by Ann Charles
“Call.” My heart hopped into my ears and pounded out a wicked drum solo.
“That’s no problem,” Zelda’s voice sounded tinny, far away. “We can wait. Right, Zeke?”
I stood, not waiting for Zeke’s reply. “I’ll be right back.”
Grabbing my cell phone and the planner, I motioned for Doc to follow me outside.
The mid-morning heat filled the air with tar-scented waves. I stopped next door, in the shade of the awning in front of Doc’s office, and braced myself mentally for battle.
“You need to talk to me?” I tried to sound professional. All business, no naked flesh.
He kept a respectable distance between us, but his dark stare had me pinned against his front window. “You’re ignoring my calls.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Not that busy.”
“I had a house to clean.”
“Jeff Wymonds?”
“Harvey told you.”
“He mentioned it in passing.”
The old buzzard had better not have mentioned anything else. I glanced into Doc’s glass front door and did a double-take at the sight of a pair of suitcases sitting on the floor next to his desk. Was he leaving town again? “What’s with the suitcases?”
“Nothing.” He moved between me and the door, blocking my view.
He answered too quickly for it to be “nothing.” I tried to see around him, but he dodged and weaved along with me. “Why are they sitting in your office?”
“Because they’re a pair.”
Okay, now he was just toying with me. I didn’t have time for games. I leveled a glare at him. “I have customers waiting. What do you need to talk to me about?”
“I have something you want.”
Boy, was that ever a loaded statement. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
The door to Calamity Jane’s opened and Mona popped her head out. “Vi,” she whispered loudly, “you’d better hurry up. Ray’s out of the bathroom and schmoozing your potential clients.”
I cursed Ray twelve ways from Sunday under my breath. He had a history of stealing my clients. “I gotta go,” I told Doc and followed after Mona.
Doc caught my hand and held me. “Come see me when they’re gone.”
“Sure,” I lied, straight-faced, knowing I would be gone for most of the day showing houses to Zeke and Zelda. I pulled free of his grip and scuttled inside Calamity Jane’s.
The sight of Ray sitting behind my desk, all smarmy and full of gush, made me want to rip the stuffing out of a teddy bear and cram it down his throat. He grinned at me as I approached, his eyes challenging me.
“All right, are you two ready?” I asked the Brittons. “I have a place in Lead to show you.”
“Yes!” Zelda practically leaped out of her seat, jittery with obvious excitement.
That gave me pause. Talk about a motivated buyer. Maybe I’d be able to buy Addy’s glasses with cash instead of maxing out my credit card after all. “Great.” I resisted the urge to thumb my nose at Ray. “I can drive us, or you two can follow me.”
“We’ll follow on the bike,” Zeke said in a deep, gravelly voice that matched his bulk. “We’re parked in back.”
“Perfect.” I’d call the Carharts on the way there and alert them of pending visitors. That’d give them a ten-minute window to prepare. “Follow me, then.” I snatched up my notebook of recent MLS listings, grabbed my purse, and led the way out the back door.
Two shakes later, I pulled into the Carharts’ drive, and Zeke and Zelda rumbled to a stop behind me. My shoulders tense, I waited next to my Bronco for them to join me and comment on the huge chasm in the earth on the other side of the chain-link fence.
Zeke kept frowning toward the Open Cut as they approached, but the wide-eyed wonder in Zelda’s expression appeared reserved solely for the house.
“That’s a big hole,” Zeke said when they reached me.
Here we go. I took a deep breath and focused on the power of positive thought. “It sure is. Wonderful view from here, don’t you think?”
“Ummm,” Zeke squinted at the abyss. “I guess.”
Zelda was quicker to jump on my bandwagon. “How fun! Zeke, we could build a little viewing platform and have parties overlooking it.”
Nodding slowly, he said, “It is pretty interesting. Do they still do blasting down there?”
“Oh no, not at all. The Open Cut is a Lead landmark now.”
“I’d love to get some measurements of it.”
Zelda turned back to me and explained, “Zeke is a surveyor. He has his own business.”
