NIGHT CHILLS: A Bracken and Bledsoe Paranormal Mystery

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NIGHT CHILLS: A Bracken and Bledsoe Paranormal Mystery Page 25

by Jones, Bruce Elliot


  “You told us that already, Liz,” I said impatiently.

  “Like the one in the nursery,” Katie said carefully.

  Liz moved to another cup. “Was there one in the children’s room? I didn’t notice it.”

  When the kitchen went silent, she looked up with her coffee pot. “What is it? Did I say something wrong?”

  I opened my mouth—

  “No,” Katie cut in. “Not at all. Think I’ll have that crumb cake after all…”

  “How ‘bout some poker!” Adam brightened.

  Liz patted his shoulder on the way to the counter. “Is the short-term memory thing going to be permanent do you think, dear?”

  Katie and stared at each other. Tomorrow, her eyes said, tomorrow I’m going to personally burn that damn clock myself!

  Returning with the cake, Liz caught her expression.

  She set down the cake dish gently. “I did say something…didn’t I?”

  I shook my head, turned again to the wall clock. 11:23.

  Liz looked back and forth between us uncomfortably. “Uh…say! How about another Tarot reading! Katie--?”

  “Thanks anyway, I’m full.”

  Liz turned nervously to Mr. Adams. “Adam--?”

  “S’witchcraft! Won’t have no truck with it!”

  Liz tugged at her hands, turned to the counter, grabbed her purse and scooted into a chair across from me. “Well, we need an update on Elliot anyway! Right, dear?”

  I stared at the wall clock.

  “Elliot--?”

  I snapped out of it, turned to her. “Sure. Whatever. The last time wasn’t so great, if I remember…”

  Liz smiled companionably, began dealing the colorful cards on the table before me. “Since you’ve been through so much change since the last time, the cards will have changed accordingly! Spell out a future marriage of your own, perhaps! Maybe you’ll--”

  She stopped in mid-sentence, one card still left in her hand, eyes staring down intently at the others laid out in front of me. “Strange…”

  I looked down absently at the table. “What?”

  I saw Liz’s throat convulse once. “They’re…exactly as they were before…”

  She spread the cards carefully, slowly laid down the last card, face up. The Death card with its winged maiden clutching a sickle…

  I heard the faintest sound of her catching breath. “…exactly the same.”

  I glanced up at her face. She wore a deep frown.

  “Liz--?”

  For a moment I thought she wasn’t going to answer. Then she shook it off, reshuffled the desk. “Must have made a mistake…”

  She dealt the cards before me again.

  I could see the dread creeping into her features even before she laid the last card down, knew Katie saw it too.

  “I…don’t understand…” Liz whispered.

  I sat up a little straighter, sought explanation in Katie’s eyes but couldn’t get them away from the cards. “What the matter?” I asked Liz, “Is something wrong?”

  Liz gathered the cards up. She was shaking.

  “I didn’t want to tell you this, Elliot. You see, I had done a remote reading for you at home and—that’s why I came. The cards—they indicated you were in danger.”

  I took her hand, smiling. “But that’s obviously not the case!”

  Liz shook her head slowly. “Three times I’ve laid the cards for you. Three times with the exact same results…Something’s coming, Elliot. Something bad…” She teared up. I took her in my arms gently, patting her raven hair. “Mom, it’s okay! I’m perfectly all right! Nothing’s going to happen to me.”

  She pulled away from me, looked into my eyes deeply and lovingly.

  After a moment she whispered, “The cards never lie…”

  A banging thump from the living room…and Byron and Donna walked in.

  Laughing and giggling. Loudly.

  “Somebody’s been driiiinking,” Katie sang wryly.

  “Isn’t that sweet!” from Liz.

  I turned in my chair as they filled the kitchen doorway, arms about each other, pink-faced with idiotic grins, most of Donna’s lipstick gone, most of Byron’s mind gone with it. “Top o’ the morning!” he saluted.

  “Have a good time?” I inquired.

  “He pooped in the…house!” Donna burbled.

  Everyone at the table stared at her.

  She giggled, shook her head furiously. “No, no…he parked in the…neighbor’s house!”

  “Ah,” Liz smiled.

