Restless Spirits Boxset: A Collection of Riveting Haunted House Mysteries

by Skylar Finn

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “With your whiskey.”

  “Yes.”

  “You haven’t touched it.”

  He tipped the glass so the amber liquid tickled the rim but didn’t spill over. “It’s a test.”

  “A test for who?”

  “Myself.”

  I tugged the drink away from him and slid it to the opposite end of the counter. “Test passed,” I told him. “Why are you sitting at a bar if—?”

  “If I’m an alcoholic?” he finished. “Nowhere else to sit.”

  “You’re in a ski resort with thousands of square feet to its name,” I said. “There are plenty of places to sit.”

  “Maybe I wanted to sit here.” He asked the bartender for water then leaned on his elbow to look at me. “What’s your deal? I want to know. You said you’re here for the kid. How do you approach that sort of thing? Do you walk up to her and ask which dead people are bothering her?”

  I toyed with the stem of my wine glass. It was as thin as a cotton swab. Perhaps that was why fancy restaurants only filled the glass an eighth of the way. Any more and the pretty crystal would shatter.

  “More or less,” I said. “Though I like to think I have a little more finesse than what you just described.”

  “How do you know if she’s telling the truth?”

  “I’ve never actually done this in person before,” I admitted. “I’m an online and call-in psychic. I have a web show. Madame Lucia’s Parlour for the Dead and Departed.”

  “Never heard of it,” Daniel said.

  “Usually, I take calls during a live broadcast,” I explained. “I’m a medium. People ask me to contact their dead loved ones.”

  He unwrapped two straws and dunked them in his fresh cup of water. “I get the concept, but I want to know how you do it. What do you feel or think when there’s a spirit around?”

  I sipped my wine, hoping to occupy my mouth long enough for my mind to come up with a suitable response. Real-time performance was new to me. It wasn’t so much acting as it was lying. “It’s energy,” I said, shrugging as if this were the simplest concept in the world. “A buzz in the air. Instinctive, like you said.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  I patted his hand in consolation. “Not many people do.”

  Daniel peered past me toward the other end of the bar. “What’s going on down there?”

  A young man, about nineteen or twenty, stumbled into the bar. He was tall and lanky with dark hair and light eyes, perhaps considered handsome by someone his age as long as they didn’t notice his weak chin or nicotine-stained fingers. He wore a black knit beanie, joggers, unlaced snow boots, and a dark denim shirt with several of the buttons undone to reveal a lean chest and a collarbone as sharp as a knife. As we watched, he requested something of the bartender.

  “Tyler, I can’t,” she said, her voice carrying across the vacant bar. “I’ve told you a hundred times.”

  “Come on, babe.” He caught the girl’s hand and stroked her fingers. “It’s just this one time.”

  She pulled out of his grasp and wiped her hands on a dish towel. “You said that last time, and there was no one around then.”

  “I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “No, thank you.”

  He hoisted himself onto the counter, swung his legs around, and landed on the inside of the bar. As he pinned the girl against the wall with the length of his body, he reached around her for a bottle of top-shelf gin.

  “Tyler, stop it,” the bartender said. “If it goes missing, I’ll get canned, and I need this job.”

  He held the bottle above his head. “Jump for it.”

  “Tyler!” She swiped for the gin, but he was too tall for her. “Don’t!”

  He laughed, uncapped the bottle, and took a long swig.

  “Hey!” Daniel abandoned his stool and strode over to the pair. “Do you work here, young man?”

  Tyler smirked as he shook his head.

  “Then get out from behind the bar,” Daniel ordered. “Let the young lady get back to work.”

  Tyler pressed his gin-soaked lips against the bartender’s cheek before vaulting over the counter again. He saluted Daniel with the liquor bottle. “Whatever you say, boss.”

  “While you’re at it, let’s see some ID.”

  Tyler flicked a driver’s license at the detective.

  “Kekoa Mahelona from Hawaii,” Daniel read off. He glanced up at Tyler. “I have to say the likeness is striking, but this says you’re forty-two, and if I recall, the young lady called you Tyler.”

