by Неизвестный
“Come here, Butter,” Miranda said, patting her legs until Butter jumped up to settle his front paws on her. He knew better than to get up on the furniture in Jack’s house. He had the use of one of Jack’s old body pillows to sleep on when he was here, but having someone let him get even this far up on the couch was a real treat. She ruffed the fur around his neck and scratched his ears. “We’re going to have to find someone to watch you for a few days, boy. Me and Jack are taking a trip.”
Kyle floated closer, his eyes eager. “Oooh, where are we going?”
“Excuse me?” she laughed. “Who said you were coming along?”
“Oh, come on now, Miranda,” he complained. “It’s not like I get to have a lot of excitement on my own. Graduating from moving pens around a table to throwing a ball six feet across a lawn is as exciting as my life—excuse me, I mean my death—has been of late. Let me come along.”
Miranda rolled her eyes, but she knew she was going to give in. Besides, even if she said no it wasn’t like she could stop her ghostly friend from tagging along if he wanted to. It was nice that he was asking, though. When this whole death thing had first started for him he’d completely forgotten the concept of privacy. Locks on the bathroom door did no good to stop someone who could just float through walls.
“Besides,” Kyle said before Miranda could tell him yes, “I’m rather stuck with you, I think, until we figure out why I can’t move on to the afterlife.”
That was true. Most ghosts moved on once their issues were resolved. Finding out who or what killed them usually did the trick. However, Kyle’s murder had been solved for some time now and yet, he was still here.
“All right, fine,” she relented. “You can come along. The same rules still apply, though. If Jack and I need to be alone, you’ll find a roof to hang out on or a nice closet to haunt.”
“Oh, you’re my hero,” he said flippantly. “So where are we headed to?”
At that moment Jack came back into the room with a big smile on his face. “Okay, we’re all set,” he said. “Just need to pack a bag and go. First thing in the morning.”
He stopped as he saw Butter standing there. “Oh, I forgot about our four-footed friend. What are we doing with him?”
“I’m going to ask Sapphire to watch him,” Miranda said, scratching around the dog’s ears again when he started to lick her idle fingers. “She loves Butter. Even if she does insist on calling him Gypsy. Poor mutt’s going to have an identity crisis.”
“Yeah, but he loves it.” Jack tapped his phone against his thigh as he looked about the room. “So, if your dog is here…”
Miranda sat up, encouraging Butter to go off to his pillow with a little push. “Yes, Jack. Our friend Kyle is here.”
“Yoo-hoo,” Kyle chirped, floating around Jack in a circle, just because he could. “Hiya, Jack. I’m gonna come with you on your trip.”
Jack’s gaze found Miranda. “He’s going to come with us on our trip, isn’t he?”
She suppressed a giggle behind her hands. “Funny you should ask that. Kyle and I were just talking about it. Don’t worry, he said he’ll be a good boy and leave the room whenever we want to, um, be alone together.”
“He better. My love for you is a private thing.”
“Oh?” she said, watching him very closely as he began walking over to her, one step at a time, his eyes locked on hers. “I thought you wanted to scream our love to the world.”
“I do,” he admitted, “and someday maybe I’ll even give the world something to talk about.”
He took her hand when he said that, and she knew for a fact that he meant that maybe someday, he’d ask her that most serious of questions between a man and a woman.
Pulling him onto the couch with her, finding his lips with hers, she welcomed that idea. She’d never been married before, but having Jack pop the question to her someday just felt right.
In the meantime, she waved Kyle away. This was one of those moments she wanted to share only with Jack.
As Kyle rolled his eyes and floated away, Butter got up with a huff and followed, too.
Chapter 2
The next morning, Jack and Miranda were pulling up outside the Maze Hotel.
“That is one hell of a maze,” Jack said, adding a whistle of appreciation. “That has got to take some maintenance. I mean, some serious hedge trimming, you know? Especially in the summer.”
“I had no idea you were so interested in gardening,” Miranda teased.
