by Ann Charles
Movement at the end of the hall interrupted my internal blustering.
“Can I help you with something, Miss?” Doc leaned his shoulder against the wall. His gaze slid over me, brushing away all thoughts of Rex Conner in one smooth stroke.
I tried to give Doc a smooth stroke back, but my eyes kept hitting snags on the way up, starting with the well-worn blue jeans hanging low on his hips. His black thermal hugged his ribs making his shoulders look solid and broad. I was going to need those shoulders shortly to help me carry the load of emotional baggage I’d picked up during my trouble-filled milk run this morning. His dark brown hair looked finger plowed, making me wonder how much Harvey had told him about our visit with Prudence.
I arched one eyebrow. “What do you have to offer, Mister?”
“Let me see.” He patted his pockets, first front and then back. “Seems like I have something somewhere around here in case a gorgeous blonde wearing purple cowboy boots walked in my back door.”
“Give her yer lollipop,” Harvey hollered from behind Doc.
“Harvey, you’re ruining the moment,” I shouted back.
“Here it is.” Doc offered his right hand, palm up and empty.
I often enjoyed being touched by that hand. He could do all sorts of wonderful tricks with it when it came to making me levitate off his bed. “With the way things have been going since I left my pillow, I’m going to need two of those.”
“Throw in a fifth of whiskey for me,” Harvey interrupted again. “That damned ghost got me good and boogered.”
“Come here, Boots.” Doc’s voice had that sexy, gravelly growl that made my heart gallop off into the sunset.
I closed the distance between us, taking his outstretched hand, moving into his arms. He smelled woodsy and fresh, his aftershave making me want to burrow deeper under his covers and forget about the world and all of its creepy “other” crawlies.
“I’ve missed you,” I whispered, trying to keep the nosy Nellie out front from being privy to our few seconds of hallway foreplay.
“My diabolical plan to make you a smitten concubine is working.” He studied my face, zeroing in on my eyes. “Got something you want to tell me?”
“About my day?”
“About your nights.”
Doc was too observant for my own good. He must have noticed the red lines road-mapping my tired eyes. “My nights? Well, let’s see. To start with, you haven’t been there next to me.”
“That’s your fault.” He leaned down and stole a kiss.
There was no need to steal. I would have given him a whole bundle for pennies on the dollar.
“Are you feeling better?”
I nodded, easing back so that I could look up at him without craning my neck. “The quarantine order has been lifted.”
I’d insisted Doc stay away while I went through the nasty bout of illness for two reasons. First, I didn’t want him to catch it. Second, I didn’t want him to pass it on to Cooper, who I figured might shoot me in his high-fevered state for adding fits of coughing to his pain. The detective’s ribs still had to be sore from that sharp-toothed beast pouncing on him in Harvey’s family cemetery last week.
“What are you doing tonight?” Doc asked.
“Hanging out with my kids in front of the TV while my aunt plays catch-up in her workshop.”
Aunt Zoe had gotten behind on several blown-glass orders due to helping me out during the flu. Tonight she was planning an all-nighter with her glass furnace and block tool.
“Is there room for me on the couch, too?”
“Sure, on one condition.”
“Name it.”
“You don’t bring your roommate.”
“Poor Coop,” Harvey spoke up again, still eavesdropping. “Yer gonna make the boy feel like a porcupine at a nudist colony if you don’t start invitin’ him to play in your treehouse, too.”
Doc chuckled. “Other than our weekly poker game, Coop’s too busy playing detective most nights to have a normal life.”
I envied Cooper. Playing detective in the dark hours would be better than running from ax-swinging juggernauts. I wondered if Prudence had ever experienced chronic nightmares when she had been alive. Was it part of the job for an executioner, or was I just a big wuss? Or had awakening the killer inside of me somehow broken that part of my brain? If so, what was next? Madness? My ghostly predecessor hoarded human canine teeth as trophies. That didn’t exactly speak of a sound mind.
