Now, as I sat at my desk waiting for five o’clock to roll around, I was wishing I’d grabbed some brownies for the road and was contemplating taking Harvey to Mexico with Doc, me, and the kids so that he could cook for us. He’d certainly enjoy the bikini-clad babes on the beach and might find himself a sexy señorita to take Beatrice Geary’s place in his heart.
I was also currently staring at the names of troublemakers I’d listed on a sheet of paper and wondering how I was going to eliminate each one. As much as I wanted to run away from my problems, I couldn’t. For one, Doc would probably drag his feet, being that his mode of operation tended to lean toward doing the responsible thing in life, damn it. For another, I had a feeling my problems would follow me wherever I went, so the smarter road would be to stay in the Black Hills and work with Prudence and Aunt Zoe, checking off the troublemakers on my list one by one … starting with the first one: lidérc.
The sound of sirens wailing made me look out the front plate-glass windows. A Deadwood police pickup raced past, heading toward Lead.
Ah hell, what was that imp up to now? Maybe I needed to move it to the top of my list before it burned down the whole darn town of Lead and half of Deadwood.
I grabbed my coffee cup and headed for the bathroom sink to clean it. A quick wash and rinse later, along with a long glower in the bathroom mirror at my colorful face, I headed back out front to close up shop.
The sharp smell of markers made me look over at the whiteboard … and stop in my tracks. My coffee cup slipped from my fingers and clunked on the wooden floor.
“Jane?” I whispered my old boss’s name, staring at the words scrawled in all caps over the top of the month-to-date sales numbers Jerry had updated earlier.
NOT ALONE!
Was this message from my long-gone ghost-boss supposed to be for me or Mona? Usually Jane’s ghost communicated with Mona, who’d been her best friend for years and years. She would type messages on Mona’s computer while Mona used the restroom, or carve notes in her laptop case, or scratch words in the small Zen sandbox on her desk, or write words on the whiteboard—like now. This was the first time Jane had ever reached out to me.
What did she mean by not alone?
Was she telling me I wasn’t alone in this fight? No, it couldn’t be that. I hadn’t been talking to myself out loud this time, and so far Jane wasn’t able to read minds like Prudence could. At least not as far as I knew.
Wait! Hadn’t she left something before on the whiteboard about Ray not being alone? It was the day after several of us had been here late one evening. We’d had plans to hold a séance in order to get Jane to talk about why she was keeping us from going down into the crawlspace in Jerry’s office. The crawlspace where there was a locked gate covering what Cornelius called a Hellhole.
Did this message today have something to do with Ray again? I hadn’t seen the horse’s ass since he’d threatened me in the parking lot behind Calamity Jane’s last month.
The bells over the front door jingled as it slammed open.
I jerked out of my frozen state and turned with a welcoming smile … which died on my lips at the sight of Rex stomping inside carrying a white trash bag.
He wore his expensive wool coat, Italian leather shoes, and Gucci aviator sunglasses in spite of the spitting sky and slushy sidewalk. The money trees were growing in abundance apparently in his world.
Christ on a cracker. What did the bastard want now?
“What are you doing here?” I asked warily.
I moved behind my desk, using it as a barrier in case he tried to get handsy again. To be doubly safe, I palmed my stapler and shot a wrinkled brow toward the video camera Cornelius had installed in the upper corner of the room to watch Jane’s ghost. If Cornelius was keeping an eye on his monitors over in Doc’s back room, I hoped he could read my red-alert expression and would hightail his ass over here to help me.
“What the hell happened to your face?” Rex asked. “Is your loverboy beating on you now, or are you two just into really rough sex?”
“My face is none of your damned business. What do you want?”
“What the fuck kind of game do you think you’re playing, Violet?” Rex sounded nasally, like he had a cold. He slammed the trash bag down on my desk, sending several papers flying.
I glanced at the bag and then back at him, noticing that there were red blotches all over his face and down his neck, especially where he was scratching at the moment.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Rex.”
“You lying shrew! You’re behind this and I know it.”
He pulled a crumpled-up piece of paper from his pocket and threw it at me. The wadded paper bounced off of me and landed next to my coffee cup.
While Rex scratched at another red spot on his neck, I picked up the paper and smoothed it flat. There was a note spelled out with cut-out letters that said: Sorry you lost the big promotion.
I frowned up at him. “I don’t understand what’s going on here, Rex.”
He snarled and pointed at the note. “You had flowers delivered to me at work with this note and don’t even try to deny it.”
“Why on earth would I send flowers to you, of all people?”
He grabbed
