by Skylar Finn
In the lobby, Jazmin was pacing from the door to the front desk so quickly that she was practically a blur. When she saw me, she rushed into my arms. I winced, anticipating pain from all the blisters that the fire had left, but no discomfort came. This time around, my illusionary wounds healed themselves. Did that mean I was getting better or worse at balancing my energy?
“No sign of her?” I asked, patting Jazmin’s back.
As tall as she was, her hug engulfed me. She drew away to let me breathe. “No, not since I woke up. What’s all over your sweatshirt? Never mind. I’ve searched most of the resort, but I don’t know this place like she does. God, what if someone took her? What if the killer—?”
“Don’t think like that,” I said, though my own mind was racing through the exact same thought process. “This isn’t the first time Riley’s disappeared. Let’s not worry yet.”
But I was worried. Because the feeling in my gut that something was terribly wrong hadn’t gone away. My stomach felt tight, and something pulled at my core, like a rope leading me toward a final destination.
“She’s definitely not in the old wing, so we can rule that out,” I said.
“How do you know?”
“I was just there.”
“Lucia, why would you go back there without telling me?”
“You can yell at me after we find Riley,” I promised her. “Let’s get Oliver. He should know that she’s missing.”
I turned around and led Jazmin back into the hallway that I’d just come from. This time, I bypassed the old restaurant and ballroom—I could have sworn I smelled smoke coming from the old wing—and continued to Oliver’s room. We both pounded on the door, shouting.
“Oliver, wake up!” I called. “Riley’s missing.”
“We need your help,” Jazmin added.
No matter how much we shouted and knocked, no one came to the door.
“Do we have the right suite?” Jazmin asked, looking up and down the hall for a clue.
“We don’t have time to check every room on this floor.” I pressed my ear to the door, listening for sounds of life inside. Nothing. “Forget this. If Riley’s in trouble, we’re all she has. Let’s keep moving.”
“Where to next?”
“Riley’s room. Fifth floor corner suite,” I recalled from a previous conversation. “I’ve never been there, but that’s where she used to hide from Tyler.”
It was a relief to get out of the older half of the resort. As we headed for the fifth floor, my heart did the opposite of race. Instead, it went silent. In the elevator, Jazmin’s pulse hammered in her neck, but mine seemed to have forgotten I was alive. I pressed two fingers to my wrist to make sure my heart was still beating. For a second, I didn’t feel anything, but as panic surged through me, so did another rush of blood. The elevator doors opened, and we ran toward the last door in the hall.
“Riley?” I called, hammering on the door harder than I’d knocked on Oliver’s. “Come on, kid. You’re scaring us.”
No answer. I slammed my fist against the door with such gusto that it rattled in the frame, and Jazmin jumped out of the way.
“Get back.” I took a big step away, raised my foot, and put my entire weight behind a front kick against the door. Instead of forcing it in, my foot went right through the old wood. Not exactly what I was going for, but the jagged hole was big enough for me to reach through and open the door from the inside. Jazmin rushed inside to look for Riley, but I didn’t get my hopes up. I already knew she wasn’t here.
“Now what?” Jazmin said.
The rope around my heart, whatever it was, pulled me downward, back to the first floor. Riley was somewhere below. I took Jazmin’s hand and led her from Riley’s room, back to the elevator. We returned to the lobby, and I looked down the hallway blocked off with velvet rope.
“What are we doing here?” Jazmin whispered, squeezing my hand.
I stared at the door to Tyler’s room, halfway to the end of the hall. “I can feel her. We’re getting closer.”
Jazmin resisted as I inched toward the forbidden hallway. “Are you telepathic now too or something?”
I ducked under the velvet rope. Jazmin let go of my hand, staying on the safe side. “No, but we have a connection. Something’s wrong. If we don’t find her soon—”
I didn’t finish my statement, not wanting to think about it. The truth was: the closer I got to Tyler’s room, the more that rope tightened around my chest, squeezing my heart, lungs, and ribs in toward each other until I thought I might burst. The last thing I wanted to do was check the inside of Tyler’s room. My biggest fear was finding Riley’s body the way his had been: spread eagle on the floor, her limbs limp and bloodless, abdomen full of violent gashes. Bile rose in my throat as I approached Tyler’s door.
“Please,” I whispered to no one in particular as I grasped the handle. “Don’t let it be Riley.”
I threw the door wide.
No Riley. No corpse. But plenty of dried blood and flies to go around. I gagged and covered my nose with the collar of Riley’s sweatshirt. The room reeked of rot and decay. Without a crime scene clean-up crew, Tyler’s leftovers remained where we’d left them on the day we moved his body. For three days, the room had been festering.
“What’s wrong?” Jazmin said, gathering the nerve to duck under the velvet rope.
I shoved her away from the room and shut the door. “It’s not Riley, but you don’t want to go in there. Trust me.”
Jazmin punched the wall. The aged plaster buckled under her knuckles. I’d never seen her like this, so angry and hopeless. I grabbed her hand as she wound up for another jab. The bones on the back of her hand were already red and angry.
“That won’t help,” I said. “Come on. We’ll find her.”
