by Ann Charles
However, while Kate was dead-on pinpointing Claire’s flaw, she didn’t need to stand there looking so damned smug about it. “Do you really want me to come around this desk and sit on your diaphragm until you turn a lovely shade of purple?”
Kate sighed. “No. Sorry, I’m just …” she flapped her hand in the air as if she were shooing away a fly.
“Okay, crazy, let’s move on then,” Claire said. “How about you let me into Butch’s office at The Shaft? I know he has a computer and internet connection there.”
“He has a docking station, but he took his laptop with him.”
“Damn it.” Claire picked up the watch again, stroking the face with her gloved finger. It was time for Ruby to join the modern world and start offering free wireless internet to her campers. If Claire could only talk Gramps into buying a computer, or shipping the one he had back home in Nemo down to Arizona.
“Claire!” Deborah’s voice rang through the closed office door, making Kate jump and Claire cringe. “Open this door. I need to talk to you.”
“I’m busy,” Claire yelled back.
Her mother was quiet for a couple of beats. “Is MacDonald in there?”
Claire rolled her eyes. “You know Mac hates it when you use his whole name.”
“You two aren’t doing anything funny in there again, are you?”
Kate snickered into her fist.
“Mac isn’t in here, Mom. Just Kate.”
“Kathryn? I thought I told you to bring Claire upstairs.”
“I’m trying, Mother.”
“Try harder. She needs to come get a handle on her new grandmother. Ruby is throwing a silly tantrum.”
Claire stormed over to the door and yanked it open. “What did you do, Mom?”
Deborah stood under the stairwell light looking like she’d dressed for the horse track down in Del Mar, with bright lipstick, a pale pink shirt, dress pants, and a silk scarf with cowgirls lassoing cowboys on it. All she was missing was a feathered hat.
“I didn’t do anything.” Deborah smirked. “Jessica did.”
“What did Jess do now?” Kate asked, looking over Claire’s shoulder.
A wicked glint lit Deborah’s blue eyes. “She invited her father to breakfast.”
Chapter Six
Mac rolled to a stop in front of his aunt’s place. Shielding his eyes from the morning rays, he stared at the silver Cadillac sitting in his usual parking spot by the willow tree. Aside from the complimentary coat of dust that came with southeastern Arizona breezes and being a decade old, it looked to be in mint condition. Ruby must have a visitor. From where he sat, he couldn’t read the license plate to see if it were a local.
He climbed out of his pickup and stretched, trying to work out several kinks he’d acquired last night thanks to Chester’s couch. As if the lumpy cushions and lack of length weren’t bad enough, Mac had tossed and turned in a fog of stale cigar smoke that seemed to seep from the fabric and foam.
He shaded his eyes from the sun, which had crested the Tres Dedos Mountains to the east hours ago and burned away most of the remaining coolness. The only shadows left were huddling at the base of the large mass of Precambrian granite called the Middle Finger, which jutted out of the northern flank of the range. He grinned, remembering Claire’s comment from a couple of months ago that the Middle Finger was Mother Nature’s response to the Copper Snake Mining Company’s continued blasting and ravaging of the surrounding desert over the last century. She had such a creative way with words.
The screen door creaked open. Claire’s cousin Natalie stepped onto the porch, letting the screen door slap shut behind her. When her gaze hit his, she shook her head. “You don’t want to go in there.”
“I don’t?”
“Absolutely not. I’d advise getting back in your pickup and flooring it in the other direction.”
Shit. He felt his grin wilt. “Is Deborah dabbling with her evil magic wand already this morning?”
“Not yet.” Natalie descended the steps and joined him in the warm sunshine. “Your aunt has a visitor,” she said in a lowered voice.
He glanced back over at the Cadillac then walked around the front of it. Natalie followed.
The Ohio plates were plastered with bug guts. Who did Ruby know from … then it hit him. He winced, hissing inwardly through his teeth. “Oh, hell. Don’t tell me that’s Jess’s dad’s car.”
