Rocks & Gravel (Peri Jean Mace Ghost Thrillers Book 3)

by Catie Rhodes

  Priscilla Herrera’s voice spoke in my head. Time to send my servant home. Knowledge of unfamiliar words and phrases, of frustration and fear, exploded in my head. The deluge overrode everything not of it. Nothing belonged to me anymore. I became an observer in my own body. My legs marched me straight to the skeleton. Though I wanted nothing to do with the awful thing, I saw my hand reach down and grab its arm, tearing open the thin skin, making black ichor ooze. My muscles strained as I hefted it off Carl Mahoney.

  Words I didn’t plan came out of my mouth. “Be gone. Go where you can rest until I need you again.”

  A whirlwind filled the room. Cabinet doors opened and dishes crashed to the floor. The water faucet came on, blasting water into the sink. Light radiated from somewhere near me. I glanced down and saw it coming from underneath my t-shirt. The light pushed at the wind swirling around the room, sweeping it out the door. I added my own will to it, pushing at the force, willing it to go the same way I had helped Mysti. The house shook around us, so hard I imagined it coming off its underpinnings and flopping over on its side. The burners on the gas oven came to life with a soft whump, their flames burning high.

  “Turn it off,” Carl screamed at Julie. She tried to make her way to the oven but the wind pushed her down, blowing her against the wall.

  The skeleton pulled itself out of my grasp and jerkily made its way back to the well, climbing in and disappearing from sight.

  “This box is mine,” Priscilla Herrera and I yelled as one. “You will never have it again, and you will not stop me from taking it.” The heat from the black opal burned my skin, and I wanted to reach to pull it off, but my arms didn’t work.

  The storm left the house in degrees, the same way it came in. It passed out of the yard, the cloud cover going with it. The power still thrummed through me, pulling everything so tight it ached.

  You must learn to do for yourself. Priscilla’s voice was soft, no louder than a whisper. The day will come when you have no one to help you. With that, she left. I slumped to the floor, too weak to move. The curse box rolled from my hand and stopped a few feet from me. Carl Mahoney’s gaze fastened onto it. I gathered the last of my strength and snatched it up before he could even think about beating me to it.

  “Get out of my house,” he said. “Both of you crazy bitches.”

  I thought he had a good idea. I rolled to my knees and slowly gained my feet, my legs shivering with the effort

  “What are you doing? That box belongs to me. Been in this family for generations.”

  “Put the box down, Peri.” Julie got to her feet.

  “Want to fight me for it?” I didn’t feel strong enough to whip either of them, instead banking on them being afraid of me. They both swiveled their heads away from me, first looking at each other, then at anything but me. I limped out the door, feeling as though I’d been working hard for many hours, and went to lean against Julie’s delivery truck. I heard her footsteps coming across the yard and felt her stop next to me but refused to look at her. I’d thought her an ally. How can I be so damn dumb?

  “I don’t want you riding back with me. I—I can’t be around you.”

  I made myself look at her face. I saw the fear I expected, but I also saw another emotion. Was it disgust? If not, it was a close cousin.

  “Why’d you bring me here today? You knew he wouldn’t want to sell me the box.”

  “I let it go as far as it did out of loyalty to Eddie.”

  Her answer made absolutely no sense to me, but I knew better than to ask for clarification. It wasn’t my first ride in this particular rodeo. I turned away from her and began walking, looking at my phone and praying I could get a signal out here. Julie walked back to the house, her voice and Carl’s mingling as I walked down the driveway. By the time I got out to the dirt road, their voices faded. A few minutes later, Julie passed me in the delivery truck, never even glancing my way. Two miles up the road, I found a spot where I had a good signal. Rainey answered her phone. I explained the situation, gave her the GPS coordinates off my cellphone, and heard her clicking a keyboard.

  “There’s a convenience store three miles north. Get to it, and I’ll send someone to pick you up.”

  I thanked her and started walking.

