Haunting at the Hotel

by Lauren Magaziner

  So Sunny was still haunted by the past. It followed her around as much as any ghost. And even though I was technically wrong in my paranormal argument with Eliza . . . in a way, I feel partially right.

  The basement door bursts open. “Carlos!” Eliza shouts, climbing into the basement with lanterns. Following behind her are Frank, Reese, Harris, January, and Byron, who is clearly the fifth wheel of the group.

  “Astonishing!” Byron marvels. “The exquisite detail in every phantom!”

  “These are just holograms,” Eliza says. “You can’t put them in your nonfiction haunting book because they’re fake.”

  “I would denote that these spectral discoveries are spurious, but—no, no, I see from the seething look on your face that this will not suffice.”

  “What is Byron doing here?” I ask.

  “He was with Reese,” Eliza grumbles. “He begged to come, and she wouldn’t say no to the lodge’s only guest.”

  “Where are the police?”

  “It’s a blizzard, remember? They can’t get up here for a while.”

  “I didn’t even know this place was down here,” Reese whispers. “How did you find this?”

  “Through the Dead Room,” Eliza explains.

  Harris chokes. “You were in that thing?”

  “We just said that, Mr. Beard Chin,” Frank says. “Clean your ears!”

  “That’s not very polite, Frank,” Mom says.

  Frank blows a raspberry.

  “We’ll give you the whole story later. But for now,” I say to Reese, gesturing toward the human we have wrapped in the cloths, “here is your ghost.”

  “Sunny?” Reese says. “But it can’t be. . . .”

  Harris gasps. “Of course it can! It makes perfect sense! Sunny knows all your deepest fears—she understands exactly how to haunt you. She knows the hotel inside and out. She has a master key!”

  “But who is Sunny working with?” Eliza asks. “She has a partner.”

  Sunny smiles at her niece. “Want to tell them, or should I?”

  Reese and Harris both swivel toward their daughter, and Byron Bookbinder squeals, “Oh ho! Plot twist!”

  There’s a cold silence. “What is she talking about, sweetheart?” Reese says.

  “I don’t know!”

  Sunny smirks. “Yes, you do, partner.”

  “You liar! You liar! She’s a liar!” January says desperately.

  “Fess up! We were in this together!”

  “It was her idea!” January shrieks, pointing at Sunny. “She tricked me into it! It wasn’t my fault, Mom—you have to believe me!”

  “January makes sound mixes, right?” I say. “She’s the one putting together all the audio and visual effects. She got these cloths for the holograms, which she animated herself. That six-foot-tall ghost that chased me and Frank down the slide—that was a hologram you made, right?”

  “Holograms need some sort of screen or cloth to work,” Eliza says. “Which explains the basement. And we found costumes in their lair, which meant they were alternating between holograms and dressing up to keep everyone on their toes.”

  “Reese is trying to groom you to become the next owner of the hotel,” I say, “but you don’t want to take over the hotel, do you, January?”

  “They’re lying! It wasn’t me!” January insists.

  “Oh, give it up!” Sunny snaps.

  Reese frowns as she watches her sister and her daughter bicker. And all I can think is how betrayed Reese must feel, that her two closest blood relatives would turn on her like that.

  Reese and Harris discuss what sort of punishment to inflict on Reese’s sister (possibilities include calling the police, banishing her from the property, getting a restraining order), and their daughter (possibilities include grounding her, making her write apologies and morality essays, sending her to a camp for wayward youth next summer).

  But while they’re talking, Mom puts her arm on my shoulder. “You did good,” she says quietly, under the sound of the Winters family’s argument. “No . . . you did great.”

  “This case was the scariest thing I’ve ever done,” I say. “I just wanted to prove myself to you so badly, and instead I was screaming my lungs out half the time.”

  Mom smiles. “Screaming or not, you did prove yourself. You know what that means, right?”

  I shake my head.

  She swoops to my level and plants a kiss on my forehead before saying, “It means I better make sure you stay at Las Pistas Detective Agency, because if you ever left, your competing business would wipe us out.”

