by Ann Charles
“Affirmative,” Cornelius said. “Over.”
If the clock was ticking, that meant a traveler had passed through a gate and was now in this realm. And by traveler, I meant another bounty hunter was here to collect my head.
“Shit.” I looked at Aunt Zoe. Her face was a whirlwind of worry. The same whirlwind was spinning in my chest.
Natalie took the walkie-talkie from me, sobering quickly as the weight of the situation settled over the three of us. “We’ll be there in a few, Cornelius.” I nodded at her questioning look. “Over and out.”
Chapter Ten
“Over and out,” I repeated several hours later as I stood staring in the bathroom mirror at Calamity Jane Realty. The coiffed blonde staring back at me looked surprisingly calm and collected, considering the fact that she now had a ticking clock, figuratively, hanging over her head. Literally, too, being that the clock was in the apartment Cornelius was staying in located above the office.
I finished washing and drying my hands and then returned to my desk, pretty much falling into my chair. I was alone in the office this afternoon. Jerry was still down in Rapid City, Mona was out shopping for a few items in preparation for Sunday’s release extravaganza, and Ben had the day off. That left me plenty of time to wallow in my worries.
I was quickly learning that being a Timekeeper was more of a pain than a blessing. It would have been nice last fall if Ms. Wolff had given me more than a few panic-filled seconds to weigh the pros and cons of keeping track of the clocks, which acted as some sort of between-realm gate monitoring devices, before forcing me to play Executioner and take her totally out of the game.
I drew a little alarm clock on my desktop calendar, adding a frown on the face of it, while trying to remember the rules of timekeeping. A ticking clock meant that more trouble in the form of a bounty hunter or something even worse had popped into my jurisdiction. Although I wasn’t sure what could be worse and hoped not to find out anytime soon.
I hadn’t yet been schooled enough by Mr. Black, the other Timekeeper who had been working with Ms. Wolff at the time of her demise, to understand the nuts and bolts of how the clocks worked, but I knew that no ticking was a good thing for me.
Chiming and cuckooing were another matter. These actions could be good or bad, depending if the traveler represented by the particular clock was coming or going through the gate between realms.
I always preferred going.
Cornelius wouldn’t have heard either the chimes or cuckoos, though. Only Timekeepers could hear anything other than the ticking of a clock.
I tossed my pencil aside and walked over to the coffee pot, staring down at my mug. The last thing I needed was more caffeine. The zings of leftover energy from this morning’s frolicking in the snow with a parasitic menace still crackled under my skin. I grabbed a packet of ginger tea instead and filled my mug with hot water.
Stupid ticking clock. As if a pack of Nachzehrer out there sniffing around for me and my blood wasn’t enough of a headache. Now something else had come to join in the fun.
“And let’s not forget I still have that damned imp to catch,” I told the empty room, ripping open the tea packet and dipping the little bag into the hot water.
The bells over the front door jingled.
Pasting a smile on my face, I turned to greet my visitor. Only the door was closed and the office was still empty.
Huh.
Had I imagined the bells?
Leaving my tea to steep, I walked over to the door. An envelope lay on the floor in front of it.
An envelope that had my name scrawled on the front.
I picked it up and checked the door, making sure it was latched. Maybe the wind had blown open the door enough to make the overhead bells jingle.
Sure, and then it delivered this envelope while it was at it.
“Nobody asked you,” I told the smartass in my head and tore open the envelope. Inside was a folded sheet of paper. I unfolded it and read:
You’ve really fucked things up now, Blondie! They’re following me! You had to go and run your big mouth!! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!! Fix this shit or I’ll tell them the truth about you!!!!!!
Damn. Someone had a hard-on for exclamation marks.
Blondie … There was only one person who called me by that name: Ray Underhill, aka the egotistical asshole who used to sit at the desk across from me. The same backstabbing bastard who’d insulted me daily for months and ended up getting fired for helping Tiffany Sugarbell steal Jeff Wymonds away from me.
