by Ann Charles
Cooper had pursued my best friend, Natalie, all the way to Jackrabbit Junction, Arizona, after Christmas, taking his uncle along with him. While neither Natalie nor Harvey were talking much about what happened down there in the desert, I had a feeling sparks flew somewhere along the line. And based on Cooper’s repeated snarls and growls since he’d returned, I had a feeling those sparks weren’t in the bedroom. But because neither Harvey nor Natalie were feeling chatty about it since they’d returned a couple of days ago, I was stuck trying to pin the tail on a steely-eyed donkey that kept kicking and nipping at me in the process.
I watched for Harvey’s reaction to my theory about his nephew, but the old codger could bluff the devil even on a hot day in Hell.
“You forgot a certain something,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
He smirked. “Coop isn’t the only Deadwood gumshoe back on the prowl. Detective Hawke is out sniffing around now, too.”
I grimaced at the mere mention of Cooper’s pain-in-the-butt, temporary helper in crime-solving. Detective Hawke and I had a rosy relationship—I was a beautiful flower and he was a thorny prick. His list of crimes that I’d supposedly committed in the Black Hills was longer than Santa’s naughty list these days. Every time I ran into the jerk, he tried to hit me with another accusation, but I was rubber and he was … an idiot. “Oh, yeah. You think Hawke is giving your nephew a hard time again?”
“Is a frog’s ass watertight?”
Cooper stepped back into the main room. “Are you two coming back here to take a look around or are you waiting for a queen’s herald to blow a damned horn first?”
“Keep your bloomers on, Coop. We’re comin’.”
We followed Cooper down the hallway, peeking in the rooms along the way. One had a broken iron bedframe spotted with rust. In another larger room there was a wooden chair—the same chair that I’d sat in last time we were here while making contact with the building’s namesake, Ottó Sugarloaf, or rather Ottó Cukorsüveg as he was known back in Hungary before he moved to Lead and anglicized his name.
Farther down, the bathroom with the old chain pull–style toilet looked the same as the last time I’d checked on it. The archaic cast iron stove in the kitchen reminded me of the one in the historic Adams House in Deadwood. But unlike that museum, there was no cookie jar sitting nearby full of leftover goodies from days gone by, only an ancient sink big enough to fit a family of raccoons, which it might have in the past judging from the pile of dried critter turds in it.
“Are you picking up any ghosts?” I asked Cooper, who had the unfortunate ability to see the wispy folks now thanks to a tiny accident involving me, a pissed-off dead woman, and an innocent bystander who got in our way—him. Although Cooper wasn’t one hundred percent innocent of anything, in my opinion.
“Nope.”
Hmm. Last time we were here, Ottó had shown up to the party, along with a girl he’d killed back in his homeland when he tried to extricate the lidérc from her.
Cooper led the way out of the kitchen, checking his watch as we reached the front room. “Are we done, Parker?”
“I guess so,” I said, walking over to one of the windows.
While we were in the back of the building, the clouds had split enough to let the sun peek through. Across the valley, the old Yates Shaft headframe reflected the sun’s rays, looking like a lighthouse standing tall among the dark sea of hills.
“Aunt Zoe said that we should line the window sills with salt to be safe.” I unzipped my purse and pulled out the little bag of salt she’d given me.
My aunt was the keeper of my family’s long history of secrets, which it turned out was numerous enough to fill four leather-bound volumes. She also was my magistra, or teacher, when it came to the business of killing pests like Hungarian devils. Although, according to our family’s history books, slaying these assholes was a feat no previous Executioner had pulled off successfully so far.
Cooper waited while Harvey and I lined the sills. I was sprinkling salt along the last one when three loud thumps came from the other end of the shadowed hallway.
I looked at Cooper, who stood near the hallway. “Did you hear that?”
His brow wrinkled. “Hear what?”
“That thumping sound.”
Thump! Thump!
“There it is again.”