“Hardly. I was just wondering how a small hotel like this can afford the upkeep of such a huge maze.”
“Well, they are probably crooks and absolutely up to no good whatsoever,” Miranda chuckled. “Don’t ruin this for us with your cop logic, okay? All I care about is that it was seriously affordable and it’s just gorgeous here.”
Which was true. The hotel had actually been an old mansion house years ago, until someone had put in a lot of time and money to convert the different rooms into guest bedrooms. Each floor had a shared bath, from what Miranda understood, but that was okay with her. The ceramic tiled roof and the detail in the molding around the windows and doorframes was just incredible. The lawn was manicured in perfect rows all around the hedge maze, which took up a majority of the property.
Kyle, tagging along in the backseat, piped up. “Looks too good to be true, if you ask me. You’ll probably find an ant nest under your bed or something.”
Miranda twisted around to glare at his translucent face. “If I find an ant nest under the bed, Kyle, I am totally going to blame you.”
Jack followed her gaze in the rearview mirror and stared into what was, to him, simply thin air. “Uh, I don’t mind hanging out with Kyle, Miranda, but couldn’t he find someone else to be with for a day or two?”
She lowered her voice to a whisper in reply. “It’s not like he has a large group of friends, Jack.”
“Hey,” Kyle complained. “You know I can still hear you, right? I’m dead, I’m not deaf.”
Jack arched an eyebrow as he parked the car in the lot. “Well. At least we didn’t have to pay for him.”
With a little snort, Kyle disappeared. Miranda tried not to laugh at his dramatic exit. She hoped they hadn’t hurt his feelings too much.
As Jack carried their luggage and they walked along the gravel pathway to the front door of the Maze Hotel, Miranda looked all about her. The beauty of the building caught her eye again. Up in one of the sash windows, she thought she saw the blurry outline of someone staring out, clearly watching them.
Then the curtains were drawn closed, and whoever it was disappeared from view.
In the foyer lobby, Miranda couldn’t help but notice that the whole place had a lovely bed and breakfast feel to it. She could definitely make herself at home here for a few days. Now she understood why Sapphire had recommended it so highly.
Kyle returned to them, hanging back from them by the double entry door. They had been pretty unfair to him, she supposed. After all this time with him hanging around her, having nowhere else to go and not able to move on to the afterlife, she might be taking him a bit for granted. Maybe she would talk to Jack about that later.
For now, they had a vacation to begin.
As they approached the check-in desk at the far side of the lobby, she could see that Jack was distracted by something. It didn’t take her long to see what it was. There was something of a heated discussion going on at the far end of the lobby and, Jack being Jack, was assessing the situation in typical cop fashion by hanging back and eavesdropping.
A pretty brown-haired woman was one half of the argument. “Look. I don’t care about any of that.” She was young, maybe in her thirties, and the look on her face as she spread her arms wide was almost pleading. “Nino was the one paying for our room. I just don’t have the money. I’m using all my savings just to help prove he is innocent.”
The other person in the conversation was a dowdy-looking middle-aged woman with a square face and a thick mop
of blonde curls. Her lips were pursed and her glasses were perched well down her nose, giving her the appearance of strict disapproval. “I run a hotel here, Daphne. Not a shelter for the wayward and the crooked.”
The woman named Daphne gasped at that. “Well Veronica, if it wasn’t for your favorite guest my husband wouldn’t have been wrongly arrested in the first place. And where is Harvey? I’d love to have another chat with him.”
The owner of the hotel, Veronica, crossed her arms over her ample chest. “As you say, Daphne, but you leave Harvey alone. Like you said he’s a guest, and I won’t have my guests bothered. Look, if Antonino Bonica isn’t involved with the Mob, then he will be released. I have faith in our justice system here in Australia. Which also means,” she added, “that if they arrested your husband he must have done something. Now. You are paid up for the next few days and that is all. I’m just reminding you now so there are no issues when I come knocking on your door to tell you to collect your things and go!”
