A Brady Paranormal Investigations Box Set

by Harper Crowley

  “I know it’s no excuse for what I did, but I still wanted to apologize. I couldn’t get what happened out of my head. I think maybe that’s why I broke the law. I wanted to be punished for not going for help. Joey claimed he did call, but it was too late. I just keep thinking that maybe if I’d stayed with him, maybe I coulda done something, and he’d still be here.”

  Beau stares toward the back of the parking lot for several long seconds, his hands balled into fists so tight that his knuckles turn white.

  “If you were so sorry,” I snap, “then why did you come back and try to get a job after you got out of prison?”

  Bill flushes. “This ranch, your family, is the only family I’ve ever known. There’s no place else I wanted to be.”

  “Bull,” I say, as if channeling Beau’s rage. “You got a job here because you wanted to keep searching for the treasure, and you thought that was the only way you could do it. That’s why you came back. Not for some misguided notion of making things right or because of your family. Family doesn’t abandon family, no matter what happens or how afraid you are when things go wrong. Family sticks together through everything.”

  “I was doing it for him, okay?” Bill exclaims. “I wanted to find the treasure, whatever it was, for Carter. For his family. So you knew it wasn’t all for nothing. That’s why I did it.”

  “The treasure, if there is one, means nothing,” Beau says. “Don’t you understand? It wasn’t worth my brother’s life. Nothing is. My brother’s dead because of this stupid legend. Nothing can bring him back. Nothing.” Beau storms away from Bill, and Russ and I follow him.

  Behind us, Bill falls to his knees, sobs wracking his shoulders. The actor who plays Doc Holliday rushes over to him.

  “Want me to call the cops?” Doc Holliday asks.

  Bill shakes his head. “No, I’m fine.”

  Wyatt Earp, the new version, ambles behind both Doc and Bill. Earp has his gun drawn loosely at his side.

  “I told you this was a stupid idea,” Doc says, gesturing at Bill.

  “Stay out of it.” Bill struggles to his feet. “I’m done.”

  “You can’t be done. We’re too close,” Earp says. “Annette says she knows where it is. We’ll find it.”

  Annette? What’s she got to do with this? Suddenly I remember the sticky note, the one I forgot to tell Beau about because everything’s been happening so quickly.

  “A girl almost died, Joe!” Bill yells. Doc Holliday must be Joe. Carter’s friend, Joey. Oh God. “It ain’t worth it.”

  Beau turns around slowly, his eyes alight with rage. He recognizes that voice, and he’s out for blood. Maybe not Bill’s blood, but Joe’s.

  “It’s gold, man,” Joe says, his eyes wild. “We’ll be legends.”

  “Well, I’m out,” Earp says. “And if you have any sense left in you, you’ll be out, too.”

  “Is this because of Carter?” Joe sneers.

  Beau tenses up, and his hand hovers over his hip, as if to reach for his gun.

  “You don’t really think there’s a curse on that gold, do you? How pathetic. It’s out there, and you know it.”

  “There is no gold,” Bill says. “I was wrong. I thought Carter and I would find it, but we didn’t. There isn’t anything there.”

  “Liar!” Joe brandishes his gun at Bill. “You know where the gold is.” He cocks his gun. “Now, tell me where to find the Brother Rocks.”

  “You won’t shoot me,” Bill scoffs. “I’m your only ticket to the treasure.”

  Joe aims at Bill. “I thought you said there wasn’t any treasure.” He pulls the trigger, and the gun’s resounding boom makes us jump.

  Beau and Russ push me behind a parked car. I fall to my knees, losing my grip on Bear’s leash. He darts out from under me and disappears around a wooden column. Crap.

  “What the hell!” Bill exclaims. At first, I think he’s mad about Bear, but when I peer over the trunk of the car, he’s clutching his arm. Red blossoms against his white shirt. “You shot me, you asshole.”

  Where’s Bear? I cast a quick glance to the side until I see him rolling around in some horse manure. Phew. Well, sort of.

  “I know, right?” Joe cocks his head and looks at his gun. “Strange how that happened. I really thought these were blanks. Honest mistake. On the plus side, you only need your legs to lead me to the treasure.”

