Better Off Dead in Deadwood (25 page)

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Violet Parker.” Oops. It might have been smarter to lie. I blamed Prudence for my loose lips—she’d upset my inner apple cart this morning with her surprise party, scrambling my brain. My brief stay in the dark supply room hadn’t helped straighten my thoughts out any either.

She pointed at my head. “You were at Jane’s funeral. I remember your hair.”

“I worked for Jane.” Shutting up was probably the better choice, but someone else seemed to be controlling my mouth.

“You’re a Realtor?” she asked.

I nodded. Since we were getting all warm and chummy, I dared my own question. “How well did you know Jane?”

Her eyes welled up.

Oh, man, more tears. This woman was one big leaky faucet. I started to reach for her, to console her, but she reared back from my touch.

While I was deciding if I should be offended, Mrs. Tarragon told me, “Jane was one of my best friends.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, unsure of what to do with my hands, which seemed to want to comfort her even after being rejected.

“She also slept with my husband,” she whispered, her face pinched in pain.

“Oh,” I managed to croak out. I held onto my purse with both hands to keep from hugging the poor woman. “I’m very sorry.”

“Me, too.” She swiped at her eyes. “Especially now.”

Movement over by the stairwell caught my eye.

Dominick Masterson stepped into the hall, looking back up the stairs and talking to someone behind him as his feet turned in our direction.

Cornelius?
Thank God, I’d found him.

The low sound of Dominick’s laughter reached me at the same time his follower moved into my line of sight.

It wasn’t Cornelius.

Panic bells rang in my head, clanging like a submarine’s diving alarm. All hands below deck, I was going down, down, down.

Detective Cooper’s rugged face looked even craggier under the fluorescent lights. He seemed to look my way in slow motion, his unyielding gaze turning into a searing laser beam as it locked onto me.

I took a step back. My first instinct was to hide behind an invisibility cloak and become one with the wall. My second instinct was to run like hell.

Mrs. Tarragon balked at the sight of them and let out a little screech. She seemed to be channeling my reaction. Then she practically sprouted wings and flew back down the steps and through the door she’d burst from earlier, leaving me alone to gurgle and sputter.

Dominick did a double-take when he noticed me, his eyebrows arching, the corners of his mouth following suit. “Hello, Violet,” he said, as if we hadn’t just met yesterday in a hallway that was as off-limits to me as this one.

I wasn’t sure if his remembering my name was good.

Dominick walked toward me, his smile curving higher with each step. Cooper followed, his expression all glare, granite, and fractured fault lines.

“You look lovely this morning,” Dominick said, his voice velvet, his eyes soft enough to match it.

My stomach fluttered as if someone had roused a colony of bats that had been snoozing there. A mixture of pleasure and nausea roiled inside of me—the latter I blamed on the irritation sparking off Cooper.

“What are you doing down here, Parker?” Cooper’s voice sounding like he’d been gargling firewater.

“Looking for a friend,” I answered, standing tall against the brunt of the fury surging from him. I focused on Dominick. “Maybe you’ve seen him. He wears a top hat and looks a little bit like Abe Lincoln.”

“Mr. Curion?” At my nod, Dominick said, “Yes, he had an emergency come up and left without an explanation.”

What emergency? I wasn’t sure whether I should be relieved or more worried. “In that case, I’ll leave you two to your business and see if I can track him down elsewhere.”

I left through the double doors, bee-lining toward the set of glass doors behind me—the same doors Harvey had entered. I just hoped the old buzzard’s truck still waited for me. If not, I probably had enough adrenaline pumping through my veins to sprint down to Deadwood.

“I’ll call you later,” Dominick called after me. “I want to speak with you about something Jane was working on for me.”

I winced at how that might sound to a certain detective. Glancing back, I winced again. The expression on Cooper’s face should have turned me to salt. Great. Just great.

“You have my card,” I told Dominick and tried not to crash through the glass doors in my haste to escape handcuff free.

The safety of Harvey’s pickup beckoned. I clomped down the back steps, my feet trying to run out from under me, my pulse rampant, my breaths short and quick. Without even bothering to check whether anyone was watching, I reached up under the wheel well for the spare key, then vaulted in through the passenger door, slamming it behind me and hammering the lock button.

What in the hell had just happened in there?

I leaned forward, burying my face in my hands. Why had Tarragon’s wife hidden me? And from whom?

What was that sound outside the supply room?

When had Jane slept with Peter Tarragon? Was he another Ray-like mistake at the end?

Had the zombie bride killed Jane for having an affair with her husband?

Had Peter killed Jane for who-knew-what reason?

Was Cooper going to kill me for talking to Tarragon’s wife?

Why had Cornelius had to leave so quickly?

Where in the hell had Harvey gone?

Why was Cooper in there talking to …

Something tapped on the glass window next to me.

I shrieked and scooted toward the middle of the bench seat. I looked over at Detective Cooper, who stood on the other side of the glass, his neck and face all stretched tendons, throbbing veins, and blotches of red. A groan bellowed in my chest.

As I stared at him in horror, he held up a pair of handcuffs and tapped them against the window, making that same tapping noise again.

Oh, hell. This probably wasn’t going to go well for me.

“Cooper,” I said, raising my hands in defense. “It wasn’t what it looked like.”

“Open the door, Parker,” he said, his lips barely moving.

“I really was looking for Cornelius.”

“Don’t make me drag you out of there.”

“I swear I wasn’t trying to find out anything about Jane.”

“You can explain down at the station. Now open the damned door.”

“I’d rather not.”

“That’s too bad.” He dug in his pants pocket and pulled out a set of keys. I should have known he’d have a spare set to his uncle’s truck. “Because now I’m really pissed.”

Really? What had he been before, just mildly enraged?

