“I’m fine. Really, I am.” She felt the blood rush through her body and knew that to be true.
“What did you see?” William asked.
“I felt a lot of death, and it was recent,” she said. Something was really wrong with this place. The old man’s bloody arm flashed in her mind. Who had hurt him, she wondered. No way was that the work of a ghost as it was rare for ghosts to maintain enough power to complete that kind of task. Could her senses have missed something? Was the death coming from the elevator? She noticed that both Fredrick and William didn’t want to get into the elevator either. Fredrick took a glance down the dreary hall and scowled.
“We should get in.” He gestured as the elevator doors began to close. He held on to one of the doors and the elevator dinged in frustration.
Sara felt a tug at her elbow and flinched. She’d encountered this pull before, but it took her by surprise every time. Whoever it was, it wanted her to go left and she realized the smell of death wasn’t coming from the elevator.
“I think I’m going to take the stairs,” Sara said and stepped away from the doors.
“Why? Is there something wrong with the elevator?” William squeaked. Sara shook her head. William was jumpy even on the quiet ghost hunts, and this was not one of them. The doors closed on their grim looks, and Sara hoped they would make it out of there in one piece.
She felt the pull on her arm again and turned to her left. She walked down the hall, scanning the door numbers and came to the last door on the left, a gold placard with STAIRS written on it.
Sara stepped into a staircase straight out of a Hitchcock film and hoped that she hadn’t just become the stupid girl that the audience yelled at. The wooden balustrade snaked around in an endless spiral. The marble stairs held indents from decades of feet that had traveled on them, and single sconces on each landing emitted a murky yellow light that barely reached past several feet. Shadows controlled this place.
She started down the stairs and allowed her senses to wander ahead of her. Voices of the decades took over her mind and a wall of sound roared in her ears. No distinctive voice emerged from the past, however. She put up several of her walls to be able to hear herself think, and the roar transformed into a hissing whisper. Fredrick rigged this floor with cameras as well, she thought, as she reached the eighth floor landing and thought it very odd he didn’t mention this floor at all.
It was unusual for Fredrick to keep information from her during a hunt and suspected Barney Leonard cooked up something here that Fredrick went along with. Another mystery in this day of mysteries.
A sobbing broke through all the other sounds and a shockwave slammed into her when she reached to open the stairwell door. She yanked the door open and fell into an identical hallway to the one upstairs. She slammed the door behind her but the sobbing grew louder.
Another shockwave rocked her body and she fell into the wall. Someone had been murdered here and very recently. A metallic taste bloomed in her mouth and hoped she hadn’t bitten her tongue.
The sickly, sweet smell of decay assaulted her nose and made her want to vomit. Keeping her hand on the wall to steady herself, she searched for Fredrick’s cameras. The team had placed six of them along the ceiling, spread evenly down the corridor for maximum coverage. She was relieved to see that the red lights were still blinking on all of them and hoped the cameras caught whoever this was.
She closed her eyes and concentrated on where the force wanted her to go. The pulling came from her right and she followed it to Door 837.
Her teeth chattered involuntarily as the temperature dropped in the hallway. The door opened with a squeak onto an emptied studio with a brand-new mattress on top of a metal frame, the only piece of furniture in the room. The door slammed closed behind her.
Her eyes adjusted to the dark and she found herself in a fully furnished room, a stream of moonlight breaking through the blinds on one of the windows. She stepped closer to the bed, and her eyes widened.
An old, frail woman, flowered scarf covering her hair and in the throes of a nightmare, lay among several pillows. The woman’s eyes shifted back and forth beneath her lids, and she was crying weakly.
The woman’s arm was pinned down next to her and Sara watched as the woman’s eyes opened in shock and fear. She thrashed against the invisible murderer for mere seconds before her eyes grew wide, and all the fight went out of her. Whoever held her arm down let it go and invisible hands tucked both arms underneath the covers.
