She looked over my shoulder. “You sure about that?”

  I turned to find Cornelius leaning on the front counter, his wallet open, credit card in his fingers. Safari Skipper was saying something to him while typing on the computer keyboard.

  I joined him. “What are you doing?”

  “Renting the haunted suite.”

  “Why?”

  “So we can hold a séance in there. Do you know where I can get some raven feathers?”

  Chapter Five

  When life handed me lemons, I preferred to slam back Lemon Drops, extra heavy on the vodka. However, drinking in the afternoon was not a good habit for a mother of two young kids, so I would have to settle for the next best thing—my Aunt Zoe’s famous homemade lemonade.

  I pulled into the drive in front of Aunt Zoe’s fixed-up, but not too fancy, century-old Victorian, which she was sharing with me and my kids until I managed to make enough money to fly solo. Well, make that solo with two fledglings clinging to me.

  The Picklemobile shuddered, sputtered, and then backfired, announcing my arrival to the neighborhood crime watch group. A dog barked at me from the porch three houses down, probably pissed at me for interrupting its afternoon nap.

  I growled back, then rested my forehead on the steering wheel.

  What had I done in one of my past lives to deserve a client like Cornelius? I must have sat accidentally on the last Dodo bird and its eggs.

  Cornelius had rented one of the suites at the Old Prospector Hotel for a whole week. He’d passed up my offer to spend some time this afternoon talking more about the hotel property and opted to go shopping for all of the items he’d need to perform a séance later this evening.

  When invited to join in and hold hands, I’d claimed another engagement. But Safari Skipper had been more than willing to participate, her eyes wide after hearing he planned to chit chat with the hotel’s ghosts. I just hoped the so-called ghosts would tell Cornelius to buy the damned hotel so I could keep my job. Just thinking about Jane’s threat to make the sale or say adios to my job made my eye twitch.

  It was time to drown my sorrows in sweetened lemon juice.

  I grabbed my purse and slammed the pickup door behind me extra hard. I had to, or the dang thing wouldn’t latch, which I’d learned earlier this week when it flew open in the midst of a hard right onto Main Street.

  The yard and front porch seemed empty without my kids around to litter both with their toys. I opened the screen door and ran smack dab into a solid, broad chest covered in a dark green T-shirt.

  “Whoa there, Sparky, where’s the fire?” a familiar deep, gravelly voice asked.

  “Reid?” I stepped back, blinking in surprise at the salt-and-pepper-haired Sam Elliot look-alike, who also happened to be the captain of Deadwood’s fire department. The spicy, musky scent of his cologne seemed stronger than usual, like he’d been hanging out at the cologne counter in the mall down in Rapid.

  My surprise at seeing him was many-sided. Lately, I’d had a bit of bad luck with fires—neither of which were my fault. I’d grown accustomed to seeing Reid in the aftermath of flames and smoke. As far as I could see and smell, Aunt Zoe’s house sported neither at the moment.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked

  “Risking my life,” Reid answered, the usual sparkle in his blue-blue eyes noticeably absent. “Your aunt is unstable.”

  Which hit on the other reason I was surprised to see him on Aunt Zoe’s threshold. The last time Reid had exited Aunt Zoe’s front door, she’d told me she didn’t want the fire captain in her house ever again. From the steel in her tone when she’d said it, I hadn’t expected to see Reid on the inside of her screen door anytime this century. Yet here he was just a week later.

  I decided to ignore his comment about Aunt Zoe and keep to neutral subjects. “Where’s your truck?”

  He pointed across the street at Miss Geary’s house. A big red dually pickup truck sat in her drive, the Deadwood Fire Department emblem clearly visible on the passenger side door. I’d been too busy pouting about my new client to notice the red beast when I’d driven up.

  “I gotta get back to the station. Nice dress, Sparky. Your hair looks flammable when it’s poofed out like that. Stay away from matches.” He left with a wink.

  Patting down my curls, I watched him walk away, noticing his tense shoulders and stiff strides. He usually sauntered through life. What had happened?

  The screen door whapped shut behind me. I tip-toed across the living room’s hardwood floor, wondering if I’d find my aunt ready to throw plates after Reid’s visit. I peeked around the kitchen archway and locked eyes with old man Harvey.

