by Skylar Finn
Jazmin calmly tied her laces. “First of all, Riley can take care of herself. Second, I doubt the killer is waiting for Riley to step out of the elevator so he can take her out in the middle of the lobby in broad daylight. The Eagle’s View is right there. Everyone would hear it or see it.”
“How do you know?” I argued. “This person knows the hotel well. They could stop the elevator prematurely or gag Riley and take her to some storage room or—”
Jazmin stuffed a sock into my mouth. Thankfully, it smelled of laundry detergent instead of feet. “I know someone who could use a gag.”
I spat out the sock. It was purple with yellow ducks on it. Jazmin’s fashion sense was flawless unless you looked too close. Her underwear drawer at home was full of unicorn patterns.
“You aren’t taking this seriously,” I said.
“I’m taking this very seriously,” she replied. “Which is why I’m willing to sacrifice my morning skincare routine to go after Riley. If that’s not dedication, I don’t know what is. Are you ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
The elevator had already taken Riley away when we stepped into the hallway. The jitters made my hands shake as I waited for Jazmin to turn out the lights in the suite and close the door behind us.
“Would you relax?” she said. “It looks like you’re on speed.”
“I have a weird feeling,” I said, scratching the back of my neck.
“About Riley?”
“No, about—what are you looking at?”
Jazmin’s woodsy green eyes no longer focused on my face. Instead, she looked at a spot over my shoulder, her bottom lip trembling. I’d never seen her stunned into silence before. A creaking sound echoed behind me. The door to the suite across the hall crept open on its own.
“That’s not a fluke, is it?” Jazmin whispered.
“No.” The back of my neck prickled, a warning sign. “No, it certainly isn’t.”
Odette appeared in the doorway. A garbled yell escaped my throat as the imaginary nerve damage brought me to my knees for the second time in two days. It stung as much as it had when Odette first appeared yesterday. Jazmin uttered my name in a worried squeal, squatting next to me and sweeping my hair away from my face as I attempt to control the muscle spasms.
“Lucia?” she said. “What’s going on? Can you hear me? Can you see me?”
“Odette,” I said through clenched teeth, concentrating as hard as I could. Worry and fear bled into Jazmin’s expression as she looked around for something to help me with. I grasped her arm to get her attention. “She’s here, right across the hallway in that open door. Can you see her?”
Jazmin looked right at the tiny little ghost girl and shook her head. “No, it’s just the room. Are you sure she’s there?”
Odette rolled her eyes in a Riley-like way. Maybe she’d picked up some of Riley’s mannerisms after haunting her for so long. “Typical,” she said. “Baby psychics are always trying to justify their visions by asking other people for confirmation. News flash, Lucia, your friend Jazmin is never going to be able to see me. Tell her to go downstairs without you. You and I have things to discuss.”
“She’s not leaving,” I growled through my teeth.
“What?” Jazmin asked. “Who isn’t leaving? Odette?”
“I wasn’t talking to you,” I said.
“You won’t be able to concentrate on getting that terrible feeling under control until she leaves,” Odette said, employing a smug smile. “Her energy is crazy wild. It messes with the way you balance yours since the two of you are so connected. You can try to balance both out, but it’s a lot harder to do two living people and a dead one all at once. One of the other psychics did it, and her brain nearly exploded—”
“Shut up,” I ordered.
“Me?” Jazmin said.
“Not you!” Another shockwave traveled along the length of my spine. When Jazmin moved closer to help, it got worse. “Don’t! Jazmin, please go downstairs.”
“Finally,” Odette muttered.
“No way,” Jazmin protested. “I’m not leaving you like this. Tell Odette to go away.”
The ghost lifted a judgmental eyebrow.
“I can’t,” I told Jazmin. “I need to talk to her, and I can’t do it while you’re here. Please.” Another jolt, another yelp, another helpless look on Jazmin’s face. “Please go. Find Riley. Look after her.”
