“You think someone did this on purpose?”
“Who has access to the basement?”
“Everyone who works here. There’s all kinds of stuff down here: paper goods, flatware, plates and glassware, food supplies, anything we need.” Fighting an urge to cry, she looked back down at the pile of broken dishes.
She took a shaky breath. “I can’t stop right now. Maybe I can salvage something later.”
Cain softly cursed. He crouched and put the broken pieces back in the box, then shoved it out of the way for the night. Rising, he eased Jenny into his arms. “We’ll come down first thing in the morning, see what we can find.”
Jenny just nodded. She felt hollow inside. And worried. Who would have done something like that? Maybe it was just the hotel shifting, jarring the box off the shelf. There were eighty-eight miles of tunnels under Jerome. In the old days, whole sections of the town had collapsed.
But surely she would have felt a jolt strong enough to move the heavy box.
She didn’t believe it was a ghost. Not for a second. The box was important to her. This felt personal.
Cain took her hand, and they headed back upstairs, into the saloon. The place was packed. Cain squeezed Jenny’s hand as she started back to the bar to help with the swelling crowd demanding drinks.
She spotted Will Price at one end of the bar, his gaze scanning the room. She could see Cain’s head above the crowd in another section of the saloon.
Troy and Barb filled drink orders behind the bar while Jenny helped the servers take orders and deliver the drinks. She was setting a tray of tequila shooters on a table when she heard a familiar voice next to her ear.
“Well, if it isn’t my sweet little cousin, Jenny!” he shouted above the din of the crowd.
She turned. Uncle Charlie’s son, the black sheep of the family. “Eddie . . .” He was wearing a white sheet with a hole cut for his head and a bloody, gruesome mask he had pulled off and left hanging around his neck.
His smile looked vicious. “Looks like you’re pulling in some major bucks tonight, just like my old man.”
“We’re busy, Eddie. I have to get back to work.”
“I just dropped by to say hello. I’ll be back tomorrow so we can talk.”
“I’ve got nothing to say to you!” she shouted. “It’s over, Eddie. Finished!”
Will Price moved closer, leaned down, and spoke to Eddie. “You heard the lady. Time for you to leave.”
Jenny left Eddie with Will and went back to work. She knew what her cousin wanted. Money. He believed his father should have left the Copper Star to him. The last time he’d shown up, Jenny had given him two thousand dollars, half of what he had demanded. He had taken the money and left, and Jenny had hoped that would be the end of it. Unfortunately, here he was again.
Uncle Charlie had willed the Star to her, not the son he didn’t trust to continue his legacy. Jenny wasn’t giving her no-good cousin another dime.
As she delivered trays heavy with food and drinks, she couldn’t help wondering if Eddie had been the one who’d destroyed her mother’s dishes. She had no idea how he could have known they were down there, but maybe someone had told him.
In the back of her mind, she thought about the shooting. Eddie was an alcoholic and a drug user, but she didn’t think he was a killer.
They closed the bar at two a.m. Both Cain and Will looked tired. She could read the pain Cain was dealing with in the tight lines of his face.
Jenny knew how the men felt. Her feet were aching, her head pounding. She said good night to Troy, Barb, and the rest of the crew and thanked them for a job well done. Cain spoke to Will, who left for his room at the Grandview, and she and Cain headed upstairs.
She had asked him to stay with her tonight. The hotel was packed, lots of drunk and disorderlies on the street. She needed to be close at hand in case something happened.
She prayed nothing would go wrong.
Cain waited for her to walk past him into her small suite, which looked even tinier with him in the room. She was still wearing her black-cat clothes, eager to get them off.
“You look so damned cute in that outfit, I could just about eat you up.” Cain’s gaze ran over her, and his mouth edged up.
Jenny sighed, tired to the bone. “Have a little mercy,” she said.
Cain laughed. “I’m not in much better shape than you are. No easy job running a bar on Halloween night.”
