She had a good point.

  “We could stuff ‘er in yer tumbleweed wagon,” Harvey said.

  “My what?”

  “Yer puss-n-boots box.”

  I looked to Doc for help. “Translate, please.”

  “I think Harvey means Bogart’s cat carrier.”

  Ohhh. “That’s actually a good idea.”

  “I’m full of ‘em,” the old buzzard said with a shit-eating grin.

  “You’re full of something, all right,” I said, snapping one of his suspenders.

  “We need to hit the road,” Doc said, grabbing the bag of food at Harvey’s feet. “The snow’s getting deep fast.”

  A few minutes later, we filed out the front door. I waited as Doc locked it behind us, leaving his porch light on but the rest of the place dark.

  “What about Cooper?” I asked him, feeling bad at the thought of the grumpy detective coming home to a dark house on Christmas Eve.

  I really needed to get over this newfound concern for the law dog. More often than not Cooper snapped his teeth at me when I tried to pet him. For some reason, though, I had a feeling that deep inside his barbed wire–wrapped heart hid a lonely flea-sized seed of love waiting to grow.

  Then again, I had a history of misjudging men. Case in point, the two shitheads who had easily jumped from my bed into my sister’s behind my back.

  Doc put his arm around my shoulders as we descended the porch steps. “Last I heard, Coop was staying at his mom’s tonight.”

  “Good.” I handed him my keys. “Thanks for driving.”

  He scowled at the road. “It’s going to be ugly going up Strawberry, but the chains should help.”

  I looked at my SUV. “Is that a trident strapped on my roof?”

  “Yep. That was Cornelius’s idea.”

  We all piled into my Honda. Doc and Harvey took the front seats. I scooted into the back seat, playing monkey in the middle between Natalie and Cornelius. Doc backed out of his driveway. We traveled the few blocks to Aunt Zoe’s with no problems thanks to a neighbor who had a plow blade on the front of his old Jeep and a love for shoving snow around. In storms like this bugger, the big plows couldn’t afford to waste time scraping through the neighborhoods when they had to keep the main roads clear for emergency vehicles.

  Natalie ran inside Aunt Zoe’s house with me to get Addy’s chicken. We returned five minutes later covered with feathers and sporting several peck marks. Elvis squawked from the cat carrier as I stuffed the caged beast in the back and slammed the hatch.

  “Damned bird!” I grumbled and raced around to the car door Natalie held open for me.

  “Everything go okay in there?” Doc asked, his eyes creased with laughter as he watched me settle in via the rearview mirror.

  “Stupid Tyrannosaurus-chicken!” I snarled. “I should have left her there in the dark. That would teach the puny dinosaur a lesson.”

  “Chickens can actually see better than humans,” Cornelius told me as I buckled up. “They have two additional types of cones in their eyes that allow them to distinguish both violet and ultraviolet light.”

  Harvey snorted. “Doc has a cone that can pick out Violet in the dark, too, don’t ya?”

  I pinched the old buzzard’s arm. “Keep it up and I’ll dump you in the snow at the top of Strawberry.”

  Harvey’s snort morphed into a chortle. “I got ‘er all hot and bothered fer ya,” he told Doc. “Ya owe me one.”

  I glared at Cornelius. “What’s with you and all of this chicken trivia? Did you major in chickens in college or something?”

  He plucked a feather from my hair, letting it fall at our feet. “My grandmother had chickens in Louisiana when I was young. Gallus gallus domesticus are fascinating to observe during play, particularly when they joust.”

  Natalie leaned forward to look at him around me. “Chickens joust?” At his nod, she added, “Like Knights of the Round Table sort of jousting? Or—”

  “Stop!” I held up my hands. “There will be no more talk of chickens until we get to Rapid, understand?”

  Elvis let out a loud squawk from the back.

  I turned in the seat and grabbed the thick emergency blanket Doc had packed, tossing it over the cat carrier. “Go to sleep, Foghorn.”

  “Foghorn Leghorn was a rooster,” Cornelius started.

  I held my fist in front of his face. “Don’t make me pop you in the nose, Ghost Whisperer.”

