"And last night, you recognized one of those people outside?”
Beau lets out a hollow laugh. "Yeah. My brother's best friend, Billy.”
“Billy as in the actor you were talking to?” I have to be sure, because this is the link—this is the connection we’ve been looking for. I have to know for certain. He nods. Crap.
Before I can ask one of the million questions flying through my head, there’s a soft whooshing noise, and the ground next to Beau’s feet explodes in soft chunks of dirt.
I jump, and Beau wraps his arm around my waist and pushes me behind a wooden pillar as close to the ground as possible. “What was that?”
Beau holds his finger up to his lips.
Another whoosh and a thump. My heart hammers in my chest.
“Are you hurt?”
I shake my head.
“Good. Someone’s shooting at us. I bet they have a silencer. We’ve got to move. Now.”
I gulp down the fear in my throat and nod so he knows I understand.
Beau waits a second and then drags me to my feet, and we sprint away from the O.K. Corral and down the abandoned street. Another bullet strikes the ground between us. I shriek, and my hand slips from his. Another whoosh flies past my ear. I spring after Beau, pounding the dirt road. He glances over his shoulder at me, but he pauses too long, and there’s another shot.
“Where are we going?” I shout. Both the Last Chance and the Crystal Palace are coming up, but they’re on the other side of the road, and I don’t know if I’m brave enough to run that far out in the open like that. At least here I can dive behind a column or hitching post for protection.
“The Lily,” he says. “There’s a light on. We’ll be safe.”
Another bullet whooshes past my head. I can feel terror right on my heels, but I can't let it take control of me. Not yet. Later, maybe, when it's safe, but not right now.
Beau reaches the Lily first. He pushes the heavy doors open, and once we’re inside, he slams them shut. Backs pressed against the door, we scan the lobby, but there’s no one around.
“Where is Mr. Thompson?”
“Maybe he’s somewhere else, in an office or something,” Beau says.
Outside the Lily, a tall, dark shape passes the window, boots clunking heavily on the wooden boardwalk. Beau fumbles around for a lock, but without a key, we’re doomed. My breath catches in my throat as the shadow stops on the other side of the door. Can bullets go through this door? Oh God, he knows we’re in here. We’re going to die here. Beau wedges himself against the door, but his boots can’t find much purchase against the polished floor.
Then slowly, whoever’s on the other side turns the brass doorknob. I gasp and push on the door with all of my strength, but it’s not enough. Half an inch of night shows through as the door cracks open. Tinny country music from the saloon filters inside. I can’t die like this, trapped in an old theater. Another shadow strides across the window and joins the first. Their combined weight is too much. They’re too strong, and we won’t be able to hold them back. Hopelessness fills me as the door wedges open another half an inch.
Four black-gloved fingers curl around the door. Looking around desperately for a weapon, I grab an old brass shoeshine stand off of the floor and slam it on the attacker’s hand. They disappear, and the person howls in pain. Then they slam on the door even harder.
“It was worth a shot.” I gasp.
“Run,” Beau says, gritting his teeth. “I’ll hold them back as long as I can.”
“I’m not leaving you.” I can’t. They’ll kill him.
Thump. The door pushes open another inch.
“You have to. Damn it, go and call for help. I’ll be fine. There are a million places to hide here. Find one.”
My stomach sinks. He’s right. Before I go, I push one of the chaise lounges in front of the door to give him a few more seconds. It won’t keep them out—it’s too light for that—but it’ll slow them down enough for Beau to escape. Then I squeeze his arm and, in a brief second of bravery, press my lips to his.
The look of surprise in his eyes and his slight, delighted smile make it worth it. “To be continued,” he murmurs. “Now go.”
I dart out of sight toward the back of the theater, feeling the goons outside on my heels. I pass several life-sized dioramas and spy the back stairs when suddenly all of the lights go off. I skitter to a stop. Was this part of Beau’s plan? Then there’s a crash behind me, as if they finally got through the front door, and I fly toward where I thought the back stairs were.
