“Two weeks!” Addy moaned.

  “I’ll just read in my room,” Layne told me with a hint of stubbornness.

  I leaned closer to him, squinting in emphasis. “Not if I ban you from books.”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” Layne whispered.

  “How’s that going to work with school starting, Mom?” Addy asked. “Does that mean we won’t have to do any homework?”

  “Don’t push it, child.” I reached over and squeezed both of their shoulders. “Now give me a kiss, and then go outside and play. I need to talk to Aunt Zoe alone.”

  “Is it about a new man?” Addy whispered.

  “Let it go, Adelynn.”

  They each kissed me on the cheek, and then scrambled out the back door.

  Aunt Zoe joined me at the table as the dust settled. “When are you going to tell them about Doc?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  She wanted to get married.

  “How did it go with him last night?”

  In-freaking-credible. “Good.”

  “You didn’t come home.”

  “I fell asleep there.”

  “Any nightmares?”

  “No. I slept like the dead.” Doc’s bed or sleeping pills—both remedies for my insomnia came with worrisome side-effects.

  “So, things are all patched up between you two?” she asked.

  “Yes, we’re fine.”

  She wanted to get married.

  Aunt Zoe took a drink of lemonade, watching me over the rim with those damned all-seeing eyes of hers. I looked down at my hands, fidgeting with the Picklemobile’s smiley-face key chain.

  She lowered her empty glass to the table. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Violet Lynn, cough it up.”

  I sighed and rested my forehead on the table. “I found out that Doc isn’t into marriage.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “He did.”

  “What? What preceded him saying that?”

  I sat upright. “Well, he didn’t actually come right out and say he’d never marry, but it was inferred.”

  Her gaze narrowed. “Why don’t you just tell me what happened and let me determine what may have been inferred.”

  Fine. “I asked him why he broke up with his ex-girlfriend, and he told me it was because she wanted to get married.”

  I skipped the part about Tiffany and her competitive sex streak. I wished I could go back in time and skip it myself. The sooner I could purge that notion from any association with Doc, the better.

  “That doesn’t mean Doc won’t want to marry you someday.”

  “Aunt Zoe, if he didn’t want to marry a gorgeous redhead with a killer rack, no stretch marks, a successful career, and no kids hanging off her skirt, why would he ever want me?”

  “Because you’re you.”

  Right. That explained everything so clearly. Of course he would be head-over-heels for me because I was me—the one and only Violet Parker, bumbling clown extraordinaire.

  I patted Aunt Zoe’s hand. “You’re biased, dear. Not everyone finds me as charming and loveable as you do.”

  “And you’re blind to your own beauty, but that’s a good thing. It’s probably one of the main things that makes you irresistible to men.”

  “Irresistible, sure.” If I were irresistible, I wouldn’t get Doc’s voicemail all of the damned time. “You should sell snake oil for a living.”

  She waved me off. “Violet, how much do you like this guy?”

  That was a question I asked myself hourly some days.

  “I don’t know.” I drew invisible hearts on the table. “Sometimes he’s all I can think about. Other times, I feel like moving forward with a relationship with him is only going to hurt everyone around me. And if he leaves town someday …” I didn’t want to finish that thought, so I stopped.

  “He just bought a house, remember? That’s not a sign of a wandering man.”

  “A house is not a ball and chain.” Like my kids and I would be. “I’m so confused when it comes to him.”

  She watched my finger trace the hearts. “Do you want to marry him?”

  I sputtered for a moment before saying, “No, of course not.” Then I added, “Not right now, I mean.”

  Aunt Zoe watched me with raised brows.

  “Well, probably not, anyway.”

  Her lips twitched.

  “Maybe someday, though,” I admitted to myself as well as her. “Or not. But I’d like to know that the option might be there in the future.”

  Aunt Zoe grabbed my hand, stopping me at half a heart. “Besides the fear of hurting Natalie’s feelings and Doc someday leaving you, what’s holding you back?”

  I looked at the back door. “I have two kids out there who each could really use a father figure in their lives.”

