The Haunting of Riley Watson

by Alexandria Clarke

  “Lucia. Lucia! Wake up!”

  Riley smacked one of my cheeks then the other, turning my head from side to side in the effort to pull me from the memory. Her figure was blurry above me. Something dripped onto my cheeks. I tasted salt. Riley was crying.

  “I’m awake,” I muttered, pushing myself up from the floor. My brain felt as though it had been sucked right out of my head. Maybe, for the time I’d been in another person’s body, it had been. Riley threw her arms around my neck and hugged me so tightly that her sharp little collarbone pressed against my windpipe and my hair got caught in the purple plaster cast.

  “Thank God,” she said. “You were asleep for an hour, talking to yourself and writhing around. When your eyes rolled back in your head, I got really worried. What did you find out?”

  I pulled away from her to look her in the eye. She was pale and sweating. The ritual had taken a lot out of her too, but at least we were both alive.

  “It’s Odette’s father,” I told her. “The demon ghost of King and Queens is Richard Watson.”

  29

  After taking Riley back to the clinic, I tracked down the one person who might have more information on Richard Watson. I hadn’t seen Gina James since she’d run away from me in the lobby when I was talking to Nick, but that didn’t stop me from tracing my footsteps to her room on the first floor and knocking on her door. She didn’t answer at first, but it was almost four in the morning. She had to be in there. I knocked again. The door opened. Gina, clad in a White Oak courtesy robe, peered at me with bleary eyes.

  “Lucia,” she said. Sleep weighed down her voice. “What are you doing here?”

  I stepped past her, forgoing an invitation inside. “I need your help. You’re the only one I can think of to ask.”

  She shuffled into the kitchen. For the first time since I’d met her, she showed symptoms of her age. She favored one hip over the other and her hands trembled as she filled a kettle with water.

  “What is this about?” she asked, rubbing the drowsiness from her eyes.

  “It’s about King and Queens,” I said. “You told me you stayed there before it burned down. Do you remember much about it? About the Watsons?”

  She set the kettle on the stove to boil. “Yes, I remember quite a bit. Why?”

  “I need you to tell me everything you know,” I said.

  “You look like you haven’t slept in a week,” she replied. “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about this in the morning?”

  “Please. It has to be now.”

  Gina tightened the belt to her robe and sat down on the arm of the couch. “Just calm down. Is everything okay?”

  “I’m trying to make it okay,” I told her, “but I need your help.”

  “All right, all right.” She squinted into the distance as if trying to look forty years into the past. “You know the basics. King and Queens was one of the most popular ski resorts in the United States. Even international skiers would come to Crimson Basin, but it wasn’t just the mountain that attracted tourists here.”

  “It was the Watsons,” I finished for her.

  She nodded. “The Watsons were like royalty. They were high society blue bloods. Richard was a philanthropist and his wife was a fashionista. They were constantly giving millions to this charity or that one. They hosted huge parties and events. Everyone wanted to be a part of their elite club.”

  “Were you?”

  Gina’s expression darkened. “Never. I didn’t want to be. What you have to understand about people like the Watsons is that their charitable likeability is almost always a front.”

  “So then what were the Watsons hiding?”

  The kettle whistled, and Gina heaved herself to stand with a long sigh. “The Watson men were infamous for one thing: their affairs. Just look at the name of the resort. King and Queens, as in one king and multiple queens. Since the very beginning, the Watson men had side pieces. In my time, Richard was no different. Women threw themselves at him. They all wanted to be his next flavor of the week. They all thought they would be the one he would fall in love with.”

  “I thought you said no one knew about the Watsons’s seedy secret,” I reminded her.

  “We all pretended not to know,” Gina said. “The Watsons gave so much to charity and to the Crimson Basin community that no one bothered to highlight Richard’s infidelity. He paid people off or made his past trysts disappear.”

  “Sounds sketchy. What did Stella think of that?”

