The Haunting of Riley Watson

by Alexandria Clarke

  “Yeah?” The barista—a stocky girl with golden hair the exact same shade as Liam’s—stood up. “Can I get you something?”

  “Just coffee and the biggest pastry you have, please.”

  The girl, whose name tag said Ari, rang me up at the counter. “You’re that psychic, aren’t you?”

  “Lucia,” I said, handing over my credit card since I’d left the cash in my room. “Word travels fast around here. I guess everyone knows about me and Riley.”

  “Mr. Watson’s daughter?” she said. “What’s she got to do with it? No, I meant I’ve seen your show on YouTube.” She shook her head and laughed. “Man, that last episode was priceless. Did you stage that? I mean, your whole gig is fake, right? Whatever, it was hilarious.”

  My entire face and neck flushed as Ari poured my coffee and popped a cinnamon bun into a microwave. Thankfully, she didn’t notice, too busy with her job.

  “Here you go,” she said. “Enjoy.”

  She didn’t wait for me to thank her, instead abandoning the café counter in favor of her friends’ table. I sat at the opposite end of the room in a chair by the windows, took off my gloves, and warmed my hands around the mug. As I blew cool air across the steaming surface of the coffee, the group’s conversation floated across the room in hushed whispers.

  “This sucks,” the boy was saying. “It’s been an entire week, and no one’s turned up for lessons. Why are we even here?”

  “Because Mr. Watson’s a jackass,” one of the girls said. Her legs were so long that her snow pants didn’t tuck into her boots. She’d pulled tube socks over the hems instead. “Either that or he’s delusional. Does he really think this place is going to fill up after what happened to his wife?”

  “I’m leaning toward jackass,” Ari added. “He’s suffering, so he wants the rest of us to suffer too. Why else wouldn’t he let us go home?”

  “At least we’re getting paid,” the boy said.

  “Yeah, to do nothing,” said the long-legged girl. “I’m bored out of my skull. I’d rather deal with the bratty kids on the bunny slope than sit around here for another day.”

  “You say that now, Imani,” the other girl chimed in, “but last week, you threatened to push a ten-year-old off the chair lift.”

  “He wouldn’t get off!” Imani said. “They gotta learn somehow.”

  “You know what I miss?” the boy said. “Tips.”

  The second girl scoffed. “Yeah, if you got ‘em. You know what I don’t understand? Why rich people are so damn cheap.”

  “That’s how they stay rich,” Ari said.

  Imani groaned and stretched her legs under the table, bumping the boy’s knees. “I’m sick of this place. The least Mr. Watson could do is give us free lift passes. This ten percent discount for employees is crap.”

  “We’re not allowed to board on the same days we work, remember?” said the other girl. “It ‘confuses the guests.’”

  “Not a problem since there are no guests to confuse,” Imani replied. “Have you guys noticed that Mr. Watson’s gotten worse since his wife died? The other day he gave me a demerit for tracking snow through the lobby. Like, what the hell am I supposed to do, make it evaporate with my minimum-wage rage?”

  Ari snorted out a laugh, but the boy frowned. “Give the guy some credit,” he said. “When my mom died, my dad was weird for months, and he didn’t have to run a resort while pretending like everything is fine.”

  “Yeah, but your dad’s cool,” Ari said.

  The other girl nodded in agreement. “I bet he’d let us board for free.”

  “We could go to Gus’s,” Imani said. “He’s got that big hill behind his house. I know it’s not the Basin, but we rigged a couple ramps last year that worked out pretty well. Where is he anyway? I haven’t heard from him this season.”

  “He got a job at White Oak,” the boy said.

  The rest of the teenagers let out collective noises of disbelief and jealousy.

  “Traitor,” Ari said.

  “Lucky,” Imani corrected. “I hear that place is so dope.”

  “They have a half pipe, a trick park, and three runs just for snowboarders,” the boy said. “Employees get to rent and ride for free, and they get a fifty percent discount if they want to buy their own gear. The guy who owns the place is supposed to be really cool too.”

  “Nick Porter,” Ari said. “I saw him on the news the other day. I’d climb him like a tree.”