“Violet?” Doc’s voice lowered with concern. He must have picked up on my sudden mood shift. He lifted my chin, his brow wrinkling at what he saw on my face. “What is it?”
I shrugged, avoiding eye contact. “Nothing.”
“Tell me.”
I’d rather my boyfriend not know that I was courting insanity, so I started offloading my baggage instead. “Wanda’s dead.”
“I heard.”
“Prudence sat in my passenger seat.”
“I heard about that, too.”
“Rex is back.”
His gaze narrowed. “That I hadn’t heard.”
“He’s using Jerry to manipulate me.”
Doc swore under his breath.
“I’m sorry,” I said, hating how contagious my problems were when it came to him.
“Violet, this isn’t your fault. Conner wants you back. He’s willing to fight dirty.” He raised my hand to his lips, kissing my knuckles. “I can’t say I blame him when it comes to you.”
I stared into his brown eyes. The outside world and all of its problems faded. My vision tunneled, my pulse racing with its skirt held high.
Tell him.
“Doc,” I started. The words I love you hovered on the tip of my tongue. I’d practiced saying them in the mirror several times over the last week, hoping to find the right moment to perform live for him.
“Come on you two horny toads,” Harvey called out. “I’m gonna be pushin’ up daisies by the time you finish ruttin’ around back there.”
Shut up, Harvey! I just needed a moment to rev my engine a few times before I hit the gas. I wetted my suddenly dry lips.
Doc raised his brows, waiting for me to finish what I’d started.
“Doc, I …” My engine stalled out again.
Oh, come on. Was I really this big of a chicken shit? They were three little words. I said them all of the time to my kids.
But Doc wasn’t of my flesh and blood.
What if he’d been goofing around on Halloween night when he’d whispered that he loved me? What if he started laughing when I told him I was drawing little hearts with his name inside of them on my notepad at work? What if he didn’t say those three little words back this time? How would I recover from that emotional car wreck and the cheek-burning awkwardness that would follow?
Criminy! I snatched the damned bullhorn from the fear-mongering imp in my head and whacked the little devil over the head with it. This was why I was in my mid-thirties and still single.
“Violet?” Doc was starting to look worried.
Ah, hell. Rather than bumble along like a fool any longer, I looped my arms around his neck and body-slammed him into the wall.
He blinked in surprise, grabbing me by the hips to steady both of us.
Going up on my toes, I kissed him good and proper. Well, maybe not so proper considering the way I pressed my soft parts against his hard edges, showing him what I really wanted to do.
“Wow,” he breathed after I’d stepped back and straightened my sweater.
I could still taste him on my lips. “How come you taste so sweet?” Seriously, there was something sugary there, a hint of molasses maybe. My stomach got growly just thinking about it.
“Willis brought me a bag of homemade cookies.”
“What!!? And he didn’t give me any?” They must have been what he’d tossed in my back seat when I’d picked him up at Cooper’s place.
“I’ll share my cookies with you.” Doc ogled the front of my sweater. “But it will
cost you some more sugar later.”
“Deal.”
Doc led the way out front where Harvey sat waiting with a smartass smirk above his crumb-covered shirt. Doc pointed toward his desk chair. “Have a seat and tell me about Prudence.”
I settled into the soft, warm leather. I grabbed a molasses cookie from the plastic storage bag, and then changed my mind and grabbed two. “Didn’t Harvey give you the lowdown already?”
He turned the Open sign in his front window to Closed, and then took up residence on the corner of his desk “Only his version. I want to hear yours.”
After swallowing a bite of molasses goodness, I rehashed my morning’s adventure. Harvey butted in now and then to add more color to my tale. When I reached the part where Prudence shoved her hand inside of me, Doc stopped me.
“What do you mean she reached inside of you?”
“She stuck her hand straight into my chest.” I tried to show him with my own hand. “I felt this burning sensation for a moment. Then she disappeared and the pain went with her.”
Doc’s expression looked even stormier than the snow clouds darkening the sky outside his windows.
