Speed Dating With the Dead (21 page)

“Don’t give me that crap about wishful thinking,” Wayne said. “I’ve been selling it for years.”

“And it led you to the White Horse Inn, Black Rock, North Carolina. The way it should be.” Cristos tilted back his head and tasted his fresh drink.

“I’ve been here before.”

“We each live many lives.”

“No, I mean in this one. My wife and I were staying here sixteen years ago when we made a pact. If one of us died, we’d meet here.”

“And now you are surprised. Would you not have kept the promise if you had been first to die?”

“It should have been me. The world needed her more.” Wayne reached out and touched the dew that beaded the whiskey glass.

“Maybe the next world needed her even more. Angels aren’t born. They die.”

Wayne searched the man’s eyes but they were black and cold, as impassive as midnight on a distant moon. “I can’t believe beyond this one.”

Wayne nudged the drink away, but only a few inches. Through the bottom of the glass, the snake on the coaster undulated, the forked tongue slipping in and out. The music, chatter, and laughter swelled to a crescendo, as if a church choir had hit the Rapture chord.

“Perhaps a question,” Cristos said. “Did you come back because you expected to meet her? Or because you were certain she wouldn’t?”

“This conference.” Wayne swept his hand out to indicate the hotel. “It had nothing to do with the promise. It’s a haunted hotel and that’s what I do.”

“Will or fate?”

Wayne touched the glass again. “The outcome is the same.”

“Not yet.”

Wayne had the glass to his lips and the first swallow burned a sweet path to his belly. He thought of Kendra and the expression in her eyes when she found him—a look that said she knew it all along, that the Digger was determined to hollow out his own grave and bury himself. The second swallow washed that vision away, and his gut warmed as if the banked coals of hell had been stoked into a cheerful blaze.

Cristos nodded in approval. “Welcome back.”

Digger Wilson could summon the courage to face Beth and do what he had to do. He figured three drinks would be enough.

Chapter 28

“So, what do you think of this place?” Violet picked at the label of her Corona bottle, aware that it was the international bar-scene signal for horniness. She wasn’t sure she was horny, not yet, but Phillippe definitely had potential. According to
Cosmo
and
Glamour
, women knew within three seconds of meeting whether they would sleep with a man. Violet was suspicious of that formula, because the advice was geared toward the upper-class single woman with a busy career. Three seconds was not enough time to calculate someone’s net worth and, more importantly, his willingness to shower that worth on a lover.

“The decor is not even shabby
chic
, just plain shabby,” he said, pursing his plump lips. “I would give the whole place a makeover.”

“Janey’s going for the creep factor. She realized ghosts are good for business.”

“Janey Mays.” Phillippe fluttered his eyes toward the smoke-stained ceiling and sipped his chablis. “
Pisser dessus
. Piss on her.”

“Yeah,” she said, noticing the bar was fuller than it had been in weeks.

“She’s
petasse
, a whore for donkeys.”

Violet barely heard him over Billy Joel’s “Piano Man,” the ballad of self-pitying barflies around the world. A wine-drinking chef with a flair for interior design who used phrases like “shabby
chic
”? God, he wasn’t gay, was he? Just her luck. She’d taken his French accent as a sign of European hunkness and had totally overlooked the signals.
Cosmo
never said anything about this.

“You want another?” Phillipe said.

Violet had only finished half her beer and it was getting warm and flat. “I’ve got an early shift.”

He took the bait and she took it as proof that he wasn’t gay, or he might have been more concerned for her well-being and less about the potential for a score. “Hey, the night is young and so are we.”

“Okay, but if I get wobbly, will you take care of me?”

He grinned, and some wolf glinted in his teeth. “You can trust me,
mademoiselle
.”

The way he said implied that she couldn’t trust him a bit, which she took as an even better sign. As he approached the bar, her eyes roamed from his taut buttocks and she surveyed the room, noting in particular the off-duty staff smoking and drinking. Dead-end slaves killing time. Violet was better than them--she was a dreamer. Why, with a break here and there, she could take Janey’s position. Assuming the old Battle Axe was really dead.

