The Great Jackalope Stampede (31 page)

“Yes, it’s clear. Open it.”

“It’s probably just some spare keys.” Or a golden pocket watch and other stolen treasures.

“Oh, for crissakes. Just give it to me and I’ll open it.”

“Hold your dang horses!” Claire scooted around so she could get a good grip on the box lid. “I found it; I get to open it.”

She shimmied off the box lid and lifted her chin to take a look inside.

“Holy shit!” She dropped the metal box in surprise.

The contents bounced, several spilling out and rolling every which way.

“What are those?” Ronnie asked, squinting into the shadows. “Marbles?”

“No,” Claire’s arms were covered with goosebumps as she plucked one up and held it close. “They’re eyeballs.”

Chapter Sixteen

The Shaft pulsed around Ronnie, loud and throbbing with life. The Saturday night crowd was rowdy and sweaty, filling the bar with pocketed smells of beer, perfume, cologne, and body odor. Katie had cranked up the volume on the jukebox twice now for the music to be heard over the racket of talking and periodic cheers for the college football team playing on the bar’s televisions.

Out on the dance floor, couples were kicking it up to Sawyer Brown’s version of George Jones’s old hit, “The Race Is On.” Natalie had finally given in to the bar’s male population, agreeing to one of the numerous dance requests she had received throughout the evening.

“What the hell?” she had told the tall, blond cowboy with a sun-weathered face. “It’s my last night in town,” had been her reasoning. “Let’s have some fun.”

Natalie was laughing while whirling around the cowboy, who kept sneaking glances at her chest. Ronnie knew her cousin well—the guy was allowed to look but not touch. Natalie’s right jab was legendary back home. She had not earned her nickname the Kangaroo for her ability to hop.

Ronnie watched her cousin flirt with her body. It sure would be nice to shake this cornered badger feeling and enjoy twirling around on a man’s arm for a night. She hadn’t danced with anyone for years, not even her husband. His idea of fun was a bottle of expensive wine, classical music, and a thick book on the history of French warfare. It was no wonder she had taken up gin—the drinking kind, not the card game.

“You found what?” Katie asked over the din, cutting through Ronnie’s woe-is-me thoughts.

Claire leaned over the bar, closing the distance between her and Katie, who was filling drink orders while Gary the bartender took his break. “A box full of eyeballs.”

Their youngest sister grimaced while she topped off Claire’s soda. “Please tell me they weren’t real.”

“Of course not. I didn’t say eyeball raisins, did I? The desert would dry a real eyeball up in a day or two at most, even in the shade.”

“So, like dolls’ eyes? Little glass marbles?”

Ronnie covered the rim of her glass when Katie grabbed the bottle of gin from the shelf behind her. Two drinks were her limit tonight. Even though Claire was playing designated driver, Ronnie wanted her wits about her if trouble came storming through the door looking to ask her about a watch.

“Bigger than doll eyes,” Ronnie told Katie.

“Were they prosthetic human eyeballs? Like what kept popping out of that pirate’s head in
Pirates of the Caribbean
?”

“Prosthetic eyes are just lenses, not full spheres,” Claire told her and took a sip of soda pop. “These were glass balls a little smaller than the human eye. Maybe they’re mannequin eyes.”

“Why would someone hide a box of eyeballs under their camper?”

Claire scoffed. “I’m more concerned about why someone would have a box of eyeballs at all. That’s way creepy.” She made a show of shivering in revulsion, which looked a lot like the real deal had when Claire had crawled out from under that camper this afternoon.

“Did you keep them?”

“She stuffed one in her pocket,” Ronnie piped up. “But she had to put the rest back before we could get a good look at them because Gramps came looking for Henry.”

Claire had been right about that dang dog—the barking got someone’s attention … Gramps’s. Luckily for them, while his golf cart moved quickly, he was slow climbing off of it. By the time he got to the back end of the camper, Claire and Ronnie had popped the screen back in place and were standing there pretending to discuss the work Claire planned to do in the canyon behind the R.V. park before winter arrived.