Jazmin got to her feet, and my muscles unclenched slightly. Jazmin wagged her index finger where she assumed Odette’s nose was. In reality, she was threatening Odette’s hairline. Odette glared up at Jazmin’s finger as if considering the possibility of biting it off.
“Listen to me, you little punk,” Jazmin said. “If you hurt my friend, you’ll have to answer to me. I don’t care if you’re a dead kid that I can’t see. I’ll find a way. Do you understand?”
“Call off your dog,” Odette told me. “I just need to talk. The paralysis is your own fault. You haven’t been practicing.”
“Jazmin!” I barked, the sting of my nerves sharpening my tone. “Now.”
“I’m going.” She stepped over me and pushed the call button for the elevator. The center one opened first. She got inside, positioning herself so she could watch me as the doors closed. Once she was gone, I inhaled like my life depended on it.
“There you go,” said Odette, watching me go through my unorthodox breathing exercises. “I told you it’d be easier without her around. The two of you are hardcore tied together. What’s up with that?”
“She’s my best friend.”
“It’s not just that.” She sat on the floor, stretched her legs out in front of her, and tapped the toes of her Oxford shoes together. She wore a gray-and-white plaid skirt and a collared blue shirt with a crest embroidered on the pocket. Saint Anne’s Preparatory School for Girls. “You don’t share that much energy with someone unless you’re sharing something else too.”
Weirdly, the conversation helped get my mind off the crunching sensation in my bones. I began to relax. “Like what?”
“Like secrets.”
“All best friends share secrets. It’s one of the reasons to have a best friend.”
Odette pursed her lips. “Your secrets are different. Deeper and darker. Aren’t they?”
I leveled her with a challenging stare. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Whatever,” she said. “It’s your own fault you’re struggling. I told you to practice balancing your energies.”
“How am I supposed to do that?” With the spurt of anger came a spurt of pain. I grimaced and tried again. “What I meant was that you didn’t give me a whole lot of information on how to deal with this.”
“I’m not psychic,” Odette said. “I don’t know what you’re supposed to do on your side of things. The ‘breathe and relax’ trick was common sense. Figure it out on your own, but don’t go back to the old wing until you do.”
“How did you know I wanted to go back to the old wing?” I asked. “And why shouldn’t I?”
“Seriously?” she said. “It’s your biggest lead. That’s where everything happened. That’s where all the clues are. That’s also where all the other ghosts are. If you go back there before you’re ready, they’ll tear you apart.”
“I’ve been there before.”
“Before they realized who you are and what you’re doing,” Odette said. “They take a while to wake up and notice things. It’s a side effect of being dead but not gone for thirty years. Take my word for it, you don’t want to go back there before you get a handle on your energy.”
The more I focused on the weird connection between me and Odette, the more the paralysis faded. I pushed myself upright, sitting across the hall from her. I was tempted to stick my legs out too, to test if we could place the soles of our feet together or if my body would sink through hers. I refrained, scared of the outcome.
“You’re not on fire this time,” I said.
“They do
n’t know I’m up here,” she replied.
“The other ghosts?”
She nodded slowly.
“Why can’t you always sneak around like this?” I asked. “How do they know whether or not you’re with me?”
“That actually has more to do with you than it does with me.” She examined a run in her black tights. “It won’t be long until they figure out I’m with you.”
“But how do they know?” I pressed, desperate for information. “How does any of this work? I can see you, but I can’t see them. I can control my energy around you, but you say I won’t have control of it around them. I have to go to the old wing soon. It’s the only way I can figure out what happened to you, but I have to be ready for these other angry spirits. Give me something to work with if you want me to help you.”
“I guess I have time to run you through the basics.” Odette winced, and a faint whiff of burning hair passed through the hallway. “Three minutes, I’m guessing. You want to know why you can see me, right?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
“From what I’ve figured out from other psychics in the last thirty years, you need three things to be able to see ghosts.” She held up three fingers and ticked off the first one. “First of all, you need to be inclined to do so—”
“What does that mean?”