“Winner winner chicken dinner. Give the man a prize.” Natalie crossed her arms over her chest. “From what I’ve gleaned through all of the yelling and cursing while I inhaled my bacon and eggs, your cousin invited him to come to Arizona for a visit, and he took her up on it.”
Had Ruby known about this? She would normally have mentioned something as big and ugly as this to Mac if so.
“Ruby looked like she’d bit into a slab of raw liver when Jess’s pop walked in the door.”
Mac rubbed his hand over his face, his whiskers making a scratching sound. “Damn it. Ruby doesn’t need this on top of Deborah being here, especially with Harley out of commission.”
Natalie nodded slowly. “Yeah. Not to mention the situation with the university crew.”
“Exactly.” Wait! Mac frowned at Natalie. “What situation?”
“You know, the conspiracy stuff Claire keeps talking about.”
What particular conspiracy stuff this time? He cocked his head to the side, his eyes narrowing. More importantly, he thought, “Has something happened recently?” Something that Claire had not told him about? Not that he had had any time alone with her since he had arrived at the R.V. park to get caught up with her latest presumptions.
Natalie’s cell phone rang. “Didn’t she tell you about that weird conversation I overheard?” She tugged the phone out of her back pocket.
“Not yet.”
She grinned when she looked down at her cell phone’s screen. “It’s my other half from back home. I have to take this.” She lifted the phone to her ear. “Nat’s cat house, head puss speaking.”
Mac did a double take. Had he heard her right?
“Violet Lynn Parker, always good to hear your sweet swearing voice.” She paused, listening. “No freaking way.” She listened some more, her smile widening. “Wait, wait! You need to back the truck up and tell me how this all started.”
Mac didn’t hang around to eavesdrop on Natalie’s call. Ruby was most likely in need of reinforcements by now. He just hoped her shotgun was still resting against the wall up in her closet. He took the porch steps two at a time, wondering if Claire had been inside eating breakfast with Natalie when the devil had walked in, or if she’d escaped before all hell had broken loose.
Inside the store, Mac found Ronnie sitting behind the counter, a half-eaten candy bar and a can of root beer in front of her. It was not exactly her usual grapefruit and granola she had insisted on back in Tucson.
“Mornin’, Mac.” She tucked away a bunch of loose strands from her crooked ponytail.
A ponytail? He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to remember if he’d ever seen her wearing a ponytail before. Usually if her hair was up, it was secured all tidy and neat in one of those French curl thing-a-ma-jobs.
A cacophony of yelling rang from the other side of the green velvet curtain, sounding like someone had thrown a snake into a chicken coop. For a moment he thought he heard Claire’s voice in the mix. The slamming of a door ended the commotion and all was silent in the other room.
Ronnie grimaced at the curtain and then took a bite of the candy bar. “Did you sleep okay?” she asked.
“I slept like shit.” And it was her fault.
“Yeah, me, too.”
He had trouble scraping up any sympathy for her. She hadn’t had to listen to Chester’s grunts, burps, and farts all night long. Mac swore that man lived on canned chili con carne and Velveeta cheese. Judging from the sulfur vapors seeping from Chester’s bedroom in the back of the Brave, he was dying from it, too.
“Did you have to sleep o
n the table bed?” he asked. It seemed a fitting punishment since she had caused his exile to the Isle of Chester.
“No, Claire drew the short straw. Kate felt sorry for her, though, and let her share the couch bed.”
That didn’t surprise him knowing Kate. She had told him once how much she admired Claire and her screw-it spirit, especially when it came to dealing with their mother.
“But she must have hogged the bed,” Ronnie continued, “because Claire was sleeping on the table this morning when I got up to go pee.”
Poor Claire. On the bright side, maybe she would need some of her kinks massaged … and then some.
Ronnie nodded her head at the keys in his hand. “Where did you go this morning?”
“To fill up my pickup.”
After listening to Chester’s wake up routine through the Brave’s thin bathroom wall, the urge to put Jackrabbit Junction in his rearview mirror had spurred Mac to top off his gas tank.
