Chapter 6: Maddie's Mind

Maddie

The Silver Dollar was my living room. I knew the history of every stain on the floor and the precise frequency of every lie told across the bar. So when he walked in, he was more than a new face; he was a tear in the fabric of my world. I’d known he was coming, of course. My sources had alerted me the second a PI with a big-city pedigree started sniffing around Calico. Jack Draven. A name that sounded like a punch. I watched him from my usual corner booth, letting him stew. He looked the part: haunted, angry, and trying to fold himself into a space too small for his shoulders. But it was the eyes that worried me. They weren't the eyes of a man on vacation. They were the eyes of a hunter, and he was scanning my territory for tracks.

This town, with its manufactured ghost stories and tourist-trap smiles, was my fortress. The disappearances weren’t mysteries to me; they were necessary, if messy, parts of doing business. The Mongols were sloppy, but they were my sloppiness to manage. Draven was a different kind of threat. The local law was a joke, a puppet I could make dance for a few hundred dollars and a smile. But this man... this man knew what bodies looked like. He knew the difference between a ghost story and a grave.

I slid from my booth and moved toward the bar, the familiar rhythm of the saloon a comforting backdrop to the spike of adrenaline in my veins. This had to be handled. Now. I saw my reflection appear next to his in the dark surface of his coffee. He looked up, and for a second, the air crackled. He was handsome, in a broken-down sort of way that I’d learned to associate with trouble. And there it was, that stupid, primal pull. A flicker of heat that I stamped out like a stray spark. Men were for leverage, for pleasure, for disposal. They were not for feeling. Especially not this one.

His lie of  ‘I’m just a tourist' was almost insulting in its clumsiness. It confirmed he was hiding something, which meant he was already finding something. My smile was a mask, my voice a weapon. When I told him he was a ghost who didn't know he was dead yet, it wasn't a clever line. It was a diagnosis. And a warning. He was walking through a graveyard of my making, and if he wasn't careful, I'd make sure he found his own plot.

However, there is something about him that piques my interest. I doubt it would spare his life, but it is interesting nonetheless.

"What makes you think I'm one of your 'ghosts,' Ms. Hicks?" I countered, swirling the amber liquid in my glass. "Just because I'm new in town doesn't mean I'm dead."

"You carry the weight of it, Draven. The same emptiness I see in the eyes of those who've seen too much and learned too little. Calico tends to amplify what's already broken, and you, detective, are a walking testament to that." I took a slow sip of my whiskey, the burn familiar, grounding. "And you're asking the wrong questions if you think your tourist act will get you anywhere."

I am a very dangerous woman, but most men can't see past my lipstick and breasts; however, Draven has yet to look at anything but my eyes. Draven is a man, and I have yet to find a man I can't control.