All I can think about is the gambling room in the basement, with all of those individual displays. They’ll be the perfect place to hide, as evidenced by the guy who was spying on us during our tour. But that’s where Mr. Thompson found Ted. I push the thought from my mind as soon as it appears. I can’t think about that now. I have to do what Beau says and find a place to hide so I can call for help. I fumble for the doorway and, once I find it, hurry downstairs, stepping as lightly as I can so as not to draw attention to myself. Behind me, there’s a shout and a crash, which adds fire to my feet, and I go even faster. God, I hope Beau’s all right. He has to be.
In the basement, I flick my phone on for a second to reorient myself. All of the exhibits and displays are eerie and grotesque in the darkness, the mannequins terrifying caricatures of the once smiling and joyous gamblers and singers from the tour. The thought flits through my mind that this would be the perfect place for a horror movie. As long as it’s not my future horror movie.
My gaze finally lands on the scene with the poker players sitting around a table dealing a round of cards. There. This is it. This is the one where the guy was hidden, and if he can hide that well, so can I. I duck under the velvet rope in front of the display and hurry around the table, just as a set of heavy footsteps clomp on the stairs to the basement.
Crappity, crap, crap, crap. He’s coming. I’ve got to call the cops, but I can’t let him hear me, or I’m dead.
I trip on one of the table legs and crash to my knees. The footsteps on the stairs rush faster now. He knows I’m down here. Crawling, I find my way behind the bookcase the man hid behind and flatten myself against the wall. My heartbeat pounds in my ears, and my breath comes erratically. But in the basement, there’s silence. He’s waiting for me to screw up or make a sound so he can catch me. I just know it.
I hunch over my phone and turn it on, hoping that I can whisper quietly enough to call 911 without whoever it is hearing me. But as soon as I do, I glance up and nearly jump out of my skin. The man from the video crouches down beside me, worry etched in the lines on his face.
A shriek bubbles up in my throat, but the man puts his finger to his lips. “Follow me, ma’am,” he says, waving me toward him. “I’ll get you out of here.”
I shake my head. “I can’t. They’ll catch me if I do.”
The man glances over his shoulder. He’s wearing the same outfit he wore in the video, which means he’s probably an actor from the current company, and this is his uniform. We probably just haven’t run into him yet or he’s a minor player—well, except for this. “I want to help you. Follow me.”
A heavy boot tread creaks into the room. I bite my lip. If I stay hidden, I might be okay, or the man might kill me. If I follow this guy, he might kill me. It doesn’t sound very promising either way.
The man beckons me closer. “There’s a secret tunnel over here,” he says. Oh great, another hidden passageway. I thought I’d seen the last of those in Georgia.
Just past the bookcase, painted as part of the mural on the wall, is a small door, barely tall enough for a child to wiggle through, and I am far bigger than a child. How on earth did that man fit through there? I turn around to ask him, but he’s gone. Awesome. Perfect. At least he showed me where the door was before he left.
My fingers close around the doorknob as the heavy footsteps get closer. Before I can dwell on my mysterious savior or the person trying to kill me, I wrench the door
open and squeeze myself into the dark tunnel. The door shuts with a quiet snick and several thoughts flit through my head: people were a lot smaller back then, it’s a good thing I’m not claustrophobic, and this door better lead to the outside. I don’t want to die and haunt the Lily because I got my stupid butt stuck in the walls.
Luckily, it does, and as soon as the cool night air caresses my face, I turn my phone on and call 911.
Chapter 23
“Are you sure someone was shooting at you, and you weren’t imagining it?” Outside in the street, an older police officer who introduced himself as Officer Mackey holds a notepad and a pen, but he looks more bored than concerned about our safety.
“I know what we saw. They had a silencer.” Beau wraps his arm around my shoulders. I lean into him for comfort. He kisses the top of my head. “I was so worried about you,” he says, murmuring the words into my hair.
“Me, too.”
“And you said you escaped out a secret passageway in the basement?” Mackey’s eyebrows climb higher on his forehead, like wrinkly gray caterpillars.
