by Ann Charles
I’d seen plenty of zombies last month. She wasn’t anything close to them or I would have run screaming out the door.
“Was I filming when you found me?”
“I’m not sure,” I sort of fibbed. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure what had been going on when I walked in, and until I got a peek at the video, I wasn’t sure I wanted her to know what I thought I had seen.
“Where’s my camera?”
“In the kitchen. I’ll bring it when I get you some water.” She took a shaky breath. “Maybe we should drive you to the hospital, make sure you’re okay and didn’t have some kind of seizure.” Although I feared the “seizure” had been done by Prudence, not anything chemically or physically within Honey herself.
“Thanks, but I feel fine, Violet, just a little tired.”
“Tired?” I chewed on my lower lip. “That’s not good. It could be a sign of another episode coming on.”
“We can wait a few minutes longer,” Honey said, her breathing growing steadier. “I used to have panic attacks at my old job. I’ve learned a few tricks to level out my blood pressure.”
I stood at the edge of the white shag carpet, kneading my hands together. “I’ll go get some water. You relax there for a few minutes.”
Hustling into the kitchen, I went straight for the camera and took it into the pantry, closing the door behind me. Light filtered in through the slats. In the semi-gloom, I hit the Rewind button, counted to ten, and then hit Play. I adjusted the volume so only I could hear it.
I watched the video as Honey focused on the pit through the window, mentioning the depth I’d told her and how long it had sat abandoned.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out, seeing Jerry’s name and a How’s it going? text. Now was not the time, Jerry, I thought and started to shove my phone in my pants again but then had an idea. I hit the button to record a video on my phone and held it close to the camera’s screen as Honey exited the bedroom.
The view on the screen was upside down now, though, and bumping as Honey walked along the upstairs hallway and down the stairs. She must not have realized she’d left it on. I leaned closer, trying to hear if she was commenting on anything, but there was nothing but a slight static as it bumped into her thigh with each step.
On the screen she made a straight shot for the kitchen, the staircase disappearing as Honey turned the corner at the threshold. I could see the upside down green refrigerator, including the apple magnet Wanda had left there with a note apologizing for the lack of ice trays.
Then the screen shifted violently as Honey lifted it, turning it around to focus on her chest and mouth.
“Where have you been, Violet?” When Honey spoke my name in the video, I almost peed my pants right there in Wanda’s pantry.
For one thing, Honey’s mouth moved like someone else was pulling strings to open and close her lower jaw. I’d seen that done before in this very house, and there was no getting used to the lightning bolt of fear that shot through me each time it happened.
But what had my heart cowering against my ribs in panic was the lilting sound of Prudence’s voice instead of Honey’s huskier tones.
I leaned closer to the video as the camera lens jerked up a few more inches. I might have screamed had I not seen Honey with her eyes rolled up so only the whites showed when I first walked into the kitchen.
Honey’s jaw unhinged and moved up and down a couple of times before Prudence’s words came out, as if she were trying to get the hang of the controls in Honey’s head.
“We have no time for these games, Violet. Every night they grow stronger. You must stop these attempts to avoid me and pay attention to my instructions. I have waited too long. Your life, among many, will depend upon what I share.”
I could hear my voice in the camera calling Honey’s name in the background.
A drop of drool leaked from the corner of Honey’s mouth as Prudence worked the strings a few more times in silence.
“I speak not of a timepiece,” she finally said through Honey’s mouth again, “but the keeper of time. I must confer with Miss Hoont.” Honey’s head fell to the side, like Prudence had dropped a string. Her mouth still moved jerkily open and close. “We must act quickly. If the librarian does not arrive soon, bring me one who can bridge the channel.”
I heard my voice coming closer in the video, calling for Honey.
The camera shifted close to Honey’s rolled back eyes. “Return the teeth to me!” Prudence’s voice was a loud, sharp whisper at this point. Then the camera pulled back to arm’s length.
“There you are,” I heard my voice say on the camera and then a flash of my silver sweater and hair passed to the side of Honey.