The tableau vanished, and a gust of wind lifted Sara’s hair from the back of her neck. She strained her ears in preparation to receive the ghost’s message and felt terror sweep over her. However often she did this, contact with the dead scared the hell out of her. She swallowed the lump in her throat and touched her neck to feel her pulse, something she did to calm herself down.
“Murder.” A gentle hiss caressed her ear. “Barbara. I...Murdered. Help usssss.” The hiss turned into an almost indiscernible whisper. Sara nodded to show her understanding.
“I hear you, Barbara. I’m here.” She waited for more but was met with silence. Barbara had left. It was time to call Jonah. He could help Barbara’s ghost pass, but he couldn’t help the old man. Whoever attacked him was human, she was sure of it. As sure as she was that a woman was murdered in this room.
She sent a tendril of consciousness out to the far corners of the room searching for any other type of darkness. The room held no echoes of other supernatural entities. The murderer was human.
She built her walls back up as Johan had taught her all those years ago. When the room was just an empty room, she opened the door, and left. The red blinking of the nearest camera maybe caught the ghost as she entered the room and Fredrick would know that she made contact. Maybe they could do an information swap, her description of the murder she witnessed for an explanation of what the hell they were doing here at the Bockerman.
When Sara joined the rest of the gang in the lobby, the group of senior citizens that she met earlier had dispersed save one, Barney Leonard. Fredrick and Barney spoke in whispers off to the side as Jerry and William broke down the rest of their equipment. Fredrick glanced over to where she stood several times and made her have the distinct impression that they were speaking about her.
Fredrick caught her attention and motioned for her to wait for him. She nodded and watched the two men shake hands before Fredrick walked over. Barney was definitely behind whatever Fredrick was hiding, she thought. No doubt about it.
“You going to tell me what’s happening, Fredrick?” Sara said before Fredrick had a chance to say a word. She kept her voice low, not wanting his boys to hear. “I experienced a ghost on the eighth floor but not on the tenth floor. I thought that we were just investigating the tenth floor, but you wired up the eighth just the same. And not for nothing but I think you know the tenth floor had no ghost but…” She let the sentence hang as she watched his face for any clues and found his eye twitching. She plowed on. “Her name was Barbara. I watched her get murdered. Was she the real reason we came here?” Fredrick paled at the name.
“You saw her get killed?” he asked. Sara nodded. Fredrick took her under the elbow and headed for the elevator. “Barney called me about the ghost activity here this morning. He knew all about the Bockerman and how hard I’ve tried to get our equipment in here for the last five years. He didn’t mention anything about a murder, but he did ask for us to hook up the eighth floor,” he said and frowned.
“But he didn’t ask us to investigate the eighth floor did he?” she asked, and he nodded. “Did he just want the footage then?”
“Yea, that’s right. He said he didn’t want the focus to be on the eighth floor, but in case we didn’t get to it that he wanted the footage.”
“Don’t you find that strange, Fredrick?”
“Now that you’re saying a woman was murdered there, yes, I do find that strange. Should we involve the police?” he asked. “When did this happen?”
&n
bsp; “Very recently. Within the last month. Barney didn’t say anything about her? Why all the secrecy between you both then?” Instead of answering her, Fredrick stared at the boys finished up packing.
“You don’t really think that Barney killed this woman?” he whispered.
“No… Well, I don’t think he would have called you in if he killed her…but someone did. Killed her, I mean,” she said and bit her lip. “This place smells of fear and death and not the old Hollywood variety,” she said. “Did the tapes pick up anyone going into that man’s room?”
“No…nothing. Everyone down here watched us in that hallway when the crying began. We didn’t hear the cry for help at first, but Jerry heard it down here. On the monitors. We rewound the tapes and no one came in and out of that room,” he added, brow furrowed. “Getting back to what you felt, do you mean there have been other deaths?” he asked, doubt in his voice.
