by Ann Charles
I tried to see, but his head fully blocked my view. “Who?”
“Nyce. He’s rocking back and forth with his head bowed and his ears covered. I’ve never seen him do that.”
I hadn’t either, although I’d witnessed him convulsing during a séance before.
Crap. I wrung my hands. Had he been rocking when I peeked in at him? I hadn’t been able to watch him long enough to tell.
“If I were to guess, I’d say he’s either trying to keep those five ghosts from swarming him; or they’ve already swarmed him and he’s fighting to keep his head above water as he relives their deaths.”
“Relives them one at a time or all at once?” Natalie asked.
I shrugged. “One at a time he could probably handle, but five at once would overwhelm him for a bit.”
“Christ, Parker.” Cooper stepped back, turning to me. “Didn’t you look into the history of this place before letting two mediums waltz into a haunted jail?”
“Cornelius isn’t a medium,” I said defensively.
“I was talking about you. Or have you forgotten about playing Chatty Cathy with my great-grandfather out at Uncle Willis’s ranch?”
“There might be another ‘great’ or two in there,” I said, correcting him on his ancestor’s place in the family line.
His eyes narrowed into a squint. “You know who I mean, damn it.”
I did, of course. One doesn’t quickly forget a shotgun-happy, hooch-lovin’, old flirt who jawed about breeding hips—mine, in particular.
Natalie squeezed in between us, nudging Cooper back enough to give me some breathing room. “There weren’t any details online that confirmed the ‘haunted’ rumors were true.” She crossed her arms. “And don’t go blaming Vi for this. I’m the one who had the bright idea to come to an escape room for your birthday. This is my fault for not digging deeper on the history of the place.”
His expression softened. “Don’t beat yourself up. I hadn’t heard anything about the place either.”
“What the hell!” My jaw dropped. “No fair! You’re taking it easy on her because she’s sleeping with you.”
“Of course I am. And we’re doing more than just sleeping,” Cooper said before turning back to the window.
I wrinkled my nose at Natalie. “You need to sober your boyfriend up. He’s way too loose-lipped about your sex life when he’s drunk.”
She gave me a crooked smile. “I kind of like him with his inhibitions out to lunch.”
Cooper tried the door handle again. “We need to figure out how to get them out of there without raising any alarms. Nyce wouldn’t want this to make front-page news.”
He was spot-on there. Doc had plenty of clients in Spearfish. They didn’t need to know that the guy handling their money partied with ghosts during his time off.
“I could try to do my medium trick from out here,” I suggested. “But I usually have Cornelius or Doc to help keep me from making a wrong turn in the dark.” Not to mention that there were things hiding in that shadow-filled realm that liked to lick and bite. “And that steel door might be a game changer even when I’m in here.” I tapped my temple.
“Shizznit,” Natalie muttered. “I really cocked this one up.” She went up on her toes to peek through the glass. “I shouldn’t have let Cornelius join Doc up here.”
I squeezed her arm. “How were you to know?”
She frowned my way. “Now you’re going easy on me, too. Both of you need to stop treating me with kid gloves and hold me accountable as one of the team. It’s not like I’m new to all of this supernatural shit you’ve been dealing with the last few months.” She poked Cooper in the shoulder. “I didn’t hold back on you when you nearly got Violet killed back in Slagton, did I?”
I shrugged at Cooper. “She’s got a point there.” She’d read him the riot act in front of me on Aunt Zoe’s front porch.
“Fine, Beals.” Cooper rubbed his eyes. “You fucked up. You should have considered Nyce’s abilities and Parker’s tendency to cause a huge clusterfuck when you set this up.”
I did a double take. “Hey, I think I resent that.”
He continued, ignoring me. “Now let’s fix the problem at hand. That’s what you keep telling me you do best. Fix broken things.”
“He’s right. You are good at fixing things, Nat.” I hit her with an extra-wide, blinding smile. High school cheerleaders had nothing on me.
