“Am I going to the station?”

  “Not yet, but the night is young and I need a statement.”

  He strode away and I focused back on Doc. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah, just beat up a bit. Where’s the big albino?”

  “You didn’t see what happened to him?”

  “No. I remember him choking me, and then going airborne—twice, first into the wall over there.” I looked where he pointed and grimaced at the caved-in drywall. “Then here.”

  Damn, I could have used a witness to back up my story later when I explained everything to Cooper.

  “You should probably go to the hospital, Doc.”

  “I’m fine. A couple of ibuprofen will do wonders.” He frowned at the dented wall. “Violet, the bullets didn’t even slow him down.”

  “I know.”

  He looked back at me. “So, where is he? Tell me what happened.”

  I checked over my shoulder to make sure Cooper or his men weren’t there. “He disappeared.” I felt silly saying it aloud.

  “You mean he got out of here before Cooper woke up?”

  “No. I mean he just disappeared in a flash of light and a little explosion like a magician. I had to shield my eyes when it happened, and when I looked back, he was gone. Totally gone.”

  Doc’s brow furrowed. “You’re skipping something.”

  I was pretty much skipping most of the evening’s fun and games, figuring I’d save the gory details for later when Doc and Natalie and I were safe and sound somewhere other than here.

  “He threw you,” I told Doc, “then leaned over you like he was going to kill you—same as he did George. That’s when I stabbed him in the back with those.” I pointed at the big scissors on the floor. “Then he kind of short-circuited and caught on fire.”

  “Like Wolfgang at the séance?”

  “Yes, only much faster. After the fire came the light show and explosion. All he left behind were the scissors and some smoke.”

  “So, bullets wouldn’t stop him, but a pair of scissors in the back did. That doesn’t make any sense.”

  What part of this whole Mudder-mess did? The secret shipments? The unmarked glass bottles? Naked Ray? The albino’s snake-like eyes? Hysterical laughter bubbled up my throat. I squeezed my eyes shut and counted to five, fighting off the crazy giggles.

  When I opened my eyes, Doc was watching me. “You sure you’re okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Because for just a moment there,” he tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, “your expression kind of went all fierce and crazed, and your cheeks turned dark pink.”

  I grabbed his hand and held his palm against my cheek, leaning into it. I just wanted to stare into his eyes like a lovesick puppy until everything else went away—the cops, the dead bodies, the freaky shit, the fears for Natalie and my family.

  “Did the big guy say anything that might hint at who he was or where he came from?” he asked, splashing cold water on our little moment.

  I pulled away from his touch and told him about the fight with George that I’d witnessed first upstairs, and then in the Autopsy room. “When the albino leaned toward George, he pulled his arms back like this,” I mimicked the pre-slicing action, “and these swords came out of his sleeves. Before I realized what was going on, he cut off George’s head.”

  Doc sat forward. “And you saw it all happen?”

  I nodded. Each time I replayed tonight’s scenes, I kept expecting my throat to burn or my eyes to water, but nothing happened. I felt hardened, crusted over.

  “Violet.” Doc picked up my hand, rubbing his thumb over the back of it. “You’re not okay. Witnessing that is going to mess you up.”

  “Most likely,” I agreed. When the shock of it all had passed, I’d probably be comatose for days. This was going to add some new flavors to my nightmares. “But on the bright side, at least I didn’t get tied to a damned chair this time.”

  Doc grinned and kissed my knuckles. “You saved my life tonight.”

  “You stepped between the albino and me, taking a beating in my place. I think that makes us even.” I interlaced my fingers with his.

  “Your call came when I was driving up through the canyon from Sturgis,” he explained. “I had no signal.”

  “Just my luck.”

  “Your message scared the hell out of me. I couldn’t get here fast enough.”

  “I was trying to stay out of trouble tonight, I swear, but Natalie disappeared, and then all hell broke loose.”

