“We don’t know too many things.” He tugged on her hand and they walked to the front of the hotel and the street.
Hills on the east and west contained the town, with the south showing a distant ridge, too. The highway opening out into the Rio Grande river valley wound southeast. Rocky promontories toward the north led to the mining canyons.
Clare sauntered with Zach through the business district and down to the town park that held the archives. Only the hardware store was open, the tourist places still shut for another hour . . . a couple of them even closed until next June. They all looked interesting.
The wind picked up, gathering clouds low over the canyon in big puffs with dark bellies. More likely they’d get caught on peaks and drop rain, sleet, or snow than they’d just blow away.
Mostly two-story brick buildings, painted and not, comprised the three blocks of the business district that catered to tourists. Their window and door frames were painted, like the lavender wood of their hotel, to attract the eye and promise delightful shopping. All of the buildings were built later than the fateful June day of Robert Ford’s murder, since a fire had burned down Jimtown three days before—and some intimated that it had been set by Soapy Smith’s men to torch Ford’s dance and gambling hall.
They reached the corner where the street angled and Clare stopped, the crisp, clean air lifting her mood. “Just think, Soapy Smith could have set up his con right here. It looks like the spot where his Orleans Club was.”
Zach chuckled and squeezed her hand. “You know how that scam worked?”
She stuck up her nose. “Yes, he’d buy little bars of soap, unwrap them, put a hundred dollar bill, a ten dollar bill, and maybe some one dollar bills around them, rewrap, then come out and hawk them. ‘Soap for a dollar! Some have money inside. Take a chance, you could win big!’”
Zach snorted. “And Soapy’s first customer would be a confederate who ‘buys’ the one-hundred-dollar-wrapped bar, opens it, and shows it to everyone.” Zach shrugged. “Made more than one fortune that way.”
“Yes.” Clare tilted her head. “He had a gang here, so maybe I was wrong, he’d be rich enough not to run that scam.”
“For some, rich enough isn’t enough.”
“No. I saw that often in my previous career.” She turned around on the corner, admiring the silver-faced building, made from tin perhaps, with dark blue trim across the street.
With a roll of his shoulders, Zach said, “We talked about greed. I’m not getting a feeling that the motive is that particular one of the seven deadly sins. It’s something else.”
Clare turned her admiring gaze toward Zach, who raised his brows. “You’re a good investigator.”
“Thanks.”
“Have you seen any more crows?” she asked.
Now his shoulders hunched a little and he said gruffly, “No lying, so rather not say.”
Her mouth went dry; she swallowed, but it remained dry. “Four then, for death according to the rhyme.”
“You remember that part of the rhyme.”
“It’s hard to forget.”
Wanting to change the subject, Zach said conversationally, “We haven’t seen Enzo today.” He wondered if the ghost dog would be any use whatsoever in a deadly case.
Clare jerked a little as if he’d interrupted a deep train of thought. “No,” she said in a stifled voice. “I haven’t seen or heard from him since . . . since . . .”
“He jumped right into the ghost, ready to bite,” Zach provided.
“Yes. I can’t believe that I forgot about him!”
“Well, you would have known if he were, uh, consumed, right?”
She nodded. “I’m sure.” Her next inhalation was long and even. “I’m going to . . . look for him.”
“Right.”
“Mentally,” she said, as if he hadn’t gotten it.
“Yes.” He wrapped an arm around her waist. “The sidewalks look relatively new, bump free. I’ll keep you safe.”
“Of course.” Her eyes went blank, and her lips moved in the word, Enzo.
I am here, Clare! the ghost dog replied. Zach actually heard him from a distance and a damn cold shiver trickled down Zach’s spine.
Where’s here? Clare’s mind-tone sounded just like her voice. Zach kept his arm around her, scanning the sidewalk and the street. A couple of cars drove by, one woman walked her dog on a leash, but several dogs without people wandered around on their own business. That wouldn’t happen in any other town Zach knew.
Are you in Denver? Clare asked Enzo.
Zach stared straight ahead, pretending that Enzo was right here . . . okay, pretending a ghost dog he was used to speaking with telepathically was close . . . Yeah, and that sounded so normal. For sure.
No. A slight whine from the ghost dog. I am here in Creede.
Are you hurt? Do you need me?
“Us,” Zach murmured.
Us? Do you need us, Enzo?
The big scary ghost WITH TEETH frightened me and made me dissipate and when I woke up I was still where I was but the boy was there and he was scared too and we decided to be scared together and I slept on his bed, and he was okay and I was okay and he asked me if I would go to school with him today and I have never been to school and thought I might like it, so I am going. Okay, Clare? You have Zach, but Caden is little and has nobody. And we will be safe in school, I think. Okay?
Clare suppressed a tiny sob. Zach opened his mouth to protest to Enzo—alright, he’d say the words at the same time as he’d think them to the Lab—but she turned and looked at him, put her fingers over his lips. He frowned but she just shook her head.
That’s fine, Enzo. It’s absolutely best that you guard Caden. Her mind-voice sounded light with a trace of cheerfulness. The woman lied well with her mind, better than she did with her regular voice and her expression and her body language. Interesting talent. Maybe because she had experience ordering her mind. Zach’d remember that.
