It was difficult to believe he’d just met Jane Everett, or that it could be this easy to sit at his house with her, discussing the case. She’d spent a few minutes stroking Cougar and, naturally, the cat had reveled in the attention.
Johnny Bearclaw had left pulled pork in the oven and a salad in the refrigerator; there’d been plenty for two. When they’d finished cleaning up, they sat at the table together and he went on to tell her everything he knew about their victim.
“Jay Berman didn’t have any relatives in New York. He took off from Oklahoma twenty years ago and never looked back. Both parents are dead now and his only family’s estranged. He had no rap sheet in New York, but he didn’t seem to have any friends, either, which makes me think he was lucky—he just never got caught. He worked part-time as a mechanic in a shop and lived in a studio up past Harlem. It’s not possible to support yourself in New York City with only the money from a part-time job. No one that any of the New York authorities managed to track down seemed to know anything about him, so I suspect he moved in the underworld. Petty theft, that kind of thing. He had a legitimate Social Security number and paid taxes. But other than that...”
“So some guy who didn’t have any friends in New York came on vacation to Lily, Arizona, and wound up being shot in the back of the head,” Jane said thoughtfully. “Why?”
She was leafing through the books he’d purchased at Desert Diamonds.
“He was looking for something,” Sloan said. “Okay, that’s speculation on my part, but I’m willing to bet he was. And I’m trying to find out what.”
“At Desert Diamonds?”
“These books are replica editions. The Great Gold Heist is actually a compilation by a historian in the 1890s who put together a book composed of newspaper reports on the disappearance of a stagecoach carrying gold—right around the time Sage disappeared. The second is written by Brendan Fogerty, the sheriff in the town when all this was going on. Certain incidents, although they occurred about the same time, weren’t believed to be connected in any way.”
“Still, it’s interesting. Sage disappears, the gold disappears—and they weren’t connected?”
“Sage disappeared two weeks before the gold did. And while she was known for her Bohemian lifestyle, she was never suspected of being a gold thief.”
“I’m assuming people went out to look for the missing stagecoach?”
“They did. They never found the gold, the stagecoach and horses, the driver or the two armed guards hired to watch over it. No wreckage, no bodies—nothing,” Sloan said.
“And Sage disappeared two weeks before,” Jane repeated.
“Yes.”
“What about the man she supposedly left with?”
“Red Marston?”
“Yes.”
“Well, he was considered a shady character. But he disappeared—or took off—at the same time. He was apparently good-looking and he had the reputation of being a womanizer.”
“Could they have hidden out for those two weeks—waiting for the stagecoach to leave?” Jane asked.
“Sure. Anything could have happened. This was back in the 1870s. We have a few records, and plenty of oral legends. But they’re pretty much supposition because people were making assumptions back then just as they do now.”
Jane yawned. She seemed suddenly startled, looking out to the living room area.
He looked, too. Longman was in his chair by the fire.
Sloan glanced sharply at Jane, but she’d already returned to the book.
He felt something cold slip over him as he watched her.
Logan Raintree’s unit was known for its unusual cases.
Did they really search for ghosts?
And find them?
She stood up. “I guess I should get back. Especially if we’re going to be worth anything in the morning.”
He didn’t move; instead her frowned at her. “You see him, don’t you?” he demanded. “It’s true—you and your team do paranormal investigations!”
“We’re a legitimate unit. We’ve gone through all the proper training, and we’ve been extremely effectual. And I’m damned good at what I do,” she said defensively.
“You just saw Longman,” Sloan said.
She was silent as she returned his stare.
“Longman?” she asked. Her voice was thin.
He shook his head. “All this time...I’ve wondered if he’s in my mind. But you just saw him. Admit it.”
She sighed. “Yes, I saw him.” She turned around. “He’s gone now. At least, I don’t see him anymore.”
“Why didn’t you say you saw him?” Sloan asked her. “Before I brought it up?”
“How was I supposed to know you saw him?”
