A Wild Fright in Deadwood (Deadwood Humorous Mystery Book 7) (13 page)

“So, you think that with Doc’s help, I could actually talk to Wilda?”

“Maybe.”

“Hmmm.”

“You don’t sound happy about that answer.”

I laced my fingers together and frowned down at them. “What if I don’t really want to talk to Wilda?”

“Why not? I thought that’s what this conversation was all about.”

“Because she scares the dickens out of me.”

Aunt Zoe rested her hand on top of my laced fingers, her skin warm and comforting. “She can’t hurt you.”

“Do we know that for sure?”

“Don’t you think she would’ve by now if it was possible? Why do you think she uses others to do her bidding?”

She had a point. “What if she uses Cornelius against me when I’m in the midst of reaching out to her?”

“Do you think he’s that far gone already?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, maybe you need to have your bodyguard there to protect you from Cornelius.”

“Harvey?”

She shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt.”

Then again, maybe it could hurt … as in Wilda hurting me, Cornelius, even Doc. I hopped down and paced in front of Aunt Zoe. “What can I possibly say to Wilda to make her stop trying to kill me?”

“Let me think on that a little more.”

“Wouldn’t it be best if I could figure out a way to make her go away for good?”

“Of course, but that’s not your job.”

“I could give it the old college try while she’s standing in front of me.”

“And potentially expose yourself to something worse.”

“What’s worse than a psychotic little girl ghost trying to make my friends kill me?”

“A psychotic little girl ghost whispering in your ear to make you kill your family and friends.”

“Jeez, Aunt Zoe.” I stopped pacing and shivered. “That’s really creepy. I’m probably going to have nightmares about that now.” I was serious about that. My mind seemed to be collecting new nightmare fodder left and right.

“You’re the one who asked.”

I pointed at her. “Remind me
not
to have you tuck me in and tell me bedtime stories anytime soon.”

She chuckled but then sobered quickly. “Truth be told, Violet, I don’t know if you confronting Wilda is a good idea, let alone safe. Opening doors that are usually closed can lead to unwanted visitors coming through.”

“I can’t let her do to Cornelius what she did to her brother.”

“I understand, but you need to make sure this is a charge you want to lead.”

“As opposed to what?”

“Letting Doc try his hand at it.”

“Wouldn’t that put him at risk for Wilda to possess him?”

“Possibly.”

“And he’s more susceptible to ghosts than I am.” We’d proven that several times during visits to Prudence and others. How strong was Wilda if she set her sights on Doc?

I returned to pacing the floor, unable to hold still.

“You’d know that better than me.”

“I need to put a stop to that little bitch’s reign of terror.”

Aunt Zoe frowned at me. “There’s something else.”

Her tone alone gave me pause. “What?”

“Isn’t Cornelius’s suite where you saw Kyrkozz?”

I stopped my memory from replaying that ghastly scene before the film could get rolling. “Yes.”

“I thought so.”

“Why do you have that worried look in your eyes?”

“There’s a possibility another unwanted guest could appear there again.”

“Such as Kyrkozz,” I whispered.

“Or worse.”

What could be worse than an orange-eyed, black pustule-covered demon who liked to make an entrance via breaking out through my ex-boyfriend’s skull?

“True,” I rubbed my clammy palms together. “But at least this unwanted guest might be one I could actually kill.”

“Sure.” Her eyes darkened, a cloud passing behind them. “Unless it kills you first.”

* * *

Unless it kills you first.

With those words echoing through my head, I returned to work and tried to focus on the exhilarating world of real estate. When that didn’t keep me from chewing my knuckles about Wilda and Wanda, I claimed I had an appointment to meet a potential client up in Lead and escaped to my SUV.

Doc was not going to be thrilled about another séance in Cornelius’s hotel suite. The last time we’d tried it, Doc had been bombarded with thirteen ghosts wanting to take whatever he could offer, which wasn’t more than a brief chance at inhabiting a living body once more.

He was going to be doubly unthrilled to hear it was with Wilda that we needed to mix and mingle. She had “passed through” him one time before, knocking the wind out of him. I doubted he’d enjoy another visit with the freaky child who’d poisoned her father and possessed her brother to the point of insanity.

