Ghouls Just Haunt to Have Fun (19 page)

“That would work perfectly,” he said before turning to his general manager. “Mr. Knollenberg, I see that most of the hotel guests have either already left us or are in a hurry to do so?”

Knollenberg flushed bright red and pulled at his tie again. “I believe it’s due to the fact that the police have been called here twice in two days, sir,” he said.

“Of course it is,” said Beckworth, and I was surprised that it didn’t seem to bother him a bit that he was losing money. “I believe that, in the interests of retaining what good faith we have with our clientele, we should close the Duke for a few days and allow the police to finish the job of gathering their evidence, and let our paranormal team here have a chance to rid the hotel of any remaining spiritual activity without being hampered by our paying guests.”

“Sir?” said Knollenberg, clearly surprised.

“The construction here at the Duke is causing us to run at one-third of our capacity anyway,” continued Beckworth, as if he hadn’t heard Murray’s question. “So this situation isn’t as financially costly to me as it could be. We have rooms to spare over at the Lark, in fact. Offer our remaining Duke customers a free night’s stay and the same lower rate they were paying here for the rest of their visit if they are willing to pack their belongings and be transferred to the Lark. I’ll send Conrad and his crew over here with a few limos to shuttle the guests between the hotels.

“Also, notify everyone who has a reservation with us between now and Thursday that the hotel will be closing due to an unforeseen plumbing problem or something similar. And give them a discount if they would like to transfer their reservations to the Lark.”

“Sir,” said Knollenberg, looking around at us a bit self-consciously. “Do you mean to say you actually want to
close
down this hotel?”

“Yes,” said Beckworth easily. “At least for the next four days. I’d rather have this contained quickly, Murray, before it becomes a thing and we get smeared with a reputation for offering our guests an experience of something less than our fine standards.”

Knollenberg’s forehead looked glossy with sweat. “Of course, sir,” he said. “I’ll take care of it immediately.”

“Thank you, Murray,” said Beckworth. “And now, Mr. Gillespie and I shall iron out the details before I let him book his flight home to retrieve his equipment.”

Knollenberg gave one curt nod, got up, and left the office, and Beckworth and Gilley hashed out the deal. When they were finished, Heath and I were tasked with ridding the hotel of any and all things going bump in the night, and that included this three-clawed demon, if it was still loose in the hotel.

Heath gave Gilley permission to negotiate on his behalf, so within the hour we all had a deal, and we left Beckworth’s office with a mixture of moods. Gilley was, of course, elated; I was excited but nervous; Heath floated from stunned to exuberant; and Steven was pensive and uncommunicative. I had a feeling he didn’t like this job one bit. Before I had a chance to ask him about it, however, I heard, “Uh, excuse me,” and I glanced in surprise at Gopher, who was following us down the hallway. He’d been so quiet throughout the meeting that I’d forgotten he was even along. “Might I suggest one more idea?”

“Yes?” said Gilley, stopping in the hallway to listen to Gopher, and as he did I had a tickling sensation that Gilley had allowed Gopher into the meeting on purpose.

“What would you guys say to letting us film the exorcism?”

“It’s not an exorcism,” I snapped, hating that word and the thoughts of pea soup splattering everywhere that it always invoked for me.

“Okay, this
ghostbust
,” said Gopher. “What would you guys say to letting me and one other crew member film it?”

I scowled in distaste. For a guy who had just had one of his lovers murdered he sure seemed like a shallow, insensitive opportunist to me.

“Talk numbers to me,” said Gilley, who apparently wasn’t nearly as put off as I was.

Gopher cleared his throat, obviously surprised by the suggestion that he would have to fork over some cash to film the bust. “Well,” he said, “I was thinking it would just be a continuation of the same per diem we were already giving you guys for the
Haunted Possessions
shoot.”

Gilley laughed as though Gopher had just told him a really good joke. “You’re funny!” he exclaimed. “Which is why I’ll thank you before I say, Not on your life.”

Gopher appeared to squirm with frustration. “Okay,” he reasoned, his eyes blinking rapidly as he thought about the alternatives. “Can I make a few calls and get back to you?”

