On the surface, Elliot seemed like a well-put-together guy — he was wearing a suit and walking swiftly, as poised as a ballet dancer — but the interior of his house told another story. There were blurry photos thumbtacked to his walls next to post-it notes covered in unintelligible scribbles. The only thing missing was red string to tie it all together. It all screamed conspiracy theorist. Now I could see why he was Roman’s partner.
“Sit,” said Elliot, gesturing to his sofa. I moved a heap of books so that there was room, and I did as I was told. Roman stayed standing like a bodyguard behind me. Damn it, I hated how protective he was. Why did he have to make me swoon?
Elliot peered over steepled fingers, scrutinizing me like I was a particularly difficult math question. “Roman says you’re interested in joining our team for the Cressley Hotel case.”
I shrugged. “I guess so.”
“I know you’re a con artist. I checked up on you, and I know you’ve been arrested twice. You served two weeks in juvenile detention for vandalism when you were fifteen, and you did eighty hours of community service for petty larceny when you were twenty-one. Is all that information correct?”
I hadn’t told Roman everything about my past yet. I felt like I was being outed here in front of him. How had Elliot gotten all that information? My juvenile record was supposed to be sealed.
I chanced a glance at Roman, but I couldn’t read the expression on his always-serious face.
“That stuff is in my past,” I said.
“So the information is correct?” said Elliot.
“Yep.” What else was there to say? “Although it’s supposed to be private-”
“I have ways of getting information. Don’t worry. I don’t care about any of this. I’d be more concerned if you had a history of working with the police.”
I glanced at Roman to see if he felt the same way. I couldn’t tell, and it infuriated me.
“But you are a phony medium,” Elliot continued. “You can see why that concerns me.”
“Why do I feel like I’m suddenly in a job interview?”
“Roman and I work together. If you’re working with him, you’re working with me by default. He might trust you, but I don’t know anything about you yet.”
“I don’t believe in ghosts.” I shrugged. “I make money off people who do.”
He frowned. “Roman and I won’t give you any money.”
It was strange that someone like Elliot, who looked as though he might crumple under a light wind, could intimidate me so much, but looking into his eyes I felt like I was being examined. I was glad he wasn’t my dentist. (Who was I kidding? I couldn’t afford a dentist.)
“I know,” I said. “I’m doing this for free.” The words tasted bitter. Since when did Isaac Baker do anything for free? “I want to find out what’s going on.”
Elliot lowered himself into a stiff leather chair across the room from me. It creaked under him. “And Roman tells me you’re refusing to leave the hotel.”
“It’s not like I have anywhere else to live.”
“I can see why that would be a problem.”
“I was wondering if you could offer your spare room, Elliot?” asked Roman.
“I can offer it. I doubt Isaac will take it.”
Elliot was right. I couldn’t live here. What was with these men and their keen ability to read me? I must have lost my edge during my soft, easy life with Sasha.
“I recently escaped the suburbs,” I explained. “I’m starting to reconnect with old friends in Seattle. I want to stay in the city.”
Roman started to say something, but Elliot cut him off. “Stop being stubborn, Roman. Isaac has made his choice. Besides, if he wants to help with this investigation, we could use him.” He narrowed his eyes at me.
“How can I help?”
“Roman has been working in the hotel for two years, and he hasn’t gotten much information out of anyone.”
“I’m not good at talking to people,” said Roman. “Apparently, I intimidate them.”
Roman was a big guy. He was intense. But it was clear from my brief time knowing him that he was intense about what he believed in, and he believed in protecting people. He was the opposite of intimidating. He was safe.
“But you, Isaac, are charming,” said Elliot.
I hadn’t been charming today. I was overtired and overwhelmed; my charisma was on hiatus. Besides, it was hard to get a word in edgewise with Elliot.
“So…” I leaned forward, bracing my elbows on my denim-clad knees and meeting Elliot’s eyes. “You want me to get information.”
Elliot nodded. “I want you to interrogate staff and long term guests of the hotel about anything strange they’ve noticed here, no matter how irrelevant you think it is. Can you do that?”
I grinned. “I can do that.” Information to a psychic was like tips to a hot waitress.
“That’s what I like to hear.”
“Elliot,” said Roman. “If Isaac is going to stay at the Cressley, we need to talk to him about protection.”
I glanced over my shoulder to catch Roman’s eye and wink at him. “Thanks, but I already have condoms in my wallet.”
His eyes widened and flashed from my face to Elliot’s. “Isaac has tarot cards in his room!” he said quickly, like a child tattling on the playground. “And a ouija board.”
“Spirit board,” I corrected.
“Hmm.” That thoughtful look was back on Elliot’s face. He looked from Roman to me. “That’s interesting.”
“It’s unsafe,” said Roman.
“I thought you guys at least tried to be scientific,” I said.
“There’s no concrete proof that spirits use spirit boards,” said Elliot. “But some research indicates that by using a spirit board, you’re giving spirits the tools they need to make contact with the living. Opening the door for communication.”
“Wouldn’t that be a good thing?”
“No,” said Roman sharply. “It’s too dangerous. Don’t even think about using it. Or your tarot cards.”