  He stared at my fist, his cornflower blue eyes crossed. “You’re bleeding, Violet.”

  Was I? I scowled at the wounds on the back of my hand. “That Chicken-saurus Rex has a mean pecker.”

  Harvey hooted. Before he could spit out whatever bawdy line that was hovering on the tip of his tongue, I leaned forward and tugged on his ear. “Zip it, ol’ timer. Now give me one of those tissues in the glove box, please.”

  “Are you okay?” Doc asked, glancing in the mirror.

  “Yeah.” I took the tissue Harvey held out to me. “Elvis resisted arrest is all. The cat carrier must have reminded her of a previous cage she was stuffed into before Addy sprung her from the chicken farm.”

  I looked over Natalie’s hands, but she seemed to be better at dodging Elvis’s pecks than I was.

  Something barked several times in succession in the front seat.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Coop’s barkin’ at me.” Harvey pulled out his cell phone that was still sounding repeated “woofs” at him, ending any further chicken chatter. “What’s shakin’, Coop?” he answered the call.

  I glanced at Natalie. She turned away and stared out the window, her jaw taut.

  “Yep, we’re skedaddlin’ right now,” Harvey told his nephew, then paused to listen. “No, I don’t mean the royal ‘we.’ I mean me, Doc, Sparky, Corny, and Nat.” Another pause. “I decided they needed my help, that’s why.” More silence from Harvey’s end. “No, this has nothin’ to do with yer mother’s cookin’, although her Christmas ham is always more like pork jerky. Makes my jaw ache to eat it.” Harvey snorted at something Cooper said in reply to that, and then he frowned at Doc.

  He held his phone away from his ear a moment later. “Coop says to tell ya that he just heard over the scanner there’s a plow headin’ up Strawberry. If ya can stick close to it, the driver is supposed to clear the road all of the way to the Rimrock Highway junction where there’s a plow workin’ that section down into Rapid.”

  “Got it,” Doc said, his focus on the snow-covered road.

  The sky was beginning to darken in the east. At the low speed we were forced to go, we’d be lucky to make it to the junction while it was still light out. Once the darkness took over for the night, it was going to be hell to see. Swirling snow in the headlights would force us to a crawl to be safe.

  Harvey returned to the phone call. “Well, I’ll give ‘er a try, Coop, but ya know cell phones get sketchy out thatta way. With this snow, I reckon the signal will be scarce as gone.” He nodded at whatever his nephew said. “Yeah. Keep an ear to the scanner. If anything happens, we’ll flag down a plow.”

  A grunt or two later, Harvey hung up. “Coop says we’re all two pickles short of a picnic fer tryin’ to drive to Rapid in this mess, but he wishes us a Merry Christmas anyway.”

  Natalie sighed loud enough for my ears only. It sounded torn and heart-achy. I squeezed her leg, earning a shoulder bump and small smile in return.

  We rolled past the hospital, one of the few places that would remain open for business besides the Deadwood police station. Everyone else could close up and head home to be with their families, taking the time to enjoy the buildup for the big day, watch holiday specials, and wrap those last-minute gifts. Images of my kids’ smiling faces filtered through my thoughts, giving me a bright spot to focus on instead of Susan’s sharp claws and menacing grin.

  “Psychology,” Cornelius said out of the blue.

  “What about it?” I asked.

  “That’s what I majored in when I was in college.”

  “You have a degree in psychology?”

  “No. I just majored in it.” When I continued staring at him, he added, “I quit after my third year at the university.”

  “Why?” Natalie asked.

  I wondered if it had anything to do with having enough family money that he didn’t need to be concerned about a college degree or a career in the psychology field.

  “My grandmother was growing weak with age. She told me that if I wanted to study under her and learn about being a soothsayer, I was running out of time. I decided that real-life experiences were far more important in my desired profession of paranormal studies and quit college, moving into her spare room.”

  “Did she teach ya about voodoo as well as bein’ a seer?” Harvey asked.

  “Voodoo and more. She was a patient and well-versed teacher. Christmas often reminds me of her.”