  “You son of a bitch!” Bill glares at the other man. “You set this up. You’re planning on killing me as soon as you get the treasure, aren’t you?” He turns desperately to Wyatt Earp. “You’re not going to let him get away with this, are you?”

  Wyatt Earp backs up a step, his hands in the air. “I don’t want any trouble, man.”

  Joe shrugs. “Money talks. What can I say? And you, Bill, were awfully persuasive when you told us all about the legend. That treasure is all you talked about. Your stupid girlfriend’s kid’s drone was the icing on the cake. We never could have travelled that far without it.”

  “Damn,” Russ whispers. “I wish it’d been aliens.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Beau murmurs.

  “Come on.” Joe gestures at Bill. “Let’s go.”

  “But you shot me,” Bill says. “I need to go to the hospital.”

  “You won’t need one if you don’t move your ass,” Joe replies.

  “You wouldn’t kill me.” Bill glares at him.

  “Oh yeah? Tell Ted that. Stupid kid threatened to rat me out. I couldn’t have that, could I?”

  Oh shit. He killed Ted. Now my own anger rekindles. He can’t get away with this. We have to tell the cops.

  “You’re crazy,” Bill says, but he starts moving, staggering really, past Joe toward a parked red car.

  “Shut up,” Joe snarls.

  Bear takes that moment to dart across the street, the leash trailing behind him.

  “What the hell?” Joe whirls around, his gun aimed at my dog.

  I’d hoped they’d forgotten about us.

  “It’s that stupid dog. That girl’s got to be around here somewhere. Damn it. Where are they?” He waves the gun at Bill, murder in his eyes. “You set me up, didn’t you? You brought them here and have them watching. Where are they?”

  “I... I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Bill’s eyes widen. He’s terrified, and I don’t blame him. Joe looks seriously unhinged, and he’s already shot Bill once, so there’s no telling if he would do it again.

  “Damn it.” He turns to Wyatt Earp. “Get the dog.”

  Wyatt Earp jogs after Bear and steps on his leash before he can race away.

  “Come on out, girl,” Joe calls, “or I’ll shoot your dog.”

  “What about me?” Bill asks. “Can I leave?”

  “Just hold your horses,” he says. “Come out, Ms. Brady, or your dog gets it.”

  Wyatt Earp tries to drag Bear closer, but my dog suddenly realizes he’s being held captive, and he turns on Earp. With his teeth bared, he lunges for the fake lawman and latches on to his inner thigh. Wyatt Earp howls, drops the leash, and tries ripping my dog free from his leg, but Bear has too good a grip. He twists his head, sinking his teeth in even further.

  I use the distraction to race out there and throw myself at Wyatt Earp, knocking the gun from his hands and tackling him to the ground. Sitting on his chest, I glance over my shoulder at my dog, who’s inching his way closer to a very important part of Mr. Earp’s anatomy. “Good dog.”

  To my left, I hear an “oomph” and see Russ grappling with Joe. Beau clutches his phone to his ear and trains his gun on the two men, but he can’t get a shot off because they’re too close. Bill backs away slowly, and his eyes dart around. He’s going to run, I can just feel it.

  “You, stay.” I point at him. “Or so help me God, I’ll tell them to shoot you again.”

  “But he’s going to kill me.” Bill gestures at the guys, and I’m not sure if he’s pointing at Beau or Joe. They both have more than enough reasons to kill him, and if what he
said is true, there’s a chance Carter could have been saved.

  “Yeah, well, sucks to be you. Drop your weapon.”

  Wyatt Earp tries to wriggle his arms free, but Bear, sensing his prey is still alive, thrashes his head back and forth, sinking his teeth in deeper. I wince. That’s going to leave a mark.

  “This?” Bill waves it in the air with his good hand. “You can have it. It’s full of blanks. They’re all only supposed to have blanks. Joe must have switched his out.”

  “At least he didn’t shoot you somewhere more important, eh? Now sit, or I’ll tell Beau to shoot you now and save us all the trouble.”

  Bill pales, but he sinks to the ground and tosses his gun to the side.

  Russ slams his fist into Joe’s face. The latter’s gun goes flying, hits the ground, and skids to a stop about five feet from me. I take a chance and let Wyatt Earp go and dive for it. If I have the gun, then we’re definitely in control.

