Page 10

Eve

Ghost Stories

There was a blur of movement. Harper screamed. I pulled her against me, where she trembled as I wrapped my arms around her. Half my brain was trying to figure out what had crashed into us—something long and drape-y that hung from a clothesline like a creepy scarecrow.

The other half was reveling in how soft Harper’s skin was.

I was a few inches taller, so my nose pressed into her hair, which smelled like a combination of oranges and sunshine that seemed entirely out of place in this abandoned ghost town. Her fingers clutched at my top. Her face was pressed to the front of my neck.

A bizarre and confusing warmth hummed through my chest at her nearness, frying every coherent thought. When she raised her head to look at me, her eyes were wide and luminous in the moonlight.

The temptation to strip her bare and taste every single inch of her ached like a sunburn. Harper Hendrix was as irritating to me as she was intriguing. A new compulsion I couldn’t shake.

Wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to.

“Eve?” she whispered, lips parted.

I blinked. Attempted to swallow and couldn’t. Attempted to speak.

Couldn’t.

She squeezed her eyes shut again. “I’m too afraid to look.

Can you just tell me if the creature dangling ominously next to us is a ghostly demon, hell-bent on eating me?

And I know I sound like I’m joking, and I partially am, but I’m also being deeply, deeply serious, and I know I’m babbling, and it’s the worst look, but I’m terrified of ghosts?

And I know they’re not real, or maybe they are, but it doesn’t really matter because I’ve been this way since I was fifteen and I can’t help it? ”

Grateful for a task, I cupped the back of her neck and peered over at the thing. Which—now that I was no longer stunned stupid by the smell of Harper’s hair—I could easily see was nothing dangerous.

I pressed my mouth to the top of her head. “It’s just a Halloween prop. The kind of thing you’d see in a haunted house. It’s safe to look, no demons in sight.”

Harper went rigid in my arms. Sensing her discomfort, I pulled back an inch, and she sprang away from me. She straightened her shoulders, sniffed once, and tucked a loose tendril behind her ear.

I jammed both hands into my back pockets and shrugged. “So, yeah, you’re good. We’re good.”

Her throat worked. She cast a sideways glance at the thing and visibly shuddered.

“Are you okay?” I asked, concerned.

She flushed, smiling nervously. “Sorry for…you know, leaping into your arms, then word vomiting my intrusive thoughts all over you. I was mostly kidding about, uh, the ghost stuff. After constantly bickering with each other, I thought sharing my childhood traumas could bring a breath of fresh air to our competition.”

Silence lingered in the wake of her words, her flush deepening with every second.

A surprising burst of empathy yanked at me, given that mere minutes earlier I’d been accusing her of being an uptight workaholic.

But I knew what it was like to be desperately, nakedly vulnerable in front of someone who only ever made you feel embarrassed for it.

“Keeping things fresh is smart,” I said, flashing a grin I hoped was comforting. “I wouldn’t want our arguments growing stale, you know?”

A tiny, grateful smile appeared on her face, a response that felt truly earned.

It caused a corresponding flutter, low in my belly.

“And no apology needed,” I added, keeping my tone light.

“I’ve always been afraid of spiders, would rather be dunked in a sea of sharks than spot one skittering across my bathtub.

My family used to…” I hesitated. “Well, they’re all academics, most of them professors.

Ivy League. They used to lecture me whenever I came running into a room, away from whatever insect that had frightened me.

Fear’s just an emotion, easily rationalized.

Easily conquered. Or so they used to tell me. ”

Harper tipped her head to the side. “They said that to you as a child ?”

“It sure didn’t help. I’m still deathly afraid of ’em,” I admitted.

Harper chewed on her bottom lip. “But the opposite is true. Our fear is…it’s biological, it’s how we evolved. I sometimes forget…”

She trailed off, then shook her head.

“Anyway, it’s not important,” she said quickly. “My mom died suddenly when I was fifteen. I’ve had this lingering and very irrational fear of ghosts and scary-movie-type things ever since.”