“Really?” I looked him up and down. “You remind me a little of one of those professional wrestlers.”
“Oh, he was, years ago,” Zelda said. “His ring name was Jugular-Knot.”
“You mean Juggernaut?” I asked.
“No.” She spelled out the name for me. “The Jugular-Knot was a famous headlock move Zeke came up with where he’d knot his legs around his opponents’ necks, cutting off the circulation from their jugular veins until they passed out.” Zelda reached up and tweaked her husband’s chin.
Zeke, pinker than usual, asked, “So, are the walls of the pit stable?”
“Yes, according to the paperwork. Several geotechs have tested the perimeter.” I pointed at the house, having exhausted my knowledge of the Open Cut. “You two ready to take a look inside?”
At their mutual nod, I led them toward the front door, admiring the new paint job as I climbed the porch steps. I touched the wall next to the doorbell and confirmed it was dry even though it still smelled wet.
Millie answered the door before I could even knock.
“Hi, Millie.” I cranked up the wattage of happiness in my voice, noticing her long gray skirt and matching cable sweater. Would a little color kill her? On second thought, gray was good. She’d blend into the shadows.
“I’ve brought some visitors,” I told her, even though she already knew I was coming per my phone call.
As I’d instructed, she let us in and then disappeared into the kitchen while I started the tour of the house in the living room. Lucky for me, Lila was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Wanda, for that matter. I wasn’t sure about the so-called ghost’s attendance, not without Doc by my side to sniff and bristle; and I’d forgotten my travel-sized Ouija board, darn it. I grinned, enjoying my own little inner joke.
“What’s that wonderful smell?” Zelda asked, skimming her fingers down the drapes. She didn’t give me time to answer. “Oh Zeke, look at this beautiful hand-crafted molding.”
The great thing about the Carhart place was that it basically sold itself. All that was required of me was to lead Zeke and Zelda from room to room, pointing out the highlights, and mentally ordering all of the ghost talkers to keep their big yaps shut.
My phone vibrated as we started climbing the stairs. I saw Natalie’s number and told the Brittons to go on up without me; I’d join them in a minute.
“Did you get a hold of him?” I asked Nat, not wasting time on formalities.
“He’s not answering his phone.”
“Did you leave him a message?”
“I couldn’t. His voicemail was full. You’re stuck.”
“Crikey.” I squeezed the back of my neck, trying to loosen the invisible winch that had just cinched it up.
“It’ll be fine, Violet. He’s a really good guy.”
If he was that “good,” Natalie would have staked a claim, so there must be something wrong with him. “Okay, I’ll go.” I didn’t exactly have a choice, damn it. “But I want you to promise that if I call you mid-date, you’ll rescue me.”
“How?”
“I don’t know … call back and pretend that there’s an emergency with my kids?”
“Fine. But I’m telling you, you’re going to like this one.”
“You said that the last two times.”
“Yeah, well, he has no visible rashes and isn’t trying to become a famous ventriloquist.
”
God. I still shuddered at the memory of that freaky hand puppet trying to feel me up under the table.
“Besides, Vi, the third time is a charm, right?”
Grumbling under my breath, I hung up, realizing I didn’t even know the guy’s name. After several deep breaths, I went looking for Zeke and Zelda and found them upstairs in what Millie had previously informed me was Junior’s old bedroom. Rich brown carpeting and masculine accents filled the space.
Zelda sniffed as I entered and said, “Hmm.”
I looked at her with raised brows. Could she smell my desperation?
“This looks like a man’s room but smells like a woman’s.”
I sniffed, picking up the hint of something spicy yet sweet.
“What have we here?” Zelda floated over to a bookcase next to the queen-sized bed and scanned the spines. “I’m guessing we have a real pacifist here.”
I thought of Junior, the rolling pin, and the shotgun. “Yes, the owners are very mild mannered.” At least the ones left were.
“Zelda is a librarian,” Zeke told me as he leaned against the door frame. “She likes to try to get a read on people based on their books.”
