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  “Then why were you climbing up the second-floor balcony and jimmying a window?” Todd says. “Tami, he was breaking into your hotel.”

  “I was preparing it for one of the ghostly events,” Evan says. “Tami, tell him to let me out.”

  I flash Todd an overly appreciative glance and simper, “My, my, I’m ever so grateful you’re keeping Hallowed Haunts safe, but Mr. Graves works for me. I hired him to architect the entertainment systems.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?” Todd glares at the ghost hunter who’s wearing a fedora, a canvas vest full of pockets over a shirt with flap pockets on the sleeves, and cargo pants—yep, full of bulging pockets.

  “I consider it my job to test the security of the site,” Evan says. “You passed.”

  “That’s right, he passed.” I touch Todd’s forearm. “Now, if you’ll let Evan out, we can mosey out over to the hotel and get it all set up. Wouldn’t it be cool if you dress as an old-time sheriff? I’d feel so much safer with you around.”

  “You expecting trouble?” His eyes narrow, and he crosses his arms.

  “Not at all. It’s going to be fun, but some of the guests will have scares and ghostly encounters. I’m planning a dance in the ballroom among the spirits, and it’ll be fun for you to do some undercover work.”

  His eyebrows rise momentarily, and I can almost see the wheels turning in his mind. But they come to a grinding halt when Shane comes back with the loaves of bread.

  The professional demeanor snaps back onto Todd’s face. It’s that alpha male thing—not weakening in front of a subordinate. I understand.

  He unlocks the holding cell to let Evan out. He sends him to Shane to process the exit paperwork, and thanks me for the food.

  “I’m sorry, Tami.” He shrugs and looks anywhere but at my face. “Fill out the event form, and I’ll see what I can do. I’m going to have to be on duty and not dressed up old-fashioned and carrying a six-shooter.”

  My cheeks burn, but I have to keep my cool. I saunter by him, pick up the event form from Shane, grab my gigantic purse from the chair, and whoosh out the station door.

  “Hey, wait for me,” Evan calls out and chases me down in front of my car, a vintage Datsun 280ZX Turbo.

  He barely has time to jump into the two-seater before I floor the accelerator and dare Todd to chase me down.

  Three

  ~ Todd ~

  I let my gaze linger after Tami’s departure.

  Every town has a princess, and Tami King is a fitting one for Colson’s Corner. The town might be named after my great-great-grandfather, but it was hers, Henry King, or Hank, as he liked to be called, who greased the wheels to turn a collection of canvas tents and mud trails into a settlement with shops, permanent houses, a church steeple, and a traditional town square.

  Hank was one of the latecomers. He missed the “golden year,” when placer gold washed down the rivers and creeks, easy for the pickings. Instead of dredging the same riverbeds and streams that other miners had picked over, he explored caves and tunnels inside the hills. People called him a fool, because the gold embedded inside the quartz veins was harder to extract—but his efforts were rewarded when he carried out a fifty-pound nugget of gold from a location he never revealed.

  Knowing when to cash in the chips is the mark of a wise man, and old King Henry, as my forefathers used to call him, wasted no time in declaring himself king of the mountain. He parlayed that gold into the area’s first bank and laid the cornerstone to the settling of Colson’s Corner by men who moved in with their wives and children, started businesses, and formed a community.

  One that eventually shut down the saloons and bordellos by the time Prohibition rolled around.

  “You going to chase her down?” Shane shoots a smirk at me, referring to Tami’s penchant for exceeding the speed limit. The man is my subordinate, but he’s always acting as if he has something on me.

  “Not today.” I take the exit paperwork on Evan Graves from him. “Spooky Fest’s coming up too soon, and we need to hire additional security for the added traffic. Have you gone over those resumes?”

  “You’re avoiding the hot mama in the room.” He makes a whiffing noise. “Or rather the hot mama who whooshed out of here. Come on, Chief, it’s obvious she has the hots for me.”

  For him? I suppose he could come to that conclusion since Tami’s always stopping by. But seriously, Tami flirts with everyone. She’s friendly and congenial and our town’s biggest booster.

