The Naughty Nine: Where Danger and Passion Collide

by Nina Bruhns

  “Leave my boyfriend alone,” Giselle piped in. Oh-no. What had she said?

  “Yeah, leave her boyfriend alone,” Ry said with a smile.

  Mr. Customer shook his head and turned back to his meal. “Mister, you’re just as bad as she is,” he griped under his breath.

  Ry stood up and threw some bills on the table. “Yeah, we were made for each other. My rooster and her kitty cat. Come on, Giselle,” he said it dryly, but he smiled.

  He grinned actually. Lots of teeth in evidence. What had she said?

  It was Sunday at 5:45 p.m. She had a ghost, at least the prospect of one. On the downside, she’d lost control of the situation with Ry. She’d had the upper hand when she’d arrived at the restaurant, but then she’d allowed herself to let an admission of feeling slip out.

  She’d miscalculated the pendulum swing. Now he was too happy. Dammit. Why couldn’t she learn to keep her big mouth shut? Just when she’d thought things were going her way she was slapped down by fate again. This time instead of a trunk, fate had chosen an interfering tourist.

  A Girl, a Guy and a Ghost: Chapter Thirteen

  Giselle returned to the antique shop to set up her surveillance equipment, dragging a reluctant Ry. One of the owners of the shop explained that they suspected a piece of furniture in the store was active with spirits. The piece in question, a mahogany gothic-style sideboard, had been carved, not with the typical images of gargoyles and griffins, but with the faces of people. The sideboard had apparently been owned in the early nineteen hundreds by a local entrepreneur named Arthur Worthington. Worthington’s journal had been found in one of the sideboard’s drawers.

  The owner of the shop handed it to Ry, who opened the leather-bound book and began to read an excerpt aloud.

  “Except for the occasional clinking of silverware against china, there was absolute silence in the dining room that night. There was not even polite conversation between Mildred and myself. We’d been married for over thirty years and I’d concluded after our first anniversary that my wife’s conversation was boring, at best and stupid, at worst. I had long ago requested that she refrain from speaking to me more than necessary. I particularly abhorred attempts to converse during meals.”

  “Last night, however, Mildred was obsessed with the sideboard in the dining room. I couldn’t ignore the way she kept looking at it. Despite my best intentions I myself glanced at it. The wooden faces gazed forward stoically. I saw nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “Mildred started fidgeting like she was preparing to speak to me. I tried to quell her words before she got started with a stern frown. But apparently she felt she had to speak. She cleared her throat and squeaked meekly, ‘Arthur.'”

  “I did not respond. But this did not deter her. She spoke louder.”

  “‘Arthur. I’m sorry but I have to talk to you.'”

  “I threw down my knife and fork with a clatter. ‘What is so important?’ I demanded.”

  “Ordinarily, Mildred would have been intimidated into silence by my tone of voice. However, on this occasion she seemed to force herself to continue. ‘It’s about the sideboard.'”

  “The expression on my face must have told her I thought I was about to hear something supremely idiotic. But still she kept on. Mildred almost whispered, ‘The faces have been talking to me.'”

  “I recall gaping at her. ‘What?’ I asked.”

  “‘The faces, they move when no one else but me is looking. And in the last few days they have begun speaking to me.'”

  “I snorted disgustedly. I stood and threw my napkin onto the plate. ‘I have never heard anything so ridiculous. And that is saying something given the ridiculous things I have heard come out of your mouth in the past,’ I bellowed. ‘I suggest you discuss this fantasy with that psychiatrist I pay so much to on your behalf.’ I paused and burped. ‘Congratulations. You have again managed to make my meal indigestible.'”

  “I stalked out of the room. Just outside the dining room door, I paused. I heard the sound of breaking glass and then I thought I heard someone say ‘We told you no one would believe you’ But I dismissed the notion and continued away.”

  “I never saw Mildred again after that meal. She has disappeared. Is it my imagination or does the face of the center drawer of the sideboard now resemble my lost wife? End of diary entry July 20th, 1910.”

  Ry finished reading aloud. There was silence as they looked at the sideboard in the midst of the shop.