I lowered the note. Well, well, well, it appeared Ray was back to his old blame game and I was his current target.
A shadow passed in front of the plate-glass windows. I looked up, watching as a pair of teenage girls giggled along on the sidewalk. My focus moved beyond them, searching for Ray. Was he out there somewhere now? Watching me read his note? Hoping to cause a stir? If so, he was going to have to try harder than dropping off a mere letter littered with exclamation marks.
I returned to my desk, grabbing my cup of tea on the way. Sitting in my chair, I pretended to be focused on a listing report while keeping an eye out the window. Unless Ray had binoculars, there was no way he’d be able to see through my act.
Before long, my watchfulness paid off. Across the street, Ray eased out from behind one of the silver maple trees that stood in front of the courthouse. The big dork was wearing all black, including sunglasses and a beanie hat, looking like he’d gone shopping for his outfit at Cat-Burglars-R-Us. He spared one last glance in my direction, then hustled off around the side of the courthouse and out of sight.
What in the ever-loving hell? Had getting fired from his job here at Calamity Jane Realty fried some fuses in his noggin? Or was someone—or something—really following him?
Last year, Ray had dipped his fingers in some shark-filled pools, partnering with the late George Mudder to run some sort of shipments via huge crates through the back doors of Mudder Brothers Funeral Parlor. George had ended up dead soon after, and Ray had been on the chopping block when I’d found him and saved his ungrateful hide. Maybe there was more to this story yet to be told, this time starring Ray and a new terror bent on revenge. Or maybe it was as simple as one of Ray’s ex-girlfriends deciding on a bit of payback in the form of stalking. Knowing Ray’s off-the-charts standing on the asshole scale, the possibilities were endless.
The question was, how was I supposed to fix whatever was going on with Ray? And what truth did he have to tell about me? He didn’t know about my killer vocation. At least I didn’t think so. The only secret he’d ever had on me was that I was dating Doc, but that was common knowledge now.
The screen on my computer flickered, and then a new note window with a blank page appeared. The cursor blinked at me, waiting, as if it expected me to have some answers instead of more questions.
Huh. That was kind of weird.
I shrugged, returning to my quandary. I could make a list of possibilities. Cooper and Detective Hawke were always jotting down their suspicions in their little notebooks. Never mind that they were erroneous when it came to crimes associated with me most of the time, especially when Hawke was the one doing the writing.
My hands hovered over the keyboard, but before I could start typing, some of the keys started moving up and down slowly on their own. I frowned down at the keyboard, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. Then I looked up and my jaw dropped. Words were forming on the screen before my very eyes.
NOT … ALONE
Several thoughts slammed into me all at once:
Jane the ghost was back.
Jane was trying to tell me something.
Jane was using my keyboard.
Jane had always liked to use all caps to get her important messages across.
Jane must be sitting in my chair at the moment.
I was sitting in my chair at the moment!
Did that mean she was sitting on me? Or was I on her?
Or was she hiding inside o
f my skin, wearing my face like a ghoulish mask the same as that dead prostitute had in the stairwell of The Old Prospector Hotel months ago?
Goose bumps peppered my arms. I leapt out of my chair and took several steps back. Jane might be my old boss, but I drew the line at sharing skin.
I cleared my throat. “What do you mean, Jane?” I spoke out loud. “You said the same thing before when the lidérc was in the office with me. Please tell me that smoky bastard hasn’t somehow returned for more hide and seek games.”
More keys moved up and down.
I … MEAN … RAY
If memory served me right, Jane had said something similar about Ray before in an email message to Mona back before Jerry had fired the pompous douchebag in December. Was someone still tailing Ray?
“Ray said he’s being followed in his note.” I picked up the folded note on my desk, scanning it again. “But who is following him?”
