ritual of starting it, planning to watch him until he drove away. But he looked up and motioned me to leave first. I did, but watched him in my rearview mirror until he got so small I couldn’t see him anymore.

  A painful dart stabbed into my heart as he disappeared. Doesn’t matter. Wade’s sister had read his cards and told him a relationship with me would spell disaster. What kind, he’d never said. But he made sure we both kept all our clothes on.

  It smarted because I knew in my heart of hearts we could make things work. Wade’s brokenness canceled out my brokenness. He knew the supernatural world, the world I’d finally, grudgingly, accepted. Most of all, I loved him in a way I’d have never been able to love Dean or any other man. I wanted to see where that took me, took both of us.

  “Not gonna happen.” My voice sounded weepy in the empty truck. I turned on the radio and found Bob Dylan singing “Tangled Up In Blue” behind a snow of static. I swallowed hard and drove the last few miles to Rainey’s.

  4

  Rainey’s subdivision, Pecan Orchard Estates, had a brick drive which ended at two tall stucco archways with pitched Spanish tile roofs. A tiny, matching guard shack sat between the arches, and a metal arm blocked the entry lane. I eased up next to the guard shack.

  A uniformed guard sat inside, thumb typing on his phone. He gave me a sharp glance to let me know he saw me but kept tapping away. About the time I was ready to honk the truck’s horn, he swaggered out of the tiny brick building, hitching his pants up around his gut.

  “Party you’re here to see?” The guard, whose name tag read Reichert, scanned the inside of my truck like he was looking for contraband.

  “Rainey Bruce.” I considered asking what he was looking for but decided it wasn’t worth the trouble.

  “Need to see your driver’s license.” He held one hand, palm up, right next to my face as I dug in my bag for my ID. I got it out and handed it to him. He glanced at my name and grunted. “She expecting you?”

  I made a disgusted noise and shook my head. “I should have called her.”

  He turned and strolled back into the guard shack, sat down, and typed something on the computer. He squinted at the screen. What was the problem? Rainey had my name on her permanent visitor list. Seven long minutes ticked by.

  Reichert picked up the guard shack’s phone and made a call. He hung up the phone and typed some more on his computer. Finally, he came back out of the guard shack and held out my license. “You and Miss Bruce have a nice visit.” He went back inside the guard shack.

  The arm barring my way rose with maddening slowness. Before I put the truck in drive, I checked the dashboard clock. Ten whole minutes. By the time I drove through her subdivision, darkness had overlaid the last shadows, and a waxing moon peeped over the treetops. A chill, probably the last until next fall, crept through the truck.

  Rainey met me in her driveway, arms crossed over her chest and her features sharp with tension. “Who told you where to find her?”

  I leaned out the window of my truck, almost afraid to get out. Rainey’s abandoning Hannah to her fate at the hands of King Tolliver made almost as much sense to me as a pig wearing a diamond studded dildo. “You knew about Hannah?”

  Rainey rolled her eyes in response to my question. “Of course I know, you half-wit. I was doing everything I could to get you out of town without finding out. Wade Hill damn sure didn’t tell you. Who did?”

  I slid out of the truck. “Tubby Tubman.”

  Rainey snorted. “I told Wade you’d find out whether or not I said anything.”

  My mouth dropped open. Rainey and Wade had conspired not to tell me about Hannah? The ache of betrayal I’d been nursing ever since seeing Hannah flared high. “How could you keep Hannah’s problems a secret? I thought you, Hannah, and me were sort of friends. I thought friends are supposed to help each other.”

  Rainey turned and walked to her front door. When I didn’t follow, she twisted around and gave me one of her nasty glares. I huffed after her. She held the door open. “My dog’s supper is about to burn. Let me finish that, and we’ll talk.”

  I sat at Rainey’s monstrosity of a breakfast table while she cooked for Ugly. The formerly abused dog stood next to his mistress, stump of a tail quivering with anticipation. He barely acknowledged my greeting rub. Too focused on the damn food.

  Rainey took her time puttering around the state-of-the-art kitchen and cooing to the dog. The sight would have amused me under other circumstances. But I kept coming back to my fury at King Tolliver, my hurt over the way everybody but me seemed to have abandoned Hannah. Each passing second dragged on like a bad night with a homely man. By the time Rainey sat in front of me, I was ready to chew a hole through the ceiling. The sounds of Ugly slurping down his supper came from the kitchen.

  She set her mouth in a grim line. “Let’s talk about Hannah.”

  “Sure. I saw…” I opened my mouth to tell Rainey about the jumbo-eared monster riding Hannah’s back, about King’s threats if I didn’t stay away, and how my fingers itched to dig his skin off his face. She held up one hand to stop me.

  “Let me talk first. Please?” Rainey didn’t say please often. Or thank you, for that matter. Her bothering to do so meant she felt less than one hundred percent confident she’d prevail over this situation. That scared me silent. I nodded and pretended to zip my lips shut.

  Rainey cleared her throat as though she was about to address a jury and started to speak. “After the incident with your mother, you and Wade cleaned her things out of the Sugar Shack to make it look like she just left town. Remember what happened afterward?”

  I nodded. Wade and I had met Rainey across the county line and loaded the luggage into an old four-door beater she kept locked in her garage. She refused to say what she planned to do with Barbie’s luggage and drove off into the night, her elbow cocked out the car’s window.

  Rainey’s voice cut off the memory. “Once I knew what really happened the day your father died, I wondered how Barbie kept everyone quiet all these years. Amanda knew. And, if Barbie was telling the truth, Joey Holze knew. I had Barbie’s luggage, so I…” She stopped speaking, and her cheeks darkened.

  “You went through my dead mother’s luggage.” I spoke with mock outrage. Rainey had nothing to blush over. Not in front of me anyway. I’d have done the same.

  “I found nothing usef
ul, not even on her laptop,” she said with a sour twist of her lips. “I had my PI set up forwarding on the email accounts he was able to find and wrote it off as a lost cause.” She leaned forward. “But then one day about a month ago, I got an email.” She drew a printed page out of her briefcase and wordlessly handed it to me.

  It read, “You pulling a disappearing act doesn’t get you out of giving me that tape. You will give it up or lose everything. Meet me at Bobcats, 1 p.m., Thursday.” Bobcats was a liquor store right outside Gaslight City. They did a brisk business, and I’d been told they sold more than just booze. The email wasn’t signed, not even an initial. I handed it back to Rainey.

  She glanced over it and then placed it back in her briefcase. “Before you ask, there was no tape in Barbie’s luggage. My PI and I even took the lining out of the suitcase.”

  “But you went to the meeting anyway, right?” I would have just to see who showed.

  She nodded. “My PI and I sat there for an hour, never saw anybody hanging around.”

  “They were probably watching from somewhere else. You have to hide and hope you see someone you know.” I knew because this was the kind of stuff my new family did.

  “Gee, you think?” She waved one elegant hand at me. She bowed her head. “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re apologizing?” This whole thing was getting worse and worse. First Rainey said please. Then she apologized. I had a bad feeling the world, as I knew it, was about to end.

  “Yes, I am apologizing. I’m just mad at myself because I was stupid. My PI drove me back to my office, where I’d parked my car, and I went—alone—to the place where I’d stored the luggage. I went through it right there looking for the tape mentioned in the email. A few hours later, a neighbor called to say I’d left the door open. I knew I hadn’t, so I had my PI go back with me.” She waved one hand, face set in disgust.

  I knew how this story ended. Someone had ransacked Rainey’s hiding place after she left. Sympathy would piss her off, so I got right down to business. “They get everything?”