by Неизвестный
“Irving, you need to stop this,” Miranda heard Daphne saying, distracting her from her thoughts of Kyle.
“Look, Daphne, I’m a cop, okay? You can trust me.”
Miranda blinked at that. Irving was a cop? Was everyone here an undercover police officer?
Inside, Daphne continued to talk. “You’re a cop, too? Wait, does this have something to do with my husband? Can you help him? I just don’t understand.”
Irving kept talking without ever answering the question. “Look, you need to keep that to yourself, okay? I’ve worked for the Ash’s here at the Maze Hotel for a year now. They don’t know, and no one else does, so if I hear someone talking about it I’ll know it came from you, all right?”
Miranda frowned. That didn’t sound like a cop talking. That sounded like someone who had something to hide. Something bad.
“You think Harvey was a cop,” Irving continued. “Sure, he wore a badge, but he was connected to the Mob. Did you know about that?”
“No,” Daphne said firmly. “Is that why he got my husband arrested? To cover his own tracks? I knew that Harvey Mason was a bad fellow. I just knew it!”
“Now you’re catching on. So, I’m looking for evidence that he was with the Mob. Something that I can really nail him with. Want to help me?”
It clicked in Miranda’s head. This was Harvey’s room!
Kyle flew through the wall inches from Miranda’s face, startling her.
“Kyle!” she whispered angrily as she fell back and landed hard on her rump. “You know that freaks me out!”
“Thought you’d be used to it, being psychic and all.” He smiled, but it was a fleeting thing. “Anyway, the paperwork looks like some sort of schedule. It documents times and places. Maybe a raid or something. It looks kind of confidential anyway. And yes, Harvey’s name is at the top.”
As Miranda was about to get up, a voice blared down the hallway.
“What the hell are you doing?” Peter Ash was standing in the corridor, hands on his hips, and he was not happy.
Miranda gasped. She must look like an idiot here on the floor like this. Kyle dashed back into the room, leaving her to get to her feet as Peter came storming at her. “Why are you snooping about? What are you doing?”
“I’m not snooping about,” Miranda tried to defend herself.
“Really? Do you often go crawling around the floor of hotels where you stay?”
She fumed at the man, knowing there was a murderer here somewhere and that she could very well be staring right at that person. Best to be nice until she knew for sure.
As she tried to formulate a sentence or a question that would deflect this man’s anger, Kyle came rushing out through the door of Harvey’s room. “Those two are spooked. Um, if you’ll pardon the expression, that is. They heard Peter here bellowing like a lion and they’re taking off. There’s a service ladder bolted to the side of the wall outside and those two are climbing out the window! Daphne is clutching that great pile of paper and staring at it. I think it’s the police printout.”
He ducked back in for a look, his lower half still sticking out into the hallway as he spied on the two fleeing the room.
Miranda gave him the smallest of nods. Then she gave Peter her best glare. “I was just walking through your hotel, Mister Ash, and I tripped. Are you really that suspicious of a woman on her own? Is there something to hide here?”
He stared back at her for a long, tense moment. Then without another word he sighed and walked away.
“Right,” Kyle said, pulling his head out of the room. “Now they’ve both climbed out the window. Shall we go after them?”
“I guess so,” Miranda said. “I need to talk to Jack, though. If Irving’s a cop that changes the whole game, doesn’t it? If Harvey was killed because he got Daphne’s husband arrested, Irving might be next. Jack might be in danger, too. Whoever is behind this might be willing to kill any police officer who gets involved.”
“Well, Jack’s downstairs. We’ll have to go that way to get out.” Kyle skimmed his hand through the wall as they walked. “Unless you just want to go out the window after them.”
“I can’t go through walls like you can, Kyle.”
“Good point. I guess there are benefits to being a ghost after all.”
He sounded so sad when he said it, that Miranda just wanted to put her arm around his shoulders and give him a big hug.