  “Why’s that?” I asked. “Because you spent the holidays with her?”

  “Because of mistletoe.”

  “What about it?”

  “She kept bunches of it strung around her house year around.”

  “Why?”

  “While mistletoe is a hemi-parasitical plant that can eventually kill its host tree, it has long been considered a good-luck plant. Hanging it throughout your house protects you from werewolves, as well as saving your children from being swapped with faerie changelings.”

  “And here I thought it was only good for kissing,” Natalie joked.

  Changelings, huh? I grimaced. Too bad the parents of the changeling ghost I agreed to help Cornelius trap didn’t hang some mistletoe throughout their house.

  He leaned back to look around me at Natalie. “Here’s a bit of good news for ovulating females: The fresh juice from mistletoe berries increases fertility.”

  I cringed. Talk of babies often made my uterus run and hide under the nearest bed. Birthing and raising two kids on my own had sort of scarred me mentally as well as physically.

  “You’re scaring Violet’s ovaries, Cornelius,” Natalie said, grinning at my expression.

  I glanced up and caught Doc glancing my way in the mirror. I made a cross with my fingers, warding him off. He chuckled and focused back on the road.

  “Mistletoe also brings good luck,” Cornelius told us.

  “So did your grandmother have it hanging all over for good luck, or was it for protection from werewolves and changelings?” Natalie asked.

  “In the voodoo religion,” Cornelius explained, “mistletoe has other purposes such as keeping evil at bay and making love charms and sachet powders.” Again, he leaned back and peered at Natalie. “Mixed with the right herbs, mistletoe is said to make a true-love powder.”

  “Really?” Harvey butted in, spinning partway around in his seat. “Do ya have the recipe fer this love potion?”

  “Love powder,” Cornelius clarified. “Yes, the recipe is somewhere in my grandmother’s notes.”

  “Like you need that,” I told the old goat. “You already have a harem of women at the senior center waiting for you to ask them to do some mattress dancing.”

  He snickered and turned back to the front. “Nothin’ wrong with sprinklin’ a little nookie guarantee into their prune juice, is there, stallion?” He nudged Doc with his elbow.

  Doc shook his head, keeping his eyes on the road. He slowed to make the left turn onto US Highway 385.

  “Here we go,” I said under my breath.

  Everyone quieted for a moment as we approached the bottom of Strawberry Hill. I waited until we were partway up to lean forward and touch Doc’s shoulder. “How’s it handling the snow?”

  “Surefooted so far. Coop was right, though. The plow just went through, I can tell. But there are patches of ice that are only going to get worse.”

  I hunched my shoulders, feeling our escape window close. I crossed my fingers and toes, my gut knotting tighter with every mile we put between us and our warm, safe beds.

  Doc leaned forward, both hands on the wheel as he rounded a corner with a steep dropoff on the passenger side into the ravine below. Even in the summer on dry pavement, some of the curves on Strawberry Hill had taken lives.

  Natalie tugged my arm, pointing out her window. “Looks like the lanes coming down Strawberry haven’t been cleared yet.”

  She was right. The other side of the road had several more inches of snow on it. I couldn’t even see any tracks.

  “In the past, when the snow comes down this hard and fast,” Harvey explained, “the plows are stretched thin tryin’ to keep up. The blade that we’re followin’ might be the one that’s supposed to scrape back down into Deadwood.”

  Several minutes later, we all let out a breath of relief when Doc eased around the last precarious bend, ending our climb to flatter ground on top. While our journey through this shitstorm was far from over, the first hurdle was behind us.

  I looked over my shoulder out the back window at the first dip of Strawberry Hill’s steep, twisty slope into Deadwood. There was no turning back now. Going down that hill would be like a wild sled ride straight to Hell.

  Chapter Seven

  My struggles with sharing a planet with Susan probably could be traced back to my mom accidentally getting pregnant with another man’s baby almost three years after I was born. The drunken one-night stand had happened during the six months or so when my parents were separated and on the verge of divorce, leaving my mom in a helluva situation until my dad stepped back into the picture and rescued her.

