Haunting at the Hotel

by Lauren Magaziner

  “Good afternoon to us,” Eliza grumbles.

  Mom smiles. “I think I’m going to start my day by talking to Sunny. Would you like to come with me, or do you have other ideas?”

  “I think,” I say, “we’re going to try to make an ID match on the glowing shoe situation.”

  “That’s right—why waste all four brains on the same suspect? We can fan out. But tell me, hijo, who will you interrogate first? Do you have any idea who owns the shoe that made the glowing prints?”

  * * *

  TO CONFRONT HARRIS WINTERS, CLICK HERE.

  TO CONFRONT FERNANDO DI CANNOLI, CLICK HERE.

  TO CONFRONT BYRON BOOKBINDER, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  “SO REESE IS really stressed out right now,” I say to Harris. “What’s on her plate? Can you give us more details about the main source of her stress?”

  “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to be investigating?”

  “So the ghost hauntings are really getting to her,” Eliza says.

  “It’s been a nightmare—every evening, a new terror. The guests are leaving, the business is tanking, Luther Covington is breathing down her neck to sell. But she has to add the ghost to the regular problems of running a hotel. Like Cricket, who has been a disorganized, jittery mess lately. Sunny . . .” He drops his voice very low, even though we’re the only ones in the hallway. “Who we can’t get rid of, much as I want to. I can’t believe she lost her master key last night—yet another thing Reese has to deal with. And then add the haunting issues and the hotel issues to the family drama! A hat trick of stressors.”

  “Family drama?” Eliza asks.

  “January is starting her tween angst.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” I say.

  “She’s been fighting with her mom a lot lately. Screaming matches between the two of them.”

  “Why?” Eliza asks.

  “Because she doesn’t want to be homeschooled anymore. It’s so much easier for us, though, to have her here. Especially since Reese is grooming her to take over the family business one day. But I suspect January is lonely. I think she wants friends her own age. If you see her around, maybe you three could be her friends.”

  Of course Frank launches right into song. “Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, and the other’s gold.” He pauses. “I can never remember which one’s silver and which one’s gold. What’s better—old friends or new friends?”

  “They’re both important,” I say.

  “Hmm,” Frank thinks. “Then the song should say: one is gold, and the other’s also gold.”

  “Yes, right, well, that’s an important discussion for later,” I say, with a pointed glare at Frank.

  “I’m sorry, but I really do have to go now,” Harris says. “Reese has me doing a lot of grunt work today. But thanks for coming to talk to me. With all this personal attention, I’m really starting to feel confident about Las Pistas.”

  “I’m so glad to hear that. We’re very grateful that Mrs. Winters decided to hire us.”

  “No, Reese didn’t hire you. I did. She definitely didn’t want to hire you.”

  That stings, but I can’t pretend like Mom doesn’t have some stiff detective competition. “Oh. Well, I’m glad you were able to convince her to go with Las Pistas over our competitors.”

  Harris chuckles, a deep, low laugh. “It wasn’t that. She said she didn’t want anyone poking into her business. Didn’t want any snoops here. She was livid when I hired you. But I don’t know what she was so nervous about. I mean, we want these hauntings to stop, and we have nothing to hide, right?”

  Eliza and I exchange a look. But Harris doesn’t notice. He’s in a better mood than I’ve ever seen him. Smiling so wide that his eyes crinkle, he marches down the hall, leaving us alone with antlers and wood walls and the Dead Room’s red door, looking as intimidating as ever. I swear I see a shadow move under the door . . . but then it stops.

  “Well, he was certainly in a better mood,” Eliza says, paying no attention to the Dead Room door. “A complete one-eighty change from yesterday.”

  “Even bigger than that!” Frank says. “A three-sixty change!”

  “Three-sixty is a complete circle,” Eliza explains. “That would put Harris right back where he started.”

  “EXACTLY.”

  “So,” I say. “What is Reese hiding?”

  The Dead Room door rattles. Its hinges squeak and shudder.

  And then the door stops.

  Eliza and I are grabbing each other’s hands tight.

