In his time, Hotel LaBelle boasted not only soft beds, fine dining, and good wine, but a telephone. When he built the hotel, he had installed a direct line from the train station to his registration desk, a business strategy that ensured a full house every spring, summer, and fall. He also paid the exorbitant fee of a dollar and two-bits a month for a party line so he could make and receive calls from local businesses and residents. Worth every penny. Now they had these palm-of-your-hand things. They still had numbers and he bet there was an operator in there, somewhere. He’d watched that scoundrel use the thing thousands of times, once he figured out what it was.
“Will, you bum, you ain’t gonna die if I can help it.”
He lay on top of the man like a second skin, and blew into Will’s face, trying to keep the smoke away from his lungs. Between huffs and puffs, Lucius pressed the button and waved his palm over the glass like a magician. Nothing. He pressed the button harder and the cyclopean rectangle stared back at him.
If only Tallulah were here. Her presence made him more of a man, literally. What kind of idiot pushed a beautiful, smart woman like that away? Him, that’s who. Oh, Tallulah, I was a fool. If only I could right that wrong, make it up to you.
He tapped at the button again. The screen lit up. He slid his fingers across the screen and a prompt told him to enter a passcode.
Must be like a secret password.
“For Heaven’s sake. Could this be any harder?” He blew at Will’s face. “Don’t suppose you could tell me your passcode?”
No response from the man beneath him. Shallow breathing indicated he was still among the living, but Lucius didn’t know for how long.
Keeping Tallulah’s beautiful face in his mind, he repeated his efforts with the phone. This time, he saw the writing at the bottom of the screen. Emergency. If this wasn’t an emergency, he didn’t know what was. He pressed the word, and the rectangle turned white with an array of numbers. Now he was getting someplace. He pressed zero and an angel’s voice answered.
“This is the mobile operator. What is your emergency?”
“Fire. Hotel LaBelle. Fire.”
“I can hardly hear you, sir. Could you speak up please?”
He shouted as loud as he could, “Fire. Hotel LaBelle. Fire.”
“I think I heard you say fire, Hotel LaBelle, is that correct, sir?”
“Yes!”
“Where is the Hotel LaBelle, sir?”
Oh, for Heaven’s sake. Wasn’t this woman downtown in the Billings Exchange?
“Billings Montana!”
A siren wobbled in the distance. That was fast. She really was an angel.
“Thank you.” The wailing came closer, and the crunch of tires on gravel, many tires, rose over the sound of the rain. A man shouted, “Get the hose in the river. Hook up the pump. Let’s get this contained.”
More shouts and siren shrieks came from below.
“Upstairs—the fire is upstairs. Search every room for survivors.”
The floor trembled with the weight of many men, and the door slammed into the wall. Two men in dripping yellow suits, helmets, and masks stormed in.
“We’ve got a man’s body.”
“Grab him and get the hell out.”
“Where’s that water? Get that water up here!”
“Move, move, move!”
“More water, more water!”
Lucius followed the firemen outside to the porch. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, and the clouds scudded overhead, revealing a full opalescent moon.
“Give this guy some oxygen. Let’s see if he’s got a chance.”
They placed Will on a stretcher inside a big red truck, and a young man with long dark hair pulled back in a ponytail slapped a clear mask on his face, then placed a stethoscope on Will’s chest. “I’ve got a heartbeat and shallow breathing. I’m hooking up a normal saline IV.” He slid open the window between where the stretcher sat and the front driver’s compartment. “Check to see which ED is open. I’m hoping St. Vic’s isn’t on bypass.”
The back doors slammed shut, and the ambulance raced up the driveway, tossing gravel and mud in its wake.
A burly man in yellow gear wore a helmet that said, “Captain.” He spoke into a black box, “You guys find anyone else?”
A voice crackled out of the box, “Negative.”
The captain nodded. “What’s the status of the blaze?”
“Confined to this one weird-looking room. Paint’s blistered, furniture’s buckled, but the mattress must have been fire retardant. Windows and door were closed, so the fire didn’t spread.”