There was no way for her to do that, though. Like he said. He was just a ghost.
Chapter 5
When they got downstairs, they found the lobby was empty.
“Where did everybody go?” Kyle wondered out loud.
“I don’t know.” Miranda looked all around the room. “Maybe they’re out in the maze looking at Harvey’s body.”
“Which is right where his ghost is,” Kyle remarked. “Somewhere.”
“True. I wish all ghosts were as cooperative as you.”
“Gee, thanks.” His spirit faded a bit, as if his emotions were tangling his thoughts.
“Forget about it, Kyle. Let’s go back into the maze and see if Harvey’s ghost is ready to speak to us.”
They went outside, following the path to the hedge maze. The patrol cars were still in the driveway. The police must be in the center of the maze with Jack and Veronica. Veronica would know how to get there from the outside.
Of course, Miranda did not.
“Kyle, do you think you can float over the top of the hedges and guide me through? I want to get to Jack first and tell him what we found up in Harvey’s room. I’m sure the police are going there next but if Daphne took a bunch of the papers with her there might not be any evidence left there to find.”
“Do you think she’s the killer?” Kyle asked her.
“Yes, I do.” Miranda had been thinking about it ever since the scene upstairs. It was Daphne’s husband who got arrested, and it was Harvey that she blamed. She wanted her husband to be found innocent of whatever he’d been charged with and what better way to accomplish that, than to have the arresting officer be dead so he couldn’t prove his accusation?
Not to mention she’d run away when Peter Ash showed up yelling in the hallway. If she’d just wanted to expose Harvey as a crooked cop then why not turn the information over to Peter, unless she had something of her own to hide?
She had to get to Jack, and let him know.
It made Miranda feel better to have Kyle flying above her. Something about entering the enormous walking puzzle made her feel curiously vulnerable. Not just because there was a killer on the loose. It was more than that. Just a few steps in, she was already wondering, once again, if she would be able to make her way back out of this maze.
“Are you sure about this?” Kyle said from above, clearly thinking the same as her. “I mean, I can help you get out of here in a pinch, but what if the killer is still wandering about? We haven’t got much daylight left either. Turn right.”
“Kyle, just get me there, okay?” Miranda said, and felt her mouth go a little dry. “We just have to get to Jack. Then everything will be all right.”
When they had been in the maze for around five minutes, Miranda was truly lost. Kyle told her to take this turn or that, and she followed, but when she came to a dead end she looked back up at him in with her mouth hanging open, her hands spread wide in confusion.
“Uh, well,” Kyle hesitated. “It’s a straight line from where I’m flying.”
“Kyle, I can’t walk through these trees any more than I can walk through walls! They grew them right tight together to keep guests from cheating!”
“I know that now,” he said, with a shrug. “I just got confused, I guess. Go back the way you came, and then take a left. Uh, no, a right. Your second right.”
“This is why we have GPS units,” Miranda muttered to herself.
She looked around at the walls created by the carefully trimmed shrubs. The hedging was at least eight feet tall, far taller than anything Miranda could hope to
climb over. Not when the branches all bent under her weight and scratched at her skin. She couldn’t hope to move through it, either. Whoever had designed this maze had done an amazing job of it.
“Kyle, we have to get to Jack.”
“Well, you could always try screaming his name.”
“With the killer maybe somewhere nearby?”
“Oh, right,” Kyle said sheepishly. “I forgot.”
Miranda rolled her eyes and did the next best thing to calling Jack’s name. She took out her cellphone, and sent him a text.
Where are you?
After a few seconds that felt like eternity, he answered. Her phone gave the little bing it always did. Center of the maze. You?
Somewhere in the maze. Not sure where. Lost. Then after a moment she added, Kyle was helping.
“Gee,” Kyle said from over her shoulder. “Thanks.”
Bing.
Stay where you are, Jack said. Miranda could almost hear the sigh in his voice. I’ll find you.
