Dead Man Hand (A Dead Man Mystery Book 3) Read online

  I stood there and fumed for another few moments, until both the breeze and rain picked up. Not that the rain could get me any wetter, but the chill got to me. The slicker hadn't done a bit of good during a dunking. My hair hung in wet hanks and my sodden caftan—my preferred attire when I sat down to write—clung to me and dripped.

  Finally I stormed down the pier and onto the path. I still might pull out the sea salt.

  The wispy white figure standing where the path intersected the narrow county road between my cabin and the lake fired my ire again. I wiped rain and lake water out of my eyes as I stomped over to it and yelled, "I told you to get back to the other dimension!" Then bit my lip as a flush of embarrassment heated my cheeks.

  "Ain't quite ready for that," the figure said with a chortle. "Hung around here in the livin' world nearly eighty-one years already."

  "I'm so sorry," I said to Granny Chisholm. "What are you doing out here this time of night?"

  She was dressed in a long, white granny gown, her gray hair hanging down her back, loose from the gold hairpins she usually secured it with. She wore a white plastic rain poncho similar to my gray one, hood up over her head. Security lights burned on my front deck and at the base of my pier, although with the cloud cover and fog, not much light penetrated to where we stood. She had a flashlight in one hand, though, her walnut walking stick in the other.

  "Heard someone yelling for help out on the lake," she admitted. "Tho' even with my hearin' aid on high, it didn't sound right. Figgered what with all them ghosts at your place, mebbe they was having a party or foolin' 'round. Figgered I better go take a gander a'fore I called the Coast Guard."

  I didn't bother to correct her and say the Coast Guard patrolled the Gulf, not inland lakes. Here we would call the Lake Patrol...although come to think of it, our lake wasn't big enough for a Lake Patrol. We'd have to call Fish and Wildlife. And with her own psychic abilities, I assumed she'd heard Lady in Red mentally, given the distance between her house and where I'd first seen the rowboat.

  "Good thing you didn't cause a ruckus, Granny," I said. "It was just the ghosts fooling around. Well, one ghost. A new one, a woman, who's trying to find a berth at my cabin. Howard calls her Lady in Red, and she's evidently been trying to force her way past him to talk to me."

  "Uh oh," Granny replied. "Sounds like 'nother one of them who might have a story to tell that gets your interest."

  "Not on your life," I denied. "Something's wrong with this book, and I don't have time to mess with a ghost who has problems."

  "Even if it's one of them life mysteries that always pulls you in?"

  "No," I reiterated. "I've got a full schedule coming up. And I've got to find some temporary help for a while. Have you seen the filing mess in my study?"

  "Looks more like a piling mess to me," she said. "But whatever. Thought you was gonna take a while off after this book."

  I sighed. "I'd planned to, but you know how it is. Best laid plans of mice and men...."

  "Well, I's better get back inside a'fore I catch pneumonia. You, too."

  "Would you like to come in and have some hot cocoa?" I asked.

  "Naw, not even iffen you offer to put some booze in it. Not this time, anyway. I's'll see you later on today. We gots to start them fruitcakes, iffen they's gonna be done a'fore Christmas." She started to turn away, then chuckled and nodded at me. "But you better get that there one in her place. Don't look like she's mindin' you and stayin' where you told her to."

  I whirled to see Lady in Red standing a few feet away. Granny's chuckles faded as she made her way down the road toward her small, clapboard house next door to my cabin.

  My aunt, Twila Brown, taught me right from the beginning, when she dragged me on my very first ghost hunt, that we had to discipline the ghosts we ran across. Otherwise, they could overstep into our own physical lives. Lives we still had to lead and with responsibilities.

  "I just wanted to make an appointment with you," Lady in Red hastily said as I glared at her. "And apologize for taking the wrong tactic to get your attention. If you'll tell me when we can talk, I'll wait patiently."

  "Well, since you have all the time you need, patience is what you'll have to have. Maybe after the first of the year—"

  "That's too late!" she insisted.

  "Too bad," I replied. "I'm going in and having some hot cocoa, then a shower, then bed."