She held her hand up in front of my face. “Stop it. That smile would scare the piss out of a battle-scarred veteran.”
“She’s right.” Cooper blocked my face, too. “Beals, didn’t you give Uncle Willis an old set of keys that Curion found?”
Natalie gasped. “The skeleton keys!” She took off down the stairs two at a time, hollering, “I’ll be right back,” as she reached the main floor.
Left alone with Cooper, I crossed my arms. “I find it ironic to be standing next to you of all people while trying to break into a jail.” I leaned back against the wall. “At least you’re a little nicer when you’re drunk.” Although a tad too vocal about his sex life for my liking.
“I’m nice all of the time, Parker.” Cooper returned to peering in the window. “Just not to you.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Life’s not fair, but I know you’re a tough cookie and can take more ribbing than most.”
I tilted my head. “Did you just compliment me, Cooper?”
“I don’t know. I’m drunk, remember?” He pulled away from the glass. “I think the ghosts know we’re out here. They keep looking over this way.”
That meant they weren’t just some sort of haunting, which Cornelius had taught me was like an old movie clip from the past that played over and over without any interaction from the stars of the show. These ghosts were more like Jane, which was good and bad. Although seeing as they were all surrounding Doc, it was probably mostly bad. They must know he could interact with them on some level, the same as Cooper, only … wait!
“Do you think they realize you can see them?” I asked.
He scowled at me. “How in the hell am I supposed to know that? You want me to call them on the ghost phone and ask?”
“No, smartass. Listen, my point is that you could distract them from Doc. They’re obviously drawn to his energy. I’ve seen Prudence and other ghosts do the same thing to him—as if they are trying to connect with the living. To feel alive again in some way. If the ghosts realize you can see them, you might be able to stop them from draining Doc, which will give me time to get him out of there.”
“I thought you said they swarm him.”
“Same difference. You know what I mean.”
He closed his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Their deaths weren’t pretty.”
I cringed on his behalf. I would hate to have Cooper’s ability to see ghosts as they had been at death, especially the gruesome ones. “You’ve seen worse, though, right?”
His eyelids snapped open. “That doesn’t mean I want to see something like that up close and personal.”
“Yeah, but you’re a tough cookie,” I said with a smile.
His steely eyes narrowed. “Copycat.”
“And you’re protected by a layer of whiskey right now.”
“No, I’m slightly queasy because of too much whiskey dumped on an empty stomach. Getting a closer look at those dead guys in there is going to make matters worse.”
“Empty stomach? What were you thinking? Why didn’t you eat before you left with Doc?”
He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Because it’s hard for me to get a buzz when I have food in my stomach. I figured Nyce and I would be going to the bar for some drinks and shooting the shit all night, along with playing a game of pool or darts, and that was it. I didn’t expect to be dragged by the collar to a haunted jail, forced to partner with a crazy-haired harpy on a sleuth mission, and then pressured into playing nice with ugly ghosts to save my friends.”
“I’m going to
ignore that hair insult,” I told him, “because you’re still drunk.”
He grinned. “Not that drunk.”
“Drunk enough, plus it’s your birthday. My parents always told me I had to be kind to old people.”
He reached out and flicked my forehead.
Chuckling, I rubbed where he’d flicked. “Seriously, it’s nice that you consider Cornelius your friend. He’s a bit quirky, but he means well and will only resort to using a tiny bit of blackmail to help you when you’re in a pinch.”
He shrugged. “I like oddballs. They’re more trustworthy than slick bastards.”
I pointed toward the window. “How ugly are we talking in there? Tell me what you see.”
“You sure you can handle it?”
I smirked. “I kill monsters in my spare time.”
“True. One must have been burned to death. Half of his face is partially melted and the other side pretty charred.”
“Oh, God.” I hoped that Doc had not been forced to relive that one’s death. The sight of a human torch would leave me mentally scarred for a long time. Then again, the little I’d learned about the deaths Doc had suffered during different medium experiences had taught me that he was a super-duper tough cookie.