  The Dead Room has a definite pulse. I can feel it. Like its own sinister heartbeat, coming from behind the door. But there’s one thing I don’t understand: it’s daytime. I thought that ghosts were only active at night.

  Slowly, carefully, with my eyes still rooted to the door, I pull Byron’s EMF reader out of Eliza’s backpack. I turn it on, and the light blinks a few times. Green . . . and then the needle spikes, and the light glows red.

  Paranormal activity. I want to run away, but I am glued to the spot.

  “YAY, A GHOST!” Frank cries, and he runs toward the Dead Room.

  Eliza and I break from our frozen state and chase after him. We stop in front of the door. I feel like I’m in a horror movie—the character who’s too curious. The doorknob twists, and the door shakes again.

  “There’s someone locked in there!” Eliza says. The door stops moving.

  “Yeah,” I say. “A ghost. We have to leave—now.” The door begins to tremble violently again.

  “Can you hear us?” Eliza whispers. “Hello? Hello!”

  There is silence. A shadow moves in the crack under the door, and the doorknob turns. But if something is howling or speaking, we can’t hear it through the thick door.

  Eliza sinks to her knees. “If you can hear us,” she says to the crack under the door, “turn the doorknob once.”

  The doorknob slowly rotates.

  “Cool!” Frank says. “A magic trick.”

  “It’s not magic,” I whisper. The EMF reader is going wild, and I try to rub out the goose bumps on my arm. “It’s supernatural activity.”

  “Super unnatural,” Frank says.

  Eliza ignores us. “Turn the knob once for yes, and twice for no. Are you a ghost?”

  Turn. Turn.

  “Are you trapped in there?”

  Turn.

  “Do you know a way out?”

  Turn.

  “Where?” I ask.

  Nothing.

  “It’s got to be a yes or no question, Carlos.”

  “Oh . . . right.”

  “Are you Ms. S?” Eliza says, and my heart nearly stops as I stare urgently at the doorknob.

  Turn.

  “Mom!” I shout, knocking on the door. I start turning the knob and pulling at the door myself, but it’s totally useless—it’s dead-bolted shut, and we don’t have a key. “Mom! Mom! Is that really you?! How do we get to you?”

  “Yes or no question, Carlos.”

  I bang the door in frustration.

  Suddenly the doorknob starts twisting again.

  Turn. Turn. Turn. Turn. Turn. Turn. Turn. Turn. Turn. Turn. Turn.

  Stop.

  “Eleven,” Eliza says, writing the number down in her notebook. “That was eleven turns.”

  “And here’s three!” Frank says, doing a few pirouettes on the rug.

  “This is going to be tedious and time-consuming,” she says seriously, “but there’s no other way to communicate.”

  It takes forever to record the number of spins and stops. But when the doorknob stops for good, we’re left with this series of numbers:

  11-5-25-9-19-8-9-4-4-5-14-2-5-8-9-14-4-20-8-5-4-5-5-18-8-5-1-4-2-21-20-1-14-20-12-5-18-19-8-1-22-5-1-16-1-20-20-5-18-14-7-15-15-21-20-19-9-4-5-6-15-18-20-8-5-1-14-19-23-5-18

  “If we can crack it, we can help your mom,” Eliza says. “I bet this code will tell us where to go, or what to do to get her unstuck.”

/>   “Or it will send us to a TRAP!” Frank shouts. “How do we know that’s not a ghost in disguise? A lying ghost!”

  “Is not!” Eliza says.

  “Is too!”

  “Is not!”

  “Too, too, too!”

  As they argue, I take the notebook from Eliza and start solving.

  * * *

  TO GO OUTSIDE, CLICK HERE.

  TO GO TO THE ATTIC, CLICK HERE.

  TO ASK ELIZA FOR A HINT, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  FRANK PULLS AWAY from January, screaming in pain. She ripped out whole clumps of his hair.

  “This way!” I grab Frank’s hand. We run to the edge of the roof. With the snow piled up so high, we only have a short way to fall, but this is not safe.

  Neither are the culprits behind us who want to turn us into ghosts.

