Rocks & Gravel (Peri Jean Mace Ghost Thrillers Book 3) (23 page)

Besides, me and the asshole had a score to settle, didn’t we? The asshole had killed my father, Eddie, Julie, and my memaw. The asshole tried to kill me. I’d take a pig shit bath before I let the asshole get away with anything else.

My father’s ghost said I had to remember. My memory would tell me the identity of the asshole. The information had been hidden in there more than quarter century. All I had to do was find a way to access it.

I’d done what Julie said—burning the paper part of the curse—but there had to be something else. Exactly how could I get at the memories? I wished I could ask my daddy’s ghost but the idea of contacting him scared me after what happened to Mysti. I didn’t have time to let the asshole controlling him drive me crazy.

What if I went to the place where my father died? I couldn’t be in any more danger there than I was here alone at Memaw’s house. The asshole had proven how easy it would be to get to me. I took out my cellphone and wondered who I should call.
I can’t call anybody.
It would do nothing but put them in danger, too.

I picked myself up, went out to my car, and started driving.

T
he place
where my father died was on a white sand road less than a mile from downtown Gaslight City. While other outlying areas filled up with housing developments or shopping centers, this little hollow stayed wooded and untouched. I passed the remains of Hezekiah Bruce’s general store. Long closed, the building listed to one side. The little shack behind it where the family had lived had gone back to the earth with only a stone chimney to prove its existence.

I slowed my Nova to a crawl. I’d always heard the murder site was right past the store, but all I saw was a bunch of trees. The road went on a few hundred more yards before it dead ended at Lonnie and Amanda King’s driveway. Their huge brick mansion surveyed the quiet landscape from a slight rise a quarter mile away. Priscilla Herrera’s homesite had to be in the trees somewhere. I stopped the car and looked around.

Local legend trippers considered the place where my father died a prime destination. The number of tire tracks on the one lane road attested to the place’s popularity.

“What a bunch of ghouls.” I got out of the car. “Bet they’d shit their underroos if they saw anything real out here.” I’d hoped seeing this much would jog my sluggish memory back into gear. No luck. I didn’t remember ever being out here.

The rough croak of a bird came through the woods, sounding as though it was right on the other side, in the clearing I’d come to see. I forced myself to take a few steps in its direction but stopped. This was stupid. Somebody needed to know where I was in case the asshole came to get me. I took out my cellphone and tried sending a text message to Hannah, but it came back undeliverable. I took a closer look at my phone’s screen and saw the dreaded No Service in the corner.
Maybe I should leave, come back when someone knows where I am. But what if I get them killed, too?

There it was again. The possibility of more blood on my hands. Nope. Not happening. I pushed my way through the thin screen of skinny pines, sweat already rolling down my back, acid burning the back of my throat. Then I was there, in the place I saw in my vision. The little lot bore marks of the legend trippers’ passage—empty beer bottles, cigarette butts, and other basic garbage. The cabin I remembered from my vision of the day Priscilla Herrera died still stood and bore surprisingly little damage. All the window frames stood empty, reminding me of sightless eyes, but the cabin’s door was closed tight and looked structurally sound. I tried to swallow and almost gagged.

Settle down, girl
, I coached myself.
You won’t accomplish anything if you don’t calm down. Nobody’s here but you and maybe some ghosts. And you can’t go anywhere without seeing a bunch of damn ghosts.

I stood still, closed my eyes, and took deep breaths, trying to control my racing heart. When I thought I had myself under control, I opened my eyes and took stock of the clearing. The pine trees surrounding the cabin were old with thick trunks stretching so high I couldn’t make out their tops. Pine trees this tall usually clattered and whispered with some kind breeze, but these trees were still. I didn’t hear any of the songbirds I expected to hear this time of day, either. The only life I heard was a sick-sounding croak near the cabin.

I took baby steps in that direction, wanting to see what I’d come to see but not wanting to all at the same time.

I reached the cabin and peeped into one of the windows. The floor was bare, the boards buckled with time and pitted from years of rain coming through a leaky roof. My memory flashed onto the vision of this room neatly swept with a fire burning in the stone hearth and Priscilla Herrera bustling around, getting ready to die at her persecutor’s hands.

A glint from something high in the structure’s rafter’s blinded me for a second, and I jumped away from the window, sure the boogeyman had me in his clutches. Then I realized it was just a piece of glass some creepy wannabe had set up there. A car went by on the road outside, noticeably slowing, probably wondering what my car was doing here. I had to hurry if I wanted to do this. Someone would come soon, pretending to be concerned about me, but really wanting to be nosy, wanting to be the first person to have some new gossip about crazy-assed Peri Jean Mace.