But I couldn’t do this without his help. I wouldn’t want to do it without him, either. The two times I’d reached out into the darkness when Doc wasn’t there had resulted in what Aunt Zoe had warned about—opening the door for unwanted, terrifying guests. Doc had ways of playing bouncer at these so-called doors, controlling who went where during séances, using abilities that boggled my mind.

Me? I just tried to kill what needed to be killed and hoped I lived through it.

Since I was out and about, I decided to run over to Central City and pay a visit to Jeff Wymonds’s house, one of my listings. He and I had an open door policy, which meant that anytime I wanted to stop by his place, I was welcome inside even when he wasn’t there.

Jeff also had let me know once upon a time that if I wanted to drop by while he was there and play a little hokey-pokey in his bedroom, possibly filling my oven with one of his baby buns, all the better. Although last I’d heard he had a girlfriend and was practicing his baby bun baking in her oven, so I was probably off the hook for impregnation by the friendly but testosterone-flooded bozo.

Wymonds’s truck wasn’t in the drive. That didn’t surprise me since it was the middle of the day on a Monday. He should be at work for a few more hours, which was why I wanted to drop in now. With worries about Wilda weighing on my brain, I wasn’t in the mood to listen to Jeff’s R-rated comments about his experiences with his new girlfriend’s pierced tongue.

Since he wasn’t home, I didn’t bother ringing the doorbell. Instead, I opened the lock box and let myself inside. The whole time I kept thinking about how Cornelius had pleaded with me before I’d left his suite to help him get rid of Wilda. It was so out of character for him to beg, and that’s what really spurred me to bring in the cavalry.

I needed to get a hold of Doc and see if he was coming to supper tonight. If so, we could step outside again and talk about Cornelius’s ghost problem and what Doc thought could be done to help get rid of the little brat.

As I scooped up four Realtors’ cards from the bowl I’d left on the dining room table, I realized I wasn’t alone.

Someone was breathing in the kitchen.

And moaning.

My heart shot off the starting line at a full-on sprint.

Slowly I turned around to face whatever was waiting for me in the kitchen.

The sight of Jeff’s thong-flossed butt cheeks at the counter made me recoil in surprise. My gaze lifted to the bare-chested, tattoo-dotted woman on the counter in front of him with her head tipped back and her nipple rings bouncing while Jeff worked hard at filling her baby oven.

“Oh my God!” I wheezed, dropping the business cards.

“What the hell!?” Jeff looked over his shoulder at me without breaking his stride. His angry brow smoothed at the sight of me standing there with my jaw on the dining room floor. “Oh, it’s you, Violet Parker.”

I covered my eyes, but my hand was too late. I’d seen too much to ever return to the happy land of Swiss mountains and twirling nuns.

“I’m almost to the end zone here,” Jeff reported in from the playing field. “I’m driving in for a touchdown any second now.”

His girlfriend cheered, “Go, Big Daddy, go!”

Dear Lord, it was football sex.

That was it. My poor brain split in half, both sides flopping around and gasping like dying fish. There was no way on earth that I was sticking around for the post-game show.

With the peanut butter sandwich I’d eaten back in Aunt Zoe’s sex-free kitchen threatening to come blasting up and out through my pie-hole, I raced out the door. I didn’t stop until my SUV was parked several miles away at the Piggly Wiggly in Lead.

Why, dammit?

Why did they have to pick today to have a nooner?

Why had there been no cars in the stupid drive?

Why did I have to see the father of my daughter’s best friend with his pants around his ankles?

And why was Jeff wearing what looked like a woman’s lacy red thong?

I had a gut-rollicking feeling that the sight of those bouncing nipple rings on his girlfriend’s tattooed chest was going to stick with me until death did us part.

Hey, there was an upside to being murdered after all. I wouldn’t have to spend the rest of my life having that scene replayed in my brain every time I saw Jeff Wymonds.

Sighing, I rested my head on the steering wheel.

How was I going to do walk-throughs of that house after today? I could hear the play-by-play that would go on in my head every time …

To your right is the kitchen. Notice the beautiful maple cupboards and tile countertops on which the previous owner had football-themed sex with his girlfriend while she wore the gold nipple rings he bought for her back in October.

I banged my forehead on the wheel, wishing I could remove the sordid sounds and images from my memory.

