A Dangerous Departure From Hillbilly Hollow Page 2

  “Her landlady died,” Billy said, answering for me.

  “I’m so sorry, Emma. What happened?” Grandma moved closer and pulled me into a bone crushing hug. The woman was old, but certainly not frail.

  I extricated myself and gave her an “everything is fine” smile. “Her son didn’t say. And like I said, I didn’t know her. Jay was only calling to tell me that he is now the building’s landlord. Even he didn’t seem too broken up about it all.”

  “That settles it. You’ve had a friend die, so now you have to let me take you out for a burger and a pop. It’s the only right thing to do,” Billy said, winking at me.

  “Oh, that sounds fun,” Grandma said, clapping her hands together.

  “I know I was supposed to have dinner with you and Grandpa—”

  Grandma shook her head and shooed me away. “Nonsense, child. You need to spend time with people your own age. Your grandpa and me are accustomed to our own company. We’ll be fine without you. Go with Billy and don’t hurry back.”

  “If you’re sure,” I said, narrowing my eyes at her.

  “Positive. Get out of here before I throw you out.” She blew me a kiss and disappeared back inside.

  She seemed oddly happy about getting rid of me. Either she was relieved to spend an evening without me around or she was going to join my best friend Suzy in trying to push me into a relationship with Billy. Honestly, could no one understand that we were just friends? We used to go bull frogging and fishing together. He saw me cry when I fell out of a tree and sprained my ankle, and I’d seen him drop to the ground like a bomb was coming when a bumblebee flew past his ear. We’d been through too many embarrassing childhood and teenage years to date now.

  “Hop on in,” Billy said. He was already in his truck and he reached across the seat to push my door open.

  Regardless of everyone else’s motivations, I was starving and hanging with Billy and Suzy was always a good time. Plus, I was anxious to forget about the specter I’d seen in the field.

  3

  Suzy and Brian were already sitting in a booth in the back corner when Billy and I arrived. They waved at us as we entered.

  “Suzy. Brian,” Billy tipped an imaginary hat to each of them as he ushered me into the booth and then slid in after me.

  “Doctor Billy,” Suzy said with a mischievous grin.

  Billy turned to Brian with an unamused smile. “Do you think your wife will ever call me by my proper name?”

  “I don’t have much control in this situation.” Brian laughed and leaned over to kiss Suzy’s cheek.

  It was still crazy to me how Brian Bailey, the high school and college football star who was known to break a lot of hearts, had turned into a devoted husband for Suzy Colton. Just one look at them and it was obvious how much they loved and doted on one another.

  “I suppose I better get used to it,” Billy said.

  Suzy jumped and then narrowed her eyes at Billy, confirming my suspicion that he had kicked her under the table. It didn’t seem to matter how old we got, when we were together, we acted like teenagers.

  Suzy and Brian, in an attempt to show how incredibly mushy they could be, each got hamburgers and then a strawberry milkshake to split. I ordered a grilled cheese and a coke, and Billy ordered a bacon cheeseburger and chili cheese fries.

  “Aren’t you always the one reminding us about our clogged arteries?” I asked, elbowing him in the side.

  “Hey, it’s been a long day and I deserve it,” Billy said. “Besides, I was thinking you could share the chili cheese fries with me.”

  “You sure know the way to a girl’s heart, Doctor Stone.” We laughed, and when I looked over at Suzy, she was waggling her eyebrows suggestively.

  I quickly decided to change the subject. “How is Annie’s wedding planning going?”

  Ever since Suzy and Brian’s recent wedding, the whole town seemed to have caught wedding fever. Suzy’s younger sister, Annie, was now planning a Christmas wedding. Annie and I had never been super close, so I was a little surprised when she’d asked me to be a bridesmaid. Less surprising was the fact that she’d asked Suzy to manage the details. Bossy Suzy was a natural born planner of events.

  Suzy groaned, even though I knew she secretly relished the task. “Don’t remind me. Annie and I have a taste test for the cake at the bakery tomorrow and I’m still trying to find the perfect bridesmaid dress.”

