“Oh yeah? Who?”
“David.”
She let the name hang in the air between them, the air thickening despite the distance between them.
“Hmmm…”
It wasn’t that Matt disliked David necessarily–he was just jealous. As jealous as Matt could get, anyway. When she’d worked on Jekyll Island, David had been around quite a bit.
Matt, who’d considered himself her protector long before either one of them had known what it meant to date, much less acted on any feelings, had trouble with the idea of someone else acting as knight in shining armor. The fact that David was good looking, amiable, and shared common interests with Taryn didn’t help. Had they met under other circumstances, they might have been friends. As it was, the two men could barely disguise their uncomfortable scrutiny of one another.
“He’s coming to town for a lecture at Belmont and invited me to listen. I’m going to dinner with him after,” she explained.
To avoid awkwardness, she’d considered not telling Matt at all. If she knew him, and she did, he’d worry needlessly and work himself up over nothing. While she flirted with the idea, Taryn knew it wasn’t a real possibility. She’d never been good at hiding things from him, sometimes telling him more than he needed to know.
The almost-psychic connection between them would’ve had him knowing something was up before David was even on a flight back to Brunswick. Best to just be upfront and honest.
“Do you want me to come up while he’s there?” Matt asked, sounding hopeful.
“Matt…”
“Yeah, yeah. Okay,” Matt grumbled. “Fine. So how far along are you on this job anyway?”
By the time Taryn hung up, she was feeling newfound motivation. She was ready to sketch and paint, and as a vision of the courtyard flashed through her mind she was struck with inspiration. She knew exactly where she could stand capture the essence of the enclosure and present it in a fun and unique fashion.
Unfortunately for Taryn, it was midnight. Aker might have been at her disposal, but she seriously doubted he’d have a sense of humor about meeting her in the middle of the night so that she could paint.
“Well,” Taryn exhaled noisily. “Damn.”
Resigned to the fact that she’d either have to ignore her muse and wait until the next morning, or work with what she had, she opened her laptop and began pulling up the photos she’d taken. With old school Reba playing softly on her CD player, her easel dragged out to the middle of the floor, and “Teen Witch” (a highly underrated 1980’s teen movie) flickering on mute from her television set, she began to work.
Something hard and thick collected in the courtyard, growing stronger and more powerful as the individual parts came together to form a bigger whole.
It darted around the enclosed space, sniffing the air and seeking something tangible to attach itself to. It slithered across the ground, leaving an invisible trail of foul-smelling slime in its wake like a thick, fat slug.
As it moved through the heavy night, objects in its trail were left to rot or decay; a soda can it slinked over all but melted under its weight, the tin left crackling. The paint on an overturned chair bubbled then slid off, leaving a puddle of dirty white on the hard ground.
When it reached Room #5 it climbed up door and encircled the door knob, the old metal glowing brilliantly hot and red under its touch. The door wobbled a little then swelled, filling its frame until it might explode and send shards of wood and metal across the courtyard. The essence quickly turned inwards on itself and darted inside through the keyhole.
There, it waited.
Taryn had felt productive and happy when she finally turned in at 6:15 am. Although she could see the dark red streaks of sun rising over the downtown skyline, the sky was still navy blue and dark. When she’d pulled her blackout curtains to in her bedroom, she’d snuggled down into her blanket and had fallen to sleep like a baby. Taryn didn’t like sleeping alone as she often suffered from nightmares, she didn’t do well when it was totally dark (which is why she kept her door open and a lamp on in the living room) but she loved her sleep.
She knew before she even opened her eyes at noon that it was going to be a rough day.
Every bone in her body hurt. Her right hand was swollen to nearly twice its normal size. Her back was so stiff that it took three tries to sit up, and when she attempted to swing her legs over the side of the bed and stand, she immediately fell to the floor; her hips and legs couldn’t support her weight.
The sharp, shooting pains that radiated from her hips and shot down to her feet had her eyes watering and her stomach turning. Somehow, she managed to make her way to the bathroom by holding onto furniture along the way. There, she collapsed in the floor on a throw rug and emptied her late-night binge of brownies and apple juice into the toilet. By the time she was finished, her body was burning with fire; sweat rolled down her face and back and her heart pummeled her chest.
She wouldn’t be working today.
The walls, furniture, and doorframes supported her weight on the slow journey into the living room. From the couch, she made a call to Aker and apologized for the disruption of the schedule.
“Sorry, Aker,” she said brightly into the receiver, trying to make her voice sound light and airy. “Must have stayed up too late last night and am feeling the effects this morning. I’m going to be working from home.”
Her voice broke on the last word as another fiery bolt of pain streaked through her system. Aker did not let it go unnoticed.
“Don’t worry about me,” he replied, with what could’ve passed as gentleness in most people in his voice. “Do you need anything?”
“No, it’s okay,” she whispered, feeling embarrassed. “I just need to rest.”
“I don’t mind running out for anything,” he said. “I need to pick up something from Wal-Greens for my mother.”
Taryn allowed herself to briefly picture Aker’s mother and imagine Aker as a devoted, loving son, before she replied. “I’m okay, I promise. I have medicine here. It will knock me out and this day will just be a bad dream.”