  “I presume you mean the driveway,” from Katie.

  Donna listed, Byron caught her. “We hadda…we hadda walk home!”

  “Which driveway?” I inquired.

  Donna turned, seemed to take a moment to gain recognition of me. “Next door!” And burst into more giggles.

  “All that way, huh?”

  “Had a cupple drinks,” Byron grinned moronically, “cudn’t fine reverse!”

  Everyone smiled obligingly.

  Byron looked around the kitchen as if checking where he was, then turned and looked at his wife, pulling her close, forcing a burp from her that she also found hysterically funny. “I luf this woman! You know that, Ellian?…I luf this woman!”

  “I’m so glad.”

  Now Byron burped, hanging on to his wife for support. “I luf this lil gal! Inat that great!”

  “I’m just happy you navigated the bridge,” I said.

  Byron’s head turned to me on a rubbery neck. “Bridge?”

  “Oh, brother…”

  “We got a bridge?”

  “Bring home any of that green stuff?” from Adam.

  “I luf you, Ellian,” Byron leaned toward me. “I luf both you guys. You saved our whole manner…manage…”

  “Marriage?”

  “Thas the one. Saved the whole thing! You two guys! Saved our fambly! Whole damn thing! Luf you guys!” Turned to Donna. “Don’t we, Donna, don’t we luf these guys!”

  Donna offered us lidded eyes. “You know wot—hey! You know wot!”

  “What?” Katie smiled amusement.

  “We luf you guys!” She swept her arm through the air. “Com-plely! Luf you! Thas all. Nobody say any…any more. Cuz thaz all! Luf you! Hey, Candy—“

  “Katie.”

  “Hey Katie, guess wot I said when…when…when the wait-ress axed if I’d like a cocktail!”

  “What did you say, sweetie?”

  “I sed…sure! Know any!” And she burst into an unbridled cackle. “Know any!”

  Adam frowned incomprehension from the table. “How about that green stuff?”

  “How about we all get a good night’s rest?” from Liz, rising from her chair.

  Donna had spun slowly away from her husband, making little circles on the linoleum, holding up one finger as she dug in her purse. “Wait-a-second…jus one second…gotta check on the kids…”

  She dropped the purse.

  Liz caught her before Donna attempted bending over and directed her to the landline wall phone, handing her the receiver. “Where are the kids, by the way?”

  Donna smiled gratitude, leaned against the wall, receiver to her ear. “With my folks, of course, I tole you…” Then she just stared blankly at Liz.

  “I think you have to dial first,” Liz said.

  “Oh. Yeah?”

  “What’s the number, dear?”

  Donna gave it to her and Liz punched it in.

  I could hear the ring tone from my chair.

  “Hello--? Mom? Is me. What--? We jus got back. With Byron, Mom, I tole you! What—what did you say…?”

  A chill ran through me at sight of Donna’s abruptly sobering features. “W-What…?”

  She pushed away from the wall, this time under her own steam. “…w-what do you mean? H-How is that possible?”

  Her faced was blanched now as she sought her husband’s eyes. “…oh God…Mom…”

  Byron was there in a sobered instant, grabbing the phone
from his wife’s suddenly vibrating hand. “--Mom? It’s me, Byron! What’s going on?”

  He listened.

  He closed his eyes, face stricken. “When…?”

  “What is it?” Liz breathed beside him.

  “We’ll be right there…” and Byron hung up the phone.

  Katie was on her feet. “Byron? What--?”

  He stared through her. “Nathan’s disappeared…”

  I was on my feet. “From the house? Have they called the police, checked the front yard?”

  He shook his head. “They’re not in Sacramento…”

  “What!”

  “Donna’s folks were taking their summer vacation…”

  Donna stared sightlessly at the wall phone. Whispering now. “…they brought us all down here to Coronado like always. To stay at the hotel. The Del.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  Donna was halfway out of the kitchen, listing hard into the door jamb. “We have to go to them!”

  “Not like that!” Liz nodded at Byron, who was already grabbing his wife’s shoulders, steading her. “Not till you have some of this!”

  She poured two cups of coffee for them by the counter.