“Violet?” Honey called from the sitting room. “Where are you?”
Shit! I hit the Stop button, my breath as loud as a locomotive in the closet-sized pantry. Why couldn’t Prudence leave me alone just this once? What did she mean by bringing her the one who opens channels? Why couldn’t she speak in layperson terms for me?
“Coming, Honey,” I yelled out the pantry door.
I held the camera in the slatted light and hit the Rewind button again. When I hit Play, we were back up in the bedroom with Honey talking in the background in her normal voice. I put the lens cap on the camera and hit the Record button. On my phone, I stopped the video recording and pocketed it. While Honey’s camera recorded the backside of a black lens cap over top of Prudence’s message, I closed the doors and hustled over to the sink, running water.
I peeked out the kitchen doorway. “Sorry, I got a text from Jerry that distracted me and then I couldn’t find the glasses. Your water is on the way.”
“Thanks,” Honey was standing staring out the window where I’d once watched two women fight and then kiss and make up. “Sorry to yell like that. I thought I saw this curtain move on its own and I kind of freaked out.”
“There’s a register below it,” I pointed out.
“Oh, whew!” Honey said. “For a moment there, I thought the ghost had paid me a visit.”
The ghost had, but nobody needed to know that but me.
Dickie came down the stairs. “Where have you been, Honey? I needed you in the attic.”
While Honey explained her odd behavior, I slipped back into the kitchen, took my time getting the water, and brought two glasses to them.
“Have you seen Honey’s camera, Violet?” Dickie asked as I handed his water to him.
The urge to apologize for the lack of ice cubes made it to the tip of my tongue before I bit it back, along with a bubble of hysterical giggles. Dear Lord, I was turning into Wanda Carhart.
“It’s in the kitchen. I’ll go get it.”
Again, I took my time, banging cupboard doors, before sneaking into the pantry and checking how far I’d recorded over. The blackness from the lens cap filled the screen as I fast-forwarded through it. I breathed a sigh of relief when at the end of the blackness there was nothing else.
I shut it off and carried it out into the sitting room. “I had to put a few things away Ms. Carhart had left out. Here’s your camera. It was over by the flour canister.”
“How bizarre. I don’t remember even setting it down.”
“Dickie, don’t you think we should take Honey to the clinic to have a doctor look at her? See if she had some kind of seizure?” I wanted to get the hell out of this house now before Prudence made an even bolder attempt to talk to me.
“Maybe Violet’s right, Honey.” He stood, rubbing his forearm and wincing.
I glanced down and notice a large bluish-green lump on it. “Is that a bruise?” I asked, stepping closer.
He frowned down at it. “Yeah. I got it when I was up in the attic.”
“Did you run into something?” Like a ghost obsessed with time and teeth?
“No.” He glanced up the stairs. “That’s what’s so weird. I didn’t touch anything. I was staring down at a crib that looked like something from the late nineteenth centur
y and reached down to touch what looked like a snip of blond hair. My fingers had almost touched it when something seemed to hit my forearm. Then I heard Honey call for me, so I went over to the ladder, but nobody was there. After that I noticed the bruise on my arm.”
I had a feeling I knew who’d bruised him. “Did anything else happen in the attic?”
“Yes,” he frowned up the stairs then turned back to me. “It kind of freaked me out.”
That surprised me since Dickie claimed to be on a chatting basis with ghosts. “What’s that?”
“I was heading back over to the crib when it felt like someone reached into my mouth and yanked on my tooth.”
“What do you mean?” Honey asked.
Dickie opened his mouth and pointed at one of his canines. “See this one? I could swear it felt like someone reached in there with a pair of pliers and tugged.”
I took a step backward. “You’re kidding me.”
“As a matter of fact,” Dickie said, “I think the sucker is loose now.”
Return the teeth to me! I heard Prudence’s voice echo in my head. Had she tried to take one of Dickie’s teeth? I covered my mouth with my hand, afraid I might scream if I didn’t block it.
