Midnight at the Barclay Hotel

by Fleur Bradley

  And suddenly there was a buzzing sound.

  Startled, Penny jumped onto JJ’s back. “Aaaaghhh!”

  “Whoa, are you okay?” JJ asked over his shoulder.

  “No. Yes.” Penny climbed down, embarrassed for being startled so easily. She had to be brave. She noticed an electronic pad. It had a grid with nine squares. “What’s that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe we should hit the squares,” JJ said. It was the first thing he thought of, and why not?

  Penny stopped him. “I think this might be a game. Mr. Barclay built all this entertainment into the hotel for his sick daughter.”

  “How do you know that?” JJ asked.

  “I read it online before we came here.” Penny studied the pad with the nine squares. “It looks like tic-tac-toe.”

  “Maybe if we play, it will let us out of the elevator,” JJ said.

  Sure, tic-tac-toe looks easy. But it’s a lot harder to win than it seems.

  “Do you know how to beat the game?” Penny asked JJ.

  JJ said, “It’s been a long time since I played . . . I think if you start, you have the advantage.” The air was getting stuffier by the second. They had to hurry.

  After a moment of hesitation, Penny touched the center square. A circle marked the spot.

  The top right showed an X. Penny responded with a circle in the bottom corner. The game continued but ended in a tie. And then the board cleared. This time JJ played, but the game just kept coming to a stalemate. No one was winning. And what was worse, the computer seemed to get frustrated, speeding up its answers, the pad feeling warm to the touch.

  It was an angry computer—and a pretty scary one at that.

  This was when JJ had an idea, the kind that comes from strategic thinking. JJ might not be the best at reading, but he was a whiz at seeing the big picture.

  He stopped and took a step back. Maybe the only way to beat the game (and the elevator) was to walk away.

  “I quit,” JJ said to the elevator ceiling (he wasn’t sure why he looked there, but he imagined some puppet master up above laughing hysterically). “There is no way to win.”

  The screen started filling in Xs all over the tic-tac-toe grid, over and over and over. It was freaking JJ and Penny out.

  “You made the game mad,” Penny whispered to JJ.

  The delirious pace kept going and going and going, until there was a low hissing sound. Smoke came from the screen, and it went black.

  Silence filled the space.

  Penny held her breath. JJ wondered how much longer they’d be stuck there.

  There was a faint haze surrounding them. JJ paused and waved his hand. For a second he thought it might be a haunting—a ghost!

  But it turned out to be more like the haze from a fire.

  Penny noticed it too. “There’s smoke!”

  And it was getting harder to breathe. JJ coughed. The smoke was getting thicker. Had he made the game so mad, it decided to kill them?!

  There was another loud CLANK.

  Penny yelled, “Help!”

  TURNED OUT THAT the CLANK was good news: the elevator was back in business. It took a moment, but then the lights came on and it moved. The smoke was sucked out through a vent.

  First the elevator went up to the second floor, and then it came back down to the basement level.

  The doors opened. There stood Mr. Clark and JJ’s mom, looking worried.

  “JJ!” she called. “I’ve been trying to find you. I even enlisted Mr. Clark here. What happened?”

  He wasn’t going to be a hero, not anymore. JJ ran out, fumbling his backpack. A paper fell out, and Penny picked it up. She was about to give it to him, but he was off to hug his mom.

  Penny pocketed the paper to give to JJ later.

  Penny and JJ told them about the elevator getting stuck, and then the tic-tac-toe game popping up.

  Penny said, “You saved us, JJ. You realized we had to quit to beat the game.”

  Mr. Clark nodded approvingly. “Very clever.” But then he frowned. “That game function is supposed to be shut off. Mr. Barclay installed it for his daughter,” he said. “She loved tic-tac-toe. It was a secret game that would appear if you hit that red button ten times.”

  “Ten times?” JJ’s mom asked.

  Mr. Clark glanced at JJ and Penny. “You really hit the red button that many times?”

  JJ and Penny both shrugged.

