Meanwhile, Back in Deadwood (Deadwood Humorous Mystery Book 6) (26 page)

“So you want me to get some medicine for him?”

“No, Honey has taken care of that. The second camera jockey is still healthy, but we need to rearrange the schedule and get as much done as possible in case either of them gets too sick to work for a day or two.”

“What does that mean?”

“We’re going to start filming today instead of tomorrow.”

Ack!
“But … but … I’m not ready.”

“You’re ready enough. If you could come in a little early this morning, we can talk about your script and get you practiced on the mic. Then you’ll head over to the Devine house and do a few takes.”

“With Ray?”

“And me. I want to watch how things go today, see if any ideas for more ways to make Calamity Jane Realty shine even brighter come to mind.”

I thought about suggesting we jam a big spotlight up Ray’s ass and see if light comes out through his mouth, but I doubted Jerry would appreciate my sense of humor in the thick of this sudden change of plans.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Thank you, Violet. Don’t forget to wear the outfit we discussed.”

“Right.” I growled in my throat, my loathing surfacing for that pink silk suit. Why did Jerry have such a hard on for pink? There were plenty of other perfectly good colors that didn’t leave me looking like I’d been spun around the inside of a cotton candy maker.

“You’re not getting sick, too, are you?” he asked.

“No, just clearing my throat. See you shortly.” I hung up and wrinkled my lip at the phone.

“Another sunny day in real estate paradise?”

I wiped my hands on my napkin. “Something like that. We’re going to start filming today instead of tomorrow.” I slid off the bar stool and carried my plate over to the dishwasher. “I have to go home and change into the outfit Jerry wants me to wear, grab my makeup, and try to get the red lines out of my eyes.”

Doc followed me to the front door. “What did you want to talk about before Jerry called?”

Oh, jeez, I couldn’t just throw out that I was a killer and then run off to work. “It can wait. It’s not that big of a deal,” I lied. After my jealous reaction this morning, I didn’t want to leave him thinking anything was wrong between us.

The crinkles at the edge of his eyes showed his suspicion otherwise. “You sure?”

Nope, but I was going to do my best to remove the doubt from his mind. With all of the shit tornado-ing through in my life right now, I needed Doc to keep holding my hand and not let go.

I walked back to where he leaned against the archway into the dining room. Going up on my tiptoes, I framed his smooth-shaven face with my hands and pulled his mouth down to mine. Starting slow, I flirted with his lips. When he teased back, I warmed things up, my tongue tempting his. He took the bait, his breaths quickening, his body hardening.

“I’ve missed you,” I whispered when I stopped to catch my breath and then dove in for more. He tasted like heaven with a side of happily-ever-after, and I wanted to drag him upstairs and show him how much I needed everything he was willing to give.

I wrapped my arms around his neck, putting my whole heart into the kiss this time, pressing against him while his hands travelled up and down my back.

“God, woman,” he said, breaking the kiss. His breath was uneven, matching mine. “You have the most talented mouth.”

“You think?” I trailed my lips along his jawline, purring as his hands slid up under my sweater, exploring my curves, lighting the furnace inside me with his fingertips. “How do you like this?” I scraped my teeth along the shell of his ear, spurring a groan from deep in his throat.

“Stay a little longer, Boots.”

“I can’t.”

“I’ll make it worth your time.” His hands slid down over my skirt, pressing me against his hips.

It had been way too long since we’d last had a moment alone to explore and play. I felt my resolve weakening. “Oh, yeah? How?”

The Harlem Globetrotters whistled from my pocket again. Jerry wasn’t done giving me orders.
Damn!

I pulled away, staring up into dark brown eyes full of wicked promises.

Double damn!

“You’d better answer,” Doc said, “before he sends Curly Neal or Meadowlark Lemon to come and bounce-pass you all the way into the office.”

I held my phone to my ear. “Hello?”

“Violet, could you bring all three outfits I bought for you? Honey wants to make sure the pink suit doesn’t clash with what Dickie’s wearing.”