“He’s real. I mean, he’s a real ghost,” Sloan said.
“Who is he?”
“One of my great-great grandfathers on my mother’s side.”
“Do you have any other great-great grandparents hanging around?” she asked.
“Sage?”
“Sage.”
Sloan sat down. “They say she haunts the old theater. I’ve never seen her. I’ve always thought that everything I’ve heard about Sage supposedly haunting the theater had to do with people acting crazy. They scare themselves silly. People think they hear something or a shadow moves in the night—and they’re out of there.” His eyes narrowed. “Have you seen her?”
“I don’t know for sure. I’ve seen...I’ve seen a woman standing on the stairs. At any rate, I thought she was there. And in my room...things do move.” She smiled. “Actually, I think she might be there. I was angry, I went in and I said that the sheriff was an ass and—”
“You said I was an ass—out loud?” he broke in.
She raised one shoulder. “Sorry. Yes. You had acted like an ass. I mean, after all, you were Logan’s friend, Logan sent me here and you were a jerk.”
Sloan kept his expression noncommittal. “And then?”
“My brush flew at me.”
He couldn’t help smiling and he wondered if it could be true—that Sage McCormick was watching out for him.
“Do you have any special talents?” he asked Jane. “Can you make contact with her?”
She hesitated, looking at him. “Sloan, they choose to make contact with us. We can let them know we’re open to it, but... I really have to get some sleep,” she finished softly.
He nodded. “All right. Let me get you back.”
“I could’ve just driven.”
“A man’s just been killed in this town. You shouldn’t do anything to put yourself at risk.”
“I can shoot. I’m not the best, but I’m pretty good.”
He smiled, reaching for his keys. “I can shoot, too. But I plan on being extremely careful until we find out exactly what happened to Jay Berman.”
He found it was difficult driving her back. Not the driving—the sitting next to her. He couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that she’d seen Longman.
She had surely seen others. Including Sage. Maybe. She knew, she understood...
He wanted to keep a distance between them, build a wall that kept him from having to recognize how different that made them.
And yet he was equally drawn to Jane Everett. To her scent, the quickness of her smile, the incredible color of her eyes. Big mistake, he told himself. She was only here to create a likeness based on a skull.
Which now seemed moot. He knew they’d found Sage McCormick.
When they arrived at the theater, she opened her door as he opened his. He waited as she came around the car to where he stood by the driver’s seat. She didn’t speak for a moment.
“Sloan...she wrote to me.”
“What?”
“She wrote to me. Sage McCormick wrote to me.”
“She sent you a letter?” he asked skeptically.
Jane shook her head. “No, I took a shower, and she wrote in the mist on the mirror. She said beware and trickster. And she wants me to tell you the truth about something, but I have no idea what. Maybe she wants you to know that it’s her skull. She’s been cryptic, to say the least.”
“There was writing on your mirror—writing in the shower mist?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re sure it was Sage McCormick?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Do you think someone came into your room? The...trickster, perhaps?”
“No, I don’t. I’m careful about locking doors. I may not have come from law enforcement like some members of my team, but I learned a lot and saw a lot,” she told him. “I’m very careful,” she said again.
He was silent. It was strange to think that a woman who had become both famous and infamous could be sending messages from the grave.
Stranger still when he was related to her...
Was this real? Or were the Krewe of Hunter units a little unbalanced?
How could he ask that question when he talked to Longman, and when he’d finally seen Trey Hardy at the jail today?
He kept his voice level. “Well, see what else you can get her to say.”
“It’s not a joke, you know.”
“I’m not joking.”
“Fine,” she said tersely. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Yeah.” Then he added, “Go right to the station, okay?”
Jane rolled her eyes. “Sloan, I hardly think this killer is going to wait for me to order pizza.”
“Just take care. This killer will know you’re an FBI agent,” Sloan said.
She nodded, then turned and started to leave.
“Jane,” he said, calling her back.