  “That’s my nickname. Otherwise, it’s Mr. Mahelona.”

  “Nice try, kid,” Daniel said. “I’ll give you three seconds to tell me your real name. Three, two—”

  Tyler chucked the bottle at the detective, who ducked just in time. The glass bottle hit the window and exploded, showering the bar with fragrant gin as Tyler sprinted away. Daniel was quicker though. He dodged through the tables and caught the younger man by the arm. Tyler swung around using Daniel’s momentum and threw a punch. Daniel caught the fist on the flat of his palm and twisted the kid’s arm behind his back.

  “Nice job, idiot,” Daniel said, clasping handcuffs around Tyler’s wrists. “You just earned yourself a couple hours in the Crimson Basin Police Department’s holding cell. I hope you’re happy with yourself.”

  “Let go of me,” Tyler snarled as he wrestled to free himself. “You’re gonna regret this.”

  “You know, I don’t think I will. Move it.”

  As Daniel bumped Tyler toward the staircase, Oliver raced up from the lobby, puffing for breath, and blocked their path. “Wait, wait! Detective Hawkins, that’s my son.”

  Daniel looked from the slim teenager in handcuffs to the overweight, middle-aged man as if trying to find the resemblance. “Your son?”

  “Yes, Tyler Watson,” Oliver said. “What’s he done now?”

  “Nothing,” Tyler said.

  “Drinking underage,” Daniel said over him. “Harassing the bartender, possessing a fake ID, attempted assault of a police officer. It’s a long list.”

  “Could you let him off?” Oliver requested. “His mother just died. It’s been rough on all of us. He’s troubled, you see.”

  “I’m right here,” Tyler announced.

  Daniel yanked the handcuffs, pulling Tyler’s arms uncomfortably tight around his back. “This kind of behavior can’t go unchecked,” he warned Oliver. “This may be your home, but it’s still a public establishment. If it happens again—”

  “It won’t,” Oliver promised. “Right, Tyler?”

  Tyler bared his teeth in a grin. “Whatever you say, boss.”

  “How convincing.” Daniel unlocked the cuffs and shoved Tyler toward his father. “You got lucky, kid.”

  Tyler rubbed his wrists. “I always do.” He looked over Daniel’s shoulder to where I sat at the bar. “Madame Lucia, if you want someone to nail you, I wouldn’t suggest the detective here. He reeks of impotence. I, on the other hand, am quite virile—”

  “That’s enough, Tyler,” Oliver said, dragging his son out of the lounge. “One more word—”

  “And you’ll what?” Tyler challenged. “Tell Mom? Sucks, doesn’t it? You always made her deal with me. What’s it like to actually act like a parent, Dad?”

  “Go to bed, Tyler.”

  “Don’t have to tell me twice.”

  Tyler flicked off the room with both hands then jumped over the banister instead of using the stairs. When he got in the elevator to take him up to his room, he pressed his face against the glass and made kissy faces at me and the bartender. In a few seconds, he was too high for his offensiveness to be visible.

  “I’m so sorry,” Oliver was unable to look any of us—me, Daniel, or the bartender who was more shaken up than a martini—instead tracking the elevator as it dropped his son off on one of the upper floors and returned to the lobby empty. “Tyler’s always had behavioral issues. Usua
lly, he keeps to himself and his friends, but with Thelma’s death, everything’s gotten worse. Detective, your meal is on me.”

  “No need,” Daniel said. “I didn’t eat.”

  “Order something,” Oliver pleaded. “And Lucia, whatever else I can do for you—”

  I squeezed Oliver’s forearm, effectively cutting off his apology. “You’ve done enough for me already. It’s my turn to help you. I haven’t heard from Riley yet. Have you seen her around?”

  Oliver drew his sleeve across his damp forehead. “No, I haven’t seen her all day.”

  “Should I be worried?”

  He shook his head. “She’ll turn up eventually. If the two of you don’t mind, I’m going to turn in for the evening. Please stay. Order whatever you like. It’s the least I can do to make up for Tyler’s behavior.”