“This is my fault.” She ducked her head, letting her curtain of coppery hair cover her face. “If I hadn’t fallen asleep, I would’ve noticed she’d left the room.”
“You can’t be on your guard twenty four-seven,” I said. “You need to sleep. I left too, remember? I should’ve known better than to leave the two of you alone.”
“You should be able to trust me to keep Riley safe, and I didn’t.”
“Jazmin, stop,” I said. “This wasn’t your fault. I’m sure Riley’s fine—”
A sleepy voice from the end of the hallway interrupted me. “Ladies?”
It was Nick Porter, his usually perfect hair squished to one side from sleep. He wore blue satin pajamas and a workman’s overcoat, and he leaned against the wall sans cane. He breathed heavily, and he only put so much weight on the toes of his left leg.
As innocently as possible, I guided Jazmin away from Tyler’s room. “Hey, Nick. We were just, uh, looking for fresh ice. The top floor’s out.”
He wasn’t buying it. I wouldn’t have either if I’d seen someone standing outside the scene of the crime. He raised an eyebrow but didn’t call out the lie.
“No matter,” he said. “Riley’s outside in the butterfly garden. She looks to be asleep. I don’t know how long she’s been out there, but any longer and she might freeze to death. I would’ve gotten her myself but—”
I sprinted past him.
“—I probably would’ve fallen in the snow, and a fat lot of good that would’ve done her,” Nick finished as Jazmin and I whizzed by him. He limped after us, his stride clumpy and uneven.
The butterfly garden was visible from the café near the slopes. I cut through the gift shop hallway, rushed through the rental shop, and burst into the café. Sure enough, through the front window, there was Riley, lying across the stone benches beneath the trellis in the butterfly garden. The entire garden was layered in snow. Riley looked like part of an art installation, lying peacefully like an angel fallen from heaven. She lay flat on her back, her hands folded delicately as they rested on her stomach. Snowflakes alighted on her hair and nose. Was she breathing?
“What are you doing?” Jazmin demanded as I yanked open the door to
the café. A gust of wind nearly knocked me off my feet. The alarm went off too, a terribly shrill beat that incited more panic in me.
“I’m getting Riley. What do you think I’m doing?”
“Lucia, it’s freezing out there,” Nick, who’d finally caught up with us, said. “You should get a jacket and boots.”
“Riley’s in her pajamas.”
That ended the conversation. I waded into the snow. It was waist-deep, and the cold soaked through my jeans and sneakers in a matter of seconds. It was tough work to get through the drifts. The butterfly garden was close, but by the time I reached Riley, her lips were blue. She didn’t wake when I picked her up. She was cold and stiff. I carried her through the path I’d already made in the snow. My pulse had vanished again. I had to remind myself to breathe as Riley’s cold body lay in my grasp.
“Oh God,” Jazmin said as I carried Riley into the café and set her down in one of the booths. “Is she—?”
“I don’t know.” I rested my head against Riley’s chest. “She’s not breathing.”
“Move,” said Nick. The order was short and purposeful. I got out of the way as Nick knelt next to Riley on his good leg and began CPR. For what felt like hours, Jazmin and I watched as he pumped her chest. In reality, it was probably a minute before Nick put his ear to Riley’s mouth and sighed with relief. “We got her. She needs to get warm. Someone go get some blankets or something.”
“I’ll go,” Jazmin said and rushed off.
“You should change,” Nick said to me, nodding at my sopping jeans and sneakers. “You’re only going to get colder.”
“I’m not leaving Riley.”
“I’ll look after her.”
“No.” I maneuvered Riley’s stiff arms out of her drenched pajama top. Nick removed his coat and draped it around Riley. It was big enough to cover her from shoulders to shins, so I pulled off the rest of her clothes. Her pajamas were iced over. “Oh, kid. How long were you out there?”
If only she could’ve answered. I pulled Riley into my lap and wrapped my arms around her, bringing us chest to chest.
“Body heat.” Nick nodded in approval. “Good idea.”
“Can you help? I’m not sure how much good I’m doing her, considering I’m freezing too.”
He sat on Riley’s other side, his arms poised to wrap around us both. He looked at me for permission first. When I nodded, he scooped Riley and me into his embrace. Almost immediately, the temperature changed. Nick ran warm. With him at Riley’s back, the cold would leave her soon. An involuntary shiver ran through him as he tucked Riley’s small hands in his own massive ones.
“She’s colder than I thought,” he muttered.
This close to Nick, I could smell his peppermint mouthwash and musty cologne. I breathed deeply, taking comfort in his woodsy scent. With Riley sandwiched between us, there was no escaping the awkwardness of sharing such a small space. His face was a few inches from mine. His good looks, so polished from a distance, were rugged up close. A white scar drew a thin line through one of his thick eyebrows. The skin of his face wasn’t smooth as I expected, but rough and pockmarked as if he’d spent his youth fighting severe acne. There was definite strength in his grip through, and when my hands rested on his shoulders and back to smush Riley more firmly between us, I felt hard muscle beneath my fingertips. This was the reason Nick Porter was so successful as the face of White Oak. He embodied the spirit of an outdoorsman, but he was packaged as a handsome philanthropist.