Cooper’s eyes narrowed. “Are you fucking with me, Parker?”
“Sparky’s tellin’ the truth.” Harvey moved next to his nephew. “I’m hearing it, too.”
I sprinkled the last of the salt, grabbed my purse from the floor, and joined them. “Shine your flashlight down there, Cooper.”
He did, but nothing was there.
“I’m going back there,” I told them. “Give me the flashlight. You two wait here.”
“Shut up, Parker.” Cooper eased down the hallway with his flashlight and Colt .45 leading the way. Harvey and I tiptoed after him. Partway down the hall, three more thumps sounded.
“It’s coming from the kitchen,” I whispered.
“I still don’t hear it,” Cooper said, frowning back at us before taking a turn into the kitchen.
Harvey hesitated in the doorway. “Did you bring your mace?” he asked me.
He was referring to the wooden bat with an array of four-inch-long metal spikes jutting out of one end that Doc had made custom for me as a Christmas present, not the tiny can of spray used to scare off bears and human assholes.
“No. There wasn’t supposed to be anything in here that required blunt force trauma to subdue.”
“Parker didn’t need to bring anything. I have us covered.” Cooper looked back at where we stood in the hall outside of the kitchen. “Do you two hear anything else?”
We stood in silence, waiting. After several breaths, I shook my head.
“Could have been a packrat,” Harvey said, joining his nephew inside the room.
“Probably.” Cooper lowered his gun. “If you two are ready to go, I need to get—”
Thump! Thump! Thump! The old stove rattled with each thump.
Harvey and I both jumped. I might have squeaked a little, too, or maybe that was only in my head.
“There’s something in there wantin’ out.” Harvey pointed at the cast iron oven door.
“I still can’t hear anything. You’re sure?” After Harvey and I both nodded, Cooper eased over to the handle. “You two retreat to the hall,” he whispered.
“What? No.” I tiptoed closer to him. “This is my territory, not yours. You go wait in the hall.”
“Parker, it’s probably just some rat that crawled down the stovepipe and got stuck. I don’t need you screaming like a banshee in my ear when a rat comes running out.”
“I don’t scream like a banshee.”
“I’ve heard you.”
“When?”
“Your nightmares.”
“Oh, yeah.” Cooper had been forced to babysit me night and day last fall while we worked on clearing my name of one of Detective Hawke’s numerous murder accusations.
“Go!” he growled, nudging me back several steps.
“Fine, but if you die, don’t come back and haunt me.” I joined Harvey in the hall.
After a silent count of three, Cooper pulled open the oven door.
Nothing happened.
Harvey and I exchanged frowns.
Cooper leaned down, shining his light inside. “Uncle Willis was right. A packrat is living in here. Judging from the size of the nest, it’s been busy.” He slid on one of his leather gloves and reached inside, pulling out an old Raggedy Ann doll half-covered in brown and yellow stains. It was missing an arm, part of its red yarn hair, and a bright blue button eye. He held out the doll. “This must be his girlfriend.”
“She could use a makeover,” I said.
Cooper tossed the doll back inside the stove and closed the oven door.
Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw something move at the end of the hallway.
A glance down the hall found nothing. I looked back at the stove as Cooper pushed passed me and stepped out into the hallway.
“If you two hens are done squawking about a packrat, we need to hit the road.”
I scowled after the detective, only to do a double take.
And then I shrieked.
Harvey flinched. “What in the hell, Sparky? You swallow a screech owl?”
I pointed at Cooper, who was currently looking back at me with a slack jaw and wrinkled brow, like I was the one with a small, brown, raisin-skinned gremlin-like creature clinging to my shoulder. “Coop!”
“That’s ‘Cooper’ to you, Parker,” he shot back, like a freaking broken record.
The creature on his shoulder leaned down and sniffed around the detective’s ear. It lifted its tiny raccoon-like hand and extended a set of claws that were twice as long as its fingers.
A gurgling sound came from my throat. I held up my hand to stop it.
