by Eliza Lainn
“What?” I whispered as the front desk agent came back up, her smile impossibly brighter than before.
“There’s definitely something dead here, Stella,” Cyril said. “I can feel it. And whatever it is, it’s frighteningly strong.”
Chapter Five
The bellboys showed us up to our rooms. We’d been given two, Bronte and I branching off into one while Rose and Noah took the other—after assured promises they’d be sleeping in separate beds, of course.
Our rooms were linked with a connected door. And as the bellboys swept into our rooms, they carefully lined our suitcases up against the far wall. Then they breezed through the connected door, leaving it open as they checked to make sure everything was in place.
The rooms sported individual fireplaces, with flat screen TVs demurely affixed to the wall above the mantle. Darkly rich wooden furniture, matching the front desk downstairs, decorated the room. There were two beds, the blankets letting loose the wafting scent of detergent. And a desk stood in front of a tall window, the thick curtains pulled back to let in the Californian sun.
Bronte let out a little sigh of pleasure as she sunk into the bed. “Heaven. I’m in heaven.”
“Fancy digs,” I said, peeking my head into the bathroom. It was small, but outfitted with all the amenities a girl could ask for and towels so plump and fresh I felt the sudden urge to bury my face in them.
Instead, I shut the door and turned toward the connecting door. Through it, I saw Rose and Noah start to unpack. The sound of their voices drifted through easily.
“When do we start?” Oliver asked excitedly.
I went to my suitcase and unzipped the front pouch. I pulled out the Samwise and Frodo figurines and then lobbed them over my shoulder. “Catch.”
Both figurines arched through the air and then stilled.
“Ok, we need a game–” Rose said, coming into the room. Her eyes landed on the floating figurines and she grinned. “I never get tired of seeing that.”
Noah appeared at her shoulder. I half expected him to scowl at the floating Lord of the Rings characters, but he just stared blankly.
Rose plopped down on the bed beside Bronte. “We need a game plan. I’m positive I heard Zach Birmingham down in the lobby. That means we aren’t the only ghost hunters working this case. But, unfortunately, we’re probably the only ghost hunters who brought actual ghosts to the party.”
“A smart decision, I think, given our hereunto untapped potential,” Oliver said, the grin evident in his tone.
Bronte sat up. “Do you think Zach’s team is the only one that’s here?”
“Hard to say,” Rose mumbled.
“I would venture not,” Cyril said. “If you plan on pulling in multiple teams for a single objective, why stop at two?”
“Cyril thinks there are probably more,” I said.
“Yeah, I was afraid of that,” Rose sighed. “Why call in just two? I bet he’s right—I bet there’s at least three teams, maybe more, ours included. Which means we can’t have our ghosts floating around and confusing the haunting.”
“Oh, we won’t,” Oliver said assuredly. He let out a chuckle. “We’ll be discreet; Rose will never even see us working.”
“I think she’s worried about other ghost hunters catching sight of you,” I said. “And then thinking you’re the ghosts that need to be taken care of. Instead of the real one we’re here to find.”
“We’ll be careful.”
Cyril sighed. “No, we’ll stay in the room.”
Oliver immediately launched into a protest. I drowned him out as Rose started speaking again. “Anyway, I don’t think the ghosts should leave the rooms until we get a firmer grasp on the other teams and the haunting. Once we know the playing field, we can come back to whether or not we can let them loose about the hotel.”
Oliver continued protesting, his voice rising.
The front desk phone rang.
Rose moved to answer it and my focus split between her conversation with the front desk, Bronte’s polite conversation with Noah, and the ghosts arguing about being left behind.
“It’s too risky–”
“Yes, that’s fine—”
“Glad you could find the time to join us—”
“We’ll be careful—”
“No—”
“What if we—”
“Thank you, we’ll be happy to—”
“It’s fine—”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to drown them all out.
After a second of that not working, I slid from the room and out into the hallway. The door shut behind me with a wonderfully solid click, muffling their voices.
I leaned back against the door, letting out a deep breath.
The elevator chimed at the end of the hall.
I glanced down toward it in time to see the doors sliding open.
A young man and boy strolled off the elevator, heading down the hall in my direction. They were obviously brothers, judging from the black hair and sharp features they both shared. And they were dressed as tourists in jeans, tennis shoes, and T-shirts.
But they didn’t hold themselves like tourists. The boy couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven, yet he lacked the bounding energy of a child. He walked after his older brother, not bothering to glance at the ornate hallway or excitedly chattering about being on vacation. The only childlike thing about him was the bright red Pokémon backpack slung over one shoulder.
The young man was equally quiet. He pulled along a single, black suitcase, his eyes scanning the room numbers. He seemed…bored, almost. Uninterested. But in a more apathetic way than just the quiet younger boy. Like he’d been roused from a nap moments earlier.