  Daniel offered to walk me to my room, but I declined. The thought of navigating the empty hallways of King and Queens alone crawled beneath the sleeves of my dress and settled against my skin like a parasite, working its way inside through osmosis. If I didn’t do it now, that feeling would never dissolve, so I parted from Daniel in the lobby and rode in the glass elevator by myself. The trip to the top floor felt longer in the darkness. The resort’s lamps were dimmed to candlelight levels, romantic if you were returning from dinner pressed against another guest from the lodge, cohorts in passion too absorbed in each other to be bothered by the elevator’s transparency. As I arrived on the top floor, I once again wished Jazmin had stayed. After years of friendship, it was odd and lonely being without her, especially in the foreign luxury of King and Queens. I’d forgotten to call her, too wrapped up in the resort’s drama. Hopefully she made it home okay.

  A lodge employee had come through the room for turndown service. The duvet was folded into a neat triangle, waiting for me to slip between the satin sheets. A single chocolate truffle rested on the pillow. I unwrapped it and stuck the whole thing in my mouth to suck on. As it melted to reveal warm caramel at the center, I unzipped my dress and slipped out of it. It lay like a discarded snake skin over the desk chair. I felt silly for wearing it to dinner. No one was here to admire Madame Lucia’s ethereal fashion sense, and despite what I’d said to Detective Hawkins, I was cold all through dinner until he took pity on me and draped his leather jacket across my lap. The Eagle’s View was drafty at best, and the huge windows turned the restaurant into an igloo. I flopped into bed, wishing the maid had left more than one truffle as the last of the chocolate dissolved against my tongue. I wrapped one end of the duvet around myself, rolled to the other side of the bed to cocoon myself in the decadent cotton, facing the dark bathroom, and screamed.

  A little girl stood in the doorway, silent and staring.

  4

  Riley Watson was small for her age, the top of her head at the level of my waist. Were it not for her physical similarities to Oliver, I would have taken her for a lost spirit wandering around the weird vacuum of King and Queens. She had inherited a decent portion of her father’s genetics. They had the same ashy hair that looked as though it had been leached of any one color, though Riley’s wasn’t streaked through with gray. The father and daughter also shared a long, thin face, but where Oliver’s cheeks were somehow plump with weight and drawn from stress at the same time, Riley’s gave her the appearance of a homeless waif. She’d not yet grown into her lanky limbs. In a year or two, she would shoot up like a weed, surpassing her father and maybe her brother in height. She wore an oversized King and Queens fleece zip-up so large it fell to her knees like a dress. She’d rolled the sleeves up to make effective use of her tiny, muscled hands. In one, she held the bushel of sage I’d “blessed” the room with earlier. In the other was a scrunched-up hat.

  “Hi,” she said. No apology or explanation for how she’d gotten into my room on her own. “You’re Madame Lucia.”

  “Yeah.” I scrambled out of bed to tug my kimono out of the closet and draw it around myself. The kid’s eyes—so light in color they almost appeared clear—tracked the whirl of the fabric as it spun around. “Your dad said you’d find me on your own, but I wasn’t exactly expecting a visit in my suite.”

  “I stole a key from the front desk,” she said without shame. She spoke all in one note, her voice never wavering from the flat tone. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I should have waited outside, but I was too curious.”

  “Your dad said you watch people.”

  “My dad says a lot of stuff.”

  “Should I believe all of it?”

  “Probably not,” Riley replied. “But I did watch you all day. It’s how I get to know people. May I?” She gestured to the wardrobe. Unsure of what she was asking, I nodded. She proceeded to go through all of my things, plucking clothes and crystals and camera accessories from my collection of belongings. As she examined them, she asked, “What are we doing here?”

  “I thought you already knew. Your dad—”

  “Stop talking about my dad. Please,” she added afterward as if realizing how brusque her request was. “And I didn’t mean it like that. I meant what are we doing here on this plane of existence? We’re conscious vapor housed in skin and bones, and when we die, we float around like mist. What’s the point of existing at all? Can I have this?” She held up my Blondie T-shirt.

  “Do you even know who Blondie is?” I asked her.

