Free Death by Devil's Breath by Kylie Logan Page B

was to check . . .
    My eyes landed on the closed closet door, and with one more look toward the main door of the dressing room to make sure none of the dancers was on her way back in, I pushed away from the table and headed that way.
    I opened the door, flicked on the switch on the wall to the left—
    And just about swallowed my tongue.
    Sure, there were costumes in Bernadette’s closet. Sparkly, trashy costumes of all sorts. They were hung from a pole on the wall to my left. But there was also a shelf built into the wall opposite the door, and on it, three small battery-operated candles flickered in red glass holders. There was a bunch of flowers there, too, fresh enough that I imagined she replaced them every day, along with a cheap gold bracelet, what looked to be some kind of herbs wrapped in cheesecloth, and—
    My legs felt as if they’d been weighed down with lead, and I forced myself to take a step forward.
    And seven photographs, all framed.
    Big photographs, little photographs, some that were good quality and others that looked as if they’d been printed off the Internet.
    Each and every one of them was of my dad, Texas Jack Pierce.

CHAPTER 6

    “But you’ve got to help, Nick. Don’t you see?”
    I don’t know why I bothered to ask; it was obvious he didn’t.
    And just as obvious that it was my job to make sure he did.
    I was back at the Showdown. Behind the cash register of the Chili Palace/bordello while Sylvia went out to grab a late afternoon lunch. Lucky for me, I’d seen Nick walk by just a minute before. Not so lucky for him, he noticed me jumping up and down and windmilling my arms and came inside to see what was up.
    I had already told him once, but he obviously didn’t get it so I repeated myself. “She’s got an altar in her closet, Nick. An altar to my dad!”
    When he strolled by, Nick had been busy (catch the irony, please) sipping a cup of coffee and he set the cup on the counter, where Sylvia had arranged an artsy display of dried peppers, alternating small, round, red tepin peppers and Thai chilies with orangy Bird’s Eyes and nearly black Aji Pancas.
    “So?” Nick asked.
    “So?” I was glad there were no customers around. It was probably best for business if they didn’t see the look I aimed in Nick’s direction. “Candles? Flowers? Pictures? You think that’s normal?”
    Nick had changed out of the charcoal gray suit that had been stained by the Devil’s Breath that morning. He was dressed in a killer navy suit, a white shirt, and a tie that featured splashes of navy and red against a background that reminded me of waves on a stormy sea. Yes, he looked delicious. More like a GQ cover model than head of security for a traveling chili cook-off show. That didn’t mean he wasn’t the most boneheaded man this side of the Mississippi.
    “Okay, so it’s not exactly normal,” he said with a lift of those Greek god shoulders. “That doesn’t mean—”
    “But it might.” I emphasized my point by hopping up and down. “Don’t you get it? The woman’s crazy! She’s obsessed! She’s a crazy woman who’s obsessed and she’s obsessed with my missing father. She’s so obsessed, I’m thinking she might have had something to do with it!”
    “It?” His eyebrows rose just a tad. “And the ‘it’ you’re referring to is—”
    “Is Jack missing. Is Jack kidnapped. Is Jack—”
    No, I wouldn’t say the word. I wouldn’t even think it.
    “She’s obsessed,” I repeated instead, and slapped a hand against the counter to emphasize my point. “Hey, I see the news. I know people who are obsessed with people sometimes do weird things to the people they’re obsessed with.”
    “Except that your dad was in Abilene when he disappeared and this Bernadette lives here in Vegas.”
    “And there aren’t any roads between here and Abilene.” This, it should be pointed out, was a shrewd bit of logic.
    One Nick ignored.
    I screeched my opinion while I went to the back of