  Penny said, “It was an emergency, Mr. Clark. The elevator was stuck. We thought you might get an alarm or something, and you’d come to get us out.”

  JJ added, “But the thing went crazy and got mad when we didn’t continue playing.”

  His mom said, “It’s an old hotel, JJ. Maybe the computer just broke.”

  Or maybe it was the hotel being haunted. Maybe it was the murderer. Why was it that adults always tried to explain things away?

  Mr. Clark inspected the inside of the elevator. “Hmmm,” he mumbled. “That’s peculiar.”

  “What?” Penny asked.

  “Mr. Barclay shut the game off.” Mr. Clark looked very serious. “Someone sabotaged that elevator. They messed with the wires and activated the game.”

  “On purpose?” JJ asked.

  “It seems so.” Mr. Clark waited for the elevator doors to close. There was a hum that told them the car was going up.

  Mr. Clark turned to walk back to the pool. “I must convince Detective Walker to get involved.”

  “I’m going to the bowling alley, to find Ms. Chelsea,” Penny said to JJ. And she was off, before JJ could talk to her about this strange elevator business.

  Jackie turned to JJ. “Let’s take the stairs.”

  As they walked up the stairs, JJ worked up the courage to ask his mom what he came to find out. “Why did Mr. Barclay think you wanted him dead?”

  JJ’s mom stopped for a moment. She sighed and turned to JJ before she started walking again. “I think it’s time I told you the truth.”

  They had reached their floor and were walking down the hall toward their room. “Mr. Barclay actually had a lot of money invested in PB&JJ,” his mom said.

  She unlocked the hotel room door. “When I came here for a meeting on Friday morning, Mr. Barclay threatened to make me pay back the entire loan he gave me to start the company. That would be really bad—PB&JJ might go under without his investment.”

  “Wait—you were here at the hotel on the same day that Mr. Barclay died?” JJ felt a sick, twisty feeling in his gut.

  “Yes.” JJ’s mom sat down on the bed. “The truth is, Mr. Barclay wasn’t wrong. I had motive to kill him, and I was here at the hotel that Friday. So I am a suspect.”

  THIS WAS NOT going at all according to JJ’s plan. His mom had motive and opportunity—she was even there the day Mr. Barclay died!

  “Of course, I didn’t actually kill Mr. Barclay,” JJ’s mom added. “At the time of his death I was on my way home, on a conference call.”

  “Of course you didn’t kill Mr. Barclay,” JJ said with a nervous laugh. Because he remembered what Penny had said about motive, means, and opportunity. To any detective, his mom was still a suspect. Just because JJ knew his mom could never kill anyone didn’t mean she was cleared.

  “I’m sorry to get you mixed up in the murder investigation, JJ,” his mom said.

  “It’s okay.” JJ thought about the whopper of a secret he was keeping from her. He’d never shown her the letter he’d been carrying around in his backpack.

  “Well, maybe you can at least get some of your ghost hunting in,” his mom said with a smile. “I know that’s the whole reason you wanted to come here.”

  “And to spend time with you,” JJ said. Right about now, JJ felt really guilty about keeping that letter from his mom. It was hard to keep a secret around Jackie Jacobson. “But nightti
me is good for ghost hunting.”

  “Just be careful. Oh, and JJ?” his mom said behind him.

  “Yeah.”

  “Take the stairs.”

  * * *

  MEANWHILE, PENNY WAS looking for Ms. Chelsea to find out her motive to kill Mr. Barclay, but the librarian was nowhere to be found. She wasn’t in the bowling alley, the carousel room, the Cupcake Shoppe (which made Penny hungry), or the den. After running all over the hotel, Penny paused and asked herself:

  Where would a librarian go, if she were visiting the Barclay Hotel . . . ?

  The answer was suddenly so obvious that Penny felt foolish for not thinking of it earlier. She opened the heavy wooden doors and went inside the library. Penny stood amongst the bookcases lining the walls. The library smelled like old books and polished wood, and the upper level (reachable only by a spiral staircase), expanded as far as her eyes could see. This was Penny’s favorite place to be—she felt at home in the library.