She paused, and he walked over to her. “Please, tell me whatever goes on, will you?”
“All right. If you share with me, too. This is your town. You’ll know what I don’t.”
She studied him with those gold eyes, and he felt the life in them. He wanted to reach out, to touch her. He wished that they’d met at a bowling alley, in a country bar...hell, online. He wished there hadn’t been a murder and that they were talking about ghosts and solving mysteries because they both saw what others didn’t.
He nodded. “Yes. I will...with you.” He felt a rueful smile tug at his lips. “Even though you’re just here as an artist.”
She smiled slowly in return. “Good night, Sheriff,” she said.
She left him then. He felt uneasy as he watched her go inside. The theater was safe, he told himself. There might be a few ghosts running around, but ghosts didn’t shoot people. She was staying in a place with six actors, a theater “mother” and a director. Housekeepers arrived at the crack of dawn and bartenders didn’t leave until just a few hours before the housekeeping staff showed up. She was safer here than...well, with him, really.
He returned to his car to make the drive back to his house.
It was late when he got home but he went out and checked on the horses and his property. Everything seemed to be in order.
When he went to bed, he was afraid he wouldn’t sleep. When he began to sleep, he was afraid he’d dream. Something was happening in Lily. He’d sensed it the day he’d gone to the Old Jail in search of wallets. And now he felt it more strongly than ever.
* * *
There were a few hangers-on at the bar when Jane returned, but she didn’t see any cast members she knew, and the waiters and waitresses had gone home for the night. She didn’t know the young man behind the bar and she was actually glad; she was eager to escape to her room and get some sleep.
The theater seemed quiet as she walked up the stairs.
In her room, everything was as she’d left it. She washed her face, prepared for bed and curled up under the covers. She smiled in the darkness, thinking that at least she now understood why a brush had come flying at her.
She lay awake, wondering what could have happened in the past. Sage McCormick had married a local man, had a child with him—and been suspected of having an affair and running off with that man. Yet her husband had been in the bar below when she disappeared. It didn’t make sense.
The fact remained: she had disappeared and so had Red Marston.
And two weeks later, a stagecoach bearing gold had, too.
Now, Sage’s skull had turned up in the basement of the theater, another man’s body had been unearthed from the sand—and a tourist had been murdered. How did it all connect?
The questions whirled in her mind and, finally, she drifted off to sleep.
She didn’t know what woke her; she only knew that she opened her eyes and saw a woman standing over her.
It was Sage. She knew her face now. She had drawn it, and she’d seen the similarities between her drawing and the painting over the bar.
“Hello,” she said softly.
The woman straightened without speaking. She beckoned to Jane. Jane stood. Sage McCormick moved to the door.
Jane was dressed in a long cotton T-shirt gown. She wasn’t sure whether she should dress quickly. She decided against it. She didn’t want to lose the ghost, so she’d venture out barefoot and in a long T-shirt.
There was a chill in the air, and Jane shivered. It was about 4:00 a.m., she thought—just that time when the bartenders had finished cleaning and setting up for the next day. They’d left and the housekeepers had yet to arrive. She wished she’d grabbed a sweater.
The ghost sailed along the upper level hallway, heading for the stairs. Jane followed her down the steps and then into the theater.
Sage McCormick walked down to the dimly lit stage, stepped onto it, then turned and waited. Jane continued to follow her.
Sage led her back to the stage wings and the dressing rooms beyond. Here, it was even darker, as there were only a few emergency lights left on during the night. She could barely see Sage, but the ghost was still leading her forward.
Jane hadn’t been back here before; she had no idea where she was or where the ghost was trying to take her.
The apparition seemed to be upset, looking grim and agitated as she stood at a door. She floated through it and then reappeared, waiting for Jane.
Jane opened the door. It was one of the dressing rooms.
The ghost walked to the rear of the small, crowded room.