“What do you think that means?” I glanced at Harvey, who was picking at the crumbs on his shirt. “Was she messing with me or testing out her abilities or what?”
“I don’t know.” Doc rubbed his jaw. “But I’d rather Prudence kept her hands to herself around you.”
Me too. I continued with my recount, rushing through the part about calling Cooper and having Detective Hawke listen in unbeknownst to me. Damned Cooper for making me feel like a first-rate idiot. What was he thinking when he put me on speakerphone for the whole damned police station to hear?
Doc was still rubbing his jaw when I finished with Cooper’s announcement about Wanda’s death.
“So,” I took another cookie from the bag. “How much trouble do you think I’m in this time? I mean, I wasn’t interfering with any police business, right? I was just trying to give them a heads up.”
“Maybe you should ask Coop,” Harvey answered.
I swallowed a mouthful of molasses dough. “I’d rather face off with another albino juggernaut than talk to that man.”
Harvey snorted. “You better get yer war paint on then, because he’s crossin’ the street and comin’ right for us.”
Crap! I stood up, looking around for a place to hide.
“He’ll chase you if you run,” Doc said, reading my mind.
The detective paused outside of the door, peering in through the glass. His gaze darted from Doc to Harvey before narrowing on me. When he rapped on the window, Doc waved him in.
Closing the door behind him, he blocked the exit, his arms crossed over his chest.
Detective Cooper was a chip off the old block … of granite. Like the Tin Man, he was always stiff and cold, but in place of his missing heart was a ball of rusted barbed wire. The only thing he had going for him was his James Bond looks—as in the Daniel Craig version of 007. Many women found his abrasive personality sexy and fantasized about what he was like in the sack. I had sack fantasies about him, too, only mine involved burlap and ended with a deep shaft and splash of water far below.
Cooper glared across the office at me.
I glared back.
Our silent standoff went on for several huffs.
“Well, Coop,” Harvey broke the tension, “are you going to tell us what’s on yer mind or just stand there with yer stinger stickin’ out?”
His steely eyes stayed locked on me. “You really fucked up today, Parker.”
“No, you fucked up, Detective,” I shot back, not feeling like having my ass handed to me after my morning’s excitement.
“Violet,” Doc warned, standing along with Cooper and me. “Let’s hear what the detective has to say about how things are going over at the station.”
Cooper snorted. “I’ll tell you how things are going. Parker here has managed to win the top spot on Detective Hawke’s suspect list.”
“Why is there a suspect list?” Doc asked.
Cooper didn’t seem to hear him. “What is it with you two?” he barked at Harvey and me. “You’re like Shaggy and Scooby-Doo, always up to your necks in trouble.”
Did he mean I was Scooby-Doo or Shaggy? Never mind.
“We didn’t do anything wrong, Cooper.” We hadn’t been anywhere close to the body this time. “Or is it illegal now to make phone calls to the cops about someone who might be in danger? Silly me, I thought that was one of the purposes of 911.”
“Not illegal, but it’s suspicious as hell when we receive a warning call about someone who’d been found murdered not eight hours prior.”
“Murdered?” I repeated, getting stuck on the word. It was as I’d feared. Wanda wasn’t just dead, she’d been murdered.
“Yes, murdered.” He watched me closely, searching for who knew what.
I frowned over at Doc. The storm clouds were back on his face. I had a feeling I had a tornado brewing on mine.
Memories of Wanda flickered behind my eyes like I was watching from the backside of a movie screen. Guilt sat heavily on my chest. Regret and frustration followed, joining the sit-in. I lowered my head, blinking through an onslaught of tears.
Wanda had saved my life several times, but when the day came to return the favor, I hadn’t been there for her, damn it. Someone was going to have to let Prudence know that I’d failed to do my job. That my bungling attempts to figure out my new lot in life had most likely caused the premature death of an innocent woman whom I was supposed to protect.
“How was Wanda killed?” Doc asked.