TOO … DARK … TO … SEE
I frowned, wishing Jane wasn’t feeling so cryptic this afternoon. If she couldn’t see whatever was following Ray, had she just sensed it then? I had no idea how things worked for the ectoplasmic crowd, nor did I want to find out any time soon.
I glanced out the window again, searching for Ray’s alleged shadow. The silver maples swayed in the breeze. A snowplow rolled past on the street, blocking my view. By the time it was out of sight, the trees had stilled along with the rest of the world for the moment.
The keys on my keyboard started moving again.
RAY … IS …
Jane paused.
I stared at the screen, waiting for her to finish. When the cursor kept blinking and blinking, I took it upon myself to finish the sentence for her. “Ray is what, Jane? A jerkweed? A giant tool? A limp-dick sandwich? A misogynistic ass clown? A spray-tanned monkey fucker? A colossal dope on a rope?” I crossed my arms. “I could go on like this for days. I had months and months to come up with names for the butthead while putting up with his constant bullying in this very room.”
The keys began to move again, but more slowly now, as if she were tiring.
B … A … I … T
“Ray is bait?” I repeated. How would she know that if it was too dark to see what was following him?
Y … E … S
“Bait for who?”
W … H … O … M
I rolled my eyes at her for correcting my English. Before I could tell her where to cram her editing, my cell phone started ringing.
I reached for my purse. A glance at the phone screen made me smile in spite of the unsettling foreboding still coiled in my gut thanks to Ray’s note.
I accepted the call. “If you’re looking for love in all the wrong places, you’ve called the right number.”
“Coop and I just got off the phone with Reid,” Doc said.
I cringed. Hearing the juicy tale about my rendezvous with the Nachzehrer secondhand probably hadn’t gone over well with Doc. He preferred such news face-to-face from moi. “I was going to tell you, but—” I hesitated, wanting to choose the right words that would smooth any ruffled feathers.
“But your phone wasn’t working?” he finished for me.
“But I was waiting until tonight so I didn’t interrupt your work. I know you have a lot on your plate right now.”
Doc’s business was really taking off, ramping up with tax season on the horizon and people looking to invest in some money-saving write-offs.
A deep growl rumbled from his end of the line, making it clear how he felt about my excuse.
I tried to lighten up the mood. “Is that a grizzly bear in your pocket, or are you just happy to hear me?”
“I’m happy to hear you’re still alive. Reid said you planned to take on the Nachzehrer all by yourself.”
“I didn’t want Reid to get hurt. Besides, you know how Aunt Zoe feels about me using him as a carrot.”
“According to him, you were the carrot this time.”
Damn, Reid had really spilled the beans. “Yeah, this one was smarter, I think. It lured me up into the trees and set up an ambush, but Reid and I didn’t fall for its trap.”
“Tell me the whole story.”
I lowered my rump onto the corner of my desk in case Jane was still sitting in my chair with plans to finish her cryptic warning. I shot a glance toward the wall adjoining our offices. “Are you back at work?”
“No. I’m at my place waiting for Coop to get out of the shower. We’ll head down to Spearfish shortly, but I have time to hear your version, so talk.”
Knowing how fast Cooper took showers from back when he was temporarily living at Aunt Zoe’s, I talked really, really fast and told Doc about the whole shebang, including the parts about Tiffany even though talking about his ex made me want to beat on a teddy bear with a rubber hose. Then, for an encore, I filled him in on the ticking clock at Cornelius’s place, Ray and his note, and Jane’s puzzling message as a grand finale—leaving out the part when she corrected my grammar. Doc thought I was smart. There was no need to pull the rug out from under that notion this afternoon.
“That was impressive,” he said when I paused to take a breath.
“You mean how Reid and I took out the Nachzehrer?”
“I meant how fast you can talk. I knew you had a talented tongue, but damn, woman.”
I stuck my tongue out at the phone. “Shut up, Candy Cane.”
“Come over here and make me, Boots.”
“So, who do you think is following Ray and in what way are they using him for bait?” I asked, scooting my buns farther onto my desk.
