Rear View (Peri Jean Mace Ghost Thrillers Book 0)

by Catie Rhodes

  Rainey’s imitation of her father’s deep, ringing voice was spot on. I giggled, some of the horrible day slipping off me.

  “It isn’t funny. I saved my own money for the BMW, money I earned modeling for that department store in Houston summer before last.” She sneered at the Cadillac. “This old thing screams Gaslight City preacher’s daughter.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Can’t wait to get out of this damn town. Speaking of which, I heard what Felicia did to you.” Rainey’s sharp gaze probed me, maybe looking for damage. “You okay?”

  “Let’s not go there.” I made myself smoke more of the cigarette. Damn things were too expensive to waste.

  Rainey nodded and checked her watch. She glanced around the nearly empty lot. A frowned creased her smooth forehead. “Did you see the other group members after class?”

  I shook my head. I’d been so upset from my ordeal in the janitor’s closet, it didn’t occur to me I hadn’t seen Chase after I came back from the special interests building. Usually, I ran into him on his way to the music building. Then I remembered his note in Mr. Stubblefield’s homeroom. “He asked me if I wanted to sneak off campus with him at lunch. Do you think maybe—”

  “No!” Rainey glanced around, as close to frantic as I’d ever seen her. She ran over to a group of guys standing around one of the gargantuan trucks and spoke to them for several seconds. She came running back. “Get in the car.” She opened the driver’s door and slid in. I got in on the passenger side. She started the car and turned to me. “Those guys said Chase and Tubby never even came to lunch. Where do you think they’d go?”

  “Bullfrog’s Billiards. Chase just got a job playing there. They let him drink beer.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” She burned rubber taking off. “And he’s proud of that? My daddy says that place ought to be shut down. Says all kinds of drugs come out of there. Plus, prostitutes go there.” Rainey sped down Highway 59 until she found a place where she could turn back toward downtown Gaslight City. The light caught us. She slammed her hand against the steering wheel.

  “I’m going to give you some unsolicited advice.” She never took her gaze off the light. “Focus on your studies these last few months of school, graduate, and leave it all behind. Go to college somewhere.”

  “Pass.” I rolled my eyes. Not Rainey too. If one more person hit me with this stupid crap, I was going to scream. Why the hell would I want to work my ass off so I could live through even more years of school? “I’ve been saving money so me and Chase can go to California. See if he can get a recording contract. One of the guys from Snakebite lives out there.”

  The light turned green, and Rainey sped away from it. “You really think you and him are going to take on the world together?” She snorted. “Sometimes I can’t believe how dumb you are.”

  “That’s right. You’re smarter than everybody in this whole, sorry backward town.”

  Rainey ignored me and sped down Austin Street. She turned right on Crockett Street and screeched to a stop in front of Bullfrog’s Billiards.

  “You don’t know everything, Rainey Bruce.”

  She turned off the Cadillac’s engine and twisted in the seat to face me. “You’re right. I don’t. But I know what I see. When I look at you and Chase, I see disaster and heartbreak.”

  I turned away from her. Without knowing it, she’d hit every single insecurity I faced on a daily basis. I covered my hurt with sarcasm. “I’m sure you really know those things when you see them. You go on dates all the time.”

  She shrugged. “You do it your way. I don’t give a shit. All I want is to walk across the stage as valedictorian and go to college somewhere away from here. Come on. Let’s go get them.”

  She slid out of the car and stomped toward the red brick building housing Bullfrog’s. Someone met her at the door. Rainey’s back was to me, and all I saw was her stiff shoulders and waving arms. I unbuckled my seatbelt, hopped out and took my time joining her.

  Tubby Tubman barred the door. His skinny feet were bare, and he held a long-necked bottle of beer between the fingers of his right hand.

  “You ain’t coming in,” he drawled. From the sound of it, he’d already had several beers. He saw me behind Rainey and winked. “You, on the other hand, can come right inside and listen to some music with me.”

  “Aren’t you on some kind of probation?” Rainey edged closer to Tubby. “I could call the Burns County Probation Office and find out. You’re drinking underage, and you’re probably not supposed to be in here. I bet you’ll go straight back to whatever juvenile prison they stored your sorry ass in last year.”

