“Wakey. Wakey,” she said. “Your Café Americano is here.”
Zach stared at the inside wall of his tent and at Ray’s crumpled sleeping back. It was light out.
“Your coffee, my liege.”
Ray was standing at the entrance to their tent holding out a tall, Muses to-go cup. Zach sat up and pretended his head wasn’t filled with remnants of dream world material. Eyes half closed, he reached for the cardboard Café Americano. Its heat focused his mind. Steam surrounded the cup and his hands around it.
“Don’t like the weather in Chicago?” Ray said, quoting the oft-heard, local expression. “Wait a minute, it will change,” His breath brought a stream of mist.
“Time is it?”
“Seven thirty-ish.”
Zach grunted. “Shouldn’t you be reviewing video?”
“Yes, sir. Just bringing you your coffee, sir.” He saluted using one inappropriate finger.
Zach rolled his head on his shoulders. It felt like he’d slept on a bed of frozen peas. “Sorry.”
“Ahhh,” Ray waved off the apology. “This case is so off the charts that even your morning grumpiness can’t get to me.”
“What’s so off the charts?”
“Well, I mean in the past, we’ve captured doors closing on their own and images and voices, but we’ve never had one interact so boldly as last night—to burn down a tree?”
Zach understood what Ray meant, and after hearing Hunter’s warning and considering how destructive fires could be, he didn’t welcome this powerful of an interaction with this particular spirit.
“Hey, c’mon,” Ray said. “We’ve been reviewing for a couple of hours. Turk’s already found something.”
Zack sipped his coffee. Without it, he’d certainly have retreated back into his sleeping bag. Ray exited and closed the zipper of the tent reminding Zach of his bizarre dream. He tried to recall what had transpired before Evelyn had emerged from his uncle but it was lost to the ether. Any hope of retrieving it was gone when from outside the tent, Ray hiss-whispered Orson-Wells-style. “Rosewood!”
The dusty odor of Rosewood’s lobby had taken on, but not been completely taken over by, the musky smell of unwashed men.
Angel sat at the command point. His head propped up by his fist.
“Well, good morning, stranger,” Zach called out.
Angel stirred.
Zach slapped him on the back. “You missed all the excitement last night.”
“So I heard.”
“Anything fun or exciting happening this morning?”
“Bryce and Rico are doing a sweep of the building. They radioed down that Room 217 is filled with the smell of peaches. They want you to get Sara and a camera crew and go up and take a look.”
“Cool. Actually, could you get Sara and tell her I’ll meet her up there? I’ve gotta check something out with the video review guys.”
“You talked to Ray?”
“I did. I guess Turk found something?”
“Supposedly.” Angel sighed and pointed down the hallway toward the infirmary. “They set up a video review center in room 111.”
“Thanks.”
Zach bounded down the hall clutching the remnants of his Café’ Americano. Caffeine began coursing through his veins. Even with only a few hours of sleep, his excitement in solving Rosewood’s riddles had replenished itself—or had at least been jumpstarted by the java bean.
By the time he passed room 107, he could hear them rumbling around in the room up ahead.
“When’s he gonna get his ass here?” Turk was saying.
“I told you, he’s coming,” Ray said.
Good ole Ray The Protector.
Zach reached room 111. “Hello, ladies. I hear you have something to show me.”
“Zach!” Turk said. “Wait’ll you see this!”
Already cued up on a monitor was a video display of what, by now, Zach recognized as the basement. In the upper right corner of the screen, a digital clock kept the recording time, as well as a counter of total minutes filmed. It currently read 11:22 PM. Turk clicked the remote and the video began.
It ran about a minute before Zach noticed what the commotion was about. In the greenish darkness, an image formed and swirled. It seemed to manifest out of the ether. At one point, it appeared to be the form of a woman. Then it vanished in a puff that went straight into the ceiling.
“This was right before the fire,” Turk said. “Maybe this activity caused it?”
