“Damn it, Stella was right,” I muttered. “I do feel better.”
“Keep it going,” said Riley. “Talk to your mom.”
“I can’t do that.”
She flicked my forehead. “Saying it out loud the first time is the hardest part. Now you’ve got that out of the way, you can do anything. Go fix it.” She shoved me off the bed with her foot. “Go. Now.”
I groaned as I stood up. “Really? You get to nap and I have to go do something productive? How is that fair?”
“It’s not,” Riley said. “But you’re the adult here, remember?”
27
My mother’s room was also on the twentieth floor, but I wasn’t sure which door belonged to her. I paced in the hallway, phone in hand. I could dial the front desk and get my mother’s room number, but it was one thing to think about it and another to actually do it. I stood there for so long, lingering in the corridor, that three different families made their way past me either to or from the elevator. The fourth time the elevator opened, Jazmin came out.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Thank God you’re here.” I yanked her into our suite and slammed the door. “I need you.”
Jazmin raised an eyebrow. “Is this about the whole selling you out to Lourdes thing? Because I already told you I did it for a good reason. We think—”
“No, no, no. Forget about that.” I shook my head as if trying to clear it of cobwebs. “I told Riley about my dad, and now I have to talk to my mother about it, and I’m freaking out.”
She grabbed my shoulders to stop me from wearing a path into the kitchen floor. “You told Riley? How’d she take it?”
“Surprisingly okay considering I just admitted to murder,” I said.
“You are not a murderer,” Jazmin said. “Oliver Watson was a murderer. You aren’t like him. How does all of this connect to your mother?”
“It’s not over,” I said. “Something followed us from King and Queens.”
“Stella?”
“Yes, but I’m not talking about her.”
Jazmin peered into my eyes. The white snow reflecting through the sliding doors made her green ones sparkle. “You mean that thing from the basement.”
“I think so,” I said. “I keep having nightmares about it. It’s what’s been haunting Riley all this time. I just can’t figure out who or what it is.”
“Then we figure it out,” Jazmin said. “What can I do to help?”
“It’s not that easy,” I replied. “That thing is too powerful. It’s sapping mine and Riley’s energy. We were just out on the slopes and fainted at the same time. Riley’s in the clinic with a broken arm.”
“What?” Jazmin said. “Is she okay?”
“She’s going to be fine,” I said. “But if we let this go on for much longer, she might not be. I’m tired of this, Jazmin. I want to end it, but that starts with speaking to my mother.”
Jazmin wrinkled her nose. “Why?”
I resumed my pacing, unable to keep still. “Odette and Stella both pressured me into learning how to control my energy. I’ve gotten better at it—that’s why I don’t collapse anymore—but Stella says I won’t have full control until I confront my past.”
“So psychic abilities are linked to emotion,” Jazmin clarified. “I guess that makes sense.”
“Does it? Because I don’t understand any of this.”
“I imagine psychic powers come from the root of your conscience,” Jazmin said. “But who am I to say? I’m no expert. How did you learn to control your energy before? Practice doing that again.”
“It was like meditating,” I said. “I had to sit down somewhere and learn how to clear my mind, but I barely have the ability to relax on the toilet these days. I feel like something terrible is always about to happen. Either Lourdes is snapping pictures of me and Nick to spread rumors or my mother is stalking me or Riley’s getting run over on the slopes.”
“We’ve only been here a few days,” Jazmin reminded me. “Give yourself some time to settle in.”
“The problem is that we’re running out of time,” I said. “You said it yourself. I’m not doing anything to make the situation better.”
Jazmin hoisted herself up to sit on the kitchen counter. “I was pissed at you when I said that. It wasn’t true. I know you haven’t been feeling well. I also know you’ve been doing everything in your power to help Riley.”
“Yeah, but I need to do more,” I said. “Which is why I need to talk to my mother. Will you come with me?”
“Of course. Right now?”
“Sooner rather than later, right?” I said. “We might as well get this over with.”
