The Great Jackalope Stampede

by Ann Charles

  His hat rested on the table across from him, his black wavy hair flattened around the sides. His eyes had a slight squint as he chewed while he watched her. Tomatoes and bacon spilled out of the sandwich on his plate. His tan colored shirt was pressed crisp as usual, the star pinned there all bright and shiny.

  As he finished his bite and swallowed, his eyes took a tour from the top of her head to her sandals and back up again, like she was a suspect in one of his line-ups. She lifted her chin, determined not to let him catch her hands or knees trembling. She could handle a small town Sheriff. After all, she had hosted dinner parties with state senators and rich big-time industrialists without a single fumble.

  “Well,” he drawled, “at least you’re dressed today. But isn’t it a little early to be hitting the gin? It is Sunday, you know.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “I haven’t been drinking.”

  “You sure about that? Why don’t you come over here and let me smell your breath again.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “It wasn’t a question.” He kicked out the seat across from him. “Have a seat, Mrs. Jefferson.”

  Chapter Seven

  Once upon a time there was a man who skimmed treasures from the fenced antiques black market. This thief of thieves hid his stolen treasures in the basement of his house and deep within his mines. One day, he up and died, leaving his unenlightened widow to play caretaker for his horde of hot goods. The End.

  But Claire knew better, unlike what Kate and the others in her family believed. It was not the end. It was more like “to be continued …”

  Claire grabbed the ladder from inside the unfinished restrooms and leaned it against the side of her work in progress. Another week of plumbing, electrical wiring, and then drywalling, and they should be rolling the final paint on the building.

  Natalie had plans of heading home in a week and no amount of begging or attempts at blackmail would convince her to stay longer. Claire hated to see her cousin go. Working next to her had been like old times, including the sweating, swearing, and post-work drinking. The only thing missing had been the men. Mac had changed all of that for Claire, but Natalie’s disinterest in the other sex at the moment had Claire scratching her head. Was there a guy back in South Dakota Natalie was hiding, or did she really mean it when she said she was taking a long-term sabbatical from the dating world?

  Speaking of Mac, Claire wondered how pissed he was going to be at her for sneaking away in the midst of the drama back at Ruby’s, leaving him to handle Jess’s dad and Deborah. Well, he wasn’t completely alone; Chester and Manny were there to cheer him on, or at least act as a peanut gallery. Claire would have to make it up to him as soon as she could figure out where they could catch a moment without an audience.

  She raised the binoculars she had borrowed from Chester and searched the surrounding hillsides, checking for any movement. She wasn’t paranoid; she was a realist. Bad men who stole expensive antiques for a living did not just shrug their shoulders and move on when their merchandise disappeared in transit. They came looking for their missing goods … and the thief who stole them. Unfortunately, with Joe dead, Ruby was left to take his place in the crosshairs.

  Claire saw no signs of life. The only sound she heard was the rat-a-tat-tat of a woodpecker echoing down through the canyon behind the park.

  Making sure the ladder rested securely against the roof, Claire started up the rungs. She took it slow, not wanting to copycat Gramps’s acrobatic routine and end up sharing that hanger he used as a leg scratcher.

  Not to mention there might be a baby bouncing around inside of her. She stuffed that little worry back under the rug and returned her focus to Ruby’s dead husband.

  According to Joe’s crazy ex-wife, Sophy, he transported the stolen goods and stored them here in Jackrabbit Junction, aka the dusty underbelly of nowhere, until the law cooled down and stopped sniffing in corners. Then he would deliver the pieces to the eager buyer, collect his substantial transportation fee, and count his wad of bills while whistling all the way home. Claire had adlibbed that last part, but it was not hard to imagine Joe and his fat, greedy, sausage fingers tainting everything they touched, including Ruby.

  At the roofline, Claire placed Chester’s binoculars on the shingles, making sure they did not tip over or slide. She would never hear the end of it from the old blowhard if she broke his Babe-o-matics, as he liked to call his tool for spying on women from afar.