  I left her standing there and walked across the road, down the driveway and up the steps to the deck. I found Trucker and Miss Molly in the kitchen—they must have detoured around back and through the doggy/kitty door. I took time to grab towels from the laundry room and dry myself and both of them before I started my cocoa. I didn't bother chastising them, since they would both turn those hurt eyes on me and fill me with guilt.

  What did she mean, the first of the year will be too late?

  Huh uh. Nope, I wasn't going to let Lady in Red draw me into her problem. She had tried to break the number one rule of The Ghost Agreement, as well as attempted to thwart Howard's authority. That type of behavior could not be rewarded; it called for a reprimand.

  I nuked my hot chocolate—half a mug of milk and cocoa, the rest luscious marshmallows melted to a decadent gooey delight—and carried the mug to the table. As I passed the wall phone, I absentmindedly pushed the plug back into the funny little socket. People who know me are used to the fact I unplug every phone in the cabin when I settle down to write. I also wouldn't bother checking for messages until I got darn good and ready.

  I'd set my small kitchen table in front of a window where I could see into my acre-wide backyard. One lone security light burned over by the rear patio, and it didn't cast enough light to illuminate more than a quarter of the area. Beyond lay darkness, since dawn arrived late in this season we Texans call our winter. I'd sleep through dawn today, but since I was self-employed, my hours varied drastically. Many mornings I managed to enjoy the sunrise.

  Lady in Red stood out there on the edge of the light, just past the patio—where I noticed I'd forgotten once again to bring in some of the more fragile plants and made a mental note to do so as soon as I got some sleep. The ghost's dress looked more black than red in that light, but it was her. Her slumped shoulders were a contradiction to her demanding attitude a few minutes ago, and she wandered through the misty ground-fog snakes in a forlorn manner. I steeled my emotions against a stab of sympathy and licked a yummy gob of marshmallows from my spoon.

  Trucker padded across the floor and jumped up to place his front paws on the windowsill. He glanced back over his shoulder and whined at me.

  "No," I said. "Who do you think pays for those doggy bones you love so well? The ones she's been sneaking you? I have to have some regimen in my life to be able to pay our bills."

  Miss Molly drew my attention when she leaped onto the table and sniffed my cocoa mug. "Hey," I warned. "Off the table."

  She obeyed, then stalked over and sat down beneath the phone. She stared up at it, and I shook my head. "You're wasting your time. No one has the gall to call me this time of night."

  I proved right...for a while. I finished my cocoa, rinsed out the mug and set it in the dishwasher, then headed for the bedroom. I was halfway there before the phone shrilled. Miss Molly meowed loudly, as much of a hint of told-you-so in her voice as a cat could manage.

  "Tough," I called back to her. "I'll get the messages later. After I get some sleep."

  No, now, that little voice demanded. I knew who it was, too. Only one person could send me a communication. Someone with higher developed psychic senses than mine.

  I sighed and headed back toward the kitchen, the only phone plugged in. By the time I got there, the answering service had already taken the call. I waited patiently, though. Well, somewhat patiently. If I tried to call back, the other line would be busy, calling me again. I picked up the second call mid-first ring.

  "Hello, Twila. What are you doing up this early?"

  "I'm an hour ahead of you in my pa
rt of Yankee-land," she reminded me. "And I didn't bother you as long as you were writing."

  "Is anything wrong?" I asked worriedly.

  "Quite the opposite," she replied. "You're still planning on taking a break after this book, aren't you?"

  "Well..." I hedged.

  "You are," she ordered. "And I have exactly the break you need. Remember that old hotel out in Red Dollar, New Mexico? The one we've been trying to get to for years?"

  "Oh!" My attitude underwent a drastic change. "Of course I remember. But it's closed for the season right now, isn't it?"

  "To the general public," she said. "However, seems it's also up for sale, and—"

  "Oh, no!" I interjected. "What if they sell it and the new owners—?"