  Except she causes me more trouble than good. More traffic means more crime and danger. We haven’t even solved the arsons that hit us this past year, and she’s now inviting the unvetted world to Spooky Fest for Halloween. Just what we need—a horde of tourists and celebrities—bombarding the town with traffic, medical emergencies, and property crimes—both as perps and victims.

  “Chief?” Shane repeats. “Shall I chase her down?”

  I also hate the way he calls me “chief,” or at least the tone he takes bordering on insubordination.

  He’s not from around here. Drifted in from San Francisco where public defecation and drug use are tolerated over the right of citizens to exercise free speech and bear arms.

  “Get your feet off the desk, Officer Donnelly,” I counter. “If you want to give Miss King a speeding ticket, be my guest.”

  “Sure. All you ever do is let her off with a warning,” Shane says. “She’ll never learn until you find her wrapped around a tree.”

  He pushes his cowboy hat over his stringy longish hair and strides out of the station.

  I shudder at the image of Tami’s red-hot vintage sports car without airbags. Maybe I should lay down the law with Miss Pretty Powder Puff soon.

  Although laying down is better enjoyed outside of the law, and boy, does Tami have a lot of sweet curves to lay on. She’s a real woman—soft and pretty with ribbons on top. I’ve known her most of my life, and she’s always clean and feminine, with sky-blue eyes and straight blond hair. Her clothes are tidy and stylish, and her shoes polished to a shine. She’s not one of those women who gets her hands dirty, and her makeup is tasteful and neat.

  Unlike my sister, Linx, who’s a tomboy and ran wild in the woods, doing a stint as a firefighter before becoming a dog rescuer, Tami works desk jobs. She’s a real estate agent and volunteers with several charities, works with the city council, and heads the Chamber of Commerce.

  She’s smart, accomplished, polished, and way above my pay grade. She went to college at age sixteen, and I was sure she wasn’t coming back. She could have been a big city lawyer or a professor or a business executive on Wall Street if she stayed away.

  But I reckon she loves her parents more, and since she’s an only child, she returned to Colson’s Corner to do the accounting for her mom’s bed and breakfast and help her father at the bank, all the while trying to bring her big city tastes into our neck of the woods and pushing us onto the information superhighway—with the cell towers replacing the pay phones first, and now, her proposal of turning our peaceful little hamlet into some kind of Gold Rush tourist trap, complete with outlet malls, theme parks, and a reenacted “downtown” centered around her latest project, a haunted hotel.

  Over my big, live body.

  Before I start fantasizing about her riding said big, live body, I’m interrupted by Molly Sutter, our dispatcher, screeching to a stop in front of the station. Her front wheels crawl halfway up the parking bumper, and her front end barely misses the porch. I fought tooth and nail against putting those in, because they don’t keep the historical look, but with Molly around, I’m glad Tami forced the city council to install them. It’s too bad they removed the hitching posts no one uses. To me, they added charm and were a convenient place to lean up against to shoot the breeze—without a stalk of hay in my mouth—I’m not that country.

  “Hiya, Sheriff,” Molly says, sauntering through the door. “Got my check?”

  She already missed most of the workday, but she has the nerve to c
ome by for her paycheck.

  “You’re late,” I say in a harsh voice. “And please don’t tell me there’s traffic.”

  “There is traffic.” She snarls as she pushes her special ergonomic chair to the desk, shoving my old one aside. She throws her backpack on the floor and shrugs out of her old high school hoodie. Her hair is a disheveled mass of curls, and she throws the heap over her shoulders where it bounces back over her face.

  When I don’t contradict her, she repeats. “There’s a huge line of traffic on 49.”

  That’s the main highway winding through the Mother Lode country alongside the North Fork of the Yuba River. It’s euphemistically called the Golden Chain Highway, although all the easy-pickin’ gold was washed out long ago, followed by tunneling and digging into the mountainside and crushing quartz for embedded gold.

  But then, gold fever never dies, and the hills are haunted by prospectors and their ilk, too stubborn to leave these parts. After a storm, the area is deluged with weekend “snipers” going through the creek debris and fighting over gravel beds.