  I gave her a confused look and she slapped her own forehead.

  “Oh, I guess I completely forgot to tell you. Annie decided to let the bridesmaids pick their own dresses. Alison is shorter than you and me, Mackenzie has a bigger chest, and there isn’t a bridesmaid dress on this planet that will work for all of us, so Annie decided to let us pick. It has to be navy. Otherwise, free reign.”

  Suzy had her own clothing boutique, and I trusted Annie to share her big sister’s fashion sense, but being able to choose my own dress for the wedding was a huge weight off my shoulders. Bridesmaids dresses were notoriously unflattering, and choosing my own dress meant I'd avoid that downfall and be able to enjoy the wedding without worrying that I looked like the losing side of a ‘Who Wore it Better?’ poll.

  “Maybe when you shop for a dress you can also buy me a suit,” Billy said with a grumble.

  As a friend of Annie’s fiancé, he’d been pressed into acting as an usher.

  “You have a suit. I saw you wear it at the funeral a few months back,” I said.

  There was a brief moment of awkwardness as we all remembered the funeral of Preacher Jacob, and the ensuing drama of me capturing his murderer and nearly being murdered myself.

  Luckily, our food arrived at that very moment, giving us all a chance to pause and collect our thoughts. As soon as the waitress was gone, Billy shot an annoyed glance at Suzy and then sighed. “The sister of the bride has proclaimed that I can't wear my funeral suit to Annie’s wedding. It’s a fashion faux pas.”

  “I'm not a queen, Billy. I don’t make proclamations. But I am your most fashionable friend, and I'm trying to keep you from looking like a dud at my sister’s wedding,” Suzy said.

  I laughed and patted Billy’s shoulder. “I'm sure I can find you something.”

  Billy brightened, as I took a huge bite of my Texas toast grilled cheese.

  “Emma Hooper!”

  I looked towards the sound of the voice and saw none other than Sheriff Larry Tucker walking towards our booth. He was in dark wash jeans and a light-wash denim shirt, and I realized it was one of the few times I’d seen him out of his Sheriff uniform since coming back to town. That plus his blonde hair and beard cropped short made him look more like a male model than a sheriff.

  Unable to respond since I was still chewing the much too large bite I’d taken of my sandwich, I lifted one hand in a greeting.

  Tucker and I had gotten to know one another better ever since the day I had solved the mystery of Prudence Huffler’s almost-murder. Tucker had arrived on that scene just in time to see a bad guy attempt to push me off a roof but fall off himself instead. Since then, the sheriff and I had grabbed coffee a couple times to discuss the finished case.

  “Hey Tucker,” Suzy said. “You off tonight?”

  Tucker looked down at his clothes as if he’d forgotten he wasn’t in his uniform and then ran a hand through his short hair. “A Sheriff’s never really off duty, but I’m out on the town tonight, as the kids say.”

  Suzy laughed. “You here alone?”

  He looked from me to Billy and back again, suddenly seeming a bit nervous. “Well, I actually stopped by Emma’s grandparents’ place a little bit ago, but heard she was here at the diner.”

  I swallowed the mass of bread and cheese, took a swallow of pop, and coughed out a response. “You were at my house?”

  True, Tuck and I had shared a friendly cup of coffee but he’d never visited me at home before. Why would he?

  “I figured I’d see if you wanted to grab dinner and catch up,” he said. “But it seems
like you already had plans.”

  “Sure did,” Billy said, scooting closer to me in the booth so our legs touched.

  “Maybe another time,” I said with a smile.

  Tucker winked at me. “I’ll stop by the farmhouse again soon.”

  “Sounds great, Tucker.”

  As soon as he left, the bell above the diner door ringing to announce his departure, Suzy lowered her head and raised her eyebrows at me. “What was that about?”

  “What was what about?” I asked.

  She continued to stare, refusing to let the subject go.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “He just wants to catch up. Ever since I was nearly murdered on the roof of the church after your wedding, Tucker and I have been chatting a little. I think he feels like I was useful in catching the bad guy. And we were friends once.”