I was starting to think that maybe something strange was going on at the Cressley, but I was nowhere near naive enough to believe in the dangers of a spirit board. That was horror movie material.
“I haven’t seen any evidence that tarot cards lead to sinister spiritual activity,” said Elliot.
“That’s because it’s all bullshit,” I said confidently. I leaned sideways along the couch so that I could look between Elliot and Roman without craning my neck. Elliot looked pleasantly curious, and Roman was stone-faced and resolute.
“The solution is easy,” said Elliot. “Isaac won’t use the spirit board, and Roman will keep his nose out of Isaac’s psychic business. Is that okay with both of you?”
“Okay,” I said. I shrugged. All this drama was a bit much for me.
Roman stayed silent, arms folded, face like an angry statue. “It has to be,” he said at last.
“Isaac,” said Elliot. He turned his eyes on me. I had never seen such keen, intelligent eyes in my life. It was impossible not to quake under his stare. “Please fill me in on what happened last night.”
Roman started to talk, but Elliot held up a hand to stop him. “I want to hear directly from the victim.”
My blood boiled at his phrasing. “I’m not a victim.”
“Not yet, but if we don’t take this seriously, you might end up that way. Please, in your own words…” He waved his hand to indicate I should start talking.
I sighed and relayed what had happened to me in the pre-dawn morning. It was easy to brush off the sounds in the walls as plumbing issues, the shadows and whispers as tricks of my tired mind.
“That plumbing, huh?” said Elliot. He reached underneath his chair and pulled out a tattered notebook and permanent marker. He scribbled something down. “I’ve heard a lot about the plumbing on that floor of the Cressley Hotel.”
“Have they ever hired a plumber?” I asked, struck by inspiration. “Cou
ld I talk to him?”
Roman and Elliot exchanged a glance.
“Lance does all the maintenance at the Cressley hotel,” said Roman slowly. His lip curled into a sneer.
“Lance is terrible,” said Elliot. “In a lot of ways.”
“He’s a bit homophobic,” said Roman. “And he’s a lot racist. He won’t tell me anything, but he might talk to you.”
I shrugged. “I guess I might as well try.”
Chapter Eight
Roman
My job at the Cressley Hotel would have been perfect if not for all the working. I had better things to do. I wanted to spend all day and night on the fourteenth floor with Isaac, not carrying less interesting guests’ luggage all over the rest of the hotel.
Kyle wasn’t working tonight. I had to deal with Ben as my manager. Ben was 6’ of intolerable bravado, with a shaved head and a peppery sprinkle of facial hair that cut hard angles in his face. I tried to avoid Ben as much as possible, but he was always looking for a fight.
He confronted me when he saw me signing in for my shift. “I heard rumors you were walking around the fourteenth floor last night.”
He hadn’t asked me a question, so I didn’t feel the need to give him an explanation.
Ben persisted. “But you weren’t scheduled to work last night. What’s the story there, Roman?”
“I was visiting someone.”
“You were visiting someone?”
“A guest invited me to his room.”
Ben’s voice darkened. “Which guest?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Don’t let me catch you harassing anyone with your crazy ghost stories.”
I didn’t harass anyone, but there was no point arguing with Ben.
I tried to avoid him for the rest of the night, but he sought me out to bark orders in my ears. Work took what felt like an eternity. Ben’s eagle eyes stayed fixed on me, waiting and watching for a screwup.
I forced myself to stay away from the thirteenth floor, but I couldn’t make myself stop wondering what was going on up there. It was harder to stop thinking about Isaac.
Especially with him texting me. I chanced a peek at my vibrating phone.
All quiet in the haunted house tonight ;)
What was that winking face supposed to mean? A spark of misguided hope flared in my stomach. Was Isaac flirting with me?
Wishful thinking.
I stared at Isaac’s text, unsure of how to respond. The message didn’t beg for a reply, but if I gave one, I could start a real conversation. Isaac and I could develop rapport. If we were going to be working together, that was important, right? We needed some level of trust.
I’m glad you’re safe. I hit send before I could second-guess myself.
Isaac responded almost immediately. Stop it. You’re going to make me blush.
Now he was definitely (probably) flirting with me. I imagined a light pink flush on his pale skin and a sparkle in his eye. It made my heart tingle. Elliot was right; Isaac would make a charming investigator. If he asked witnesses what happened, they might actually talk.
But what was I supposed to say to him?
Despite all my misgivings, I couldn’t deny that I had more than one reason to be excited about working with Isaac. My heart jumped when my phone buzzed, and when I let my mind wander, Isaac’s body popped into my head and made my blood surge.
Isaac was wrong about everything ghost-related, but I liked that he tried to challenge me. I liked a lot of things about him, from those abs to that cocky smirk to that way he scratched behind his ear when you could tell he was feeling awkward. There was so much more to that man than you could see on the surface. I yearned to unearth it all. I had always been interested in solving puzzles, and Isaac was a very pretty puzzle.
But he was hard to solve. I didn’t know how to respond to his message. I’d like to make you blush? Too forward.
I’m sorry? Too deferential.