“Replay it,” Zach said.
Turk clicked the rewind and the video reversed back to murk. He hit play.
“Here it comes,” Ray said.
“What the…” It was even more impressive the second time Zach saw it.
“Play it for him frame-by-frame,” Ray told Turk.
They examined the footage in that manner and froze it when the form had reached its largest. There on the screen, right before their eyes, was a young woman with shoulder-length hair. With the picture stilled, they could even make out features of her face—nose and lips.
“She’s a looker,” Ray said.
“No thanks,” Zach and Turk responded in unison.
“Screw you’s,” Ray said.
“Hey, seriously,” Zach said. “Let’s get this to our digital analyst, pronto. Maybe he can enhance the image.”
“Will do, boss,” Turk said. “Are ya proud of me?”
“Hell yes,” Zach said. “If this holds up to digital enhancement, I’ll freakin’ name her after you!”
“Turko’s Treasure,” Ray said.
Something told Zach that the nickname might stick. “Hey, get through the footage as quickly as you can to see what happened down there during Demon Hour,” he said to Turk.
“You mean, ‘Spirit Hour.’” Turk winked at him. “Will do.”
“Did you hear about what Bryce and Rico found in Room 217 this morning?” Ray asked.
“Yes, I’m headed up there now,” Zach said. “Do me a favor and review the footage from Camera 8 outside that room?”
Ray looked a bit put out. “What do you think I’ve been doing since I heard the news?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“We discovered it this morning doing a quick walk through,” Rico said.
Even having arrived skeptical, Zach had to admit that standing inside Room 217, it smelled strongly of peaches.
“I told you I smelled something last night.” Bryce posed as though he’d just climbed Mount Whitney.
Sara and her cameraman filmed them examining the floor and walls for evidence of the scent.
“Check this out.” Rico crouched near the far corner of the room and pointed to a puddle of clear liquid the size of a silver dollar.
“Don’t touch it.” Zach rushed over. He got on all fours over the spot and eased his nose closer and closer, careful not to inhale too deeply. Sometimes even odorless liquids could be harmful. This was not odorless. It smelled like peaches.
“Maybe it’s ghost ectoplasm!” Bryce’s enthusiasm was even more annoying in the early morning than it was late at night.
“I think it’s just peach juice.”
“Are you sure?” Bryce asked.
Zach scooped some of the liquid into a tiny sealable container used for such purposes. “We’ll take it in and have it analyzed of course, but I think we’re gonna find it’s a natural fruit juice. How it got here is anyone’s idea.”
“Maybe,” Bryce said, pacing the room, “the ghost of the man who died eating the peach jar has returned to warn us of something.”
“Anything is possible,” Zach said to the camera. What he didn’t say was that this whole thing stunk more of planted evidence than it did of southern fruit.
“Let’s walk through the rest of the asylum with the camera crew,” Rico said.
Zach’s cell phone buzzed notification of an incoming text message. It was from Ray: Need 2 see u. Private.
“You guys go on up ahead. I’m going to get this to a safe
place,” he said lifting up the container. “I’ve got to look into something. I’ll catch up with you in a few.”
Sara glared at him but didn’t say a word.
“Patrizia,” Zach said into his cell phone as he walked down the hallway. “Do you have anything more on that mysterious patient from the basement?”
“Hello Zach,” she said. “I’ve isolated many of Dr. Johansson’s notes on this woman. After they found her in the basement, they treated her in the infirmary and then held her in room 11 for close observation for over a week. During that time—”
“Wait.” Zach tap-stepped down the marble stairs of the lobby’s staircase. “Did you say room 111?”
“No. It just says here room 11.”
“There isn’t just an 11. There’s a 111, 211 and probably a 311.”
“Oh. Well, yes. I guess now it would probably be room 111,” Patrizia said.