  She took it all in and let out a sigh of delight. This had to be what heaven was like.

  It was so quiet. This was the kind of silence that Penny loved when she was reading—there was nothing like being alone with a book, and getting lost in a story.

  But when Penny returned her attention to the task at hand, she realized that Ms. Chelsea wasn’t in the library.

  “Ms. Chelsea?” she called, even though she was pretty sure no one would respond. “Hello . . . ?”

  She looked up to see a black shape dart away. It looked like a cat. Penny loved animals, and hoped she’d be able to catch up to it.

  Penny went up the staircase. Her footsteps were loud, echoing off the walls and the huge window that overlooked the valley. This place was amazing. She wished she’d brought her phone now, to take pictures for her friends at home.

  Penny ran her fingers along the book spines, smiling.

  She was busy getting lost amongst the books again when she heard a loud THUMP! She jumped, then saw that deeper into the library stacks, there was a big book on the floor. Penny walked over and picked it up, although she recognized the book by the picture of the hotel on the front.

  The History of the Barclay Hotel

  Obviously, someone really wanted her to read it. Maybe it was a ghost, she thought to herself. Whatever, or whoever, it was surely wanted her to take this book—borrow it, just for the weekend. Right?

  “Penny?”

  She walked over to the railing to see who was calling her name.

  Her grandpa was waiting down on the main level of the library. “Where have you been?”

  “Here,” Penny said, which of course wasn’t entirely true. She had been on that elevator, but she was afraid that if her grandpa knew that, he’d want to go home immediately. “I’ve just been here with the books.”

  And maybe the ghosts.

  Penny smiled at her grandpa. “With the books,” she repeated.

  The detective gave her a funny look, as if he knew she was acting odd. But then he said, “Don’t stay up too late,” before turning around to leave. “We’re leaving tomorrow. There are too many shenanigans going on here,” he muttered on his way out.

  Penny clutched her book and tried to shake the nagging sense that someone was watching her.

  Seeing her grandpa reminded Penny of what she was supposed to do: find Ms. Chelsea and figure out what her motive was to kill Mr. Barclay.

  Penny made her way down the spiral staircase. Before she left the library, she hesitated. Was this place really haunted?

  But then she thought better of it.

  “Poppycock,” Penny whispered when she closed the heavy doors behind her.

  There was no such thing as ghosts, and Penny would prove it.

  IT WAS JUST past nine o’clock when JJ made his way to the secret room and found it dark. They had agreed to meet at nine, right?

  “Hello?” His voice sounded extra loud in the deserted room. There was a shadow—there, in the corner of the room. Was it a ghost?

  “Hey!” Emma jumped out from behind one of the chairs.

  JJ stepped back. “You scared me.” His heart was pounding. This girl was always a little . . . strange. Sometimes she was nowhere to be found, and other times she’d just show up out of nowhere. Emma certainly was like no other kid JJ knew. Maybe it was all this time at the hotel by herself.

  Emma smiled. “Scaring you was the point.” She planted her hands on her hips, looking fake mad. “You are late, mister.”

  “I was trapped in the elevator with Penny,” JJ said. “We think someone did that to us on purpose.”

  Emma’s face dropped. “Are you okay?”

  JJ nodded. “I’m fine.”

  “Hey, guys, sorry I’m late.” It was Penny.

  “You missed me scaring JJ,” Emma said with a grin.

  “Get Penny next time,” JJ added.

  “No thanks,” Penny said. “Did you talk to your mom, JJ?”

  JJ hesitated, but he wasn’t a good liar. “She was here that morning. And Mr. Barclay threatened to take back the money he’d invested in PB&JJ, so I guess that gives her motive as well. But I know she didn’t do it!”

  “Of course not. She’s your mom.” Penny opened her notebook to write things down. “So, I tried to find Ms. Chelsea, but she must be hiding in her room.” Penny couldn’t really blame Ms. Chelsea. If Penny was a suspect in a murder, she might want to hide too.

