by Ann Charles
“Then I refuse to answer based on my extreme dislike for convergent questions.” I pointed at the door. “You can leave now.”
She pushed to her feet, making a spectacle of pulling down her mini-skirt to non-peep show level. “Fine, big sister. I’ll go for now.” She leaned over Doc’s desk, giving Cornelius an eyeful of cleavage. “Will I see you again this weekend at our family dinner?” she said in a husky voice.
Unfortunately for Susan, Doc’s laptop once again held more appeal for my pseudo-boyfriend.
I grabbed the man-stealing bitch by the elbow and scooped up her coat. Using my “bulk,” I lugged her toward the door, which magically opened right as I reached for it.
The sight of Doc standing in the doorway set off a series of alarms in my head.
He must have read the panic on my face. “What’s going on?” he asked, holding a small stack of mail. That answered where he’d been when Susan had showed up. His gaze moved to Susan, his forehead pinching as he glanced over her skimpy attire.
“Hello, Mr. Ahhh …” Shit. Abort! Abort! Abort! I glanced at Cornelius. “Romeo, you have a customer.” Back to my sister, I said, “You hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“That barking. It sounds like Satan has released his Hellhounds to drag you home.”
Susan looked up at Doc, really taking him in for the first time. Her eyes widened. “Oh, my, who are you?”
“He’s a customer.”
“A sexy customer.”
“Off you go, Jezebel.” I shoved her out the door, throwing her coat at her face. “The Prince of Darkness awaits.”
“I’ll see you Saturday, Doc,” she called to Cornelius.
At the sound of his name, the real Doc started to open his mouth.
Before anyone could get another word out, I shut the door, locked it, turned the sign to Closed, and twisted the blinds shut. I saw a shadow move toward the front window and grabbed Doc, hauling him close to me and out of her sight.
“Is she looking in?” I asked Cornelius from my hiding spot against Doc’s chest.
“Are you referring to someone living or dead?”
“Cornelius!” I growled.
After a couple of seconds, he said, “Your weather-resistant relative is no longer in view.”
I blew out a breath of relief and sagged back against the door, squishing the blinds. “What are you doing here, Cornelius? I thought you were working from Jerry’s office.”
“He needed to borrow my laptop.”
“What’s wrong with your bank of computers?”
“The power cables have gone missing. I suspect it’s the handiwork of your boss.”
“Jerry?”
“The other, who no longer requires oxygen.”
“What makes you think Jane is the one who hid your cables?”
“Ghosts often have an aversion to electronic devices.”
I had an aversion to electronic devices, too. When they didn’t work like I wanted them to, they tended to break into tiny pieces, especially when I used my old softball bat.
“I’ve been thinking about your problem,” Cornelius said.
Doc took off his coat. “Which of her problems?”
“The one involving a dead woman.”
“That doesn’t narrow it down enough,” Doc said, hanging up his leather coat. His dark blue shirt topped khaki pants. Business casual was the name of the game today, which may or may not include clients in his line of work.
“I called Cornelius this morning on my way into work and asked him to help me figure out who killed Ms. Wolff.”
Doc’s eyes narrowed. “Isn’t that Coop’s job?”
“I’m not going to wait around on the sidelines for Cooper to play Sherlock Holmes while Hawke keeps trying to pin everything he can on me.”
“So you enlisted Cornelius?”
“I asked him to help me, and before you say another word, let me add that one of the reasons I came over here this morning was to ask you to help, too.”
“You know I’ll help you and Cooper.”
“Uh, yeah. About that—it’s just me.”
Doc raised one eyebrow. “So you’re not telling Cooper what you’re up to?” When I shook my head, he asked, “Don’t you think this could end in disaster?”
“You’re the second person this morning to doubt my abilities.”
“I don’t doubt your abilities, Killer, but Coop will have a coronary when he finds out what you’re up to.”