She hopped off the counter and slipped her arm around my shoulders. “Come on then. Let’s get to it and hope this works.”
Jazmin guided me into the hallway. I was glad for her company. Without her, I knew I never would’ve made it to my mother’s room on my own. Jazmin headed straight for a room at the end of the hall.
“You know which suite she’s in?” I asked.
“She made sure to inform me when you weren’t around,” Jazmin replied, her upper lip angled in a tight sneer. She tried her best to keep the expression from me, but she couldn’t quite conceal all of the disdain she had for my mother. She was the best friend anyone could ask for. At this point, Jazmin was more of a family member than my parents had ever been. She rapped her knuckles against the door. “Here we go. You ready?”
I squared my shoulders. “Yeah. I’m ready.”
We both faced the suite, solid in solidarity, but the hallway remained quiet and the door remained closed. My mother, who was prompt and eager in most scenarios, did not answer. Jazmin and I exchanged a glance.
“Do you think she’s at the spa?” she asked.
“My mother can’t relax long enough to go to a spa,” I said. “She’s probably trying to track down Nick in order to arrange our wedding.”
“Let’s give her a couple of minutes,” Jazmin said as she spun me to face her. “In the meantime, look at me. Let’s practice. What did you want to say to her?”
I chewed on my bottom lip. “Are you sure you want to hear it?”
“Yup. Hit me.”
“I guess I wanted to tell her what it felt like to have her choose my dad over me so many times,” I said. “He was so terrible to her, but she was so scared of what would happen if she left him that she never bothered to consider what was best for her own kid.”
“That must’ve been hard for you,” Jazmin said.
“It was,” I said. “And that was why my mom and I never had a good relationship. She would always try to convince me that my dad loved us even though he hurt us, and it never made sense to me.”
“So your dad’s death was probably the nail in the coffin.”
“Exactly,” I replied. “When my mother found us, she started screaming. She didn’t call 911 or whatever. She just screamed. Then she threw me off my dad and yelled for me to get out. That’s when I called the police. When they got to the house, she wouldn’t let go of him. The paramedics literally had to pry her away from him.”
Jazmin pulled me into a rough hug. “I’m so sorry that happened to you, Lucia.”
“It’s over now,” I mumbled into her shoulder. “But this is the crap Stella keeps telling me to come to terms with. My mother blames me for my father’s death. That’s why she hates me.”
Behind us, the tinkling sound of several little bottles hitting the floor made me and Jazmin jump. We spun around to find my mother there, fresh from the spa, holding a gift receipt in one hand and several white towels in the other. A new bag of stolen samples lay at her feet.
“Is that what you think of me?” she whispered, her bottom lip trembling. She didn’t spare Jazmin a glance. Her gaze was locked on me. “That I’ve hated you all these years?”
“Mom, I—”
She burst into hysterics, but this time it wasn’t her usual crocodile tears. She sobbed and sigh
ed, heaving for breath as she collected the scattered samples off the carpet and pushed past us to get into her suite.
“Wait!” I called, but she slammed the door in my face so quickly that she almost took off my nose. I looked at Jazmin. “So that went well.”
She raised her hand to knock on the door for the second time. “We can try again. Your mother caught the worst part of that conversation. Just explain—”
My phone went off. I checked the notification. It was for a new gossip headline. This one detailed Riley’s fall from a few hours ago. A picture of Riley getting wheeled into the resort on the stretcher with me limping after her between Daphne and Dash accompanied the article. It was entitled King and Queens heir injured in an engineered accident at rival resort. The picture was of high quality. Someone with a professional camera had taken it, and I was ninety-nine percent sure that Lourdes Calvo was the culprit.
“I have to go,” I said, pocketing the phone before Jazmin could see what was on the screen. “We’ll pick this up later.”
“Whoa, wait a minute,” Jazmin said as she took my wrist. “What are we going to do about your mother? About Riley? You just said—”
“I know what I said,” I told her. “But this is important too.”