I walked around the clearing, looking for anything to jog my memory, but the site had been trampled and examined by a lot of pilgrims before me. Maybe nothing was left here of my father or of the child I’d been the day he died. Then the awful croak came again, this time very near me, almost even with my eyes. I gasped at what I saw.

Someone—either my father or my uncle—hard carved a heart into the trunk of a pin oak tree. Inside were three initials: P, P, J, and the year, 1989. It was the year all three of us died, really. I traced the heart and then the initials with my fingertips, eyes stinging with unshed tears. The awful thing in the trees croaked again, and this time I thought maybe it was a sick crow, probably dying on the poison in this sad place. Then I heard the voice.

“Daddy, is this place haunted?” Footsteps crunched in the leaves and branches on the ground, and two figures came into view. I almost didn’t recognize myself. I was so small, my messy black hair pulled back with a silver barrette, and wearing a matching red shirt and pair of shorts with a cartoon character on them. My tiny shoes bore images of the same cartoon character, who I vaguely remembered being my favorite. I had a band-aid on my chin.

“Ain’t nothing haunted,” my daddy put one hand on my back and gave me a gentle push. “Not for you at least. A place that’s haunted is a place that’s scary. You see them—the other ones—and understand them. Nothing scary about it.”

Judging from the expression on my little face, I wasn’t so sure I believed my daddy. Uncle Jesse entered the clearing, carrying a bunch of shovels and picks.

“Where you think she buried these stones?”

“Dunno,” Paul said. “Maybe under the floorboards of the house? She coulda dropped ‘em down the outhouse.” He gestured at a narrow ramshackle building behind the cabin. “You can look in there, Uncle Jesse. Can’t he, baby?”

“Yes!” Seeing the expression on my uncle’s face, I jumped up and down, screaming with glee. My daddy liked my enthusiasm and laughed, too.

“You see anything here?” He leaned down to my eye level to speak to me.

I stared around the small homesite, my dark eyes serious for someone so young. I seemed to know exactly what I was doing, what I wanted to see.
How did I go from the brave little girl to the scared adult I am now?
I marched around my daddy, my little hand forming into a fist with my pointer finger extended.

“Here.” I pointed to a spot on the ground where a tree had fallen. “Something’s buried under here.”

“What?” Jesse asked.

“What the lady wants you to see.” I pointed to the cabin, jumping up and down. “She’s in there.” Sure enough, there was a figure standing inside the cabin. Neither my daddy nor Uncle Jesse seemed to see her.

“Wanna do it?” Paul asked Jesse. “If we can find this treasure, it’ll be fifty-fifty. Me and Peri Jean is getting out of here. I ain’t keeping my daughter here. Not after her own mother…” Paul glanced down to see little me watching him, eyes big. He put on a big smile. “Let’s get to work.”

My daddy tried to roll the huge tree off the spot I’d indicated. Jesse pushed, too, both brothers grunting. They stopped, both of them breathing hard.

“Got to get a chain, pull this damn thing out of the way,” Paul said.

“Chain’s back at the house,” Jesse said. “I’ll go get it. Bring us back some sandwiches too.” He walked out of the clearing, and we heard his truck start up.

“You want to go on an adventure with Daddy?” He squatted down in front of me. I’d been busy scratching at the band-aid covering my chin and looking into my brand new gold compact. My daddy gently took it from me and repeated his question.

“Will we go to Astro World?”

“Sure. Then we’ll find some people like you, who’ll help you learn to be strong so you can be happy all your life.”

“See there? He’s lying to you just like he’s lying to me. He’s not taking either of us anywhere.” The nasty, strident voice came from the woods, but neither big me nor little me needed to see the speaker to know who it was. The little version of me grabbed my daddy’s hand.

My daddy stood from his crouch just as Barbie came into the clearing from the thick woods on the other side of the cabin. Another young woman with long, blond hair followed her. The way she moved seemed familiar, but I couldn’t quite place her until she scraped a stray lock of her hair behind one ear.
Amanda King. So much for Amanda and Barbie barely knowing each other beyond their hair stylist/client relationship.
Daddy and I backed away from them.

“See what I told you?” Barbie yelled at Amanda. “This cheating bastard told me we’d find the treasure and move to a city, and then he told you whatever he told you. But you heard him: his real plan is to find the treasure and use it for her.” Barbie, red faced and screaming by the end of her declaration, pointed at the little version of me.

Daddy glanced down at me and said, “Go back out where we parked. See if Uncle Jesse left the cooler. If he did, get us both something to drink.”

