The Haunting of Riley Watson

by Alexandria Clarke

  “I’m getting Riley. What do you think I’m doing?”

  “Lucia, it’s freezing out there,” Nick, who’d finally caught up with us, said. “You should get a jacket and boots.”

  “Riley’s in her pajamas.”

  That ended the conversation. I waded into the snow. It was waist-deep, and the cold soaked through my jeans and sneakers in a matter of seconds. It was tough work to get through the drifts. The butterfly garden was close, but by the time I reached Riley, her lips were blue. She didn’t wake when I picked her up. She was cold and stiff. I carried her through the path I’d already made in the snow. My pulse had vanished again. I had to remind myself to breathe as Riley’s cold body lay in my grasp.

  “Oh God,” Jazmin said as I carried Riley into the café and set her down in one of the booths. “Is she—?”

  “I don’t know.” I rested my head against Riley’s chest. “She’s not breathing.”

  “Move,” said Nick. The order was short and purposeful. I got out of the way as Nick knelt next to Riley on his good leg and began CPR. For what felt like hours, Jazmin and I watched as he pumped her chest. In reality, it was probably a minute before Nick put his ear to Riley’s mouth and sighed with relief. “We got her. She needs to get warm. Someone go get some blankets or something.”

  “I’ll go,” Jazmin said and rushed off.

  “You should change,” Nick said to me, nodding at my sopping jeans and sneakers. “You’re only going to get colder.”

  “I’m not leaving Riley.”

  “I’ll look after her.”

  “No.” I maneuvered Riley’s stiff arms out of her drenched pajama top. Nick removed his coat and draped it around Riley. It was big enough to cover her from shoulders to shins, so I pulled off the rest of her clothes. Her pajamas were iced over. “Oh, kid. How long were you out there?”

  If only she could’ve answered. I pulled Riley into my lap and wrapped my arms around her, bringing us chest to chest.

  “Body heat.” Nick nodded in approval. “Good idea.”

  “Can you help? I’m not sure how much good I’m doing her, considering I’m freezing too.”

  He sat on Riley’s other side, his arms poised to wrap around us both. He looked at me for permission first. When I nodded, he scooped Riley and me into his embrace. Almost immediately, the temperature changed. Nick ran warm. With him at Riley’s back, the cold would leave her soon. An involuntary shiver ran through him as he tucked Riley’s small hands in his own massive ones.

  “She’s colder than I thought,” he muttered.

  This close to Nick, I could smell his peppermint mouthwash and musty cologne. I breathed deeply, taking comfort in his woodsy scent. With Riley sandwiched between us, there was no escaping the awkwardness of sharing such a small space. His face was a few inches from mine. His good looks, so polished from a distance, were rugged up close. A white scar drew a thin line through one of his thick eyebrows. The skin of his face wasn’t smooth as I expected, but rough and pockmarked as if he’d spent his youth fighting severe acne. There was definite strength in his grip through, and when my hands rested on his shoulders and back to smush Riley more firmly between us, I felt hard muscle beneath my fingertips. This was the reason Nick Porter was so successful as the face of White Oak. He embodied the spirit of an outdoorsman, but he was packaged as a handsome philanthropist.

  “There were no tracks,” I muttered into Riley’s wet hair.

  “What was that?” Nick said.

  “There were no tracks in the snow,” I repeated. “I carved a huge dent to get to her, but mine is the only path out there. If someone carried her out there or even if she was sleepwalking, there would’ve been some sign of it.”

  Nick craned his neck to look out the window behind me. “That’s weird. What do you think happened?”

  “Do you remember the night before Tyler died?” I asked him. “You, me, Jazmin, and Daniel had dessert and coffee in the Eagle’s View. You said that the resort was holding on to bad energy ever since the fire of 1988.”

  Nick’s brow furrowed. “Yes, I remember. Is it relevant?”

  “What if you were right?” I said. “Madame Lucia’s Parlour was a hoax, but King and Queens isn’t. There are real spirits here, and I think they’re trying to kill the Watson family.”