  “Dude,” Giselle said to Ry. “That story is seriously creepy.”

  “Creepy is right,” he said. “Especially since it’s the last entry.” He dropped the journal on to the top of the piece. “I wonder if anyone ever saw Worthington again.”

  Was it a real diary entry or a fictional ghost story? The owners didn’t know the answer but reported that there had been some mysterious happenings in their shop surrounding the sideboard. The alarm company had detected movement and the sound of breaking glass, in its vicinity, when no person was on the store premises.

  Giselle snapped the store interior with the new digital camera she’d purchased to replace the smashed Polaroid. She’d charged the magazine’s credit card for the camera of course. She would retain the receipt in case Willie demanded the camera be returned. Giselle snapped another shot. She could review the photographs later to see if any anomalies appeared to indicate a ghostly presence.

  Meanwhile, Ry positioned the rented video camera on its tripod to take in the largest area of the store with the sideboard at its center. He looked through the viewfinder, and then gave Giselle a thumbs-up signal. Giselle pressed the record button. The tape would last for twelve hours.

  Tomorrow morning—yes—there would be evidence of a ghost. Or not. But—yes—Giselle would have her ghost. Or not. But she voted yes.

  There was power in positive thinking, right? Isn’t that what that self-help guru said? And how could he and his three million followers be wrong? Or was it three thousand. Maybe it was just three followers. Crap. There probably wasn’t anything to that positive thinking theory. Oh, well, this was the best prospect of a ghost she’d had since arriving. So she was going with it.

  Giselle and Ry exited the shop and watched as the owner locked up for the night. They shook hands and arranged to return in the morning to retrieve the equipment and the ghostly evidence tape.

  “I need to go back to my hotel and get ready for my date with Lester,” Giselle said as they climbed into Ry’s Jeep.

  Ry didn’t look pleased. He wasn’t onboard with the whole interview with the Vampire Lester concept. “All right,” he said. “I’ll swing over to the Great Eastern.”

  Dammit. Now she’d have to tell him about the hotel eviction thing. “Uh, Ry, I had a little trouble at the Great Eastern.”

  “Ahhhh.”

  * * *

  “This motel is awful,” Ry said as he parked his Jeep in front of her room.

  “It’s not that bad,” Giselle defended.

  “Come on. Admit it. It’s ghastly.”

  Giselle pursed her lips. Admit he was right? Never. She’d chosen this dump and it was fine. Really. Okay, not really. Nevertheless, she didn’t want to admit it.

  “I need to go to the front desk before I go to my room.” She got out of the car.

  Ry followed, shaking his head. “What do you need there?”

  “My room has a bit of a temperature issue. I want to see if it was taken care of.”

  She opened the door marked Lobby. Quite a generous term for the itty-bitty area that barely allowed for one person, let alone two, to stand at the front desk.

  The clerk, who looked like a fifteen-year-old, pimply-faced boy, didn’t appear to be at the front desk. Instead, he stood glued to the screen of the business center computer. At least she hoped it was glue holding him there and not some other substance.

  Giselle saw the screen of the computer before she could avoid it. It displayed a webpage titled Wild Catholic School Girls. Yuck. She couldn�
�t look at Ry. She just tried to avoid seeing the cavorting images on the monitor as she rang the bell on the desk.

  The clerk didn’t move. “Huh?” He grunted it over his shoulder.

  “I’m in room 101 and I, um—”

  The clerk clicked the mouse and a girl in knee socks and plaid skirt struck a bending pose. My goodness she was limber…and her vagina was completely devoid of hair.

  “I called earlier about the temperature of the room being stuck at fifty degrees. Was that fixed?”

  “I doubt it since we don’t got no repair guy and I ain’t had no chance to fix it.” He still didn’t turn from the computer screen.

  Giselle tried to brazen it out for Ry’s benefit, not wanting to admit he was right about the place. “Well, that’s okay. But could I get an extra blanket?”

  “No,” Pimply Face said flatly.

  “No?”

  Pimply Face sighed heavily and swiveled in the chair to face them. “No, we got no more blankets.”