“But, Daddy, she’s mad,” I whined, shifting foot to foot. “She’s gonna hit.”

Daddy put himself between my awful mother and me and said, “It’ll be fine. Go on.” The little version of me left the clearing, glancing back fearfully over her shoulder a few times. From my vantage point, I saw the little version of me never really left. She simply walked a little way into the trees and stood very still so she could listen to the fireworks. I could tell by the expression on her face she was scared for her daddy. From what I knew about the events of this awful day, she had every right to be.

“Barbara, I am sorry for you to find out this way.” My poor doomed daddy faced his wife, his expression stony. “It is over between us. You’re abusive and neglectful to our child and a horrible person in general. I don’t want to be with you anymore.”

“You obviously don’t want to be with either of us.” Barbie gestured to Amanda. “We just heard you saying you were going to take Peri Jean away from this place, so it could be you and her against the world.”

“Is this true, Paul?” Amanda’s mouth turned down and trembled, and she raised a shaking hand to wipe at her nose. Paul turned to face her and his shoulders slumped.

“Amanda, baby, I do care for you, but I need to get by myself for a while and concentrate on my daughter. You’re married to somebody else anyway.” Paul backed away from Amanda, probably realizing the shit was hitting the fan, and bumped into Barbie who shoved him away but moved so she could stay at his back. I wanted to scream at my daddy to run away from them both but knew it would do no good. I could only watch, whimpering, as the scene unfolded.

“You’ve been lying to me.” Amanda started blubbering, making it hard to understand her. “Saying the three of us were going to leave town and be a family. You never intended to really do it.”

Paul held up his hands in surrender. I didn’t know my daddy well and never would, but I knew how a man looked when he got caught red-handed.

“You lied to get me to use magic to help you look for treasure clues?” Amanda’s tear-filled voice raised to a choked yell. “You lying, cheating son of a bitch.” She ran at him, slapping him and clawing his face. Paul raised his hands, trying to ward off Amanda without hitting her. While he was occupied with Amanda, Barbie took a couple of steps forward, removing a folding razor from her pocket. This time I did scream, but none of them acted like they’d heard me. Barbie raised one arm and slit my daddy’s throat. He clapped his hand over the spurting geyser of blood and turned to face Barbie, his eyes huge and fear-filled.

“No,” Amanda yelled. She ran around Paul and tried to take his arm.

“Get away from him.” Barbie pulled Amanda a few feet from Paul. “You’ll get blood on your clothes.”

“What did you do?” Amanda screamed, bucking in Barbie’s grasp, trying to get away from her. “We’re going to jail.”

“No, we’re not,” Barbie said. “Joey agreed to help us cover this up. All we have to do is sort of make it look like Jesse did it.”

“No, no, no.” Amanda put her hands over her face, letting out loud, honking sobs.

“You agreed to this.” Barbie shook her finger at Amanda, going into full-on bitch mode.

“No, no, no. I didn’t agree to kill him.” Amanda shook with her sobs.

“But you did agree to help me get the treasure, and we’re about to get it. He was digging right there,” Barbie points. “I heard him tell Jesse all they needed was chains to pull this tree out of the way. We’ll wait until Jesse gets back, incapacitate him—didn’t you say you had a spell to do that?—and find the treasure. It’ll be over.”

The little version of me—oh, how I wanted to not be her—climbed out of the bushes and ran to her father who was still choking on his own blood, dying. She knelt next to him and began weeping. It was the saddest sound I think I’ve ever heard. The real me, the big me, clapped my hands over my mouth to keep from screaming, even though I knew none of them would ever hear me.

“Shit. I’d forgotten about her. I wish I could forget her forever.” Barbie scooped the knife from the ground and walked toward her child.

Amanda grabbed her around the waist from behind, holding her arms away from little me. “I won’t let you kill her. No matter how I feel about what Paul did, she’s only a little girl.”

“She’s creepy and weird and she’s ruined my life,” Barbie screamed.

“L-l-let’s make her forget. I can make a spell where she’ll forget even seeing Paul’s murder. All I need is something she loves.”

“All she loves is Paul and his damn mother,” Barbie said.

“What about her little compact?” Amanda said. “There it is lying on the ground. She’s always playing with it when you come to get your hair done.”

“All right.” Barbie went to get the compact. “What do we do?”

Little Peri Jean, realizing something bad was about to happen to her, tried to run from Barbie. The bigger woman caught her after a few steps, grabbing her daughter by the foot and pulling her down. She dragged the screaming child back to Amanda, who watched the whole scene with a pained expression on her face.