  “Bummer,” JJ said. “We really need to figure out her motive.”

  Emma’s face lit up. “Ms. Chelsea is the librarian, right? I remember hearing Mr. Barclay talking about giving a grant to a library once. But it was a while ago. I wonder if something happened to the grant recently.”

  “That would be a strong motive,” JJ said. “Ms. Chelsea loves her job.”

  Penny asked Emma, “Did you get anywhere with Fiona Fleming?”

  “She has a motive—she wrote a murder mystery script for the hotel, but Mr. Barclay decided not to buy it. And she was here the morning he died.”

  JJ felt relieved. His mom wasn’t the only one with motive and opportunity.

  Penny said, “Now we just need to know about the cowboy. I couldn’t find him either. This hotel is enormous.”

  Emma walked around the room. “I wish we had one of those whiteboards, the kind they have on police TV shows.”

  “Maybe tomorrow we can chase one down.” JJ fake yawned. “I think I’m going to get some sleep.”

  Emma studied him, like she didn’t believe what he was saying. And Penny did too. Clearly JJ was a bad liar . . .

  But then Penny closed her notebook. “Okay, I guess. Some people have early bedtimes.”

  “Exactly.” JJ let out a small sigh of relief that no one questioned him and walked toward the door. JJ was fibbing, of course, but he had good reason to want to wrap things up quickly.

  “I just hope we get to close the case,” Emma said behind him. “Your mom said you guys are leaving in the morning, remember?”

  JJ did remember that now. But he wasn’t sure he was cut out for this police work. All he wanted to do was roam around the Barclay Hotel and catch a ghost, instead of a criminal.

  “We’re only just getting started on our investigation,” Penny mused as she opened her notebook again. “Maybe we can start early?”

  “Sure,” JJ said. He really did want to clear his mom’s name.

  But there was the other reason he was here at the Barclay Hotel.

  So even though JJ felt a pull, the call of the case, so to speak, he decided to put it all in the back of his mind for that night.

  It was ghost hunting time.

  THE HOTEL WAS quiet when JJ made his way downstairs. He had that big fat book about the history of the hotel in his backpack (it was heavy).

  JJ kind of regretted not bringing Emma along. She pro
bably would’ve known stuff about the passages and rooms, and about Mr. Barclay, that JJ didn’t. But she was also loud. And when you’re ghost hunting, it has to be quiet.

  And Penny was too much of a skeptic. JJ was afraid she’d just make fun of him the whole time. He reasoned that a solo expedition was the best way to go.

  The library took his breath away. Sure, he’d seen it in the books and photos they compiled on Ghost Catchers, but in person it was a whole different experience. There were shelves on not just one but two levels. JJ couldn’t wait to use the spiral staircase to reach level two.

  There were reports that guests smelled floral perfume here at times. JJ sniffed, but he didn’t get a whiff of anything other than old books.

  JJ set up his camera on the second level. It was pretty dark but not entirely, because of a large south-facing window. Wait—was that a ghost?

  He jumped. “Aaaarghhh!” JJ called.

  But it was just his own reflection in the glass. A rookie mistake—he had to focus. All this hunting for a murderer was putting him off his game.

  It was after ten o’clock, but that didn’t mean random adults (or murder suspects!) weren’t going to barge in on his ghost hunting session. He had to get a move on.

  JJ pulled out his EMF detector. There was no reading (not yet anyway). He set it down on a bookshelf.

  “I thought I might find you here,” Penny called from downstairs.

  JJ felt his heart sink. “If you’re here to debunk my evidence, you’re going to have to wait a minute, because I haven’t even set up yet.”

  Penny climbed the winding staircase. “I’m not. You dropped something earlier. I’m here to give it back.” She handed him the letter that had been in his backpack.

  JJ froze. His big secret was out.

  Penny looked flustered. “I read the letter. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snoop.”

  JJ sat on the edge of the staircase. He opened the letter and read it again.