Daphne frowned hard enough to put deep creases across her forehead and then spun on her heels, storming off in grand style. “Well, I’ll just have to find Harvey myself and demand a few answers of my own,” she called back over her shoulder before stomping away up the stairs.
“Well then,” Kyle said from behind them. “This place may not be so boring after all.”
“Shush,” Miranda hissed back at him, at the same time that Jack cleared his throat rather loudly to make their presence known. Veronica turned around suddenly, surprised to see them there, and blushed scarlet.
“I do apologize,” she said as she hurried over to the desk. “I didn’t mean for anyone else to hear that. I’m terribly sorry.”
“No problem,” Jack told her with a smile that almost nearly covered up his burning curiosity. “I called yesterday about a room? Jack Travis, and Miranda Wylder.”
“Oh, yes. Of course, Mister Travis. I’ve already booked you in.” Veronica had clearly recovered her demeanor from her argument with Daphne. She was cheerful and friendly to her new guests. It was almost like that whole argument about the Mob, and Daphne’s husband Nino being arrested, had never happened.
Miranda watched the woman consult an honest-to-God paper ledger book of check ins. Now that she was looking for it, Miranda noticed the absence of a computer or tablet device. Apparently, Veronica did all of her business on paper and by memory.
“Here we are, then,” she told them. “Room Twelve. It’s on that side of the house, so it looks out over the maze. I think it’s one of our best.”
As she was handing them a key dangling from a gray plastic diamond marked with a gold 12, a man came striding into the lobby.
“Veronica, have you seen Harvey?” he barked. “I’ve business with him.”
“I’m sure I have no idea,” Veronica snapped at the man, “but you aren’t the only one looking for him. Daphne was asking for him, too. I’m a hotel proprietor, not a social secretary. Find him yourself. Now. I would appreciate it if you would stop asking me about him. I have guests. Jack, Miranda, welcome to the Maze Hotel. Enjoy your stay. If you want to leave your bags I’ll have them brought up to your room.”
“That would be great,” Jack said before taking Miranda’s hand. “I’d like to go see the maze before we settle in.”
As they turned away, he whispered in her ear, “Because I don’t plan on leaving the room much once we get up there.”
Miranda could feel her cheeks blushing, and she saw the way Kyle deliberately did not smile as he turned away. He’d heard every word, whether he wanted to admit it or not.
Before they made it out the door to go exploring, the man who had burst in stepped in front of them. Miranda stared at him, only really noticing him now that he was blocking their path. He was taller than her by nearly a foot, taller even than Kyle who Miranda had always thought of as well above average. He was dressed in casual dress clothes, slacks and a turtleneck sweater, and an earring studded his left ear.
Jack took a step forward, protectively standing between the stranger and Miranda. “Excuse me,” he said. “Can I help you?”
“Oh, hi,” he said, as if Jack had just popped into existence right at that moment. “Don’t mean to bother you, but I was wondering… aren’t you Miranda Wylder?”
He looked past Jack when he asked it, to Miranda. He certainly seemed harmless enough. “Yes,” Miranda told him. “That’s me. Do I know you?”
“I’ve never had the pleasure. Well, not in person,” the man said with obvious excitement. “What I mean to say is I read your book. Several of them, actually, but I mean your first one, The Mob’s Calling. I thought it was great.”
“Well,” Miranda said, feeling overjoyed to be recognized by a fan. “Well, thank you very much.”
“You are so welcome. It isn’t every day you get to meet a writer of your talent. We did have Stephen King stay here once, so they tell me, but that was years ago. Before my time.”
Jack relaxed, and turned a question to Miranda. She didn’t know what to say to that, either. “Thank you. I guess.”
Kyle floated overhead, smiling like he’d just heard the greatest joke ever. “You and Stephen King! Oh yes, I can definitely see the similarities.”
“Tell you what,” the man said. “My name is Irving Giraldi, and I’m sort of the groundskeeper here at the Maze Hotel. Been working here for nearly a year now and it would be my great privilege to give you guys a tour of our maze.”