  With Bear still firmly attached, Wyatt Earp struggles to his feet. I train the gun on him, my hand steady. “Don’t move,” I say. He puts his hands up and stands very, very still. It’s probably a good idea in his position.

  In the background, sirens drown out the sounds of the old Western music, bringing the sleepy, haunted streets of Tombstone once again into the twenty-first century.

  Chapter 25

  “I told you we weren’t making things up.” I flash Officer Mackey a grin. I’m still running on adrenaline, and I want to be out of here before the inevitable crash. As they load Bill into the ambulance and his companions into a pair of squad cars, I cradle Bear to my chest.

  “Yeah, well, it looks like you were right. That one”—he nods at the ambulance—“already said he’d roll on his friends.”

  “What about Annette?” I ask, the question bursting from my lips before I can think better of it. I clamp my free hand to my mouth. Good job, Mer.

  Mackey raises an eyebrow. “So I suppose the anonymous call placed early this morning about a missing person was you?”

  I gulp. I’m in trouble now. “Maybe.”

  He sighs. “She’s fine. We were able to track her down to a house in Tucson. She’s on her way back into town to make a statement.”

  Relief fills me like a breath of fresh air. “Thank you. I was so worried about her.”

  He narrows his eyes, about to ask another question, when another cop pulls him away. Suddenly alone, I wander over to Beau and Russ, who apparently have also finished being questioned.

  “I can’t believe Joe and Bill were behind all of this,” Russ muses. “I thought they were your brother’s best friends.”

  “They were,” Beau says, his voice tired. “Joey was always the kind one. The gentle one. He was about as cut out for the rancher’s life as I was. He was the tagalong. I never would have pegged him for the kind to do this. Billy, yeah. He was the liar, the cheat, the one who got in trouble all of the time. It was never Joey.”

  Back at the cabin, Jess, who’s finally cleared to sleep, snoozes in the recliner while Russ, Beau, and I relax around the kitchen table, cups of coffee before us. If the guys are as exhausted as I am, it’s a wonder any of us are upright.

  Russ grabs the laptop and logs into the forums. “Hey, Meredith, you might want to take a look at this.” The nervous energy in his voice immediately piques my senses.

  On the computer screen are two pictures, side-by-side. The image on the left is a still from the video we took on our first tour of the Lily Theater. It shows the grainy, mustached man wearing a white shirt with a black tie and vest. It’s the same man who rescued me. The picture on the right is a lot clearer. The man’s in his thirties, it looks like, with a thick dark mustache and piercing eyes. The caption beneath it says, “This is Emmet Clanton. He was a prospector who struck it rich but played poker with the wrong person in the Lily in 1883.”

  “Holy crap,” I whisper. “That’s him, the guy who saved my life.” I peer closer, until I’m almost pressing my nose up against the screen. Even though the picture on the right is pixilated and zoomed in, it’s still him. “Who sent this to you?” It’s got to be a hoax. A fake. Unless... unless it’s not and that’s why the cops couldn’t find any trace of anyone else. He might not have been there to begin with, at least in the flesh.

  “Our buddy, Ghostboi82,” Russ says.

  Beau shakes his head. “I can’t believe you were saved by a ghost.”

  “Yeah, that’s right up there with that time when Bigfoot crashed that redneck meth lab we found in the woods.” For some reason, the thought that a ghost saving me is easier to believe than what we saw in the woods in Oklahoma. He seemed so real though. Not at all like the ghost we saw at Graham’s house.

  “Seriously? I’ve got to hear that story,” Beau says.

  I laugh. “Maybe later, cowboy.” I file the ghost in the Lily away for later, too. I’ll deal with all of it, Bigfoot too, once I’ve had some time to relax. Fortunately for me and my inability to face reality, that probably won’t be any time soon.

  Beau stands and looks out the window as a car pulls down the driveway, coated liberally in dust. It parks next to my van, and a tall blonde gets out.

  “Annette!” I rush to the door before Beau and fling it open. Annette hurries over to me, and I wrap my arms around her. “You’re okay.”

  “Of course I am. I didn’t know you were looking for me. I’m sorry I worried you.”