“Blah blah blah, Cooper likes to yell, blah.” I looked at Cornelius. “You said you’ve been thinking. Does that mean you have an idea for me about how to find Ms. Wolff’s murderer?”
“More of an observation. The bedroom mirror,” he began, stroking his pointy goatee. “You say it broke when you used transference to share your power with the detective, correct?”
“Sure, yeah, that’s what happened.”
He stood so fast that I flinched. “I need to go. Don’t summon anyone without me, Violet.” He departed in a few long strides via the back door, leaving me with my mouth agape. What the hell? What was his observation? I turned to Doc with my jaw still unhinged.
“So, that was Susan.” It wasn’t a question.
Skirrrrchhhhh. It took my brain a few grinding moments to shift gears. “Unfortunately.”
“She appears to have confused Cornelius with me.”
“She’s a confused girl. Take her outfit—that was definitely an ensemble from her summer street-corner-ho collection, and clearly we’re in the throes of winter.”
His head tilted to the side as he stared at me, the usual sign that he wasn’t buying my snake oil sales pitch. “Care to explain the real reason behind that particular confusion?”
“Susan has always been two tacos short of a combo plate.”
“Violet,” he warned.
I sighed, hopping up on his desk. “You remember how I told you Cornelius was in my office a few days before Thanksgiving and my ex and Susan showed up?”
“I remember, in spite of the expletive-laden recount.” He walked over, tossing his mail on the desk behind me.
I smirked. I’d been especially prolific at the time, experimenting with new combinations of insults. “That day, Rex accused me of sleeping with Cornelius and to protect you I played along.”
He nodded. “I remember that, too. Cornelius pretended to be your lover in order to get you to agree on a séance, a slick chess move on his part.”
Excellent, we were on the same page. “I also let Susan think that due to a date with Cornelius, I couldn’t go to Thanksgiving.”
He crossed his arms. “So, she still thinks you’re dating Cornelius?”
I cringed, unsure how my real boyfriend would feel about that part of the ongoing deception. “Most likely, yes.”
His expression gave nothing away. “You haven’t bothered to straighten her out?”
“Not yet.” And for good reason. I knew how Susan acted while she was on the hunt. Today was a prologue to the sordid soap opera she probably had scripted in her evil fantasies. The longer I could shield Doc from her, the better.
A shadow in the front window made me cringe. Was she back? No, it was just a passerby.
Doc glanced at the window and then back at me. “If Susan thinks you’re dating Cornelius, why was she in my office?”
“Because Addy mentioned that my boyfriend works next door to me.”
“Ah. What did your sister want with me?”
“She came under the pretense of inviting you to our family dinner this weekend.” Another person passed by on the sidewalk, catching my eye. I breathed a sigh of relief at another stranger.
“And her real reason for coming here?”
“To seduce you, or rather Cornelius, who she thinks is you.”
Doc rubbed his jaw. “And was Cornelius seduced?”
“I couldn’t tell.” I got up and went to the window, searching the vicinity to make sure Susan wasn’t waiting across the stre
et, watching us with binoculars or a high-powered telescope. “I don’t think Cornelius is interested in normal human females.”
“That makes two of us.” Doc grabbed my wrist and tugged me down the hall to the storage room. Once inside, he turned on the lights and shut the door, blocking out the rest of the world.
“What are we doing?” I asked, frowning.
“Having a private conversation.” He jammed his hands in his pockets. “When are you going to trust me?”
“I do trust you.” At his steady stare, I lowered my eyes. “Okay, I mostly trust you.”
“Violet.” He moved closer, tipping up my chin. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“I know,” I said quickly. Too quickly, judging from the slight narrowing of his eyes.
“You say that, but your actions speak differently. If you give me the chance, Boots, I’ll prove it to you.”
“I am giving you a chance.”
“How is using Cornelius as a shield giving me a chance?”
I pulled away and walked over to the bookshelves lining one wall, scanning the spines without really reading them. “You don’t understand, Doc.”
