by Ann Charles
“You’re better off not, trust me.”
He moved past me into the living room, leaving me frowning after him. What did these ghosts look like? Was it just the fact that he was seeing dead people that threw him off balance, or was it something more?
We’d made it to the kitchen where Cooper was admiring the cold, stainless steel lack of hominess when the front door opened and closed.
“We’re in the kitchen,” I called out to Natalie.
The clomping of heels made me pause. She knew she was supposed to take off her boots in these places.
Wait, Natalie was wearing snow boots. They didn’t clomp like hard heels do.
“Hey, Coop,” a soft, purring voice said from the dining room entryway.
We both turned to stare at Tiffany Sugarbell, who was wearing a black sweater dress under her white, wool-blend wrapcoat. White knee-high leather boots completed her ensemble. Who dressed like that on a snowy day while house hunting? Sheesh! Then again, she didn’t appear to have a client with her. Wait a second. What were the chances of her just happening upon a house I was showing to Cooper?
“Hello, Miss Sugarbell.” Cooper leaned against the counter, looking from Tiffany to me. He crossed his arms. A hint of a smile lifted his mouth. “What brings you up to Deadwood today?”
“I have a lunch meeting with Violet’s co-worker.”
Ray! That horse’s ass.
I pasted a fake smile on my face. “Ray’s not here. You can probably find him at Calamity Jane’s. You know, our office.”
She laughed, long and fake, like her hair extensions. “Oh, I know that. I just happened to be on my way to drop paperwork off for Jeff Wymonds and saw Cooper’s police car outside and put two-and-two together.”
The bitch could add. Good for her. That meant she could keep score for Jeff while he drove in touchdowns between her stupid long legs.
Whoa! Back ‘er down, Tiger. I should probably seek therapy for this buried hostility. Two shots of tequila should do it.
Swallowing the acid bubbling in the back of my throat, I fought to keep my smile hanging front and center. “Let Jeff know I’ll drop off Kelly later this afternoon when I’m finished showing Detective Cooper a few more homes.” I turned away, facing Cooper, adding, “Thanks for stopping by, Tiffany.”
He raised one brow.
I bared my teeth.
“Oh, before I leave,” Tiffany said. “Did you hear the news?”
Why her? Why today? Why any day?
Sighing, I leaned against the counter next to Cooper and braced myself. “What news?”
“Calamity Jane Realty is now ranked second as the top-selling real estate business in the northern Black Hills.”
We were moving up in the Realty world. That should make Jerry’s day. “Good for us.”
“Apparently, filling billboards with a frizzy-haired blonde in silly poses has worked to your boss’s advantage.”
“Shit,” I heard Cooper say under his breath. “Not the hair.”
I took a moment to breathe and make a conscious effort not to charge her like a pissed-off rhino and show her some more silly poses—like my foot jammed up her conceited ass.
“Yep,” I managed to get out between tight lips. “Jerry knows how to market.”
Cooper gave me a that’s-all-you-got look.
What? She’d caught me off guard. I needed some time to stretch my insult muscles and sharpen my tongue before a match.
Tiffany tossed her long, shiny red hair over her shoulder. “Imagine what he could do if he started with someone a little less bulgy who has a modicum of class.”
Fury flooded my brain, making my tongue sputter.
“Hey, Tiffany’s here,” Natalie said, standing in the entry between the dining room and kitchen. She raised her coffee cup toward Doc’s ex. “Damn, girl. You look like you stepped off the cover of a magazine.”
Tiffany smoothed her hand over her hair. Her upper lip curled as she took in Natalie’s jeans and long-john thermal shirt under her heavy work coat. “Hello, Natalie.” Her tone was snooty, just like her stuck-up nose. “Was that you I saw skulking around outside?”
Natalie nodded. “I was checking out the foundation for Violet.”
“Where are your tools?”
“I left them at home today. What are you doing here?”