  She stepped onto the roof, staying low behind the apex.

  Kate didn’t get it. She lived in a world where the worst thing that happened was the heel breaking on one of her designer shoes. Unlike Claire, she hadn’t had a gun pointed at her head, hadn’t witnessed a man get his brains blown out, hadn’t even come close to being shot. Maybe Kate had spent a night or two in jail for a traffic misdemeanor or possession of stolen property, but those were more frustrating than heart stopping.

  “I’m not obsessed, Kate,” Claire said under her breath, scooping up the binoculars. “I’m just aware.” Aware of how valuable the pieces were that Claire kept finding tucked away in hiding spots ever since she’d arrived at the Dancing Winnebagos R.V. Park this last spring.

  Claire crouched as she neared the apex of the roof, keeping down enough to remain hidden from the other side.

  Dropping onto her knees, her thoughts returned to the stashes of goods that she had found over the last few months. Lord only knew what else Joe had buried around the place. She was not alone in her knuckle chewing, either. Weeks ago, when she had asked Ruby if she had considered that there might be more things hidden, the older woman’s brow had knitted into a tight weave.

  “I thought I knew Joe,” Ruby had said in her soft drawl, “but in the last few months, you showed me an all new, dirty, rotten, no-good bastard.”

  Ruby had confided to Claire that she was starting to think the safest course for her and Jess and Gramps would be to sell the R.V. park and her surrounding mines and then head north to Nemo, South Dakota and the house Gramps had left behind. “But if somethin’ bad happened to the new owners because of Joe’s big ol’ mess, how could I live with that?”

  It was the pinch of fear on Ruby’s face, along with the vulnerability in her tone, that had Claire determined not to lower her guard, to keep digging for answers. Ever since that fateful day when Claire had applied for a job at the R.V. park and had ended up fixing Ruby’s leaky bathroom faucet, Ruby had demonstrated a faith in her that no one in her family had ever shown. Because of that fact alone Claire would continue to help Ruby, come hell, a shotgun toting bitch, high raging waters, or a pissy sister and grouchy grandfather.

  Lying flat, she scooted closer to the apex of the roof and raised the binoculars, searching the archaeologists’ compound. Today was the first time the whole crew had caravanned over to the Lucky Monk dig site. Usually one or two of the students stayed back in the head archaeologist’s camper. According to Jess, whom Claire had bribed with a ten-dollar bill to knock on the door and play curious kid, they were recording all sorts of “boring stuff” in notebooks and on laptops in there.

  Today, after escaping the farce going on up at Ruby’s, Claire had taken the long way around to the restroom worksite. She had zigzagged through their group of tents and R.V.s wielding a forked stick while pretending to inspect the patches of dry grass for snakes.

  Stealing peeks out from under her Mighty Mouse cap, she had not seen a single curtain flutter or tent flap move, nor had she heard a sound coming from any of the campers or seen any signs of life when peering through the windows. But this time she was going to play it safe. She was damned if she was going to get caught snooping again. The end result last time had almost made her wet her pants.

  From her perch on the roof, she scanned the area once more. Double-checking the routes to and from the General Store, she mentally crossed off the list of possible troublemakers. She had left Mac busy pawing the ground around Jess’s father up at the house while Ma
nny and Chester watched and Deborah and Jess fretted. On her way out the door, she had run into Natalie, who had been happy to escape the family drama and drive to Yuccaville on a fool’s errand. Gramps and Ruby had disappeared from the face of the earth, along with Mabel, so Claire assumed they were off plotting the best way to drag Jess’s dad to the edge of town and threaten his hide if he dared set foot in the R.V. park again. Kate’s car was also gone and so was Ronnie. Knowing both of her sisters as she did, their running in the midst of a shitstorm did not even make her blink.

  With everyone preoccupied elsewhere and the archaeology camp a ghost town, it was now or never. Claire slid back to the ladder and hurried to the ground.