“Do I need to reiterate that I have a limited time to tell you this? Stop interrupting me.” She cleared her throat and started again. “All children have the inclination, but it usually fades when we progress into adulthood. Some adults keep it. That’s you. You probably remember having encounters with spirits when you were younger, but your parents convinced you they were dreams or nightmares.”
My mouth dropped open. “How did you know that?”
Odette glared at me for my second interruption. I shut up.
“Second,” she went on, putting down another finger, “you need to have been in the presence of death. Riley has always been inclined to hear us, but she only started honing the ability to do so after she watched her mother die, remember? You’ve seen someone die too, haven’t you?”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “I have.”
Odette didn’t ask for clarifications. “Third, you have to share blood with us.”
“I’m sorry. What?”
A wisp of smoke rose from Odette’s clothes, but the source of the fire wasn’t visible yet. She scrambled to her feet. “Do you remember what happened on your first full morning at King and Queens?”
“A vase fell in the kitchen of my suite,” I said. “I cut myself cleaning up the glass and—no.”
“Yes.”
“I bled on your photo album,” I recalled. “The one in the drawer full of old pictures of the original resort. Is that what you’re talking about?”
“It did the trick.” Odette receded toward the emergency exit. With every step away from me, the smoke dissipated.
“You knocked over the vase, didn’t you?” I realized out of the blue. “I convinced myself it was a coincidence.”
Her image faded away, but her voice lingered. “Nothing at King and Queens is ever a coincidence.”
4
By the time I got my shaking body under control and made it down to the lobby, I was a good thirty minutes late to Daniel’s interrogations. I was surprised he hadn’t sent Jazmin upstairs to fetch me like yesterday. Knowing her, she’d come up with the perfect excuse for my tardiness, and because she had a face no one believed was capable of lying, Daniel probably believed her. When the elevator spit me out on the ground floor, I paused in front of the reflective doors and combed my mussed hair with my fingers. It was hopeless. Only a hairbrush and a good pump of detangling serum would negate the mess left over from writhing around on the floor upstairs. Bags painted pink puffy half-moons under my eyes, and I’d accidentally put on the same shirt from yesterday. The wrinkly fabric smelled faintly of the olive oil I’d spilled during lunch. I scrubbed at the stain as I headed for the Eagle’s View. Angry voices in the first-floor hallway stopped me in my tracks.
“I’m trying to help you.”
“I don’t need your help.”
It was Nick and Oliver, close to Tyler’s room at the end of the hallway. Daniel had blocked off the entire corridor with velvet rope—since he didn’t have any crime scene tape handy—and forbidden us from entering that area of the hotel. So what were Nick and Oliver doing there? I hid around the corner to eavesdrop.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Nick was saying in a hushed, insistent voice. “It’s a crime scene.”
“You think I don’t remember what happened here?” Oliver snapped. “My son died! I deserve to see him.”
“He’s not here, remember?” Nick said, exasperated. “They moved his body to the storage freezer in the kitchen so it wouldn’t decompose. Seriously, Oliver, let’s get out of here before Hawkins realizes we’ve been gone for too long.”
“Let go of me!”
A punch landed, and someone grunted. A quick peek around the wall showed Oliver cradling his fist as Nick straightened up. There was a dent in the drywall. Nick had ducked in time to avoid Oliver’s blow, and Oliver’s knuckles ended up in conflict with the wallpaper.
“Don’t you get it?” Nick hissed. “I’m trying to protect you. I’m not out to get you. You’re already on thin ice. Hawkins thinks Tyler’s death is taking a toll on your sanity. I can’t say I blame him. If he finds you anywhere near the crime scene, it’s going to reinforce the idea that you did this yourself.”
Oliver shoved Nick, who stumbled before catching himself with his cane. “Don’t you dare accuse me of murdering my own son. I know you, Porter. You’re a snake in the grass waiting to strike. I don’t trust you. Stay out of my way, and if you do anything to compromise the detective’s investigation, I’ll kill you myself.”