  Molly Sutter’s family is as old as the hills, and despite her last name being synonymous with the Gold Rush, her family has been hanging on the edge of poverty well above the snowline.

  “What’s the cause of the traffic?” I offer her a piece of Tami’s oatmeal bread.

  “You didn’t hear?” She rips a piece of crusty bread with her teeth. “There’s a social media ghost hunt at the haunted hotel. It starts after dark.”

  “I thought the hotel was still under construction.” The hairs on the back of my neck stiffen. “Tami hasn’t even filled out the event application, and there’s nothing listed on the town calendar.”

  “They brought in food trucks and a portable bar.” Molly fills a bowl of Tami’s beef. “Porta-potties and a marching band.”

  “I haven’t seen any flyers posted,” I continue my useless protest. “How could they have advertised it?”

  “They posted it online and on social media.” Molly rolls her eyes. “You don’t subscribe to Tami’s feed?”

  “What feed?” I’m thinking livestock, but that can’t be it.

  “Her blog feed, her MeTube channel, her FacePlant livestream.” Molly’s words are gibberish, but I figure I better bone up on this online thing if I’m to keep up with Tami’s schemes.

  “Can’t be many people driving all the way up here to tramp around a construction site.” Even as I opine, anxiety floods my nerve endings, and I figure I better do a drive-by.

  “I’m estimating at least a thousand cars,” Molly says. “Traffic’s backed up past Hangman’s Bridge. People are wearing costumes, and she’s offering games and prizes. If a ghost photobombs your selfie, you can enter to win a free room during Spooky Fest and a chance at finding a gold nugget.”

  “We didn’t approve this event.” Grabbing my hat, I rush out of the police station. I call Shane and tell him to meet me at the former Bee Sting Bordello which is now renamed Hallowed Haunts Hotel.

  It claimed to be a prospector’s boarding home but was a house of ill repute back in the Gold Rush days when a particular Madame Goldilocks took over. She ruled with a stout hatpin, and she was quick to sting anyone who ran afoul of her. In her old age, one of her working girls turned the stinger back on her, and she was found impaled at the base of the grand staircase.

  “Where’s the fire?” Shane asks with a lazy drawl.

  “Did you pull Tami over for speeding?” I demand. “Is she there with you?”

  “Nope, she eluded my radar.” He crunches what sounds like one of Tami’s Candy Crisp apples. “What did she do now?”

  “She’s having an unauthorized public event.” I don’t wait for his reply. After rushing out of the station, I take the motorcycle and get stuck behind a row of campers. I flip on the siren and dash into the opposing lane to cross the river at Hangman’s Bridge, almost slamming into a clown car before swerving to a stop in front of the high school band.

  Screams and squeals bounce all over the property as the revelers discover locations to take pictures. It doesn’t sound like anyone is in danger, but this is an unauthorized gathering around a quasi-historical site.

  Tami’s Hallowed Haunts is situated on a spit of land on the opposite side of Sandman’s Creek from Colson’s Corner’s town center. Since it was across the creek, it was originally a camp for Chinese miners. After the Chinese were driven from town, it became a boarding house, gambling casino, and a bordello all in one.

  Not surprisingly, legend has it that Madame Goldilock’s boarding house was built over a Native American burial ground.

  Tonight, the site is littered with construction debris, wheelbarrows, trash containers, and piles of building material. The two-story building is wrapped around with balconies, and scaffolding is still in place where the workers are painting and making repairs.

  It was built with horizontally-stacked rock walls, fireproof iron doors and shutters over the windows, made to withstand the frequent fires that raged through the mining towns. Like most bordellos back in the day, the upstairs rooms were reserved for working girls or as they called them, soiled doves, and they were kept behind bars with windows nailed shut to keep the birds caged.

  The tavern and casino downstairs offered grub and gambling, where every method from card games to watered down whiskey was devised to part a man from his gold dust. Knife and gunfights broke out frequently, and the bouncers weren’t averse to throwing a guy out, then killing him and rifling his pockets.