  Rex Conner.

  Absolutely not!

  “If I start bringing a man around, I’m basically telling them that he is potential father material. If there’s no future with Doc, my heart isn’t the only one at risk here.”

  “True,” Aunt Zoe said, “but I don’t know that you’re correct in assuming Doc isn’t willing to put a ring on your finger someday just because he wouldn’t put one on his ex’s finger. You’re comparing apples to oranges here.”

  I hoped she was right. I really, really did. But until I had something more concrete than wishes and daydreams, I wasn’t going to admit to my kids that Doc and I were anything other than just friends.

  And the same went for admitting anything to Natalie. I knew she was in my life for the long haul, she’d proven that to me time and again.

  Was Doc?

  Chapter Twenty

  Rather than spend the rest of the afternoon mutilating daisies while asking the universe if Doc would ever love me or love me not, I decided to take a bath. A tub full of bubbles would help me escape from my troubles. At least that’s what it said on the bottle.

  I grabbed the dog-eared book Natalie had left sitting on her side of the bed along with my cell phone, just in case Cornelius changed his mind and called to free me from my channeling duties.

  The book turned out to be a quirky romance narrated by the hero’s mule. While the coconut-scented bubbles tickled my nose, I tried to sink into the story and not think about ghosts and demons, or a certain dark-eyed tormentor, or any Abe Lincoln look-a-likes. But the narrating mule reminded me of the stuffed, bald-nosed beast of burden down at the Old Prospector Hotel.

  By the time I’d gotten my skin good and wrinkly, I was plenty wound up about all of the things that could go wrong at the séance, including the possible appearance of Fire Captain Reid and Detective Cooper. Another creepy demon paled in comparison to the two of them.

  I trailed drops of water into my bedroom. From the window, I watched Layne digging in the yard near the back fence. A shovel and hard soil would make for a wonderful physical release where the bubbles failed, even if I had to shower afterward. I pulled on an old pair of jeans and a T-shirt and headed outside to join him.

  Two hours later, my arms and back ached. I leaned on my shovel. In my digging frenzy, I’d unearthed a football-sized rock mixed with rose-quartz, an old tin can and spoon, two rusted railroad spikes, and the jaw bone of some small animal. Aunt Zoe’s house must have been built on top of an old trash dump.

  Addy joined us, admiring our dig findings. She disappeared into the house, intent on locating Layne’s book on animal bones so we could try to decipher the owner of the jaw bone.

  At the sound of the back door banging shut, I looked up expecting to see Addy lugging the book. Instead, Aunt Zoe waltzed our way, carrying a tray loaded with three glasses of lemonade and my cell phone.

  “You have a phone call,” she said. When I took the phone, she mouthed Harvey’s name.

  “Hey, Harvey.”

  “We have a slight problem,” he said, his voice hesitant.

  “What’s up?” I took a drink of lemonade, the tart sweetness making me pucker after an afternoon diet of Black Hills dust and dirt.

  “We may know who the corpse is.”

  We? Had Harvey cloned himself? “Who is it?”

  “Well, I’m not sure, but it looks a little like one of the local yokels from Slagton who takes care of the cemetery back there—well, he used to.”

  I walked a few steps away from Layne. “How did you figure that out? Was it the single testicle?” Just thinking about my close encounter of the testicular kind made me cringe all over again.

  “Nope,” he said.

  Through the phone, I heard another voice in the background say my name.

  My heart picked up speed. “Harvey, where are you?”

  “At home.”

  “Is someone there with you?”

  “Yep, Coop’s here. And some of his boys.”

  Cooper? I realized then that when Harvey used the word “we” earlier, he’d been referring to “we,” as in Cooper and his merry men in blue.

  If the cops were milling about, the slight problem Harvey had mentioned must be a little more significant. My gut tightened. “Are they there to take you to jail?”

  He snorted. “Of course not. Why would they?”

  “Because of the corpse. Because it was found on your land. Because you know who it is and you didn’t tell Cooper the first three times he asked.”

