“If you two hens are done squawking about a packrat, we need to hit the road.”
I scowled after the detective, only to do a double take.
And then I shrieked.
Harvey flinched. “What in the hell, Sparky? You swallow a screech owl?”
I pointed at Cooper, who was currently looking back at me with a slack jaw and wrinkled brow, like I was the one with a small, brown, raisin-skinned gremlin-like creature clinging to my shoulder. “Coop!”
“That’s ‘Cooper’ to you, Parker,” he shot back, like a freaking broken record.
The creature on his shoulder leaned down and sniffed around the detective’s ear. It lifted its tiny raccoon-like hand and extended a set of claws that were twice as long as its fingers.
A gurgling sound came from my throat. I held up my hand to stop it.
“I think the packrat has her tongue,” Harvey said.
“I don’t have time for this charades shit.” Cooper turned and started down the hallway toward the front room.
I shook off my stupor and raced after him. The creature’s claws were almost touching Cooper’s ear when I swung my purse at it.
My aim would have been spot-on if it hadn’t ducked at the last minute. Instead of knocking the little bastard off Cooper’s shoulder, my purse walloped the side of the detective’s head.
Cursing followed.
A lot of cursing.
But I was too busy taking aim again as the creature scrambled down Cooper’s back to worry about the pissed-off detective. It paused at his waist and bared its teeth at me, letting out a high-pitched squeal.
“What was that?” Harvey asked, looking around.
I swung again.
The creature dropped to the floor, my purse grazing the top of its head before slamming into Cooper’s hip with a solid whump.
He grunted. “What the hell, Parker!?”
The little shit took off across the floor in a loping gallop.
I shoved Cooper aside and raced after it.
It headed straight for one of the windows, still squealing as it ran.
I followed, catching up, not sure what I would do if I managed to grab it, because something told me this tiny son of a gun was trouble with a capital T.
It stood on the windowsill and turned, claws extended, teeth bared at me. Its eyes looked red in the room’s dim light.
I slid to a stop several feet away. “What are you?”
It lifted its snout, wiggling it as it sniffed the air. “Scharfrichter!” The word sounded garbled, like its mouth was full of marbles.
“I didn’t ask what I was, I asked what you are.”
“You will not survive die Ankunft.”
“The what?”
Its upper lip raised, making a sound that reminded me of a snicker. “The arrival.”
I frowned. “The arrival of what?”
Instead of answering, it squealed and lunged at me. I swung my purse again, connecting with a solid thwap that sent it flying through the air … and right through the glass window, which shattered upon impact.
“Parker!” Cooper joined me at the window where the cold breeze was making my curls fly around my face. “What the hell did you break the window for?”
“I didn’t.” I looked down at the snow-covered ground, seeing no sign of the little bastard below.
“What the hell was that critter?” Harvey asked, coming up behind me.
I glanced back at him. “You could see it?”
“No, but I could hear it squealing.” He peered over my shoulder. “Did you kill it?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, whatever it is,” Harvey said, stepping back from the broken window, “it’s free now.”
“Right.” I grimaced. “I think that might be a problem.”
Cooper growled. “Here we go again.”
Chapter Two
A pile of shit was waiting for me in the parking lot back at Calamity Jane Realty and his name was Rex Conner, aka my almost ten-year-old twins’ sperm donor.
Rex had returned to the Black Hills last fall to dabble in some kind of scientific research up at the science lab, which had taken over the century-old Homestake Gold Mine for some mile-deep in-the-dark experiments and who knew what else. Rex also wanted to dabble in my vagina and personal life again, but two things were in the way of that happening—me and my right fist. As the saying went: Once bitten, twice still pissed off enough to castrate the bastard with pruning shears. Or something like that.
The lousy, well-dressed bastard stood outside of my SUV’s door as I collected my purse and my wits. A glance out the window at him made me curse. His usually handsome face was pinched tight today in an ugly sneer that not even a mother could love, let alone the woman he’d knocked up before screwing her sister—literally, more than once, the son of a bitch—and then hitting the road without any plans to help pay for his unplanned offspring.
Horse pucky! I had a feeling he wasn’t here to make my day by telling me he’d won a seat on the first space shuttle to Mars.
I opened my door quick trying to hit him, but he sidestepped in the nick of time, darn it.
“You missed,” he snarled, blocking my path.
Next time I wouldn’t. “We have nothing to say to each other, Rex.”
“You fucked me.”
I cringed at the reminder of my younger and more naive days. “Yeah, but I’m sober now.”
“I’m not talking about the past, bitch.”
Bitch? Hmm. Apparently, we were starting this visit with our gloves off. Fine, I liked scrapping better when the hits counted.
I glared up at him. His blond hair along with his feathers were extra ruffled today. His brown eyes were colder than a witch’s toe—see, that made far more sense than cold boobs.
“I don’t really care if you’re talking about the past, present, or future, Rex. As far as I’m concerned, you are nothing more than a piece of crap from my version of ancient history that I flushed down the toilet years ago. Now, if you’ll step aside, we can continue