He’d almost taken a detour on the way back here to hike up to Ruby’s Lucky Monk mine and check if the No Trespassing signs and barriers at the main adit entrance had been tampered with by anyone. With the university’s archeological crew accessing their dig site through a back door into the Lucky Monk, he was being extra careful about keeping the front entrance to the mine blocked.
After Natalie’s comment about the “situation” with the archaeologists, he needed to talk with Claire. Depending on what “conspiracy stuff” she was whispering in Natalie’s ear, he might be paying a visit to the Lucky Monk before the day was out after all.
“Filling up, huh?” Ronnie glugged down some root beer, then slammed the can on the counter, burping into her fist. Two of her fingernails had the paint half peeled off. Another one looked ragged, like it had been torn or chewed.
Mac could not help but gape at her. He had never seen Ronnie anything other than perfectly poised with her hair coiffed, her nails polished, and her smile fine-tuned. It looked like Jackrabbit Junction was working its dusty magic on her, leaving her pucker faced and sour tempered.
“Don’t tell me you’re planning to leave paradise so soon.” Sarcasm laced her tone along with something he could not pinpoint. It almost sounded like a touch of desperation, or maybe fear.
No, it couldn’t be fear. That made no sense. What did Ronnie have to fear besides a missed spa appointment? Whatever it was, Mac had no time for this. He needed to see Claire—and Ruby, too. He took several steps toward the curtain, but then remembered something from last night and returned to the counter.
Stuffing the last of her candy bar in her mouth, Ronnie looked up at him with raised brows.
“Did I see you getting a ride from the Sheriff last night?” he asked, watching for her reaction.
Claire had called Natalie before leaving the bar with Mac last night and confirmed that Ronnie had made it back to the Skunkmobile, which meant Mac most likely had been spot on about her leaving in the Sheriff’s pickup.
Ronnie’s cheeks reddened. “Like I told Claire and Katie,” she said through a mouthful of chocolate, “he was just doing his duty and taking me home after I’d had a few too many drinks.”
“Right.” It was his turn to use sarcasm. “Since when does the Sheriff of Cholla County act as a taxi service for drunks?”
She swallowed while shaking her head. “I wasn’t drunk, just tipsy.”
“Is that why you didn’t stick around to help Claire and Kate with the fight?”
Ronnie’s mouth opened, but a loud war cry from the other side of the curtain interrupted her, followed by a crash and several thumps.
Mac didn’t wait to hear what came next. He rushed through the curtain into the rec room only to stop in his tracks at the sight of Claire and Kate rolling around on the carpet, grunting and cursing as they wrestled for something Kate clutched in her right hand. Ruby’s set of four T.V. trays, which usually sat stacked next to the couch, lay scattered across the floor.
Frozen in surprise, Mac watched as Kate rolled on top of Claire and nailed her with a solid elbow in the breadbasket, and then tried to scramble out of her sister’s reach. Before Kate could make it to freedom, Claire recovered. She latched onto Kate’s ankle, yanking her backward.
His brain finally thawed. Mac barged forward. “What in the hell is going on?”
“Dang it, boy,” Chester said from a stool at the bar. “Don’t go ruining the match.”
“What match?” Mac grabbed Claire’s arm, the one that had a hold on Kate, and tried to loosen her grip.
“Kate ‘the Ex-Porn Star’ Morgan versus her sister Claire ‘the Tool Babe.’”
Manny burst through the back door, a can of beer in his hand. His gaze landed on the three of them in the middle of the rec room. “Holy frijoles! What’s going on in here? Can I join in?”
Chester snickered. “You wouldn’t last a round with your trick hip.”
“Claire,” Mac growled. “Let go of her.”
“Fine! Fine! I’m letting go.” Claire sat up, rubbing her gut. “She started it, though.”
“She’s right, Katie did start it,” Chester confirmed, puffing on his cigar. “I saw the whole thing.”