  "Hush, Alice," she interrupted back. "We have no control over other people's property. But remember Danny, the balloon pilot we met at the festival up here when you visited last fall? I know you do. We had such a great time with him, and he was fascinated with our ghost hunting. We even took him out to that old haunted inn on the canal. Anyway, he's kept in touch with me. He lives near Roswell, but he also knows the people who currently own the Red Dollar Hotel. The ghosts there at the hotel are evidently upset about it being up for sale. They're causing all sorts of problems."

  "What sort of problems?" I asked, my interest definitely pricked.

  "Oh, destroying the For Sale signs. Scaring off prospective buyers. Every time they put the hotel ad up on their web site, it crashes it. There are a few other things, but you get the picture."

  "Wow," I mused. "Sounds like these ghosts need some discipline."

  "Exactly. So we've been invited out there next week. We'll have the run of the place to see what we can do about administering that discipline. Danny says it's gorgeous right now. Snow on the mountains, deer and elk in the valley. We should have plenty of time to do some Christmas shopping, too. Get some unusual presents this year instead of the usual shirts and socks. Maybe we can even hop down to Taos."

  "I thought we were supposed to be working on the ghosts, not vacationing."

  "Oh, they shouldn't take more than a day or so to handle," she said in a self-assured tone. "And they've promised we can stay the entire week. We also get another free week later in the season, if we want. Which you know we do. You can bring Granny, if you want, and if you can find another cat-sitter. And Trucker and Miss Molly, of course, although I had to promise they were well-behaved."

  A chill climbed my back, and I whirled just in time to see Lady in Red vanish back into her own dimension. Still, I thought I'd caught a smirk of satisfaction on her face.

  "I've got a stranger hanging around here," I told Twila. "Let me check with Howard and make sure he feels he can handle her if I leave. If so, you're on."

  "She won't stay long enough to give Howard trouble," Twila assured me. "I'll make the plane reservations and call you this afternoon, after you've had a nap. I'll get us all into Albuquerque as close together as possible, and we can rent a vehicle there. Hey, don't worry about that ending in your book. It's fine. You're just dragged out from staring at the computer screen and living in that creative world so long."

  She hung up before I could ask what made her so certain about her last statement. Not that I had to ask. She would never violate my privacy, but once in a while we would tune into each other, even a thousand miles apart. Sometimes intentionally, as she had just now. Other times, when one or the other of us encountered a rocky spot in life's road and needed some emotional support.

  A smile spread across my face as I hung up the phone and headed toward the bedroom. It was still there when I woke up six hours later, feeling as though I'd slept a good week, primed and ready for bear...or ghosts, whichever.

  Chapter 2

  Twila waited until Granny and I were actually in the Albuquerque terminal before she called. I anticipated my cell phone ringing, but not due to my psychic powers. On the departure/arrival screen where Granny and I stood, Cancelled blinked after the flight number Twila was supposed to be on out of Yankee-land.

  "What happened?" I asked instead of hello. It had to be her, with a Yankee-land area code in front of a strange phone number on caller ID.

  "Don't you watch the weather?" she answered. "We were only supposed to get a couple inches of snow, but some sort of weather pattern turned it into an ice storm just before I arrived at the airport. We're grounded until they can re-open the runways and get the planes de-iced faster."

  "When will that be?"

  "My psychic abilities don't extend to weather forecasts, so your guess is as good as mine. They sent some of us to a hotel. That’s where I’m calling from."

  "Then you might not get out until tomorrow!"

  "Go on to Red Dollar, Alice," she said. "You can come back for me when I finally get a flight, or I'll get my own rental if necessary. The drive’s not that far, and we'll still have the bulk of our vacation time."

  "I'm not sure I want to confront this pack of ghosts without you."

  Someone gasped, and I glanced at the man beside me. Ghost hunter? he mouthed, and I grinned and nodded at his pale face. He quickly moved on down the line of arrival/departure screens, to the very last one.

  "You'll be fine," Twila was saying. "You packed all the protective things I told you to bring, didn't you?"

  "Yeah. And I guess I should get going," I agreed. "You'll stay in touch?"

  "Will do. And say hi to Jack for me." She hung up before even half of the shocked huff left my mouth.