“Forget about Ray. I’m more worried about you running into another Nachzehrer at the moment.”
“What about that ticking clock?” Lord only knew what bounty hunter had come to join in our fun and games.
“What about her?”
It took me a half-beat to catch on. “Funny guy, but I’m not ticking.”
“My heart won’t be either for much longer if these blood-sniffing creeps keep trying to ambush you when I’m not around to watch your backside, damn it.”
Short of me hitching a ride on Doc’s back all day long like a baby chimp, there wasn’t much we could do about keeping that from happening again. I appreciated his need to protect me, though.
“I like it better when you watch my frontside,” I flirted, trying to take my mind off the growing darkness outside and the distance between the back door and my SUV. I should probably carry a weapon now whenever I was out and about.
“Actually, I am quite fond of both of your sides. Not to mention totally smitten with your lips, but quit trying to distract me, vixen. It appears that whether or not you consciously want to hunt these creatures, your subconscious rules and will do whatever is needed to lure them, including using your body against you.”
I winced. Reid must have told Doc and Coop about my temporary foray into menstruation land. What a bloody embarrassment. Three grown men comparing notes on my surprise visit from Aunt Flo.
My cheeks grew warm. This was almost as bad as when my parents walked in on that S&M party I’d accidentally hosted and found two strangers demonstrating a rather perplexing pain-inducing position in my father’s favorite recliner.
“Uhhh, yeah.” I fanned myself with my notepad. “But I stopped bleeding, though.” Not a drop of blood had appeared since the hunt was over, nor any cramps.
“For now. I have a feeling this will keep happening until you’ve fully finished the job. You should probably be prepared for the bleeding to start again.”
“Right.” I fanned harder. We really needed to stop talking about me sailing the Red Sea. “So, what do you propose we do in the meantime?”
“I lock you in my bedroom to keep you safe.”
“Will you be in there with me?”
“Of course. I’ll need to guard your body day and night.”
“You are very good at taking care of me.” Doubly good. Often even triply good.
He growled again, low and
sexy. “That was the grizzly in my pocket.”
I laughed. “Should we send Cooper and his favorite gun out to hunt down the remaining Nachzehrer for us while we work on our mattress mambo moves?”
He scoffed. “Who gives a damn about Coop?”
“Kiss my ass, Nyce.” I heard the law dog’s voice come through the line loud and clear. He must be finished with his shower.
Doc chuckled. “Not even on your birthday, sunshine.”
“Does Cooper have any clue about what we’re up to tonight?” I whispered, in case Cooper’s bionic ears were cranked up.
“I don’t think so.”
“Is he pissy after hearing about Reid’s and my adventure this morning?”
“Initially there was some swearing, but there doesn’t appear to have been a lasting effect.”
“That’s surprising. He usually chews me up one side and down the other about this kind of trouble.”
“Well, I believe Natalie spent the night here.”
“Ahhhh. That explains his lack of bristles today. I should have paid her to start sleeping with him months ago.”
“And she brought your kids over to give him the birthday presents they’d made.”
With Harvey’s help, and several supplies from his ranch, Layne had made Cooper a small tank out of bullet shell casings for his desk at work; and Addy had taken an old ammo storage box, painted it black, and decorated it with police dog stickers, adding a clear coat over it as a sealant.
“Did he like their gifts?”
“He smiled when he thanked them.”
“Wow.” Gratitude and a smile at the same time from the law dog. I glanced out the window. Were pigs flying, too, this afternoon?
I heard Cooper’s voice rumble in the background.
“Okay,” Doc replied to him. To me, he said, “It’s time for me to take the birthday boy out for a celebratory drink.”
“Good. Get him fully schnockered, please. If he can’t see straight, I have a slight chance of not ending up with a bullet in my ass.”
“Don’t worry. Your ass is mine tonight, Boots.”
I smiled. “I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”