  14

  Just my luck. Julie dumped me in late afternoon, the hottest part of the day. The sun, though low in the sky, still beat down with dangerous intensity, turning my uncovered head into a heavy oven. Within five minutes of walking, a thin coating of sweat slimed my body and made my clothes cling to me. My exposed skin burned, not with sunburn but from the heat. Mosquitos hovered over the water in the ditches, zooming after me and buzzing in my ears. I gave up on slapping at them by the time I’d walked ten minutes.

  My mind gave me an encore presentation of the dissolution of my friendship with Julie. My stomach hardened as it played in agonizing detail. I could have kicked myself for trusting Julie with all this. Did a lifetime of this garbage teach me absolutely nothing? After I saw Carl had no intention of giving up the box and Julie had no plans to try to convince him, I should have dropped it, ate my shit with a knife and fork like a good girl.

  An approaching engine knocked me out of my mental rant. I twisted for a glance behind me and saw a single headlight approaching. A motorcycle. Please don’t let them stop. Relaying an edited version of how I came to be walking down an isolated highway in the woods to a good Samaritan would suck. Fending off an attack from an asshole who saw a perfect opportunity could end with me dead.

  I reached into my bag and grabbed the handle of the screwdriver I carried around, praying they’d drive on by. The engine slowed as it neared me. Heart slamming so hard I could barely breathe, I gauged the distance between me and the trees. I could get to the woods before the motorcycle rider stopped if I ran. But where will I go once I’m in the woods? I don’t know these woods. If the guy didn’t catch me—big if—I’d likely end up lost, maybe with a nice snakebite for a souvenir. The motorcycle pulled alongside me. Oh well. Too late now. I turned to face the rider and laughed, body going weak with relief.

  “What are you doing out here?” I asked Wade Hill. His being here made no sense. Even if Rainey’d called him to come pick me up, which I doubted, he hadn’t had time to get here from Gaslight City.

  “Just in the neighborhood.” He stared at my face, studying me too hard for someone who’d come upon me by coincidence.

  “What are you really doing out here?”

  He shrugged. “Want a ride? Long walk back to Gaslight City.”

  I thought about holding out for the truth, but Wade could drive off and leave me stranded for another hour. I quickly texted Rainey I’d found a ride home and climbed onto the back of Wade’s motorcycle.

  The motorcycle’s roar and the scenery flying by provided background music for my pity party. Why oh why hadn’t I agreed to let the box go? I soon remembered I’d been ready to let Carl Mahoney keep the box when things went to hell. The career destroying scene happened because of my willingness to roll over. Priscilla Herrera wanted the box in my hands, so it was. Then things went the way fate had planned. As soon as Julie saw the skeleton crawl out of the well and saw me after Priscilla Herrera took over my body, I was cooked.

  Priscilla Herrera. I squeezed closer to Wade, suddenly cold despite the hundred-degree heat. She was one scary woman. There was no way to escape someone who knew how to access the workings of my mind. Both the abomination that came out of my cellphone and the skeleton from the well came straight from my nightmares, ones I had after watching horror movies. Priscilla knew exactly when I was ready to give up and let Carl keep the box.

  The way she stepped into my body and used it as a broadcasting device both creeped me out and physically exhausted me. The experience left behind many of her emotions and made me want to somehow make things right for her. Mysti’s talk about Priscilla Herrera trying to make up for her wrongs came back to me. Everybody wanted a second chance. What if I didn’t have the ski
ll to give Priscilla her do-over? What would she do to me then? Would my death at the hands of the treasure’s demonic guardians be worse than anybody else’s? Somehow I thought it might.

  My mind stubbornly returned to Julie. The expression on her face outside Carl Mahoney’s house flashed behind my eyes over and over. The unfairness plaguing my entire life had sprouted another head and found a new way to drop shit bombs all over me, and Julie’s horrified face with its thin lips and wild eyes represented it. I wished I had kneecapped her right then and there. I had no doubt she was blabbing the whole experience to someone in Gaslight City who’d turn right around and tell someone else, and they’d tell a few more people. By the time I got back to town, the already fantastic story would be even weirder and might even have my head spinning around backward.