  Imani smacked Ari out of her daydream. “Gross, he’s old enough to be your dad.”

  “A hot dad.”

  “Please stop,” said the boy. “No one wants to hear about your hot dad fantasies.”

  Ari rolled her eyes. “I’m just saying.”

  “So when are we dumping King and Queens for White Oak?” the girl asked, holding her coffee mug up as if in toast to a revolution. “Since we’re all in agreement that this place blows.”

  The boy coaxed her mug down before she spilled from it. “Not anytime soon. Gus got the last ski instructor gig.”

  “Yeah, but do they need baristas?” Ari said, wiggling her eyebrows.

  “Whoa, hold up.” Imani captured Ari by the straps of her green café apron and pulled tight. “You don’t get to leave unless the rest of us do. Whatever happened to solidarity?”

  Ari dry-hacked in Imani’s face. “You’re choking me.”

  “Let’s make a pact,” Imani suggested. “White Oak is only going to get busier as the season goes on. They’re going to open up additional instructor positions eventually. When they do, I say we all apply. If one of us gets in, we’ll refer the others. Nepotism at its finest.”

  “I’m down,” said the boy. “Anything to get us out of this creep fest. If I have to ski with Riley Watson one more time, I might heave myself off the lift too. That kid is so weird. Have you guys ever noticed her staring at you? She never blinks.”

  “She’s better than Tyler,” the girl said. “Weird is better than crazy.”

  The spoon I used to stir cream into my coffee slipped off the saucer and hit the floor with a metallic tinkle. The teenagers whipped their heads around to stare at me as if they’d forgotten I was sitting there at all. I picked up the spoon and wiped it off, avoiding their eyes as I pretended to be absorbed in the view through the window. The teenagers returned to their own business.

  “We should go,” Imani said, threading her arms through her ski jacket. “If Mr. Watson does one of his random employee satisfaction checks and finds us hanging out in here, we’re all going to be screwed.”

  Ari hung on to Imani’s long arm. “Don’t leave me.”

  The taller girl rested her chin on Ari’s head as the other teenagers ambled toward the door, wrapping themselves up in snow gear. “Be strong, my love. Coffee for one and all.”

  Ari glanced over at me again. “More like just one.”

  Imani looked at me too. “Holy shit, is that Madame Lucia? Cool!”

  After posing for a picture with Imani, I returned to my room and changed for dinner since there was no sign of Riley. If I went the entire week without seeing her, would Oliver still pay me the ten thousand dollars? Were it not for the teenaged employees who acknowledged her existence, I’d think Oliver had made the whole story up. I decided to go look for her tomorrow. How hard could it be to find a twelve-year-old in a resort with hundreds of rooms?

  For fun, I changed into a long-sleeved, navy-blue dress embroidered with silver accent threads to wear to the Eagle’s View for dinner. It was more from Madame Lucia’s side of the closet than my own, but it was good to keep up appearances. I smoothed the wrinkles in the dress as I rode the elevator to the lobby. The restaurant, like before, was vacant. The mountain was no longer visible through the wall of windows. Instead, there was nothing but darkness. My reflection smirked from the glass, a spirit trapped in the black void. Windows in the night time were like portals to other worlds. You couldn’t be sure who might press their face against the glass to stare back at
you.

  Upon a second glance, there was one other person at the Eagle’s View, sitting at the very end of the bar. I sat on the stool next to Detective Hawkins’s. He cast a sidelong glance at me, his eyes tracking the thigh-high split in my dress.

  “Aren’t you cold?” he drawled.

  “My laughable professionalism keeps me warm,” I replied, tapping the counter for the bartender’s attention. “What are you still doing here anyway? From the way you were arguing with Oliver earlier, it sounded like you were done with King and Queens.”

  He rotated a glass of whiskey around. It was full, the half-melted ice cubes diluting the liquor. “Thought I’d have another look around.”

  “And interrogate the staff members?”

  “It wasn’t an interrogation,” he said. “I was doing my job. Something doesn’t feel right. It’s an instinct. I can’t explain it.”