“There were no tracks,” I muttered into Riley’s wet hair.
“What was that?” Nick said.
“There were no tracks in the snow,” I repeated. “I carved a huge dent to get to her, but mine is the only path out there. If someone carried her out there or even if she was sleepwalking, there would’ve been some sign of it.”
Nick craned his neck to look out the window behind me. “That’s weird. What do you think happened?”
“Do you remember the night before Tyler died?” I asked him. “You, me, Jazmin, and Daniel had dessert and coffee in the Eagle’s View. You said that the resort was holding on to bad energy ever since the fire of 1988.”
Nick’s brow furrowed. “Yes, I remember. Is it relevant?”
“What if you were right?” I said. “Madame Lucia’s Parlour was a hoax, but King and Queens isn’t. There are real spirits here, and I think they’re trying to kill the Watson family.”
“Miss Star, I don’t mean to be presumptuous or to doubt your abilities as a psychic,” he said in a gentle tone as if he knew he was about to let me down. “But ghosts don’t exist. Residual energy is one thing, but I don’t believe in lingering spirits.”
“How can you believe in residual energy but not in spirits?” I asked. “Ghosts are residual energy.”
“It’s not quite the same.”
“Explain.”
“Energy cannot be created or destroyed,” he said.
“Why are you quoting middle school science at me?”
“Because I believe when we die, our energy is redirected to another point in the world,” Nick answered. “It does not inexplicably disappear from this earth.”
“But you don’t believe in ghosts.”
“No, that would imply that residual energy has become sentient.”
“Or it always was sentient,” I argued. “How else would Riley have ended up out there in the butterfly garden?”
Riley’s head flopped to the side. Though her body temperature was on the rise, she hadn’t woken up yet. Nick maneuvered her into a more comfortable position so that she rested against his chest.
“Perhaps you’re right,” he suggested. “Or perhaps the culprit in this terrible game knows King and Queens better than any of us.”
Before I could ask him what prompted him to announce that, Jazmin returned with an armload of blankets. She also had Daniel in tow.
“What happened?” Daniel asked. Nick and I separated to let him examine Riley. He lifted one of her eyelids and shined a flashlight into her eye. “How long was she out there?”
“We don’t know,” I said, refusing to let go of Riley. “Long enough to stop her from breathing.”
“It wasn’t just the cold that did that,” Daniel said, watching his watch as he timed Riley’s pulse. “It looks like she’s been sedated.”
“Someone drugged her?” Jazmin said.
“Or she did it herself.”
“Riley wouldn’t,” I said.
Daniel glanced up at me. “Are you sure? Her mother and brother are already dead. She hears voices in her head. She’s stuck in a resort without anyone else her age around. That might be enough to drive a kid to this level of stress.”
“She’s only twelve.”
Daniel nodded solemnly. “Kids grow up fast these days.”
When he finished taking Riley’s pulse, I pulled her close again. “Riley would’ve told me if she was feeling like that. I know it. Someone else did this to her. The killer or whoever.”
“I have to agree with Lucia,” Nick chimed in. “It would be ignorant to assume Riley’s accident isn’t connected to Thelma and Tyler’s deaths. Someone is targeting the Watson family.”
With Nick to back me up, Daniel was more willing to accept my reasoning that Riley wasn’t at fault. He smoothed Riley’s wet hair away from her scalp. The look on his face was easy to read; he was thinking of his own daughter, caught up in a custody battle between him and his wife. What would he have done if this had happened to her?
“She’s breathing regularly now,” he reported. “Her pulse is slow but even. I’d say let’s get her to the emergency room, but that isn’t an option with the snow. Someone should watch her tonight.”
“I’ll do it,” Jazmin volunteered.
“We both will,” I added. “Has anyone found Oliver? Someone should tell him what happened.”
Nick clambered to his feet. Without his cane to rely on, he almost toppled over. He grabbed hold of the table to catch himself.
“I’ll see about Oliver. He might not care for me, but the rest of you should be with Riley.”
As Nick left, Daniel took a blanket from Jazmin and swaddled Riley like a toddler. He picked her up and nodded at me. “Lead the way. Once we get Riley in bed, you’re due for a hot bath. Can’t have two of my charges dealing with hypothermia.”
Once Riley and I were safe and warm, Daniel left us in Jazmin’s charge to investigate the butterfly garden and surrounding areas for clues as to who might have put Riley in such a position. I didn’t expect him to find anything. Despite my conversation with Nick, I was pretty sure whoever was responsible for Riley’s disappearance wasn’t amongst the living. When Riley woke up, around four in the morning, I got the confirmation I needed.
“Lucia?” she muttered, rolling over.
I rushed to her side. “Hey, kid. Everything’s okay. How do you feel?”
“Thirsty.”
Jazmin rose from the armchair she’d been dozing in to get Riley a glass of water. Then we both sat on either side of our small charge, sandwiching her yet again. We watched with worried faces as she drained the glass.
“Okay, what happened?” she said. “Why are you two looking at me like I died?”
“Because you almost did,” Jazmin said. “I woke up and you were gone. We found you half-frozen to death in the butterfly garden.”