  It must be a scary thought for her—one that may haunt her more than any ghost—but she should know that I’m always going to be on Team Las Pistas. Now and forevermore.

  CASE CLOSED.

  THE KEYS TO the snowmobile are in a pocket under the seat. I rev up the engine and hop on.

  “YAY!” Frank cries, scooting behind me.

  Eliza has a disapproving frown, but she slips behind Frank. Frank always has to be sandwiched between two responsible people, as a general rule.

  “You had better be careful!” Eliza shouts.

  I slam my foot on the gas, and we speed after Sunny, following the footprints. Visibility isn’t great—there are a few times I nearly drive into a tree. The storm makes it impossible to see two feet in front of me, let alone ten.

  I put Eliza and Frank on footprint duty, so I can concentrate on driving. Soon I hear Frank singing, “Left. Left. Left right left!” And Eliza’s more precise, “Head to two o’clock. Now back toward eleven o’clock . . .”

  “There!” Eliza shouts suddenly, and I slam on the brakes. But I lose control of the snowmobile. It spins in the snow.

  “AHHHHHHHHHH!” Eliza, Frank, and I scream as the snowmobile narrowly misses Sunny and skids into a pile of fresh powder. Where it finally stops.

  Sunny starts to run, but with the sleet and the wind in front of her, we catch her almost instantly and tackle her into the snow.

  “Get! Off!”

  It takes all three of us to keep Sunny from running. And by the time we’ve restrained her—by tying her hands with my scarf and her legs with Eliza’s—we’ve gotten snow inside our coats somehow, and freezing slush starts sliding uncomfortably down our backs.

  We try to pull Sunny to the hotel, which I can see in the distance through the trees and a little ways up the mountain. But it is a difficult task, as she keeps trying to wriggle away. All the while, my gloveless, mittenless hands have this sharp pain.

  “I wish I had earmuffs,” Eliza shouts over the wind. “My ears are on fire.”

  “My fingers,” I say.

  “My little piggies!” Frank adds. When we look at him blankly, he explains, “Toes.”

  “Come on, Sunny!” I shout, tugging her toward the lodge. “Faster!”

  It takes forever. When we finally get there, I can’t feel my hands at all. I’m afraid to look at them—afraid to see how red they’ll be. But to my surprise, they’re totally white. And hard. I can’t knock on the door like this. I use my elbow to ring the doorbell.

  “Get Reese,” I pant to Cricket as Eliza, Frank, and I collapse in the warm lodge. My numb hands start to throb—along with my ears and tip of my nose.

  “We have one ghost,” Eliza says, yanking the scarf, forcing Sunny into the lobby.

  “And my mom has another,” I add.

  It turns out that being outside in a blizzard for a long time without gloves, earmuffs, a hat, or proper boots is not so great for your skin tissue or blood vessels. Who knew?

  In the hospital later—in the sunrise hours of the morning—Mom sits on a chair while we huddle together on the patient table. Through the wall, I can hear Reese and Sunny arguing—and a nurse coming in to tell them to please be quiet.

  “Think they’ll work it out?” I ask.

  “Reese and January, yes.” Mom says. “Reese and Sunny?” We hear another shout. “Who knows? But we did our job, we saved Reese’s hotel, and n
ow I’m more concerned about you three at the moment.” She looks at a spot just left of my eyes, and I realize she’s looking at one of my ears.

  Our ears, hands, and feet are wrapped in bandages. We’re waiting for the doctor to come back with further instructions about how to treat our frostbite. Mom buries her face in her hands. I can practically see the guilt crushing her, even though it was our choice to leave the cave.

  “We’re fine, Mom,” I say.

  “You are not!” she cries. “You have frostbite!”

  “Frostnip, technically,” Eliza says. “And just one spot of superficial frostbite. It hurts, but the damage to our skin is reversible.”