“I came to say hello to our friend.”
“You mean Coop?”
Tiffany laughed. “Oh no, he’s way more than a friend, right Coop?”
Cooper shrugged, staying out of this.
“I was talking about our little Violet here.” Tiffany’s smile was positively smug when she turned on me. “She and I have a bond now that we are both sharing billboard space over on Interstate 90.”
“A bond, you say?” Natalie’s smile looked amazingly real. I needed to take some lessons from her. “Isn’t that the sweetest thing since chocolate-covered fried Twinkies?”
“I wouldn’t know. I don’t eat fried food.”
“Yeah, raw and bloody is more your style. Well, any new friend of Vi’s is a friend of …” She stepped into the kitchen, only to trip over her own feet, flailing and stumbling into Tiffany.
Tiffany screeched, shoving Natalie away. She gaped down in horror at her no-longer-pristine coat. Coffee ran down both sides of her white wool coat, dripping onto the toes of her white leather boots.
I covered my mouth, holding in the giggles bubbling up my throat.
“I’m sorry, Tiffany,” Natalie said, righting herself. She looked down at her squished coffee cup with a wrinkled brow. “I’ve been so clumsy lately. Violet, hand me those paper towels. I’m sure these coffee stains will come right out.”
Tiffany’s mouth opened and closed several times before uttering, “You bitch!”
“Come on now,” Natalie said, brushing coffee drips off the white wool with her hand, not bothering with a towel. “Accidents will happen.”
Tiffany batted Natalie’s hand away. “You’re making it worse! What’s on your hands?”
“Oh, shucks. I meant to wash that old grease off when I came inside, but I got distracted when I heard your voice.”
“This is a four-hundred-dollar coat!” Tiffany wailed, making Cooper and me wince.
Natalie stared at the stain, nodding. “Good point. Make sure you let the dry cleaner know how much it cost so they don’t ruin it with some cheap stain remover.”
Tiffany stomped her boot. “You did this on purpose!”
“Oh, Tiffany. How can you think that?” Natalie stuck out her lower lip in a fake pout. “It was an accident, but I really appreciate your catching me so I didn’t dump coffee all over this beautiful hardwood floor.” Sh smiled at me. “That would have been a real disaster, huh, Vi?”
Nodding, I pinched my lips together harder, looking toward Cooper. He watched the scene with a straight face and slightly narrowed eyes, like he was mapping out a crime scene.
“You know,” Natalie continued, setting her crushed paper coffee cup on the counter. “I swear I saw a coat just like that at a thrift store down in Rapid a couple of months ago.”
“I don’t shop at thrift stores.” There was that snooty tone again.
Natalie’s smile had a hard edge with frosty overtones. “Now that Violet is taking over your market share, you might want to start.”
Tiffany’s jaw dropped. “Oh! You are such a … a … ahhh!” She shoved Natalie back a step and strode out of the room.
“Let me know if you need my tools for anything, Tiffany,” Natalie called at her departing back. She added under her breath, “I have a pair of needle nose pliers I’d like to use to pluck out her uppity nose hairs one by one.”
Tiffany’s heels clomped all of the way to the front door, which she slammed so hard the mirror over the dining room fireplace rattled.
I burst out laughing.
“Well,” Natalie said, turning back to me. “That got rid of that rat. I’ll send you a bill for my exterminator services
later.” She walked over to the sink, washing her hands under the faucet. “So, the foundation looks pretty solid except on the north side,” she told Cooper as if that whole scene hadn’t just happened. “But there appears to be some dry rot under the eaves in the back.”
I blew her a kiss. “I love you, Nat.”
She winked back. “Seventh grade. You and me. Blood promise.” She dried her hands on a paper towel. “Besides, bullies suck.”
Cooper rubbed his jaw, staring at Natalie with an intensity that practically shot sparks. “I hope you never come swinging for me, Beals.”