Pierre and Matthew had joined Angel at the command post. Matthew looked tired; Pierre appeared seriously hung over. The three of them were gathered together speaking in hushed tones. They suspiciously broke apart and started making small talk as he circled towards them while descending the stairs.
“What do you mean, ‘now it would be 111’?” He nodded at the Tech Team as he passed by. They seemed far too interested in his presence. Something was afoot.
“Well, reading through this,” Patrizia said, rustling papers on her end of the line, “I found out today that in July of 1900, Dr. Johansson changed the room numbers at Rosewood. Apparently there had been confusion about the numbering having two digit numbers on the first floor and three digit ones on the second and third floors. There was something about people confusing one of the offices outside the infirmary with room 101, a patient’s room.”
Zach stopped dead in his tracks. “So until July of 1900 rooms on the second floor had three digits that started with a 1?”
“Yeah. Why would that matter?”
“When did that guy, Wozniak, eat that jar in his room?”
“Before that, I believe. Yes, yes. 1897.”
“Right!” Zach tried to keep his excited voice down. “So that means that room 217 today used to be called room 117 and room 317 is actually where Wozniak was kept.”
“Okay, yes. Is this relevant information?”
Zach had forgotten that she hadn’t been privy to the discovery that morning in room 217. “No, it’s not vital, but could you keep this info between you and me just for today?”
“Sure.” Her transmitted voice wasn’t all that convincing.
“Thanks, I really appreciate your help with this. Keep up the good work.”
Across the cell transmission Patrizia seemed to ignore the kudos. “Hey, Wendy wants you to call her in like ten minutes. Apparently she has something vital to tell you.”
As soon as Zach popped into room 111, Ray told Turk they were taking a fifteen minute break and asked him to make a Muses coffee run.
“Didn’t you just have coffee like an hour ago?”
“That,” Ray said, “was a cappuccino. And I’m thirsty. Go.”
Turk mumbled and complained, but eventually disappeared out the door and down the hallway. Zach punched his friend in the thick part of the arm.
“What’s up, pal-o-mine?”
Ray didn’t appear to be in a joking mood. His brow remained furrowed and he was plucking at his lower lip with his thumb and index finger. He turned back to the video monitor. “You need to see something.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m not sure, but I don’t like it.”
This wasn’t Ray’s normal video review demeanor. When a baffling issue arose, he’d typically be lighthearted and almost comical in his approach to solving the mystery. He pointed to the monitor. “This is from Camera 8.”
That particular night-vision camera had been placed about fifteen feet away and across the hallway from room 217, the now infamous peach-smelling room. The angle had allowed the picture to show about twenty-five feet of darkened hallway with the room’s doorway prominently displayed. As with the video of the basement and all other recordings, a clock kept the time in the upper right hand corner of the screen. Ray clicked the remote and the video began.
It ran between a minute and ninety seconds before Ray paused it. “You didn’t notice either. Good.”
“What did I miss?” Zach asked.
Ray raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t see it the first time through either. Try it with the audio.”
He handed Zach headphones, rewound the tape and replayed it. With the exception of a couple of faint clicking sounds that could have been anything from the building settling to plaster falling from the walls, he stared at a darkened hall and doorway with zero activity.
Ray paused it again.
“There’s nothing there.” Zach removed the headphones and handed them to Ray who was grinning broadly. “Look buddy, I know your sleep got interrupted a couple times last night, but still…you might be losing it.”
Ray nodded and smirked. “You are correct, sir. There’s nothing there.”
“What the—”
His friend smiled and held his index finger up. “Keep watching.” He sped the video to twice the normal speed for almost a minute peering at the clock. When it apparently was at the right spot, he clicked the remote to resume normal play.
“See that?” Ray pointed to a small white orb that moved on the left side of the screen.
Zach examined the object as it flickered a bit in the green night-vision light. “Ray, that’s a fucking moth!”
“I know,” he said. “Well, it’s a moth. It’s not a fucking moth because it would take two of them to mate, but it’s a bee-u-tee-full moth!”