  Giselle forgot about Ry. “You’re telling me that you operate a motel here and you don’t have any extra blankets? When do you launder the ones on the beds?”

  Pimply Face didn’t answer for a moment. He squinted as if he were searching his brain for something. “Launder?” he asked finally.

  For a moment she was dumbstruck. Then she glanced at Ry. His eyes had locked on the computer screen. She elbowed him in the stomach.

  “Ooof. What?”

  At her deliberate gaze from him to the computer screen and back again, one eyebrow arched, he had the grace to blush.

  “I’m not looking at that! Well, obviously I am looking at it, but only because it’s like a train wreck. This place is horrible. I can’t let you stay here.”

  Giselle’s heart warmed. Ry really was sweet.

  “You can’t possibly stay in a place like this alone.”

  Ry was a gallant white knight in shining armor, riding in to save her from the slimy motel dragon.

  “You can’t possibly be trusted in a place like this,” he continued.

  Trusted? His shining armor became a bit tarnished.

  “There are too many possible calamities that are just waiting to happen to you in a place like this.”

  Make that completely rusted-out armor. As if this was her fault.

  “This guy, for example, has the key to your room.”

  Now that argument packed a lot of persuasion.

  “You’re going to stay with me at my house.”

  Oh, her gallant white knight in action. Ry pulled her into his arms as if he had just snatched her from the edge of a cliff. He hugged her close for a few seconds and then pushed her to arm’s length.

  He cradled her shoulders gently, smoothed the hair back behind each ear and caressed a cheek with his fingertips as he gazed into her eyes. “You can sleep on my sofa.”

  Sofa?

  She pondered the sofa comment while Ry pulled the door of the motel open.

  “Come on, Giselle,” he said as he reached for her and pushed her in front of him through the opening.

  “She’s checking out of room 101,” he called back. “We’ll get her things and leave the key in the room.”

  “Yeah. Whatever,” Giselle heard Pimply Face say as the motel door drifted shut.

  Sofa? Wanton Vixen Giselle, who had somehow managed to escape lockup, said. He wants you to sleep on a friggin’ sofa? What kind of rat offers you his sofa after you’ve had sex with him? It’s insulting.

  Rational Angel Giselle replied, The sofa is what a gentleman would offer and what a lady would expect.

  Lady? I don’t see no lady around here. Wanton Vixen chortled.

  Shut up, Giselle told her silently. She’d go with Rational Angel Giselle on this one. The sofa was fine. Of course it was fine. Just fine. Well, it was! Yeah. Sure. And wasn’t that a dog flying over her head through the evening, Savannah sky?

  * * *

  Giselle fumed all the way back to the motel room.

  Sofa indeed!

  She seethed as she put the old-fashioned key in the lock. No newfangled cardkey system for this classic establishment.

  Sofa. She’d give him a sofa. Right up his ass.

  Giselle twisted the key and it wouldn’t turn.

  “Dammit,” she grumbled, gripping the handle with one hand and ferociously wrenching the key with the other.

  Giselle stamped a foot. She wanted to kick the door down. No. Correction. She wanted to kick Ry down. Him and his sofa.

  “Careful, you’ll break it off in the lock,” Ry said from where he hovered over her shoulder.

  “I know what I’d like to break off,” Giselle muttered.

  “What did you say?”

  She felt his breath on her neck and stopped what she was doing. “Back off, buddy,” she said, slamming her hip into him.

  Ry stepped away throwing his hands up. “Sor—ry. Just trying to help.”

  “Yeah, right. You’re oh, so helpful.”

  His eyes widened at her tone and probably the flames shooting out her eye sockets. “What did I do?” he asked.

  “Oh, nothing. You’re perfect,” Giselle said with extreme sarcasm before trying the lock again. Taking a calming breath, she jiggled the key in the lock as she turned the knob. The tumblers moved and the lock sprang free. She twisted the knob and pushed the door open, giving Ry a triumphant smile.

  Preceding him inside, Giselle found that the room had an even frostier tinge. She could almost see her breath.

  “This is worse than I thought it would be,” Ry remarked as he glanced around the room. His gaze settled on the hideous orange and brown quilted bedspread that matched the brown shag carpeting.