  His thick caterpillar eyebrows scrunched up at the sight of me. “What are you sneaking around for, girl?” He kicked out the chair opposite him at the table. “Have a seat. I have a bone to pick with you.”

  Now what? I skirted the chair and headed for the fridge, which smelled like fresh lemons when I pulled it open. “Where’s Aunt Zoe?”

  “In the basement sufferin’ from a case of ruffled feathers.”

  I grabbed the pitcher of lemonade from the top shelf. “Did Elvis get stuck behind the washer again?”

  Addy’s pet chicken shared several quirks with its King of Rock-n-Roll namesake—a cowlick (or in the chicken’s case, a comb that flipped to the side in front), a love for peanut butter and bananas, and an ability to drive some women crazy—namely me.

  “No. She’s looking for shotgun shells.”

  That made me pause midway to the counter, pitcher in hand. “Shotgun shells?” At his nod, I asked, “Is Bessie low on ammo?”

  Harvey had named his favorite shotgun Bessie. I’d had the pleasure of meeting the pee-my-pants end of Bessie’s double barrels up close and personal the first time I’d visited Harvey’s ranch. Lucky for me I worked for a realty office wanting to help him sell his ranch and not a bank trying to take it away.

  “Bessie is fine. The shells are for your aunt’s shotgun.”

  “Does this have anything to do with a certain captain of the Fire Department?”

  “Yep. He’s knocking on the back door again … well, make that the front door this time.”

  I lowered the pitcher onto the counter. “What are you doing here?”

  “Beatrice wasn’t home.” He said it as if Miss Geary, Aunt Zoe’s hot-pants-wearing neighbor, being gone explained everything.

  “Was Reid here when you got here?”

  “No, he dropped me off.”

  “Where’s your other pickup?” I reached for a glass from the cupboard and palmed a weighty, blue-tinted drinking glass, one of Aunt Zoe’s original pieces she’d blown in her glass workshop out behind the house.

  “Coop is using it to move some of his stuff into storage while you try to sell his place. Which reminds me, Coop wants you to visit him tomorrow at the station.”

  That made it sound like Detective Cooper and I were going to have a nice little picnic together. I was getting tired of hanging out in the Deadwood Police Station. If we kept this up, the detective might as well make me an honorary deputy so I wouldn’t have to sign in, anymore. “Did Cooper say why he wants to see me?”

  “Coop never explains why, he just barks orders and expects everyone to follow them. It probably has to do with that damned corpse of yours.”

  “It’s not mine.” I cursed under my breath.

  Cooper’s drill sergeant style brought out the ornery mule in me. The fact that he kept wanting to talk to me about a dead body had my heartburn trying to melt my esophagus. What part of “I don’t know, dammit!” did he not understand?

  Rather than burn through any more stomach lining about why Cooper undoubtedly wanted to prod me again about the dead guy, I returned to the subject of shotgun shells.

  “So, what happened between Aunt Zoe and Reid?”

  “How should I know?”

  “Weren’t you sitting right here with them?”

  “I was in the john. My damned prostate has me dripping like a leaky pipe today.”

  I made a note to have that visual memory removed during my upcoming lobotomy.

  “When I came out, she was already spittin’ fire and threatenin’ to fill him full of buckshot if he didn’t get the hell out of her kitchen.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “The fool laughed.”

  I grimaced.

  “Exactly. That man has been around long enough to know better than to even twitch a lip at a pissed off woman who owns a shotgun.”

  “I wonder what happened between them in the past that has her so mad.”

  “Why don’t you ask her?”

  “I did. She wouldn’t spill.”

  Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Aunt Zoe had told me that until I came clean on what was going on between me and Doc, she refused to explain what her problem was with Reid. It was basic Spaghetti Western Mexican Standoff 101 stuff.

  “Hmph. You get your big ole stubborn ass from her.”

  “Leave my big ole ass out of this.”

  His gold teeth gleamed through his wide grin. “Anyway, I told Reid to get the hell out of here before she came back upstairs and filled him full of daylight.”