“Wow,” Kyle teased her again, “so this is what it’s like to have a fan, Miranda. Why don’t you offer to autograph his hand?”
When he floated close, Miranda swiped at him with her hand, dispersing some of his shimmering blue light and distorting his image while he laughed and danced away from them.
Irving asked Miranda lots of questions about her writing, and the research she had done for The Mob’s Calling, and he seemed delighted by every answer she gave. Then he asked Jack if he was a writer as well.
“No,” Jack answered plainly. “I’m a police officer.”
“Oh,” was Irving’s one word answer. He seemed almost disappointed by that. Or put off, somehow.
After another few steps towards the hedges, Irving reclaimed his avid interest in the conversation.
“Have you got any plans for a follow-up to The Mob’s Calling? I mean, any more Mob-related crime novels, Miss Wylder?”
That was the same question her editor had asked her. More than once. “Well, I think I kind of exhausted that angle with that book. But I did write a follow up book called Dance With The Devil. It wasn’t strictly related to the mob but there were some connecting themes. I’m looking at other crime ideas now.”
“Ah, I see. Tell me, where did you get all those ideas from? It all seemed so real.”
They were at the entrance to the maze now, with tall hedges to either side trimmed into square, flat edges. Miranda was thinking back to all the time she had put into that first successful crime novel of hers. “Well, I did a good deal of research for it. In fact, the research took me longer than the writing.”
“Oh, isn’t that always the way?” Irving said. “The prep work takes forever and then you do something and poof! It’s done!”
Miranda laughed, strangely pleased to be talking about her art with a complete stranger. She knew she had fans, of course. Her books wouldn’t be doing as well as they were otherwise. Still, she wasn’t so famous that people recognized her off the street. This was a first for Miranda.
They entered the maze together, letting Irving lead them along passageways that seemed to cut them off from the outside world. It was like another place and time in here. After several long minutes of twisting and turning along the pathway between the hedges Miranda admitted to herself that she was completely lost and wondering if she would ever be able to find her way out again.
“You’re going to love this next turn,” Irving said, leading them with a wave of his hand. “There’s a lovely little fountain right in the mid
dle.”
Miranda craned her neck to see ahead. “Oh, that sounds great. To be honest, I hadn’t been expecting anything other than just…”
Miranda fell silent the moment they turned the corner of the hedge and looked at the fountain.
There, face up next to the fountain, was the body of a man.
Chapter 3
It was Jack’s reaction that Miranda remembered most of all.
She knew he’d seen more dead bodies during his career than he’d ever told her about. They’d been to several murder scenes together too, for one reason or another. He’d never looked upset at the many faces of death.
Now, as Jack looked down at the man lying on the gravel path, his face paled. His jaw dropped. He instinctively reached for his phone and dialed 000.
“Jack?” she asked him.
“I’m okay,” he said instantly, although there was a strain in his voice. “I just didn’t realize… inside when Irving asked where Harvey was, and when Daphne was talking about Harvey getting her husband arrested... I didn’t realize they meant this Harvey…”
“Oh no,” Irving was saying, over and over. “Oh, no! That’s Harvey. That’s Harvey Mason. He’s dead, isn’t he? Oh, Dear God, he’s dead.”
“Captain Obvious is right,” Kyle said, putting in his two cents. “He’s dead. Miranda, who is this Harvey Mason guy?”
The dead man, Harvey, was in a black button-up shirt, and beige pants, and a pair of cowboy boots. The boots seemed so out of place with the rest of his wardrobe, especially the gold chain around his neck.
“Who was he, Jack?” Miranda asked Kyle’s question out loud.
He cleared his throat. “Harvey Mason was a friend of mine. He was a police officer.”
His call connected and he stepped away a short distance, talking to emergency services to let them know what had happened. Kyle followed Jack, hovering next to him for a few moments, concern etched in his ghostly blue face.
Kyle floated slowly back toward Miranda. “Your boyfriend is really upset,” he said, genuinely sorry for Jack.