Cooper peered through the window. “And the burned guy is not even the worst. One of the guards has an eyeball dangling.”
I covered my mouth in horror.
Natalie came pounding up the stairs, two at a time again, interrupting Cooper’s ghostly exposé.
“Here!” She handed Cooper the set of skeleton keys. “Harvey is going to run interference in case that docent dude decides to come check on us.”
“Good,” Cooper said, giving me back my flashlight. He tried one of the keys in the lock. Nope. He found the right key on his third attempt and turned it. Something clinked in the locking mechanism.
I pulled on the handle, but the door didn’t budge.
“Step aside, Parker.” He gave the door a hard tug.
It still didn’t open.
“What the hell?” Natalie tugged on the handle next. “I heard the lock clink. You guys heard it, too, right?”
I nodded.
Cooper twisted the key back the other way. The lock clinked again, but the door still wouldn’t budge.
I watched as he tried turning it back and forth again, pulling on the handle to no avail. “It’s like Jane’s ghost holding that closet door shut in Jerry’s office. Not even Nat and her crowbar could budge the sucker until Jane decided to let us inside.”
And for good reason, too, it’d turned out. Just the other morning while brushing my teeth I was worrying about that red-armed monster reaching for me through the hole in the courthouse basement wall. My poor gums had taken a beating that morning and were sore the rest of the day.
Cooper pulled out the key and glared at the door handle. “Son of a motherfucker!”
“It’s too bad you aren’t a killer robot from the future disguised in human skin like I’d initially had you pegged. We could really use some laser vision right about now to burn a hole in that steel door.”
“You watch too many movies, Parker.”
“That’s blasphemy, Coop.” Natalie took the keys from him and pocketed them. “Movies encourage us to dream big in life.” She shined the beam of her flashlight around the door’s frame. “I’d say we could try to remove the door itself, but these hinges are welded to the steel plate surrounding the frame. Somebody didn’t want to have any prisoners escape on their watch.”
I chewed on my knuckles, thinking back to Jane and that closet door. “I think we have to convince one of the ghosts to open the door from the other side, but how? Cooper, you said they can see us, right?”
“Yeah.”
“We could try flashing them.” Natalie winked at me. “But the window is too high. Cooper will have to let us stand on his back.”
“Nobody is flashing anyone,” Cooper told her. “Especially not you.”
“Nat does have some pretty great hooters,” I said. “They could probably even wake the dead.”
He gave me a “no-shit” look. “I know, Parker. Beals and I are sleeping together, remember?”
“And then some,” Natalie quipped.
“I think I liked the chatter between the three of us better when you two were both sexually frustrated and I was the only one getting some.” Chatter … that word stuck in my head as an idea surfaced. I frowned at the window. “Hey, Cooper, if they can see you, then you can interact with them.”
“I’m not going to play pattycake with them, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Pattycake? Jeez, would you sober up already.”
“I’m sober enough.”
“Good. Then I want you to convince one of the ghosts to open the door for us.”
“And how in the hell am I supposed to do that?”
“You said two of them were guards, right?”
He nodded.
“They’re officers of the law, same as you. Use your law dog lingo and get them to help us out.”
His head dipped, one eyebrow inching up. “My law dog lingo?”
“You know what I mean, Cooper. ‘Hook ’em and book ’em’ and ‘berries and cherries’ and all of that cop talk crap.” I pointed at the window. “Now, stop wasting time and get one of those guards to open up for us. We need to get to Doc before they drain him dry. And keep your fingers crossed Cornelius is just taking a cat nap and doesn’t need to go to the hospital.”
Cooper glowered at me for a handful of seconds. “Fine. I’ll try for Nyce’s and Curion’s sake.”
I clapped my hands together. “You can do this, Cooper. I just know it.”
“Nat, duct tape Parker’s mouth, please.”