“Could be… I want to do some quiet investigating…see what I can find out,” Sara said as she looked around the empty lobby.
“Are you sure you want to do that?” Fredrick asked, concern crossing his face.
“Someone needs to help her, and I get the distinct feeling she wasn’t the first.”
“You mean like a serial killer? But, this is an assisted living facility. What would be the point? These people are at the end of their lives and, perhaps, the death and fear you’re feeling is just that, fear of death at the end of life,” he said and scratched his head. She could tell he was disturbed but knew there wasn’t anything she could say. He turned away from her to look back at William, surrounded by silver cases. The elevator dinged open and Jerry stepped out carrying the rest of the cameras.
“Looks like it’s time to go. I don’t know, Sara. If what you’re saying is true, then this is really a matter for the police,” he said, relief and doubt intermingling in his voice.
“And say what? I saw a ghost and watched her get killed? Do you really think they’d believe me?”
“We’re ready to go,” Jerry called out and gestured at the equipment.
“Thanks man.” Fredrick turned back to Sara. “I don’t think you should go looking for trouble here but knowing you—“ He shook his head. “I know that’s exactly what you’re about to do. For once, please heed my warning.” He cocked his head at her.
“Thanks for my next case, Fredrick.” She gave him a crooked smile.
“Be careful, Sara,” he said and gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Seriously. I know you hate to hear that, but there are people out there who care about what happens to you. I happen to be one of them.”
Lou Fairbanks paced up and down the hallway trying to clear her head. The movement helped her feel as though she wasn’t completely losing her mind. Diane pulled at her arm to get her to come back into the apartment, and Lou realized that all she wanted was someone to tell her everything would turn out fine. She knew no one could do that for her. She knew better.
“We watched all the footage, and I even had Fredrick rewind the tapes. No one came in or out of your apartment, Lou. NO ONE,” she added for emphasis.
“Someone did that to his arm. Are we saying a ghost did it? Are we seriously saying that? He’s too catatonic to have done that himself. He barely registers my presence in the room,” Lou said, so quietly that Diane had to lean in to hear her. She pulled away from the other woman, very aware of what she must sound like.
“There’s no evidence someone broke into that room. It’s on camera,” Diane said in such a gentle tone that Lou stopped and looked at her in surprise.
“I know how this all must sound, but I don’t understand how any of this is possible. Why would anyone do that to him?” She fell silent not knowing what else to say.
“I don’t know, Lou. I really don’t know,” Diane said as Lou stepped back inside and headed back to Dads. She lifted the covers and checked on the bandage.
Another thought struck her. “What if someone is in the walls?” Lou asked. It made as much sense as a ghost at this point. If a woman were stuck in the walls, she’d have a reason to be sobbing.
“Lou, I realize you’re under a lot of stress. What, with Dads’ condition…”
Lou interrupted her. “Who makes all the noise at night? I’m not imagining those sounds. Did you hear the tapes? There WAS something in that hall.”
Diane sank into the chair nearest the door and tucked her hair behind her ears, deep in thought. “I don’t know what to say. I’ll understand completely if you want to move on,” Diane said and Lou felt the tears well up without warning. Here, she thought Diane was being kind to her when in reality, Diane was trying to figure out a way to get rid of them.
Embarrassed by her tears, she turned to Dads and wiped her face with a furtive move of her hand. She didn’t have the money to go anywhere else, and it had been hard enough to come to the terms that she had here. She complained enough about the place being a dump but knew that it was one of the reasons they’d gotten the deal they did. Who else would let them live for free and allow her to spend at least half of her time taking care of Dads? And between her anxiety and her credentials only going back so far, she’d gotten extremely lucky. “I can’t leave here. Dads is settled, and Dr. Jerris said it’s not good to uproot him,” Lou said and hoped Diane didn’t hear the desperation in her voice.
“What about his arm?” Diane reminded her.
