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A minutebefore my appointment with Doc, I stuffed the listings I’d printed into my tote and headed for the front door. My cell phone trilled as I stepped out into the afternoon heat.
Aunt Zoe’s phone number showed on my screen. “Hello?”
“Mom,” Layne sounded winded. “Will you pick up some ammonia on your way home tonight?”
I stopped just short of Doc’s door. “What do you need ammonia for?”
“For boiling the skull, of course.” He said it as if we boiled skulls for supper every night. “Do we have any peroxide?”
I covered my eyes with my free hand. “You’re going to cook the skull in ammonia and peroxide? I don’t think that’s safe, Layne.”
“No, Mother.” His tone held a nonverbal “duh.” “The peroxide is for bleaching.”
Something meowed in the background. Aunt Zoe didn’t own a cat. “Was that a cat, Layne?”
“Gotta go, Mom. Don’t forget the ammonia.”
I swore under my breath as I snapped my phone shut. I sure hoped Aunt Zoe had fire insurance.
Shaking off Layne’s phone call, I pushed open the door to Doc’s office and noticed he had company.
A shirtless man with curly gray hair smiled at me from his perch on the edge of Doc’s desk. Behind him, Doc peered at his bare back with a magnifying glass.
“Sorry.” My cheeks lightly toasted, I turned my back, pretended to stare out the window, and tried to find something to do with my hands. It’s not like I hadn’t seen a bare-chested man before. Hell, I ogled the tanned torsos of road construction crews along with every other sex-starved female south of the Arctic Circle. I just hadn’t expected to come across so much exposed flesh and chest hair in Doc’s office at one o’clock on a Wednesday.
“I’m pretty sure it’s just a mole,” Doc’s baritone voice sounded extra loud in my fidgety brain.
“Thanks, Doc.”
I heard a pair of boots hit the wood floor. I turned my head just a bit and peeked at the two men.
The older guy slid his plaid shirt back on and picked up a book from the chair opposite Doc’s desk. “I’ll see you next week.”
I tried to read the name of the book as he nodded at me on his way out the door, but his hand covered the title.
As soon as the door closed behind Doc’s visitor, I whirled around. “I thought you weren’t a doctor.”
“I’m not. He was confused.”
So was I. “But he’s coming back next week?”
“He needs my help.” Doc grabbed some keys from his top drawer. “Ready to go?”
I nodded, but didn’t budge when he held open the door for me. “Who are you really, Mr. Nyce?”
“I’m just a man trying to buy a house, Ms. Parker.”
I may not have dated since acid-wash jeans were in style, but I knew a brushoff when I heard one. With a mental sigh, I crossed the threshold. “I’ll drive.”
Two hours and two houses later, we bounced along a steep hillside street in Deadwood’s northern Forest Hill neighborhood. My knuckles were white as I clenched the steering wheel, but not due to the steep dropoff on my left.
There was definitely something odd about Doc. Something that made my sweat cold in spite of the hot gusts swirling through the gulch this afternoon. I’d been analyzing it since we toured the first house and I’d caught him sniffing in an upstairs closet. Not sniffing coke or Elmer’s glue, just sniffing.
I’d kept my mouth shut. After all, I had been standing alone in an empty house with a man whose forearms alone looked muscled enough to snap my neck like it was dried spaghetti.
He sniffed every room, every corner, every nook and cranny, everywhere. He was like some human version of a bloodhound. I’d half-expected him to turn around and sniff me at some point.