  “Ready?” I say to Frank. “One . . . two . . .”

  “THREE!” Frank cries, yanking me off the building.

  For a split second, I think we’ve made a terrible mistake. My stomach jumps into my throat, and we are in free fall . . .

  “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” we scream.

  Then we hit the soft and cushiony snow, and we slide right down the snowbank.

  I look up. Are they going to follow us? Or was that stunt just stupid enough that they wouldn’t dare attempt it?

  They’re leaning over the edge. Sunny is shaking her head, and I can hear January say, “Not a chance!”

  Did we do it? Are we safe?

  No . . . because Mom and Eliza are still who knows where in the house, and the culprits will just go after them next.

  “Carlos—run?” Frank reminds me.

  Oh, right. I dash into the house. We have to stop them before they can get to Mom and Eliza. In the lobby, Cricket is sleeping at the concierge desk, and that’s where I have a bit of inspiration.

  “Cricket!” I shout.

  “CHIRP CHIRP!” Frank says.

  She rubs her eyes and yawns.

  “No time for that! We need you to come to the roof. Mom! Eliza! Reese! Harris! Byron! Fernando! Help, help, help!”

  Reese and Harris emerge from their rooms, where they were clearly getting ready for bed. I pull them toward the attic ladder, which is currently folded up.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” Reese says, annoyed.

  “Just wait,” I say. “In a minute, this ladder is going to come down, and our ghosts will be walking right into us.”

  It doesn’t even take a minute. The ladder starts rolling down from the attic, and two people come scurrying down.

  “I can’t believe you let them get away!” Sunny snaps.

  “Well, I was not going to jump off the roof after them!” January retorts. “It’s not worth breaking my neck!”

  They reach the bottom, turn around, and realize they’re face-to-face with Reese, Harris, Cricket, Frank, and me.

  “Uh-oh,” January whispers.

  “January? Sunny?” Reese says, falling to her knees. She bursts into tears.

  January looks like she wants to go comfort her mom . . . but then thinks better of it. Sunny’s face looks as hard as stone.

  “What now?” January asks her aunt.

  But it’s Frank who bellows, “THE GIG IS UP!”

  “This is a Class B felony,” Harris says, rubbing Reese’s back as she continues to sob. “I’ve been doing research. Criminal sabotage.”

  “Are you pressing charges?” Sunny says quietly.

  Harris frowns. “It’s up to my wife.”

  “Thank you, detectives,” Reese says. “If there’s anything I can do for you . . .”

  “We do have one request. But not for you . . . for them.” I turn to Sunny and January. “Tell us where to find the rest of our team. Now.”

  January ended up spilling the beans. Apparently Mom and Eliza were trapped in the walls of the hotel, and we found them easily once we knew where to look. When the blizzard cleared, Reese did have the police take Sunny away for criminal sabotage. January, it seemed, was on the verge of a major punishment. And Reese handed us a big fat check.

  And then Mom, Eliza, Frank, and I drove home, and everything returned to normal. We’re back where it’s sunny and warm. Well, not warm exactly, but warmer than Sugarcrest Mountain (a low bar, I know). Eliza, Frank, and I had school, Mom had more cases, and there was always the promise of a future mystery for us as long as it fell over one of our school breaks.

  “The only thing that stinks about taking faraway cases is that we don’t get a debriefing with the clients,” I complain to Mom two months after the case, as we’re sitting at the kitchen table. I’m doing homework and she’s working on a thievery case with her business partner, Cole. “I wish we could hear from Reese and Harris.”

  “That’s funny!”

  “What do you mean?”

  She looks up from her casework. “Oh, well, you’re just sitting here, passively waiting for news. I figured a detective like you would have, you know, done some detecting by now.”

  I grin and stand up. “I’m going to Eliza’s—be back soon!”

  “Good luck, hijo,” she says, waving goodbye.

  I run a few blocks to Eliza’s house, where I know her parents have a computer. When I ring the doorbell, Eliza answers.

  “Carlos? What are you doing here?”

  “I need your parents’ computer!” I say, pushing into her house.

