Supernatural Psychic Mysteries: Four Book Boxed Set: (Misty Sales Cozy Mystery Suspense series)

by Morgana Best

Jamie shrugged. “No.”

  I laughed.

  There was a door at the top of the stairs. Jamie deftly picked the lock and then led the way through it, and so I found myself on the roof of the hotel. In front of me was a white wall of sorts which rose and fell, reminding me of an old castle.

  Jamie obviously had something he wanted to speak with me about, but he didn’t cut right to the chase. He brought up Melissa. “So, does Melissa still not like me?”

  I pulled a face. “Well, it’s not that she doesn’t like you. She just wants me to date someone in the same country.”

  Jamie laughed. “Sure, I’ll just tell work I’m going to start commuting across the ocean.”

  I grinned, despite the way I was feeling. “They’ll be fine with that, I’m sure.” Melissa’s words weighed heavily on me. Long distance relationships don’t work, right? I could see no happy ending with me living in Australia and Jamie in the UK.

  “Speaking of work, what does Melissa think I do again?”

  I sighed. “She thinks you work in IT.”

  “I don’t look that much like a dork, do I?” Jamie asked.

  “Yes, you do,” I teased him.

  “It’s good to see you, Misty,” Jamie said.

  “I know. I just wish, well, things are always so weird with us, aren’t they? The lying to my best friend, the fact that we’re talking on a roof instead of having dinner together.”

  “We can have dinner if you want.”

  I bit my lip. “That’s not what I mean.”

  Jamie stepped forward and took my hand. “I know what you mean. And I’m sorry. I know I show up, and it’s all work, work, work, but sometimes it has to be.”

  “Is that what this is? Is that what The Orpheans is? Work?” I asked.

  “It is for you,” Jamie said, “and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  That thought put me in a bad mood, so I crossed my arms in front of my chest and sighed. “Then what is it you wanted to talk with me about? Way up here on the roof?”

  “Have you heard from The Orpheans?”

  “I’ve already told you what Douglas said, that he pretended again to be working for them, and he wants to me to find Lucas Wallace’s journal.”

  Jamie nodded. “I meant, have you had any more of those mysterious texts from the blocked sender?”

  I shook my head. “Not for ages now. Anyway, Jamie, what do you know about The Orpheans? And don’t evade the subject this time, like you always do. I know you know.”

  Jamie clucked his tongue. “They protect the world from incursions of the supernatural kind and things of that nature.”

  “Things of that nature?” I parroted. “Just how many things are of that nature?”

  “More than you could imagine,” Jamie said. “Every scary story told to children, every unbelievable nightmare, all have a basis in truth. Doesn’t everything?”

  I took a moment to consider that. “So are you saying that The Orpheans save the world? Kinda like Maxwell Smart always saved the world?”

  Jamie held up his hands in mock surrender. “Something like that.”

  “Why are you just telling me about this now?” I asked. I didn’t know whether to be cross that he hadn’t told me anything about them before, or happy that he was telling me now.

  “I figured that if they hadn’t told you exactly what they do, it wasn’t up to me.”

  “So what changed?”

  “It’s just been so long,” he said. “Someone should tell you something. You need to know what you’re getting yourself into.”

  “I’m already in it, and like you said, I don’t have a choice. When Aunt Beth died, I became the Keeper of The Orpheans—hereditary position and all that.”

  Jamie nodded. “Still, you should know.”

  “All I’ve ever gotten were warning texts. Really, that’s it.”

  “Those probably came from The Leader,” Jamie said.

  “He’s in charge?”

  “Or she.”

  “So why not tell me more?”

  “There’s only one reason I could think of for The Leader not contacting you yet,” Jamie said.

  I looked out over the grounds. I should have been admiring the view, which was breath-taking from up here on the rooftop. “And that is?” I asked.

  “Whoever The Leader is, it’s someone who is already in your life.”