Lou cursed herself for not thinking far enough ahead. She should have seen this situation coming. “They aren’t deep. We can’t afford to…” Lou blushed. “I’ll make it work.” Diane nodded but looked unconvinced.
“Is there anything I can do?” Diane finally asked.
“Better security. We need better security. I’ll be extra vigilant as well. With ALL the residents.” Lou’s eyes closed, and she rubbed her forehead. “And if it was a ghost, we need to figure out what it wants. All the books on the paranormal say that,” Lou said and grimaced. She snuck a peek at Diane but she was busy scrutinizing a cuticle.
“You really believe it’s a ghost?” was all Diane said.
“You said yourself, no one came in or out of the room. What else could it be if it’s not someone in the walls?” Lou said as Diane got to her feet.
“I find this conversation absurd, Lou. Ghosts? I expected more of you.” Diane shook her head. “If you need anything, please let me know.” Diane left the room without looking back. She should have known not to trust Diane, Lou thought.
The woman was clever and had been around the block. She survived Hollywood and even got herself a supporting role on a sitcom, as she reminded everyone at least once a month. Lou needed to remember that Diane was never kind to be kind. She always had ulterior motives, and Lou, in her need to talk to someone, had forgotten, much to her detriment.
She couldn’t kick her out. She just couldn’t.
Diane Lawrence unbuttoned the two top buttons on her blouse and checked herself out in the mirror in the elevator. Good enough for him, she thought, and sauntered out. She stopped at the front desk and put her best smile on for Russ.
“Good evening, Russ.” Diane melted into him. Russ looked at her cleavage in appreciation just as she expected him to. The best way to get men to do what she wanted was to give them some sugar, and this technique hadn’t failed her yet. “I have a big favor to ask,” she said as she perched on the edge of the desk.
“Anything, Diane,” he said like the whipped pup he was. She was sure if she asked him to commit murder he’d do it in a heartbeat. Not that she would ever suggest such a thing, but it was nice to know that she still had it.
“Could you please speak with Barney Leonard? He’s always so disagreeable with me, and I really need to get a key for those new deadbolts he put on his door. He’s not allowed to make alterations per his agreement, but he did it anyway. Do you think you could get a copy of the keys?” she said and smiled again.
“Don’t you worry. I’m not afraid of a little old man. Consider it done,” he said and touched her
arm gently. She fought the urge to move her arm away and leaned in closer, proving to herself she could do anything if she put her mind to it. She knew of his family past and figured he’d be good to have around in case she ever needed anything shady done, and she had been right on that point. But, if she were really honest with herself, the man scared her just a bit.
“Have the police spoken with you yet?” Diane asked.
“I gave them the surveillance footage for the nights they asked. Do you really think there is someone killing our residents?” he asked and reddened. Diane shrugged.
“Maybe someone had it in for Babs. People come here to die, that’s why they’re here. I told the police the same thing, and I seriously doubt we have a killer on the loose, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“No, no. I didn’t mean that. I mean, I don’t know what I mean,” Russ said and smiled sheepishly at her. “I just want to make sure I’m doing a good job, that’s all.”
“Oh, you are,” she said and patted him on the hand. “No one has been coming in and out of the place without your knowledge, right?”
“Nope.”
She touched his hand. “That’s your job. So good job,” she said, got up and smoothed down her pencil skirt. “Thank you again for your help, Russ. I so appreciate it,” she said, wiggled her fingers in a goodbye and sashayed across the lobby.
Diane got herself comfortable in Lauren’s armchair, took a sip of coffee and sighed. Lauren had the best coffee she’d ever tasted. “This is delicious, L. Thank you.”
Lauren nodded as her needles clicked. Diane had never seen her without her knitting and that made her think of her Grandma Genny, long deceased. Visiting her made Diane feel at peace, and her place felt like the home she wished she had, all warm and cozy.
The Elk (A Caine & Murphy Paranormal Thriller Series Book 1) Page 9