When Phillippe returned with their drinks, he said, “So, what’s all this talk of
fantomes
? Ghosts? A couple of the cooks were talking about the knives that fly across the room by themselves.”

“Well, they say the place is haunted. That’s why these people came, to hunt the ghosts.”

“Like on the TV shows?”

“Yeah.” She pointed. “That man at the end of the bar, that’s Digger Wilson. He put this together.”

“He sure knows how to drink.”

“Well, it’s only a little after midnight. I don’t know why they gave up so early.”

“Maybe they found what they were looking for.”

“You don’t believe that junk, do you? You’re French, for God’s sake. You’re supposed to be enlightened.”

“These ghosts, where do they hang out?”

“Well, they say Room 318 is the spookiest. The wiring is a little tricky, but other than that, it’s just another room.”

“How about a little tour?” His eyebrows raised in suggestion. He definitely wasn’t gay, and she shifted in her seat.

“The hunt rooms are reserved for the guests. Wouldn’t want to barge in on anyone. Janey would have a hissy fit.”

“The basement?” He smirked, a challenge in his European eyes. “Nobody down there,
oui
?”

“Nobody,” she said, leaning forward so she could whisper over the jangling strains of “Crimson and Clover.”

He knocked back his wine and stood, holding out his hand. She considered the choice between Phillippe and the unknown or the petty cash in the bar till.

What the hell, the cash will always be there, and Janey could fire Phillippe next week for all I know. This might be my only chance. Sure, he’s only a cook now, but he has a chef’s degree, and that could lead to management.

She was out the door before she’d really made up her mind, and by then it was too late.

Chapter 29

Cody had dropped her at the door to 318 like a perfect gentleman.

Not a kiss on the cheek, not a hint that he’d tuck her in if she wanted, not even a handshake, just a “Get some rest, and I’ll catch you in the morning.”

Kendra was disappointed but also relieved, because she was tired and edgy. At least the room lights worked. After all that weird stuff in 218, she welcomed some down time with her sketch pad. The room had two twin beds, which wasn’t too awkward because she’d traveled a lot with Dad, but Kendra didn’t want any goodnight hugs. With luck, Dad wouldn’t show up until she’d drawn herself to sleep.

She settled on her bed and chose a charcoal pencil. She opened the pad to find the sketch of Dorrie Dough-Face and Rochester the Rat Boy.

I tore that out and left it for Bruce.

Except this picture wasn’t quite the same. Rochester’s eyes had a glint in them and his whiskers lifted in a sneer, while Dorrie grinned as if to say, “I ate the last doughnut and the bitchin’ crumbs, too. Whatcha gonna do about it?”

The little twerp must have sneaked into the room and copied the sketch back into her pad. He obviously had a master key. But his fingers were way to plump to draw at such a level. Kendra was proud of her skill, but she was also realistic about the work involved. Talent meant little until you had logged those endless hours of development and made the shift from art to craft. That was way too refined a concept for a 10-year-old to grasp, and prodigies were in short supply.

“You like my picture?”

Kendra dropped her pencil.

Bruce stepped from the shadowy bathroom, still wearing his too-short trousers and dirty green shirt. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare ya.”

“That’s exactly what you meant to do, you little creep. What kind of game are you playing, anyway?”

“Hide and seek.”

“It’s way past your bedtime. Your dad is going to kick your butt.”

“He’s busy.”

“What if I’d been changing into my pajamas?”

Bruce grinned uneasily. “Rochester said he saw you in the bathroom.” He giggled. “He saw your noonie.”

“Crap.” She clenched her fists and rose from the bed as he retreated into the bathroom.

“Just wait till I—”

The bathroom was empty. She clicked the light just to make sure. She checked the cabinet under the sink, expecting him to jump out and yell “Boo.” Nothing but spare rolls of toilet paper and the rank, musty smell of moist pipes.

The shower curtain was pulled closed, opaque enough to hide him, but there was no way he could have ducked in without the curtain swaying. He might be lying down, though. She yanked the curtain back with a flourish, anger tightening her jaws.

The giggle came from the bedroom.