  Chapter 7

  I let that thought wash over me. I had to admit that it made sense. “They wouldn’t need to contact me, because they’re watching me.”

  “Right,” Jamie said, nodding. He took a few steps toward the edge of the roof.

  “That’s creepy,” I said.

  “It is,” Jamie said, “but it fits what I know about The Orpheans. They have mastered creepy.”

  I shuddered and ran a hand through my hair. “So who could it be?”

  “I don’t know. Who do you see often? Who is in your life the most?”

  “Melissa. It couldn’t be her, though.”

  Jamie shrugged. “I admit it seems unlikely, but you really can’t discount anyone. Who else?”

  “Keith. He owns the magazine,” I said.

  “All right, who else?” Jamie asked.

  I thought for a minute. I opened my mouth to speak, but then shut it and shook my head.

  “Who?” Jamie asked, watching me intently.

  “It couldn’t be.”

  “Your boss. Skinny?”

  “She’s so horrible. I can’t imagine it’s her,” I said. “I would be furious if it was.”

  “It has to be someone you’re familiar with, if we’re barking up the right tree, so to speak. For all we know, it could be someone in the UK, but we have to consider all options.”

  “The parcel delivery lady, Julie. She’s very nosey. She always seems to be around,” I said. “Her husband, Craig, too.”

  “Seems unlikely, but I guess we should consider everyone. Anyone else?”

  “I don’t see Craig often,” I said. “But what about you?”

  Jamie laughed, and then he saw I was serious and he shook his head. “Hey, I would just tell you,” he said.

  I thought on that for a moment. Was that the truth? He was a spy, after all. “Well, what about Douglas?”

  “What about him?” Jamie asked.

  “Could he be The Leader?”

  Jamie snorted rudely. “No, not a chance. He’s working for the other side, remember?”

  I pressed on. “But couldn’t he be a double agent?”

  “No, he’s with the Black Lodge.”

  “That’s sort of the point of a double agent,” I said, wondering if Jamie was just discounting Douglas due to his personal dislike of the man.

  “I’m quite sure it’s not him,” Jamie said.

  My head was spinning. We were just going around in circles. “I don’t see it being anyone.”

  “Well, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s not someone you know,” Jamie said.

  “No, I think you’re right,” I conceded. “I just don’t know how I could figure it out.”

  I stepped toward the edge of the roof. The sky above had gone from pink and purple to dark blue, and there were a thousand stars appearing in the night sky.

  I turned to Jamie. I felt frustrated all of a sudden. I didn’t like being kept in the dark, and since The Orpheans had come into my life, in the dark was where I had firmly been.

  And then, the door to the roof opened behind us.

  “Someone out here?” a voice called out, and there was a click, and a flashlight turned on.

  As soon as the door opened, Jamie took me by the hand and pulled me to the side. The flashlight swept over where we had just been standing, but the hotel worker who had come onto the roof had missed us.

  Jamie pulled me along, down the length of the roof. Then he doubled back, coming up behind the door which led to the stairs. The man with the flashlight had walked out further onto the roof, and he was standing near the edge. We slippe
d into the door without him noticing, and hurried down the winding steps.

  Back in the hotel proper, I couldn’t help but laugh. My heart was pounding, and the whole short episode had made me feel like a teenager, caught somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be.

  Jamie stopped walking and let go of my hand. “Would you like to have dinner?”

  I nodded. “I would. Melissa is going to kill me, though.”

  “You had plans?”

  “I can break them.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Very sure,” I said.

  “How about an hour from now?”

  I nodded. “Sounds good to me,” I said.

  “Have they given you a new room yet?” Jamie asked.

  “No, not yet. I need to go check on that, I guess.”

  “Get it settled, and don’t forget, an hour. I’ll just meet you in the restaurant.”

