“Hey,” I said, reaching for it. “Give that back.”
He tucked it inside his inner coat pocket, raising one black eyebrow. “Quint who?”
I reached for his coat opening, but he knocked my hand away. “Quint Parker, my brother.”
“You have a brother?” His question held a fair amount of disbelief.
I thought he knew about my brother. “Is it so hard to imagine that I could share parents with a male representative of the human species?”
He cocked his head to the side, studying me. “What is the hair color of this male version of your parents’ breeding?”
“Uh, dark.”
A corner of his mouth twitched. “And his height?”
“As tall as the weeds in a widow’s yard,” I said, parroting my grandfather’s description of Quint during his teen years.
“I see.” Cornelius’s gaze narrowed as he searched my face. “Based on your answers, I would hypothesize that his eyes are the same color as yours, his hair is wavy rather than curly, and he prefers to observe the world through the lens of a camera.”
My jaw hit my knees. He’d nailed Quint, including his career as a photojournalist. “What is this? Some kind of mind-reading, voodoo trick? Did you learn how to do that when you weren’t too busy training chimps to ride bicycles at the circus?”
“Unicycles, Violet. The monkeys rode only unicycles.” He scoffed. “The idea of a monkey riding a bicycle is simply absurd. Such antics are better left to canines.”
Natalie tried to smother a giggle and failed. I glanced at her, thinking she was laughing at Cornelius’s circus comment, but then took a closer look. “Why are you laughing, knucklehead?”
She shook her head, trying keep her lips pinched, but a bubble of laughter slipped out.
When I turned back to Cornelius, his mouth twitched again before he schooled his expression. “Okay, spill. How do you know that about my …”
Then I remembered that when Cornelius was at our family dinner a few weeks ago, he and Natalie had been standing in front of the family photos on Aunt Zoe’s wall. One of the framed pictures was of Quint taken next to some Native American ruins in New Mexico, wearing one of his expensive cameras around his neck.
I squinted at him. “You’re messing with me.”
“I believe he’s takin’ yer mind off yer troubles,” Harvey piped up from the front seat. “That’s a fine idea, bein’s yer sittin’ there shakin’ like a heifer with her first calf. Maybe we should sing us some holiday tunes. I was always fond of ‘Check the Balls on This Old Collie.’ “
Doc’s shoulders shook with laughter.
I crossed my arms. “That’s not a real song.”
“Is too. Want me to sing ‘er fer ya?”
“One word, Harvey, and I’ll sic Elvis and her Tyrannosaurus pecker on you.”
“Truth be told, Violet,” Cornelius interjected, “I find it interesting that you share your brother’s eye color. It makes me wonder what his view is on haints.”
“What are haints?” Natalie asked.
“Ghosts,” Doc answered. “The southern US variety.”
Cornelius nodded. “My grandmother believed that a channeler with light-colored eyes could see what she would call the ‘choleric haints’ easier than those with dark eyes.”
“Choleric meaning sickly?” I asked.
“Bad-tempered,” he clarified. “I think we can concur that you’ve seen a fair share of choleric haints during your channeling journeys.”
A snort came from the ol’ goat in the front passenger seat. “Sparky has a special skill when it comes to makin’ folks puff up like a mad toad, whether they still breathe oxygen or not. Just ask Coop.”
I pshawed. “Cooper chews up nails for breakfast each morning and spits out barbed wire come lunch. His opinion on my skills doesn’t count.” The dang detective woke up looking for trouble most days, especially when he came sniffing around me.
“What strikes me as odd,” Cornelius continued, “is that you also appear to be able to touch, smell, and hear choleric haints, interacting with them in a way that is highly unusual compared to other channelers I’ve worked with in the past.”
“I suspect Violet’s abilities run deeper than our basic five senses,” Doc spoke up on my behalf.
“You mean like a sixth sense?” Natalie asked.
“Deeper yet,” he said, giving me a quick look in the rearview mirror.
Deeper how?
“Have you ever questioned your male sibling about his abilities to see in the dark?” Cornelius asked.
Cornelius’s version of “the dark” was actually another realm full of not very nice beasties that reeked of hellish deeds and could see better than I could in the blackness. I shivered just thinking about my last visit to that dark world. Wouldn’t Quint have mentioned something about the dark and its terrors if he knew about it?
“Or if this XY chromosome version of you has sensed any other worldly presence during his travels?” Cornelius continued.
“No, but I’d think Quint would’ve mentioned it if he had.”
“Would he, though?” Natalie bumped my knee with hers. “I mean, I know you two are close, but have you told him about your new career, Madame Executioner?”
I sputtered. “In my defense, that’s not something that you just pick up the phone and blab about. It sort of needs to be shared face-to-face, and possibly with a good amount of liquor in hand.”
I thought back to the night Doc and I had let Cooper in on our secret. The salty law dog had downed a couple of whiskeys after hearing the news, not liking the taste of what we were sharing one iota. It had taken him time to swallow that particular horse chestnut, prickly shell and all.
“So, if Quint shows up for Christmas, are you going to tell him?” Natalie pressed.
I pondered her question while staring out the windshield as we rolled past the road to Nemo, where Natalie’s grandfather had a house. Since he’d married a widow from Arizona who owned an RV park down there, he hadn’t spent much time in the hills.
“I don’t know,” was my final answer.
First, I doubted he’d believe me. Second, I hadn’t a clue how to bring it up without sounding like a