“I’m sure the rain helped, but it’s still a miracle in a place this old.” The captain shook his head. “Come out when you’re confident it’s extinguished. Be safe.”
An hour later, five firemen emerged from the hotel.
“Hey, Captain, any idea who that guy was we found in the weird room?”
“No clue. Guess we’ll find out after he gets to the ED.”
One man held up Will’s phone. “I’d like to know how he made an emergency call while he was unconscious.”
The captain took off his helmet and scratched his bald head. “How do you know that?”
“The mobile operator was still on the phone when we entered the room.” He handed the phone to his boss. “She said a man she could hardly hear called to report the fire five minutes before we arrived.”
“But the Sheriff’s office called us fifteen minutes before we got here.”
“Exactly.”
“I’ll call the Sheriff and tell him we’ve got a mystery caller and a fire of suspicious origin. Time to call the arson investigator.” The captain sighed. “Just once, why can’t my job be easy?”
Lucius popped into the hotel, inspecting each room for himself, amazed at the limited damage. He approached the last room with trepidation. The ugly white room was now an ugly black room. Covered in soot and still dripping water, the boxy furniture stood on warped feet and looked as if one tap would knock it over. A large dark hole in the mattress gave mute testimony to the source of the conflagration. On the floor next to the bed, soot traced the outline of a man’s body. Somehow, in the smoke and fire, Lucius had been able to keep Will alive. A miracle. Not that the man would be grateful if he ever woke up. He’d be facing arson charges and still dealing with owing the wrong men money.
He puzzled over the conversation he heard outside. Someone had called the Sheriff’s office before he reached the operator. He gazed out the window into darkness. No one in their right mind would have been out in this downpour. The roads were impassable in those conditions. He hoped Tallulah hadn’t been out driving during the thunderstorm.
Who could have known the hotel was on fire? How had anyone seen the glow out here in the middle of nowhere in the storm?
Chapter Nine
Tallulah clenched a tissue and waited while Emma made yet another call to the Sheriff’s Office to get an update on the fire at the hotel.
“Emma knows everyone in the county,” Bert said. “She went to school with the dispatcher, trained her horses.”
“Oh, hello, yes, this is Emma Horserider. Can you tell me anything about the Hotel LaBelle fire? Really? Yes, oh that’s great news. Uh-huh. Yeah. Oh my. Did you find Will Wellington? Is he okay? He did? Where is he now? Thank you very much, I really appreciate it.”
“Good news?” Tallulah asked between sniffles.
“Yes. My Indian telegraph still works. The fire is out, and the hotel is mostly intact.”
“What was the ‘oh my’ for?”
“Seems they can’t figure out how Will survived the fire. The room was locked tighter than a drum, and the window was closed. Smoke should have done him in. Plus, someone made an emergency call from Will’s phone five minutes before the trucks arrived.” She gave Tallulah a pointed stare. “Any idea how an unconscious man could have done that?”
“Lucius,” she said in a whisper. “Had to have been him.”
Bert nodded. “S
pirits love to tinker with phones and lights.”
“He wasn’t playing—he was trying to save a man he despised.” She shook her head. “His beloved hotel was in flames and—” She stopped, an image of a man in a window popping into her mind. “Lucius. He was the man I saw and heard screaming.”
Emma pulled up a chair in front of Tallulah and handed her a mug of hot coffee. “This will help you shake off the trance state. That was another reason we didn’t want you driving in the rain. Not safe to operate heavy machinery after a vision quest.”
“Thanks.” She blew on the surface and sipped. “You had the will. You’re the rightful heirs, not that ass Will, Wilson, whatever his name is. Why didn’t you guys assert your rights and take possession of the hotel? It belongs to you.”
“We don’t have the deed that proves Lucius paid off the mortgage.”
“Ah.” Tallulah reached into her blouse, pulled out the yellowed paper, and handed it to Emma. “Now you do.”
Emma moved closer to Bert, and they both scanned the document.