Suspicion had creased Gramps’s eyes, but he hadn’t voiced it.

“Do you have the eyeball on you now?” Katie asked Claire.

“No,” Ronnie answered for her. “We left it back in the R.V. park in a safe place.”

Which was really the inside zipper compartment in Ronnie’s suitcase stuffed in the Skunkmobile’s bedroom closet. It was the only spot onsite that Ronnie could think of in the few minutes she had to hide it while Gramps waited outside in his golf cart to take her back up to the General Store. They had dropped Claire off at the new building, where Chester had greeted her with a bucket of drywall mud and a trowel. Before stepping off the back of the cart, she had slipped Ronnie the eyeball with a whispered, “Hide it.”

So, hide it Ronnie had … for now.

But she planned to move it to a safer place as soon as she told Claire about her other hiding spot—the one where the gold pocket watch now rested, safe and sound. If Sheriff Harrison came nosing around, or any other Feds after he told them about that stolen German artifacts article, Claire and Ruby could say the watch was not at the R.V. park without lying.

“I want to see it,” Katie told them, pushing wisps of blonde hair back from her glistening face. The poor girl was working extra hard tonight since Butch was held up out of town for another couple of days.

“Why?” Claire reached in front of Ronnie and grabbed a handful of leftover potato chips from Natalie’s plate. “Take our word for it, there isn’t anything special about it, just weird.”

“Are you sure it’s made of glass and not ceramic?”

“Well, Kate, when I used my x-ray glasses,” Claire’s lips were crooked with a half grin, “it appeared to be a solid glass bead.”

Katie aimed the tap spray nozzle at Claire. “Keep it up, wiseass, and I’ll give you a pair of beer goggles to replace those x-ray glasses.”

“Kate,” the cook called out from the door heading back to the kitchen. “Phone call.” He held up a cordless phone. “It’s Butch.”

“I’ll take it back there.” She looked at Claire. “Cover for me for a second?”

Claire nodded.

Katie paused halfway to the door. “And don’t get into any fights while I’m gone.”

“You’re only going to be gone a few minutes.”

“That’s all it takes for you.”

Claire stuck out her tongue at their youngest sister’s back and then circled the bar, taking Katie’s place at the taps.

“I need to talk to you about something,” Ronnie told her. With Natalie still dancing and Katie in back, now was her opportunity to fill Claire in on the mess Ronnie had created with the pocket watch and how she had fixed it for the time being. Claire needed to be in on her secret before Grady showed up on Ruby’s doorstep asking about the watch and this all blew out of control.

She thought about how she had bribed Aunt Millie and her crew and smirked. Make that even more out of control.

Holding up her index finger in Ronnie’s direction, Claire leaned over and listened to Arlene’s drink order. Then she grabbed a pitcher from under the counter and brought it over to the taps.

“If you’re going to tell me not to make a big deal about the box of eyeballs,” Claire said pulling on a tap, “I don’t want to hear it.”

“I don’t know what to make of those eyeballs. That’s just serial killer kind of weird shit, so I’m not even going to go there.”

She scraped the foam head off the pitcher and topped it off. “What’s going on then?”

“It’s about the missing watch.”

Claire carried the beer pitcher down to Arlene, rubbing her lower right side under her ribcage as she returned. She frowned, still massaging. “What about it?”

Leaning forward, Ronnie mouthed more than said, “It’s stolen.”

“That’s what worries me. Who figured out how to get into that safe? They must have somehow gotten the combination.”

“No, I mean it was stolen from somewhere else.”

Claire’s gaze narrowed. “You found something at the library on it, didn’t you?”

Nodding, Ronnie unzipped her purse and pulled out the article. She spread it out on the bar in front of her.

“Put it away.” Claire did not look at it and instead shoved it back across the bar toward Ronnie.

“Wait, I need to show you—”

“We have company,” Claire said through a forced smile and wadded up the article, tossing it on the floor behind her. “Hi, Mom. What are you doing here?”

Ronnie’s back stiffened so fast her lower vertebrae cracked. Oh, God, no! The Sith Lord had found their rebel base.