  “No, you weren’t,” Suzy said, shaking her head, a fry hanging between her fingers like a cigarette. “He was three years older than us in school. We never even talked to him.”

  “It was a date,” Billy said. When we all turned to him, he ate another chili cheese fry and shrugged. “I work with Tucker at crime scenes enough to know when he’s asking a woman out, and he was asking Emma out.”

  I was surprised at the idea, but then I realized it made sense. It had been vain of me to think Tucker had been seeking me out lately just because he admired my crime-solving skills. Strange as it was to think of, maybe he had somehow gotten the impression that I was into him. Whether he had or not, it at least looked like he was into me.

  I lowered my head, embarrassed for some reason. Billy pushed the chili cheese fries closer to me, hitting my hand and making me look up. When our eyes met, he lifted half his mouth in a smile. “You better eat some of these before I finish them all.”

  “You better not!” I said, quickly grabbing a handful.

  4

  The drive back to the farm was much quieter than the drive to the diner. Billy hadn’t said much since Tucker had crashed the party, and he seemed too deep in his thoughts for me to interrupt. After a few minutes, he turned down the country music on the radio and drummed his fingers nervously on the steering wheel.

  “So,” he said, breaking the silence. “Where are you and Tucker going to go on your date?”

  I barked out a surprised laugh. “I’m not going on a date with him.”

  “You told him he could stop by the farmhouse soon,” he said. “That sounds like a date to me.”

  “You stopped by the farmhouse today, so does that mean this is a date?” I asked.

  Billy got very quiet, and I wondered whether I hadn’t stepped in something. Maybe Billy was feeling awkward that I was insinuating we were on a date when really, we’d just gone to the same diner we’d always gone to for burgers and fries. I was over-thinking everything.

  “Speaking of you coming to the farmhouse,” I said, transitioning away from the topic of dates. “When you showed up earlier, I got the call from my landlady’s son, right?”

  He nodded, though he still looked preoccupied. “Right, the lady who died.”

  “Yeah, well just before that phone call, I’d been out in the field looking for Snowball, and I saw something.”

  “Saw what?” Billy asked.

  I gave him a knowing look, and suddenly his eyes widened and he nodded his head. “You mean, like, a vision?”

  I shrugged, not sure how much to tell him. All the previous times we’d talked about the visions, that’s what he thought they were—hallucinations. If I ever confessed they were actual ghosts, I’d sound like a nut case.

  “What did you see?” he asked.

  I said, “I’m pretty sure I saw Blanche Wilkins, my landlady. It was before I even knew she’d died, but I would swear it was her. The figure I saw had on the same cotton, ankle-length style dress Blanche always wore, and had the same body shape.”

  Billy nodded, his lips twisted to one corner in thought.

  “What are you thinking?” I asked.

  He sighed. “I thought the visions would have stopped by now.”

  “So, you think something is wrong with me?” I asked, feeling defensive, even though I knew it was unfair of me. He couldn’t be expected to understand the truth when I had never fully explained it.

  He shook his head forcefully. “No, of course I don’t think that. It just means you have a bit further to go until you’re fully recovered. I really wouldn’t worry about it.”

  “But the vision did look remarkably similar to Blanche,” I couldn’t resist saying.

  “It could be the same thing that happened when you saw Preacher Jacob,” Billy said. “You saw an indistinct form, and then your memory filled it in later with the details of the person who passed away.”

  I wanted to point out that I had recognized the apparition as familiar the moment it appeared to me, not just after I heard it was Blanche Wilkins. But I wasn’t ready to admit yet that the visions were real. If I did, I was afraid Billy would call up one of his doctor friends—the kind who wore white coats and carried big nets. And so, as I had done so many times before, I put off telling him.

  “So, has Tucker been coming around to see you often?” Billy asked.

  “Whoa, that was quite the change of topic,” I teased, relieved nonetheless at the change of subject.

  “Some would argue you changed the topic by bringing up the vision you saw in the field,” he said. “I was just putting us back on course.”

  “Touché.”

  “You haven’t answered the question,” he said.