  “Good thing he listened.”

  Harvey snickered and pulled a chocolate chip cookie from Aunt Zoe’s Betty Boop cookie jar. “I ain’t ever seen your aunt so fired up before. Reid really steams her buns.”

  In more ways than one, I’d bet, judging by the man’s charm and good looks.

  “Speaking of steamed buns,” Harvey said, “did you pay a visit to Doc today?”

  “Yeah, why?” Did Harvey know something about Tiffany’s phone call?

  “I figured.” He pointed a cookie at me. “Just wondering how much he appreciated that there dress you’re about to fall out of.”

  “Oh, shut up.” I yanked up the knot at my sternum, tucking my boobs in behind the fabric as best I could.

  Harvey was the only soul in town who officially knew about my rolls in the hay with Doc. The old buzzard might be a blow hard, but his beady eyes didn’t miss a thing when it came to the soap opera that was my life.

  After one last tug, I wrinkled my nose at him. “And quit looking at my chest.”

  “When you leave them hanging out like that, anyone with half a testicle can’t miss ‘em. Doc still has both of his jelly beans, right?”

  My neck warmed. “None of your business, old man.”

  He wheezed out a few laughs. “That’s what I figured.”

  I finished pouring my glass of lemonade, shoved the pitcher back in the fridge, and stole half a soft cookie from Harvey’s grasp. No sooner had I dropped into the other chair when the basement door banged open.

  Aunt Zoe strode into the kitchen, her jaw rigid, her long silver-streaked hair pulled back in a ponytail. Cobwebs stuck to her red knit shirt and faded blue jeans.

  She slammed a dust-covered box of shotgun shells on the table. “Where is that bastard?”

  “He had to go see a man about a fire.” Harvey grabbed two more cookies.

  “Wise choice.” Aunt Zoe stomped over to the sink and cranked on the faucet.

  Behind her back, Harvey and I exchanged raised brows and shoulder shrugs, and then played tug-o-war with the cookie jar. I won.

  I hugged Betty Boop to my chest to hide my exposed cleavage before sneaking a peek at my aunt.

  The obvious question about her and Reid bounced on the tip of my tongue like an Olympic high diver. But in the end I valued my hide too much, so I crammed another cookie between my lips instead.

  “What are you doing home so early, Violet?” Aunt Zoe asked, drying her hands on a plaid kitchen towel.

  “Finding my happy place.” I said through a mouthful of crumbs and chocolate. I was fairly certain chocolate chip therapy would help me in my search, especially while sitting in Aunt Zoe’s sunny, yellow kitchen.

  Harvey wiped cookie bits from his beard. “Who popped your balloon, little girl?”

  Where to start? I decided to skip all of the gut-twinging parts involving Doc and Tiffany sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G, for obvious reasons.

  Aunt Zoe tossed the towel on the counter. “Is this about your sister moving back in with your folks?”

  I paused mid-chew, my vision coated in red for several seconds.

  No. Huh-uh. I wasn’t going to focus on that problem, either. Instead, I announced, “I have a new client. He’s going to pay with cash.”

  “I have just the ranch for him. How does he feel about headless corpses?”

  Knowing Cornelius, he’d probably kick up his heels at the chance to talk to one. Could a decapitated ghost talk? Maybe it could mime to Cornelius about how it ended up clutching my damned business card and save me from earning any more of Cooper’s squinty-eyed glares.

  I swallowed and sat back, shoving Betty Boop Harvey’s way. “He wants to buy a hotel.”

  “That’s good news, isn’t it?” Aunt Zoe dropped into the seat between Harvey and me. “Jane must be thrilled to have a cash buyer interested in such a big property.”

  “He wants to buy the Old Prospector Hotel.”

  “Oh,” Aunt Zoe winced. “That’s too bad.”

  Harvey grunted. “I used to date one of the housecleaners who worked there. She swore on her mama’s grave those ghost rumors were true.”

  “My new client would agree with her. He claims he can hear ghosts and communicate with them.”

  “No shit,” Harvey said, squinting. “I could use somebody like that.”

  “You could use a ghost whisperer? Why?”