  Gina’s face contorted. “His wife? She knew all about it. She was a horrible woman too. She walked around that place with her nose so high in the air that I was always surprised when she didn’t run into anything. She let Richard have his affairs, and then she punished him afterward. Rumor was that she enjoyed it.”

  This was not information about Stella that I ever wanted to know, but Gina’s description matched the Stella I’d seen in Odette’s memory. Maybe she’d changed in life after death, but the haughty disposition and “holier than thou” attitude had remained. Dead Stella certainly cared more about her daughter. I couldn’t judge the version of Stella that I never knew, but Gina certainly did.

  “So did you hear all of this through the rumor mill while you were staying at King and Queens?” I asked. “Or did you have an inside source? One of your friends maybe?”

  “I didn’t have many friends at the resort,” Gina said as she dropped a tea bag into a mug of hot water. “I couldn’t be bothered to join in on the gossip. I was there to ski and watch birds and take in the other wildlife. I could’ve cared less about the Watsons.”

  “It doesn’t seem that way.”

  Gina knocked the cup over, swore, and dumped the whole thing into the sink. “Damn it. Fine, I would have cared less until Richard Watson saw me in the rental shop one morning. He decided he had to have me.”

  “You and Richard?”

  “No,” she snapped. “I never gave in. I refused to be like the rest of the women who passed through his bed. Unfortunately, Richard didn’t give up so easily, and when Stella got wind of the situation, she tried to make my life a living hell.”

  “What did she do?”

  Gina poured the kettle into the sink. “Forget about it. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Okay.”

  I cradled my head in my hands and sank into the couch with a groan. Gina glanced over the kitchen counter.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Headache. I don’t suppose you have any ibuprofen on you?”

  “Sure.” She gave up on the tea and dried her hands. “I’ll be right back.”

  As soon as she disappeared into the other room, I shot to my feet and began rooting around the suite. I opened the drawers of the side tables, lifted the couch cushions, and rooted through the closet until I found what I was looking for. The gold locket was tucked in the pocket of a vintage overcoat I’d never seen Gina wear. I shook it into the palm of my hand. The metal was as cold as the snow outside. When I pried apart the sides and opened it, a folded-up picture fell out. I picked it up, unfurled it, and let out a gasp. The picture was of Noah, the boy from Odette’s memory.

  “Get out!”

  I jumped at Gina’s sharp command. The bottle of ibuprofen dropped from her grasp as she pointed one trembling finger at the door. I flipped around the photo.

  “Noah is your son?” I asked. “He was friends with the Watsons’ daughter, Odette. What happened to him?”

  Gina rushed me, snatched both the locket and photo out of my hands, then shoved me toward the door. All of that hiking she did paid off. I stumbled as she pushed me into the hallway.

  “Wait, Gina!”

  Slam! The door rocked shut.

  I couldn’t wrap my head around Gina’s freak out, but she obviously knew more about the Watsons than she was letting on. If Noah was her son, Gina was the woman in Odette’s memory that Stella had so adamantly ordered Richard to get rid of. Something didn’t quite line up, but I was too ex
hausted to make sense of it all. It was nearly five a.m., and all I could think about was crawling into bed and staying there for the next several hours. But just as I was about to peel back the covers, I remembered my promise to Jazmin. She’d wanted me to check in on my mother, and I hadn’t done so all day.

  “Two hours,” I said to myself, collapsing under the sheets. “I’ll take a nap then check on her at seven. She’ll be up by then.”

  I dozed off.

  I slept for far longer than two hours. By the time I woke up, the room was bright and sunny. I checked the clock. It was one o’clock in the afternoon. I rolled out of bed, pulled on the first pair of pants I could find, and shuffled down the hallway to my mother’s room.

  “Mom?” I called through the door. “Are you up?”

  I knocked, and the door popped open on its own. It was already unlocked and ajar. Slowly, I inched inside.

  “Mom? It’s me. Lucia.”