Jane wished her nightly specter had told her it was going to be so dark and that she’d need a flashlight. She couldn’t understand what Sage was doing. There was a table covered with jars and tubes of makeup and several hanging racks filled with costumes. She had to push back the costumes to reach the place where Sage was standing. As she made her way through, her hair caught on a button and she had to untangle it.
She stopped where Sage was, almost on top of the dressing table. Because the ghost was insistent, she went down on her knees and inspected the floor.
At first, she saw nothing. Just old wood, so weathered that the planks seemed to blend into one another. Looking more closely, she realized that beneath the dressing table, there was something that wasn’t quite right. She ran her fingers over the floor and under the table. What had appeared to be a dark spot shielded by the costume rack and the dressing table was a metal ring.
Made of tarnished bronze, it had probably been long hidden by the position of the rack and the dressing table. The latter had no doubt stood in place for decades; the feet had worn small indentations in the floor. She gave the table a shove, moving it just a couple of inches but revealing the brass ring more clearly—and an area that, when carefully traced, proved not to be a stretch of wood planking.
Jane looked up at the ghost, who nodded gravely, and then back down at the loop. She slid her fingers over the flooring around it and saw that it had to be a knob or a pull and that it opened a trapdoor of some kind. She tugged at the metal ring but couldn’t get it to give.
As she worked at it, she heard a noise from the bar area of the theater. She wasn’t sure why it disturbed her; there were a number of other people in the building. The scraping sound had an odd, surreptitious quality. As she looked up at the ghost, the apparition of Sage McCormick faded away.
Jane didn’t like being where she was. She hadn’t dressed—and she hadn’t brought her gun.
She held still for several more minutes and listened. Nothing. Then she was sure she heard a faint noise—as if something was being dragged across the floor.
Jane crept silently from the dressing room and tiptoed back to the wings, across the stage and down the side aisle until she reached the point where the red velvet curtains were drawn back. She stayed there, glad that her eyes had adjusted to the darkness and the pale glow of the emergency lights. She used the curtain as a shield and looked out to the dining room. No one was there.
Had she imagined it? All of it? The ghost who’d come to her room and the sound from the dining area?
No, she’d heard something.
Certain that whoever or whatever it was had gone, she stepped out. She moved quietly through the room, telling herself that perhaps someone had merely needed a glass of water. Or someone who couldn’t sleep had come down to get a snack from the refrigerator behind the bar. She still felt uneasy. But a quick run through the bar and the dining room showed her that she was right. No one was there—not then, at any rate.
The kitchen was immediately behind the bar. There was a large oven in the center, two stoves on either side, two large refrigerators, a freezer and two workstations. All were clean and shining, waiting for the next day’s business.
She left the kitchen and returned to the bar area. As she did, she heard someone fitting a key into the lock on the outer door.
The housekeeping staff was here.
She turned and raced up the stairs, slipping into her room just as the outer door opened.
She leaned against her own door, breathing hard.
Then she heard another door closing somewhere down the hallway.
Whose?
She couldn’t tell. She went back to bed, hoping for a few more hours of sleep.
Sage did not come again that night. Jane closed her eyes and wondered what lay beneath the trapdoor in the dressing room. Tomorrow, she would tell Sloan what had happened. They would get Henri’s permission to see what was beneath the floor.
It took a while for her to sleep, but at last she did.
She woke a few hours later and saw that it was 8:00 a.m. It wasn’t as though she was on a schedule; she now had a car. She could drive herself down to the station. She supposed, with a sense of wry humor, that she didn’t want to look like a slacker. She wanted Sheriff Sloan Trent’s respect. And she wanted him to like her. She liked him. She more than liked him. She felt a sweet rush of fever when she was near him, the urge to reach over and stroke his hair, run her fingers down his cheek, explore the movement of his muscles....
It had been years since she’d felt so attracted to a man. And now was not the time to feel this way. She loved her work. And she was here for just a short while....
Crazy. This was crazy. Even time itself seemed crazy. Maybe that was it; she’d barely arrived and so much had already happened. Not only that, so much had happened between the two of them....