  My gaze traveled around the terminal, but for once she must have been wrong. Even psychics with strong powers like my aunt's get it wrong now and then. Jack was back in Longview, Texas, a good two-hour drive from where I lived in Six Gun, nine hundred miles or more from Albuquerque. By the time I gave up searching for those broad shoulders and dark Cajun eyes, Granny had collared a motorized cart and the elderly, white-haired driver was already helping her into the seat.

  "C'mon, Alice." She waved at me. "This nice man's gonna take us down to get the animals and our bags."

  And that's where we found Jack. He knelt beside the carrier inside which both Trucker and Miss Molly waited. Miss Molly would only agree to fly if she could ride in the same carrier as her big buddy. She had recognized Jack and vocally made no bones about the fact it was time to let her out. One paw reached through the cage bars, and the people nearby grimaced at the loud meow-sers that echoed in the air.

  "Can't do it, Molly," Jack said as the cart driver stopped beside the carrier. "Your mama has the key."

  "What are you doing here?" I asked as I scooted off the cart.

  He stood, face nearly expressionless—except for the depths in those chocolate eyes. He nodded at the wall behind the carrier, where a pair of skis leaned, a duffel bag beside them.

  "Angel Fire," he said. "Got a few days off and decided to go visit a friend."

  Male or female? I had sense enough to silence that thought, since we gave up the right to ask questions about each other's personal lives when we signed the divorce papers thirty months earlier. Not that I was keeping track or anything.

  Jack continued, "What about you? And Granny? I can't quite imagine Granny on skis, but I'd be willin' to bet, if she put her mind to it, she could even slalom."

  "You betcha," Granny said as the cart driver helped her down. "'Specially if I had me a tall, dark, handsome teacher like you hep'in' me learn, Jack. But me'n Alice is on our way to talk some sense into some ghosts."

  I mentally groaned, but Jack just shook his head. The cart driver actually looked interested rather than fearful, like the man at the arrival/departure screens a few minutes earlier had.

  "Where are you two stayin'?" Jack asked.

  Before I could shut her up, Granny said, "Only hotel in some town called Red Dollar."

  Jack frowned. "I've heard of it, but thought it closed down in the winter. It's not far from Angel Fire."

  "We really need to get going," I said. "We still have to get our car,
and I'd like to drive across New Mexico before dark. Twila got held up in an ice storm back home, so we may have to come back tomorrow and get her."

  He nodded. "Have a good time. I need to get goin', too. My ride's probably waitin' outside." He shouldered his skis and picked up his duffle bag. "Y'all need a ride anywhere?"

  "Nah," Granny said. "Got's us one right here."

  "Take care of them," Jack ordered the cart driver before he strode away without a backward glance.

  "How the heck did Twila know Jack was going to be here?" I wondered aloud to Granny as soon as he got out of hearing.

  "Prob'ly Jack told Jess, Twila's husband," she said logically. "They still talks off and on."

  "I suppose."

  "So you're ghost hunters," the cart driver said. "And you're heading to Red Dollar, where all the ruckus has been."

  "Sure are," Granny said, a twinkle in her blue eyes. "Wanna come along?"

  "I'd like to," he said eagerly. "But I don't have any vacation time left, and I need this job. Social Security doesn't stretch far enough."

  Granny adamantly agreed with him about that. She sometimes supplemented her small monthly check by cat-sitting for me when I was away.

  Things went smoothly after that...as smoothly as they can when we travel with the animals. With our help, the cart driver got all of our baggage and the pet carrier loaded, then zipped us to the rental car desk while he and Granny chatted about the perils of fixed-income living and even exchanged telephone numbers. His name was Joshua...Something. I already knew Granny's name. Joshua motored off with a jaunty wave, and at first the harried clerk tried to stick us with a subcompact car. But Granny marched around the counter and took her arm. Led her back to show her our pile of luggage and the huge animal carrier.

  "And we want that there four-wheel drive on our vehicle," she also demanded. "I ain't seen much snow in my life, but I seen some. And at my age, I don't want to see it up close and personal, stuck in a ditch beside the road."