She glanced at the back pocket of my hiking pants where I’d just stored the phone. “Are you sure? You’ve been kind of off the rails lately.”
I stood on my tiptoes to plant a kiss on her forehead. “You should know by now that I’m almost always off the rails. See ya.”
If I wanted to track down Lourdes Calvo and catch her in the act of following me, I needed bait. Downstairs, I loitered in the lobby, watching the other guests as I decided what to do. I made use of the free coffee bar and stood by the glass lookout to observe the riders on the mountain. From here, I could see the exact spot where Riley had her fall. Lourdes could’ve taken the picture from right here, but the angle of the photo was wrong. She had more than likely been sitting outside the Slopes Café, camera ready, where she had a view of both the slopes and the overhead balcony where I’d been sitting. I shivered at the thought. How did she always seem to know where I was? I didn’t like the idea of someone invading my privacy so thoroughly. Once, I’d wished to be an actor, but if this was what it was like to be a celebrity, I preferred my solitude.
“Lucia,” a warm voice said.
I turned around. Nick approached from across the lobby. His head wound was exposed for the first time since we’d arrived at White Oak. It had finally scabbed over. Though it wasn’t a pretty addition to his face, he was still handsome. His appearance was perfect. The two of us together in the White Oak lobby was absolute clickbait these days. Already, two or three guests had noticed us and begun to snap pictures. Lourdes Calvo was bound to pop up too once she heard the news.
“Just the guy I was looking for,” I said to Nick, trying to put as much warmth into my return smile as possible. I wasn’t exactly feeling smiley, but I needed people to buy what I was selling for a few minutes. “Do you have a minute?”
“I have more than a minute.” He joined me at the lookout, his hand finding my lower back automatically. More people snapped pictures. “I heard about Riley’s accident. What happened? Is she okay? Are you okay?”
“We’re both fine,” I assured him. I let my hip sink into his side so that we were pressed against each other. A nearby teenage girl let out an audible gasp. “We probably shouldn’t be seen together. The rumors are bound to be bad for business.”
Nick, as I expected him to, pulled me in closer.
“I don’t care what people are saying,” Nick insisted. “Do you?”
“No,” I said. “But you’re the face of White Oak.”
“And my biggest priority is caring for my guests,” he replied. “You’re one of my guests. My goal is to make you as comfortable as possible. What about your mother? Did you talk to her yet?”
I almost pulled away from him, dissuaded by the mention of my mother, but I remembered my act just in time and leaned into Nick instead.
“I tried this morning,” I said with a wistful sigh. “She was less than receptive.”
As I leaned my head against Nick’s shoulder, I caught the reflection of a camera lens in the glass lookout. Lourdes Calvo had gotten the word that Nick and I were together. I heard the rapid click of her shutter as she snapped picture after picture. Slyly, I looked over Nick’s shoulder. Sure enough, there she was, half-hidden behind a ficus in the far corner of the lobby.
“Would you excuse me?” Delicately, I drew away from Nick, trailing my hand across his back and arms as I did so. “I have something to take care of.”
“Wait,” he said. He spun me around and took me by the waist so that we were face to face. I looked past him to all the people taking pictures of us. At the back of the crowd, I spotted a familiar face. I craned my neck.
“Is that Gina?”
Nick whipped his head around so fast, he should’ve gotten whiplash. “Gina who?”
The elderly woman’s eyes went wide, and she vanished as quickly as she’d appeared, blending in with the rest of the crowd on its way outside. Nick squinted over everyone’s heads, but he couldn’t seem to find whatever he was looking for.
“Never mind,” I said. Stella’s warning about Gina was still fresh in my mind and I wanted to know the whole story there, but right now, Lourdes Calvo was my priority. Thankfully, the photographer was still hiding out in the corner. “I’ll see you later, Nick.”
I slipped out of his grasp as lightly as possible to keep up the pretense of our romance. I purposely avoided eye contact with Lourdes and walked right past her. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her leave her stakeout place behind the ficus, shoulder her camera bag, and zip up her jacket. At first, I expected her to follow me, but without Nick or Riley to provide newsworthy ammo, I wasn’t worth her time. I switched up my plan. It was time to show Lourdes what it felt like to be followed.