Cooper hesitated. A muscle in his jaw ticked.
My guilt grew heavier. What did the killer do to her?
“That’s police business,” Cooper finally answered.
“Coop,” Harvey scolded. “Our friend is dead.”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss it.”
Anger stoked the furnace in my belly. “Yet you’re at liberty to stomp over here and rake me over the coals for making a single phone call to try to help Wanda?”
“The coroner hasn’t delivered his report. Until then, procedure doesn’t allow speculation with the public. I already said too much by telling you three she was murdered.”
Knees a little wobbly all of a sudden, I fell into Doc’s chair. “So, what now?”
“We start rounding up suspects and interrogating them.”
Starting with me. I snarled at him. “You shouldn’t have had me on speaker phone, damn it.”
He bristled. “That wasn’t my doing. I was in a meeting with Hawke. He saw your number pop up on my desk phone and hit the speaker button.”
Detective Hawke knew my number by sight alone? That couldn’t be good. “Still, you could’ve warned me.”
“How was I to know you were going to open your big mouth and incriminate yourself?”
“Why else would I call you? To talk about guns and motorcycles?” Or any of Cooper’s other favorite topics outside of murder?
“How about to tell me you’d found a buyer for my house?”
Oh, yeah, my regular job. I bit my lip and turned away.
“How much trouble is Violet in this time?” Doc’s hair was even more finger plowed now.
“Hawke wanted me to locate her and bring her to the station immediately. I convinced him that he was moving too fast and needed to collect more facts first.”
In other words, Cooper had temporarily saved my ass. “Thank you for buying me time.” It hurt my tongue to say that.
“Don’t thank me yet, Parker. This is only temporary. Hawke really wants to string you up.”
“The feeling is mutual.” My love for that toe-stomping, overbearing gumshoe could fit through the eye of a needle—and a very tiny needle at that. Like the needle a flea would use to stitch its flea circus tent.
“I hope you have an alibi for the last forty-eight hours.”
I did. A nasty cough left behind from the
flu had been keeping me company in bed, but I doubted that would hold water with Detective Hawke. I should have sneezed all over him when I had the chance.
“Are there any other suspects?” Doc asked.
“Nobody as interesting as your girlfriend. Wanda has a few family members who benefit from her death, but that’s it for the list so far.”
I sighed, resting my head in my hands. “All I did was make a stupid phone call.”
“What prompted that call?” Cooper asked.
Before I could answer, Doc cut in. “Is this on the record or off?”
“Off.”
I looked at Harvey. “You’re going to have to back me up on this, you know.”
“You want me to share yer noose?”
“If it comes down to it, maybe Mr. Bodyguard.”
With a nod, he turned to his nephew. “Prudence did some chin waggin’ with Violet and me this morning over at the Carhart place.”
Cooper’s steely gaze leveled on me. “You mean your ghost pal?”
“She’s not my pal.” More of a disgruntled ex-coworker.
“We ain’t foolin’ around, boy. I was there with Violet.”
I could see Cooper’s jaw work, like he was chewing on Harvey’s words some more, trying to swallow them without choking. “What did Prudence the ghost have to say today?”
I ciphered through the cryptic stuff Prudence had told me. “That Wanda was in danger,” I told him. “Someone recently broke into the Carhart house looking for something Wanda supposedly had, but they came up empty. Prudence was worried the culprit was going to hunt down Wanda next.”
Not surprisingly, my answer added a new topcoat of granite to Cooper’s expression. “Let me get this straight. You called me this morning to talk about Wanda because a ghost told you that she might be in danger?”
I knew it sounded hokey, but, “Prudence was quite insistent about it.”
“But your ghost pal didn’t know Wanda was already dead?”
I shook my head.
He smirked.
“What? She’s a ghost, not a soothsayer.”
Cooper frowned at Doc. “This doesn’t help your girlfriend’s case.”
Doc shrugged. “Maybe not with Detective Hawke, but it explains why she called you.”