“Then explain it to me.”
“My history is filled with Susan stealing things from me and destroying them or what they represent.” I wrung my hands together. “I’m afraid of letting her near you.”
“Violet.”
I scowled. “You saw her. Physically, she’s everything I’m not—long legs, straight hair, a slender body with boobs up to her chin. While I was trying to learn what X plus Y equals in school, she was studying boys and figuring out what made them lose their common sense and come running.”
“Violet,” he started again.
But I wasn’t done. “She honed her skills so well that she stole two men out from under me—not one, Doc. Two, including one who fathered my children. And that was before I bore two kids who took one hell of a toll on my body and mind.”
“Vi—”
“And before you try to pick up my self-esteem and dust it off with some compliments, keep in mind that both of the boyfriends she slept with swore to me they weren’t interested in her. Rex in particular I believed because he was so into his research at the time.” I hugged my arms close. “Silly me for letting my guard down.”
He came over, taking me by the shoulders. “What will it take to convince you I’m not going to end up in bed with your sister?”
I chewed on my lower lip, digging deep in my heart for an answer. The only thing I could find down there was, “Time.”
“Time to show you I’m not an asshole like those other two?”
“Time to let me feel more secure before telling her Cornelius is not the one sharing my bed.”
His dark gaze searched mine. “Okay, but I draw the line at you kissing him in front of her. Your lips are mine.”
I chuckled. “I think Cornelius would run away screaming if I even puckered up close to him.”
“His loss.” He lowered his mouth, his hands traveling up my neck, cupping my head. “I’ve missed you the last two nights, Tiger.”
I lined up my lips with his. “Maybe we should do something about that.”
“Like what?”
“Run away to Mexico together.”
He brushed his mouth over mine. “What about Addy and Layne?”
“We’ll send for them after a week or two.” I wrapped my arms around his waist, going up on my toes for a second kiss, this one with more heat.
He backed me against the bookshelf. “I shouldn’t have taken the bean bag out of here,” he said between kisses.
“What were you thinking?” I pulled his shirt free from his pants, wanting to touch skin.
He groaned when my fingernails raked down his back, his hips pressing into mine. “Your dress is so soft.” His mouth trailed down my neck. “Reminds me of the skin underneath it.”
“Doc.”
“What?” He spoke from my cleavage.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?” His lips skimmed along my collarbone.
I looked up at the ceiling, drowning in the sensations he was awakening from head to toe. “Me.”
He lifted his head, his eyes dark with need. “You?”
I nodded. “And my messed-up past, present, and future.”
His hands spanned the sides of my face, his thumbs tracing my cheekbones. “No apologizing.”
“But—”
“I mean it, Violet. No more.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t want to change you.”
“Why not? I can list ten things I’d like to tweak without even trying.”
He chuckled. “Because I adore you just as you are.”
I blinked away a rush of tears, not wanting to ruin the moment by blubbering all over him. “I’ll try harder, Doc.”
“Try harder at what?”
“Trusting you.”
“Good.” He kissed me again, filling up my heart two times over.
The sound of the back door closing made us both curse.
“Doc?” Ol’ man Harvey’s voice was muffled by the closed door. “Sparky?”
Doc stepped back, tucking in his shirt as I pulled down the hem of my dress and adjusted topside so that everything was back in place and pointing the right way.
“I really like that dress,” he said, ogling my chest.
“You and Jerry. Pink is his favorite color, I swear.”
He grinned. “Pink is my favorite today, too.” His gaze skimmed down to my toes. “Damn, Boots. I’m going to need to see more of your skin soon.”
A knock sounded on the door. “I can hear ya two lovebirds foolin’ around in there.”
“Give us a few minutes, Willis,” Doc called, reaching for me.
I dodged his hand, laughing, and beat him to the door. Harvey was frowning when I pulled it open.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him, sobering right away.