A librarian and an ex-wrestler. Interesting. How had that happened?
“Is it okay if I check out the room next door? It’s the perfect size for my office.”
I nodded, happy that he was daydreaming about what could be. If they decided to put a bid on the place, I’d be able to do some daydreaming of my own.
After Zeke left, Zelda pulled out one of the books and opened it. Dried rose petals drifted to the carpet. “Oops.” She squatted to pick them up.
I dropped onto one knee to help and noticed a book shoved under the bed. Millie must have missed it when she was prepping for our arrival. I pulled it out, noticing the texture on the tan-colored cover seemed more rough in some spots than usual for a book, and handed it to Zelda to stack it on the shelf with the others.
“What’s this?” As Zelda flipped the book open, its spine creaked softly. “Look at the old-fashioned style of binding. And it’s in Latin. This is old. I mean really old.”
I leaned closer, inhaling a whiff of Zelda’s leather, and perused the pages with her. “What? Like a hundred years old?”
Maybe it belonged to the original owner. Jane’s words from yesterday replayed in my head ... She had on a pale, high-collared dress stained dark with blood from where her neck had been slit open. I shivered at the gruesome image that popped into my head, then cursed Jane mentally for planting that little seed.
“No, double that and then some.”
“You’re kidding me.” What was it doing stuffed under a bed in Lead, South Dakota?
“I never lie about books. That’s sacrilege.”
I watched as she flipped through the pages, pausing at pictures with pentagrams and other wince-inspiring symbols and drawings. “What’s it say?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I can’t read Latin.”
“Zelda,” Zeke interrupted from the doorway, making us both jerk. “Come here, you have to see this.”
Frowning, she handed me the book. “Be careful with that. They should probably store it in a special air-tight container.” She pushed to her feet and followed Zeke’s footsteps.
I had every intention of putting the book away, but curiosity stalled me. Whose book was this and why had it been shoved under the bed? It was obviously about some kind of unusual religion. There was way too much symbolism scrawled on the pages for it to be otherwise. Had Junior been reading it before he killed his father? Had the words on the pages compelled him to commit murder?
I fished one of my business cards and a pen from my pocket and scrawled the Latin title on the back of my card.
A hissing sound behind me made me whirl in surprise just in time to see Lila rush me, claws extended, lips curled back from her dagger-like canines. With nowhere to go, I cringed, frozen, shielding my face with the book.
She ripped the book from my hands, my card drifting to the carpet between us. “How dare you!” She growled under her breath so only I could hear, clutching the book to her chest. “This is mine. Never touch it again.” She shoved in close, nose-to-nose. Her pupils were dilated wide, big black holes, creepy as hell. “You have no idea what I can do to you.”
I dislodged my heart from the top of my mouth and swallowed it back down to its rightful place. I scooped up my business card, stuffed it in my pocket, and backed out of the room, holding Lila’s unnerving glare until I’d closed the door behind me.
Holy fuck! That woman needed to work on her anger management skills. As much as I wanted to pull on a pair of chain-mail gloves, throw open the door, and go slay that crazy bitch, I didn’t dare. I had customers to impress—and not with my cat-fighting skills. But Lila and I weren’t finished yet. I didn’t like the way she’d treated Wanda, and I certainly didn’t appreciate her hissing at me.
I found Zeke and Zelda cooing over the upstairs view of the gaping hole in the earth next door.
“Are you two ready to see the kitchen?”
“Definitely.” Zelda’s excitement made her whole face light up. Quite the opposite expression from what I’d just witnessed behind Door Number One. She walked over and squeezed my forearm. “Violet, this house is so beautiful.”
I told everyone so! “Isn’t it?”
She nodded. “And so vintage. I just wish it was haunted. I’d love to have my very own ghost.”
After I picked my jaw up from the floor and hinged it back into place, I led them out of the room.
* * *
Later that evening, with minutes to spare before seven o’clock, I sat in the parking lot of The Buffalo Corral giving myself a get-back-in-the-dating-ring pep talk, Rocky Balboa style.
