Whiskey Witches by F.J. Blooding (mobile ebook reader txt) 📕

The trees were full and a little garden welcomed visitors with cheery color.

“Jackie, if I don’t make it back here in thirty minutes, come get me.” Not that she would. She was a car. Not a demon-special car. Not a talking car. Just a car. Normal felt great in that moment.

Time to find some information.

A tall woman with straggly brown hair greeted him. Her overly large eyes gave her an owl-like appearance. She tugged on her purple paisley shirt and gave him what he could only describe as a homely smile. “How can I help you?” The words rolled out on a wave of sweet, Southern accent.

Homely or not, she was clearly a woman. Women were lovely in every shape, color, and size. Well, unless they were evil and trying to tear you to shreds, then not so much. He leaned against the counter, his green t-shirt shifting across his hard abs.

Most women reacted the same way she was. He read her white name tag, beaming his charming smile. “Actually, Shelley, I hope so. I’m looking for a story that might have been printed in the local paper about a girl who died around here.”

“Oh, how dreadful.” Compassion filled her eyes.

He loved a woman with compassion. A rare thing these days. “I’m doing some research—”

“On which one?”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Which one, what?”

“Which plantation are you researchin’, silly?” Shelley opened her big blue eyes, ducking her head with a shy, school-girl smile. “I mean, we got a lot o’ ghost hunters who come through here lookin’ for evidence of people who died an’ what not.”

“Oh. Right.” Usually he had to come up with some dumb, pea-brained excuse to look up the dead. However, in this quiet little hamlet of do-gooders, they were used to people looking for proof of hauntings. He’d take it as a win. “I’m looking into the Metley Plantation.”

“Oh, well, we have all kinds of stories about that place.” She bustled around the end of the counter, leading the way to one of the six public computers. “That one’s just cursed. I swear, there was one time I went up there—just curious like, you understand—and I swear I felt a cold hand pass down my back.” Her breath caught in her throat as she blinked back tears.

Women. Such passionate creatures. He wondered if Paige could be that passionate about anything other than work and her daughter.

“And I heard a voice.”

Oh, people hearing voices in a creaky house. The human brain. Such a remarkable thing. “How long ago was this?”

“Well, now, it would have been right after Ashley was murdered.” She gripped the back of an orange, barely-cushioned chair. “I just can’t believe this could happen in our town. Everyone here’s so nice.”

“Did you know her? Ashley?”

Shelley shrugged. “I—I went to school with her.”

Was that shame curling her lip, or something else? “You weren’t friends, I take it.”

She shook her head.

Dexx turned to the computer. “Tell me all your records are SC—” He gestured to the computer. “—and not HC.” He flicked his hand to the stack of books on the rolling shelf tucked beside her.

She giggled. “I am going to have to remember that. Soft copy. Hard copy. Yes. Well, except for some of the really old ones. I’m still workin’ on those.”

“Just point me in the right direction.”

An hour and a half later, he came up with the same “ghost stories” he’d found the last time. The newspaper hadn’t printed stories about any murders except for one. It wasn’t even worth the trip to the court house to look at those records. He’d already done it the last time. Nothing new had happened.

So if this ghost didn’t die in the area, where did she die? And who was she?

Google was Man’s new best friend. Dogs didn’t fetch nearly as well, as far, nor as accurately. Hell, he could do this search on his phone, a thing he kept forgetting. He typed in the ghost’s name. Jessica Camley.

Shelley came peered over his shoulder. “Looks like you found somethin’.”

“Looks like I might have,” he murmured.

“Who’s Jessica Camley? We don’t have any Camley’s round here.”

He scanned through the first story. “Caught an EVP. It definitely sounded like she said her name was Jessica Camley.” He found a picture of her.

“Oh dear. She’s just a little girl.”

Jessica had been nine years old with long, straight brown hair. The picture showed her as a solemn girl, and from the look in her eyes, she hadn’t smiled much since birth.

“Oh, that’s just horrible, her parents dying all of a sudden-like and all.”

That wasn’t the worst part, though. Her parents had died suddenly at home within a week of one another. Her mother slipped in the bathtub. Her father, apparently, killed himself by exhaust fumes.

A news article filled in most of the information. She’d been bounced around from one foster home to another with claims of pet mutilation. Jessica Camley died. A fellow foster kid shot her with his father’s gun.

All this happened in California, far from Louisiana.

Shelley sat back in a lime green chair she’d brought over. “Well now, that just don’t make any sense. You’re sure this little girl said she was Jessica Camley?”

Dexx nodded, his lips twisted in thought. He crossed one arm over his chest and tapped the end of his nose with a finger. What was it that the girl said? I won’t go back? Back to where? Had she been trapped somewhere else, in her own little time warp?

He stood up, offering Shelley his hand. “Thanks for all your help. If you think of anything or see anything suspicious, would you call me?”

Her eager expression dipped into one of a shy girl. “You’re stayin’ with Fanny?”

“Yeah, but here’s my cell if you think of anything.”

“I’ll call,” she all but whispered.

Dexx walked out to his car, his mind scrambling through the information he’d gathered. He glared at Jackie as he approached her. “I was in there longer than thirty minutes. Where were you?”

Jackie remained silent.

“Ignoring me.” He opened her long, heavy door and slid in. “I see how you are.” He turned the key in the ignition.

No gasp. No rumble. No purr.

He stared at Jackie’s steering wheel. “Listen, baby, I didn’t mean it. I was joking. I’m sorry. You know how I am.”

Nothing.

“Jackie, I’m really, really sorry.”

When he turned the key the second time, she roared to life.

For a car with no communication skills, she had a lot more personality than he gave her credit for.

Paige was in trouble. A lot of it, and he needed to figure out just how deep the shit was here in the tiny little hamlet of St. Francisville.