  Mom crumples into her chair. “I recklessly let you wander outside in the cold. It’s my responsibility to take care of you and make sure you’re safe.”

  “Mom, as long as we’re detectives, we have to be cool with a little danger.”

  “Cool,” Eliza says. “I see what you did there.”

  “I don’t!” Frank says.

  I look Mom straight in the eye. “You’re the one who told me to push through the fear. It’s not fair for you to pull us off the next case—”

  “Who said anything about pulling you off?” Mom says.

  Eliza and I exchange an excited glance. Frank picks at a scabby blister.

  “You three have a job at Las Pistas for as long as you want one. I’m not one to turn away talent.”

  I sigh in relief. “Good. Because the three of us are not planning on being left out in the cold.”

  Mom looks at my frostnipped hands and my wind-bitten ears, and her eyebrows rise. And I suddenly realize the humor in what I’ve just said.

  “Well,” I add, grinning, “at least not again.”

  CASE CLOSED.

  THE DOGS DOWNSTAIRS are too dangerous to approach. I don’t know what sort of danger lurks in the Dead Room, but maybe it won’t be as bad as a pack of feral dogs.

  “Carlos,” Mom says again.

  “Don’t worry, Mom. I’m not going downstairs.”

  The dog behind me growls. It inches closer, forcing us toward the Dead Room. There’s no choice; we’re pirates walking the plank. I gulp as we reach the door; it’s still ajar, icy air emanating from inside. I turn around, and the giant dog bares its ugly fangs.

  “Okay, okay, we’re going in,” I grumble. I turn to Mom and Eliza. “Ladies first,” I say, not to be chivalrous but because I’m scared out of my wits.

  But Frank, brave soul that he is, shouts, “I CALL DIBS!” And he marches into the room. Eliza chases her brother. I follow Eliza, and Mom brings up the rear.

  We’re inside, in the darkness. We close the door behind us, but not all the way. Mom leaves it open a crack. I only hope those dogs will go away soon, so we can escape. I reach into Eliza’s backpack and get a flashlight.

  The light shows a small room—low wood ceilings, old and creaky wood floors. The walls are smeared with something red. It looks suspiciously like blood. There’s a bit of it dripping to the floor repeatedly. Drip. Drip. Drip.

  No light bulbs in the Dead Room. It doesn’t feel like a room . . . it feels like a tomb. Or maybe I feel that way because at the edge of the room, in the corner, there is a full-sized coffin lying there.

  The worst part is that there’s no sign of January or the ghost monster. Maybe I made a mistake by running. Maybe I should have followed. . . . I should have trusted her yesterday.

  There are so many different choices I could have made. But didn’t. “I should have chosen differently—I should have chosen better.”

  “What are you talking about, hijo?”

  It’s a good thing we’re locked in the Dead Room, because this is something I can only admit in the dark: “Mom, I’m losing my touch. The ghost is . . . my head is all cloudy. I mean . . . what kind of detective is afraid of his own case?”

  “All of them,” Mom says. “I get frightened every single case.”

  “You do?”

  “Of course. I’m scared of the ghosts, kidnappers, death threats, thieves . . . and I’m scared of failure. Of what happens if I don’t get the job done. Two different kind of fears, external and internal, all swirling around each other.”

  That’s exactly—exactly—how I feel. “I just wanted you to be proud of me.”

  “Hijo, I am always proud of you.”

  I suddenly feel like crying. And for once, the pressure and the fear I’ve been carrying around with me loosen, just a little.

  “We can talk more about this later,” Mom says. “But first we have to get out of here. This is time-sensitive. So what have you two been up to?”

  Eliza quickly explains what happened to us—and January—before we met up with her and Frank. “And where were you?” she finishes.

  “Frank and I got a phone call to the room, saying that you two were down at Luther’s.”

  “Why didn’t you check our rooms? Knock on the door? You would have seen we were here!”

  “Well,” Mom says, “because it was your voice on the phone.”

  Eliza chokes.

  “That’s impossible!” I say.