  “No, it’s just a cool shirt.”

  “If I say no, are you going to swipe it later anyway?”

  “It depends on if I like you or not,” Riley said.

  “So if you don’t like me, the shirt goes bye-bye.”

  “No, if I don’t like you, I don’t want your crap.” She folded the shirt into the smallest square possible so only Debbie Harry’s eyes were visible. “If I do like you, this shirt will remind me of you.”

  “Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll make you a deal. You can keep the shirt for as long as I’m here, but you have to tell me the truth about everything that’s happening to you in this resort.”

  She chewed on her lip, pondering the offer. “But I can keep the shirt?”

  “Until I leave. It’s my favorite,” I added. “My best friend gave it to me.”

  “Oh, that’s what I feel.”

  I let the comment slide, unsure if I wanted to know what she meant by it anyway. “Do we have a deal?”

  She reached over her head and pulled the fleece sweater off with one hand. Then she wormed her way into my T-shirt. Though it was a women’s small, it swamped her. She stuck out her hand. “Deal.”

  Her nimble fingers were popsicles, and she squeezed my hand so hard, I heard my knuckles crack. Rough calluses decorated her palm, as if she spent hours a day out on the slopes with her skiing poles. When we parted, she examined her new outfit in the floor-length mirror before leaping onto the bed to jump up and down. She brushed the ceiling with every upward bounce. The textured plaster, which looked as though it hadn’t been renovated since the resort was built, rained down like stucco snow.

  “So what are we doing here?” she asked again. “You should know, right? Why else would you bother talking to dead people?”

  While she pirouetted like a ballerina, I collected Madame Lucia’s aura from where Riley had scattered it about the room with her eerie, straightforward presence. I wrapped the kimono tighter, inhaling the woodsy scent its fibers had gathered from all the incense I burned in the apartment.

  “The living world is not one to be questioned,” I proclaimed. “Why examine what we will never be able to understand? Existence, essence, life, or death. No, we must rely on what little openings we have into the spirit world in order to—”

  “I think that’s crap,” Riley said, kicking a pillow off the bed with such force it flew across the room and thwacked against the door to the balcony. “Questions are the key to life. If we didn’t ask questions, if curiosity didn’t exist, we wouldn’t know half the stuff we know now. I think it’s the lack of questions that’s the problem. People don’t ask e
nough nowadays. They’re content with ignorance.”

  Just like that, she snuffed out Madame Lucia’s spark again. I deflated and tied the kimono waistband around me like a bathrobe, feeling significantly less powerful as I did so.

  “You’re twelve,” I reminded her. “What’s with all the philosophy and psychology stuff? When I was twelve, I was learning how to ride a two-wheeler.”

  “I got the two-wheeler thing down at five,” she said. “And you didn’t answer my question.”

  “What are we doing here?” I sank into a fluffy armchair in the corner of the room, crossing one leg over the other, since Riley didn’t show any intention of vacating the bed. “I don’t know. No one knows. That’s what I was trying to tell you. Some questions don’t have answers, so there’s no point in asking them.”

  “But you talk to dead people,” she said again. “Can’t you ask them what happens after we die?”

  Jazmin was right. Riley wasn’t the run-of-the-mill preteen glued to the screen of a smartphone as she obsessed over whatever boy band was most relevant at the time. She was focused and practical, and when the subject turned in her favor, she spoke with eloquence most adults would envy. If the universe’s claw machine plucked her out of King and Queens and set her down at a podium in front of an upper-level university class, she wouldn’t freeze or blush or run off. She’d tell the professor that she had it handled and lead an entire hour-long discussion on existentialism.

  “I talk to dead people because their sitters ask me to,” I explained. “A sitter’s what we call the living entity who wishes to get in contact with the dead.”

  “I know. Confidence, candidness, and caution,” she recited. “I watch your show.”

  I tapped my fingers against the arm of the chair. “Religiously?”

  “Every week.”

  “Including yesterday’s episode?”

  Riley took one last massive bounce before jutting her legs straight out and landing on her butt at the edge of the bed. “Yup. Who was that guy shouting at the end?”