The Great Jackalope Stampede (9 page)

“I didn’t ask.”

“Well, I’m busy.”

“Doing what?” Kate looked at Claire’s gloved hands, then over at the desk. “Playing with that super-mysterious pocket watch again, Sherlock?”

“Poke fun, but I’m telling you this thing is way more valuable than you think.”

“Like five thousand dollars valuable?”

“I’m thinking like ten times that.”

Kate snorted. “I’m thinking you’ve been smoking some of that happy weed you used to score back in high school from the nude hippie down our street.”

“He wasn’t a hippie, just an old vet who got confused after too many joints and thought his invisibility suit hid his bits and pieces from view.”

“Thank God Chester and Manny don’t smoke weed,” Kate said. “They’re already ‘one toke over the line’ without even touching the stuff.”

“Thanks, dork. Now that song is in my head.” Claire walked around the desk and dropped into Joe’s chair. “I need more information on the pocket watch to pinpoint a year. When can you get back to the library?”

After having been kicked out of the Yuccaville library for fighting, Claire was still on their suspended list for another few months. She held firm in her position that the old broad double-tapped her with that damned cane before Claire took it upon herself to push back. Unfortunately, the librarian remained unsympathetic.

“I’m not going back.” Kate planted her hands on her hips, her back getting ramrod stiff. “I have a life, you know. One that doesn’t revolve around your warped, fictitious world full of criminals and murderers.”

“Fine. Calm down.” Claire sat back in the chair, frowning up at Kate and her flared nostrils and suddenly pink cheeks. “Jeez, Princess, what crawled up your ass and died this morning? Was there a pea under the cushion of your side of the couch bed last night?” That would explain Kate’s restless slumber.

“Sorry,” Kate said, waving away Claire’s raised brows. “I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Why were you sleeping on the table, anyway?”

“Because you were kickboxing in your sleep.” Claire had the bruises to prove it. “Where did you go at the butt crack of dawn?”

Sleep was a pipe dream when it came to that damned table. A bed of nails would have been more comfortable or at least therapeutic. Kate’s attempt to sneak out had been a temporary distraction from the ache in Claire’s left hip.

“I felt like taking a walk.”

“
You
wanted to exercise early in the morning? Have we made a free right turn into a parallel universe and nobody told me?”

Kate’s jaw jutted. “What? I’ve turned over a new leaf.”

“A new leaf would mean a darker shade of lipstick for you, not something that involves the potential to actually produce sweat.” Kate was allergic to anything that made her leak from her pores. “Did Butch get you on this health kick?”

“Butch has nothing to do with it.” The sharpness in Kate’s tone made Claire lean forward.

“What’s going on with you two?”

“Nothing,” Kate said, her tight lips making it clear she was not going to share a peep.

“Fine, if it’s nothing, then you’ll help me get access to his home computer so I can get online and do my own research on this pocket watch.” Claire tapped the gold casing with her gloved finger.

“I’m not going back there.”

“Listen, whatever this fight between you two is about, I’m sure he doesn’t want you to move out. You’re overreacting.”

“Said the kettle.”

“I do not overreact to a fight—unnecessary drama is Ronnie’s song and dance routine.”

“That’s right,” Kate said. “You just tuck tail and run.”

After waking up to another morning with the impending doom of motherhood still a possibility in the forecast, Kate’s words struck way too close to the truth. It had taken Claire five minutes of whispering to herself in the Skunkmobile’s bathroom mirror and a few self-inflicted smacks to the face not to grab the car keys for Mabel and flee the state. Instead, she had grabbed her hidden pack of cigarettes on her way out the door but then had remembered why she needed a smoke and cursed, stubbing her stress-aid out as soon as she had lit it. She had settled for stuffing her face with Twinkies upon reaching the store.

However, while Kate was dead-on pinpointing Claire’s flaw, she didn’t need to stand there looking so damned smug about it. “Do you really want me to come around this desk and sit on your diaphragm until you turn a lovely shade of purple?”

