The New Paranormal

by Jackson Tyler

  “That’s cool,” he said. “I didn’t know.”

  I exhaled the tight breath I’d been holding.

  “Why’d you two break up?” Roman asked. I hated when he looked at me like that, like he was actually interested in what I was saying. I wasn’t used to anyone looking at me like that unless I was trying to sell them something.

  “She cheated on me.” I shrugged.

  “Oh. That sucks. I’m sorry.”

  “No biggie.” I wasn’t ready to confess to Roman about all the other people who’d cheated on me as well. I didn’t like admitting I was so easily disposable — a placeholder boyfriend until someone better came along. After being cheated on three times, I knew that I was the kind of catch you threw back into the ocean.

  “So yeah.” I shrugged. “That’s my story.”

  “It’s an interesting story,” said Roman slowly.

  I shrugged. “I don’t like to talk about it. I hate people feeling sorry for me.”

  He cleared his throat. “Then I won’t feel sorry for you.”

  I looked at him skeptically. His eyes were tender, but his face didn’t bleed sympathy.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  The silence between us was heavy, weighed down with everything I’d confessed. Roman wasn’t saying how sorry he felt for me — he wasn’t saying anything at all. Usually I was an expert when it came to breaking awkward silences, but I couldn’t charm away my own nerves. After telling him about my past, I felt raw, like my skin had been stripped away. I was worse than naked. I was emotionally vulnerable.

  Roman broke the silence first. “What’s it like not to believe in anything?” he asked.

  The question surprised me. After telling people about my past, I usually got ‘isn’t it sad to have no faith?’ or ‘don’t you miss your family?’. The answer to the first question was no, and the answer to the second was a knee-jerk hell no. Roman wasn’t being judgmental, just curious.

  “It’s normal,” I said. “I believe what I see in front of me, and I don’t think about anything else.”

  Roman squinted at me. “And that makes you happy?”

  No one had ever asked me that. I had to think about it. I didn’t usually wonder whether I was happy or not. Pondering my emotions went against my rule of living by my instincts.

  “It keeps me grounded in the moment,” I said slowly. “If I think too hard, I’m prone to existential dread.”

  “As long as it makes you happy,” he said. A cheeky smile spread over his lips. “So if you believe what you see in front of you, and you’re living here…”

  “You’re asking if I believe in ghosts yet?”

  “Yes.”

  Ugh. That husky, firm voice combined with those gentle eyes could make me confess anything. I was a skilled liar, but I didn’t want to lie to Roman. “I’ve always thought about ghosts the way I think about Heaven and reincarnation. It’s nice to think we stay behind, but it’s unrealistic.”

  “You haven’t looked into the science at all, have you?”

  “I think you’re being liberal with the s-word.”

  “I think you’re being conservatively closed-minded.”

  “I am not closed-minded. You interrupted me before I could finish talking.”

  “So you-”

  I threw my hands in the air, exasperated. “Yes, Roman. You got me. I don’t know if I’m having a stroke or losing my mind or if I took too much ayahuasca and this is some wild, drawn-out drug trip, but I believe you. I think the Cressley Hotel is haunted.”

  “Really?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Yes. I don’t know. It’s strange here.” A part of my brain — the part the rest of me was desperate to listen to — told me there had to be a logical, scientific reason for everything that was happening here. But the most rational explanation I could think of was ghosts.

  Roman grinned smugly.

  I had to change the subject. “Are you sure you don’t have to go check on Elliot?”

  “Are you trying to get rid of me?” he asked.

  The last thing I wanted was to send Roman into the arms of another man. “This place is spooky, but the ghost didn’t shove my head in the microwave or drown me in the shower,” I pointed out. “Elliot got hurt tonight. Of course I don’t want to get rid of you, but he’s important to you, and-”

  “He is important to me. He’s my best friend. But he’s safe. I want to be here with you.”

  “Are you still seeing him?” I blurted out the question.