  “Across the creek” or ATC was a phrase the old-timers used to scare their children into toeing the line, because you never know what creatures might get you across the creek. It didn’t help that the bridge connecting the town to the red-light district was named Hangman’s Bridge and rumored to be appropriately haunted.

  I remove my helmet and hook it over the handlebars as my gaze immediately locks on to Tami. She’s wearing a gaudy pioneer-era dress with a hoop skirt and a preponderance of ruffles. The ties over her bosom are strained, and she’s strutting around taking selfies with her fans. Several buskers play instruments or juggle hacky sacks and pins, and one man has a dog jumping through a fiery hoop. A group of boys shoot poppers that propel confetti, and small children chase each other waving sparklers. A gaggle of sorority types wearing sunglasses are keeping a beachball in the air, and clowns on stilts tower above the crowd.

  I march toward the miscreant lawbreaker and prepare to jawbone her. The crowd parts for me, giving me a straight shot at Tami the troublemaker.

  Parking my large body in her path, I growl, “Miss King. This here’s an unlawful assembly. You’ve stuffed up traffic in town, heaped up trash, and have no security plan or authorization for this gathering. Why didn’t you let me know about this?”

  “Why, I invited you, but you refused to come along for a look-see.” Her tone is saucy, as if she thinks everything is one grand ol’ game.

  “You didn’t invite me. You told me to get dressed for opening night.” I wave my hand broadly at the melee. “This is not opening night. This is an unauthorized gathering.”

  She hooks her hand around my elbow. “Then join us. Hey, everyone! This here’s Sheriff Colson. Who wants to take a selfie with our lawman? Who knows what ghosts he has hanging around his neck? Maybe a notorious bank robber or outlaw from the past.”

  Before I can counteract her, the beach-blond sorority sisters surround us, chanting, “Eta Epsilon Chi, Eta Epsilon. Hex for Sex. Hex for Sex.”

  Selfie sticks whip out, and everyone’s all over me, snapping away when a howling scream rises above the party sounds.

  I look up at the balcony in time to catch a woman in a white flowing gown float out one of the windows and hover over the edge of the railing.

  Chills creep down my spine as I realize I can see through her.

  Four

  ~ Tami ~

  I’ve got Todd Colson right where I want him, and I’m not a letting go. My hand is like a bear trap a
round his arm, and I’m surrounded by my loyal HEX Sorority sisters.

  Todd gapes at the apparition floating over the balcony, and I can feel his body tense.

  “Did you see that?” I gasp. “It’s the Weeping Widow. Quick everyone, whoever gets her in their selfie wins.”

  With a coordinated scream, my HEX sisters rush into the foyer of the hotel and trample up the stairs.

  “Wait, that’s a construction site,” Todd says. “It’s not safe. You have tools and stuff lying around.”

  “It’s fine,” I assure him, now that I have him to myself.

  His lips are puckered with worry, and his brows are knit low. How I wish I can kiss his anxiety away.

  “This is an unauthorized event,” he says. “I’m going to have to disperse everyone for their own safety. Then you’re coming down to the station with me.”

  “Are you arresting me?” I wiggle my bounteous boobs at him and extend my hands, wrists together. “Handcuff me, please.”

  He brushes me aside and heads for his motorcycle. I don’t know how he’s going to disperse everyone, especially since more ghosts appear through windows and are hanging off the rafters.

  “Hey, you, Sheriff.” I follow him closely. “I’m getting away. Aren’t you going to stop me from resisting arrest?”

  “You’re not exactly resisting, honey,” he says. “But in the interest of public safety, I have to get control of the crowd first. I’ll deal with you later.”

  “What exactly are you charging me for?” I flutter my eyelashes and put one hand on my hip to accentuate my curves. “It’s not my fault everyone showed up.”

  “Oh, yeah? You organized this whole shebang without a permit.” He activates his radio and calls the station house. “I need Donnelly here with the megaphone to help me with crowd control.”

  His frown deepens as he futzes with the radio volume. “What do you mean Donnelly is gone? Where? Page him. And Sutter, I’m deputizing you right now. I need you here with the riot gear.”