Kate sighed. “No. Sorry, I’m just …” she flapped her hand in the air as if she were shooing away a fly.

“Okay, crazy, let’s move on then,” Claire said. “How about you let me into Butch’s office at The Shaft? I know he has a computer and internet connection there.”

“He has a docking station, but he took his laptop with him.”

“Damn it.” Claire picked up the watch again, stroking the face with her gloved finger. It was time for Ruby to join the modern world and start offering free wireless internet to her campers. If Claire could only talk Gramps into buying a computer, or shipping the one he had back home in Nemo down to Arizona.

“Claire!” Deborah’s voice rang through the closed office door, making Kate jump and Claire cringe. “Open this door. I need to talk to you.”

“I’m busy,” Claire yelled back.

Her mother was quiet for a couple of beats. “Is MacDonald in there?”

Claire rolled her eyes. “You know Mac hates it when you use his whole name.”

“You two aren’t doing anything funny in there again, are you?”

Kate snickered into her fist.

“Mac isn’t in here, Mom. Just Kate.”

“Kathryn? I thought I told you to bring Claire upstairs.”

“I’m trying, Mother.”

“Try harder. She needs to come get a handle on her new grandmother. Ruby is throwing a silly tantrum.”

Claire stormed over to the door and yanked it open. “What did you do, Mom?”

Deborah stood under the stairwell light looking like she’d dressed for the horse track down in Del Mar, with bright lipstick, a pale pink shirt, dress pants, and a silk scarf with cowgirls lassoing cowboys on it. All she was missing was a feathered hat.

“I didn’t do anything.” Deborah smirked. “Jessica did.”

“What did Jess do now?” Kate asked, looking over Claire’s shoulder.

A wicked glint lit Deborah’s blue eyes. “She invited her father to breakfast.”

Chapter Six

Mac rolled to a stop in front of his aunt’s place. Shielding his eyes from the morning rays, he stared at the silver Cadillac sitting in his usual parking spot by the willow tree. Aside from the complimentary coat of dust that came with southeastern Arizona breezes and being a decade old, it looked to be in mint condition. Ruby must have a visitor. From where he sat, he couldn’t read the license plate to see if it were a local.

He climbed out of his pickup and stretched, trying to work out several kinks he’d acquired last night thanks to Chester’s couch. As if the lumpy cushions and lack of length weren’t bad enough, Mac had tossed and turned in a fog of stale cigar smoke that seemed to seep from the fabric and foam.

He shaded his eyes from the sun, which had crested the
Tres Dedos
Mountains to the east hours ago and burned away most of the remaining coolness. The only shadows left were huddling at the base of the large mass of Precambrian granite called the Middle Finger, which jutted out of the northern flank of the range. He grinned, remembering Claire’s comment from a couple of months ago that the Middle Finger was Mother Nature’s response to the Copper Snake Mining Company’s continued blasting and ravaging of the surrounding desert over the last century. She had such a creative way with words.

The screen door creaked open. Claire’s cousin Natalie stepped onto the porch, letting the screen door slap shut behind her. When her gaze hit his, she shook her head. “You don’t want to go in there.”

“I don’t?”

“Absolutely not. I’d advise getting back in your pickup and flooring it in the other direction.”

Shit. He felt his grin wilt. “Is Deborah dabbling with her evil magic wand already this morning?”

“Not yet.” Natalie descended the steps and joined him in the warm sunshine. “Your aunt has a visitor,” she said in a lowered voice.

He glanced back over at the Cadillac then walked around the front of it. Natalie followed.

The Ohio plates were plastered with bug guts. Who did Ruby know from … then it hit him. He winced, hissing inwardly through his teeth. “Oh, hell. Don’t tell me that’s Jess’s dad’s car.”

“Winner winner chicken dinner. Give the man a prize.” Natalie crossed her arms over her chest. “From what I’ve gleaned through all of the yelling and cursing while I inhaled my bacon and eggs, your cousin invited him to come to Arizona for a visit, and he took her up on it.”

Had Ruby known about this? She would normally have mentioned something as big and ugly as this to Mac if so.