  Tubby hung his head and stepped aside. Rainey and I stormed past him. Chase sat on the tiny stage, cigarette dangling from his lips, an electric guitar spread over his lap, and an army of beer bottles at his feet. A thick-bodied, dark-haired guy I’d never seen before sat at a keyboard. The two of them picked out the notes of a Robert Johnson song Chase loved.

  “You were supposed to meet Rainey after school.” I walked to the edge of the stage and stood there with my hands on my hips. I got a glimpse of myself in the mirror behind the bar and realized I looked just like my grandmother. I dropped my hands and climbed onto the stage. “Rainey has stuff for us to do. We can’t let her down.”

  “There’s my sweetie.” Chase took one hand off the guitar and reached out to me. “I told Tub you’d know where to find us. He didn’t believe me.” He hiccupped. “Hey! Want a beer?”

  “I can’t. Rainey has work for us to do.” I swept my gaze over the beer bottles, counting. I stopped at ten. “Why don’t you put up your guitar, and”—

  “Listen to this, baby.” He picked out a funky riff on the guitar. “I’ll play it again, then I’ll start the rest of the song. You sing the words.”

  My face heated. Hell, no. Not in front of people.

  Rainey walked to the edge of the stage, her face set into a hard glare. “Put up your guitar and let’s get to work.”

  “Rainey!” Chase grinned ear to ear. He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I wouldn’t normally say this, but I’m a little drunk. Listen here. You are smoking hot. Why don’t you and me and Peri Jean—”

  “Chase,” Rainey and I both screamed. Somewhere in the background, Tubby Tubman cackled in delight. I was lightheaded over what I thought Chase might have been about to say. Rainey, on the other hand, recovered quickly.

  “How dare you talk to me that way, you nasty chauvinist pig. Is that all you think I’m on this earth to do—please you?” Rainey’s head wagged back and forth as she berated Chase.

  Chase shrugged and played the funky riff again. The guy behind the piano accompanied him. Rainey leapt up on the stage, her eyes wide and showing plenty of white. She clasped one dark hand around the neck of the guitar.

  “Do not ignore me.” She gave the guitar a hard shake.

  “Hey. Don’t jerk on my guitar like that. It was expensive.” Chase raised his head to glare at her.

  Rainey, eyes hard and glittering, gave the guitar a hard enough shake to dislodge Chase from his chair. He slammed both feet on the floor to keep from falling, took his cigarette out his mouth, and held it up to her wrist.

  “Do it.” She bared her teeth in a snarl. “I’ll have your ass thrown in jail for assault. And that doesn’t take into account what my daddy’ll do to you.”

  “You ain’t my boss. Everybody else might be willing to let you tell ’em what to do, but you can kiss my drunk, white ass.”

  I tugged at the collar of my shirt and shifted foot to foot. This was about to get bad. Chase could drink a couple of beers and be okay. But the battalion of beer bottles at his feet? It erased every shred of his easygoing personality and replaced it with a nasty SOB ready to fight anybody and everybody.

  “You’re so full of yourself, Chase Fischer. Thinking everybody can’t wait to bow down at the throne of the only talent this county’s ever seen.” She leaned down into Chase’s face, tightening her grip on the
guitar’s neck. “This, what you’re doing right now, is as far as you’ll ever get. And the reason is you’re too lazy to do the real work of making it. Do you even know what happened to Peri Jean today?”

  Chase glanced at me, lines forming on his forehead. “What happened?” His jaw worked.

  I put my hand over my stomach, clutching at the pain blossoming there. Chase couldn’t know what Felicia did to me. I couldn’t stand to see the pity on his face. I charged over to them, knocked the lit cigarette out of Chase’s hand, and yanked Rainey’s hand off the guitar. She jerked away from me.

  “What would your mother think about you threatening a woman, Chase Lawrence Fischer?” I hissed into his face.

  He winced and got off the stool. He stood with his back to me, packing up his guitar.

  “I don’t know what gets into you when you’ve been drinking.” I followed him, raising my voice at his back to make sure he heard me. “But you need to get it under control or quit all together.”