  “So you’re allowed to act on inexplicable instincts, but I’m not permitted to do the same?” The bartender dropped off a menu. I ordered white wine and perused the list of entrées. I was glad my meals were included with my stay because the menu prices made my palms sweat. “Just because I don’t carry a gun and a badge doesn’t mean I’m not legitimate, Detective Hawkins.”

  Detective Hawkins swapped his soaked coaster napkin for a fresh one and mopped up the ring of condensation around his untouched drink. “Not this again. I apologize for insulting you. Can we drop it?”

  “Fine, it’s dropped.”

  “And since it looks like we might be the only two people around King and Queens for a while, you might as well call me Daniel,” he added.

  “Detective Danny?”

  “Don’t you dare.”

  I thanked the bartender as she returned with my wine and ordered a salmon dish with side dishes I couldn’t pronounce. “Are you eating?” I asked Daniel.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “With your whiskey.”

  “Yes.”

  “You haven’t touched it.”

  He tipped the glass so the amber liquid tickled the rim but didn’t spill over. “It’s a test.”

  “A test for who?”

  “Myself.”

  I tugged the drink away from him and slid it to the opposite end of the counter. “Test passed,” I told him. “Why are you sitting at a bar if—?”

  “If I’m an alcoholic?” he finished. “Nowhere else to sit.”

  “You’re in a ski resort with thousands of square feet to its name,” I said. “There are plenty of places to sit.”

  “Maybe I wanted to sit here.” He asked the bartender for water then leaned on his elbow to look at me. “What’s your deal? I want to know. You said you’re here for the kid. How do you approach that sort of thing? Do you walk up to her and ask which dead people are bothering her?”

  I toyed with the stem of my wine glass. It was as thin as a cotton swab. Perhaps that was why fancy restaurants only filled the glass an eighth of the way. Any more and the pretty crystal would shatter.

  “More or less,” I said. “Though I like to think I have a little more finesse than what you just described.”

  “How do you know if she’s telling the truth?”

  “I’ve never actually done this in person before,” I admitted. “I’m an online and call-in psychic. I have a web show. Madame Lucia’s Parlour for the Dead and Departed.”

  “Never heard of it,” Daniel said.

  “Usually, I take calls during a live broadcast,” I explained. “I’m a medium. People ask me to contact their dead loved ones.”

  He unwrapped two straws and dunked them in his fresh cup of water. “I get the concept, but I want to know how you do it. What do you feel or think when there’s a spirit around?”

  I sipped my wine, hoping to occupy my mouth long enough for my mind to come up with a suitable response. Real-time performance was new to me. It wasn’t so much acting as it was lying. “It’s energy,” I said, shrugging as if this were the simplest concept in the world. “A buzz in the air. Instinctive, like you said.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  I patted his hand in consolation. “Not many people do.”

  Daniel peered past me toward the other end of the bar. “What’s going on down there?”

  A young man, about nineteen or twenty, stumbled into the bar. He was tall and lanky with dark hair and light eyes, perhaps considered handsome by someone his age as long as they didn’t notice his weak chin or nicotine-stained fingers. He wore a black knit beanie, joggers, unlaced snow boots, and a dark denim shirt with several of the buttons undone to reveal a lean chest and a collarbone as sharp as a knife. As we watched, he requested something of the bartender.

  “Tyler, I can’t,” she said, her voice carrying across the vacant bar. “I’ve told you a hundred times.”

  “Come on, babe.” He caught the girl’s hand and stroked her fingers. “It’s just this one time.”

  She pulled out of his grasp and wiped her hands on a dish towel. “You said that last time, and there was no one around then.”

  “I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “No, thank you.”

  He hoisted himself onto the counter, swung his legs around, and landed on the inside of the bar. As he pinned the girl against the wall with the length of his body, he reached around her for a bottle of top-shelf gin.

  “Tyler, stop it,” the bartender said. “If it goes missing, I’ll get canned, and I need this job.”

  He held the bottle above his head. “Jump for it.”

  “Tyler!” She swiped for the gin, but he was too tall for her. “Don’t!”

  He laughed, uncapped the bottle, and took a long swig.