  “Miss Star, I don’t mean to be presumptuous or to doubt your abilities as a psychic,” he said in a gentle tone as if he knew he was about to let me down. “But ghosts don’t exist. Residual energy is one thing, but I don’t believe in lingering spirits.”

  “How can you believe in residual energy but not in spirits?” I asked. “Ghosts are residual energy.”

  “It’s not quite the same.”

  “Explain.”

  “Energy cannot be created or destroyed,” he said.

  “Why are you quoting middle school science at me?”

  “Because I believe when we die, our energy is redirected to another point in the world,” Nick answered. “It does not inexplicably disappear from this earth.”

  “But you don’t believe in ghosts.”

  “No, that would imply that residual energy has become sentient.”

  “Or it always was sentient,” I argued. “How else would Riley have ended up out there in the butterfly garden?”

  Riley’s head flopped to the side. Though her body temperature was on the rise, she hadn’t woken up yet. Nick maneuvered her into a more comfortable position so that she rested against his chest.

  “Perhaps you’re right,” he suggested. “Or perhaps the culprit in this terrible game knows King and Queens better than any of us.”

  Before I could ask him what prompted him to announce that, Jazmin returned with an armload of blankets. She also had Daniel in tow.

  “What happened?” Daniel asked. Nick and I separated to let him examine Riley. He lifted one of her eyelids and shined a flashlight into her eye. “How long was she out there?”

  “We don’t know,” I said, refusing to let go of Riley. “Long enough to stop her from breathing.”

  “It wasn’t just the cold that did that,” Daniel said, watching his watch as he timed Riley’s pulse. “It looks like she’s been sedated.”

  “Someone drugged her?” Jazmin said.

  “Or she did it herself.”

  “Riley wouldn’t,” I said.

  Daniel glanced up at me. “Are you sure? Her mother and brother are already dead. She hears voices in her head. She’s stuck in a resort without anyone else her age around. That might be enough to drive a kid to this level of stress.”

  “She’s only twelve.”

  Daniel nodded solemnly. “Kids grow up fast these days.”

  When he finished taking Riley’s pulse, I pulled her close again. “Riley would’ve told me if she was feeling like that. I know it. Someone else did this to her. The killer or whoever.”

  “I have to agree with Lucia,” Nick chimed in. “It would be ignorant to assume Riley’s accident isn’t connected to Thelma and Tyler’s deaths. Someone is targeting the Watson family.”

  With Nick to back me up, Daniel was more willing to accept my reasoning that Riley wasn’t at fault. He smoothed Riley’s wet hair away from her scalp. The look on his face was easy to read; he was thinking of his own daughter, caught up in a custody battle between him and his wife. What would he have done if this had happened to her?

  “She’s breathing regularly now,” he reported. “Her pulse is slow but even. I’d say let’s get her to the emergency room, but that isn’t an option with the snow. Someone should watch her tonight.”

  “I’ll do it,” Jazmin volunteered.

  “We both will,” I added. “Has anyone found Oliver? Someone should tell him what happened.”

  Nick clambered to his feet. Without his cane to rely on, he almost toppled over. He grabbed hold of the table to catch himself. “I’ll see about Oliver. He might not care for me, but the rest of you should be with Riley.”

  As Nick left, Dan
iel took a blanket from Jazmin and swaddled Riley like a toddler. He picked her up and nodded at me. “Lead the way. Once we get Riley in bed, you’re due for a hot bath. Can’t have two of my charges dealing with hypothermia.”

  Once Riley and I were safe and warm, Daniel left us in Jazmin’s charge to investigate the butterfly garden and surrounding areas for clues as to who might have put Riley in such a position. I didn’t expect him to find anything. Despite my conversation with Nick, I was pretty sure whoever was responsible for Riley’s disappearance wasn’t amongst the living. When Riley woke up, around four in the morning, I got the confirmation I needed.

  “Lucia?” she muttered, rolling over.

  I rushed to her side. “Hey, kid. Everything’s okay. How do you feel?”

  “Thirsty.”