“Bragger,” Manny said.
Chester rolled the ash from his cigar. “I’ve seen better matches in the mud pen at Dirty Gerties.”
Mac turned his glare on the two contenders. “What’s with all of the fighting lately? Are you two trying out for the WWE?”
“It’s their mother,” Manny answered. “Ford has said it time and again. Every time their madre comes around, all three of his granddaughters go a little loca.”
“Or a lot,” Chester added. “Like werewolves during a full moon.”
Mac got a look at what Kate was holding in her hand—the damned golden pocket watch from Ruby’s safe. That explained Claire’s temporary insanity.
“What are you doing with the watch?” he asked Kate.
“Keeping it away from her.” Kate pointed at Claire. “She’s obsessed.”
“Would you stop touching it with your bare hands! The oil in your fingers can ruin it.”
“See, Mac, like I said—obsessed.”
“I told you, I am not obsessed,” Claire said. “I’m just concerned about the trouble it might bring our way.”
“There’s not going to be any trouble,” Kate said, her voice higher than normal, her cheeks dotted with red splotches. “Nobody but our family knows about this stupid watch or any of the rest of Joe’s stuff.”
“I do,” Chester said. “So does Manny.”
Kate shot them a glare. “You two don’t count.”
“That’s not true,” Claire said. “Your barmaid buddy Arlene knows now, thanks to your big mouth.”
“What watch?” Ronnie asked from behind Mac. She stood just inside the curtain.
“Arlene doesn’t give a damn about any of this.”
After helping Claire to her feet, Mac said to her, “I thought we agreed last night that you were going to take a break from this whole sleuthing business.”
“I said I would do my best to keep my nose out of trouble,” Claire said, picking up her Mighty Mouse hat from the floor and jamming it on her head. “Not stop researching it altogether.” Her eyes challenged his. “There’s no harm in just reading about it, is there?”
A scoff came from Kate’s direction. “There is when you’re trying to blackmail your younger sister into breaking into someone’s house or office to get on his computer.”
“He’s your boyfriend, numb nuts.” Claire straightened her red T-shirt so the mummy image was back in front. “It’s not breaking and entering when you’re having sex with him on a regular basis.”
“How regular are we talking?” Manny asked.
Chester scratched his jaw. “I thought they were breaking up.”
“Let me see the watch.” Ronnie sidled up next to Kate, who opened her fist warily while keeping an eye on Claire.
“Mac, you gotta make Claire stop messing with Joe�
�s things,” Kate said. “She’s starting to get all twitchy-eyed again.”
“My twitch has nothing to do with the watch.”
“And look what happened last time she got too deep into someone else’s business.”
“What? I helped Ruby keep her mine,” Claire justified.
“You almost got killed,” Mac reminded her.
“Only a little,” she shot back.
Chester let out a lungful of smoke-filled laughter.
“Damn.” Ronnie whistled through her teeth. “That’s gotta be worth a few thousand bucks, don’t you think?”
“Hand me the pocket watch, please,” Mac ordered.
Kate dropped it into his open palm, dusting off her hands like she was finished with the whole mess.
“What are you going to do with it?” Claire asked.
“Give it to you,” (which he did) “and ask you to return it to the place you got it from and leave it there.”
“I was going to do just that after I took some pictures of it, but Kate blew this all out of proportion and took it from me.”
“I did not.”
“You did, too,” Chester butted in. “You kind of went a little nuts there, Katie girl, getting all bristled up and jaw snapping when Claire mentioned calling Butch.”
Claire lovingly buffed the case of the golden watch with her T-shirt, handling it like it was a museum piece. “What’s wrong with you lately, Kate?”
“Nothing’s wrong with me.” She pointed at her oldest sister. “Ronnie is the one acting all weird.”
“What?” Ronnie took a step back. “I’m not acting weird.”
“Yeah, you are,” Claire joined Kate’s side. “You cut and darkened your hair, you’re wearing colored contacts, and you keep hiding from Mom.”