“Take care then and let me know what you want to do about tomorrow.”
When she hung up, Taryn turned on the television and found a true crime show on the Investigation Discovery channel. Her pain medication was within easy reach but when she tried standing again to go to the kitchen for a drink, she couldn’t. By then, the pain from her waist down was excruciating. Taryn thought that if she had government secrets she’d talk.
A Coke she’d started fourteen hours earlier was on the coffee table in front of her. It was warm and flat and a fly was stuck in the stickiness on the tab but it was all she had. Grimacing, Taryn took a sip and swallowed the oval pill. It was bitter on her tongue. Before her, Rose was telling a St. Olaf story to a bored Blanche and Dorothy. The canned laughter from the audience filled her living room as the first strong rays of sunlight filtered through her curtains.
And Taryn cried in frustration and disappointment.
Twelve
Two days. She’d lost two days.
“Dang it,” Taryn muttered as she shoved her plastic tub into the backseat. The brushes and plastic palettes rattled around inside. Her wrapped canvases, which she was much gentler with, were stowed in the trunk next to a carton of Ale-8, mailed to her from Kentucky by her friend Melissa. She’d become addicted to the drink when she’d worked at Windwood Farm. Now Melissa was more or less her pusher, sending her a carton of the ginger-tasting drink once a month.
She was still achy. The extra pain medicine she’d taken had her head fuzzy, leaving her feeling hungover.
And now, of course, she was behind. She’d have to work extra hard over the next few days to play catch up with herself. She’d promised Ruby to bring the canvases by once she had something to show on them.
Taryn, someone who almost obsessively concerned about meeting deadlines and not wanting to let others down, would almost run herself into the ground to ensure she did what was
expected of her.
Since she’d been put on the strong pain relieving medication she took great care in how she took it. She never, for instance, drove when it was freshly in her system. She didn’t want to be responsible for a crash. So today, even though it hurt to walk (and stand and sit), she was flying high only an Epsom salt bath, a couple of Tylenol with some arthritis cream on her legs.
“Let’s do this thing,” she said, forcing some cheerfulness in her voice as she pulled away from her parking spot.
She would get back on track and would get this job completed.
The outside temperature was in the high seventies, nary a breeze wafted through the air, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
Room #5 was cold, almost bitterly so, and damp.
Taryn shrugged a cardigan around her shoulders and burrowed inside it, trying to generate extra body heat. The bright sunlight pouring in through the front door was impeding her view of the room so she’d closed the door. That had cost her whatever heat was coming in from the outside world, however.
Annoyed, Taryn rose from the chair and hobbled across the floor, wincing as her right hip popped and cracked along the way.
“Settle down,” she muttered, slapping her jean-covered hip in reprimand. “Don’t start crying yet. We’re not finished.”
Talking to herself, her various body parts, and the room in general kept her from feeling lonely.
With the door open, she could already feel the warmth seeping back in. Taryn stood in the doorway for a moment and opened her cardigan, allowing the fresh air and sunlight to wash over her.
The room’s frosty air nipped at her back, chilling her. There was something else, too, something she couldn’t put her finger on. It was also cold but in a different way. This other thing that poked at the back of her legs and skulked about her shoulders was unfriendly and moist; it left a dampness behind on the places it touched her.
Taryn shivered and, feeling violated, quickly turned around.
The motel room was empty.
She returned to her chair and straightened the towel she’d been sitting on but remained standing. “I’m not afraid of you,” she declared to the room. “So if there’s anything you want to do, you’d best be getting it out of your system right now.”
The front door slammed closed with a “bang”, the sound exploding in the tiny, confined space. The framed picture of Parker Brown fell from the nightstand, shattered glass scattering across the grimy floor. His radiant smile looked up at her through the cracks. He appeared almost angelic.
Taryn wrapped her arms tightly around herself and closed her eyes, willing her heartrate to slow down. Her instinct was to run screaming for Aker and make him check under the bed and in the closet, like any frightened child might have their parents do.
She envisioned herself running, or limping in her case, to him shouting, “Daddy! Daddy! There’s a monster under my bed!”
She saw him rising from his folding chair, patiently placing his book down (after carefully marking it with the “Friends of Police” bookmark), and striding with purpose to the room– his dark sunglasses and impassive expression hiding any urgency on his part. And then she saw him on all fours, lifting the soiled bed skirt and searching for her monsters.
The idea did the trick; Taryn’s fear slowly subsided and the beating of her heart steadied under her trembling hand. She even felt the tickle of a smile on her lips.
“That wasn’t very nice,” she said, ignoring the tremor in her voice.
Marching back to the door, she opened it once again, flinging it open wide until it hit the wall behind it. Once again, the room filled with fresh air and sunlight.
Taryn then turned and painfully crouched down to pick up the shards of glass that littered the floor. She placed Parker’s picture back in the cheap wooden frame, sans glass, and returned it to the nightstand. She kept her fingers on it, however, and studied the image.