“Watch your Ps and Qs and you’ll be good.” She stuck her hands in her back pockets, her smile cocky.
His gaze traveled down over her shirt and jeans. “Maybe I don’t want to be good.” His voice had a rasp that made me look twice. “Maybe I’d rather be bad.”
Had he really just said that?
Natalie’s face darkened a shade. One of her eyebrows crept upward. “I thought you liked to be good, Coop. You know that cop mumbo-jumbo you gave back at the other house about not driving recklessly, breaking rules, and dating local girls.”
Uh, hold the phone. I distinctly remember there being no mention about dating local girls in that conversation. I thought about slinking away into the dining room to leave them to hash this out without me, but I was too damned curious to see what happened next to move.
“You inspire waywardness, Beals.”
She tipped her head to the side, her lips pursed. “Are you screwing with me, Coop?”
“Is that an invitation?”
“You know what I mean.”
“What do you think?” He pushed off the counter, strolling toward her.
Her gaze narrowed as he neared, but she held her ground. “I think you’re a hard man to read.”
He straightened the collar of her coat. “And I think you’ve been on sabbatical too long.”
She flinched the tiniest bit as his words hit home.
Cooper glanced over at me. “Let’s take a look upstairs.” Without another word, he left the room.
Natalie watched him leave, her face stormy with emotions.
I moved over by her, cleaning up the coffee spots on the floor. “That was interesting.”
“Was he actually flirting for real just then?” she whispered, fanning her thermal shirt. “Have I been on sabbatical so long that I’m starting to see things that aren’t really there?”
“It’s hard to tell for sure with Cooper,” I said, stepping carefully in this minefield. “His jagged teeth and sharkskin usually keep me standing several feet back from his tank.”
“He’s been acting weird lately, I swear,” she said. “I keep getting mixed vibes from him. I always feel like I have something on my face and he just doesn’t want to tell me.”
She was getting warm. “Speaking of weird shit,” I said. “Are you the one sending Rex dirty underwear to get him fired?”
Her nose scrunched up. “No. I applaud the effort and would love to see it succeed in ousting him, but that’s too gross for me. I prefer to get my messages across via blunt force trauma, like with a crowbar to his Jaguar.”
Hmmmm, who was it then? Did I have a porno-loving guardian angel?
We found Cooper upstairs in the master bedroom. He was staring into the dresser mirror, his focus on the window.
“It looks like they’ve put a lot of work into restoring the molding,” I said, walking over to check out the window and see if there was something he could see outside. It faced the street. I made sure Tiffany’s Jeep was nowhere to be seen before turning around and realizing that I was now the center point of Cooper’s reflected focus.
I smiled.
He didn’t, his face growing taut as he looked at me.
“Cooper?” I said, turning away from the mirror to stare at him.
“Don’t move,” he said, using his cop voice on me.
I obeyed, barely breathing.
“What is it?” Natalie asked, stepping further into the room.
“There’s someone standing next to Violet.”
“A ghost?” She moved next to Cooper.
“If you’re not seeing him, then yes, a ghost.”
I didn’t know what was scarier—that Cooper was using my first name or that a ghost was standing next to me.
“Are you kidding, Cooper?” I asked. “Like at the other house? Because if so, this isn’t funny.”
“Not this time.”
“What’s it doing?” Natalie whispered, like the ghost wouldn’t be able to hear her if she kept her voice down.
“I think he’s sniffing her neck.”
“He’s what?!” I cringed, waiting for it to appear in front of me and make me scream.
“Is he old or young?” Natalie asked.
“Older. I think. He’s wearing a button-up vest and stiff shirt collar that shows his tie. He sort of looks like the guys in those old Charlie Chaplin movies from the 1920s.”
“What’s he want?” I asked, my voice higher than usual. Why me? Why couldn’t it pick on Natalie?
“How should I know, Parker?”
“Ask him,” Natalie said.
“What do you want?” Cooper snapped at the ghost.