  I was standing across the room, not really close enough to see accurately. Liz may have dropped a dollop of something into each cup from a concealing hand, I couldn’t be sure. I did notice her purse on the counter next to her, that it was unsnapped and open.

  She hurried to the Sandersons smoothly, a cup in each hand, not spilling a drop. “Drink.”

  “There isn’t time--!” Donna started.

  “Drink! All of it!”

  My mother could raise her voice to commanding registers you wouldn’t have thought possible. She plucked a thermos out of nowhere without asking for one, poured the rest of the carafe into it, and maybe with that something else from her purse, maybe not; she kept standing in front of it, hands flying. “Elliot, you and Katie drive the Sandersons in your rental. Adam and I will follow in his truck.”

  “Not sure I can driv—“ Adam started.

  “You can drive,” Liz told him flatly. “Elliot, grab the umbrellas from the hall closet, will you?”

  “Sure,” I said, headed that way, thinking how does she know there’re umbrellas in there?

  “Donna, I’m borrowing your rain jacket from the mud room, okay?” And then, without waiting for an answer, “Bring your cups with you. Byron, you take the thermos. Okay, everybody ready?”

  It was still pouring torrentially during the short drive down Orange Avenue to the Hotel del Coronado. Fortunately it was also late; the streets were nearly as empty as the beach. Within five minutes I was at the other end of the avenue and pulling into the Del’s carriage circle. Adam’s truck pulled in behind me, we grabbed tickets from the slicker-splashed attendants and ran up the front steps of the hotel to the big, wooden foyer. The single clerk behind the late hour desk nodded at Byron as we swept by to the old wrought iron elevator and climbed aboard.

  Donna’s parents were on the third floor, Room 315.

  Their door was open and Mr. Morton, Donna’s father, was standing just outside it talking animatedly with the night manager. The night manager was shaking his head, nodding, shaking his head. Bellhops were running past us hurriedly both ways down the hall.

  Donna’s mother turned from the picture window overlooking the dark beach and sea with red, sunken eyes and wringing hands, her face a mask of guilt. “I’m so sorry!” she cried when she spotted her daughter, who ran into her arms. Ran arrow straight without the slightest list, I noticed, and held her mother and swayed gently with her, patting her back comfortingly. “It’s okay, Mom…” though everyone in the room knew it was anything but. “He’s a wanderer, always has been!”

  “Last time I found him in the front porch shrubbery!” Liz noted cheerfully.

  Mrs. Morton gave her a panicked look.

  Nice, Liz, thanks for helping out there!

  “He was right in front of me!” Donna’s mother sobbed. “I just got up to check on baby Natalie!”

  “Shh…it’s not your fault, Mom.” She looked past her mother at her father as he came back into the room, searching his face hopefully.

  Mr. Morton shook his head. “Nothing yet. The manager’s got the entire night staff searching. He keeps asking if I’ve notified the police…”

  Donna tensed. “You haven’t--?”

  Her dad shook his head. “Not yet.” Consulted his watch. “We’ll give it a little while, but—“

  “We haven’t had much luck with the cops in the past,” Byron told him with amazing sobriety, coffee cup and thermos still in his hands.

  His father-in-law nodded grimly. “I know. I know the whole story. But we can’t just do noth—“

  “Have you searched yourself yet?” Liz asked demandingly, if gently. Mr. Morton nodded.

  “Knocked on doors?” from Katie.

  “The staff is doing that, but yes, I’ve checked most of the rooms on this floor. We really need the police to search properl—“

  “What about downstairs?” Katie pressed. “The lobby? Dining room? The bars stay open pretty late here, I think.”

  Donna’s father nodded. “Been all over the hotel including the front lawn, back patios and the immediate beach area.”

  His wife gasped, “The beach!” She began sobbing. “Oh, God…”

  “He isn’t drowned,” Liz said emphatically.

  Everyone turned to her. “Your grandchild didn’t drown, Mr. and Mrs. Morton, he’s alive, somewhere in this hotel.” Her words were so full of authority that Mrs. Morton actually stopped sobbing in her daughter’s arms.

  I turned to Katie. She was hitching up her handbag. “Byron, Donna, you should search again, both of you. Call to him. Nathaniel will know your silhouettes even from a distance, recognize your voices. Elliot and I will join you.”