  “Drop it,” he said. “I’m ready to go when y’all are.”

  Tubby drained the rest of his beer and trailed behind us to Rainey’s Cadillac, still barefoot. The two guys piled into the backseat. Rainey started the car. “Anybody have any idea where Felicia is?”

  “Prob’ly home,” Tubby said.

  “How do you know?” Rainey turned her gaze to the rearview mirror to eye Tubby.

  Tubby shrugged. “She goes home every day after school to watch the soap operas she records.” He leaned forward and draped his arms over the back of the seat. “You ain’t the only one who knows stuff, Ms. Bruce.”

  Tubby also knew where Felicia lived. Rainey pulled up in her driveway and put the car in park. I made no move to unbuckle my seatbelt. “I can’t face Felicia again today.”

  “Wrong,” Rainey snapped. “Never let her know she hurt you.”

  “What’re y’all talking about?” Chase mumbled from the backseat.

  Rainey twisted around in her seat to stare at Chase. “While you were at Bullfrog’s Billiards getting drunk off your ass, Felicia tried to force Peri Jean here to lick the bottom of her shoe.”

  “Whaaaat?” Chase leaned forward, mouth open in silent question.

  I averted my eyes from him.

  “Hell with that.” Chase reached for the door handle. “I’m going up there myself. Rub that bitch’s nose in cat shit.”

  Rainey engaged the locks. Tubby snickered. She glared at him until he quit. “I refuse to allow conflict to make this project a failure. Let’s just do the work and get on with our lives. In five years, this won’t matter to any of us. All right?” Rainey didn’t wait for an answer. She got out of the car and stood in front of it with her hands on her hips. The rest of us piled out and followed her to the front door. She knocked hard and loud and didn’t stop until Felicia opened the door.

  She wore pajama pants and a boob hugging tank top. “What is it?” She leaned against the door.

  “You were supposed to meet us after school.” Rainey bit out each word as though it had sharp edges.

  “I thought about it, but I just don’t see why I need to mess with this. You’re the brain, Rainey. Peri Jean’s the freak. Chase’ll do the music, and Tubby’ll still be a burnout. I don’t need to be present.” She actually smiled. Granted it, was a smart assed smile, the kind Memaw might whack my butt for giving her.

  “Get dressed and come out to the car. I have an appointment set up for us.” Rainey kept her voice even. She could have been opening a bank account. “We’re going to be late if we don’t hurry. And I’m not going to be late.”

  “Or what?” Felicia sneered at Rainey.

  “You wanna play it that way? All right.” Rainey leaned into Felicia’s face, lowering her voice. “I’ll make sure your Baptist mother knows you’re on birth control pills, Felicia Brent, and that you went to Planned Parenthood to get them.”

  Felicia’s mouth fell open, and she glanced behind her even though her mother was still at work. “How do you know my business?”

  “Don’t brag to your girlfriends in the bathroom.” Rainey smiled the way I figured an alligator smiled when he cornered his prey. I considered myself lucky not to be on the receiving end of that smile. “Or, if you do, check the stalls before you start talking.”

  “I’ll be out in five,” Felicia said.

  Rainey walked back to the car with me following. Tubby and Chase trailed behind, speculating about Felicia.

  “What’s the appointment?” I asked Rainey just so I didn’t have to hear them.

  “Benny Longstreet’s going to let us into the Mace Carriage House.” Rainey got into the car and slammed the door hard. “That’s the last place Chris Leeland was seen.”

  I scrambled to get in there with her. “We don’t actually have to go inside, do we? That place is supposed to be haunted.”

  “We’re going to win this contest, Peri Jean.” She stared straight ahead and rubbed her jawline. “And you’re going to cooperate. You hear me?”

  “But—but—but…” I let my barrage of buts trail off.

  Chase and Tubby got into the car.

  “There’s no other way we can win this thing.” She gripped my arm. “Stop talking about it now, and I’ll explain when I take you home.”

  * * *

  Rainey drove several blocks and turned onto Division Street. A sour taste filled my mouth. I wished I could get out right here even if it meant a ten-mile walk home.