  He looked back at the dented wall, his gaze narrowing. “The bullets didn’t stop him,” he said as if he was cross-examining every word, “but the scissors did.”

  “Maybe he had on a Kevlar vest.”

  “I hit him in the cheek with one. There should have been blood splatter, but the blood instantly coagulated in the hole. I saw it up close when he had me by the throat.” Doc’s frown deepened. “Did he say anything to you at all in the Autopsy room after he killed George?”

  “He waxed on about his love of pain and torture. It was quite moving.” As in moving me right out the door. Then I remembered something. “Right before he disappeared, he gave me this creepy stare.” I didn’t mention the snake eyes because it sounded completely delusional. “And he said, ‘You again.’ That was it.”

  “You again?”

  I nodded.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I saw him once a few weeks ago when Natalie and I came for a viewing. He was out on the front porch smoking with a guy that looked like his twin. Maybe he remembered me.”

  “So, where’s his twin?”

  “Exactly. That’s the million dollar question.” I shivered, wondering if I now had a target on my back.

  Doc tugged me closer. “You’re going to have to tell Detective Cooper some of this, you know.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “The albino’s magic trick is going to ruin any credibility I have with him.”

  “Better that than him tagging you with a ‘suspect’ label.”

  “You mean ‘usual suspect.’ My old standby.” The thought of sitting through another interrogation with the detective sounded about as appealing as having all of my nose hairs plucked one by one. “God, I wish we were home on Aunt Zoe’s couch watching the Duke ride across the western horizon right now.” Natalie, too. Where was she? Chewing on my lower lip, I glanced down the hall.

  “Natalie is alive, Violet.” Doc seemed to read my thoughts.

  “I hope to hell you’re right. If anything happened to her …” I trailed off, not wanting to go any further with that thought.

  “I am.” Doc squeezed my hand. “If this is your idea of a date, I’m going to need to wear some protection next time. Body armor might cut it.”

  I smiled, liking the sound of a next time. “So, this thing between you and me …” I hesitated.

  One of his eyebrows arched up. “What about it?”

  “It’s going to be about more than just sex, huh?”

  “Yeah,” he leaned toward me, his mouth closing in. “I think so.”

  “Are you ready for that?”

  “Mostly.” He angled his head to the side. “Are you?”

  “I don’t know,” I whispered against his lips, my eyes closing. “I don’t have the best track record.”

  “Playing the odds is what I do best, Boots.” His lips brushed mine, soft and caressing. Then his hand cupped the back of my neck, pulling me into him.

  I opened my mouth under his onslaught, trying to forget my worries and fears. I thought of him racing to help me, putting himself between me and the albino, and my heart tumbled over the edge into oblivion.

  Someone gasped behind me. “No!”

  Natalie!

  I yanked away from Doc.

  Natalie stood at the end of the hall, her face rigid, stretched tight in pain. She clutched a gray blanket around her like a cloak on a frigid morning. Her eyes grew icy behind their watery rims as we stared at each other. “How long, Violet?” she asked, her voice trembling.

  “Natalie, I’ve been try—”

  “Don’t! Just tell me how long this has been going on?”

  “A month.” Give or take a week.

  She jerked as if I’d slapped her. “You, of all people. How could you?”

  Nothing I could say would fix what I’d done to her. My eyes welled. “I’m so sorry, Nat.”

  She shook her head. “You two must have had some good laughs at my expense. No wonder you wanted me to move back home.” Her jaw jutted. She turned to the man beside her. ”Get me out of here.”

  Only then did I notice Cooper standing next to her. He ushered her toward the steps.

  “Violet,” Cooper pointed at me, his gaze warning. “I’ll be right back.”

  As they clomped up the stairs, something inside of me cracked. Tears poured out, trailing down my cheeks.

  “Come here, Trouble,” Doc said, hugging me.

  I did a bang-up job of soaking his shirt.