Once again his beatific smile radiated outwards, the demons he possessed unrecognizable in the 1960’s publicity shot. Taryn paused to admire the Nudie Suit he wore, the sparkle of the rhinestones nearly as brilliant as the gleam in his eyes. The piercingly white color of the suit stood out from the stark, beige desert setting in stunning contrast. His long hair fell softly to his shoulders, his smile serene and gentle.
She hoped he wasn’t trapped in the room, hoped that he’d somehow made it out.
The door banged closed again, this time with a force so strong that her easel tumbled to the ground, sending her canvas with it.
Parker’s picture flew from her fingertips and soared across the room, hitting the wall on the other side of the bed before it dropped to the floor with a thud.
Shaking, Taryn closed her eyes and took long, deep breaths. There was nothing she wanted more at that moment than to pack it all up and leave. She wasn’t even sure she could make herself move, however; fear was a crippling thing.
“Ghosts can’t hurt you, ghosts can’t hurt,” she chanted almost silently to herself.
If there was one thing Taryn had learned through her adventures, it was that she had more to fear from the living than the dead.
She hoped that was still true.
Thirteen
Taryn stood in the courtyard, Miss Dixie in hand, and waited. She’d meant to work on the lobby that day but something had called to her from the courtyard. She had done a preliminary sketch of it but hadn’t started painting yet. Now, she was ready.
Headphones on, she turned to an Emmylou Harris CD. The soft, lilting voice was a gentle contrast to the bleakness of the inhospitable surroundings before her. The soothing sounds of the music reminded Taryn that her position was temporary, that there were nice things still out there in the world.
She needed that when meth-making materials were within her line of vision, the empty bleach bottle with its top cut off gathering dirt beside one of the rooms.
Even though she’d already taken several dozen pictures of the space already, Miss Dixie had itched to be taken along. Taryn never ignored her camera’s pleas. Now, she lifted her to her eyes and focused on the center of the enclosure, taking in as much as she could.
When she turned on the playback, the scene before her changed.
The rickety picnic tables, painted a faded redwood color and stained with cigarette scars and things Taryn didn’t want to think about, were replaced with white stone benches and patio furniture. Colorful umbrellas rose from the circular tables, their flaps gently moving in an invisible breeze.
Where a pile of garbage decayed next to a cheap grill turned over on its side was in present day, a brick fire pit glowed with a hearty flames. Chairs were pulled up around it and next to one of them was a worn guitar resting on its case. The dents in it reminded Taryn of Willie Nelson’s beloved “Trigger.”
Several leafy trees, all gone today, offered shade. The stone patio was smooth and clean and swept of debris– in contrast to its modern counterpart that was fractured with weeds growing through the cracks and strewn with soda cans and fast food wrappers.
She knew it was impossible (well, the whole thing was impossible but that was beside the point) but even the sky looked bluer.
For a moment Taryn was totally transported to another time period, a different lifetime. While she hadn’t captured any people in her shot, she could totally envision the place being a crash pad for the struggling musicians of the time. She could see them, not through Miss Dixie but in her imagination, hanging out in the courtyard, visiting with the other guests, barbecuing or playing their instruments. It would have been an inexpensive place to stay back then, still popular with long-term guests and probably still drawing those who dipped into drug activity and were facing demons (like Parker) but it would’ve been cleaner back then–better maintained.
It wasn’t the cesspool of filth and despair it would eventually become.
Back in the present day world, Emmylou sang about missing someone and feeling regretful that she couldn’t reme
mber if they’d said goodbye the last time she saw them.
People were confused as to why Ruby Jane wanted to buy the motel but Taryn wasn’t. Part of her had even wanted the remains of the car Andrew had crashed. In fact, she’d returned to the scene of the accident almost a year later and gone for a walk along the side of the road at sunset.
The area had long been cleaned and processed; the vehicle and the fiery mess it had left behind were long gone. Still, as she walked back to her own car her shoe had kicked something that didn’t sound or feel like a rock. It rolled a good three feet and when she knelt down to study it, she found herself holding a knob from the radio dial. She’d known it was Andrew’s because it was faded and worn from the way he’d hold onto it; incessantly rubbing his thumb over it while he was driving was one of his nervous habits.
Taryn had placed the knob in her pocket, resumed the walk to her car, and treated herself to frozen yogurt.
Later, back in her new apartment, she’d removed the knob and set it on an antique mirror she’d put on her dresser to use to catch jewelry.
Buying the motel that contained the last place that saw her partner and loved one alive? Taryn got that.
People did strange things when they grieved–just about anything to feel close to them again.
Her painting was calling.
Taryn had tossed and turned all night, too tired to sleep. She’d spent forty-eight solid hours working on the courtyard canvas without any sleep. Wired for the first time in a long time, Taryn felt totally focused and dedicated. Nothing was distracting her. She’d worked at the motel, barely stopping for a lunch break, and had gone straight back to her apartment where she’d continued, not even turning the television on.
Her body was tired but her mind was still running on “high.” She’d made herself go to bed, knowing she needed sleep, but she couldn’t turn her brain off. It was jumping all over the place, landing on random thoughts and worries.
Black Raven Inn: A Paranormal Mystery (Taryn's Camera Book 6) Page 10