  “All right,” I said. As I watched Jamie head back down the hall, my mind went into overdrive. Was it possible that someone in my life was watching me, making sure I stayed safe, and making sure I did what The Orpheans needed me to do? In a way, that would be comforting, if it were true. It would mean they were not leaving me out on my own. Yet it was also infuriating. Why not just come forward? I was working for The Orpheans, and in fact I was important to them. Why not come clean? Why keep me in the dark? Why would they need me to be confused? I did not have a good answer for that.

  I headed down to the lobby, but first I stopped near the door that led to the grounds out back. I stood just outside in the dusk, watching the moonlight play over the treetops.

  Out the back were two children, a boy and a girl. The boy was ten at least, the girl older at twelve or thirteen. Their parents weren’t with them, but they were old enough to handle themselves. The boy wanted to play, but it was obvious to me that the girl considered herself too old for such things. He kept running around his sister. “Come on, chase me!” he yelled.

  “No, I just want to relax,” the girl said.

  “Relaxing isn’t fun.”

  “It is when I have to live with you all the time,” the girl snapped back.

  I smiled. It was nice to see the children playing, and even bickering, but something gnawed at the back of my mind, and it wasn’t until I had turned away and started for the lobby once more that it dawned on me.

  There had been a body discovered in the hotel, that very day. The body of the man who had been missing. And some parents had let their children go off by themselves. I didn’t have children, unless you counted Diva, the unsociable cat who didn’t even particularly seem to like me a whole lot. I didn’t know what raising children was like, but I figured there was no way I would let my children run around unsupervised in a place where a body had just been found.

  I turned, intending to go back to the garden and ask the children if they were okay. When I got there, they were gone. There was no one there, and really, it was a bit too dark to be outside anyway. I assumed the children had gone back to their parents. At least I hoped that’s what they had decided to do.

  As I was going once more to the front desk, I saw three police officers in the hall speaking, all of them sipping coffee. I wondered what they were talking about, so got as close as I could without being obvious.

  “Yeah,” one of them said to the others. “Well, the victim had some bruising on his body, and some cuts, like nothing I’ve ever seen, to be honest. Just a lot of cuts, but none of them were too deep. But there was one strange thing…”

  “What?” another asked.

  “His hands, one of them, was burnt. His palm. Like he touched something hot. But there weren’t any other burns on his body.”

  The officers then noticed me, so I smiled and hurried away, finally making my way to the front desk.

  When I identified myself, the concierge nodded. “I was just sending someone to find you, your room is ready.” As he spoke, he reached down behind the counter and then slid a keycard in a paper sleeve across the desk.

  “Room two thirty-one?” I asked. The number seemed familiar.

  “It was poor Mr. Wallace’s room,” the concierge said. He shook his head, as if he were just hearing the terrible news. “I’m sorry, but it’s all we have available.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  “It’s all you have available?” I said, setting the keycard down.

  “Yes,” the man behind the counter said. “I would rather no one take that room, not for a while, but we have no choice, we are such a popular destination, you see.”

  “But you have so many rooms.”

  “Which have all been booked. I’m sorry, but a company today booked all the rooms, except for Mr. Wallace’s room. Asked for everything we had, except that one.”

  That sounded hard to believe. “You’re kidding,” I said.

  The concierge’s expression was solemn. “I’m sorry, ma’am.”

  “What company?”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t share that with you.”

  “All right, but what about my old room?”

  He frowned, and then smiled, showing a row of impeccably white teeth. “The one in which you found a dead body? The police have asked us to keep that room empty until they’ve completed their tasks. It is a crime scene, you realize.”

  And his old room wasn’t? I sighed. Aloud I said, “Shouldn’t they need his room as well?”

  The man behind the counter shrugged. “I asked them before moving you there. They said they have completed their search there.”

  I sighed again, more loudly this time. I picked up the keycard once more. “Fine.”

  “Please, take this,” the man said before I could turn away. He reached once more beneath the counter and withdrew a small slip of thick stock paper. It was a card of sorts, good for a free entrée in one of the hotel’s fancy restaurants. I forced myself to smile as I pocketed the card.