  Giselle opened the top of the suitcase resting on the stand in the corner and took out a toiletry bag.

  “Yeah, thank goodness you’re going to let me use your sofa,” she said with deliberate saccharine sweetness as she walked toward the bathroom.

  “You’re welcome to use it for as long as you want,” Ry said solemnly.

  Before she lost it, Giselle stomped the remaining four steps and closed the bathroom door behind her, careful to prevent it from slamming. It wouldn’t do to show him how his sofa comments were affecting her.

  The bathroom was tiny. A small basin set in a dilapidated cabinet stood against one wall with a, three-square foot, unframed mirror above it. The dingy illumination came from one light in a beige, can-style fixture mounted above the mirror. The toilet was on the opposite wall, barely two steps away, next to the bathtub-shower on the back wall. The square tiles utilized for the flooring, and that ran three-quarters of the way up the wall of the shower, had at one time been white but now had a grimy grayish tinge.

  “That aggravating creep!” Giselle walked to the sink and pulled her toothbrush out of the cup near the tap where she’d propped it earlier. She threw it into the bag. The mouthwash was next. Then she started gathering up her face cream and makeup.

  “Sofa,” she grumbled. Was she suddenly so unattractive? The mirror above the basin revealed a reflection of a beautiful, sexy woman. Okay, maybe not beautiful, but she was pretty. Well, maybe if not pretty, she was passable. Crap, she was a mess.

  She ran the brush through her curls before tossing it in the bag. Her hair bounced with new vibrancy. Maybe she should refresh her makeup. Giselle reached into the bag to take out the mascara wand from where she’d just tossed it, when she heard something stir in the room.

  Giselle froze. The sound of something sliding against the tile floor came from the area of the toilet behind her. Omigod, what was that? Barely breathing, Giselle caught a glimpse of a movement in the mirror.

  A sideways glance in the mirror brought the area into view.

  Couldn’t be. She blinked. Then blinked again. It was still there. A snake. A slimy, creepy snake lay coiled on the grimy floor between the toilet and the bathtub. A snake that was probably less than two feet away from her legs.

  Giselle had no familiarity wit
h snakes and she didn’t know which were venomous and which weren’t. This one had a tan-coloring with dark brown hourglass-shaped markings.

  Sheer terror strangled her and she gripped the toiletry bag so tight her knuckles whitened. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. She could barely even breathe.

  To Giselle’s horror, the snake lifted its head, the beady black eyes fixed on her. The nasty creature seemed to thicken and puff as it took on an aggressive stance. Its tail came up and rattled. Giselle smelled a foul, musky odor. Was the snake about to strike?

  Frozen. Paralyzed. Her jaw locked. Ry. Help me! Giselle screamed in her head. Snake. Snake. Snake. Snake.

  “Giselle?” Ry rapped lightly and called to her from the other side of the door.

  The noise seemed to incense the snake. It stretched its neck and the rattling quickened.

  She was going to die in this shabby, without-chic, motel.

  Giselle concentrated on transmitting a psychic message to Ry. For the love of Pete don’t come barreling in here. Danger. Snake.

  The knob turned bit by bit and then the door crept open a crack.

  Ry peeked in. “Where is it?” he asked in a whisper.

  Giselle’s eyes shifted to the corner and Ry followed her gaze to the snake. His face went stiff. Oh, no, even Ry was scared.

  The fright in her eyes must have transmitted itself to him. His gaze met hers and he smiled reassuringly. He mouthed something. She read his lips. Stay calm.

  Yeah, easy for him to say.

  The rattling behind her got louder.

  The door widened slowly. The snake began to sway back and forth.

  When the door was completely open, Ry stood still in the gap, holding the bedspread in one hand. He slowly reached out and grasped Giselle’s arm. Erupting into action, in one motion he launched the heavy spread over the top of the snake and yanked Giselle out of the bathroom. He pulled the door shut so quickly, Giselle had no chance to see what happened to the snake. Tucked in Ry’s arms, she only knew that she was safely on one side of the door and the viper was on the other.