Deadly Deceptions

by Linda Lael Miller

  “Like we could turn back now,” scoffed Janice, a dark figure. “You heard the kid. She’ll tell for sure, and if the cops get into your computer and find the Web site, we’re finished.”

  Chelsea began to pace.

  Outside the restroom a car door slammed.

  “Somebody’s here!” Janice snarled. “Hurry!”

  I tried to scream, but I could feel myself fading, losing my grip.

  I was pretty sure I was dead.

  I landed in Tucker’s SUV, and my own quivering body, with an impact that literally rattled my teeth and hurt in every joint and muscle, as if I’d fallen from the roof of a building and landed on pavement.

  “Mojo!” Tucker yelled.

  “Drive,” I managed to say as everything around me began to come slowly back into focus. I was soaked with sweat and shaking with chills. “For God’s sake, drive!”

  “What just happened here?” he demanded. “Did you have a seizure or something?”

  “I’ll explain later,” I said, wondering how long I’d been out of Mojo-central. We were speeding over the road into the campground.

  Up ahead I saw a cluster of squad cars, light bars flashing.

  But there was no sign of Chelsea or Janice.

  No sign of Daisy.

  “In there,” I gasped, pointing toward the public restroom, a small stone structure standing by itself in the desert landscape.

  Tucker was out of the rig and running, practically before I lowered my hand.

  I blinked, pushed open the passenger door and got out.

  And then Daisy sprang out of a crowd of sheriff’s deputies, and Tucker dropped to his knees on the ground, opening his arms to her. She launched herself into them.

  Gillian appeared, a little distance away, watching the reunion.

  I went to her, not to Tucker.

  She looked up at me.

  I held out a hand to the child, but she stepped back, shook her head.

  She was already beginning to fade.

  “Baby,” I said brokenly, not caring who heard, “I’m so sorry this happened to you. I’m so sorry.”

  She was gone before I finished the sentence.

  I stood numbly where I was, using all the strength I possessed just to keep from collapsing.

  Allison arrived—I was vaguely aware of that. I saw her rush to join Daisy and Tucker. Take her daughter into her arms.

  I looked around, saw Janice and Chelsea sitting sullenly in the back of one of the squad cars. I knew they weren’t sorry for what they’d done—just sorry they’d been caught.

  Pure, fiery hatred surged inside me. If I could have gotten to them, I’d have clawed their eyes out with my bare hands. I’d have strangled them, and loved doing it.

  Tucker approached, took me by the shoulders. “Moje,” he said. And he pulled me close and held me tightly, and we sort of leaned into each other.

  “I don’t want to see dead people anymore,” I wept, burying my face in his strong, Tucker-scented shoulder. “I don’t want to see dead people anymore!”

  “I know,” he said gruffly. “I know.”

  I felt Allison watching us, met her gaze.

  She took Daisy’s hand and led her away.

  I waited for Tucker to say he had to leave, too.

  But he didn’t.

  “Come on, Moje,” he said, kissing my forehead. “Let’s go back to your place and see if any new ghosts have popped in.”

  I blinked, confused. “What about Daisy?”

  “She needs Allison right now, not me,” he said.

  I nodded.

  We started, hand in hand, toward Tucker’s SUV.

  And then I remembered something I’d heard inside that restroom during my most recent out-of-body experience. I stopped, tightening my grip on Tucker’s hand. “Chelsea’s computer,” I said. “There’s a Web site—”

  Tucker studied my face, then helped me into the SUV before going back to speak with one of the other policemen on the scene.

  Dave stuck his head between the seats and whimpered.

  “It’ll be okay now,” I told him. “It’s over.”

  So much was over.

  But other things were just starting.

  I wanted a hot shower, and coffee—with a big slug of whiskey in it. I wanted to lie in my own bed, under a pile of blankets, wrapped in Tucker Darroch’s arms, and sleep for a hundred years.

  I wanted to pretend, if only for a little while, that the world was a sane and sunny place, and evil only a theory.