Natalie sighed. “That’s not how you talk to ghosts, Coop.”
“How in the hell am I supposed to know how to speak to ghosts?”
“Is he still smelling me?”
“Uh, yes.”
“Why did you ‘uh’ first?”
He grimaced in response, making the panic flying in my stomach flutter faster. “Because he’s holding a shotgun.”
There was something Cooper wasn’t telling me, damn it. “Do something about him.”
“What am I supposed to do?” he growled back. “I left my proton gun at home.”
“Really, Cooper? You pick the worst times to try to be funny.”
“Violet, calm down,” Natalie said. “The ghost can’t hurt you.”
Easy for her to say since she wasn’t getting sniffed … or worse. “We don’t know that for sure.”
Cooper’s grimace deepened. “I think he’s trying to strangle Parker with one hand. Or line her up for a kiss.”
“Oh, God!” I blocked my face.
“You can’t interrogate him like you have him down at the station,” Natalie said to Cooper. “You need to be nice when you talk to him. Make him want to talk.”
He frowned down at her. “I don’t know that we want this one to try to talk.”
“Cooper!” I snapped.
He turned back to me, focusing on the space to my left. “Is there something you need from us?” He turned to Natalie. “How’s that?”
“Better.”
“He’s walking toward me now,” Cooper said, his face tightening as his eyes followed something in the empty air.
“Good,” I said, brushing off my neck and face like I’d been covered with ectoplasmic slime. “It’s your turn.”
“Now what?” Cooper asked Natalie.
“Try asking him another question.”
“Give me your name,” he ordered.
“Coop, could you stop being a cop for one moment?”
“Will you please tell me your name?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“Well?” Natalie pressed.
“He’s saying something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is he speaking a foreign language?” I asked.
“I can’t hear him.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean there is no sound coming from him, Parker.”
“Is he a mime?” I asked.
“No, he’s not a damned mime.”
“Don’t yell at me in front of the ghost.”
He blew out a breath. “I’m sorry. This is new for me. I’m not Nyce.”
“It’s still new for me, too,” I said, “and we’re in this together. Take your frustrations out on your other partner. The o
ne trying to frame me for murder.”
“If you two girls are done bickering,” Natalie said, “ask the ghost if this is his house.”
“Of course it’s his house,” I said.
“We don’t know that,” Cooper defended Natalie. “He could have been visiting and died here. Didn’t you say this place used to be a boarding house at one time?”
“No, that was that old place over in Central City.”
Cooper took a step back, his steely eyes widening.
“What are you doing?”
“He’s reaching toward my face.”
“You need to let him pass through you,” I said.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. That’s what Doc does.”
“Yeah, well that’s Nyce’s gig, not mine.” He stepped to the side, his head slowly turning toward the door. “He’s leaving.”
Natalie moved to block the doorway, licking her finger and holding it up in the air.
What the planets? “What are you doing, Nat?”
“Trying to see if there is a temperature change. They always talk about ghosts being cold on TV.”
“Natalie, that’s a bunch of …”
“I can feel him!”
“You should be able to,” Cooper said. “He just passed right through you.”
“How cool was that?” she said, grinning.
I looked at Cooper. “She’s lost her marbles.”
He nodded. “Let’s get out of here.”
“But he might come back,” Natalie said.
“Trust me, we don’t want him to.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because half of his head was blown off.”
Yikes! And he was sniffing me? Oh, gross. “I need a shower.”
We didn’t waste time escaping to his Durango. After voting two-to-one to call it a wrap for the day, we took the “one” back to the Galena House.
We sat in front of the big boarding house for a moment, catching our breath.
Something flickered in my mind, something Natalie had said earlier.
“Nat, you said you had a busy night.” I turned in my seat to look at her. “Did you hear footsteps again on the stairs?”
Cooper frowned in the rearview mirror. “Our officers aren’t giving you trouble, are they?”