I executed a quick U-turn and dogged the photographer across the lobby, leaving enough distance between us so that if she looked back, I could duck behind the nearest wall. She seemed unconcerned though. She had so little faith in my intelligence that she didn’t check to see if anyone was behind her. When she headed outside, I pulled my hat low over my eyes and tucked my hair into it. It was like going incognito. Less and less people took notice of me as I cut through the crowd to trail Lourdes. Eventually, no one looked at me at all. I blended in with the rest of the tourists.
Once outside, Lourdes didn’t head to the Slopes Café or anywhere else to work on her new project. Instead, she veered off toward the parking garage. Since there were less people there, I let her get a head start. Then I looked both ways to make sure no one was watching and ducked under the concrete cover of the parking garage. It was full of cars and trucks. What with all the snow on the ground, not many of White Oak’s guests bothered to leave the resort. With so many activities at the resort, they didn’t need to. The parked Audis and Mercedes gave me plenty of places to hide. I crouched below windshield level, my legs cramping as I tried to keep up with Lourdes’s brisk walk. She made her way to a BMW in a valet spot, unlocked it with a click of her key fob, and got into the driver’s seat. I knelt behind an official White Oak utility van to watch and wait.
The BMW powered on, its red brake lights illuminating my hiding spot. I ducked down, hoping I was still out of sight. I could make out Lourdes’s outline through the foggy back windshield. She seemed to be looking down at something—her camera probably—but she soon looked back up and put a cell phone to her ear. Her voice carried and echoed through the garage. She must’ve cracked a window to even out the temperature difference in the car.
“Hey, Miller,” she said. “I think I got something. Nick Porter—yup. You’re not going to believe it.”
Unfortunately, the majority of the good information seemed to be coming from the other end of the conversation. I ground my teeth together. My knees were starting to ache from the c
old and the position I was holding. I made to stand up, but just as I was going to do so, a burly red-haired man in a White Oak polo that was two sizes too small for him came out of the stairwell. I crouched down again as he scanned the parking garage with beady eyes. Something about his hulking shoulders and barreled chest didn’t sit right with me. He moved like a Rottweiler that had been trained to take down any person that dared enter his yard. When he spotted Lourdes's BMW, he walked right towards it with a purposeful stride, but if the two of them had scheduled this meeting in advance, Lourdes sure wasn’t concerned with her companion. She babbled away on her phone, completely unaware of the gigantic man making his way toward her car. My whole body tensed as he stalked toward her. Right as he neared her tailgate, she turned off the car. He swore softly under his breath and retreated, ducking behind a car as I had.
Lourdes got out of the BMW, her back to the man’s hiding place. She was completely oblivious to him. She collected her laptop and camera bags and shut the door. As her heels clicked across the concrete, the large man readied himself to pounce. She passed his hiding place. He lunged. And somehow, I found myself moving too. I shot across the garage as the man went to tackle Lourdes. His eyes slid toward me. My movement distracted him for just a second, but it was long enough for Lourdes to realize what was happening. His meaty hands, aiming for her waist, only managed to snag a corner of her coat. It ripped between his fingers, and Lourdes danced away with a sharp yell. Her laptop bag flew out of her hands and hit the tail light of the BMW at just the right angle to shatter it.
I bounced off the hit man and skidded across the concrete, the skin scraping off my knees through my hiking pants. The man’s enormous size slowed him down, but not enough to allow Lourdes time to make it all the way across the parking garage. He mowed her over, tackling her around the knees and pinning her to the oily floor of the garage. She beat him over the head with her camera bag, but all that did was enrage him. He growled as he tore the camera bag out of her hands and tossed it out of the way. Then he pressed his fingers to Lourdes’s throat. She coughed, her face immediately turning purple.
The Haunting of Riley Watson Page 51