  Tucker came back, and we went on to my place. Dave was glad to be home, and so was I.

  Tucker and I took a shower together, standing a long time under the spray of hot water. Forgetting all about the coffee we’d planned to drink, we dried off, without a word to each other, and crawled into my bed.

  We cuddled close, and when we made love we came together silently, with a slow, elegant grace.

  And then we slept.

  Tucker awakened me late that night. He was dressed, and I knew that meant he was leaving, going home to Allison and Daisy, or maybe to the hospital, to sit with Danny awhile.

  He’d heated up the spaghetti sauce, though, and boiled up some noodles to go with it. We sat at the kitchen table, me in a bathrobe, Tucker in his movin’-on clothes, but neither of us could bring ourselves to eat.

  He looked exhausted, haunted by the things he knew about the world and the way it works. He’d spoken to one of the investigators at the sheriff’s office while I was still sleeping, and now he told me what I’d already suspected.

  Janice and Chelsea had filmed Gillian’s death—the proof had been found in Chelsea’s computer. For a price, perverts could watch the clips.

  “I don’t want to live on this planet anymore,” I told Tucker. “I want to find a place where things like this don’t happen.”

  “We’re stuck with this one,” Tucker said, ever the pragmatist. “Might as well make the best of it.”

  I nodded, numb.

  After we’d pretended to eat for a while longer, Tucker left, promising to be back as soon as he could.

  I didn’t expect to sleep that night, but I did, curled up with Dave in the middle of my bed, without waking up, without dreaming. In fact, when I opened my eyes I was in the same position I’d been in when I tumbled into slumberland—fetal.

  I got up, yawning. Took a quick shower, dressed, put some coffee on to brew and took Dave down to the parking lot on his leash, a wadded paper towel clenched in one hand so I could dispose of the debris.

  Once that was done, Dave and I hiked back upstairs and I washed my hands, then rummaged in drawers until I found the key to the bar downstairs. It was time to drag the Mojo sign inside, open the box and admire it.

  Dave went with me, trotting ahead into the saloon, sniffing the sawdust. I indulged in a few fond recollections of my friend Bert, raking spit lumps and cigarette butts out of that sawdust while we chatted.

  Since I was feeling fragile, I figured I couldn’t afford a lot of sentiment, so I dragged the big box inside and tore it open.

  There it was, my name, in blue script. I plugged it in and got a major kick out of seeing it light up.

  Inspired, I ducked behind the jukebox and plugged that in, too. After fishing around a little, I found Bert’s stash of quarters in a cigar box behind the bar, and plunked them into the coin slot.

  Brad Paisley was singing “Alcohol,” and I was bellowing along, using the rake handle for a microphone, when I realized Dave and I weren’t alone in the bar.

  Max Summervale, my shooting instructor, was standing there, arms folded, head cocked to one side.

  “Holy crap,” I said. “You’re dead, aren’t you?”

  Brad finished “Alcohol,” and Randy Travis started to sing about “diggin’ up bones.” I thought it was oddly fitting, considering.

  “I wondered when you’d notice,” he replied.

  “When?”

  “When, what?”

  “When d
id you die?”

  Max considered the question. “Two years ago,” he said.

  “And now I suppose you want me to find your killer?” I asked, chagrined that I’d had two different encounters with the man and failed to notice that he was a ghost. It just shows you how much stress I was under.

  Lest you think I was unsympathetic—I wasn’t. Just burned out. I wanted to live a normal life, as soon as I figured out what that would look like.

  On the jukebox Johnny Cash launched into “Folsom Prison Blues.”

  “Nope,” Max told me. “I took the bastard out with me.”

  I stared at him, knowing I should have been relieved. And I wasn’t.

  “Then what do you want?”

  Max grinned endearingly. “You need a partner,” he said, spreading his hands wide. “Will a dead guy do?”

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-1346-7

  DEADLY DECEPTIONS

  Copyright © 2008 by Linda Lael Miller

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario M3B 3K9, Canada.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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