Forbidden Highway (Peri Jean Mace Ghost Thrillers Book 5)

by Catie Rhodes

  I sat back on my heels. “Maybe it would be best for us to drop things for now.”

  “What? Hell no. Don’t let that guy bully you. I can help you get him out of your house, and—”

  “Wade is my friend.” I stole a glance at the closed door. My friend who obviously wants more than just friendship. I wanted it, too, way more than I wanted to have a pointless affair with Nash Redmond.

  Nash stared hard at me. Realization slackened his features. “You want him too. Was that what all this was about? To make him jealous?” Nash leapt to his feet. I reached for him, and he slapped my hand away. “You’re a user, Peri Jean. That kid in the cemetery was right. You are just a whore.”

  He spun and stomped out of the yard. At his car, he turned to glare once more at me.

  “Nash, listen…” I didn’t really know what I should say. Several of the insults he hurled at me had more than a grain of truth.

  “Just fuck off, all right?” He got in his car, started it, and sped out of the yard, dirt and rocks fanning out from his tires.

  I watched the red eyes of his taillights until he turned out of the driveway and onto Farm Road 4077. Then I steeled myself and walked into the house.

  9

  I marched down the hallway and hammered on Wade’s closed bedroom door.

  “Get out here and talk to me,” I hollered.

  No answer. I turned the knob, found it unlocked, and barged in. Back to me, Wade sat in wooden rolling chair, gaze fixed on the dark window.

  I went to stand in front of him. “We need to talk about what you just did.”

  Wade ran his fingers through his long black hair, pulling it away from his face but still said nothing.

  “Forget just being friends. Neither of us want that.” I jammed my hands onto my hips. “Admit it.”

  Wade sat in the chair, immobile and silent, black eyes glittering.

  “Too chicken? I’m not.” I stripped out of my t-shirt and my jeans and stood in front of him wearing only my bra and panties. “Here I am.”

  Wade’s flinty stare flicked over my body, and he turned his face away. “Get dressed.”

  “No.” I straddled him on the chair, gripped the neck of his t-shirt in both hands and tried to turn his face toward me. He resisted but not very convincingly. We stared at each other, both of us panting. I leaned forward, half raising to reach him, and pushed my lips down on his. He kept his lips pressed together, but I teased with my tongue until he returned my kiss. His hands went to my hips and ground me against him. We both moaned in each other’s mouths. I pulled his shirt up and rubbed my breasts against his chest, the soft hair teasing my skin until my nipples stood taut.

  “Come on,” I breathed against his mouth. “This is right.”

  In my mind, it was. Sneaking glances at Wade’s broad back, leaning into his hugs too hard, staring at his hands and imagining how they’d feel running over my body had nearly driven me crazy. Convinced me to do stupid things with other men. Stupid, because I knew right then no other man would do.

  I teased Wade’s lips open with my tongue and kissed him again, breathing in deep, trying to draw him into me. He ran one rough thumb along my cheekbone. His other hand trailed down my body, caressing my most tender parts. I shuddered and arched my back.

  I slid off him and stood in front of him. He stared, mouth slack and eyes glazed. I held out my hand. He didn’t react. I grabbed one of his hands and tugged. He rose slowly, gaze locked on my face, and shook his head. I glanced at his unmade bed. When had those sheets last been washed? Probably the last time I washed them after I lost a bet to him. Didn’t matter.

  Wade followed my gaze and moved around me, his hand at my waist. He guided me to the bed and nudged me. I let him ease me down on the bed and reached for the button of his pants. It made a soft snap as it popped it open. I pushed down the zipper, and eased my fingers inside.

  His hard heat throbbed against my fingers. Wade shuddered and squeezed his eyes shut. I kept my hand moving and used the other hand to slide down his pants. Wade’s knees pushed my legs apart. I tightened in anticipation. It’s happening. It’s happening. I took in Wade’s face, the fire in his eyes, the shine of sweat on his forehead, his rising and falling chest.

  “Take off your shirt,” I whispered and tugged on its hem. Wade pulled the shirt over his head, the washboard muscles on his stomach elongating. The scent of his soap mixing with the musk of his sweat wiped all the reason from mind. I lay back and pulled him with me. We kissed again, drinking each other in. My heart thrummed hard, pulsing all over my body. Now. I ran my fingers over the ridges of muscle in Wade’s back and gave him a light push.

