“Policemen don’t bite, Ms. Parker.” His eyes crinkled at the corners. Was that his version of a smile? If so, it had skipped right over his lips. “But I can’t speak for our ghostly pal in Cell B.”

  The waiter interrupted my glare. I waited for him to set down the two full coffee cups he’d brought and leave. “Why the sudden interest in Cornelius? From what Mona told me, the murder in New Orleans was half a year ago.”

  “A tip came in.”

  “What tip? From whom?” Ray? No, he wouldn’t go that far, would he? I remembered his smirk this morning, the smugness plastered all over his face.

  Of course! It all made sense. He knew that if he could waylay Cornelius by siccing the cops on him, I wouldn’t be able to get a second offer in before the final deadline.

  I white-knuckled my coffee mug, a burning knot tightening behind my sternum. The asshole was hedging his bet. He must have searched online, sniffing for Cornelius’s dirty laundry.

  Cooper watched me with his steely gray eyes, his rugged face giving nothing away. “It doesn’t matter who gave us the tip.”

  Was Cooper protecting Ray? Why?

  “How long have you known Mr. Curion?” he asked.

  “Interrogation over coffee, how lovely.” I grabbed a creamer and poured it into my cup.

  Cooper probably asked blunt, uncomfortable questions during sex, too. I could hear him now … How long have your breasts been slightly lopsided, Ms. Parker? When was the last time you had a thorough pelvic exam? Did you use one or two prophylactics the last time you had sexual intercourse?

  “Just answer the question, Ms. Parker.”

  I stirred my drink while trying to look innocent of some crime I hadn’t committed. The way Cooper could make me feel guilty with just his eyes made me grind my molars. “About a week.”

  “How did you meet him?’

  “He walked into my office, asked for me, and said he wanted to buy a hotel.”

  “He actually asked for you in particular?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did he know your name?”

  “I don’t know.” I dumped some sugar in my coffee to offset Cooper’s lack of sweetness.

  “You didn’t wonder about that?”

  Yes, but Cooper’s hint of scorn tickled my ornery bone. “No, not really.”

  “Did he have one of your business cards?”

  I tried to remember. “I don’t think so.”

  “Has it never occurred to you to ask why he chose you to represent him?”

  “Nope.” Hell, yes, but more in a dear-Lord-why-me sort of way, not for the reason the detective was asking.

  “You do a background check on your buyers, don’t you?”

  “If you’re referring to their credit history, then my answer is sometimes.”

  He scoffed. “A complete stranger walks into your office and asks for you by name. Shouldn’t this have been one of those times, especially considering your record for attracting the criminally insane?”

  He had a point, and I didn’t like him poking me with it. “I didn’t dig into his background because he showed me the money.”

  “Is that Realtor jargon for something in particular?”

  “Yes. It means he took a wad of cash from his pocket and showed me that he had money.”

  “Christ! And you trusted him on that alone?”

  I leaned forward. “Not all of us interrogate every person we meet. Some of us just like to take people at their word.”

  One of his dark blond eyebrows shot upward. “And how’s that been working out for you so far?”

  “Oh, bite me.”

  His grin showed all of his white choppers. “Where should I start?”

  “I thought you said policemen don’t bite.”

  “I lied. I do.”

  Being that Cooper was made up of sharp angles and stainless steel, I wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be a joke, an attempt at flirting, or a threat. I decided to ignore it and ask for an answer that would play a role in making or breaking my career. “Are you going to arrest Cornelius for murder?”

  “No. He’s just a person of interest at this time. More so now that we know what he does for a living.”

  “Talking to ghosts doesn’t make you a killer.”

  “It could if you wanted to extricate a spirit from a young girl who claimed to be possessed and things didn’t quite go as planned.”

  I sighed and took a sip from my coffee. It tasted old and weak, mirroring how I felt right then. “Why couldn’t I just have a plain, boring client who doesn’t believe he sees dead people?”