“I need to see a man about a mule.”
“We’re plumb out of mules, but the bathroom is thataway.” I pointed down the hall.
“Before I let my pipe drip,” he started, making me grimace. Why did he have to be so pictorial in speech? “I’m here to play Pony Express.”
Doc came up behind me, his hand resting on my lower back. “You brought mail?”
“Not mail, a message.”
From whom? “That would be more like playing pigeon, wouldn’t it?” I asked.
“Do ya wanna hear the damned message, girl, or stand here and argue about metaphors?”
“Fine, what’s your message?”
“You need to try to return the call.” Harvey looped his thumbs in his suspenders, leaning back on his heels as if he’d just told me the meaning of life.
What call? “What does that mean?”
“Well, accordin’ to Abe Jr. next door, you need to use Ms. Wolff’s phone to reach out again and see who’s listenin’ on the other side.”
* * *
Natalie was waiting for me on the front porch of the Galena House. Yellow paint splattered her torn jeans, faded Lead Golddiggers sweatshirt, and rosy cheekbones. I’d texted her from Doc’s office, making sure she was at her new apartment so that I’d have a legitimate excuse for showing up at the old boarding house and not get carted off to jail for suspicious activity.
“Hurry up and get inside.” She leaned against the large wooden door that opened into a long foyer with two apartment doors on opposite walls—one up front on the left and the other at the far end on the right. A wide, polished stairway led to the other two apartments upstairs where Freesia, the owner, and now Natalie lived. “The cops will be back again in forty-three minutes.”
I paused, frowning at her crooked ponytail as she shut the front door behind us. “You have it down to an exact time?” Or was she channeling Cornelius? “I thought they just cruised by periodically through the day.”
“They did until yesterday. Now a Deadwood cop car stops by every hou
r. One of the officers usually walks around the house and peeks in the window of Ms. Wolff’s old apartment, while the other comes inside to make sure the police tape is still in the same place.”
“It’s those missing clocks,” I said. I’d filled Natalie in on Hawke’s clock-napping accusation last night on the phone before going to bed. “Hawke’s tighty-whities must be extra bunched over their disappearance.”
“He’s certainly upping his game.” She led the way along the polished wooden floor and semi-recently painted walls to the police tape in front of Ms. Wolff’s apartment door. “Where’s Doc?”
“He had a customer stopping by.” He’d kissed me good-bye at the back door and made me promise not to end up in jail today.
“So, Cornelius really thinks someone will answer when you talk on Ms. Wolff’s phone?”
“Yep.”
“What about you?”
Me? My knees were trembling about who might be listening when I spoke into the receiver. “It’s worth a try.”
“You really think you have a better chance at finding Ms. Wolff’s killer than Hawke and Cooper?”
“Cooper, maybe. But definitely when it comes to Hawke.”
I took a moment to catch her up with all of the crap going down in my life since I’d chatted with her last.
Freesia came down the wide staircase and joined us in the hall as I was wrapping up, ending with Cornelius’s idea on my reaching out through the old phone in Ms. Wolff’s apartment that wasn’t plugged into any wall jack. Her jeans and sweatshirt were splattered with yellow paint, too, as well as her prominent cheekbones and smooth forehead.
Freesia reminded me of a younger Halle Berry, only more curvy with longer hair. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand her instant crush on Cornelius, nor could I fathom why he wasn’t drooling after her. His lack of interest in Freesia was partly why I didn’t think he was interested in normal human women. The other had to do with his firm belief that batteries—not bras—came in double-D sizes.
“You want to go inside Ms. Wolff’s apartment again?” Freesia asked, frowning at the door’s little brass clock knocker. “It’s a bad day for that. The cops are all fired up about more missing clocks.”
“I know. Detective Hawke thinks I might have something to do with their disappearance, but I can’t prove him wrong unless I figure out who really is responsible for the missing clocks.” And Ms. Wolff’s death.