Best friend or not, Zach didn’t have time for games. “Soldier, what is your major malfunction?”
Ray beamed as though he had anticipated Zach’s doubt. “Watch,” he said confidently. “Watch the moth.”
Zach attuned to its movements the way he would follow the moving light during an eye doctor’s glaucoma test. It flew up toward the ceiling and then darted back down. It disappeared to the left of the screen for just a second, and then whizzed onscreen and upward. Just as it was about to disappear from the camera’s view, the moth froze in midair.
“Ray!” Zach glared at him and then realized that his friend had not paused the video. “I don’t get it. The tape froze? What—”
Ray pointed to the stopped onscreen clock as he mumbled. “One thousand three, one thousand four, one thousand five, one thousand six and…action!”
The picture continued to display the green tinged hallway. The moth had disappeared.
“The recordings paused. Could it have been a system technical glitch?”
“That’s what I wondered at first,” Ray said. “If other cameras stopped, they would have been the ones on the same floor right? But no. I cross checked the time with cameras 9 and 10. They didn’t freeze.”
The previous night’s warning from his uncle came back to Zach. Some evidence is tainted.
“Someone or something paused this particular recording.”
“I’d guess ‘someone.’ ‘Something’ sounds a bit too dramatic there psychology boy.” Ray rewound the video and handed Zach the headphones again. “Now watch it again with the sound.”
As the moth disappeared from to the left of view there were two distinct clicks, similar to the ones he’d heard while listening to the earlier footage. They sounded mechanical.
“It’s a signal,” Zach said. He removed the headphones.
“A signal to pause the tape just a few seconds…”
“…while someone slips past the camera and into the room.” Zach completed his friend’s thought.
“I’ll rewind and show you the first segment you watched,” Ray said. “You’ll see that about one second after those clicks, the tape pauses just like this for about six seconds!”
“That’s okay, buddy. I trust you.” Zach smiled widely at him. “In f
act, if you weren’t so ugly, I’d kiss you.”
“Yeah, and if you weren’t such a big wig TV star, I’d break your nose just for thinking about it!”
They both laughed, but the gravity of the discovery was hitting Zach hard.
“Have you watched the tape from Camera 6 yet?”
“Yeah. With all my spare time.”
“Seriously,” Zach said. “Forward to about ten minutes earlier than the first pause of Camera 8. If someone snuck up behind this camera, they must have come from the stairway outside the infirmary.”
Ray nodded. “And they’ll either be on that video or, more likely—”
“That tape will be paused in the same way.”
Ray scribbled something in his notebook. Zach made a mental note of the time that the video was paused. He remembered Angel, Pierre and Matthew huddled together. As he’d done thousands of times playing poker, he envisioned their faces at that moment, froze them like the video had done on the moth. Zach saw their faces clearly. Pierre—embarrassed. Matthew—confident. Angel—afraid.
“So you’ve got two people involved working as a team,” Ray mused aloud. “And one of them is certainly a tech guy.”
“But who?” Zach asked.
As though on cue, Pierre’s accented voice echoed down the hall. His words were unintelligible. The smell of coffee drifted in and there was rustling in the hallway.
“I heard that. ‘But who’ did what?” Turk asked, rushing in with their drinks.
“You’re back in a hurry,” Ray said. “Why the short break?”
“I already made pals with the kid at Muses, so he gives me jiffy service.” Turk looked from Zach to Ray. “Besides, I didn’t want to miss anything.”
Ray pulled a cup from the carrying tray and handed it to Zach. They made and maintained direct eye contact. At that moment, Zach knew he and his best friend were sharing the exact same thought.
Trust no one.
Chapter Twenty-Four
As Zach walked the long hallway toward the Rosewood lobby, his phone buzzed notice of an incoming call. He did a double take at the identification. He hadn’t yet changed “Mother & Father,” to just “Dad.”
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