“I think the packrat has her tongue,” Harvey said.
“I don’t have time for this charades shit.” Cooper turned and started down the hallway toward the front room.
I shook off my stupor and raced after him. The creature’s claws were almost touching Cooper’s ear when I swung my purse at it.
My aim would have been spot-on if it hadn’t ducked at the last minute. Instead of knocking the little bastard off Cooper’s shoulder, my purse walloped the side of the detective’s head.
Cursing followed.
A lot of cursing.
But I was too busy taking aim again as the creature scrambled down Cooper’s back to worry about the pissed-off detective. It paused at his waist and bared its teeth at me, letting out a high-pitched squeal.
“What was that?” Harvey asked, looking around.
I swung again.
The creature dropped to the floor, my purse grazing the top of its head before slamming into Cooper’s hip with a solid whump.
He grunted. “What the hell, Parker!?”
The little shit took off across the floor in a loping gallop.
I shoved Cooper aside and raced after it.
It headed straight for one of the windows, still squealing as it ran.
I followed, catching up, not sure what I would do if I managed to grab it, because something told me this tiny son of a gun was trouble with a capital T.
It stood on the windowsill and turned, claws extended, teeth bared at me. Its eyes looked red in the room’s dim light.
I slid to a stop several feet away. “What are you?”
It lifted its snout, wiggling it as it sniffed the air. “Scharfrichter!” The word sounded garbled, like its mouth was full of marbles.
“I didn’t ask what I was, I asked what you are.”
“You will not survive die Ankunft.”
“The what?”
Its upper lip raised, making a sound that reminded me of a snicker. “The arrival.”
I frowned. “The arrival of what?”
Instead of answering, it squealed and lunged at me. I swung my purse again, connecting with a solid thwap that sent it flying through the air … and right through the glass window, which shattered upon impact.
“Parker!” Cooper joined me at the window where the cold breeze was making my curls fly around my face. “What the hell did you break the window for?”
“I didn’t.” I looked down at the snow-covered ground, seeing no sign of the little bastard below.
“What the hell was that critter?” Harvey asked, coming up behind me.
I glanced back at him. “You could see it?”
“No, but I could hear it squealing.” He peered over my shoulder. “Did you kill it?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, whatever it is,” Harvey said, stepping back from the broken window, “it’s free now.”
“Right.” I grimaced. “I think that might be a problem.”
Cooper growled. “Here we go again.”
Chapter Two
A pile of shit was waiting for me in the parking lot back at Calamity Jane Realty and his name was Rex Conner, aka my almost ten-year-old twins’ sperm donor.
Rex had returned to the Black Hills last fall to dabble in some kind of scientific research up at the science lab, which had taken over the century-old Homestake Gold Mine for some mile-deep in-the-dark experiments and who knew what else. Rex also wanted to dabble in my vagina and personal life again, but two things were in the way of that happening—me and my right fist. As the saying went: Once bitten, twice still pissed off enough to castrate the bastard with pruning shears. Or something like that.
The lousy, well-dressed bastard stood outside of my SUV’s door as I collected my purse and my wits. A glance out the window at him made me curse. His usually handsome face was pinched tight today in an ugly sneer that not even a mother could love, let alone the woman he’d knocked up before screwing her sister—literally, more than once, the son of a bitch—and then hitting the road without any plans to help pay for his unplanned offspring.
Horse pucky! I had a feeling he wasn’t here to make my day by telling me he’d won a seat on the first space shuttle to Mars.
I opened my door quick trying to hit him, but he sidestepped in the nick of time, darn it.
“You missed,” he snarled, blocking my path.
Next time I wouldn’t. “We have nothing to say to each other, Rex.”
“You fucked me.”
I cringed at the reminder of my younger and more naive days. “Yeah, but I’m sober now.”
“I’m not talking about the past, bitch.”
Bitch? Hmm. Apparently, we were starting this visit with our gloves off. Fine, I liked scrapping better when the hits counted.