“Ruby looked like she’d bit into a slab of raw liver when Jess’s pop walked in the door.”

Mac rubbed his hand over his face, his whiskers making a scratching sound. “Damn it. Ruby doesn’t need this on top of Deborah being here, especially with Harley out of commission.”

Natalie nodded slowly. “Yeah. Not to mention the situation with the university crew.”

“Exactly.”
Wait!
Mac frowned at Natalie. “What situation?”

“You know, the conspiracy stuff Claire keeps talking about.”

What particular conspiracy stuff this time? He cocked his head to the side, his eyes narrowing. More importantly, he thought, “Has something happened recently?” Something that Claire had not told him about? Not that he had had any time alone with her since he had arrived at the R.V. park to get caught up with her latest presumptions.

Natalie’s cell phone rang. “Didn’t she tell you about that weird conversation I overheard?” She tugged the phone out of her back pocket.

“Not yet.”

She grinned when she looked down at her cell phone’s screen. “It’s my other half from back home. I have to take this.” She lifted the phone to her ear. “Nat’s cat house, head puss speaking.”

Mac did a double take. Had he heard her right?

“Violet Lynn Parker, always good to hear your sweet swearing voice.” She paused, listening. “No freaking way.” She listened some more, her smile widening. “Wait, wait! You need to back the truck up and tell me how this all started.”

Mac didn’t hang around to eavesdrop on Natalie’s call. Ruby was most likely in need of reinforcements by now. He just hoped her shotgun was still resting against the wall up in her closet. He took the porch steps two at a time, wondering if Claire had been inside eating breakfast with Natalie when the devil had walked in, or if she’d escaped before all hell had broken loose.

Inside the store, Mac found Ronnie sitting behind the counter, a half-eaten candy bar and a can of root beer in front of her. It was not exactly her usual grapefruit and granola she had insisted on back in Tucson.

“Mornin’, Mac.” She tucked away a bunch of loose strands from her crooked ponytail.

A ponytail? He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to remember if he’d ever seen her wearing a ponytail before. Usually if her hair was up, it was secured all tidy and neat in one of those French curl thing-a-ma-jobs.

A cacophony of yelling rang from the other side of the green velvet curtain, sounding like someone had thrown a snake into a chicken coop. For a moment he thought he heard Claire’s voice in the mix. The slamming of a door ended the commotion and all was silent in the other room.

Ronnie grimaced at the curtain and then took a bite of the candy bar. “Did you sleep okay?” she asked.

“I slept like shit.” And it was her fault.

“Yeah, me, too.”

He had trouble scraping up any sympathy for her. She hadn’t had to listen to Chester’s grunts, burps, and farts all night long. Mac swore that man lived on canned
chili con carne
and Velveeta cheese. Judging from the sulfur vapors seeping from Chester’s bedroom in the back of the Brave, he was dying from it, too.

“Did you have to sleep on the table bed?” he asked. It seemed a fitting punishment since she had caused his exile to the Isle of Chester.

“No, Claire drew the short straw. Kate felt sorry for her, though, and let her share the couch bed.”

That didn’t surprise him knowing Kate. She had told him once how much she admired Claire and her screw-it spirit, especially when it came to dealing with their mother.

“But she must have hogged the bed,” Ronnie continued, “because Claire was sleeping on the table this morning when I got up to go pee.”

Poor Claire. On the bright side, maybe she would need some of her kinks massaged … and then some.

Ronnie nodded her head at the keys in his hand. “Where did you go this morning?”

“To fill up my pickup.”

After listening to Chester’s wake up routine through the Brave’s thin bathroom wall, the urge to put Jackrabbit Junction in his rearview mirror had spurred Mac to top off his gas tank.

He’d almost taken a detour on the way back here to hike up to Ruby’s Lucky Monk mine and check if the No Trespassing signs and barriers at the main adit entrance had been tampered with by anyone. With the university’s archeological crew accessing their dig site through a back door into the Lucky Monk, he was being extra careful about keeping the front entrance to the mine blocked.