She walked into the bathroom to start off with a shower. She stepped in, turning the water up to a nice hot level. She leaned against the tile, looking down—and stared incredulously.
Something red was mingling with the water and going down the drain.
Blood.
And it was coming from her feet.
* * *
Sloan rode Roo out to the replica Apache village along the trail.
Crime-scene tape still roped off the tepee where Jay Berman had been found. Sloan sank down and inspected the site; the crime-scene unit had been thorough. They were good at what they did, Sloan knew, so he didn’t know what he could find. There certainly weren’t going to be any useful prints, so he was really hoping, more than anything else, that he might figure out where Berman had been before his murder.
He rose, thinking about their present location and what was nearby. He wasn’t even sure how the victim—and his killer—had gotten out here.
They’d probably ridden. He made a mental note to ask about Ray Berman’s clothing, although the report would contain any of the information they needed on trace evidence. But if they had ridden here, had they come together?
Why come here at all?
There was nothing at the Apache village that could relate to the past; it had been created as an educational site. Yes, it had been created by Apaches, but that was only a few years ago. Before that, it had been a patch of sand with a few rocks and scrub and cacti.
He walked out of the tepee. Someone had dug up a body from the past—and murdered Berman. Why? Why leave the old body to be seen and Berman back in the tepee? To torment the police? Or someone else?
He stood outside looking around. Then he mounted Roo and rode around the village, studying his surroundings.
Not far back on the trail was the sealed entrance to an old silver mine. No one even knew where the one vein of gold had been found, and the silver had long ago run out.
Berman’s killing, the nature of it, was something you might expect in a big city, where mob, drug and gang violence existed.
He’d been from the city. One of the biggest cities in the world.
Sloan rode back to the sealed entrance to the silver mine. Dismounting, he moved to the entrance. Years ago, to prevent the unwary from going inside to explore and dying in a cave-in, the entrance had been dynamited shut.
Walking over, he inspected it. At first, all the rocks in front seemed to be as solidly in place as ever. He continued to poke at them and test them.
At the far right of the rock pile, he found a loose boulder. He shifted it—and it rolled free.
He stared into the darkness, wondering if the rock had just worked its way loose with time or if someone had been using the cavern for illicit purposes.
But what?
Silver and gold were part of the past. Lily survived on tourism now. Ranches dotted the area, but everyone needed the tourists.
As he stood there, his phone rang. It was Jane.
He felt a rush of heat as he heard her voice.
“Hey, Sheriff, you coming into the office anytime soon?”
“Yeah, I’m coming in. I asked Betty to let you know I’d be late.”
“You’re out at the crime scene?”
“Yes.”
“Anything?”
“Not directly.” He hesitated. “Why?”
“I might have found something, but I’d rather not pursue it until I talk to you.”
“Where are you? What did you find?”
“I’m at the station. And maybe nothing. I’ll explain when I see you. Meanwhile, I thought I’d work while I waited.”
“I’ll be there soon.”
He wedged the boulder back where it had been. He would need light to go farther into the old tunnel. He was rather fond of living, so he wasn’t exploring until he had one of his deputies with him—and until his whole crew knew where he was and what he was doing.
Before mounting up, he looked around again. Someone was running around the desert with a gun and executing people. Well, only one so far, but that could be just the beginning...
He wasn’t letting anyone take him that way.
Right now, he was damned certain that he was alone.
He rode home and took the car into the station, anxious now to see Jane and learn what she had discovered.
No, he realized.
He was anxious to see her.
* * *
By the time Sloan arrived, Jane had placed half of her clay “muscle” strips over the wooden depth-marker pegs she’d attached to the skull. When she heard him come in, she covered the skull—remembering that it had belonged to his great-great grandmother. He grimaced.
“I’m a sheriff. I can take it,” he told her. But he didn’t wait for her to move the cloth. “What did you find?” he asked.
She got up to close the door he’d left open.
“I saw Sage last night,” she told him.