  Jazmin rose from the armchair she’d been dozing in to get Riley a glass of water. Then we both sat on either side of our small charge, sandwiching her yet again. We watched with worried faces as she drained the glass.

  “Okay, what happened?” she said. “Why are you two looking at me like I died?”

  “Because you almost did,” Jazmin said. “I woke up and you were gone. We found you half-frozen to death in the butterfly garden.”

  Riley’s mouth dropped open. “You did?”

  “Do you remember anything?” I asked her. “Did someone wake you up? Daniel said you were sedated. Did you take a pill from someone?”

  She shook her head vigorously. “No, I don’t remember anything like that. I fell asleep in between you two like always. The next thing I know I’m waking up with you guys staring at me—wait. I do remember something.”

  “What?” Jazmin and I prompted at the same time.

  “A voice woke me up.” She grabbed my arm. “One of the voices, you know?”

  “From the old wing,” I said. “The angry spirits.”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t think they could leave there,” I muttered.

  “I don’t know who it was,” Riley said. “A man’s voice, I think. He told me to go downstairs. I remember getting in the elevator. Everything after that is blank.”

  “What does this mean?” Jazmin asked me. “Did you find anything out in the old wing? Do you think is related?”

  Until then, I’d forgotten about my most recent excursion into the old wing and the depths of the hotel, including the new information about the identity of our ghosts.

  “It’s all related.” I slid off the bed, slipping my hand out of Riley’s. Things were piling up on me again. I couldn’t tell Riley about Oliver’s underground bunker. She didn’t need to know that her father was going crazy on top of everything else. She didn’t need to know that the ghosts haunting the hallways were actually her dead relatives. “I need a minute. Excuse me.”

  I went out into the hall, where I could separate myself from Jazmin and Riley’s energies. I sank to the floor, back against the wall, and took deep breaths. Every part of me felt cold, and it wasn’t leftover from my unplanned hike through the snowy butterfly garden. I patted my cheeks. They were wet and warm with tears. Once again, I hadn’t noticed I was crying.

  “Well?”

  I jumped as Odette popped out of nowhere. She crossed her arms and glowered at me.

  “Well what?” I demanded.

  “Did you figure out what the key opened or not?”

  I sniffled and got to my feet. To compensate for our difference in height, Odette floated higher off the ground, as if she anticipated my coming anger.

  “Did you know?” I asked her. “That Riley was in danger? Because it sure as hell feels like you lured me out of bed and into the old wing as a distraction while one of your buddies took Riley for a joyride in the snow.”

  Odette sank a little, her shoulders softening from their usual square posture. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about Riley being drugged and left to freeze to death in the butterfly garden,” I shouted. “Your own niece, Odette!”

  She looked stunned, as if my words were equivalent to a slap across her face. “No, I would never! I had nothing to do with that. I didn’t know. Oh, this isn’t good.”

  “You can say that again,” I snapped. When she began to pace up and down the hallway, I almost reached out to stop her before remembering that she wasn’t made of flesh and bone like the rest of us. “Why didn’t you just tell me that you were Oliver’s sister?”

  “I couldn’t.” She tugged at her long, dark curls, unrolling them one at a time. They sprang back into place each time she let go. “They wouldn’t let me, and you don’t know the whole story. This is bad. This is so bad.”

  I threw my slipper through her head to get her to pay attention to me. It didn’t do much. The slipper dropped to the floor, and Odette continued trailing wisps of her essence across the carpet.

  “Tell me the whole story, Odette,” I said. “Or I’m done with all of this. I’ll get Riley out of here, and then King and Queens can burn itself to the ground for all I care.”

  “No!”

  Odette zoomed so close to my face at such a rapid speed, she misjudged the distance between us. Our noses crossed paths, and I swore as my entire brain seized up, like I’d eaten ice cream too fast but a hundred times worse. I pinched the bridge of my nose, breathing deeply to wait out the pain.

  “Could—you—not?” I demanded, eyes squeezed shut.