  In spite of being adopted at birth by my dad and growing up under his roof, Susan was not my father’s daughter—not physically, of course, but also mentally. They were night and day. The fact of her birth origin had remained unknown to Susan for decades, until I opened my big mouth in my twenties and spewed the truth about the family’s secret in a flash of frenzied rage.

  I still hung my head about that not-so-shining moment.

  But back to Susan … It wasn’t that I blamed my mom for Susan being one bubble off plumb. She and my father raised my sister with the same rules and values as those laid out for my brother, Quint, and me. My theory about the source of our constant clashing had more to do with mixing a good-for-nothing playboy’s genes with my mother’s flower-power DNA to produce a daughter who not only had a bulb or two burned out in her string of Christmas lights, but who also took great joy in smashing the pretty blinking bulbs in other people’s strands.

  Mainly mine.

  Repeatedly.

  My mother had spent one night in the arms of a man who was totally opposite of my father both physically and mentally. Ironically, the spawn of that union had grown to be the bane of my existence, not my dad’s.

  Actually, now that I thought about it, Susan was only one of many banes for me. I seemed to be populating a village of them these days.

  My cell phone rang, interrupting my trip to the past. A look at the screen made me sigh—the heavy, tired kind of sigh, not the lovesick sort that I usually did around Doc, who was currently aiming a raised brow my way in the rearview mirror.

  “What do you need, Mom?” I answered, giving away the caller’s identity in answer to Doc’s questioning look.

  Silence greeted me in return.

  I checked the phone’s screen. The call timer was still running. “Mom? Can you hear me?”

  A hissing sound came through the line, followed by, “… she’s worried you won’t …” hiss, crackle, “… I can’t calm her down …” silence, “… need to talk to her.”

  “What did you say, Mom? You cut out there for a bit. Who’s worried about what?”

  “Mommy, I miss …” silence, “… where are you? Layne doesn’t think you …” hissssss, “… make it in time?” My daughter’s voice came through broken up—due to both the lousy connection and her hitching sobs mixed between her words.

  My throat tightened. “Baby, I’m on my way, I promise. Tell Layne we’ll be there in plenty of time for Christmas.” I crossed my fingers, shooting a worried glance at Natalie. She crossed her fingers, too.

  “I’m afraid …” silence broken by a short hiss, “… need to hurry before …” crackle, “Santa comes.”

  “Don’t worry, Addy. A little blizzard isn’t going to keep Santa or me away.”

  “Mommy? I can’t hear …”

  Dead silence came through the line.

  I checked the screen. The call timer had stopped. Shit. We’d been disconnected.

  Another look made my heart sink. Actually, it was worse than that. “Damn it. I have no service. Does anyone else have service right now?”

  A quick group check found us all up shit creek.

  “Criminy!” I dropped my phone in my lap. “That was Addy,” I told Doc’s reflection in the rearview mirror. “I think she’s freaking out about the snow and us not making it down there for Christmas.”

  His forehead wrinkled. “We’ll get there, Violet.”

  I rubbed the back of my neck, scowling at the flurries pelting the windshield. “I hope so,” I whispered.

  Natalie wound her arm around mine and shoulder bumped me. “Is Quint going to be home for Christmas?”

  “Maybe.” I leaned against the headrest. “Mom said he called last week from somewhere way north of the Canadian border and told her he was going to try to make it back in time, but he couldn’t give any guarantees.”

  The world outside the windows looked straight out of the Great White North, so my brother would feel right at home. However, with the blizzard blowing in tonight and tomorrow, blanketing everything in thick snow, I doubted Quint would be able to make it if he wasn’t already in town.

  A short time later, we passed the road leading to Galena. Like Slagton, Galena had a few folks left rattling around in the old ghost town. However, unlike Slagton, Galena’s remaining population contained normal people living among the historic buildings and graves, not odd whangdoodles who refused to heed the EPA’s recommendation to leave due to contaminated water. However, I’d recently learned Slagton’s remaining residents had a different reason for staying put besides pure orneriness—one that made me cringe even more.