  “Well, he’d need to speak a lot louder than a whisper. My grandpappy never could hear well after that dynamite accident when he was a pup.”

  “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  “Probably not. You like to use a lot fancier words than I do most of the time.”

  “You believe this guy can actually talk to ghosts?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s take him out to my place and see.”

  “You truly believe you have ghosts?”

  Doc and I had had a conversation several weeks ago on this very subject. During a visit to Harvey’s, Doc’s so-called smell radar had rung his bell so hard upon stepping through Harvey’s front door that he’d been knocked down. Literally. Falling right onto me.

  Later, when I’d questioned Doc about the whole incident, he’d mentioned smelling a ghost at Harvey’s—one that had been there for a long time. But whether I believed Doc or not, I couldn’t tell Harvey anything about Doc and his admission, due to my promise to keep my lips zipped regarding Doc’s sixth sense.

  “Yes, I told you that before when you asked if I believed in them, remember?”

  Oh, yeah. That was right after Harvey had figured out Doc and I were fooling around. It’s no wonder I’d blocked out the ghost bit. I could only handle one closeted secret at a time.

  “And you think it’s your grandpa?”

  At his nod, I glanced at Aunt Zoe to see if she was buying any of this. She stared down at the cookie in her hand, her brow pinched. I had a feeling her mind was elsewhere, probably at the lynching of a certain fire captain.

  Back to Harvey. “What makes you think it’s your grandpa?”

  “The ghost hits the liquor cabinet every night at nine, just like my grandpappy used to do.”

  “Define ‘hits.’”

  “Opens the liquor cabinet door, sometimes both of them.”

  I waited to see if he was going to deliver a punch line, but apparently there wasn’t one. “Maybe your cabinet is just off-balance.”

  “Really, Miss Smarty Pants? And gravity works its magic at the same time every night?” He shook his head. “It’s got to be Grandpappy. My pa always reminisced about his daddy’s drinking habit, said you could set your clock by him. In the end, the damned firewater killed Grandpappy’s liver, taking him along with it.”

  “So, you want my client to confirm it’s your grandpa?”

  “No, I want your client to ask Grandpappy where he buried those damned jars of money. I’ve dug up the whole yard and can’t find ‘em anywhere.”

  “I have a metal detector down in the basement you can use,” Aunt Zoe said, rejoining us. “Maybe it would detect the lids if there are no coins in the jars.”

  “I’ve tried metal detectors. There’s somethin’ in the dirt out there that makes the radars go all scatterwonky.” He scratched behind his ear. “No, I need Violet’s ghost talker. He’d go right to the source.”

  I groaned and shook my head at Aunt Zoe. “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”

  “Stranger things have happened around these parts,” she explained with a shrug.

  “I’ve always wanted to ask my grandpappy if that old story about the two miners trapped in the mine up behind my barn is true or just a tall tale.”

  “This is crazy, Harvey.”

  He continued as if I hadn’t tried to inject some rationale into the conversation. “According to the old timers, the miners had three bags full of gold that they’d stolen from the mine superintendent’s safe in Slagton. They were stashing the gold when the mine caved in, trappin’ them.”

  Harvey’s words went in one ear and out the other. I was busy trying to envision Cornelius talking to ghosts in Harvey’s living room. “Even if ghosts do exist, how could they talk without a larynx?”

  “The old timers swore that for decades after the cave-in, if you went up in the mine, hiked back to the rock-fall, and stood really still and quiet-like, you could hear someone tap-tap-tapping on the other side of the timbers.”

  Chills spread across my shoulders and down my arms. “Ghost or no ghost, that’s just creepy.”

  “I remember hearing that story years ago in the Golden Sluice up in Lead.” Aunt Zoe said, referring to the gritty local bar where I’d met one of Lead’s high-ranking, tail-chasing, council members weeks ago to talk about a potential sale. Unfortunately, that buying client of mine now sat in jail awaiting trial. Such was my luck in the realty business.

  Zoe continued. “The miner who told us the tale used to live back in Slagton before the government evacuated most of the town. He refused to go back to Slagton, swearing there was something in the water that turned everyone sour in the head. How did he say it? ‘Made ‘em just not right, anymore.’”