I wondered how they’d feel if I showed up looking like Ronald McDonald, red nose, big shoes, and all. “Got it.”

“See you shortly.” Jerry hung up.

“Thanks for breakfast.” I told Doc, shoving my phone back in my skirt pocket.

“Anytime.” He helped me slip on my coat. “And I mean that, Boots.”

“Thanks.”
And I love you, Doc.

“Don’t be going to any more morgues without me.” He toyed with my coat collar.

I stole one more kiss from him for the road.

“You’re going to be the death of me, you know,” he said when I pulled away.

Being the
Scharfrichter
that I was, I hoped to hell his words ended up as the jest he intended and not the prophecy I feared.

I smiled, keeping things easy-breezy. “Not if your new roommate throws me in the slammer first.”

“Don’t worry.” He held the door for me. “Cooper’s on your side.”

“I hope so, because if you’re wrong, I’ll be wearing the latest fashion in chain-gang.” I winked at him. “They’ll make for some kinky conjugal visits, though.”

* * *

Later that afternoon, after a morning filled with hair and makeup prepping, script practicing, and microphone testing, I stood in the garishly-striped bedroom where Lily Devine reportedly had taken her last breath in this rough and tumble world.

Across the room, Dickie and Honey stood huddled together, arguing about infinitesimal filming details down to the exact place on the floor where he should stand. Every so often, they’d turn and confer with the getting-sicker-by-the-minute camera guy, who I’d found out went by the name Rad.

I wasn’t sure if Rad was his first name or last, and I didn’t bother asking. Frankly, after finding out that not only was the albino’s much shrewder twin looking for me, but that he’d likely kidnapped or killed Eddie for warning me, I didn’t give a crap if the camera guy called himself Don Quixote and attacked windmills. My main concern was that he made sure I didn’t look like a laughingstock on television.

“Hey, Realtor lady,” called the fourth member of Dickie and Honey’s TV crew from the bedroom doorway—a woman I guessed to be in her early forties. Rad had introduced her as Rosy
something
, one of his camera carrying cohorts when I’d arrived at Lily Devine’s house. He’d told me her full name while we had been standing there on the front porch waiting for Dickie and Honey, but the last part had zipped in one ear and out the other, because right then I’d seen a police cruiser coming our way. The fear that Detective Hawke was coming to drag me down to the station had almost sent me running into the pine trees behind Lily’s house. Much to my relief, it turned out to be some other cop doing a neighborhood drive-by.

Rosy waved me over, setting the camera down on the floor just inside the room. With the way her biceps bulged under her T-shirt whenever she hefted the camera around, she reminded me of Rosy the Riveter. I sort of expected her to flex her muscles for me and cheer, “We can do it!”

When I joined Rosy the Riveter, she led me out into the hallway. “Rad wanted me to do some random filming throughout the house while they get Dickie prepped.” She glanced around a little wildly, her eyes wide, and then leaned in closer. “I saw something kind of weird,” she whispered.

In this house? I’d been in Lily’s old haunt several times and hadn’t seen anything. Then again, I was a dud when it came to the wispy crowd, so my lack of ghost spotting meant diddly squat.

Normally I’d be skeptical about her claim, but after some of the spooky stuff I’d witnessed in this town, I was all ears. I glanced down the hallway toward the open doorway at the end that led to one of the other bedrooms. “What did you see?”

“Let me show you.” Rosy led the way to the basement doorway and started downstairs. “It’s down here.”

I hesitated at the top. I didn’t like the basement in this house and it was all Doc’s fault. The first time I’d been in the place I’d been showing him around and he’d refused to come down the basement stairs after me, ordering me to come back up immediately.

Rosy looked up at me from the bottom step, the fluorescent lights making her brown hair look auburn. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I said, shaking off my willies and clomping down to join her. “So what was it?”