But in my hand, I clutched my cell phone—my white towel of surrender. Natalie’s phone number was already queued up, just waiting for me to push the Call button and tell her I couldn’t go through with it.
Labeling what I was about to go through as a “blind date” was a misnomer. A truly blind date would mean one—or both—of us was actually blind, or at least temporarily masked with a blindfold for the duration. So, at no point would we both be able to look into each other’s eyes and experience that awkward, tongue-stumbling, heart pattering moment of see-sickness when one of us would itch to race off to her bedroom, alone with a tub of peanut butter fudge ice cream, to hide out from the male half of the world.
Doubt demons had my insides churning. I stuck my key back in the ignition.
On the other hand, I liked men. I liked to look at them and touch them. I liked being liked back by them. And if I didn’t drag my sorry ass out of my Bronco and into that restaurant, I’d have to keep settling for fantasies instead of the real flesh-and-blood deal. I was tired of waking up in the morning with my arms wrapped around empty tubs of Ben & Jerry’s and my cheek glued to the pillowcase with dried ice cream.
I grabbed my keys, shoved them and my phone into my purse, and climbed out into the warm evening air. After a quick straightening of my lucky green snap-up jean dress and a swab of gloss over my lips, I marched across the parking lot, chin held high, reminding myself that I was a successful Realtor and could smile and fib my way through just about anything.
Just as I had earlier today, when I’d told Zelda the Carhart house was haunted and made up a story surrounding the woman with the slit throat. The other house I’d shown them, the so-called haunted one belonging to long-dead Lilly Devine, had elicited even more excitement and interest. Shame on me for playing up the ghost angle, but I had a child who needed new glasses I couldn’t afford.
I approached the hostess. The smell of barbecued meat saturated the lobby. I couldn’t tell if the pang in my stomach was hunger or nerves. “I believe someone is waiting for me.” I really should have found out my date’s name.
“You must be Violet,” said the petite hostess. Natalie must have told my date mine. “Follow me.”
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We weaved through tables, her leading, me searching table-by-table for a set of eyebrows and nose I’d spend the next hour or two staring at while pretending to make eye contact. Johnny Cash’s “Burning Ring of Fire,” audible under the low din of conversation, seemed fitting for a restaurant popular for its seared meat.
“Here we are. Enjoy your meal.” The hostess stepped aside and I found myself looking into a pair of familiar blue eyes.
No. Fucking. Way. “Ben?” I blinked. Then blinked again. “You’re my blind date?”
“Hi, Violet.” Benjamin Underhill, Ray’s nephew and the man who would be my replacement at Calamity Jane’s should I not land another sale soon, rose from his seat and took my limp hand, raising it to his lips. “You look lovely, as always.” He kissed my knuckles then pulled out the chair for me.
I fell into my seat, smashing my purse under my left hip. Something beeped as I yanked it out from under me and shoved it under the table. I frowned across at the man who’d sent me a slew of creepy “Roses are Red” anonymous poems and several bouquets of daisies a few weeks ago in hopes of winning my affection. “You’re wearing your colored contact.”
Ben’s eyes were different colors—one icy blue, the other light green. Tonight he’d covered the green eye with a blue contact.
“I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
Uncomfortable? Just the sight of Ben’s face would have been enough normally to make me wring my hands and perspire. Not that Ben was unattractive. Quite the opposite, actually, even though he had a strong resemblance to his jerk of an uncle, minus the fake tan, jowls, and ugly sneer. Tonight, Ben’s black hair was cut shorter than it’d been a few weeks ago when he’d lured me to The Wild Pasque, Deadwood’s finest restaurant, with a cryptic poem in which he’d tossed around my daughter’s name.
“How’s work?” Ben asked.
I shot him a suspicious look, but his white-toothed smile seemed genuine.
“It’s good,” I lied. “Things are looking up.” Might as well pile it on thick while I was at it. “So, how do you and Natalie know each other?” Next time, I’d ask Natalie this question before agreeing to a blind date. Wait! On second thought, there’d be no next time. Three strikes—she was out.