  “Whoa, girlie-girl. You’ll break your neck if you keep gallopin’ at that speed. I didn’t tell Coop at first because I didn’t have a clue who it was before.”

  “What’s changed?” I asked, sipping more lemonade.

  “Old Red found the head.”

  What?! “Was it in your cemetery?”

  “Nah, that’s the funny thing. He found it in the old shitter.”

  “You mean your bathroom?”

  “No, I mean in the old outhouse behind the barn.”

  “What was it doing there?”

  “Bein’ eaten on by the pack rats—well, the soft parts, anyway.”

  “Oh, errggg.” I gagged a little in the back of my throat. “That’s just nasty. How did it get—”

  “Coop says I gotta go now.”

  Of course, Detective Cooper would interrupt during the exciting, need-to-know part. “Give him my love.”

  I heard Harvey say, “Coop, Violet sends her love.”

  “I was kidding.” My cheeks warmed.

  Cooper mumbled something in the background that made Harvey chuckle. “He gave you some love back.”

  I bet he did.

  “I’ll fill you in later,” Harvey told me.

  “No, you won’t,” I heard Cooper say clear as a bell this time. “This is police business, not Realtor gossip.”

  The phone went dead.

  I glared at the screen, wishing I had a doll that looked like Cooper and a cushion full of pins.

  “What’s going on?” Aunt Zoe joined me, her voice quiet so the kids couldn’t hear.

  I filled her in on what little I’d just learned about Harvey and the head. When I finished, her lips were pinched tight.

  “Well, I’m glad Detective Cooper is out there with Willis. He’ll get to the bottom of this mess.”

  “Right.” No offense to Cooper, but I wasn’t so confident in his or the Deadwood Police Department’s ability to save the day.

  It was nothing personal, in spite of Cooper’s talent for being the world’s biggest butthead. It was just that after facing off with Wolfgang and then Lila, I’d come to realize that the cops weren’t superheroes. They simply were men and women with more training than the average Joe, who had sworn to try to keep the public safe. Most of the time, they were able to react to situations only in which shit had already hit the fan, like at the Carhart house, where I’d been present to witness the actual shit flying.

  The screen door slammed shut, jarring me back to the sunny present day. Well, not so sunny, anymore. With dusk just a little over an hour away, shadows were growing. So was my apprehension. In spite of Doc’s assurances earlier, my gut was of the opinion that tonight’s ending wasn’t going to include “they lived happily ever after.”

  “I found it, Layne,” Addy said, lugging a thick book over to where Layne kneeled over the hole I’d dug.

  “Are you going to head out to Willis’s place?” Aunt Zoe asked.

  “I can’t. I need to sing and dance for my client until he’s convinced that the Old Prospector Hotel is worth another twenty grand.” I debated on telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth to Aunt Zoe, but I bit my tongue. Her tolerance for my crazy antics had limits, which I didn’t feel like overstepping today.

  “If you need to go into the gallery tonight, Miss Geary said she’d let the kids hang out at her place. They worship her tarts.”

  “So does Willis,” Aunt Zoe said with a smirk. “Oh, wait, you said, ‘tarts.’ My mistake.”

  “Aunt Zoe!” I slapped her arm in fun, chuckling.

  “Actually,” she said, “The kids and I have plans to veg in front of the National Geographic channel tonight. There’s a special about sharks on later. You know how much I love all of those teeth.”

  Her mention of teeth sobered me right up. What in the hell was the deal with taking people’s teeth? To what end? One of these days I was going to brave asking Cooper what he did with that box of teeth. Was he having each tooth analyzed, or did he just tag the box and shove it onto a dusty shelf in the police property room?

  “Thank you for being such a wonderful aunt.” I gave her a quick squeeze.

  I needed to go get ready for tonight’s big show. What did one wear to a séance? The last one had been a surprise, so that didn’t count. With Doc joining the party, I sort of wanted to wear something that would make him want to touch me.