My brow furrowed, chest aching. “That is important. Very important. Is it hard to talk about? We can go back to bickering if that’s easier.”

Her face shifted open. So different from the variety of guarded expressions she’d worn during each one of our encounters thus far.

But then came the sound of a door swinging open, heavy boots on a porch. We turned toward it in unison.

A burly white man with a shaved head stood framed in the doorway of the only building with lights on. “Are you two Harper and Eve? I’m sorry about the ghoul hittin’ ya, my mistake. I’m not really a contraption kind of guy, but sometimes the tourists like it.”

I remained frozen in place, totally forgetting the very reason why I was here tonight. Harper, however, was startled into action, instantly bright and professional.

She strode forward with her hand outstretched. “You must be Waylon Boyle. I’m Harper Hendrix with the New York Review . We spoke on the phone earlier today?”

Waylon shook her hand, then nodded toward me. “You’re Monty’s niece, aren’t you?”

“Yep, I’m Eve,” I said with a nod in return.

Jensen’s confidence at the dig site had rattled me. Had sent me poring back over Monty’s old notes and former leads with a fine-tooth comb, searching for what they might have missed.

I knew Monty and Ruby had interviewed him about the locket, years ago, but I never found a summary of what they’d learned, just a faded scrap of Monty’s notes that said Waylon is definitely lying.

“Come in, both of you,” Waylon grumbled. “I had a last-minute group book this afternoon, so I’m squeezing you two in together. Hope that’s not inconvenient.”

“Not at all,” Harper said cheerfully.

We followed him into his crowded office.

Posters on the wall advertised the more ghastly elements of the town, plus a few framed newspaper articles about his tour business.

Boxes full of files lay haphazardly around the space, and in front of his desk were two rusted over lawn chairs, turned cracked and pale.

Harper eyed them both, somewhat quizzically, but managed to sink down on one gracefully, crossing one leg over the other.

I stayed standing, propping my right shoulder against a bookcase. Waylon dropped into his own chair on the other side of the desk with a tired sigh. He was probably in his early sixties, and faded tattoos spilled over every cuff and collar.

He narrowed his eyes at Harper. “You’re the one who’s been calling, yeah?”

“I’m doing research for a story on the Blackburn Diamonds,” she said, “and Nadine at Barb’s Pawn Shop pointed me in your direction.”

“And you?” he asked, turning my way.

I shot him a look. “I think you know why I’m here.”

He huffed out a laugh, picking up a glass of what looked like whiskey. “Every damn treasure hunter in the tri-county area’s been out here this week, all asking me about that locket I sold to Nadine. Are you two working together?”

“Absolutely not,” I said, just as Harper replied, “I’m trying to convince her we should.”

Which reminded me that any new information he gave us tonight would be heard not only by me, but also by the very persistent reporter I was desperately trying to stay one step ahead of.

At least until ten minutes ago, when I was—happily—protecting her from ghosts.

Bemused, he swirled his whiskey and took a sip. “Well, whatever you two are, you’ve got competition. A lot of it, and well-funded by the looks of it.”

My stomach twisted into knots.

“Did you know the locket was Priscilla Blackburn’s when you sold it to Nadine?” I asked.

He cleared his throat, swiping at a clump of dust on his desk. “My great-great-great-uncle Harry Boyle owned the Haven’s Bluff general store, about an hour north of here.”

Harper perked up at this information, scribbling something down in her notebook.

“My family’s always been into genealogy, had all this research done,” Waylon continued.

“My uncle Harry never married, never had kids, but seemed like the unofficial mayor of Haven’s Bluff.

A typical Western mining town, though a bit bohemian for its day.

That general store is now a state historical landmark. ”

Waylon pointed at a framed picture on the wall. “He lived in an apartment on the second floor of the shop, and in the attic, he had all these old records stored, along with a bunch of pictures. And that locket.”