Gilley waved his hand nonchalantly. “Yes, but you’ll need to catch us before we leave for the airport, and FYI, there’s no way we’re allowing a film crew to interfere on a serious ghostbust like this for less than ten thousand dollars.”

My eyes bulged, and next to me Steven actually coughed. It seemed we both had a
serious
new appreciation for Gilley’s cojones.

To our surprise, however, Gopher didn’t even flinch. “Lemme get back to you,” he agreed, pulling his cell phone out of his back pocket as he dashed ahead down the hallway.

Gilley then turned to the rest of us and said, “You guys go pack while I call the airlines. Heath, you can stay here if you’d like. We’ll catch a flight out first thing in the a.m. and be back in town by midmorning, day after tomorrow, with our equipment.”

Heath nodded. “Sounds good,” he said. “It’ll give me time to do a little sightseeing and go shopping for more clothes. I only brought enough for two days.”

“I won’t be able to come back,” said Steven, and I looked at him curiously.

“Why not?” I asked.

“I have lectures to give, remember?” Steven said, reminding me about his lecturing gig for the University of Massachusetts Medical School on cardio-thoracic surgical techniques.

“Crap,” I said, and was a little surprised by how disappointed I was that he wouldn’t be along for this ride.

“But may I just say,” he said in a tone that was very serious, “that I don’t like this idea one bit. I think it’s dangerous and that you should not do it and we should all go home to stay.”

I was aware that both Gilley and Heath were ready to argue with Steven, but I cut them off by saying, “I can’t very well leave the general public to face this thing without giving it at least one try, honey.”

“But you’ve already been hurt by this thing,” he argued. “What if it did murder that girl? What if it decides that it likes murdering girls in general?”

“I’ll be careful,” I promised, raising my hand up as if I were taking a vow. “We’ll come back armed with our equipment, and I’ll have both Heath and Gilley to keep me out of harm’s way. If it gets too dicey, then I’ll quit and head back home.”

Steven frowned, and I knew he didn’t think much about my ability to determine when things might get too dicey. “We can’t always take the easy jobs,” I said to him. “Sometimes this occupation of mine gets a little freaky, and the more experience we have with this type of thing, the better prepared we’ll be for anything else we might encounter down the road.”

“I am not liking this,” he groused, and pulled me in for a nice, tight hug. “Keep her safe, Gilley,” I heard him say over my head.

“You got it, Doctor,” Gil agreed.

Chapter 9

We arrived back at the hotel thirty-six hours and a whole lotta headache later, the major crisis being that the airline we booked with had lost Gilley’s bag containing his magnetic sweatshirt. The airline had promised to track the bag and have it delivered to the hotel later. This did
nothing
to alleviate the panic attack Gilley was presently having. “What if it doesn’t arrive in time?” he wailed.

“For the
eighteenth
time, Gil, we can always make you another one, or you can simply stay at the command center and lay out a bunch of magnetic grenades on your table. You’ll be fine.”

Gilley whimpered and looked at me with big puppy-dog eyes. “I want my sweatshirt,” he whined.

“Jeez, Gil, you sound like you need a binkie and a baba too.”

I waved at the security guard posted outside the hotel lobby, and he opened the door for us and helped us inside with our bags. The staff looked as though it had been cut back to the bare minimum, and as we were allowed entrance into the lobby by the security guard, we couldn’t help but notice the large posters on the doors declaring that the hotel had been temporarily shut down due to construction. I felt a bit of unease enter the pit of my stomach.

The police crime-scene tape was still up across the ladies’ room door to remind me of the awful things I’d seen in there, and I felt that tickle of unease intensify.

We found Heath sitting in the lobby reading a paper. “Hey, guys!” he said when he spotted us. He then glanced at his watch and declared, “When you say you’ll be right back, you really mean it.”

I yawned and set down the heavy duffel bag of equipment I was carrying to stretch. “I need a nap,” I declared. My head felt as though it were in a fog, and my bones ached with fatigue.

“Didn’t get much sleep on the plane, huh?” Gil said, and from the way he was looking at me I knew he was likely assessing the dark circles under my eyes.

“Nope,” I said. “And I’ll never know how you do it, Gil. You were asleep even before we took off from Boston.”