I’d learned a lesson today. No more open door policies with my clients. If I ever walked in on old man Harvey having sex, I’d undoubtedly turn into a pillar of salt.

My cell phone rang.

I looked down and saw the name
Jeff Wymonds
on the screen.

“Oh, hell no.” I sent it to voicemail and went inside the grocery store to wash my eyeballs in the bathroom sink.

When I came back outside, Deadwood’s Fire Captain—otherwise known as Aunt Zoe’s old flame—was leaning against my driver’s side door.

“Hey, Sparky,” Reid Martin’s dark blue eyes twinkled, his lips smiling along with his salt-and-pepper mustache.

Reid looked like a mid-fifties version of Sam Elliott, deep voice and all. He’d broken Aunt Zoe’s heart years ago and it had taken her a long time to glue it all together again and move on with her life. But now Reid was back, willing to face off with her shotgun if it meant having a second chance at winning her love. He swore he wouldn’t run from commitment and wanted the opportunity to prove it, but Aunt Zoe had built an impressive fence around her mended heart. It was going to take a lot of climbing for Reid to get inside. Time would tell if he had the stamina to make it over the top and back down the other side, but he seemed pretty damned determined these days.

“Good to see you, Reid.” And I meant that, especially since he had his pants on and no lacy thong showing. I looked around the lot, seeing his red dually fire department pickup sitting a few rows over. “You shopping for food for the rest of the crew or just grabbing a late lunch?”

“Lunch. I saw your vehicle when I came out.” He glanced around and then stepped closer, lowering his voice. “I need to talk to you. Do you have a few minutes?”

“Sure.” I took a drink from the bottle of water I’d bought to help wash away the bad taste of catching Jeff in mid-sex. “What’s going on?”

“I need to talk to Zo.”

“She’s out in her glass workshop today. She’ll probably be there most of the night, too.”

“Did she have a big order come in?”

“Yeah. The owner of that fancy gallery over in Jackson Hole is opening three more in some upscale resort towns in the Colorado Rockies. He needs her glass pieces by the first of December before the ski season really kicks off.”

His eyes narrowed. “Is that the same guy she went to Denver with last month?”

I grimaced. “Yes.”

And the same guy whose place she’d stayed at for a night during that trip, but Aunt Zoe had insisted each time I’d prodded for details that their friendship was purely platonic. It seemed the gallery owner was recently divorced, and Reid had taught her all about getting burned by newly divorced men. She wasn’t going to make that same mistake twice, even if the gallery owner looked a bit like George Clooney.

Reid kicked at a stone. “I’m glad she’s keeping busy.” He didn’t sound very glad at the moment, but I was relatively certain it had to do with who was buying her pieces, not the work itself. “Is she taking the shipment over to Jackson Hole?”

“Seems like she said he’d be stopping by at the end of the month with a trailer to pick it all up.”

I couldn’t tell by his guarded expression whether that was good news or not. “How about you invite me over for supper tonight?”

I snorted. “Now you’re trying to get me shot, too.”

A grin warmed his cheeks. “You can help me wrestle the shotgun from her.”

“No way, I have to sleep under the same roof with her.” I swirled the water in my bottle. “Why do you need me there?”

“Because when you’re with us, she actually talks to me. When you’re not around, she won’t even let me in the door.”

How ironic. Now I was channeling communication for the living as well as the dead.

I wanted to help Reid, but … I blew out a breath. “You know I don’t love being a third party to your private conversations, right?”

He nodded once.

“Is this going to be one of those intimate deals where I stand there blushing and wishing the floor would swallow me up?” I asked.

“No.”

“Good.” I took another swig of water.

“At least not at first, but I’m always hoping for a change in the tide.”

“Fair enough.” I capped the bottle. “Hey, Reid, how about you come over for supper tonight? I was thinking of making pizza—the takeout kind. Six o’clock work for you?”

His moustache twitched with mirth. “Sounds great, Sparky. Why don’t you let me bring the pizza? Pepperoni okay?”

“My kids like black olives, too.”

He clapped me on the shoulder. “Thanks. I owe you one.”

“Yes, you do, because I’m going to get a major ass chewing after you leave, so you better make your payback a good one.”