I glared up at him. His blond hair along with his feathers were extra ruffled today. His brown eyes were colder than a witch’s toe—see, that made far more sense than cold boobs.
“I don’t really care if you’re talking about the past, present, or future, Rex. As far as I’m concerned, you are nothing more than a piece of crap from my version of ancient history that I flushed down the toilet years ago. Now, if you’ll step aside, we can continue avoiding each other as we’ve done so well over the last month.”
When he didn’t move, I shoved past him, slamming my shoulder into his side on my way with extra oomph.
He snagged my coat sleeve. “I’m not done with you.”
I whirled, tugging my arm free. “Keep your hands off me, dickweed. I don’t like being manhandled.”
He scowled. “I wasn’t manhandling you.”
Maybe not yet, but I wasn’t going to let recent history repeat itself. “What do you want, Rex? If you came to talk about finding a place to rent, you need to see Mona.”
My coworker and mentor at work, Mona Hollister, had convinced our boss to let her work with Rex after he showed up months ago at Calamity Jane Realty and started pestering me to help him find a rental house. If Mona hadn’t stepped between us, I might have killed the slick jerk by now and landed behind bars for a long time, fulfilling Detective Hawke’s fantasies about me in orange jumpsuits and bondage.
Rex straightened his coat front, looking haughty. “I don’t need a place to live anymore.”
“So you’re leaving town?” My heart grabbed its tap shoes, ready to mimic Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers inside my chest.
“No, and it’s your fault.”
So much for my good-bye dance. “My fault?”
“I didn’t get the damned promotion.”
Ahhh, now I understood why Rex was pestering me on this toe-freezing winter afternoon in January. “You mean the job promotion that required you to lie about having a loving wife and kids?”
His eyes narrowed.
So did mine. “The one you tried to blackmail me into helping you land a couple of months ago?”
His nostrils flared, his lips pinching tight.
“The same one that spurred you to attempt to use brute force in my office
back in November to get your way, only to end up pinned against the wall by my pissed-off boyfriend?”
“Yes, damn it!”
That day, I’d threatened to cut out and sell Rex’s kidneys and then leave him in a bathtub full of ice water if he didn’t stay away from me and my kids. Back-alley kidney extraction wasn’t something I’d tried before, but the bastard had threatened to tell my kids he was their real father when I refused to bend to his will. That key piece of information was a right from which he’d signed off legally after leaving me pregnant and alone without a penny of child support.
After that showdown in my office, Rex had backed off … some. He’d returned periodically to either blame me for taking parts off his car or accuse me of sending him dirty underwear at work. “Dirty” as in post-orgasm castoffs.
But neither crime was my doing, especially the used underwear bit. I’d never sent anyone my underwear in the mail. Although I had given a clean pair to Doc in a paper lunch sack once, and then showed him the matching bra soon after he opened the bag. We’d made a lovely mess of his desk that afternoon. I smiled, remembering the way Doc had …
“Violet!” Rex waved his hand in front of my face. “Did you hear what I just said?”
“Nope, and I don’t plan to hear what you say next, either.” I turned and walked toward Calamity Jane’s back door, my purple snow boots surefooted on the slush and patches of ice in the lot.
Unfortunately, Rex followed me. “Since you’re the reason I’m stuck in this small-town shithole, I’m going to make you pay for ruining my career.”
I snorted and kept walking. “Oh dear, how will I ever live with my evil self now?”
“I’ll make our kids pay, too.”
And there was the line in the sand.
I turned on him, grabbing him by the collar of his fancy tan wool coat, and yanked him down to my level. He smelled like a blend of cedar and cardamom, his favorite cologne. Why on earth had I ever found that scent sexy? Right now, a whiff of it made me want to take a baseball bat to his car windows. “Don’t come near my children.”
His gaze held mine, matching me glare for glare. “What are you going to do, baby? Call in one of your bodyguards to threaten me again?”