Gilley smiled and bounced his eyebrows. “It’s a gift,” he said. “Go up to your room and get a little shut-eye. I’ll talk to Knollenberg and find a central location to set up from; plus, I’ve got to find Gopher and his other crew member and coordinate with them.”

This came as a surprise to me. “They’re filming us? You didn’t tell me that we agreed to that.”

“They came up with the money,” he said, smiling at both Heath and me. “How’s an added five grand for your pocket, Heath?”

“Works for me!” he said happily. “Man, Gilley, I can’t thank you enough. My mom’s getting up there in years, and I worry about her. She lives in this crappy trailer, and it’s full of issues. I’ve had my eye on a house near my apartment building for a while, and with this money I’ll actually be able to purchase it for me and Mom to live in. You’re a life-saver, buddy.”

Gilley studied his nails nonchalantly, but the look on his face let me know he thought he was all that and a bag of chips. “I do what I can,” he said with a sigh.

“Well, I for one am going to catch some Zs. Heath, why don’t we meet back down here in a couple of hours and we’ll come up with a plan of attack? Gil, when you go meet with Knollenberg, see if Heath and I can meet with him briefly, say around two-ish?”

“No sweat,” Gil said. “Now go; you look dead on your feet.”

I didn’t linger but headed off, leaving the heavy duffel of equipment with Gil so that he could set it up when he found a spot for the base camp.

As I got into my room and glanced at the freshly made bed, I had a pang of sadness that I’d be sleeping in it all by my lonesome. I was going to miss Steven on this trip, and was quite surprised that I was developing such strong feelings for him. I wasn’t known for letting men—other than Gilley, of course—get too close. Probably had a lot to do with my childhood, but it wasn’t anything that I overanalyzed. No, Steven was the first guy I’d let in for a long time, and it both unsettled and thrilled me.

He was a good balance for me too. He was levelheaded, even-keeled, and logical. I was temperamental, prone to flying off the handle, and did things based solely on my gut feeling. Hey, maybe there was something to this opposites-attract thing after all?

Several hours later, and after a deliciously long shower, I was back downstairs and looking for Heath. Instead I found Gopher milling about the mezzanine with a light meter. I walked up to him from behind and said, “Hey,” to get his attention.

He started and whipped around. “Oh!” he said, putting a hand over his heart. “Hi, M.J.”

I smiled wickedly at him. “You seem a little jumpy, Gopher. Are you going to be able to handle this gig?”

Gopher laughed, but it sounded pretty forced. “Oh, sure. I just didn’t hear you come up, that’s all.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, not believing him for a second. “Have you seen Heath or Gilley?”

“Heath went out for takeout, but he should be back anytime, and Gilley is in the Twilight Room.”

I pivoted in a half circle. “Where’s that?” I asked.

“It’s the smallest of the conference rooms,” said Gopher. “You go down that hall and it’s the second door on your left.”

“Thanks,” I called over my shoulder as I trotted away. “And if you see Heath, can you tell him I’m in with Gilley?”

“Will do,” he said, and went back to his light meter.

I found Gil in the room that Gopher had indicated, and he had two long tables set up with monitors and computer screens, and magnetic spikes taped to his chair and the table. “Hey, girl,” he said when I entered the room.

“Still no sign of your luggage?” I asked, looking pointedly at the spikes all about his area.

Gil made a face and said, “Stupid airlines! They’ve lost track of my bag, but they
assure
me they are devoting their best people to finding it. They mentioned something about its being routed to Thailand, and I hung up on them.”

“Wow,” I said. “Your bag is probably having more fun than you are right now.”

Instead of answering me, Gilley lifted a walkie-talkie and spoke into it. “Great, Tony, I’ve got good reception. Let’s move to the next floor.” He then turned to me and explained, “That’s Tony. He’s the other cameraman from Gopher’s team who’s going to be following you guys around tonight.”

“So you’re almost set up?” I asked.

“Yep,” said Gil, looking down at a clipboard that held his notes. “I know you wanted to skip the baselines and get right to the ghostbusting, but I thought it might not do us any harm to take a few readings on each floor anyway—that way we’ll know if any spikes on the electrostatic meters are out of the ordinary or not.”