Thank you, Clare. See you later, Clare! See you later, Zach.
See you later, Enzo, Clare said. She turned and they stopped and she hugged Zach. Her head bent so all he could see was her pretty hair, and a bit of the delicate nape of her neck.
“Caden needs Enzo more than I do.” Her voice sounded muffled.
Zach stroked her hair. “If you say so.”
“It’s good that the Lab is with him during school.”
Zach paused. “I know what it’s like being an odd kid in school, we traveled so much—”
“We traveled so much—” Clare said at the same time. “I remember other children not accepting my brother and me.” She raised her face. Her eyes appeared a little damp, but her expression was so tender that Zach had to bend and kiss her. Let his lips sink against the slight plush of hers, touched them with his tongue.
She stepped back, linked her fingers with his. “It will be fine,” she said.
In person, Clare was a very poor liar.
Hand in hand they strolled to a park and the yellow-painted with brown wood trim ex–train depot that functioned as the town museum. Taped to the inside of the window were the hours.
“Not until Friday,” Zach said.
Clare sighed.
A tiny building across the park was the archives library and they climbed the three steps to look at the printed sign on that door. “Again, Friday hours, in the afternoon. By Friday—”
“We’re not thinking of that now.”
“No, I don’t want to think of that,” she murmured. She leaned close to peek through the door’s window. Zach looked, too. Shelves. Nothing much to see.
“I called and e-mailed the contact person of the Creede Historical Society. She hasn’t called me back yet. I’m not sure how to research this without access to original documents.�
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Zach nudged her. “You don’t know how to run an investigation.”
“No. I don’t,” she said in her prissy manner. That lifted his spirits a little, for she was getting back to her normal self. He hoped. There was still a pallidity to her skin that he didn’t care for.
“We talk and we listen,” he said. “We made a good start this morning when that guy who had the hunters staying with him came in and complained.”
“He wanted to complain to all the world how they’d done him wrong,” Clare commented.
Zach chuckled. “Basic human desire. Especially since they were caught doing something illegal that reflected on him. Explain, defend yourself. Complain. Usually works.”
Clare frowned and her face pinched a bit. Dammit, she looked thinner than yesterday. Did fighting the ghost do that? Not good at all. He loved her curves. He loved the softness of her, especially her inner gentleness that had her believing in everyone’s basic goodness, and he didn’t want that to tarnish. He’d fight to keep that spark in her clean and alive.
He took her hand and pulled her down from the steps and back into the park that held the depot and the library. Then they crossed the street to walk back up to the Jimtown Inn. One of the proprietors of a shop saw Clare staring at the window and opened the place early, welcoming them in. They looked around, with Zach studying the shirts. The place had books by local Creede writers and photographers, and Clare picked up a couple that even Zach thought were seriously overpriced.
Once they hit the street again, rain had begun to spit and sputter and they walked a little faster.
“If this were . . . one of my regular cases,” Clare began, staring forlornly at the closed archives across the street. “I could, perhaps, communicate with other ghosts, who might know the culprit.”
“There are bound to be old timers here, descendants of those who stayed after the silver boom went bust,” Zach said.
“Family stories get exaggerated as well as lose their detail, maybe even names get changed,” Clare grumbled.
After snorting, he said, “What makes you think journalists of the time wouldn’t slant the facts to make it a better story?” All right, some bitterness from his own experience after the shooting escaped. Investigative reporters from the big city of Billings had happened to be in town and had done a number on the whole incident.
She gazed at him with wide eyes. “You think so?”
“This was a rowdy camp, and during that time period those Wild West story pamphlets were published and journalists were like Mark Twain, who also wrote tall tales. Of course facts would be slanted in the newspaper. Always.”
She sighed. “And that’s pretty much all historians have to go on in this case, I think.”
“Since a ghost from the past is definitely affecting the present, we need to discover some clues in the present.”
Nodding, she said, “The breakfast gossip was illuminating.”
“Actions of the ghost.” He lowered his voice. “Murders of the ghost.”
“I think so, too,” she whispered back. “I’m so sorry we can’t take Caden out of this.”
Zach shook his head. “Can’t do it. Everyone gets real tense if someone kidnaps a child. The neighborhood, the town, the cops.”
“Not an option,” Clare agreed, her mouth turning down. She stomped along the sidewalk for a few feet. When she gazed up at him again, her eyes held determination. “We distracted that ghost last night. We can continue to do so. We are more of a threat to it.”
He caught her hand. On impulse, he lifted her fingers to his mouth, kissed them. “Not the greatest of alternatives, but one that could work. I like the way you think.” He paused. “Maybe I can smooth things a little by cultivating the local cops. Let them see we’re the good guys.” Two of the sheriff’s trucks were parked outside the county building.
Smiling, she squeezed his hand. “You like doing that.”
“Yeah, it’ll be a little rougher since the Pais guys don’t appear to like us.” Zach liked the zip of challenge. “I’m sure that in the sheriff’s department, and even somewhat in the town, what the Paises say, goes.”