“Yeah, I can show you,” I say, but he doesn’t take me up on that.
“Are you sure there was someone else there? We searched the theater, and the only signs we found were of you and Mr. Jimenez.”
“He was there, I swear.” It shouldn’t surprise me, since the man who saved me used a secret tunnel. There’s also a lot of people who go through the Lily every day, so it probably isn’t any use to look for footprints, even if the Officer Mackey believed me. He hands me his card, as if by rote, and then joins another officer talking to Mr. Thompson.
“No, I didn’t see or hear anything,” he says. “Though I didn’t have my hearing aids in. Those darn things hurt my ears after a while. When the lights went out, that boy found his way into my office and said someone was shooting at him. I didn’t believe it, so I called for some assistance.”
The police officer interviewing him pauses while writing his notes. “That was a smart decision, Mr. Thompson. It’s always best to call if you think something might be going on.”
“They were definitely shooting at us,” I say, breaking into their conversation. “Aren’t there bullet casings or shells, or whatever they’re called on the ground that you can find?”
“Do you know where we are, ma’am?” Officer Mackey says. “This is the Tombstone. Everyone has a gun here. Finding some random shell casings on the ground wouldn’t do us any good. I did send someone out to take a look, though.” Our interviewer looks over his shoulder just a young officer jogs over to us, a high-beam flashlight bobbing in his hand.
“I couldn’t find anything,” he says, breathless. “We looked everywhere they said, but we couldn’t find any evidence.”
“They were shooting at us. I know what happened,” I snap, my temper rising. Okay, so it’s hard to believe that someone would shoot at two people in the middle of town, even at night, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. “What about the door? Can you get fingerprints off of that?”
The cop stares at me as if I’m stupid. “Do you know how many people come through that door every day? We don’t have the time or the resources to run that many prints.” He scribbles something else in his notepad before looking up at us again. “How much did you say you were drinking last night?”
“We’re not drunk!” I shake free of Beau’s arm and pace back and forth. “Seriously. Someone was shooting at us, someone who doesn’t want us investigating the strange lights over Beau’s ranch or the murder of Hank Gladstone.”
“You need to keep your nose out of an active homicide investigation.” The man’s hand stills over his notepad. “I’m going to tell you what I think happened. I’ve had several witnesses say you were both at the bar earlier tonight. What I think happened is you had a little too much to drink, and then you went looking for someplace private.” His gaze travels from Beau to me. “Then you got a little reckless, and you got caught, and you made up this story about someone shooting at you.” His bushy gray eyebrows rise into his hairline.
Mackey turns his attention to Beau. “And you say you fought with the assailant inside the Lily?”
Beau nods. “Yes, sir. I didn’t get a good look at him because it was so dark, but he was definitely chasing us.”
The officer asks us a few more questions before snapping his notebook shut and sticking it in his back pocket. “We don’t get a lot of crime around here, but we’ll look into this, I promise you that.”
Yeah, I’ve heard that before. Annoyed, Beau and I wait around while the police conduct their lackluster investigation until they tell us that we can go home, and they’ll be in touch. By that time, the sun has sent its first rays across the horizon, and the antique street lights wink off.
“Ready to go back to the ranch?” Beau asks, looping my arm through his.
Something makes me hesitant to go. “Did you see Annette when you were at the bar? She wasn’t there the last time I stopped by, and after hearing her argue with Bill, I just want to make sure she’s okay.”
Beau shrugs. “Sure, that’s fine.”
Even though it’s still the early hours of the morning, the lights are on in the bar. There aren’t any patrons, but there’s an older man behind the bar, polishing the glasses. He glances up at us when we enter, but he doesn’t say anything. At the bar, he hands us a couple of beers, and even though it goes against what I told the police officer, I nurse the first one while I work up the courage to ask him about Annette.
Beau beats me to it. “Excuse me, sir,” he says.
The bartender sets his rag on the counter. “Need another drink?”
“No,” Beau says. “We’re actually looking for someone. My girlfriend”—he wraps an arm around my shoulders and gives me a squeeze—“left her phone here, and her friend Annette said she’d hold on to it for her. Is she here?”