He looked at her and arched his brows slowly. She wondered if he thought she might have imagined a sighting—because last night they’d spoken about the dead they saw.
“I woke up because she was standing over me.”
“That’s what the supposed ‘ghost expedition’ guy said when he ran out,” Sloan told her.
His voice was level. She still couldn’t tell if he was skeptical.
“She led me out of the room. It was late, in between the bar closing and the day staff coming in,” Jane said.
He was watching her with a deep frown but didn’t say anything so she went on. “I followed her down to the theater and into one of the dressing rooms. She wanted me to see that there’s a trapdoor in the flooring.”
“And what was under the trapdoor?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t budge it, and then...then I left because I thought I heard someone in the bar.”
“Who was it?”
“There was no one there, and then I just ran back up to the bedroom because the staff was coming in.”
“So, you want me to ask Henri Coque about opening the hatch in the dressing room,” he said.
“Yes. I mean, I shouldn’t even know it’s there. I’m a guest. I have no business being in that part of the theater at all.”
He nodded. “I guess I need a reason to prowl around the dressing rooms,” he said.
“There’s a little more....”
“What’s that?”
“When I woke up and showered...there was blood on my feet.”
“You cut yourself?” he asked in a thick voice.
She shook her head. “No, I didn’t have any cuts—not even a scratch. So, somewhere I walked, there was...blood. And when I heard those sounds, it was like something being dragged. But I didn’t see anything at all, so I don’t know if I imagined it. And I was in the kitchen, so it could’ve been blood from meat they used or...” She stopped, shaking her head again in disgust. “I’m not even sure it was blood. It had rinsed down the drain before I realized I’d tracked it in.”
“All right. Let me call Newsome and check in with my deputies, then we’ll head back to the theater,” he said.
He left, and she figured she had about fifteen minutes so she could get another few strips placed on the skull. She went back to work and was concentrating so fully that she didn’t hear him when he returned. He must have been watching her for a while.
“Muscles make the face,” she murmured. “And soft tissue. The mouth is such a major part of a person’s expression, but working with eyes and nose can give us a good idea of that person’s appearance and demeanor. A skull can tell you about a person’s health and development, too. The reconstruction done on the skull of Robert the Bruce clearly showed the leprosy he suffered before his death. And the skull of King Midas revealed that he’d had his head bound as a child to create a longer vault—something considered noble or beautiful at the time.” She dusted her hands on her work jacket and covered the skull again. She’d been rambling on about her work.
But, to her surprise, he didn’t refer to anything she’d said.
“What you did was really dangerous,” he told her instead.
“Pardon?”
“Last night. You took off in the middle of the night to follow a ghost. You were barefoot, so I’m assuming you were still in your pajamas. And you didn’t bring your Glock.”
She’d never mentioned that she carried a Glock, which she did—a Glock 23. A .40 caliber handgun with a magazine that allowed her seventeen bullets. He’d assumed it either because the Glock 23 was a common weapon among law enforcement personnel—or he hadn’t assumed it at all; he’d seen it beneath her jacket. But he’d homed right in on what she’d done the night before.
“Sloan, there are a number of people in that building.”
“And they were sound asleep. If they weren’t, they should have been. The cast seems to be a decent group of people—but someone in there probably dug up that skull somewhere...and used a mummified dead man to point the way to a recent murder victim.”
“I won’t leave my room again without my weapon,” she promised him.
He turned and left the room. She quickly threw on her coat and hurried into the kitchen to wash her hands.
As he drove, he was thoughtful. “So, you were in the shower, and you noticed blood going down the drain.”
She nodded. “I thought I’d stepped on something and cut myself and hadn’t realized it. But the blood wasn’t mine.” She glanced at him. “I suspect traces of it could be found. And the housekeeper is afraid of my room. I told her not to worry about it, just to bring me clean towels now and then. So, I must have tracked it into bed and...”
“And it’ll be on the sheets,” Sloan finished.