Nick’s eyebrows shot skyward, but he raised his cane in compliance. “Fine. I’ll stay out of it. You’re on your own from now on, Watson. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
As Nick limped away from Oliver, I ducked out of sight and ran toward the Eagle’s View to get a head start on him. At the double staircase, I looked back to see Nick crouching below the velvet rope. He looked both ways as he stood up and reached up to shake out the lapels of a suit jacket that didn’t exist. After two days in his satin blue, he’d switched to a gray, long-sleeved King and Queens T-shirt with the resort’s logo—a large crown flanked by two smaller ones—printed on the front in crimson. He smoothed the wrinkles from the T-shirt and shook out the legs of his matching sweatpants. As he picked at the screen-printed logo, I suppressed a laugh. He looked out of sorts in the athletic gear. I took the remaining stairs to the Eagle’s View two at a time before Nick could catch up.
“Finally,” Jazmin said as I joined her and Riley at what had become our regular booth. “What happened? Why did it take you so long? Are you okay?”
“Jazmin said you saw Odette again,” Riley added. “What did she say?”
“Let me catch my breath.” The cool leather of the booth pressed through the legs of my jeans. I shivered and looked around. Everyone was wrapped up in sweaters and jackets. Imani and Ari had brought a blanket down from their room. It was colder than usual in the Eagle’s View. Either the storm was infiltrating the resort or Oliver didn’t want to pay for the heating bill. “What’s been going on?”
“Same as yesterday,” Riley said. “Detective Hawkins is keeping his interviews going. It doesn’t look like it’s going well.”
She nodded toward the bar, where Daniel argued with Matisse. Matisse gestured at the other employees. When Daniel glanced over at them, Imani threw the blanket off of herself and slid away from Ari. Liam, who looked as though he hadn’t moved from his spot yesterday, made no inclination that he’d overhead whatever Matisse was saying. Karli, behind the bar, polished a glass with a dish towel, too distracted by Daniel and Matisse’s discussion to notice the glass no longer sported any water spots. Matisse stood up, knocking his bar stool agai
nst the one behind it.
“This conversation’s over,” the assistant chef announced loud enough to for everyone to hear. “You don’t have any more to go on than you did yesterday. Pretending otherwise is a disservice to all of us. I thought you were going to do better today, Detective.”
“We’re not done, Matisse,” Daniel said.
Matisse shrugged him off and ducked under the bar to join Karli on the other side of it. The two of them disappeared into the kitchen together.
“Liam,” Daniel announced. His sturdy tone and squared shoulders weren’t enough to negate Matisse’s walkout. Respect for the detective was declining at a rapid rate. “You’re up next.”
“No thanks,” Liam said.
“Mr. Lavi, this is not the time to act like a lazy stoner,” Daniel chided. “Get over here.”
“I told you everything I know yesterday.” Liam pulled his neon-yellow ski cap over his eyes, propped his feet up on the chair across from him, and lay back for a nap. “I don’t have anything else to say.”
Daniel slammed his fist against the counter, startling Ari out of her blanket cocoon. “Can I get one person to cooperate with me? Just one! Where the hell are Porter and Watson anyway?”
“Here,” Nick announced. He cleared the last step into the lounge with a huff. “Pardon my tardiness. This leg isn’t the easiest to get around on. I believe Mr. Watson stopped in the restroom on the way back. By the looks of his hastiness, he might be a while.”
Daniel threw his hands up. “For the love of God.”
“I’ll sit for the next interview,” I offered, raising a hand. It trembled in the air, a leftover result from my run-in with Odette. “We didn’t really get a chance to talk yesterday.”
“I don’t need y—forget it,” Daniel said, giving up. “Fine, Lucia. Meet me at the bar.”
Jazmin hooked a finger through one of my belt loops. “What are you doing?”
“Prying open an opportunity.”
All eyes were on me as I crossed the bar and sat with Daniel. Did the others think he was giving me preferential treatment? If he was, it worked to my advantage. For whatever reason, Daniel trusted me more than the employees. Why else would he have asked me to help him move Tyler’s body?