  But logic reminded me that we weren’t there to flirt and fondle. This was about money, lies, and a dead prostitute. And to think I once worried that the real estate business might be too boring for my taste.

  After I kissed the kids on their sun-warmed heads, I headed for the shower. Forty-five minutes later, I rolled into the parking lot behind Calamity Jane Realty. Jane’s shiny black Mercedes was parked askew, taking up a spot and a half. Doc’s Camaro was nowhere to be seen.

  I pulled into a spot three down from Jane. Doc stepped out the back door of his office before I could kill the Picklemobile’s engine—or at least maim it, since I doubted the green machine could be murdered with bare hands.

  Whistling under my breath, I watched him cross the parking lot. His faded blue jeans crinkled and clung in all of the right places, his dark gray shirt boxed his shoulders, making them look even broader, sexier.

  My pulse quickened—for real, just like some infatuated heroine in a romance novel. I touched my neck, feeling it flutter there like a moth caught in my palms. Holy cupid’s balls, I was so in over my head with this man.

  Doc opened the door and climbed inside, his eyes widening when he caught sight of my ensemble. His grin followed suit.

  I slid down in the seat, feeling overly gothic in my black tunic, leggings, eyeliner, and platform boots. The only things missing were the black lipstick and nail polish. I’d settled for red instead on both counts.

  “Morticia Addams, cara mia,” he said, lifting my hand to his lips. “How are Wednesday and Pugsley this evening?”

  There was nothing like some Addams family humor to put me in the mood for a séance. “I can’t be Morticia. My hair isn’t black and I only speak English. Well, except for Oui and Mon cher,” and other phrases I’d learned from Pepé le Pew.

  “Oh, Tish, that’s French,” he replied in a Gomez-like Spanish accent and kissed his way up to the soft skin on the inside of my elbow.

  The brush of his lips tickled me clear down to my hips. The woodsy smell of his cologne made my bells and whistles clang and peal. My libido stood, stretched, and roared to life. I beat it back with a circus chair and a whip.

  “Doc, uh …” my voice had already downshifted into Lusty Lil mode. I cleared my throat and tried again. “You’d better stop.”

  He did. When he looked up at me, his grin faded. “I’m going to have trouble keeping my hands off of you tonight,” he said, eyeing my mouth.

  Success! My evil plan had worked. I raised one eyebrow. “You like your women to dress in Goth, huh?”

  “No. Just you, Vixen.” He brushed his lips over mine, his tongue skimming my lower lip in passing. “You taste like cherries.”

  “It’s flavored lip gloss.” I pulled away from him, glancing around, looking for Natalie’s pickup.

  He sat back, his arm draped over the seat. “We could skip the séance. Go back to my place.” He trailed his finger down my neck and kept heading south, following the horizon over hill and dale. “Let me see where else you taste like cherries.”

  Oh, wow! My heart bounced and shuddered like a runaway stagecoach. “I can’t. I need this sale.”

  “Okay.” He shifted so he faced forward, but his palm remained on my thigh. I’d have to check for scorch marks in the cotton later. “Let’s go introduce your Abe Lincoln wanna-be to the stairwell’s soiled dove and see if he really can talk to ghosts.”

  I shifted into drive and rumbled out onto Sherman Street. “Did you go to the library this afternoon?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, what’s the prostitute’s name?”

  “I don’t know. There wasn’t any record of her death in the usual books.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, but that’s somewhat normal for a prostitute back then, especially in a town like Deadwood, full of outlaws, miners, and gunslingers. Most of the records from that era focus on mining news. Precious metals ruled.”

  I thought of the death record books I’d seen in Mudder Brother’s closet-like room weeks ago. “Do you think the funeral parlor might have some mention of her? They keep track of deaths, too, don’t they?”

  “Maybe, if their books go back that far.”

  As the only funeral parlor in town, they might, especially if the Mudder boys had taken it over from a previous owner. Some of the book spines I’d glanced at had looked plenty old enough. I’d have to see if I could sneak a look the next time I was at a viewing.