Deborah slid onto Natalie’s bar stool, her lips wrinkled as she pushed the half empty glass of beer in Ronnie’s direction.

The notes of sandalwood and jasmine in her mother’s Chanel No. 5 perfume was extra strong tonight, burning the back of her throat. Ronnie wished upon her empty gin glass to be beamed anywhere else but The Shaft.

“I’m here for a drink.”

“Why?” Claire did not hide her shock.

“What do you mean why?” Deborah looked around. “Isn’t this where you go if you want to get happy?”

“That depends on who you are,” Ronnie said dryly. She suspected finding happiness was impossible for her mom, since the doctors had removed her funny bone at birth according to Gramps.

“Don’t get snippy with me tonight, Veronica,” Deborah warned. “I’m in no mood for it.” She turned back to Claire. “I’d like some cognac on ice.”

“Mom, don’t you think—” Claire started.

“I’m tired of thinking, Claire. Just give me the damned drink.” She slammed her fist down on the bar.

“Okay, okay.” Claire held up her hands and scanned the bottles lining the shelves behind the bar. “One cognac on the rocks coming up.”

“Cognac was your grandmother’s favorite drink,” Deborah said as Claire poured.

“I remember.” Claire winced and rubbed her side again. “I remember a lot about her.”

“So do I.” Deborah’s tone was not reminiscent. It matched the wrinkle in her lip.

“Listen, Mom.” Claire capped the bottle. “If this is going to turn into some Ruby versus Grandma contest, I’m not in the mood to hear it.”

“There is no contest.” Deborah sipped from her glass.

“Mother,” Ronnie cautioned. “That’s enough.” They all knew that Claire had been Grandma’s favorite. Attacking their grandmother was a very shitty way of hurting Claire, and Ronnie was not going to let that happen tonight. She needed Claire to focus on the watch, not their screwed up family politics.

Deborah snorted. “Ruby wins.”

“Why’s that?” Claire took the bait in spite of Ronnie’s head shake. “Because she’s still alive?”

“No.” Deborah grabbed a stirrer stick and put it to work, dragging this out, which Ronnie suspected was all part of her show tonight. “Because she’s a hell of a lot nicer than your grandmother was.”

“Mother, you’re cussing.” Ronnie leaned closer and sniffed. It was like burying her head in a bouquet of extra-scented flowers. “How many glasses of wine did you have before coming here?”

“None. I don’t mix wine with hard liquor; it makes me do irresponsible things.” Deborah’s pink lips pursed. “How do you think I ended up pregnant with you while I was still in high school?”

That gave Ronnie pause. She had not heard this version of her story of conception before. Previously, the tale had involved variations of romance, not booze.

“What do you mean she’s nicer?” Claire asked, giving a customer at the other end of the bar the one-minute finger. “Grandma was very sweet.”

“Sure she was—to her grandchildren. But not to her daughters.”

“You’re just trying to get me back for something by insulting her.”

“No, Claire. This isn’t about you.”

“Hold that thought,” she ordered and went to fill some glasses of beer, leaving Ronnie alone with their mother.

“What are you doing here really, Mom? You know how close Claire was with Grandma. Why are you trying to hurt her? Just to pull her down into that miserable shithole you’re living in?”

“You shut your mouth right now, Veronica Lee. I don’t know what has gotten into you since your marriage went sour, but judging from the way you’ve been giving me the cold shoulder, you’re placing the blame for your failure on me when you are the one who stood up at that altar and said, ‘I do.’”

A lightning bolt of anger seared through her, making her fingers and toes tingle, her gut burn. “You nudged me all of the way up there, Mother.”

“No, all I did was show you what Lyle looked like on paper—all dollar bills and expensive assets. You’re the one who was bitten by greed and overlooked his tendency to flirt with younger women at parties. Especially blondes.” Her lips twisted in chagrin. “He really had a thing for pretty young blondes, didn’t he?” She took another drink of cognac.

Ronnie gaped. “You knew about the other women from the start and you didn’t tell me?”

Her mother shot her a sideways glance. “It was right in front of you, Veronica.”