  After one last glance around the area, she tugged her cap lower and jogged from tree to tree. That was her first mistake, because by the time she made it to the nearest of the four campers, she was huffing and puffing like she intended to blow their flimsy walls down. She waited a minute for her breath to return to normal, and then inched up to the camper closest to her—the beige one she’d seen the beanpole kid enter several times since she’d first laid eyes on him last week.

  The door was unlocked.

  She glanced around, her heart hammering away. Was she being set up? She knocked and waited.

  Nobody answered.

  She opened the door and stepped inside, setting foot in a vast sea of beige. From the walls to the furniture to the carpet, everything blended together like a big pool of oatmeal. The faint smell of baby powder and gardenias added the only pizzazz to the place.

  Not wasting any time looking for color, Claire made a beeline to the back of the R.V. and found a bedroom with tan curtains and a matching bedspread. She opened and closed drawers and closet doors full of khaki colored shirts and pants for women, judging from the pleats on both. This camper must belong to the two women who were trying to enlist Jess to help at the dig site.

  A quick peek in the dresser drawers came up empty. Hell, even their underwear and bras were beige. Manny would be so disappointed. He was going to lose his bet with Chester—the two women were not sex kittens in disguise, not with those control top bloomers.

  Claire moved to the tiny bathroom, frowning at the beige toilet lid and shower curtain. Sheesh. Their interior decorator must have been allergic to rainbows.

  The kitchen cupboards and dining storage area gave away no clues, everything tidy and organized. Too organized. Something was not normal about these women. This place had serial killer written all over it.

  Inside one cupboard a map of a section of the Lucky Monk mine had been taped to the door. The main adit with several drift spurs shooting from it was shown. The dig site was circled at the bottom left. Little red triangles and green circles had been drawn on it, indicating what, Claire had no idea. There was no map key listed, not that she’d expected an X to mark any treasures and skulls and crossbones to designate the areas to beware of, but it would have been nice. If she’d been thinking ahead, she would’ve borrowed Mac’s cell phone to snap pictures to study later.

  After one last look around the whitish brown wonderland, she slipped out of the camper and re-entered the world of dusty green, burnt orange, and cobalt blue.

  Skirting the back bumper, Claire tiptoed to the next R.V. This one had a bright red striped awning—there was hope for it already.

  The door was locked this time. Why? Was there something worth hiding inside?

  She circled the camper, noticing an open window near the back end. Going for her ladder would take too long, so she grabbed one of the aluminum lawn chairs from under the awning and set it up under the window. She unwound the binoculars from her neck and set them on the ground.

  After one more check to make sure the coast was still clear, she climbed onto the chair. The screen had dust caked in the little squares, making it hard to see inside. She pulled the screwdriver from her back pocket and popped it off.

  There, much clearer. She shoved the screwdriver back in her pocket. But she could use a little more height. Balancing on the chair’s aluminum arms, she stood up on her tiptoes. The flimsy metal contraption creaked under her tennis shoes.

  Inside, the bed was a mess of sheets and clothes. A musty, almost rancid smell seeped past her, making her grimace. What was living in this camper? A yeti?

  There was a plain, unmarked box on the dresser in front of her, blocking the rest of the room. She tried to move it aside, but it was just out of her reach.

  With a small jump, she managed to pull herself up, locking her forearms so she could teeter forward and in. Unfortunately, gravity and the two MoonPies she had inhaled after breakfast weighed on her ass end like the anvil the Roadrunner was always dropping on Wile E. Coyote. She began to teeter backwards.

  She tried to get a toe hold on the back of the chair but kicked it over instead.

  “Shit!”

  Her forearms burned. She made a desperate flail inside with one hand and managed to hook the other edge of the dresser. Grunting, she let go of the sill with her other hand and grasped the dresser with both hands. The sill dug into her hip bones, her bottom half hanging out the window.

  One more heave and she would be inside. Taking a deep breath, she started to pull her lower body through the window. They always made this look so easy in movies.

  A hand grabbed onto the waistband of her jeans, yanking her backward.