She led me around to the underside of the stairs. “I was checking back here to see if there was a trap door or some creepy little storage cubby like I’ve seen in some other old houses we’ve filmed, and I noticed these.”

I bent down and looked at where Rosy was shining her penlight. High on the wall, mostly hidden from view by the stairwell, were two large, rusty eyebolts sticking out of the wall. “What’s weird about those?”

“I saw this movie once where a serial killer was keeping his victims chained to the wall in his basement using these suckers. He had them screwed into the posts so the victims couldn’t pull them free.” She turned the penlight on me, making me squint. “Do you think Lily Devine’s killer kept her chained up down here before he murdered her?”

I stepped back, rubbing my forehead. “I haven’t heard that version of the story.”

To be honest, before today, I hadn’t really heard any details of what happened besides the bit about her supposedly being killed in the bedroom with the striped wallpaper—the very room where Honey and Dickie were probably ready to start filming by now … I hoped. After reading my lines earlier about the house’s grisly history in front of the camera several times, I was ready to wrap it up, go home, and climb into a pair of pajamas.

As if on cue, Honey called down the stairwell for Rosy and her camera. “We’re ready to film Dickie’s piece.”

Had I called that or what? Maybe I should try my hand at soothsaying as a side gig.

I checked my cellphone as Rosy headed up the steps, grimacing at three messages from Detective Hawke in my voicemail. Geez, Louise! That man should change his name to Detective Badger with the way he locked his jaws onto something and refused to let go.

I started to follow Rosy up the stairs but then decided to take a picture of the eyebolts to show Doc. Maybe he knew the details of how Lily’s last moments had gone and could confirm or negate Rosy’s theory. Bending down, I leaned under the stairs, waiting for my cellphone camera to adjust to the lighting and focus. I took three pictures of the bolts from different angles and then double-checked to make sure they came out okay.

The stairs over my head creaked.

With a gasp, I stood up quickly, banging my head on the bottom of one of the steps. Cursing myself for being such a Nervous Nelly, I stumbled out from under the stairs. The top of my head throbbed thanks to the Fred Flintstone-like lump popping up.

“What are you doing down here, Blondie?”

Ray had found me. Damn!

I’d managed to avoid the cocky asshole back at the office and had driven separately claiming that I needed my own wheels in case my kids had an emergency. But now there wasn’t much I could do to dodge him until Dickie and Honey finished filming for the day.

“I’m just checking out something.” I straightened my pink silk suit jacket, brushing off some dust I’d picked up from under the stairs.

“Jerry called.” Ray told me, frowning at my hair. “He’s on his way.”

Jerry had been delayed helping Ben and me round up the last of the release forms from a couple of clients. He was going to call the police station one last time and try to get an “okay” for a visit out to Harvey’s ranch. I didn’t have much faith he’d succeed on that front, especially with the faceless body now missing, but who was I to jump up and down all over his hopes.

“They’re almost ready for you again upstairs.” Ray reached out toward my hair and I jerked back. “Relax, Blondie. You have a cobweb in your hair.”

I held still while he plucked it out, resisting the urge to grab his arm and bite him for crowding my space with his abundance of Stetson cologne. Someone needed to teach the blockhead how to dab not dump.

“Got it,” he shook the cobweb off his hand.

“Thanks,” I mumbled, trying to mean it. Being civil to the man I dreamed daily about dumping hot coffee on took a lot of willpower. “I’ll go touch up my makeup before it’s show time again.” I tried to walk around him, but he snagged me by the elbow.

“Don’t screw this up like you do everything else.”

And we were back to our mutual hatred. At least he was doing a bang-up job of hiding it from the TV people.

I shook off his hand. “I know my lines, I’ve practiced, I’m ready to go.” After tossing and turning, worrying about that damned albino twin all night, I wanted to go up there and rattle off the remaining bits Mona had written about Lily Devine, then spend the night avoiding Detective Hawke while catching up with Aunt Zoe about her trip … and maybe whispering sweet nothings in Doc’s ear, given the chance.