  “No, not at all. Come in, please.” I loop my arm around Annette’s and lead her inside. “Where were you?” I ask, showing her to a seat at the kitchen table. Russ closes the laptop and sets it aside.

  She takes a deep breath. “Joe was acting real, real crazy, and he was getting so obsessed with finding the gold that I was getting scared. He kept coming to my house at all hours of the day and night. I finally got so freaked out I asked my friend in Tucson if I could stay with her for a couple days until this all blew over.”

  I start connecting the dots. “And that’s because Joe thought you knew where the treasure was, wasn’t it?”

  She nods. “When I was in college, I wanted to be a surveyor. I know, weird topic, but it runs in the family. My dad and grandpa were surveyors, too. They loved going out onto the land, and said they sometimes knew more about a person’s property than the owner did. They made a lot of enemies too, when someone thought a chunk of land was theirs, but it wasn’t, but it was a good job. Anyway, I used to spend the summers going to work with my dad and I learned how to read maps and use coordinates really well. I’d probably still be doing that, but there aren’t a lot of jobs for surveyors around here.”

  “What were the lights?”

  Annette ducks her head sheepishly. “That was my son’s drone. My ex-husband bought it for him for Christmas last year. We used it to search the land where we thought the Brother Rocks might be. It was harder at night, so we used night goggles, and then we went out to investigate ourselves if we found something promising, but yeah, no aliens.” She grimaces. “Sorry about that. When you mentioned why you were here, I panicked. I never meant to scare anyone.” She leans forward, eagerness replacing the worry in her eyes. “But I think I found it.”

  The coordinates. “Is that what you wrote on the sticky note?” I quickly explain how we went looking for her to make sure she was safe and how I’d found the note with the imprint of the numbers on it.

  She nods. “Do you still have it?”

  “I think so. Hold on.” I hurry to the bedroom and rustle through my dirty clothes. In the pocket of one of my pairs of jeans, I find the crumpled-up Post-It note. I jog back to the kitchen. “Got it.” I slam it down on the table, excitement overtaking the anxiety I’d felt earlier.

  Annette picks it up. “That was genius. I was so worried Joey might have found it.” She glances at Beau. “We haven’t been out there yet. Do you want to go? I can show you where it is.”

  Beau takes the note gently from her hand. “Can we go now?”

  Annette nods, her eyes w
ide, and Russ and I share a look.

  “I’ll grab the gear,” Russ says.

  “Hurry,” Beau says, his voice flat.

  THE SUN CLIMBS RELENTLESSLY toward the center of the sky, and a wind picks up, whipping my hair around my face. Standing next to the ATVs, we survey the craggy rocks at the base of the Huachuca mountains. Red and brown, dotted with cacti, bristly bushes, and twisted mesquite trees, it’s a forbidding yet beautiful landscape.

  “Jess would love it here,” Russ says, panning with his camera, zooming in and getting close-ups of some of the mountains’ more beautiful features. We’ll fill it in with voice-overs and interviews later, when we can reveal the truth about what’s happened.

  “We’ll bring her out here when she’s feeling better,” I say. He’s right—she would have loved the rugged beauty, the majesty. I never thought my prissy, camp-hating sister would love the desert like this. I don’t blame her, though. It’s gorgeous out here.

  Beau talks with Annette over a map of the mountains, while Russ and I finish snapping pictures. I zoom in on some rocks near the base of the mountain about a hundred yards away. They’re lighter than the rest, and the husk of a dead mesquite tree springs from a jagged crack between them.

  “It’s got to be around here somewhere,” Annette says. “The initial video we took looked very promising, and it falls within where your ancestor said he might have hidden the gold.”

  “I don’t know,” Beau says. “This is at the edge of our land. I think I’ve only been out here a couple of times.”

  “Hey.” I wave Russ over. “Look at this.” I point out the picture. An eerie sense of heaviness settles over me. This is important. “Look at these rocks. They’re different than the rest.” I zoom in closer, focusing on the dead tree and the rock on either side of it. The rocks. They’re the same on either side, and the crack runs neatly down the middle. A rushing sound fills my head. The rock is split in two, just like the Brother Rocks in the legend.

  “Holy crap,” Russ murmurs, coming to the same conclusion I’m reaching. “It’s the Brother Rocks.”