  “Hey!” Daniel abandoned his stool and strode over to the pair. “Do you work here, young man?”

  Tyler smirked as he shook his head.

  “Then get out from behind the bar,” Daniel ordered. “Let the young lady get back to work.”

  Tyler pressed his gin-soaked lips against the bartender’s cheek before vaulting over the counter again. He saluted Daniel with the liquor bottle. “Whatever you say, boss.”

  “While you’re at it, let’s see some ID.”

  Tyler flicked a driver’s license at the detective.

  “Kekoa Mahelona from Hawaii,” Daniel read off. He glanced up at Tyler. “I have to say the likeness is striking, but this says you’re forty-two, and if I recall, the young lady called you Tyler.”

  “That’s my nickname. Otherwise, it’s Mr. Mahelona.”

  “Nice try, kid,” Daniel said. “I’ll give you three seconds to tell me your real name. Three, two—”

  Tyler chucked the bottle at the detective, who ducked just in time. The glass bottle hit the window and exploded, showering the bar with fragrant gin as Tyler sprinted away. Daniel was quicker though. He dodged through the tables and caught the younger man by the arm. Tyler swung around using Daniel’s momentum and threw a punch. Daniel caught the fist on the flat of his palm and twisted the kid’s arm behind his back.

  “Nice job, idiot,” Daniel said, clasping handcuffs around Tyler’s wrists. “You just earned yourself a couple hours in the Crimson Basin Police Department’s holding cell. I hope you’re happy with yourself.”

  “Let go of me,” Tyler snarled as he wrestled to free himself. “You’re gonna regret this.”

  “You know, I don’t think I will. Move it.”

  As Daniel bumped Tyler toward the staircase, Oliver raced up from the lobby, puffing for breath, and blocked their path. “Wait, wait! Detective Hawkins, that’s my son.”

  Daniel looked from the slim teenager in handcuffs to the overweight, middle-aged man as if trying to find the resemblance. “Your son?”

  “Yes, Tyler Watson,” Oliver said. “What’s he done now?”

  “Nothing,” Tyler said.

  “Drinking underage,” Daniel said over him. “Harassing the bartender, possessing a fake ID, attempted assault of a police officer. It’s a long list.”
r />   “Could you let him off?” Oliver requested. “His mother just died. It’s been rough on all of us. He’s troubled, you see.”

  “I’m right here,” Tyler announced.

  Daniel yanked the handcuffs, pulling Tyler’s arms uncomfortably tight around his back. “This kind of behavior can’t go unchecked,” he warned Oliver. “This may be your home, but it’s still a public establishment. If it happens again—”

  “It won’t,” Oliver promised. “Right, Tyler?”

  Tyler bared his teeth in a grin. “Whatever you say, boss.”

  “How convincing.” Daniel unlocked the cuffs and shoved Tyler toward his father. “You got lucky, kid.”

  Tyler rubbed his wrists. “I always do.” He looked over Daniel’s shoulder to where I sat at the bar. “Madame Lucia, if you want someone to nail you, I wouldn’t suggest the detective here. He reeks of impotence. I, on the other hand, am quite virile—”

  “That’s enough, Tyler,” Oliver said, dragging his son out of the lounge. “One more word—”

  “And you’ll what?” Tyler challenged. “Tell Mom? Sucks, doesn’t it? You always made her deal with me. What’s it like to actually act like a parent, Dad?”

  “Go to bed, Tyler.”

  “Don’t have to tell me twice.”

  Tyler flicked off the room with both hands then jumped over the banister instead of using the stairs. When he got in the elevator to take him up to his room, he pressed his face against the glass and made kissy faces at me and the bartender. In a few seconds, he was too high for his offensiveness to be visible.

  “I’m so sorry,” Oliver was unable to look any of us—me, Daniel, or the bartender who was more shaken up than a martini—instead tracking the elevator as it dropped his son off on one of the upper floors and returned to the lobby empty. “Tyler’s always had behavioral issues. Usually, he keeps to himself and his friends, but with Thelma’s death, everything’s gotten worse. Detective, your meal is on me.”