They neared town and he braked, sliding to the side of the road, surprising her. She looked into the yard where they’d stopped. A handsome young man in his late teens was helping an older woman into a house with groceries.
“I need just a minute.” Sloan was frowning slightly as he surveyed the teen and the slim, gray-haired older woman.
“Certainly,” she said.
Jane got out and stood by the car. The older woman had gone into the house; the young man had a bag in his arms.
“Jimmy,” Sloan called.
“Hey, Sheriff,” the teen said, waiting. He smiled at Jane and nodded politely.
“Giving a hand here, I see,” Sloan said.
The teen blushed. “I, uh, came over here to apologize. I did hit Miss Larson’s car the other night. I figured the least I could do was a bit of hauling around for her.”
“Your father know you’re here?” Sloan asked him.
Jimmy looked uncomfortable. “This was just something I felt I should do.”
“Good,” Sloan said.
The older woman came back out. She waved to Sloan. “Hello, Sheriff!”
“Hi, Connie. You take care.”
“Yes, sir, thank you! Young Jimmy here helped me get in a week’s worth of groceries. Tomorrow, a lot of mayhem will be coming down on us, what with Silverfest on our doorstep,” she said cheerfully. “Now, I won’t have to venture out into the crowds. I can see the parades and such from my rooftop!”
“Great, Connie. Enjoy,” Sloan said.
Jane lifted a hand and waved to her. She waved in return.
“Jimmy Hough,” Sloan explained, getting back in the car. “Kid smacked the older woman’s car with his dad’s Maserati the other day. He’s actually a decent kid—well, he’d been drinking and I’m not sure what else, but he leaped out of the car to run around and check on Connie Larson. I had him taken in for the night, and his father, Caleb, had a fit. He was in the office to threaten me. I would’ve thought he’d want Jimmy to learn a lesson—before he killed himself or someone else. I went easier than I could have on Jimmy, not because of his father, but because of him. Like I said, he’s a decent kid and I honestly think he learned that you can’t drive when you’re impaired. I was really glad to see that, of his own volition, he came over to Connie’s place to see if he could help her.”
Jane grinned. “So, the father is a blowhard jerk. And the kid seems to be turning out okay, anyway.”
“Yeah.” He still seemed worried.
“What is it?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Believe it or not, I doubt his father would be pleased. Caleb Hough has a big beefalo ranch about a mile or so past my property. He’s one of those people who feels entitled. He’d think his kid was a pansy—a word I’ve heard him use—for helping the woman just because he nicked what Caleb would call her ‘shit’ car.’”
She was quiet for a minute; she could tell he liked the kid—if not the father.
“He looks like he’s about to graduate. He’ll grow up and make his own decisions about the kind of man he wants to be.”
Sloan nodded. A moment later, they pulled into town.
“What are we going to say to get into the dressing room?” Jane asked.
“You haven’t figured it out?”
“No! This is your town, these are your friends. I waited for you because the plan was that you’d figure out how we’d get down there. I can’t say a ghost led me!”
“Hmm. I was pretty sure the plan was to get me involved because you couldn’t get it open last night.”
“With time, I could’ve managed. You’re missing the point—on purpose, I suspect.” She glared at him. “So do you have a plan?”
His grin deepened. She felt a sizzle of fire; he really could assault the senses with that smile of his.
“I kind of have a plan,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“We’ll get some lunch and come up with a plan. That’s the plan.”
“They don’t serve lunch at the theater.”
“We can make sandwiches, can’t we?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, while we’re having our sandwiches, we’ll come up with a plan. It’ll be easier to do that if we’re in there, right?”
“You can’t just say you want to check out the dressing rooms?”
“You don’t think someone will ask why? Of course, I could tell them all that you seem to be friends with the ghost of my great-great grandmother,” Sloan suggested, ignoring Jane’s groan.
“Let’s have lunch—and come up with a plan.”
Sloan grinned. “Isn’t that what I said?”