  “I want you.” I hooked my legs over his hips and arched toward him, ready ready ready.

  Wade’s eyes widened. He stiffened on top of me. His arms tensed, and he catapulted himself backward.

  “No!” The force of the one word shook the room.

  Cool air hit the sweat where our skin had touched, and I put one arm over my breasts and curled onto my side. Desire still ruled my mind, had it stuck in lizard mode. “But you want to.”

  Right then, the whole thing seemed as simple as want-to. Wade was my best friend, and I wanted him as my lover. He wanted me. I felt it every time our gazes locked, every time we touched. I’d do anything for him and knew he could reciprocate. We could fall in love. Stay in love. Be naked together often.

  “Can’t happen.” Wade yanked up his pants and winced as he zipped them. “We’re no good for each other.”

  “No, you’re wrong.” I scooted toward the wall, clutching my arms around my body, suddenly not wanting to be scantily clad in front of Wade. “It would be great.”

  “But you’d want more. I can’t give you that.” He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at me.

  I didn’t deny it. I wanted everything with Wade Hill. The sun, moon, and stars. And everything that went with them.

  “You’re not the one for me.” He took a step backward, toward the door, reaching blindly for the doorknob.

  “I don’t buy that for a second. You want me the same way I want you. You’re just scared.” I got between the oily sheets and pulled them over me. “We can work it out, though. We can work out your PTSD, your nightmares. I promise.”

  Wade’s face reddened. His jaw clenched. “Do you get up in the morning and try to think of ways to make things so complicated I’d need a compass and six jars of vaseline to figure them out?”

  My mouth fell open at the nastiness in his voice. I wanted to go back to where we were a few minutes ago so I could make things go in a different direction, the right one. “Wade, let’s see where this road takes us.”

  Wade closed his eyes. When he opened them, I saw his decision even though I wished I didn’t. “It was a mistake moving in here.” He opened the door and stood in it. “I’ll have my things out tomorrow.” He stepped out and closed the door. His running footsteps crashed through the house.

  “No.” I kicked the sheets off me, leapt out of the bed, and ran to the door and yanked it open. My bare foot touched the cold hallway floor. I stopped short. Did I really want to go running outside naked?

  What if Michael Gage was out there watching? Did I really think I could get Wade to stop and come back? No. I gathered my clothes and started putting them on. Wade’s Harley exploded to life outside, its rumble shaking the windows in their frames. He revved it and took off. I stood with my clothes in my hands, tears dripping off my chin, until the noise faded away.

  I dressed holding my breath, the clothes uncomfortable and too tight on my sensitive skin. I went into the living room to make sure the front door was locked. Then I repeated the exercise on the back door. I checked all the windows. Only then did I crumple into one of the kitchen chairs, lay my head on the table and let out the humiliation and disappointment. Some part of me always thought Wade and I would end up together. But he’d called me a whore the same as Nash had. Maybe I was one.

  The whine of a door o
pening in the hallway cut off my whimpers. I sucked in my breath and held it, waiting for the footsteps, for the me-he-he-he of Michael Gage’s awful laugh. Slow footsteps creaked down the hallway. I slipped out of the chair and crept to the wood burning stove we used for heat. I grabbed a piece of wood from last winter, tiptoed to the archway separating the kitchen from the living room, and raised the wood over my head. I waited.

  The air in the kitchen turned arctic. I clenched my teeth against it and kept my weapon aloft. Then I saw my breath coming in vapor. My black opal necklace heated, overly warm in the icy room. Michael Gage wasn’t here unless he was in ghost form. I lowered the wood. “Who’s there?”

  A floorboard creaked and my daddy appeared. He cocked his head, eyes filled with sympathy, and held out his arms. I ran to him and tried to put my arms around him. They went right through. I stepped back and stared at him. He leaned his head toward mine. I did the same. The coldness coming off him in waves spread through me. I shivered, and he moved away from me. He motioned me to come with him. I followed him down the hall to my bedroom.