  “I was never seeing him.” Roman frowned. “I was sleeping with him.”

  Was? Did that mean he wasn’t now?

  “Why’d you stop?” I asked. I tried to sound casual, but I knew how obvious this line of questioning was. I was only asking out of wild, self-destructive curiosity. Even if Roman was single and unattached, he wasn’t eligible. He was too busy trying to protect me.

  “I have other things to focus on.” He stared at me. “It was never serious with Elliot. It was only about the sex.” The look in his eyes made me want to die from arousal. It wasn’t fair for him to make comments like that.

  “Sex is pretty cool,” I agreed. Words were spurting out of my mouth, but what was I saying? “It uh, feels pretty good.” Oh my god. Shut up, Isaac.

  “A lot of people would agree on that, yes.”

  We looked at each other awkwardly. I was usually smoother than this, but usually I wasn’t trying to hit on someone as enigmatic, mysterious, and serious as Roman. Usually I was trying to hit on someone who wanted to hit on me back.

  And when had I decided to hit on Roman, anyway?

  Probably around the time I realized I was falling for him.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Roman

  I could get used to seeing Isaac’s face when I woke up. The thought occurred to me while I was bleary-eyed, not alert enough to censor myself. His hair spilled out onto his pillow like a golden halo, and his lips curved into a soft smile.

  I had been wary of sharing this bed again. I couldn’t get that ill-fated morning wood incident out of my head. It was up there with the time I accidentally called my personal trainer Dad in my list of Top Five Embarrassing Roman Moments. Until last night, the chair and the floor had proven effective, albeit uncomfortable, beds.

  But after what went down with Elliot at the crop circle, plus staying awake with Isaac until well past midnight, I couldn’t let pride get between me and a good night’s sleep. Last night, when Isaac asked if I would rather sleep in a real bed, I threw caution to the wind and said yes.

  It might have been easier on my heart if I’d woken up rubbing my boner against his ass again. I was unable to keep my lips from twitching to mirror his smile. A few strands of hair were swept over his delicate face. On instinct, I tucked them behind his ear. My breath caught in a gasp as my fingers brushed his skin.

  I now had new insight into why my partner-in-crime was the way he was. I couldn’t imagine being brought up in such a fundamentalist lifestyle. For all my father’s abusive qualities, he hadn’t cared when I came out as gay, and Nana always wanted me to be happy.

  Isaac had so little. No wonder he clung fiercely to his instincts and ideals: they were all he had.

  A part of me wished I never asked about his past. I was already too fond of Isaac; now that I knew everything else, I found myself caring more deeply.

  I slowly extracted myself from underneath the blankets and got out of bed. Isaac murmured and grasped for my hand as I left. The temptation to stay in bed with him was overwhelming.

  But I pulled away and took my usual seat opposite the bed. I couldn’t pretend to be Isaac’s boyfriend forever. I wasn’t sure how long this scheme would work. If I made one wrong move, Ben would seize the opportunity to ban me from the Cressley for good.

  I had to work out what was going on before that happened. All I knew so far was that there were ghosts in the Cressley hotel. Violent ghosts. I knew that the longer ghosts were left to wallow in their ow
n misery, the more dangerous they became. The ghosts here had already been wallowing for decades.

  They were here because they had unfinished business. It didn’t take a genius to work out what that business was. Every death on this floor had either been ruled a suicide, natural causes, or the case had gone cold. The spirits in the Cressley Hotel wanted vengeance.

  My first question had to be: which ghosts here had been murdered by human hands, and who had been killed by the spirits of the victims themselves?

  Then all I had to do was investigate a cold case, get rid of the first ghosts, and hope that would ease the minds of the other tortured souls trapped here so they could move on too. I sighed. Television made ghost hunting seem so much easier than it was.

  I opened my laptop to do some research, but before it had finished turning on, Isaac yawned, squinted his eyes tightly, and stretched like a cat.

  “Good morning, Isaac,” I said.