Harper glanced up from her notes. “It’s one of the reasons why people believe she made it all the way out here, right?”

“Sure is,” he said. “Eventually it was just one of those things, y’know, passed down on my father’s side, with a note attached that read William and Priscilla .

Wasn’t hard for us to piece it together from there.

Her disappearance is still one of those unsolved mysteries people love to theorize about. ”

I tipped forward. “Waylon. Was there anything in those old papers indicating who gave Harry that locket? Or how it came to be in his possession?”

Priscilla. Say it was Priscilla.

It’d been my and Monty’s secret theory all along—that the diamonds were buried somewhere between Santa Fe and Haven’s Bluff because Priscilla Blackburn and Harry Boyle knew each other. That this area was chosen on purpose.

Though my conviction was partially based on evidence, and partially on pure, foolish hope.

If Monty were here, she’d say, That’s what treasure hunting is, kid .

Waylon held my gaze. “I wish I knew. Everyone’s always asking, but I don’t know shit about where it came from or why he kept it and never sold it. I ain’t got a clue.”

He busied himself with tidying a stack of papers on his desk. Harper and I made tenuous eye contact, and I wondered if she was thinking the same thing I was.

Waylon was lying.

“So what do you think happened?” Harper asked. “I’m sure you’ve thought about it.”

He propped his elbows on the desk. “Yeah, I’ve got a theory. I come from a long, proud line of thieves and scammers. Harry was probably the first.”

Disappointment flickered across Harper’s face, matching my own.

“ If Priscilla Blackburn made it all the way out here without getting caught—or killed—it would have been a miracle. Either she made it here and Harry stole it from her? Or Harry took it off of whoever originally stole it. Hell, he could have won it in a poker game for all we know. But if you want my theory…the locket’s a red herring, not an actual clue. ”

“But what about her name written in that log at the general store?” Harper asked. “The eyewitness accounts in the paper?”

Waylon rubbed a hand across his bald head. “A lot of people think that stuff was forged or made up. Priscilla was on the run from a rich and powerful man. Why would she do anything to give away her location?”

Another wave of disappointment crashed through me at Waylon’s casual dismissal of a story that had captivated my imagination for most of my adult life.

It was unnerving, having so many paths continue to come up empty. My most persistent late-night anxiety wasn’t that someone else would find the diamonds before we did.

It was that the real reason Ruby and Monty hadn’t succeeded the first time was because the diamonds never existed in the first place. That they really were just an old campfire story.

Harper tapped her pen against the side of her notebook. “Then maybe coming here was intentional. Maybe your uncle Harry was Priscilla’s contact out here. He could have helped her on her journey.”

I sent her a covert look, surprised that she’d come round to my and Monty’s favorite theory through instinct alone.

“Why do you say that?” Waylon asked.

“I can’t know without proof, obviously,” Harper said. “But given the time period, she would have needed a solid plan to steal her husband’s fortune and not get caught. And she would have needed help to do so, which is why I was wondering if your uncle was an accomplice.”

“Huh,” Waylon said, twisting his glass of whiskey back and forth. “That’s an interesting idea.”

“Think about it,” Harper said, growing more excited.

“She was a white woman in the 1900s, married to an oil baron. Her freedom was limited, yes, but she had way more privilege than most. She was risking that privilege, risking her reputation, her safety, her future. She’d broken the law and by all accounts fled, alone, into a part of the country that still relied on vigilante justice. ”

Waylon arched an eyebrow. “What’s your point?”

“That this was a last resort for her. That Priscilla Blackburn had to have an extremely valid reason to do what she did, given what she left behind.”

I shifted on my feet, suddenly restless, thinking of all I’d been keeping from Harper.

“William could have been abusive, certainly,” Harper continued. “But maybe she fell in love with someone else. Someone she wasn’t supposed to.”

“Like who?” I asked.

She peered over at me with cheeks gone pink. “What if…what if she’d fallen in love with another woman?”