Natalie chuckled and then handed Cooper her flashlight.
Cooper aimed the beam through the glass. “Hey! Guard!” he shouted in a deep, commanding voice. “Come over here.”
I snorted. “They teach you to talk like that in cop camp?”
He spared me a glance. “Zip it, or I’ll throw you behind bars when we get inside.”
“If we get inside,” Natalie said. “What’s happening now?”
Cooper stared through the window. “One of the guards is coming this way.”
“It worked!” I cheered silently, pumping my fist. “Now be careful. Sometimes these ghosts can be persnickety. You’ll need to be tricky when you talk to it.”
“Tricky how?” Natalie asked.
“Like use mind games on it. Pretend you think it’s still alive.” I poked Cooper in the side. “Whatever you do, don’t let them know you’re here to help Doc. You should probably think of something random in case he can read minds. I know, mentally picture your gun lamp or your uncle’s cannon.”
“Would you be quiet, Parker!” he growled.
“Now what’s happening?” Natalie asked up on her toes, trying to look through the glass along with Cooper.
“The guard is standing on the other side of the door staring out at me.”
I shrunk back against the wall. Ghosts creeped me out even after all the times I’d been around Prudence. Hell, it was probably because of all the times I’d been around the pushy dead Scharfrichter that spurred my fears. She taught me that ghosts can hurt the living, and apparently I made a good punching bag.
Cooper pulled out his wallet.
“What are you doing?” Natalie whispered.
“I have an idea.” He flipped open his wallet and held it up against the window. “Police!” he shouted through the glass. “Open up!”
I rolled my eyes. “Sheesh, Cooper. Now who’s been watching too many movies. You need to be more creative than that if you want to trick a ghost into …”
The door creaked open.
Cooper gave me a cocky grin. “You were saying?”
“Stuff a sock in it and get inside before the ghost guard changes his mind.”
Cooper pulled the door open farther, casting a glance in Natali
e’s direction. “You need to wait out here, Beals.”
“What? No. Why?”
“Because if they close the door again with Parker and me on the inside and won’t let us out, somebody needs to go for help.”
She crossed her arms. “That’s a load of bullshit, Coop.”
“Actually, it makes sense,” I said. “I’m allergic to jail cells. If I wind up stuck in this one with those ghosts, I want you to bring the cavalry along with Harvey’s cannon and get me the hell out of there.”
She squinted at me and then Cooper. “Fine, I’ll stay out here, but you two better tell me every single detail when this is all over.”
“I’ll make it up to you,” Cooper said, leaning down and dropping a kiss on her lips.
“You better, birthday boy.” She palmed the sides of his face and pulled him back for a longer, wetter, noisier kiss.
I wrinkled my nose. “You two are really loud kissers.” I tried to nudge them apart. “Come on, this isn’t a mint gum commercial. Wrap it up.”
Finally, she detached from his face and turned to me. “Sorry, he tastes good.”
“Eww, Count Dracula.” I spit in my palm and held it out to her for a shake. “Promise you’ll spring me if I get stuck in there.”
She recoiled and pushed my hand away. “I told you back in second grade how gross that is and I still stand by that today.”
I shrugged, wiping my hand on my pants. “Your loss. My spit is magical—just ask Doc.”
“You’re cocoa bananas,” she said and hugged me. “Don’t let anything happen to either of you,” she whispered in my ear and gave me a quick kiss on the side of my head.
“Bleck.” I wiped off where she’d kissed me. “You just traded spit with Cooper and now you rubbed his saliva on my hair.”
“That’s right, baby.” She blew me an air kiss. “Now you have Cooper cooties, too.”
I batted her kiss away. “I’ll try not to let the ghosts lock up Cooper for all eternity, but I give no guarantees.”
“Come on, Parker,” he said, gripping me by the wrist. Handcuffs were no match for his hold as he towed me over the threshold and into the jail behind him.