The bartender looks confused for a second. “No, I’m sorry. Can I leave her your number?”
Buying into Beau’s story, I shake my head. “She’s got my phone, so she can’t call me.” I turn to Beau, wracking my brain for the names of the local streets. “Didn’t she say she lived on Walnut Street?” God, I suck at this. I don’t even know if there’s a Walnut Street in town. “I’m sorry, I just moved here from Detroit. Annette’s the first local girl I’ve really met.” I blink, willing my eyes to fill with tears. Part of me feels bad for lying so freely, but the part that’s worried about Annette supersedes that.
The bartender shakes his head. “You must have forgotten. She lives in the casitas on Lomas Street.”
I snap my fingers. “That’s it, now I remember.” I give him a wide smile. “Thank you so much!”
After we say our goodbyes and leave, Beau leans over my ear. “Maybe we should have pressed our luck and asked him if he knew which apartment was hers.”
I chuckle. “Yeah, I don’t know about that. We’ll figure it out.” I hope I’m right. I really don’t want to knock on every door until we get an answer.
Lucky Strike Casitas is about four blocks from the historical Tombstone district. A set of six little adobe homes are set a bit off of the road and surrounded by cacti and mesquite trees. An earthy muted brown, each casita has shutters in a different color and its own driveway. In the center of them is a large fountain, gurgling happily in the early morning light.
On the plus side, four of them have For Rent signs in the windows, so we know it’s not one of those. Of the other two, the one in the back has a kid’s bike tucked behind the half-naked bushes next to the front door.
“I bet it’s that one.” I point out the bike.
He shrugs. “Let’s give it a shot.”
I hope it’s hers. Otherwise, the cops might be called a second time tonight, and this time, we will be at fault. “I just want to make sure she’s okay,” I say.
“It’s a little early for that excuse, isn’t it?” he quips.
“Yeah. Either way, we could get shot for trespas
sing. You people in Arizona sure seem to like your guns.”
Beau shrugs, not acting embarrassed in the least. “It’s the West. It’s different from anywhere else I’ve ever lived. There are unspoken rules here, but it’s mostly common sense. Be nice to your neighbor but don’t take shit from anyone. Defend your property, but always buy a drink for a friend. Don’t steal anyone else’s cattle, and take care of what belongs to you.” The candid way he says that makes me wonder if there are more unspoken rules. Am I one of them?
I don’t know how I feel about that just yet. There’s a lot about Beau I like, but the secrets, the lying, and the fact that he’s solidly rooted here, while I don’t have any roots to speak of, well, that’s terrifying. Maybe in another life, Beau could be the kind of guy I would fall in love with, but not in this one.
When we get to the side door, Beau’s shoulders stiffen, and he pushes me behind him. Holding a finger to his lips to silence my objection, he points at the door. It’s open. Not much, just a finger or two, but it’s open. In the middle of the night. This isn’t good.
“What do you want to do?” Beau whispers.
I want to say “call the police,” but if I do, we’ll have to come up with some crazy story to explain being here. They already think we’re lying about what happened at the O.K. Corral and the Lily, so they’ll eyeball the hell out of us for this story, too. But then the images of Mr. Rasputin from Oak Cliff, lying broken and bleeding on the floor, flash through my head. That could be Annette or her son. We can’t just leave now.
“We have to make sure she’s okay.”
If I’m being honest with myself, that one didn’t end that well, since Graham got knocked out and Mr. Rasputin was injured, but it would have been a lot worse if we’d walked away instead of checking it out.
“Are you out of your mind?” Beau hisses as I push past him. “What if someone’s in the middle of robbing the place? They could be armed and dangerous.”
I give him a pointed look. “So are you. Look, if you don’t want to go in there, I get it. You didn’t sign up for this mess, but Annette’s involvement is kind of my responsibility. I’m going to go in there and make sure she’s okay, and then I’ll come out. Okay?”
A Brady Paranormal Investigations Box Set Page 44