Creak creak creak.

The creep was bouncing on the bed. If he stomped her sketch pad, that would be one dead kid. Except it wasn’t just a creak, another sound accented it, as if he were brushing the ceiling with each leap.

Creak flup creak flup creak flup
.

His singsong rhyme was syncopated by his bouncing.

“Stay—”

Creak
.

“—and play—”

Flup
.

“—with Mommy—”

Creak
.

“—and me.”

Flup
.

She raced into the bedroom, more intent on rescuing her precious sketch pad and its cast of characters than on mashing the little brat’s teeth down his throat.

The creaking had stopped, and Bruce dangled in midair, a piece of fiber-coated electrical wire wrapped around his neck and tied to the light fixture. His black tongue protruded, and his blank eyes bulged, the flesh around them sunken and purple. Flies buzzed around his head and his skin was the color of cottage cheese.

Christ—

Before she could decide whether to touch him or if he was too far gone, the lights went out.

Christ and back again.

She didn’t know whether to retreat or feel her way forward. The afterimage of the light burned orange blobs behind her eyelids, but the image of the dead boy burned just as brightly.

You’re cracking up, kiddo, just like Bradshaw said you would. Too much imagination. Too much fantasy. Too much believing in the monsters you make.

Too much being the Digger’s daughter.

Her cracked laughter sounded too loud in the dark room.

It wasn’t real. She could make it to the light switch, get the room back in working order, and find some way to jam the lock so Bruce wouldn’t bug her anymore. And as soon as Dad came in, she’d make him report the little twerp to the hotel staff. Surely they had some sort of security, even if it was just that old mummy of a manager. One scowl from her wrinkled, witchbag face would scare any kid straight.

Yeah. Logic and reason. Much better than the koo-koo choo-choo to Nutsville.

One hand in front of her, she took brief steps forward across the carpet, mapping the room in her mind. The beds were over there, coffee table and TV cabinet to the left, an open path in the middle, right where Bruce would be hanging--

He’s NOT hanging, damn it
.

Still, she slowed a little and waved her hand in front of her. Despite the lamps outside that girded the walkway to the hotel’s front entrance, the room was way darker than it should have been.

She thought of that screwy line the ghost hunters used when they were ushering a restless spirit to peace in the Great Unknown: “Go toward the light.”

Count to three and do it.

Count to three....

Stay and play with Mommy and me.

“Kendra?”

The woman’s voice froze her heart in mid-beat.

She couldn’t quite place it, but she couldn’t quite forget it, either. The familiarity was stored in her cells, at a genetic level, and she’d heard it on a few of Dad’s home videos on those late nights when he wanted a serious dose of melancholy. She’d heard it as a she sat on a warm, loving lap and painted herself into a hundred corners.

“Mom?” Kendra whispered, which was plenty loud enough in the stillness of the room, practically a scream that tore the faded, rose-patterned paper from the walls and sent gypsum snowing from the ceiling.

Kendra wrapped herself in the shadows of the room, waiting for a response, dreading it and wanting it all the same.

If I’m stepping on the koo-koo choo-choo, at least I’m going with a smile on my face. Reunited and it feels so good. Even if it feels so wrong.

In the solitude of her childhood, browsing through her mother’s artifacts and parental love notes and even the last letter penned on the deathbed, Kendra had often considered the many questions she’d never gotten to ask. All that mother-daughter talk, all the advice and wisdom, all the scolding and conflict, all the wonder and mystery of that special bond—all interrupted, all stolen away by some asshole in the Great Unknown, a punitive, sociopathic little Wizard of Oz hiding behind the curtain and pulling strings, giggling all the while.

Digger said she was here. But when can you ever trust Digger?

“Mom?”

No response.

Thirty seconds.

Someone was breathing in the corner of the room.

Which made no sense, because dead people didn’t breathe.

Games. More goddamned games.

Bruce.

Feeling silly now for thinking her mother would actually come back as a ghost like some trucked-up “Touched By An Angel” episode, she marched across the room, steady, steady, steady. Lunatics likely felt no shame, so her embarrassed rage was proof of her sanity.