  Eliza and I sit in her parents’ kitchen with the computer in front of us. Okay, so where would I go first for information on our case? First I google the Sugarcrest Park Lodge.

  The two-star rating they had during the weeks of ghost hauntings has gone back up to three stars. Still not as good as their original four-star rating, but I’m sure it will get better soon.

  And the reviews are glowing with praise about the hospitality of Reese and her husband, Harris. People loved the staff changes—the new housekeeper and the new concierge are gems. There was even a new chef who specialized in chicken nuggets.

  Seemed like a lot of good changes were happening there. Guests mentioned that January played piano for them in the library and was a conscientious host as well. I don’t know if she’s putting on a fake act or not, but I’d like to think she’s changed for the better.

  Eliza clicks Reese’s name, and Reese’s most recent reviews pop up. And I gasp when I see the third one down.

  LAS PISTAS DETECTIVE AGENCY

  Review by Reese Winters

  They saved my hotel, my livelihood, and quite possibly my life. Best agency around. Make sure to request their three little detectives. Nothing can get in their way.

  I guess she was pleased with the outcome after all. “Short but sweet,” I say.

  “Just like us!” Eliza adds.

  Frank, who’s standing in the kitchen doorway, groans. “UGH, TOO MUSHY!”

  Eliza turns around. “Frankie, don’t scream in the house!”

  He perks up. “Scream? Do you think the ice-cream truck is nearby?”

  Do I have to break the bad news to him? “Frank, it’s February. There’s no ice-cream truck.”

  “You scream, I scream, we all scream for ICE CREAM!” And he runs away giggling.

  He can scream all he wants, but I think my screaming days are behind me. I faced fears and came through stronger. Now, like Reese said, nothing can get in my way.

  CASE CLOSED.

  THESE CLOTHS GIVE us so much material to work with, and I’m going to trap the ghost in a web of its own making.

  “Do you trust me, Mom?”

  “Always.”

  She grabs the hand I’m holding out to her, and together we weave through the hanging cloths, keeping an eye on the shadowy figure that is definitely following us now. I don’t know what it has planned, but it can’t be good.

  The hologram ghost kids are still screaming these shiver-inducing shrieks, but I can’t listen. I have to get to the middle of the room.

  I grab the edge of a cloth, and Mom g
rabs another.

  The shadowy figure pauses. I think it’s waiting for an opening to attack us.

  So I give it one. I turn my back on it, and it lunges.

  Mom and I dive out of the way and run in a circle around it. We pull tight as the ghost thrashes and flails, trying to get out of our tangled net.

  “Let me out of here!” it snarls. A female voice. “Let me go!”

  I grab a few more cloths and tie them around the ghost for good measure. Then I pull back the figure’s hoodie, and the glow of the blue ghost kids reveals a woman with black hair tucked under her ears and a frowny, downturned mouth.

  “Sunny? You’re the ghost?”

  She scowls.

  “So . . . you didn’t lose your master key after all! That’s how you were able to plant a threat in our room!”

  “And you’re working with someone else,” Mom says. “Who?”

  She doesn’t answer.

  “We found a message that says ‘team kin,’” I say. “You’re working with a relative. But who are you related to? Reese?”

  Silence.

  “You might as well talk, Sunny,” Mom says. “You’re tied up. We’ve called for backup. So we’ll try my son’s question again. Are you related to Reese?”

  “My sister,” she grunts.

  “So . . .” My head is spinning. “You and Reese were haunting the hotel together?”

  Sunny snorts. “You think Reese would try to scare herself away?”

  “So it’s January, then,” I say. “Byron said he overheard you two fighting.”

  Sunny gets very quiet.

  “But why, Sunny?”

  “Because the hotel was supposed to be mine. But Reese stole it from me. Then she made me work in housekeeping, when we both knew I was supposed to be the boss.”

  “You could have left,” Mom says. “You didn’t have to work here.”

  “This is my home!” Sunny cries. “This place should be my legacy. Reese made our parents change their will before they died—I don’t know what she told them, but they listened. They took away my birthright. I want it back.”