  He sat bolt upright and stared at me. “Good morning, Roman. Did you sleep at all last night?”

  “I don’t need as much beauty sleep as you do.”

  Isaac laughed brightly and stretched again. I admired the lean muscles in his arms. He didn’t look like he could lift much, but his lanky frame was my kind of view.

  “True,” he said. “I do sleep a lot, and I am gorgeous.”

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  “What’s the plan for today?” asked Isaac. He leaned against the headboard with his arms behind his neck.

  “We solve a murder,” I said.

  “Just your average Saturday,” said Isaac. He rubbed his hands together and grinned. “Let me make coffee so I can wake up, then we can talk sleuthing.”

  “If you didn’t drink coffee, you wouldn’t need it to wake up.”

  “Ah, but I do drink coffee.”

  I opened up some documents about the Cressley on my laptop while Isaac busied himself in the kitchenette. After he had his drink in hand and was slowly sipping away, I started talking. “The first victim was Arthur Bradley. He was hacked to death with an axe.”

  “And the murderer was never found?”

  I chewed on my lip. “The police arrested a loan shark for it, but he always pleaded his innocence.”

  “Can we talk to him? Is he still in jail?”

  I laughed darkly. “He was beaten to death two years into his incarceration.”

  Isaac frowned. “Was anyone with him at the Cressley? A wife, a girlfriend, maybe?”

  I skimmed through the document in front of me. “He was single. He was here alone.”

  “That’s weird,” said Isaac. “Lance’s dad thought the victims were all in relationships. Do you think that means something?”

  “It could mean Lance’s dad was wrong,” I said.

  “Or the ghost could have been killing cheaters,” Isaac pointed out. “Maybe Arthur Bradley was sleeping with a married woman.”

  Help from someone with Isaac’s imagination and emotional intelligence was a blessing. People were a mystery to me.

  “Maybe,” I said. “That seems like a leap to conclusions. We have to be objective.”

  Isaac nodded seriously. “So what if Arthur Bradley isn’t the ghost?”

  “He was the first victim.”

  “But what if the ghost wasn’t the first victim? What if Arthur Bradley’s death was a senseless murder by a loan shark who was arrested and killed, and he did get vengeance?”

  I considered that. “The second victim died of a heart attack after snorting a bunch of cocaine.”

  Isaac arched an eyebrow and sipped his coffee. “That sounds like natural causes to me. Next.”

  I clenched my teeth. It was starting to seem like Isaac wasn’t trying to help. He was doing his skeptic thing.”

  “Well, you’ll be interested to know the third victim was a young woman, recently married, on her honeymoon.”

  Isaac wrinkled his nose. “Who would honeymoon here?”

  “Barbara and Robert Hennessy. The Cressley wasn’t such a dive in the 70s.”

  “It had to be the husband that killed her, right?” said Isaac. “And he never got arrested? Easy solve.”

  I shook my head. “That would make this a lot easier, but Robert Hennessy had an airtight alibi for his wife’s murder.”

  “Where was he?”

  “According to the report I read, he was booking a day trip down in the lobby. The manager was with him, and they both found out about Barbara’s murder at the same time. There was quite a commotion during the murder, and a number of guests came out of their rooms to see what was happening. It’s all in the witness statements. There was no way Robert Hennessey was near his new wife when she died.”

  “Who found her?”

  “It’s hard to say. The commotion drew seven people from their rooms, and there’s no evidence as to who found her first.”

  “Is there anyone we can track down?”

  “We can try. But this was forty years ago. I wouldn’t count on it.” I braced my fingers on my forehead. “It would be nice if Mr. Partridge came back soon.”

  “Was he there?”

  “He wasn’t a witness. But he’s been living at the Cressley since 1967, only two years after it was built.”

  “This is a relatively new hotel.”

  “It’s seen a lot.”

  Isaac nodded soberly. “We could always break out the spirit board. He gestured to his duffel bag.