Our eyes met as they continued down the hall. Hazel eyes, I saw. Shifting from brown to green to silver in the span of the hallway, changing with the light. Blending to whatever color suited the situation best.
He’s one of them. A ghost hunter.
The thought flared suddenly, causing me to tense. I knew it for a fact. With the same certainty with which you knew how to breathe. Just something solid, something known.
He caught the tension in my shoulders. His brow furrowed slightly, the only indication of an acknowledgment. And then they were past me, moving further down the hall, scanning room numbers.
I watched them as they made it to the end of the hall and let themselves into the last room. Neither one of them glanced back in my direction. They stepped inside and their door shut soundlessly behind them.
Sighing, I leaned back against the door. Zach Birmingham could just be in ghost hunting for the ratings, but those two weren’t the bumbling rating-mongers I imagined the TV star to be. Their ease and disinterest had me concerned. Our own team was tense and excited. They were calm and collected.
They’d done this before. Many times, I guessed.
Great. Just great.
We’d brought ghosts to a hotel full of ghost hunters, at least one of them a seasoned professional.
“Crap,” I muttered.
Chapter Six
As we made our way down to Salt & Whiskey, the restaurant just off the main atrium, I tried to squash down my guilt. Leaving Oliver, still grumbling about being confined to our two small rooms, had been easy. Leaving Cyril alone to deal with him had been hard.
But we’d all agreed that Cyril and Oliver needed to lay low until we knew for sure what we’d dragged them into. And that, coincidentally, meant a welcome dinner at the Salt & Whiskey.
Rose’s telephone call from the front desk had been to let us know that we were invited to a private party at the hotel’s restaurant. We’d be meeting Mackenzie Marcus, the hotel’s manager, and the other ghost hunters that had been invited. We’d learn why we were here, what Mackenzie wanted from us, and then meet the other teams.
Oliver had argued that this was the perfect time to explore.
We’d argued back that the last thing we needed was a gung-ho ghost roaming through the h
alls.
It hadn’t ended well, leaving Cyril and Oliver in a shouting match as we’d changed out of our travel yoga pants and into less grungy clothes, before heading down to the restaurant.
I fidgeted with the hem of my Apparition Investigations jacket, running my fingers over the soft black fabric as we headed toward the elevator.
Beside me, Bronte wore a simple dress, sans jacket, and Rose sported a blazer and slacks with a simple T-shirt. Noah had even dressed up, wearing his frat-boy best, though the bright colors did nothing to help his dampened mood.
“You look fine,” Rose said, misinterpreting my silence.
I glanced down at my jeans, combat boots, and zipped up jacket. It had been some unspoken, known thing to bring a nice set of clothes. I had missed that non-existent memo because these jeans were the nicest clothes I’d brought with me. “I know.”
She tapped the emblem on my jacket. “It’s good to represent. Make sure everyone knows our name. It’s a good thought.”
I’d worn the jacket because I hadn’t wanted to attend dinner with our client in a superhero T-shirt. “I do what I can.”
The restaurant had been closed for our private dinner. A sign out front announced the hotel’s apologies and recommended other locations, within walking distance, for dinner. The waiter standing guard at the door took our names then escorted us inside.
The interior spoke of Victorian pubs mixed with California brunch. Rich, dark paneling decorated the high walls and the ceiling. Elegant chandeliers hung down, offering warm light. Marble tile decorated the floor. Brown leather booths sat along the wall, with mirrors above to make the room seem larger. And the bar stood to one side, bottles polished and labels turned just so. The tables and chairs, though, looked as if they belonged more in the airy, sunlight atrium. Their white floral patterns didn’t exactly mix with the deep tones of the paneling—but it didn’t exactly look bad, either. It tied together quite nicely, mixing the two aesthetics in a uniquely pleasant way.
Most of the tables had been cleared away or joined together to form a long table in the center of the room. Places had been set at each of chairs.
We weren’t the first ones to arrive.
Rose pinched my arm and pointed with her head at three of the men already seated. Zach Birmingham, I guessed, sat in the center. He wore thick, hipster glasses and a simple black T-shirt. He sat back from the table, one leg crossed so that his ankle and knee met, and that leg bounced with nervous energy. He’d shaved too, and recently, judging from the single Band-Aid just under his jaw.
The two men flanking him were talking excitedly over Zach. One was thin and wiry, speaking slow, his tone low-pitched. The other was heavyset, a black baseball cap with Ghost Haunters on the front and spoke quickly with a nasally, high-pitched voice.
Opposite them sat an older woman, her gray hair pulled into a loose bun on the top of her head. She wore deeply rich colors, though I wasn’t sure what exactly kind of dress she was wearing. Something like a cross between an Indian sari dress and a toga. The fabric kept wrapping around her, cocooning her in layers and layers of jewel-toned fabric, until only her head showed. But even then, she shivered.