  I found him standing over Eddie Kennedy’s treasure research, which I inherited when Eddie died two months ago. He pointed at the chest, his lips moving. A few of his words came to me. “Adam’s drawing…the church…he’s ahead of you.”

  I knelt in front of the chest and opened it.

  THIS WASN’T my first foray into Eddie Kennedy’s Mace Treasure research. Back when I decided to seriously start treasure hunting, I opened this same trunk, dug through the jumble for a couple of hours and ended up more confused than when I started. The absence of the top jumble revealed a folder. Was this what I was supposed to see?

  I turned my head to see if Daddy’s ghost still stood behind me. The room was empty, and I was alone. He never stayed long.

  I opened the folder. On top of a thick stack of papers lay a copy of a picture. The grainy quality suggested it came from a book or magazine. The picture showed the same church from Adam Kessler’s drawing. The caption under the picture read, “The only known picture of St. Augustine Church in Burns County. The film from which this picture came was found in a camera laying in the bottom of an empty boat floating down the Trinity River. Neither the boat’s nor the camera’s owner was ever discovered.”

  I stared hard at the picture and held it so close to my face I could smell the scent of old paper. The keyhole doorway and the spires from Adam’s drawing were visible. My fatigue drained away in a flash, and my blood pumped like I’d just drank ten espressos from Lulu’s Espresso Meltdown. I got up and dug a tiny magnifying glass out of Memaw’s waterfall style vanity dresser. I turned on my bedside lamp and held the copy underneath it and used the magnifying glass to take a closer look.

  The church was surrounded by water. Stumps stuck up out of the water, their sharp edges like spears on which some medieval king might impale his enemies. At the edge of the picture’s frame was another structure, but no more than its white stone edge was visible.

  I set the picture aside. This had to be the same place in Adam’s drawing. But where was it? I picked up the picture again and peered at it. This time, I saw the figure. It stood on the water between the church and the white stone building, so faded it was featureless. The slope of shoulders and the round hump of a head made me think it was a person, but why so faded? Was it a ghost?

  I squinted my eyes as though it would help me see better. Red eyes lit up where the shadow’s face would have been. I gasped and tossed the picture away. It floated lazily to the floor and lay there, daring me to pick it up. I left it where it lay. I’d deal with it later.

  I went back to the trunk and took out the thick folder labeled “Lost Church.” I remembered seeing it a month ago, but it had no context then.

  March 24, 1992.

  Elmer Pickard, Jr., eighty-eight years of age, living at the Pine Valley Senior Home agreed to talk to me about his father, Elmer Pickard, Sr. The following is what Elmer told me.

  My daddy worked the woods for Luther Palmore’s company in the 1890s. Back in those days, the woods wasn’t like they is now. Hadn’t been clear cut to death. Some of those trees was bigger around than a tractor tire. It was rough work. Men died out in those woods. Bit by snakes. Trees fell on them. Got caught up in the equipment and ripped apart.

  Eddie’s note: At this point, I prompted Elmer to tell me the story of the lost church, the same way his daddy told him. Had to do something to get him back on track.

  Yep. I remember Daddy’s stories about the church they found in the woods out near the western edge of the county. Daddy said he never seen nothing like it before or after. Him and his men got into a patch of forest looked like it hadn’t been touched for centuries. They’d have thought nobody’d ever touched it since the Lord Almighty wished it into being, but there was a church right smack dab in the middle of it. A big one too.

  According to Daddy, it looked like something you’d expect to see in Europe or somewhere other than Texas. The church was built of these polished stones. They’s gray, of course, but looked like somebody had rubbed them and rubbed them until they shone. There was a tall tower for the bell, and two steeples on either side. Had one of those deep entryways and the double doors was all cockeyed like the damp done got to ‘em.

  My daddy and those men he worked with done heard about the Spanish coming to East Texas in the sixteen hundreds and thought this might be one of their missions. They decided to go inside, thinking if this place was abandoned there might be something of value in there. Even if there wasn’t, it was a good story to tell their wives and kids when they got home. Daddy said a young feller name of Race Watson decided to go in. No sooner’n he opened the door, these big black painters come boiling out. One fastened on to old Race, and before my daddy and the others could kill it, it had done ripped Race’s throat out.