Okay, I will. Jack, I think the killer was in Harvey’s room. Took some papers out. Need to see you quick.
The response took no time at all. Bing. Stay there. I’m coming.
Through the hedges in front of her, right past her from one side to the other, the fuzzy and hazy blue image of a man raced by. A man in cowboy boots.
The ghost of Harvey Mason, moving right through the hedges.
“Kyle, go after him—”
Harvey Mason’s ghost rushed back through in the opposite direction.
And then back again.
Kyle started after Harvey but his ghost came rushing back again. This time he came right up against Kyle and the two of them tumbled together to the ground. Everyone stopped and stared at each other.
Odd, Miranda thought, that the ghosts were so insubstantial to the living but so solid to each other.
“What’s going on?” Harvey said to them in a panicky voice. “Can you tell me what’s going on? I feel so odd. Like nothing makes sense.”
“Harvey,” Kyle grunted, untangling himself from the other ghost to stand up and comically wipe off the front of himself as if his tumble to the ground had gotten him all dusty. “My name is Kyle Hunter. This is my friend, Miranda Wylder. We can help. Do you remember anything about what happened to you?”
“What do you mean, what happened to me?” Harvey said, looking from Kyle to Miranda and back again. “Nothing happened to me. I’m still here. I’m right here.”
“You are,” Miranda said gently. “You’re here, but you aren’t alive anymore. I’m sorry, Harvey, but you’re dead.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Even as he said the words, he looked down at himself, appearing to really see his new form for the first time. His transparent form, his blue wispy aura. It was dawning on him that what Miranda said was true. “But… no. I can’t be dead. You can see me. Both of you can see me. How can you see me if I’m dead?”
“Well,” Kyle explained, “I can see you because I’m also a ghost, Harvey.”
“Oh.” Harvey’s lips fell open. Then he turned to Miranda. “Well that sucks. And you? Are you a ghost, too?”
“No. I’m still alive, but I’m a psychic/medium. Take a second and think, Harvey. You know what we’re saying is true. Now. Let us help you. What do you remember?”
Experimentally, Harvey tried to grab hold of Miranda’s arm. His hand filtered right through her. “Then it’s true. I’m dead.” With a breath, he ran his hands through his stiff, bristle-short hair. Wow. I don’t remember getting killed. I don’t remember…”
“It’s often the way. It’s okay. Just slow down, and think. It’s going to take some getting used to but the best thing to do is to help us work out who did this to you. I know it’s hard to remember, but you really must try. Just try to focus, Harvey. Just see if you can remember anything about the last hours of your life.”
Harvey’s face screwed up in concentration. “I think… yes. I do remember. At least, a little. Somebody got me from behind. I don’t even know who it was but they were there and the next thing I knew my face was under water. I struggled and struggled, but I just couldn’t get up.”
That tracked with what Jack had figured out, Miranda realized. “Do you have any idea who might have wanted to hurt you? You were having an affair with a married woman, from what we understand. Did that have something to do with it?”
“I don’t know. I guess I was in love with somebody. A blonde woman.” He drifted off a little, staring into space as he fought hard to regain his memories. “Veronica.”
“That’s right,” Kyle said. “What else?”
“We broke up.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “I don’t know. Maybe that had something to do with it. Is it always this way when someone dies? We can’t remember anything? Shouldn’t there be a bright light and a tunnel to Heaven or something?”
“Think you’re going to Heaven, do you?” Kyle asked with a lifted eyebrow.
“Well… I don’t know, I guess. I think I should, but… hey, maybe Veronica killed me. Or her husband?”
Miranda tried to ignore the man’s audacity at assuming he was going to Heaven even though he’d been sneaking around with a married woman. “Is there anything else you can think of?” she asked. After all, she was still betting on Daphne. Maybe Daphne wasn’t as tall or strong as Peter Ash, but if she was determined, and if she came up behind Harvey and hit him with something, that would compensate for her size.