  “You do.”

  “I guess Jeff Wymonds is pretty vanilla.” And he didn’t believe in Casper and his pals.

  “I was talking about me.”

  Setting down my coffee cup, I chuckled. “You’re not boring, Detective.”

  He sat back in his seat. “You don’t think so?”

  “No. Your T-shirts come with bullet holes in them.”

  “That comes with the job.”

  “Right. In real estate, we just get business cards.”

  He laughed. I stared at him in shock, wondering if I’d really heard it come from inside of him or if I’d just imagined the sound.

  “That reminds me,” he said. “What are you doing Friday evening?”

  I could feel my eyes widen. Was he asking me for a date? No, surely not. Damned Natalie for even putting these uncertainties in my head.

  Cooper didn’t like me. Period. I’d bet my pathetic savings that if given the green light by his superiors, he’d be happy to shove me in the back of his sedan, drop me off at the state line, and tell me to keep heading west until I ran out of land.

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure yet, why?”

  “I was wondering if you’d be interested in coming over after I get off of work.”

  I just looked at him with my tongue imitating a bump on a log.

  “Is that a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ in your world, Violet?”

  We were back on a first name basis now that the interrogation lights had dimmed.

  “Why do you need me to come over?”

  “I don’t need you to come over, but I thought you’d like to do a final walk-through before you put my place on the market.”

  Oh, we were back to me being his Realtor. “Of course I can come by.”

  “You’re sure you don’t have any funeral viewings to attend that evening?” His tone held a note of suspicion that made my ears perk up.

  “I’m not going to dignify that with an answer,” I said all cool and collected. The Fonz would have given me two thumbs up.

  The waiter stopped by just then to drop off our lunch: chef’s salads with dressing on the side. This was what Cooper ordered for me?

  “I noticed you are watching your weight,” he explained when I sent him a questioning glance.

  “You ‘noticed’ it, huh?”

  “Paying attention to what people say and do is my job.”

  I chewed my lip. What else had he noticed about me?

  He dug into his salad. “Speaking of Mudder Brothers,” he started.

  We hadn’t been. We were trying to avoid that subject completely.

  “A call came into the station last night about a possible prowler sighted over by the funeral parlor. The caller said the person in question had a slight limp and looked a little bowlegged.” Cooper squinted at me. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

  Harvey! Damn it, he’d been seen. That must have been why the cruiser came by with that spotlight.

  I maintained steady eye contact with Cooper, knowing he was scrutinizing my every blink. “I didn’t make any phone calls,” I said, playing obtuse.

  He took another bite, chewed slowly, and then swallowed, his gaze unwavering. “Where were you last night around seven thirty, Ms. Parker?”

  “Working late.” I popped a cherry tomato in my mouth and smiled around its sweet burst. “Where were you, Detective Cooper?”

  “Playing poker.”

  “Natalie said she saw you buying beer after the Bingo hall let out. How long do your poker games usually last?”

  “Long enough to run out of beer. Did you happen to see my uncle at some point after you left work?”

  “No. I went home and spent the rest of my evening with Elvis. Did you need to talk to your uncle about something?”

  “Yes, but he was not answering my phone calls. Who’s Elvis?”

  “My daughter’s chicken. Maybe Harvey was a little busy with one of his old flames and didn’t hear the phone ring. Some people enjoy after-supper activities other than cleaning guns and getting shot at.”

  He nodded, stabbing another bite of salad. “Maybe, but those are two of my uncle’s favorite hobbies, outside of pursuing the opposite sex. Are you sure he didn’t pay you a visit last night?”

  “Positive.” In an effort to remove Harvey from our conversation, I switched subjects. “Have you found out anything more about that foot and hand left hanging in the trees?”