  Eddie’s note: Elmer uses the old-timer’s pronunciation of panthers, which is “painters.”

  Daddy said they sent someone to get Luther Palmore, their boss. He come out, took one look at the church, and sent them all home for the day. Next morning, both Luther Palmore and Reginald Mace—rich old man owned most of the town—rode out to the site. Made my daddy and his men stay nearby but wouldn’t let ‘em near the church again.

  Mace and Palmore talked a long time, and then Luther come to where my Daddy and his men stood waiting. He give special instructions to save the church and a spread of trees around it. Daddy and the other loggers moved on, doing the work they’s paid to do. One feller in my daddy’s crew said a few days later he saw Reginald Mace ride into those woods with that witch Priscilla Herrera. None of the men ever went back after hearing that. They figured she did some devil magic there in the church. They go back, old scratch might get ‘em.

  Eddie’s note: Elmer didn’t have anything else of use to tell me, but he did direct me to another old timer here at Pine Valley, name of Mattie Riggs, who knew a story about someone going inside the church and never coming back out. Turned out, Mattie’s story was no such thing, but I’ve recorded it anyway.

  Mattie Riggs is a ninety-seven-year-old woman, living at the Pine Valley nursing home. The following account is in her words.

  My name’s Mataline Martin Riggs. I know the area of which you speak. The name of the church was St. Augustine’s. Reason I know is my cousin and me went in there and saw it wrote over the pulpit. You never seen the like of stained glass as I saw in that place. All depicting something out of the Bible. Birth of Jesus. Death of Jesus. Suicide of Judas.

  Eddie’s note: At this point, I asked Mrs. Riggs why she went inside the church if it was known black panthers killed someone there.

  My brother, Harland, was an awful bully. He caught me kissing Johnny Riggs—who I later married, for God’s sake—and threatened to tell Papa if I didn’t go out to the church in the woods and bring him back something he could sell. I asked my cousin Bessie to go with me and she agreed.

  Church wasn’t so hard to find. My daddy was par
t of the original logging crew who found it. He told us exactly where it was, only…well, maybe it’s better I don’t tell that.

  Eddie’s note: I had to go get Mrs. Riggs a fried chicken dinner to encourage her to tell me the story. She said it wasn’t worth the nightmares of remembering if all she had to eat was awful old nursing home food.

  Me and Bessie got out to the woods where Daddy said he found the church. At first neither of us saw nothing. Just woods. We walked around for a bit, getting pretty frustrated. I was nearly in tears. I was one of those kids who hated getting in trouble. Felt my parents held it against me, loved me less. So I got crying.

  Then, I said sort of a prayer, only I didn’t say the name of God at the beginning like I usually did. But, you see, it worked. Soon as I opened my eyes, I could see the building peeking through the trees. We walked right to it. But it wasn’t there before. I swear to you it wasn’t.

  There we were in the church, looking around for gold candlesticks or a goblet with rubies on it—you know how kids are—but it had already been picked over. Creepy place, gave me the shivers just being there.

  Eddie’s note: I asked Mrs. Riggs how come it scared her.

  Just had that feel about it, you know? It was too quiet in them woods. No birds a-calling, no squirrels a-chuffing. Inside the church, it felt too close, like something was pressing down on us. And it was like I could hear singing, bunch of voices singing, somewhere in the distance.

  Now, even though we didn’t find nothing of value, it was obvious whoever used the church left in a mighty big hurry. We found the living quarters for whoever who did the services, and there was still a metal cup on the table like he’d been drinking something. Whatever was in it was all dried up, but it was there, and it just felt wrong. Like we ought not be seeing it.

  I told Bessie we might ought to get ourselves out of there, and she agreed. We ran all the way back home. Harland told Daddy I kissed Johnny Riggs, and he switched me good. But here’s the kicker. That night, late at night, I heard this screaming, sounding like a woman screaming. I got out of bed and went to the window. It was one of those bright nights, where the moon is so full it’s almost like dusk even though it’s the middle of the night. I could see this huge black cat walking around in front of my cousin Bessie’s house, which was just next door. It would pace back and forth, swishing its tail.