  The Gaslight City limits sign came into view. Wade slapped my leg to get my attention.

  “Where’s your car?” He screamed over the motorcycle’s deafening roar.

  “Take me home,” I hollered back.

  He obediently took a cut through to the road Memaw and I lived on. I’d go pick up my car late tonight, long after Julie took her sorry, sanctimonious ass home. My cellphone vibrated in my pocket, and I removed it, gripping it tightly to keep the rough ride from jarring it out of my hand. It was a text message from Dean. Figuring it was a nasty-gram paying me back for standing him up again, I took a deep breath and opened it.

  “Don’t forget debate tonight. Civic center. 8 pm.”

  I slumped and squeezed my eyes shut. I’d have to face the whole town. The chewing out Dean surely had in store for me would have been preferable.

  Wade drove down Memaw’s driveway. I noted with relief her car was gone. She’d probably find out what happened at Carl Mahoney’s before I had a chance to tell her, but at least I could lick my wounds and prepare to talk to her about it before I had to. The motorcycle’s engine cut off. Wade and I both stayed where we were.

  “You okay?” he asked after several minutes had passed.

  “No.” Tears, both of anger and sadness, stung my eyes and before I could stop myself I unleashed a gout of verbal diarrhea on Wade. Getting down off the motorcycle so I could pace and wave my arms, I ranted about the morning’s horror in great detail, showing the box to Wade as though he’d demanded proof. He took it from my hand and quickly handed it back as though it burned him. Inwardly cringing, I finally came to Julie’s decision to unfriend me.

  “It’s not like I expect any less. I let myself get complacent this last year and forgot how people in this town see me. I forgot to be careful.” I glanced at Wade, expecting him to say I shouldn’t have to be careful but saw only understanding. “The worst part of all this is Julie knows a lot of the business owners in this town. The chances she won’t blab this story all over are so thin, I can see myself through them.”

  “Who cares? Go on with your life. Don’t let it matter.” Wade spoke with conviction, but I saw hurt in his eyes. I bet he’d experienced the same thing. Maybe more than once. Go on with your life meant he’d survived, and I would, too. But with what new restrictions?

  “No other choice, but it’s going to hurt both Dean and me. The debate between Dean and Sheriff Joey is tonight. Way the sheriff’s been slinging shit, you know this is bound to come up.”

  Wade snorted, and it turned into a full blown laugh. I put my hands on my hips and glared at him.

  “If this is part of your testosterone war with Dean, I’m not amused.”

  “No, no. It’s about the sheriff. People who live in glass houses need to stay the hell away from rocks. Sheriff Joey Holze is such a crooked cop, I’m surprised he doesn’t put his clothes on backward in the mornings.”

  Huh? All I could do was shake my head and hope Wade knew I meant I didn’t understand and wanted to hear more.

  “Remember the Bearden murder/suicide last Christmas?”

  I nodded. Boy did I ever. Cody Bearden, a well-liked home builder, had hired a private detective to see if his wife was cheating on him. Once the results came back positive, he took the day off and waited for her to come home from work. When she did, he beat her to death with the business end of a claw hammer and then drank a bottle of drain cleaner. Their teenage daughter came home from an overnight with friends to find the mess.

  “One of the guys from the Six Guns was the wife’s brother. He was the closest relative, so he had to help his niece pick up the pieces. She asked about a bracelet her mother wore all the time. Claimed to have seen it on the body before the sheriff’s people got there. Guy asked the sheriff’s office about it.” Wade got off his motorcycle and crossed his arms over his chest, using one hand to stroke his beard and frowning.

  “And?” I’d never heard this story, had no inkling any of this ever went on.

  “Holze and son blew him off, threatening to haul him in on some bullshit. He dropped it, helped his niece liquidate her parent’s belongings, and got her settled with his parents in Austin. Couple of weeks ago, he saw Felicia Holze wearing the same fucking bracelet right there in HEB, buying her groceries and talking up a storm to everybody she saw.”

  “Did he confront her?” I hoped the answer was yes even though I didn’t see how it would be.