  A month ago, Layne had found a human foot dangling from a tree limb with a sprig of mistletoe stapled to the big toe. A couple of weeks later, a hiker up on Mount Roosevelt had found a hand in similar style—hung from a tree and stapled with mistletoe. Cooper had sent both parts to a mysterious CSI lab somewhere far, far away where it took weeks to hear results. Real-life crime scene evidence deciphering didn’t move nearly as fast as it did on television.

  “Nothing yet,” he said over the brim of his coffee cup.

  “What about the ear caught in that trap behind Harvey’s barn? Has anyone missing an ear showed up in your system yet?”

  Last month, something started killing the wildlife around Harvey’s ranch. So, being made up of fifty percent piss and the same amount of vinegar, Harvey had set an illegal trap instead of calling the Sheriff, whom he liked to curse about.

  Between the ear and the decapitated guy, the possibility of a sale of Harvey’s place didn’t look promising. Short of selling it as a haunted house, which Harvey also claimed it to be, I had yet to come up with an idea on how to spin these events and secure a sale … or even a single lookie-loo.

  “The ear is still at the lab.”

  Of course it was. I was beginning to think that was police code for mind-your-own-business.

  “But,” he paused, “I do want to talk to you about the corpse.”

  I lowered my fork. Sharing salad over a decapitation just seemed crass. “What?”

  “We’ve figured out the name of the individual who owns the phone.” When I just looked at him, he added, “The phone the text came from that named you and your aunt.”

  Oh, right. The subject of our conversation days ago right before I’d thrown up on Cooper’s tie. “Who owns it?” My grip on my fork tightened, the metal pressing into my skin.

  He took another drink of coffee before replying. “Rex Conner.”

  No.

  It couldn’t be.

  No. No.

  My heart jackhammered in my ears muting the outside world. I could see Cooper’s lips moving, but could only hear two words over and over.

  Rex Conner.

  Rex Conner.

  Rex Conner.

  What in the hell did that lousy, good-for-nothing bastard want?

  Cooper’s lips stopped moving. He reached across the table and pinched my forearm.

  “Ouch!” I rubbed my arm and glared at him. “Stop using Harvey’s tricks on me.”

  “How do you know that name? And don’t even try to tell me you don’t know it after what I just saw in your eyes.”

  I hesitated. If I told Cooper the truth, that would lead to another truth, and then another. There were things in my life that needed to remain buried, that’s why I’d dug the holes so deep in the first place.

  But if I didn’t fess up and Cooper figured it all out, he really would bite me. Or shoot me. I wasn’t sure which was worse.

  Either way, I was screwed six ways to Sunday. Wait, double that.

  “Okay,” I said, clenching my icy hands under the table.

  When I didn’t cough it out immediately, he leaned across the table. “Tell me, Violet. I need to know for this investigation.”

  “Rex Conner is the father of my children.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  In spite of the rage that kept clawing up my throat and a twitchy eye, which Cooper so kindly pointed out—three times—I made it through the rest of lunch without a hitch.

  Cooper wrote down the scant bit of information I could give him on the kids’ father, and then changed the subject back to selling his house. Smart man.

  Rex Conner. His name alone made me snarl and paw at the ground like a mother bear.

  After I left Cooper and Bighorn Billy’s, I drove up Strawberry Hill, noticing the storm clouds stacking up to the west. Mother Nature and I both needed to let off some steam. If only I had lightning bolts at my disposal.

  About a mile up the hill, I turned left onto a dirt road leading away from humanity. Four bends in from the highway, I hit the brakes, shifted into park, and shoved open the door. I hefted a thick branch I found in the ditch; it felt just about right to use as a club. I looked around at the surrounding trees. Any good-sized pine would do.

  A flash of memory from the last time I’d laid eyes on Rex Conner was all it took to let the fury fly.

  “You God damned—”

  I whacked a big pine, the branch reverberating in my hands.

  “—self-worshiping—”

  A piece of the branch splintered off.

  “—whore-mongering—”

  A chunk of bark broke off.

  “—crap-weaseling, punk-ass—”

  The top half of the branch splintered.