  No answer. It was the first time I’d been inside Mom’s suite. It was similar to mine but only one bedroom. Mom’s balcony was bigger though, and it faced the side of the mountain that had been preserved for wildlife. A weird humming sound came from the kitchen. The garbage disposal was on. I switched it off.

  “Mom?” I called again.

  A room service cart sat between the door of the bathroom and the bedroom. I uncovered the platter. Mom’s dinner from last night—a creamy chicken pasta—looked untouched. I covered up the cold food and pushed the cart out of the way. My stomach flipped over. Something wasn’t right.

  I found her in the bathroom, draped over the edge of the tub. She was completely unconscious. I rushed to her side and pressed two fingers to her neck. She had a pulse. Thank God.

  “Mom?” I pulled her away from the ceramic tub and laid her flat on the floor, tapping her cheeks. “Mom, please wake up.”

  I checked the tub again. There was a small bit of bile near the drain, as if she’d tried to make herself throw up. Then I spotted a bottle on the floor beneath the kitchen cabinet. Orange capsule pills were scattered across the floor. I checked the label. They were antidepressants, fatal if ingested all at once.

  “No, you didn’t,” I said. “Why?”

  I scrambled up from the floor and retrieved the cordless phone from the living room. As I dialed, I returned to my mother in the bathroom.

  “White Oak front desk,” answered a cool voice.

  My mother wasn’t breathing. I pumped her chest, then puffed into her mouth.

  “This is Lucia Star on the twentieth floor,” I huffed in between rescue breaths. “I need the emergency medical team here as quickly as possible. My mother’s overdosing.”

  “Which room?”

  “Twenty-thirteen.”

  “Right away, ma’am. I’ve alerted them to the situation. Do you need to stay on the line with me?”

  “Nope. Just get them up here.”

  I hung up and tossed the phone aside to focus on my mother. It felt like hours as I continued pumping her heart for her. Once, I tried shoving my fingers down the back of her throat in the hopes she’d throw up whatever was left of the antidepressants, but it was no good. She’d been down and out for too long. If I’d checked on her yesterday like I was supposed to, this never would’ve happened.

  Less than five minutes later, the White Oak rescue team burst through the door and took over. I stood in the corner as they injected my mother with something to counteract the antidepressant. Each member of the team was calm and rational. They spoke in cool, professional tones, as if the half-dead middle-aged woman on the floor of the bathroom didn’t even faze them. I wasn’t sure if I should have been impressed or terrified, but it didn’t matter when my mother finally drew in a breath of her own accord.

  “Mom!”

  I threw myself to my knees beside her and grabbed her hand. She coughed and gagged as if trying to throw up the rest of the pills.

  “Relax, Mom,” I said. “It’s me. It’s Lucia. You’re safe. We got you.”

  Moisture leaked from her eyes and ran down her cheeks. For once, she looked like a real human being, rather than the fake plastic mannequin she usually resembled. Though I hated seeing her like this, I didn’t mind a glimpse at the real woman behind my mother. I held her hand to my heart.

  “Why would you do that?” I demanded. “Why would you take those pills? Especially after what happened to Dad. Didn’t you know what that would do to me?”

  “I didn’t,” she said, her voice hoarse from all the trauma her throat just witnessed. “I didn’t take anything.”

  “Half of your antidepressants are gone,” I said. “You swallowed them. The medical team had to give you another drug to reverse the effect.”

  She raised a hand to cup my cheek. Her fingers were pale and freezing. “I promise, Lucia. I didn’t take anything. The last thing I remember is room service coming to deliver my dinner.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, two White Oak medical team members exchanged a loaded glance. They didn’t believe Mom’s story either.

  “I’m sorry,” I muttered. “For everything. I’m sorry I ruined your marriage and your life. I’m sorry Dad’s dead because of me. I’m sorry I pushed you to do this.”

  “Lucia.” She grasped the back of my neck and pulled me closer, like she used to do when I was a child and in trouble. “Listen to me. I did not do this to myself.”