  “Thanks so much,” I said. And then I turned, and as soon as I did, my smile faded.

  While I waited for the elevator doors to open, I pulled out my cell phone and called Melissa.

  “What’s going on?” Melissa asked. The mountains wreaked havoc with my cell phone reception, and I had to strain to hear her clearly.

  “I just got the key to my new room,” I said.

  “Where is it?”

  “The dead guy’s old room.”

  Melissa laughed, and I felt annoyed. “That sounds like your luck!” she said.

  “Tell me about it,” I said, as the elevator stopped and the doors opened once more. I stepped into the hall, and turned toward my new room. “What are you doing?”

  “People-watching,” Melissa said. “Well, listening, out on the grounds, seeing if anyone is mentioning anything strange. Really, most people are talking about the body of course. Everyone now knows that it was Lucas Wallace.”

  “You need to get inside,” I said. “It’s dark.”

  “Settle down. I can deal with a little darkness.”

  “A man was killed here recently.”

  “You’re right,” Melissa said. “Why don’t you sleep in my room tonight?”

  I considered it for a minute, but then shook my head, even though my friend couldn’t see me do that. “No, I’ll be fine, thanks.”

  “I’ll stop by your room in a bit,” Melissa said.

  “Okay, bye.” I slid my phone into my pocket just as I stopped outside the door to my new room. I pulled the keycard out of the paper sleeve, and slid it into the lock. A small green light lit up next to the handle, and I pushed it down and opened the door.

  “Oh, I’m sorry!” a voice called as I stepped in. It belonged to a maid, a young woman with blonde hair who was scrubbing the walls. “I’m not finished,” she said.

  “Oh,” I said, feeling somewhat irritated. I just wanted to get into my room, and kick off my shoes.

  “Please don’t tell anyone,” the maid said. “I was supposed to be done already, but these markings are so
hard to get off, and I’m not even done.”

  I was about to ask the maid what markings she was talking about, but as I stepped further inside, I didn’t need to. All over one wall were white lines. There were strange symbols, a large pentagram, and letters which didn’t seem to spell any words that I knew. It looked as though they had been made with chalk.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” the maid said with a shrug. “It was all over. The police took lots of photos, but now I have to get rid of them all. They’re so hard to wipe away.”

  I took one more step and then froze. I tried to suck in a breath, but none would come. I felt something, something strange, something pulling on me, something I was sure the maid could not feel.

  I closed my eyes for a moment, and tried to get a handle on the feeling, but it remained somewhere in the room, hidden.

  I opened my eyes to find the maid staring at me.

  “Are you all right, miss?”

  “Sorry,” I said quickly. “I’m just really tired.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Let me just finish getting these off the wall.”

  I nodded and the maid got to work. My luggage had been delivered to the room, and I set about putting my clothes into the dresser that sat along one wall.

  “All of the symbols were like that?” I asked, nodding my head to the white marks that hadn’t yet been wiped away.

  “Yes,” the maid said. “It kind of scared me,” she added. “I don’t know why.”

  “They are freaky,” I said. The strange symbols and letters were off putting, although the feeling that I was still experiencing was even worse. It felt like it was pulling me somewhere.

  “It’s a shame about that man, huh?” the maid said.

  “Yes, it is.”

  I watched the maid finish scrubbing at the white markings. Finally, she stopped. “I’m sorry; I can’t get them all off. I think the room will have to be repainted.”

  “That’s fine,” I said, with a wave of my hand. “I don’t mind at all.”

  I watched her go, trying not to think about the fact that a man who was dead had slept in the bed, on those sheets the maid had carried out of there.

  It made me uneasy, but I settled myself. I was the Keeper of The Orpheans after all. I had spoken to the dead before, and I wondered if I could do so now. I stood in the middle of the room and raised my hands.