What did Prudence want with those damned teeth? I gulped, worrying about what she might do to Zelda if I didn’t bring the box of teeth back.
More importantly, how in the hell was I going to get them back from Cooper?
Chapter Fourteen
One dark and spooky Halloween night long ago, a man wearing a hockey mask wielding a revving chainsaw had chased me out of a haunted house. I’d screamed so loud while running for my life that my voice had been hoarse for two days.
Prudence had now one-upped that night’s chase on the scare-the-shit-out-of-me scale.
I managed to keep my tremors in check during the drive back down to Calamity Jane’s. Dickie and Honey were both wiggling in their seats with excitement, full of hot air on how they could include the Carhart house in their show. I wasn’t going to be the one to inform them that the Carhart house was sort of off limits to them. That was Jerry’s job.
My job was to show them a good time. As far as I was concerned, I’d delivered and then some thanks to Prudence.
By the time I replied to a few emails and wrapped up for the day it was nearing dinner time. Jerry practically patted me on the head as I left. I half expected him to scratch me behind the ears and offer me a Scooby snack for doing my job so well with the television folks.
I rolled home in the Picklemobile, refraining from chewing on my knuckles about what Prudence’s messages meant until I could see Doc and show the video to him. He would help me make sense of it all.
At least I hoped so.
There were three vehicles in the drive when I arrived at Aunt Zoe’s—Harvey’s pickup, Doc’s Camaro, and Jeff Wymonds’ truck with its extra big tires. The last one made me pause. What was Jeff doing here and how was Doc feeling about it?
I collected my wits along with my purse. The cold crisp October evening and the memories of Honey’s puppet performance at the Carhart house had me shivering while I scurried up the walk. The screen door creaked open as I hit the top step.
Doc stood there in the same clothes he’d been wearing when I had seen him in the parking lot behind Calamity Jane’s.
“Hi,” I stopped in front of him, eyeing him up and down, making sure my kids hadn’t done any visible damage. “It looks like Addy and Layne didn’t leave any bruises or claw marks on you.” I hoped he hadn’t been waiting for me so that he could tag me and then run for his life and never look back.
“No injuries.” His grin spread up to his dark eyes. “They aren’t as rough on me as their mother, the bruiser.”
I made a fist and threw a pretend punch.
He caught my hand and used it to tug me closer. “How’d it go today?” he asked, fingering one of my loose curls.
I wasn’t sure if he meant with Rex, the television folks, or Prudence, so I started with the one unsettling me the most. “Prudence wants her teeth back.”
His brow creased. “That’s going to be tough to deliver unless you have a plan on how we can break into the evidence room at the Deadwood Police Station.”
“Well, one idea did come to mind.”
“Uh oh.”
“I was thinking you could distract Cooper while I sneaked in and grabbed the goods.”
“I don’t think Cooper’s coworkers would let you through the front door these days without hitting the silent alarm.” He pulled me toward him, lowering his lips. “Kiss me ‘hello,’ Boots.”
I obliged without hesitation. He tasted citrusy and safe, like Aunt Zoe’s lemonade and home-sweet-home. I went up on my tip-toes and dove in for seconds, thirsty for more after the day I’d had. As I burrowed into his warmth, he wrapped me in his arms, enveloping me in his subtle yet spicy cologne, along with a hint of tomato sauce. He must have been cooking dinner when I pulled into the drive.
Our “hello” tongue tango deepened into a “come to bed with me” rhumba. The temptation to sneak him into the hall coat closet and forget about reality for a few sighing breaths flared.
A crash in the kitchen doused the flame. I groaned and detached from Doc’s embrace.
“Harvey’s making lasagna,” Doc explained, towing me inside and closing the door behind us.
That explained the tomato I’d smelled. The thought of Harvey’s lasagna had drool pooling in my mouth.
“By the way,” Doc said, “we have company.”
I wasn’t sure by his even expression if this was a major problem or a minor annoyance. “I noticed. What’s Jeff doing here?”
“We ran into Kelly and him down on Main Street and Addy invited them here for dinner.”