  She let out a yelp of surprise. Her grip slipped off the front edge of the dresser, one of her hands bumping the box, sending it crashing to the floor. She flailed, her fingernails raking over the dresser top and coming up empty.

  She scraped backwards out the window, her shirt riding up, her stomach and ribs losing a layer of skin. Two hands grasped her by the hips, tugging and lifting. She banged the inside of her elbow on the bottom sill as she lost the battle and rattled out a string of curses that would have made Chester grin.

  Then her feet were back on solid earth.

  She found her balance and whirled around, her ribs, elbow, and ego all bruised and throbbing. Mac matched her glare with one of his own for several seconds.

  “Damn it, Mac.” Claire smacked his chest for emphasis. “You scared the hell out of me.”

  “Good.” He caught her hand and held tight. “I hope you replace the vacancy it left behind with some common sense.”

  “I have plenty of common sense.” She tried to pull her hand free.

  “Really? Because when I saw your butt hanging out of that window, I experienced some serious doubts.”

  She tugged again and he let go. Nudging her aside, he picked up the lawn chair and set it back under the awning, and then he popped the screen back into place. Before she could come up with a logical explanation for her previous predicament, he grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her over to the park’s drive.

  She played mule and dug in her heels, pulling him to a stop. “Mac, what are you doing?”

  “Rescuing the damsel in distress before she gets busted for breaking and entering.”

  “I wasn’t breaking and entering.”

  He snorted. “So you just accidentally ended up dangling out of the camper window?”

  “I was checking to see if anyone was home when the chair sort of slipped out from under me.”

  His laughter echoed across the campground, silencing a mourning dove that was coahh-coo-cooing down by Jackrabbit Creek. “I suppose the screen sort of fell off, too.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest, not liking his smartass tone one bit. “Something like that.”

  “What about Chester’s binoculars?” His gaze zeroed in on where the Babe-o-matics lay in the dry grass below the window. “Let me guess, you were going to take a break from working on the restrooms this afternoon and do some bird watching in the canyon.”

  “Maybe I was.”

  “I’m not buying your snake oil, Slugger.” He stalked over and scooped up the binoculars.

  “What? I took a class on ornithology once. It fulfilled a biology elective.”<
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  His brow all crinkled, he handed her the binoculars. “You’re something, Claire.” Only the way he said it did not sound like he meant a good something.

  Before she could ask him to clarify, he crunched off down the drive heading toward the store.

  Claire frowned back at the camper she had been checking out. This was her golden opportunity to do some reconnaissance. But to what end? Her suspicions about the archaeology crew were based mostly on her own conspiracy theories, none of which would make Sheriff Harrison lift an eyebrow, let alone a finger.

  When she looked back at Mac, he was still trucking along. Growling under her breath, she trotted after him. “Mac, wait!”

  He stopped and waited for her to catch up. His hazel eyes were guarded as she approached him, his lips all thin, his jaw clenched tight. She knew that stormy look. It was usually followed by a bolt of frustration from one of them that sparked an argument. Claire tried to blow away the building thunderclouds with some light breezy joking.

  “Am I a good something or a bad something?” she asked with a smile.

  “I don’t know.” He did not smile back. “The jury is still out.” He started walking again.

  “What!” She poked him in the ribs, trying some playful teasing to dissipate the pressure building between them. “Why? Just because you get a little squeamish when I’m investigating a possible crime site?”

  “I do not get squeamish.”

  “Then why were you sweating when we sneaked into Sophy’s house last spring?”

  Mac flashed her a scowl. “It was over a hundred degrees in there that day.”

  “More like mid-nineties.”

  “I was also concerned about getting shot. Trespassing isn’t taken lightly in this part of the country. I would’ve hoped you’d figured that out by now, but your stunt back there at the camper is giving me doubts.”

  Claire shrugged. “I’m a slow learner.”

  “No, you’re too smart for your own good.”

  She took that as a compliment and ignored the jab mixed in it. Catching his hand, she laced her fingers through his. “Have I told you lately that I love you?”