  I blanched. “No.” Isaac was grinning, but if this was a joke, it wasn’t funny. I’d heard too many horror stories about spirit boards to trust one anywhere near me. It would be dangerously frivolous to laugh in the face of something like that. “I thought I told you to get rid of that.”

  “I thought you were all scientific. Ouija started out as a board game, Roman. Chill out.”

  I would not chill out. “I’ve seen enough testimonials from people who have used spirit boards that I’m not going to let you put out a welcome mat for whatever’s in here.” My voice was sharper than I intended, tension coiled in my words.

  “Isn’t that what we want? For the ghosts to come and talk to us?” There was an infuriating note of amusement in Isaac’s voice, like he was humoring me. He didn’t understand.

  “No. We want to get this done as quietly as possible, with as little actual psychic contact as possible.”

  “Where’s the fun in that?”

  “Ghost hunting isn’t about fun,” I growled. “It’s about protecting people.”

  “How could I forget?” Isaac rolled his eyes. I had the feeling he was being sarcastic, but I didn’t care. He was better off petty and resentful than dead.

  “So it’s settled. We’re doing this the safe way.”

  “You’ve been doing it the safe way for three years. If spirit boards really open us up to communication with ghosts, shouldn’t we try to hear what the ghosts have to say?”

  “That might work on a young ghost. If Barbara is our ghost, she was killed in 1984. She might not be thinking like a human anymore. She could be corrupted by rage.”

  “But-”

  “Drop it, Isaac. It’s non-negotiable. Promise you won’t use the spirit board.”

  He looked like he was going to argue some more. His eyes set angrily, his eyebrows turned in — but he sighed. “Fine.”

  “Good.” Relief washed through me. “I’ll get Elliot to find out when Mr. Partridge will be released from the hospital. You need to talk to him.”

  “Will the hospital tell Elliot anything? He doesn’t even know Mr. Partridge.”

  I scoffed. “Elliot won’t ask the hospital. He’ll get into their database.”

  Isaac glanced me a questioning look.

  “He’s a hacker,” I explained.

  “I thought he was a dentist.”

  “He’s a genius. There’s not much he can’t do. He’s the brains of this operation. I’m the brawn.”

  “You’re pretty brainy,” said Isaac.

  “Thank you.” What e
lse was there to say? I wasn’t used to compliments. I cleared my throat and kept speaking. “Barbara had a particularly violent death. How are you with gory details?”

  “Saw is like, my favorite movie.”

  “Saw is incredibly un-”

  “Unrealistic. I know. But I like it anyway.”

  “Barbara Hennessey fought back against her attacker. She had a lot of defensive wounds on her body. According to the police report, someone tried to strangle her, but she escaped. She was running for the door when her assailant caught and stabbed her multiple times in the back. She crawled into the corridor, where she died.” I spoke calmly and factually, trying not to think too hard about what that poor woman must have gone through. Unlike Isaac, I didn’t care for gory details. “She died right outside the door to this room.”

  Isaac shuddered.

  “And the next victim?”

  “It was six years later. Another stabbing.”

  “Then another stabbing the year after that, right?”

  “Right.” He had been paying attention after all. “Laura Olivier was stabbed in her sleep.”

  Isaac nodded along seriously. He was resting his fingers on his chin, the way he did in those rare instances when he took things seriously.

  “The next victim was Catherine Vaughn. There were fewer wounds, but restraints were used.”

  “Then Sandra Keene died of a heart attack.”

  I ran over the other deaths with Isaac again, repeating information I’d already told him what felt like thousands of times before. I knew everything so thoroughly I could almost recite the police reports off the top of my head. The Cressley had gone ten years without a stabbing or suffocation in the 90s. During that grace period, all the deaths at the Cressley could have been attributed to ‘natural causes’ or ‘accidents’.

  “I wish I could see those old guest records,” said Isaac.

  “There are no digital copies, and I don’t know where the physical documents are. I don’t know if they exist anymore.”

  “They’re in the basement,” said Isaac. He grinned widely.