The lock popped open. Cooper yanked the door wide.

“Come on, Cooper. You’ve made your point. You don’t need to arrest me. I’m staying out of your business, I swear.”

He swooped in, grabbed my right hand, and snapped a handcuff on my wrist. Dragging me outside, he spun me around and latched the second cuff with my wrists in front of me.

“You don’t need to do this, Cooper. I’m innocent.”

He grabbed my upper arm and towed me around the front of the pickup and down several cars to where his police sedan sat.

“Coop!” Harvey’s voice called from the back doors of the opera house. “What in the hell are you doin’, boy?”

I held up my cuffed wrists for Harvey to see. “You were wrong,” I yelled across the street. “He meant it.”

Cooper pulled open the back door of the sedan, scowling down his broken nose at me. “I didn’t want to do this, but you forced my hand, Parker.”

What a load of bullshit! I wasn’t forcing anything. I’d been looking for Cornelius. But listening to reason was apparently beyond Cooper’s ability at the moment, so there was no use wasting any more breath trying.

I glared up at him, the injustice of being hauled to jail for no good reason burning a hole in my gut. “Detective,” I said, imagining how good it would feel to head butt him right now and break his freaking nose again. “Are you really going to be this much of an asshole?”

His nostrils flared. “Violet Parker, you have the right to remain silent.” He shoved me inside the backseat and then leaned down to glare in at me. “And I suggest you keep your big mouth shut.”

Then he slammed the door in my face.

* * *

In jail by noon—an accomplishment my mother would be so proud to hear her middle child had achieved.

I paced the jail cell, still waiting for my one freaking phone call.

Damn Cooper! The son of a bitch took my phone with him before locking me up in this stinking cage. I had kids to pick up from school, for fuck’s sake.

My feet ached from standing in this urine-scented shithole for the last hour. Limping over to the cot, I wrinkled my nose at the stained wool blanket covering it. I could only imagine the disgusting things crawling in the fibers. No way was I sitting there. I walked to the opposite wall and leaned against it, taking off one of my shoes and massaging the ball of my foot.

I heard the buzz and click of the steel door to the outer holding area being opened. Expecting another one of Cooper’s police buddies had come to give “Spooky Parker” more crap, I didn’t bother looking over and kept rubbing my foot.

“Hello, Boots,” the sound of Doc’s deep tone jolted me. I dropped my shoe.

He grabbed the bars and peered at me through them, his dark eyes raking over me, his forehead wrinkling at what he saw. “It appears that you’ve finally managed to push Detective Cooper off the deep end.”

“I didn’t push.” I slipped my foot back in my shoe and leaned against the wall, matching his frown with one of my own. “He jumped and took me with him.”

Doc rubbed his chin. “Hmmm. He has a slightly different version. Something about you sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong one too many times.”

“Cooper has a nose fixation. I think it has something to do with me breaking his.”
The big baby.

Doc nodded. “Could be.”

“Did he call you?”

“No, Harvey did. He said to tell you he’ll pick up the kids after school.”

“Good.” It’s the least the old man could do after taking me to the opera house and assuring me I wouldn’t end up in jail. I bit my lower lip. “You weren’t busy with a client were you?”

“It doesn’t matter. My girlfriend needed to be bailed out of jail. That was a first for me.”

“A first, huh? Doesn’t that just make me feel special?” While I was trying to make light of his actions, my voice sounded husky with emotion.

“You should,” his eyes darkened. Something hungry flared behind them, luring me closer. “You are.”

Holy cow!
When Doc said things like that my heart practically launched up and out of my throat and plastered itself in the palm of his hand. I gulped the silly, bouncing organ back down into my chest and gripped the bars to ground myself.

“Thank you. And thanks for rescuing me from the clutches of the villainous, cruel Detective Cooper.”

He shrugged. “All in a day’s work. So now what?”

I spread my arms wide. “You spring me.”

His grin reached the corners of his eyes. “What’s in it for me?”

“Name your price.”

This time when his gaze traveled over me, there was no frowning involved. “My bail-you-out-of-jail charge is pretty
stiff
.”

“Stiff?” That made me smile. “Great pun.”

He winked. “I was trying to come up with something about doing the jail house rock in honor of your love of Elvis, but I couldn’t make it work.”

“Oh, you make it work very well. If you get me out of this joint, I’ll show you just how well.” I wiggled my eyebrows, making him chuckle. “Although, I hear conjugal visits are all the rage, so you may regret not leaving me in here.”

Doc glanced at the cot. “I think I prefer my own bed.”

I preferred a room sans a urinal with a half-chewed blue cake covering the drain.

Reaching through the bars, I scraped my finger down his chest. “What do you say, Rocko?” I asked, doing my best impersonation of a 1940s Hollywood starlet. “You and me, we got us a deal?”

“Definitely.” He captured my hand before it got into trouble. “But Cooper wants to talk to you before he’ll let you out of here.”

Damn it! “You mean out of jail?”

“No, the station. He’s waiting in his office. You think you can face him without vaulting his desk and going for his throat?”

Probably not. “Of course. What do you take me for?”

“A very pissed off woman with a mean left elbow.”

I held up my hands. “My claws are not extended. Besides, I would love a chance to explain why throwing me in this cell was another grand fuckup on his part.”

Doc grimaced. “Yeah, see, I don’t think that’s going to go over well with him. Maybe you should let me do the talking.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

He walked over to the outer steel door and rapped three times, motioning through the small square glass window.

Ten minutes later, I had my personal belongings back and had scoured my hands in the women’s bathroom. After touching up my battle makeup and applying some lip gloss, I followed Doc to Cooper’s office. I practiced deep breaths while silently chanting:

I will not strangle the nice policeman.