  * * *

  A couple of hours later, I sat alone in Cooper’s office at the Deadwood Police Station—my new home away from home. Several of the officers I passed on the way in were on a first name basis with me now, as in “Hey! It’s Violet again,” and “Welcome back, Spooky Parker.”

  Detective Cooper sat behind his desk, his nose bandaged thanks to the EMTs who had arrived on scene at Mudder Brothers, along with a horde of cops, shortly after Natalie left. They were the same EMTs who’d insisted Doc go to the hospital after one had shined a light in Doc’s eyes and stated that he’d suffered a mild concussion. Cooper’s insistence that Doc get checked out was obeyed only with a promise that the detective wouldn’t throw me in jail until Doc was available to bail me out.

  Upstairs in the main viewing parlor, I’d recited my take of the evening’s events to Cooper while Mr. Haskell rested there, listening. After the third time I’d stopped mid-story to frown at the dead guy’s hand, Cooper closed the coffin lid.

  When I finished, Cooper had one of his men walk with me across the street to the cop shop, where he’d joined me a short time later in his office. After he brought me some bitter, burnt coffee, I told my story yet again. With each telling, Cooper’s frown lines deepened.

  He leaned back in his seat, steepling his fingers together while squinting at me. “Now, let me get this straight.”

  “You put the lime in the coconut, you drank ‘em both up,” I sang, Harry Nilsson’s tune popping into my head. I blamed post-traumatic stress disorder.

  Cooper’s eyes narrowed. “Funny, Ms. Parker. You’re a real comedian. In lieu of your sad attempt at humor, let’s go through the events that took place after you called me one more time.”

  I growled in frustration and sat back in his torture chair, the vinyl cushion squished flat. “I’ve told you exactly what happened from start to finish twice now. There’s nothing more to it.”

  “I beg to differ. There are gaping holes in your story, which ends with a magical disappearing act.”

  “I’m telling the truth as I witnessed it.”

  “How do I know that you didn’t use that big pair of shears to cut off George Mudder’s head yourself, and then clean up all of the blood?”

  I glared at him. “Why would I do that?”

  “You tell me. There should have been a bloody mess in that room, yet there wasn’t.”

  The lack of blood still had me scratching my head. At the time, I had been too focused on the albino to think about it. Now, though, after hearing the EMT tell Cooper it appeared the wound had been cauterized instantly, I couldn’t make sense of it. I’d seen the blades come from the albino’s sleeves, I was sure of it. Could they have been superheated? Right, yet they didn’t catch his sleeves on fire.

  Shrugging, I said, “Why don’t you just ask Ray about George’s murder? He was in there with me when it happened.”

  “Ray claims not to have been able to see anything in relation to George’s murder. He wasn’t even sure George was dead until I unstrapped him from the gurney.”

  Great. My innocence now depended on Ray clearing me of George’s death. I could only imagine how Ray would use this little kernel as leverage over me. “Did you ask him about the albino?”

  “No, because I didn’t know all of the details about ‘the albino,’” he smirked as he said the name, “until Ray was removed from the scene of the crime. I’ll touch base with him tomorrow.”

  It wasn’t fair that Ray and Natalie got to go home while here I sat, fighting for my innocence. All I’d wanted to do tonight was research a freaking name.

  There was something I wondered about while I’d been waiting for Cooper to join me in his office. “Why was Ray even there tonight? Have you asked yourself that question?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I know why he was there.”

  That made me sit up straight. “You do?”

  “Yes. He was running shipments for George. He got too nosey and opened a crate, even though I’d warned him not to yet.”

  “You warned him?” I glared at him. “You mean you knew about him working with the Mudder brothers this whole time?”

  He nodded.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Cooper cocked his head to the side. “Because I was unaware that you were hired by the Deadwood Police Department as an undercover detective. And here all along I thought you were just my Realtor.”

  He met my wrinkled upper lip head on. “So, Ray was working with you and with George Mudder, like a double agent.”

  “More like a snitch. This isn’t a James Bond film.”