You should talk to Mr. Partridge and Lance tomorrow. I hit send. I needed to focus on facts. I was working with Isaac to catch ghosts, not to get my dick wet. I had to be professional.
Targets acquired, Isaac messaged back. A long string of emojis followed his message. Another man might have stood there and stared at them, searching for meaning in the tiny cartoons. But I put my phone away immediately. I would never do something like that.
Chapter Nine
Isaac
With another reading over, another divorcee believed she could find love again, and I was done with work. Genesis needed a break. My eyes were so heavy the cards blurred in front of me. I closed my laptop and slumped back on my lumpy mattress.
The Cressley Hotel had sapped my stamina. Back at Sasha’s, I had been able to work for over six hours without yawning.
But back at Sasha’s, the thumping in the walls never lasted longer than twenty minutes (why was she with Matthew, again?). Back at Sasha’s, there had been nothing on my mind. I slept, I ate, I worked like I was on autopilot.
Now life was lively again. There were so many things to think about I could barely fit them all in my brain. Roman shook me to the core. When I wasn’t thinking about the eerie shivers snaking over me or the creepy sounds in the walls, I was thinking about him.
It had been a long time since I’d had a crush on anyone. Usually. my love life went like this: I saw someone attractive, I liked them, I slept with them, and I went along with whatever happened next. But Roman? He made me feel like I had high-school hormones again. He danced at the periphery of every thought that popped into my head. I had forgotten how all-consuming hopeless crushes could be.
Roman was too serious for me. He organized his life like a filing system, and I was a discarded receipt. But there was no denying it. When I wasn’t with Roman, I wished I was. I kept wondering what he was doing, what he was thinking about, if he was ever thinking about me. Roman was fascinating — seemingly immune to my charisma and impossible to read. And he was fucking gorgeous.
I couldn’t believe I was honest-to-god hunting ghosts with him now. Maybe I’d finally reached the snapping point of my sanity. But I couldn’t come up with a logical explanation for the things going on in room 1405. At the same time, I couldn’t — wouldn’t — say the Cressley Hotel was certainly haunted. I needed to find out the truth.
Mr. Partridge wasn’t home today, so I only had one mark: Lance the maintenance worker. I’d called reception earlier about problems with my plumbing this morning — not a lie — but I hadn’t heard back. I half-heartedly hoped talking to Lance would yield new information about the investigation, but mostly I wanted him to ease my anxiety. I wanted him to assure me the thumping in the walls was because of old plumbing and that the cold spots were problems with the air conditioning.
And the hand on your shoulder? a voice in my head needled me.
I ignored it. I was starting to drowse off, fully clothed and with the lights on, when Hannibal started kneading my stomach. His heavy paws hit me straight in the gut.
“Oof,” I said. I wrenched open my eyelids and gave him a pat. He immediately climbed onto my chest, face an inch from mine, and stared at me, his face disdainful as he purred happily. Cats.
I wasn’t one hundred percent sure where I would put Hannibal when Lance finally showed up, but he was quiet and timid, good at hiding, and dark enough to blend into the shadows under the furniture. I could keep Lance to the bathroom, and their paths would never cross.
Theoretically, I could message Roman and ask him if he knew when maintenance was likely to get back to me, but my hormones were messing with my head. I’d messaged him last night. I didn’t want to seem needy. So what if every thought I had inevitably ended up circling him? That didn’t mean I had to give in to my impulses.
I heard a loud knock on the door and my heart swelled like a balloon. My heart pounded hard enough to bring beads of sweat to my forehead. Was that Roman? Or Lance?
When the door opened, I got my answer. The m
an in front of me was about my size, slightly older, and he was exceptionally pointy. He had a pointy nose, beady eyes, and collarbones like knives. I didn’t like the sharp smirk on his face.
“You must be the maintenance guy.” I wasn’t supposed to know his name. I didn’t want the hotel staff to know what I was doing. The shame would kill me.
“Yup. The name’s Lance.” He hoisted up his toolbelt. “I’ve heard your pipes are messed up.”
“The water keeps turning on and off for no reason.”
“You’d be surprised how often that happens on this floor.” He chuckled.
I chuckled along, attempting to develop rapport. “Old pipes, huh?”
“Depends who you ask.” He snorted, as though he was in on a joke I didn’t know about, but I knew exactly what he meant. I would play naive for now.
Lance stepped past me and into my room. “Let’s see what’s going on in your bathroom.”
Hannibal was already hiding under his chair, and I was confident Lance wouldn’t notice him. I’d known enough potheads to recognize the glaze in Lance’s eyes and the hoarseness to his chuckle. But my psychic gear? That wasn’t hiding in the shadows. I realized the moment Lance stepped inside that my Genesis station was still set up on the bed, tarot cards on full display. I cringed.
“Dude.” Lance laughed. He gestured at my bed. “What’s all this?”
There were two directions I could go with this answer. I had to make a decision quick. I could either be open about being a fraud, or I could pretend I was the real deal. I had a split second to decide which option would coax the most useful information out of Lance.
“I’m a psychic,” I said.
“For real? Is that why you’re here at the Creeply Hotel?”
“Do you think it’s actually haunted?” I asked.
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