Tallulah removed the throw, tossed back the rest of the coffee, and stood. “My work here is done.”
“Not so fast.” Bert put his hand up. “We need to talk about your vision.”
“I told you everything. At first I was in my own body, then I let Beautiful take over and…”
“Beautiful wasn’t in charge when you flew back over the hotel, was she?”
Tallulah shook her head. “No. I had an irresistible urge to go back, almost as if I was called back.”
He pressed on, “And you saw the fire in real time.”
“Yes. And heard the scream.”
Bert patted the recliner. “Have a seat, my friend. We have business to discuss.”
“That’s my cue to leave.” Emma put on a jacket. “This is top secret and I have horses to visit. Talk to you later, Tallulah.”
Tallulah waved goodbye to Emma and plopped back down in the chair. Franny leaped on her legs, begging to be picked up. She pulled the pug to her lap and leaned back. “Okay, I’m listening.”
Emma’s brother rubbed his chin. “Ever hear of remote viewing?”
“No, can’t say I have.” She caressed Franny’s velvet ear.
“The CIA had a program in the seventies to see if certain paranormal methods would have intelligence applications. Remote viewing was one of these activities. Researchers would ask someone like you to envision a place or object that a sender would be looking at. In other experiments, they would put a photograph into an envelope and ask the person to describe the picture. They did this in a variety of ways for about two decades.”
A frisson of anticipation feathered along her spine. “What did they find?”
“A large evaluation study of the program found that, statistically, the results were positive. Remote viewers accurately described those places and objects more often than chance would suggest they should be able to.”
“I’m no researcher but from my basic stats course in college, that means it worked, right?”
“Yes and no.” Bert shrugged. “The statistics were good, but the intelligence wasn’t detailed enough for practical uses in the field. They discontinued the program.”
“Oh, that’s disappointing.” Tallulah wondered what this had to do with her.
“Yes and no.”
“For someone who’s so direct, you’re certainly being coy.” Tallulah shook a finger at him. “And I know your family secrets, so you shouldn’t beat around the bush. What is it you want me to do now?”
“We live in extremely scary times, Tallulah. Every week, it seems, another extremist explodes a bomb. Homeland Security needs all the help we can get to prevent acts of terror.”
“You don’t have to tell me. I was in high school in Enid, Oklahoma when the Oklahoma City bombing occurred.” She shuddered and Franny licked her hand. “It’s burned in my memory.”
Bert locked gazes with her. “Are you ready to serve your country?”
“I don’t understand what you want me to do. I’m a hotel consultant who sometimes has visions. Not sure what good I would be.”
“Tallulah,” Bert scolded. “You’re not just a ‘hotel consultant who sometimes has visions.’ You’re a remote viewer. I want to train you to use your gifts to help protect our country.”
“I don’t know…” Her stomach fluttered.
“Listen, you were the one who said your visions were like uncontrolled seizures. I have people who can help you learn to control them, give you the power to turn them on and off at will.”
“That would be nice.” Her grandmother chirped in the back of her mind, but instead of saying, “Hide your gifts!” she shouted, “Take the job!”
“It would be undercover, part-time.” He reached over and patted Franny’s head. “You’d need to keep T & F Hotel Inspectors as your day job, so to speak.”
Speaking half to herself and her grandmother, she said, “I don’t know if I’m equipped for this kind of work.”
“You’ve been ready for this job a long time. You just didn’t know it.”
She sighed. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
Bert reached over and grasped her smaller hand with his big one. “Welcome to Homeland Security, Tallulah. You’re the newest employee of the Science and Technology Directorate, Anomaly Defense Division.”
Emma burst through the door. “You done?”
Bert nodded. “All set.”
“Good. Because she has one more thing she has to do, and she needs to do it soon.”
An hour later, Tallulah and Emma stood outside the Hotel LaBelle under the luminous full moon. “Emma, I don’t understand. Why couldn’t you do this?”