  I guffawed at Cooper, a beat up Daniel Craig clone. Oh, the irony. “So, why were you keeping tabs on George Mudder? Was it the crates?”

  “Partly.”

  “Did Ray tell you what he found when he looked in the crates? Was it more glass bottles?” Or some other illegal contraband?

  “I’m not at liberty to say at this time.”

  As usual, Cooper was keeping me at arm’s length. I narrowed my eyes. “You know what this means, right?”

  “No, enlighten me.”

  “You pull me in here and ask all kinds of questions to find out what I know about the whole deal because you don’t have the answers. If you won’t share anything in return, tell me why I should help you?”

  “Trust me, Ms. Parker, you haven’t helped. You’ve managed to screw up a six-month-long investigation on a possible drug and weapons trafficking operation in a single night.”

  “That’s not true,” I told him, tapping my index finger on his desktop with each word. “You said Ray peeked when he wasn’t supposed to. It sounds to me like Ray screwed it up, and I saved him from being the victim of a live autopsy and you from having a dead snitch on your conscience.”

  Cooper’s lips thinned and he sat back, visually corralling his inner pissed-off beast. “From what we can tell, the same type of weapon used to decapitate the body we found in Uncle Willis’s cemetery was used on George Mudder. Now, you say this big magical albino had swords in his coat sleeves.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re willing to sign off on that in my report.”

  “Yes. I saw the swords twice. Once with George, and again when he was leaning over Doc.”

  “Right. And then the albino just disappeared in a puff of smoke. Hey, maybe he was part dragon.”

  I nodded, biting my lower lip. “I knew you were going to make fun of me if I told you the truth. I should have just lied.”

  “I’m not making fun of you, Ms. Parker. I’m just having trouble believing your rather tall tale.”

  Tall tale, huh? “Well, you would have seen it all for yourself, Detective Cooper, if you hadn’t been snoozing on the floor of George’s office.”

  “You mean if you hadn’t knocked me out and stolen my gun.”

  “I didn’t steal it. I borrowed it to go save my friend.”

  “I ordered you to stay upstairs, Violet. You shouldn’t have been sneaking around in the basement, playing superhero.”

  “You shouldn’t have taken so damned long to get there, and then snuck up behind me when you finally did.”

  He touched his bandaged nose. “Why can’t you mind your own business and stick to selling real estate?”

  In spite of my frustration with Cooper, I felt a twinge of guilt. “I’m sorry about your nose.”

  “Your apology is still not accepted.” He sat back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest.

  What was it with men holding grudges about a black eye or two?

  “What was in the other crates?” I pressed.

  “That’s police business.”

  Fine. If he was going to play that way, I wasn’t going to tell him about the black glass bottle that I’d hidden under Mudder Brothers front porch to grab later after the place had cleared out. One way or another, I was going to get some answers, because that albino had a twin. I had a feeling he wasn’t going to be doing any happy dances about me having stabbed his brother in the back.

  “Where did you find Natalie?” I asked, pushing aside the gut ache that came with thinking about my former best friend.

  “In the garage. He’d locked her in the freezer.”

  “With the bodies?”

  “Only the decapitated corpse. Mr. Haskell was in the parlor.”

  Only the corpse. Ick. “Did she say who locked her in there?”

  “She doesn’t know. Someone hit her from behind when she was in the room you were supposed to stay in until I arrived on scene.”

  Head injuries seemed to be contagious tonight. Then I thought of George’s fate and sobered.

  Wait, Natalie was hit on the back of the head? “So, she didn’t actually see George hit her?”

  “How could she if she was hit in the back of the—oh, you think your albino knocked her out.”

  “Yes.” I knew so. With the way George had tried to protect her, he wouldn’t have knocked her out, he’d have shooed her away with some excuse about the crate’s contents. He’d probably locked her in the freezer to keep her safe. Poor George.

  “Well, until we have any evidence that the albino guy was there with …”