  “—prick!”

  The end of the branch broke off and went flying into the underbrush.

  “And stay the fuck away from my kids!” I yelled after it.

  Huffing, I strode back to where the Picklemobile sat idling, waiting for me to regain my senses. I brushed my hands off on an old rag Harvey kept in the glove box and shifted into reverse, whipping the old pickup around in a cloud of dust.

  My cell phone rang as soon as the front tires hit pavement again.

  I didn’t even look at the screen. “Yes?”

  “What are you doing for lunch?” Doc asked.

  His deep voice smoothed some of my neck bristles. “Already did it.”

  “I figured. What are you doing now?”

  “Just some relaxation therapy.”

  He was quiet for a moment. “Something piss you off this morning?”

  Not something, but rather someone. Make that several someones. First there was Ray, then Cornelius, then Ray again, then Cooper, and finally the grand finale—a piece of shit from my past whom I’d released from any paternal or financial obligations almost a decade ago with my lawyer’s help.

  I kept it simple, though, since I was driving down a steep hill and had no branches within reach. Plus, if I didn’t talk to anyone besides Cooper about Rex Conner, maybe the jerk would fade back into my past.

  “Ray turned in a higher offer today for the hotel,” I told Doc. “His client outbid mine by fifteen thousand.”

  “That’s not much,” he said. “Surely your client can come back with more than that. Didn’t you say he’s paying in cash?”

  “Yep, cash. And you’re right, he can. But the problem isn’t where he’ll get the money, rather what I have to do in order to get him to agree to use it.”

  “What you’ll have to do? He’s not expecting you to sleep with him is he?”

  “No. Not that.” I laughed. It came out harsh and cold sounding, like a frigid wind. “God, I wish it was just that.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Well, no, not really, but at least sleeping with a client is something I know how to do.”

  “And you do it quite well, I must say,” Doc said. I could hear the grin in his tone. “What does Mr. Planet of the Apes want you to do?”

  “Prove the hotel is haunted.”

  “And how are you of all people going to manage that?”

  “I’m going to channel a ghost for him.”

  His silence stretched on for long enough that I thought I’d lost him. “You still there?”

  “What aren’t you telling me, Violet?”

  Oh, boy, the list was long and the day still young. “A lot,” I admitted. “Will you just fill me in quick on what a channeler person does and I’ll tell you everything else later?”

  “No.”

  “What? Last night you said you’d help me.”

  “Ah, so that’s why you came over and had sex with me.”

  “No, of course not.” As if I needed a reason. “Last night had nothing to do with Cornelius and everything to do with you and the smoldering looks you were giving me.”

  “I don’t smolder.”

  “You definitely do, but in a sexy way, not like you’re mad—well, sometimes you are mad at me, but …” I trailed off before I ended up cramming any more of my boot in my mouth. “Anyway, it’s a huge turn on.”

  I pulled into the parking lot behind Calamity Jane’s. “Doc, will you please just give me a couple of parlor tricks I can do tonight?”

  “What’s tonight?”

  “Another séance.”

  I thought I heard a growl come through the line. Maybe it was just thunder. “Where are you right now?”

  “Pulling into the parking lot behind your office.”

  “Good. Cruise by my back door. I’ll be right out.”

  I did as he said. “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “To the Old Prospector Hotel.”

  “Why?”

  The back door to his office opened. Doc climbed into the passenger side, slamming the door behind him. He looked damned fine in his dark maroon shirt and khakis, but I preferred him in a towel. Or sans towel.

  I tucked my phone in my purse. “Why are we going to the hotel?”

  “To find out what’s in that place before you subject yourself to another nightmare.” His focus dipped to my dress and slipped clear down to my boots, his eyes darkening.

  “See, now you’re smoldering at me again.”

  “This isn’t a smolder,” he said, pointing at his face. “It’s straight-up lust. What are you wearing under that dress?”