  “And us,” Liz said, grabbing Adam’s arm.

  Katie nodded. “Fine. We’ll start in the lobby, get maps, split up. Cover twice the distance that way.”

  “Good!” from Liz.

  “The police—“ Mr. Morton began.

  “We’ll call on our cell phones the second we find anything. You and your wife should remain here in your room so the manager and staff will know where you are.”

  “Don’t call the authorities, Daddy,” Donna said, taking Byron’s hand and heading for the door again, “until we meet back here! Okay?”

  And without waiting for a response, she joined the rest of us in the hallway.

  * * *

  We each got a map of the hotel layout from the desk.

  “Good Lord,” Liz muttered, studying her map as we came away from the front desk, “this level aside, there’s the lower level Carousel Room, shops, attached Grand Hall, not to mention the California Cabanas outside, the pool area, Windsor Lawn, Vista Walk, Sun Decks front and back, the Garden Patio, Thomas Lawn…and the beach, of course.”

  “Let’s assume for now that Liz is right and Nathaniel hasn’t left the building proper,” Katie said, pointing to her map and motioning everyone to her. “We’ll start on this level—here. Not counting the Garden Patio in the center, the whole thing is like one big box. If one party goes left, the other right, we’ll meet halfway around the structure…here—“E”, The Victorian Building. If no one’s found anything, each party keeps going in the same direction, re-covering the other party’s path--double checking—until we all meet back here in the lobby. Sound good?”

  Given the sheer size of the place, I think—to the others—it sounded more hopeless than ‘good,’ but we charged off nonetheless in our separate directions: Liz, Adam, Katie and I went east to the Coronet and Crown Rooms, the Sandersons west to the Ballroom, Crystal Room, Continental Room, Windsor and Embassy Rooms and beyond, on around the horseshoe.

  We scoured every inch of every room still unlocked to us—every fiber of every carpet, every corner, cornice and molding from floor to ceiling. The good news was that we didn’t
have the usual throng of summer tourists elbowing by at that hour; the bad news was that the few bellboys and staff we came across appraised us as if they knew exactly who we were, exactly who we were looking for and were wondering why the hell weren’t we contacting the police?

  We gave the empty-looking Grand Hall the quick once-over, the upper Empress Hall, Hanover, Stuart, Tudor (locked) Kent (also locked) and York rooms—the Empress, Regent and Victory halls--all dark and silent but for the outward patter of rain on windowpanes—downstairs again and north and around the corner to meet the Sandersons in the long corridor of the east-to-west Victorian Building, their expressions revealing just how unsuccessful they’d been long before we came face-to-face. We paused long enough for Katie and me to take a swig from Byron’s thermos and reconnoiter.

  “Maybe one of us should cut through the outside Garden Patio,” Donna said, looking both exhausted and amazingly alert.

  Liz shook her head. “He’s in the building somewhere.”

  With as much patient humility as he could muster Byron countered with, “How exactly do you know that, Mrs. Bledsoe?”

  “She knows,” Katie told him simply, “besides, it’s still pouring out there—even a three-year-old kid knows enough to come in out of the rain. Let’s stick to the original plan.”

  Byron made a sour “what plan?” face but said nothing as he took Donna’s arm and swept past us.

  That left us with a left turn and the Windsor Complex and its connecting rooms to deal with before we joined the Sandersons again in the already-searched Ballroom.

  Except for a few workmen’s tools and a roll of yet-to-be laid antique carpet, the Ballroom was empty too.

  Byron was standing near the empty stage adjacent to an empty, sparkling black baby grand piano, looking up at the fireplace and his old antique clock perched authoritatively above the mantle.

  I sauntered over and stood next to him, looked up past his shoulder at the ancient hands: 11:46. “What’re you thinking?”

  He didn’t turn to me. “That I wished I’d stomped on the damn thing in my driveway, set fire to it, took an axe to it and stomped on it again.”

  I couldn’t repress a tired smile.

  I turned to find Katie, the Sandersons and a wilted-looking Adam Adams slouched in the few hardback chairs scattered around the big room. I tried to imagine the place packed with dancing couples, a full orchestra playing a big band number from the stage, but I was too weary to conjure much.

 

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