  She was serious. I could tell from the hard look in her eye. It was the same one she gave me whenever she was trying to get something through my head.

  “Then how did you get like this?”

  Mom glanced around at the White Oak staff. “Someone else—”

  The lead member of the medical team tapped me on the shoulder. “Ma’am? We should really get your mother to the clinic. She probably needs to rehydrate.”

  The team moved in, setting up a stretcher next to my mother, but she grabbed my wrist before they could start transporting her.

  “Lucia,” she rasped. “I never blamed you for your father’s death. I wasn’t mad at you. I was mad at myself for letting him have his way. I couldn’t look at you without being reminded of my mistake. That’s why I’ve treated you so poorly. You deserved more from your own mother. You deserved better.”

  Tears burned my eyes. “You don’t hate me?”

  “No,” she promised, grasping my face in both of her hands. “I could never hate you. I love you. I hope you’ll let me make up for the time we’ve lost.”

  When I nodded, a rush of energy pulled from my mother to me. She couldn’t feel the transfer, but I definitely did. The nausea that had plagued me for weeks vanished. Something shifted in my head, as if the scales I imagined earlier were evening themselves out. The emergency staff transferred my mother onto the stretcher, but she refused to let go of my hand. It was cumbersome, but we stayed connected all the way from the suite, down the hall to the elevator, and through the lobby to the clinic. Once inside, Doctor Tanner came out of her office.

  “You again?” she said, spotting me. She checked over my mother. “Another one down, huh? You must be a magnet for trouble.”

  “Something like that,” I said. “Can you help her?”

  Tanner checked the chart one of her subordinates had filled out while we were upstairs. “Overdose, huh? Yeah, we’ll get her back into shape. By the way, I just received a call from CB General. Your friend Jazmin finally woke up. That’s a good sign.”

  I remembered what Stella said about me and Jazmin’s connection. It was no coincidence that she had woken up around the same time my energy started to balance out. The game was changing. I was finally starting to wriggle my way toward the upper hand.

  “What about Riley?” I asked Tanner. “How’s she doing today?”

  “The Watson kid?” Tanner asked. “I thought you already checked her out.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She was discharged this morning,” Tanner said as she put on her stethoscope and listened to my mother’s heart. “
I would’ve kept her a bit longer for observation, but your signature was on the papers.”

  My phone buzzed in my pocket, but I ignored it. “Are you telling me Riley isn’t here?”

  Tanner looked at me like I was crazy. “Yeah. You literally gave the clinic permission to release her. Do I need to check your head for injuries too?”

  “No,” I said. “But if you’ll excuse me, I have to go.”

  Thankfully, my mother had already fallen asleep, so there were no heartfelt goodbyes to be had. I kissed her forehead, thanked the medical staff for responding so promptly, and left the clinic. As soon as I did, my phone rang again. It was Lourdes Calvo.

  “What the hell could you possibly want?” I muttered. I rejected the call and dialed Riley’s number instead. It rang and rang before eventually dumping me to voicemail.

  “This is Riley Watson,” she said in her message. “Don’t leave a message. I won’t listen to it. If you really want to get a hold of me, text me instead.”

  I hung up and shot her a text message. Riley! Where are you? Call me as soon as you get this.

  As soon as I pressed send, another call from Lourdes came in. I finally answered.

  “What is it?” I said. “I’ve got a lot on my plate right now, so you better make it fast. No one else tried to murder you, right?”

  “No, I’m safe,” Lourdes replied, her voice tight and strained. “But you’ll never believe what I just found out. Meet me in my room. It’s on the sixth floor in the second wing. Six-oh-nine. Get here now.”

  She hung up before I could reply, giving me no choice but to obey her order. As I jogged across the bridge to White Oak’s other wing of rooms, I tried calling Riley again. Nothing but crickets and that dumb voicemail message over and over again. In the hallway outside Lourdes’s room, I gave up. Lourdes answered the door after one knock.