  “Hell, no. The stuff the sheriff’s office suspects him of doing—”

  “Is stuff he actually did?”

  Wade nodded.

  “Holze and his family have hollered a bunch of rumors during this whole campaign. It would serve them right if I found a way to make them look awful.” I imagined myself humiliating the Holze family all over Gaslight City. Then Dean’s face flashed into my mind. He wasn’t smiling.

  “There you go.” Wade smiled. “Give ‘em some of their own medicine.”

  “I can’t. Dean would be furious at me if I had an outburst like what you’re talking about.”

  “Then, he doesn’t want to win enough.” He stared at me until I turned away. “What’s really bothering you?”

  “You think what I told you isn’t enough?”

  “There’s more. You might as well tell me. I’m a good listener.”

  I let out a shuddery sigh. “The other thing Julie’s gossip will do is cost me jobs. She’s a respected part of the business community.” I thought about all the Main Street Association meetings I’d attended as hired help. Julie always ran the show. “If she comes back from a road trip saying I really am as weird as she always heard and then blackballs me…I’m toast.”

  “Individuals hire you, too.”

  “But I make the real money with businesses.”

  Wade shook his head, indicating he didn’t understand.

  “They pay me for a few weeks during their busy times, and it’s a big chunk of money for me. It’s win-win because they don’t have to have the expense of a year-around employee.” I sat down on the dirt, dug my elbows into my thighs and rested my chin on my hands. “If Julie blackballs me, so will the bed and breakfasts, the downtown businesses including the cafes, the junk shops…you name it.”

  “So you figure out another way to make money. I’ve done it a couple dozen times.”

  But I worked so hard to turn my odd jobs business into a full time income. I kept the words to myself because they sounded whiney even while they were still inside my head, which was always a bad sign. The sentiment from the words stayed in my head anyway. I didn’t want to face the humiliation of failing at my business and having to go to work doing something I hated.

  “Girl we had tending bar at Long Time Gone quit night before last. Corman’s doing the work for now, but he won’t last. He punched a dude in the mouth last night for saying the beer was warm. Guy lost both front teeth.”

  I still said nothing, and he gave me a shove.

  “I’ll talk to King for you.”

  “I don’t want to owe any more favors to your motorcycle club.”

  “It’ll just be a job. I promise you.”

  Thing was, I didn’t want the job. I wanted my old life back
. I wanted none of this to have ever happened because it was destroying me, both professionally and personally.

  Memaw’s old car sped down the driveway. Either she needed the bathroom really bad, or worse, she’d already heard all about my morning adventure with Julie. Soon as she pulled into the carport and shut off the engine, she rolled down her window.

  I got up and slunk over to her.

  “What are you doing out driving around by yourself? Why didn’t you ask Esther Bruce to go with you?” I wanted to avoid talking about my problems as long as possible.

  “Mind your own damn business. I’m the grownup here.” She barely raised her voice. We both knew it was all for form. Memaw would die doing what she wanted. She grabbed my wrist, her skin so cold it gave me a shock. “I heard what happened. Damn Julie Woodson. Damn her. You all right, sweetie?”

  I nodded, noticed I was clenching my jaw, and forced myself to stop. She got out of her car and hugged me so tight her muscles shook with the effort. Her body was giving out. She wouldn’t last much longer. Along with everything else in my life turning to shit, I was losing the only woman who’d ever mothered me. She let me go and turned to Wade.

  “Thank you for being there for her, sweetie.” She stood on her tiptoes and reached for his cheek. He had to lean down to let her touch him. “Such a good boy.”

  “Let’s go in,” she said. “You can tell me all about it, and I’ll fix you hot chocolate. You too, Wade.”

  “I can’t stay,” Wade said.

  “You can’t?” Memaw, who’d already started across the yard, stopped and turned.

  “No, ma’am, but thank you anyway. I got some business on down the road.” He got on his motorcycle and started it.

  Memaw motioned me to follow her. I did even though I’d never be ready to listen to her try to console me or to listen to her relay every awful thing she knew about Julie, but I had no choice. Just like the rest of my life.