Our group took our seats. Place cards had been set out for us. We sat in a line next to the cocooned woman, with Rose seated beside her and me hanging off the end. There were two places empty on the other side of the table from me. And then a chair at the head.
A woman in a smart suit strolled in just as we sat down. Her sharp step, watchful eye, and proud posture had me guessing who she was even before she made a beeline for me, hand outstretched.
“I’m Mackenzie Marcos. You must be with Apparition Investigations,” she said, her eyes falling down to the logo on my chest.
Her name hummed in my mind as I shook her head. And, for a moment, I thought of not giving her my name.
But if she were a psychic—and if she could invoke names like I could—then she wouldn’t really need to call in outside help.
“I’m Stella Reycraft. This is Bronte Carter. Noah Walker. And our leader down there, Rose Fisher.”
She moved to each of us, shaking our hands in a precise, business-like manner.
Then she moved to the woman and gripped her hands with both of hers. The formality drained away and relief crept through her smile. “Madame Amara, thank you so much for taking the time to meet with us.”
Madame Amara. I figured that wasn’t really her name and felt a stab of disappointment. Then I shook it off. The last thing I needed to do was collect names. I’d done that in the last case. And it hadn’t ended well.
Mackenzie moved around to the men on the other side of the table. They all rose, making me feel like an uncultured idiot for having kept seated. “Zach Birmingham. And these two must be Lucas and Logan Lewis. Thank you so much for coming.”
A frown began to pull at her lips when she realized two spots were empty. But then the door to the restaurant opened and the siblings from the hallway strolled in.
They were still quiet, unassuming, and disinterested as they took in the scene. But the older sibling’s gaze landed on me and stayed half a beat longer than the others before he turned toward Mackenzie.
Then he brightened. There really was no other way to describe it. The apathetic disinterest fell away and, beaming, he shook her hand. “Mackenzie, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you face to face. I’m Sebastian Adair. And this here is my younger brother, Seth.”
The little boy brightened too. The childlike enthusiasm I’d been expecting in the hallway suddenly flared to life, and he shook her had a little too vigorously.
Mackenzie’s own smile grew stronger, the frown disappearing entirely. “Thank you so much for coming, Sebastian. I’m relieved Obscurity Consultants could be here—I’ve been assured you and Seth are the best.”
“We hope we can help.”
Then they slid into their seats.
Smooth. Real smooth. They definitely did this often, complete with schmoozing the client.
Four teams. Ghost Haunters, Madame Amara, Obscurity Consultants, and Apparition Investigations.
Waiters materialized as if from nowhere, filling drink requests and placing out salads.
I fought back my pinch of a bad feeling as I scanned the table, taking in the groups lapsing into small talk amongst themselves or introducing themselves to each other.
Four teams.
What on earth was so bad in this hotel she’d called in four teams?
Chapter Seven
Dinner was delicious. Not surprising, given the elegant atmosphere. But appreciated. I hadn’t realized how little I’d eaten throughout the day due to nerves until I’d started chowing down.
Throughout dinner, the conversation inevitably centered on ghost encounters and experience.
Madame Amara was a local psychic and had apparently helped the police find missing persons and wanted criminals through her clairvoyance.
Zach Birmingham’s Ghost Haunters had been to hundreds of haunted sites, collecting evidence on the existence of the paranormal.
Obscurity Consultants, despite their age, had taken part in dozens upon dozens of exorcisms and hauntings.
And we, little Apparition Investigations, were, technically, on our second case.
I could tell the sheer experience gap didn’t sit well with Rose. But she held it in check well. She flattered and praised and said all the right things, so by the end of it, everyone seemed to have high expectations for our little group. Still, Rose didn’t like to be the newbie. And even before Mackenzie rose to tell us about the job, I could see a fierce spark of determination in our leader’s eye.
“I’m sure you’re all wondering why I brought you here,” Mackenzie said. She’d pushed back her chair so that she stood. But still, she leaned forward to grip the edges of the table.
It was the first time all night I’d seen any crack of fatigue in her. She was tired. And not just physically.
“Does this have anything to do wi
th Roger Whitaker?” Madame Amara asked.
Mackenzie sighed. “Yes. Probably. For those of you who aren’t as familiar with our local urban myths, Roger Whitaker is, supposedly, the ghost that haunts this hotel.”
“Supposedly?” Zach asked.
She nodded. “We’ve had reports of strange things happening. Things being moved. Feeling chills. Orbs of light and astral bodies appearing at night. But it’s never been anything violent, anything frightening. Small things, I guess you’d say. Light enough to bring in the ghost enthusiasts eager to spend a night in a ‘haunted’ bedroom and maybe see something or convince themselves they’ve seen something. I don’t know. Up until recently, I hadn’t really examined whether or not I believed the stories.”