He continued, “And I learned something important the night before last. Cops aren’t my tribe anymore.” He squeezed her fingers. “You are. Primarily you are.”
Her smile at him was warm and some of the lingering darkness of the night blew away. Then she nibbled her lip as if in thought. “The supernatural tribe?”
At that he flinched, wanted to grunt noncommittally, but grudgingly said, “Maybe.” He drew in a breath of clean, fresh mountain air you just didn’t get in Denver, the hint of prairie grass, hills glazed with frost, wet rock. “I’m making a tribe with the Rickman Security and Investigations operatives.”
“Uh-huh. That reminds me. We ordered body armor. Do you think it came in?”
“Body armor might have been helpful last night,” Zach said.
“Yes. Though, in the end, I don’t think it will stop an evil being from munching on me,” she replied just as matter-of-factly as he had, and put a hand to her midriff.
“Your ribs hurt?” Though she wasn’t touching them.
“It’s . . . odd. Like the thing left an icy splinter in me.”
He didn’t like the sound of that. He studied her. She wasn’t looking as good as she had yesterday morning, but a whole lot better than last night, or even when she woke. Infusing his voice with desire—not at all hard—he said, “Let’s see if we can melt that ice.”
“Yes.”
THIRTEEN
THEY GOT BACK to the restaurant as it closed after breakfast hours. Some people filed out; a few lingered in the deep alcove of the main restaurant door. Zach nodded to the Texans as they took off across the street to the hardware store, then opened the closer door that led straight up the stairs to the hotel rooms. For curiosity’s sake, he tested the door at the bottom of the stairs that led into the restaurant. It was locked.
He smiled. “Doesn’t sound like anyone’s in their rooms.”
“No.” Clare’s answer was breathy and went straight to his groin, hardening his dick. He touched her back so she went first.
“This is the best idea we’ve had all day,” he said.
“Yes.” She hurried up the stairs and Zach thought her jeans weren’t quite tight enough. Her ass was prime . . . yeah, he’d seen tighter, more muscular. Often. Even naked. But Clare’s butt simply felt the best in his hands, the right mixture of soft-give and muscle underneath. And it looked great to him. His palms itched, and his dick pressed hard against the front of his jeans in demand to be cradled by her soft stomach, to be slid into her sweet wetness. To climb and shatter with her in orgasm.
God, his mouth watered. He took the steps faster.
She had to jiggle the key in the door and he caught up with her before she opened it, pressed against her so she could feel how hard he was, how much he wanted her. Yeah, absolutely perfect ass. Even more of his blood plummeted to his dick, and his mind dimmed with lust. He angled his hips, once, twice, rubbing against her.
She gasped, and another surge of pleasure wound him higher, because she sure wasn’t gasping in fear this time. The portion of her angled cheek he could see was flushed . . . and . . .
He stood, simply stood and closed his eyes, concentrated on her. She trembled. His mouth dried, oh, man, he needed her. To be in her.
The door opened and she rushed into the room. He moved quickly after her, and that was damn good because someone else came out of one of the other rooms and she’d have been embarrassed if they’d been caught while he was rubbing up her.
She began to turn, but he stopped her, drew her back so his cock could settle between the firmness of her buttocks again. His fingers went under her jacket to the front of her jeans and slid inside, down her silky skin over
her curly hair at the apex of her thighs and lower, to dip between her moist folds and caress her.
“Zach!”
He wasn’t interested in answering her, so he only growled, continued to stroke her, felt her getting wetter, warmer, plumper.
His other hand went to the top of her jacket zipper and he slowly pulled it down, the evocative sound of undressing her making him all the hotter. She shifted a little against his fingers, leaned back against him. So it had an effect on her, too.
The thin cashmere sweater caressed the palm of his other hand as he stroked up to her left breast and curved his hand over her budded nipple, let it thrust against her tank and sweater in the center of his palm, tease him there. He made her move against his fingers at her sex, and her reactions ratcheted his passion sky high.
His jeans were too damn tight and the rain had come back and smacked the roof and balcony as backdrop to their heavy, ragged breathing.
He thought she made little mewling sounds, too, but the blood began to pound in his ears, odd because he thought it was all in his dick. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d been so turned on . . . okay, maybe the first time he was with Clare . . .
“Sex only gets better,” he mumbled, aching as he withdrew his hand from her, grabbed her jacket, and wrenched it off, dropped it. He took the bottom of her sweater and tank with both hands and yanked up, threw the garments across the small room, flicked open her bra and tossed it, too.
“Oh. My. God,” she whispered.
Her nipples looked thick and rosy. Some other time he’d suck on them. Some other time. Needy fire moved in his veins, along his nerves, demanding completion.
His thumbs found her skin again, the snap of her jeans, and slid them and her panties off. He couldn’t help himself; he had to touch and squeeze that ass. Just. Incredibly. Right.
“Zach!”
She stepped from her clothes and away, turned, and came back, her fingers flicking the buttons on his shirt open. Then the shirt was gone and she pulled his tee off. He stopped her hands at his waistband.
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