“Wasn’t that polite of her,” I said with a dose of sarcasm, kicking off my heels. I’d be sure to give her ear a tug for dragging Jeff here when she knew Doc was staying for dinner.
“It’s not a big deal.” Doc winked at me. “He can look all he wants, so long as he doesn’t touch.”
I didn’t even like Jeff looking after his many comments about wanting to see me barefoot and pregnant. He made me worry about getting knocked up by telekinesis alone somehow.
“Cooper called me looking for you,” Doc said.
Was he sure it was Cooper, or had it been Hawke pretending to be Cooper again? I hadn’t been sure myself a short time ago when I’d seen the number on my cell phone screen, nor had I wanted to talk to either man right then, so I’d kicked the call to voicemail to deal with later. “Did he leave a message?”
“Yes. He wants you to come to the station tomorrow morning.”
I cursed under my breath. “Did he say why?”
Did it have anything to do with his tea and crumpets with Rex this afternoon?
“Something about a potential assault charge.”
“You’re kidding.” I crossed my arms over my chest and set my chin. “I didn’t hit the son of a bitch that hard.” Hell, he’d only bled a little and out of only one nostril.
Doc’s chuckle stopped short. “Yeah, I was kidding. Cooper mentioned that he needed to confirm some details on one of your ‘unsolved messes’—that’s what he called it.”
My chin lowered a few notches. “Oh. Okay.”
His dark eyes squeezed into a squint. “What do you mean you didn’t hit him that hard? Did you head butt Cooper again?”
“No.” I lowered my voice, glancing around to make sure no other ears were present. “Mr. Conner had a little accident this afternoon.”
“Really?” The lines on Doc’s forehead flipped from vertical to horizontal. “What happened?”
I didn’t want Doc to think I was trying to make him jealous, so I kept it brief. “He stepped too far into my personal comfort zone.”
“And?”
“And he accidentally ran his face into a cupboard door and got a bloody nose.”
“I see.” Doc’s jaw tightened. “And so it be
gins.”
What did he mean by that?
I didn’t have time to find out because right then Jeff Wymonds strolled out from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a dishtowel and tossing it over his shoulder. It flew through the air, hit the wall, and fell to the floor. Sometimes I understood why his wife had left him for another woman.
“Violet Parker,” he said, “I hear you’re thinking about selling the Galena House.”
My mouth fell open. “How did you hear that?”
Freesia had dropped off the listing agreement this afternoon while I was at the Carhart house.
“I’ve told you before, it’s a small town.”
“Not that small.”
Jeff looked at Doc. “Do you mind if I have a minute alone with our Realtor?”
“Nope,” Doc started to walk around me.
“Doc, wait.” I stopped him, plucking my cell phone from my purse and handing it to him. “Check out the recording I made today.”
His gaze moved to my phone and back to me, one eyebrow lifting. “Okay” he said, his tone suspicious.
“Alone,” I added.
Jeff snickered. “You should be careful making X-rated videos of yourself on your phone, Violet Parker. That could easily get into the wrong hands.”
I shot Jeff a ‘no shit, bozo’ glare. To Doc, I clarified, “It’s not of me.”
“Bummer, dude,” Jeff consoled Doc.
“I’ll go take a look now.” Doc gave my arm a squeeze and left with my phone.
Jeff watched Doc disappear into the kitchen, then turned back to me. “Harvey tells me that you and Doc Nyce hooked up.”
I wasn’t sure exactly what he meant by that. “We’re dating, if that’s what you mean.”
“Are you seeing anyone else?”
Where was this heading? “No, just Doc.” One man was enough for me.
“Whew!” Jeff wiped his brow, his smile wide with what seemed to be relief.
“Were you worried about me seeing someone else besides Doc?”
Just a few weeks ago, Jeff had smelled beef jerky on my lips and had latched onto my face in what he called a kiss. The way his tongue had shoved aside my uvula, it had felt more like he was trying to plant one of those sharp-toothed alien babies in my stomach.