“You know, I was involved in something.” Harvey stared at the skies above as if maybe Heaven was going to lower him a ladder any minute. “Something illegal. I had money I shouldn’t have had. I was wealthy, way wealthier than any cop. Oh, wow. I was a cop. A police officer, and… I was on the take. What the hell was I thinking?”
Something illegal. The things that Daphne had said about her husband came back to Miranda now. Being arrested for something he didn’t do. Something connected to the Mob. Then, she remembered Irving saying that Harvey was working for the Mob, too. It had to be connected. Harvey Mason, dirty cop.
Jack was going to be so disappointed.
Harvey seemed really upset by this personal revelation. “Wow. Just… wow. I’m really not getting into Heaven now.”
“I don’t know about the afterlife,” Miranda told him. “All I know is that you cannot move on until whatever it is that holds you here is resolved. My experience tells me that we need to find out who did this to you. Of all the things that hold you here, that would tend to be number one on the list.”
“So what about him?” he asked, with a nod toward Kyle.
“Hmm?” Kyle was confused. “What about me?”
“Well, you’re a ghost too. If what you’re saying is true, then you’re still here because you’ve got some issue still unresolved, just like me. So, I guess we’re in the same boat.”
“We haven’t decided why Kyle is still here,” Miranda said. “We’ll solve that mystery someday.”
“Someday,” Kyle echoed softly. “Sure.”
“In the meantime,” she said, with a little look Kyle’s way, “we need to concentrate on solving this mystery here. We need to prove who killed you, Harvey.”
“Say,” he said suddenly, “you’re Miranda Wylder. I remember your book. You know, The Mob’s Calling? I loved that book. Wait, it was more than that. The book was special. I can’t remember why it’s important, but I remember it.”
“Well, keep thinking, Harvey,” Kyle said firmly.
“In the meantime,” Miranda said, “we have to find Jack. He needs to know what we’ve learned so far.”
“Jack?” Harvey asked. “You don’t mean Jack Travis? Why, that old son of a gun. How’s he doing?”
Well, Miranda thought, he hasn’t gotten into bed with the Mob—or another man’s wife—so he’s doing okay. Out loud, she said, “He’ll be able to tell you himself. If he ever gets here…”
She was interrupted by the sound of a woman’s bloodcurdling scream whic
h seemed to cut off suddenly leaving only eerie silence in its wake.
Chapter 6
Miranda’s heart was beating so hard she foolishly wondered if the killer would be able to hear it. Knowing that she couldn’t stay where she was and just hope that she wouldn’t be noticed, she began to creep along the narrow corridors of the maze, peering around corners in the hope of finding herself alone.
“Kyle,” she whispered, “find Jack! Come back and tell me how to get to him!”
“Sure thing!” he shouted, loud enough to make Miranda cringe until she remembered she was the only one who could hear him.
Bing.
A text message came to her phone right when she needed to be quiet the most.
She took out her traitorous cell and hastily put it on silent, reading Jack’s message as she did.
I heard screaming, are you okay? Coming for you. Where are you?
If only she’d had her phone on silent when Jack had sent that text. At least whoever was out there wouldn’t know exactly where she was standing.
Miranda had been so sure the killer had been Daphne. Now she didn’t know what to think. Who had just screamed? Was it Daphne?
Miranda realized that she needed to move, she wasn’t safe just standing here. Could the killer have heard the text message go off, and was even now coming to find Miranda and silence her?
Seeing that the way was clear, Miranda ran as swiftly as she could along a long and straight section of the maze, turning sharply to her right at the end of it. She was shaking and sweating and her breathing was so ragged that it was clearly audible. She needed to slow down, to think, to plan.
But she needed to run away, too.
The sun was setting so much quicker than she had been expecting and the bright day seemed suddenly to become dusk. Every dozen feet or so, pale floodlights came on along the sides of the path. They did little more than illuminate where her feet stepped.