  “No, Tucker hasn’t been coming to the house. There’s nothing going on between us, and there will continue to be nothing going on between us. I promise.”

  “Hey, it makes no difference to me either way,” he said. “I was just curious.”

  “Yeah, sure,” I teased. “The way you interrogated me for the answers seemed pretty laid back.”

  Even in the dim light of dusk, I could see Billy’s cheeks were flushed. When he dropped me off, he jumped out of the driver’s seat and ran around the truck to open my door.

  “Sorry if I was a bit nosy,” he said, staring down at his boots. “I’ve seen Tucker hit on a lot of women, and I’d hate for you to become another girl in a long string of disappointed women.”

  “Please,” I said, hitting him playfully in the shoulder. “I am not a freshman girl swooning over the cutest senior in school. My tastes are much more refined now.”

  “Oh, really?” Billy asked. “Would you care to elaborate?”

  I hit him in the shoulder again and then wrapped my arms around his neck for a hug. “Absolutely not. Goodnight, Billy.”

  He squeezed me back and then climbed into his truck with a wave. I watched him drive down the dirt road until his tail lights disappeared behind a line of trees. When I turned back towards the house, the smile I’d been sporting only moments before fell to disbelief. Standing next to the barn was the same figure I’d seen in the back field earlier in the day.

  So close, it was obviously Blanche Wilkins. The apparition had a smoky kind of appearance, but I could make out the tightly permed hair, the broad flat nose, and the ring-covered fingers. It was unusual for a ghost to return to me again so soon after the first visit. Though, knowing what I did about Blanche, it wasn’t surprising she would be the first to push the barriers. Blanche was demanding and not afraid to go after what she wanted—whether that was rent money or an egg roll from a tenant’s Chinese takeout order.

  “Blanche?” I called nervously, hoping my voice wasn’t loud enough to draw the attention of anyone inside the house. They knew about me seeing spirits, but I wasn’t ready to talk about this one just yet.

  The bluish-white apparition wavered slightly. Was that a response?

  “Why are you here?” I asked, taking a step forward.

  Suddenly, the ghost Blanche froze up as if hit with a stun gun, seized, and disappeared.

  5

  After taking a few minutes to compose
myself, I pushed open the door to the farmhouse. Except, it wouldn’t open all the way. I pushed on the door again, and this time received a drowsy bleat in response.

  “Hang on, there. Hold on a minute.” I saw my grandpa walk by the crack in the door, groan as he picked something up, and then open the door for me. In his arms was a very sleepy Snowball. “This darned goat hasn’t moved away from the front door since you left. She was depressed or something.”

  “Really? She usually goes up to my room as soon as the sun sets,” I said, shrugging out of my jean jacket and hanging it from the hook behind the door.

  “I gave her a bit of encouragement to get up the stairs a few times, but she wouldn’t budge,” Grandma said, a steaming mug of tea in front of her on the table.

  “Does ‘encouragement’ mean a swift kick in the hind parts?” I asked.

  My grandpa, usually stoic, bit back a laugh, and I knew I’d guessed correctly.

  Grandma rolled her eyes and then pushed aside one of the kitchen chairs for me. “Come. Sit down. Tell me about your date.”

  “It was just dinner, Grandma. You were there when Billy asked.”

  “I know I was,” she said, lips pressed into a thin line. “And it sounded like a date to me.”

  I sighed, knowing I wouldn’t convince her otherwise. My grandma was anxious for me to get married so I could have children. She wanted there to be more little feet running through her house soon. She had always expected my parents to have more children for her to spoil, but they’d died in the car accident so young, leaving only me. And while I was technically a grandchild, she couldn’t spoil me the way she’d planned. Instead, she’d had to raise me.

  “What’s that smell?” I asked, nose high in the air like a coon hound on the hunt.

  “That is my award-winning pumpkin pie,” Grandma said proudly.

  I raised an eyebrow. “You’ve won awards for pumpkin pie?”

  “No, but I will. And Margene Huffler will eat a big plate of humble pie.”

  “Grandma! You are diabolical,” I said, wagging a finger at her, but unable to hide my smile.