  “You can’t leave,” Odette said. “Please, Lucia. I’ve waited for so long, and this is the closest I’ve gotten to making a breakthrough. You’re the first person who’s found out about my family, but you have more to discover. If you don’t, I’m trapped here forever, and the haunting is going to get worse. The deaths? They’ll keep happening, especially now that you’ve let the other spirits out of the old wing.”

  “Me?” I said. “No way. You can’t blame that on me.”

  “Actually, I can,” Odette said. “The more you and Riley use your psychic abilities, the stronger the spirits get. They feed off of you. Every time you go into the old wing with unbalanced energy, they’re using you for their own purposes.”

  “You neglected to mention that before,” I growled.

  “I thought it might scare you off,” she replied. “And I was right. That’s why I told you to practice balancing your energy. Ghosts can’t feed off someone who has complete control over their energy, but you and Riley are like energy drinks to them.”

  “Listen, Odette.” I released my nose, and the blood rushed back to my head all at once. “If I had the option to physically threaten you at this point, I would. As it is, I would like you to imagine me doing it, okay?”

  She backed up a few steps anyway. “You do realize you’re threatening a child, right?”

  “One that’s already dead,” I reminded her. “And one that has led me and the people I care about into danger multiple times.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “You withheld important information from me,” I said. “I made it out of the old wing alive twice because of sheer dumb luck. If I really am your savior or whatever, you better start cluing me into whatever’s going on at this godforsaken resort. Is that understood?”

  Pearly white tears beaded up on Odette’s pretty eyelashes. “I’m sorry. I can only tell you so much. As they get stronger, I get weaker.”

  As soon as she said it, she began to disappear. Whether it was her decision to go or someone was forcing her to leave, I didn’t know.

  “Please stay, Lucia.”

  17

  I couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night, even when Jazmin volunteered to keep an eye on Riley so I could get some rest. They went into the living room to let me have the bed to myself, but it didn’t help. The mattress was cold and empty, and the frigid sheets reminded me of everything wrong with me. A couple hours later, as I lay staring at the ceiling, dead tired but unable to fall asleep, the sun came up over the mountains and filtered in through the slatted blinds. In the living room, Jazmin and Riley whis
pered to each other. They were trying to be quiet, but their hushed voices traveled under the gap at the bottom of the door. I rolled out of bed and pulled on my kimono, knowing I would never get back to sleep.

  “Hey,” Jazmin said when I emerged from the bedroom. She sat at the desk by the window, my laptop open as she worked on something camera related. Riley was wrapped in a blanket on the sofa, watching Jazmin work over her shoulder. “Did you get some sleep?”

  “A little,” I said. “Is that coffee fresh?”

  Jazmin passed me her mug. “Just made it, extra strong the way you like it. Are you lying about sleeping well?”

  “Yup.”

  “I knew it. You look dead.”

  I groaned into the coffee. “Don’t say that. What are you guys whispering about?”

  Riley peeked her bare toes out from beneath the blanket and wiggled them. “We’re watching more footage from around the hotel. Just found something good. Want to see?”

  I sat next to Riley and tucked her against my side. “Good, as in good news?”

  “Not exactly,” Jazmin said as she navigated to the beginning of the video clip they’d been examining. “It’s more interesting than anything else. Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  She pressed play. On the screen, Liam Lavi rested at his usual table in the lounge. The camera was hidden behind a fake fern, the leaves of which obscured half the shot. No one else was in the Eagle’s View. It was as if Liam had stayed there long after Daniel dismissed everyone else. I remembered his confrontation with Oliver outside the gift shop. At least he’d left the Eagle’s View at some point. In camera, he appeared asleep. He had one arm flung across his face to cover his eyes from the gray light that poured in through the massive window. He lay across the booth with his feet propped up on another chair. A minute in, a tall shadow loomed over him. It was Nick Porter. He nudged Liam awake. Liam blinked blearily up at his new companion.

  “Mr. Lavi, is it?” Nick said. “I’m afraid Mr. Watson’s looking for you again. You might want to clear out of the lounge.”