  “Who are we meeting? I’m supposed to be cooking supper right now.” Felicia’s overly loud voice came from the backseat.

  “Mr. Longstreet. He agreed to let us into the carriage house for a look around. Sheriff Holze is also meeting us to tell us what he knows about Chris Leeland’s disappearance.” Rainey pulled to the curb in front of the Mace House and stopped. “I spent all afternoon making these appointments. We couldn’t just not show up.”

  I stared at the Mace House. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. All the rumors about my family started here. Broken brick steps staggered drunkenly to the crumbling brick front porch. A plain piece of plywood obscured the doorway. Silver paint on the plywood read “No Trespassing.” The house represented grandeur beaten into submission by neglect and apathy. I gripped the Cadillac’s door handle until my fingers went numb.

  The abandoned carriage house took up most of the backyard. The structure, about the size of a two-car garage with a second story, had vines running up its sides. The building’s once white paint was now a faded, flaking gray. Dull, overcast light reflected in a few intact windows, but most were gaping black holes.

  “How’d you set up the appointments while you were supposed to be in class?” Felicia’s shrill voice carried a note of outrage.

  “While the rest of you wasted last summer getting high and having sex, I was in Dallas taking college level courses, which also counted for half of my senior year credits. Afternoons are self-supervised study for me.” Rainey glanced at the Mace House, then at me.

  “I don’t think that’s fair.” The note of outrage in Felicia’s voice turned into an annoying whine. “Not everybody has a rich judge for a grandfather and a rich daddy who owns a funeral home.”

  I tore my gaze off the Mace House to see Rainey’s reaction. The expression on her face never changed.

  “Not everybody can afford to go live in Dallas and take college courses.” Felicia kicked the back of Rainey’s seat.

  A muscle in Rainey’s jaw worked. She turned off the car and unbuckled her seatbelt. Calmly, slowly, as though she had all the time in the world, Rainey turned in her seat. She fixed her black-eyed gaze on Felicia. I unbuckled my seat belt and got on my knees facing the back so I could see everything.

  “Life is not fair.” Rainey enunciated each word, speaking so slowly it created suspense. “People who work hard benefit. People who spend all summer watching soap operas do not.”

  Felicia’s eyes narrowed, and she curled her lip. Lucky for her, she had enough sense to
keep her mouth closed. No telling what Rainey would have done.

  “The Longstreets still own this place? Surprised they ain’t renting it out.” Tubby sounded like a grown-up talking to another grown-up. I shifted my gaze to him, taking in the craftiness on his diamond-shaped face. I realized what made me uncomfortable about him. He seemed older than the rest of us in some way. Harder. More ruthless. Tubby caught me staring at him and winked. I averted my gaze, focusing on Chase.

  My extremely talented and likable boyfriend had his head leaned back on the seat. His mouth hung open, and his chest moved rhythmically in beer sleep. Maybe he’d get over this phase of drinking and drugging soon. He wasn’t a lot of fun intoxicated. I leaned as far as I could over the seat, and reached with one hand, planning to wake up Chase before Rainey got irritated.

  Rainey smacked me on the leg. “Don’t bother. He’s a jackass when drunk. Let him sleep it off.” She then spoke to Tubby. “There’s damage inside the big house from when it was a boarding house. The kitchen’s all burned up.”

  I sat back down in my seat. The Mace House drew my gaze, even though it was ugly as homemade sin. A figure appeared in an upper window. Before I got control of myself, I gasped.

  Felicia jumped on it. “What’d you see, devil woman? Find out where the Mace Treasure is hidden?”

  My muscles went wire tight. My fists clenched. I wanted to drag Felicia out of the car and beat her head on the concrete curb. But I knew I couldn’t. I took deep breaths like Memaw told me to do when I felt myself getting angry. It calmed my mind enough for me to realize I didn’t have many options in this situation. I could verbally spar with Felicia, which I’d never win. Or I could ignore her and take the abuse. I stared straight ahead.

  “Peri Jean, when you call up Satan from the depths of hell, what do you ask for?” Felicia’s voice was loud in the silent car. “Do you ask for people to like you? To be popular like Chase?”