“As she lay on her deathbed, Beautiful told my mother how she cast the curse. She pointed her medicine stick at him and said, ‘You are cursed to stay in this dwelling that you love more than my daughter. You are cursed to wander it alone until you find someone you love and who loves you back, then and only then will this curse be undone.’ When Beautiful realized he might never find someone, she knew she had been wrong to cast him into the world between worlds. She wanted to right the wrong, reverse the curse. But her medicine stick never sang for anyone before you.”
“Lucky me,” Tallulah said dryly. “Good thing I don’t have to swear undying love. ’Cause that ain’t happening.”
Emma cocked her head to one side. “I thought you felt something for him.”
Avoiding Emma’s eyes, Tallulah stared at the hotel. “The feeling was not mutual.”
“What?”
“We started to, you know, fool around.” Heat flooded her face, and she was grateful for the dark night covering her embarrassment. “He called me a brazen hussy. So, I’m not feeling the love, if you get my drift.”
“I apologize for my ancestor’s behavior. What a jerk.”
“Pretty much my thoughts. I gave him a lecture on women’s rights. He was not impressed.”
No sign of Lucius. She expected to see him pacing the porch or sitting in the rocking chair. “At any rate, I don’t see him.”
“You’ll have to go in and find him.”
Talk about awkward. The man rejected her, now she had to look for him to right Beautiful’s wrong. Would there be no end to this saga? Yes, tonight was the last night she’d see him. After she undid the curse, he’d be free to move about the country or stay put and work with his descendants on a plan for the property. Either way, not her problem anymore. All she had to do was go in there, touch him with the medicine stick, and channel Beautiful Blackfeather, who, right this moment, stood at her side, petting Franny. The spirits loved her pug. Franny, the veritable ghost magnet.
The medicine stick hummed in the beaded quiver slung on her back. The magic wand’s singing, she thought. It must be time. “Watch Franny for me?”
Tallulah handed the leash to Emma before she headed for the steps.
Still no sign of Lucius. Dang pesky spirit. He wouldn’t leave her alone before, and n
ow he wanted to play hide-and-seek? Tallulah pulled open the screen, and just as she put her hand on the front doorknob, tires crunched on the driveway and a siren whooped twice.
A megaphone enhanced voice shouted, “Step away from the crime scene.”
Almost to the same second, the man she sought appeared in the etched oval glass on the other side of the door, and their gazes locked.
He grinned and popped onto the porch alongside her. “Looking for me?”
“Put your hands up, Miss. Step away from the door.”
She put her hands up and turned to face the voice. Powerful searchlights blinded her and footsteps crunched in her direction.
“They don’t seem happy to see you.” Lucius poked her back, and she jumped. “Was it something you said?”
“Stop that,” Tallulah hissed over her shoulder. “Can’t you see this isn’t a joking situation?”
“Can’t help myself, I’m so happy to see you.” He stroked her hair, and her knees turned to water. “Makes me say foolish things.”
“Omigod, you have the worst timing.”
The man with the megaphone continued, “Move away from the door.”
She shouted, “The owner invited me. I’m staying here.”
A short, stocky deputy sheriff with dark hair bounded up the stairs, a huge roll of yellow tape in his big hands. “Not tonight you aren’t. A man was beaten and almost died in a fire tonight. If you don’t leave the premises, we will be forced to arrest you.”
“That’s not true,” Lucius hissed in her ear. “I saw the whole thing. He set the fire. He tried to kill himself.”
“Tommy Otterlegs, how dare you talk to my friend like that?”
“Oh, hi, Miss Emma. I didn’t see you over there in the shadows.” His glance bounced between Tallulah and Emma. “What are you doing here?”
“Didn’t my friend just tell you she was invited here? She’s a hotel inspector, hired to help Will figure out how to make a go of his business.”
“Ha!” Otterlegs guffawed. “That’s a good one. Will owed money to everyone. Looks like he managed to make someone mad enough to beat him to a pulp and set a fire to cover up the murder.”
“I thought you said he almost died,” Emma corrected. “Is it a homicide or not?”
The Haunting of Hotel LaBelle Page 9