  “Oh, it’s possible all right!” Frank says. “It happened, buster!”

  “It must have been a recording of you, hijo. You didn’t converse with me . . . I could hear you in the background. And I didn’t have any reason to doubt what I heard with my own ears. So I woke Frank up, and the two of us drove down to Luther’s.”

  “But,” Frank says, “we were TRICKED. FOOLED. BUMBLEBUZZLED.”

  “Bamboozled?” Eliza corrects.

  “Yes, bambleboozled!”

  “When we got to Luther’s, it was clear you two weren’t there. That’s when you walkie-talkied, but we were too far away for the transmission to work. It was then that I realized we were probably lured away from the hotel on purpose, and you were in trouble.”

  “And you were!” Frank said. “From a really cute, fuzzy-wuzzy killer puppy!”

  I look to the exit. “Do you think we’re safe from the dogs now?” I take a step toward the door, and suddenly it shuts. And clicks. Even before I reach the door handle, I know we’re locked in.

  “Oh no,” Eliza whispers. “Oh no, oh no!”

  I swivel around. I guess there’s nothing to do now but examine the Dead Room. Maybe we can find a way out . . . that isn’t the front door.

  * * *

  TO LOOK IN THE COFFIN, CLICK HERE.

  TO EXAMINE THE BLOOD MARKS, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  “LET’S READ THE letter to Cricket,” I say, grabbing and opening the letter. A check for eight hundred dollars falls out.

  “I’m rich!” Frank cries. “Rich, rich, RICH!”

  “You know you can’t deposit that unless your name is Cricket McCoy,” Eliza says.

  “So I’ll change my name to Cricket McCoy!” Frank says. “Big whoop.”

  “Can I read the letter?” I gripe, and the two of them quiet down.

  Dear Miss McCoy,

  Enclosed find your latest commission, as discussed. Keep up the good work. More checks to follow, so long as you continue.

  Cordially,

  Luther Covington

  “Commission?” I say.

  Eliza bites her lip thoughtfully. “Commission means she’s getting paid based on a certain number of services rendered or products sold. It’s, like, different from a salary. When you get a salary, you get the same payment every week, no matter what. But a commission can fluctuate. In good weeks, you could get a lot of money; on bad ones, you could get nothing.”

  “Is a concierge usually paid this way . . . with a commission?”

  “Wrong question,” Eliza says. “We should be asking why Luther is paying Cricket a commission when she’s not his employee.”

  “Is she a spy?” Frank says. “A super secret agent spy?”

  “Or,” I say grimly, finally understanding what Eliza’s getting at, “is Cricket getting paid by Luther to be our ghost?”

 
“It’s the best theory we’ve got so far. Want to test it on Cricket?”

  “What kind of test?” Frank says. “A math test? A spelling test? I can do a spelling test! I can spell cat! K-A-T.”

  “No,” I say, “you can’t.”

  “Can’t? K-A-N-T.” He grins at me, and I can’t tell if he’s pulling my leg.

  “Frank . . .”

  “Frank!” he says. “F-R-A-N-C.”

  We stare at each other for a moment. His smirk gets wider and wider. “Why are you like this?” I finally say.

  And he chortles.

  Eliza rolls her eyes. “Are we going to go see Cricket or not?”

  “Not,” Frank says.

  “Yes, let’s go,” I say. “But get ready for her to get really defensive on us.” I grab Eliza’s backpack off the couch, hand it to her, and head to the door. Out in the hall, there’s absolutely no indication that a haunting happened last night or that someone left a threat in our bathroom. It looks like a perfectly normal lodge, minus the disturbing animal heads mounted on the walls.

  We head to the lobby, where Cricket is smacking gum and swiveling in her desk chair.

  “You!” I shout from across the lobby. “We know what you’re up to. Time to come clean.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says coolly.

  “DON’T PLAY DUMB WITH US!” Frank shouts.

  “I’m not playing.”

  “Then you’re actually dumb?” Frank says.

  “I am confused. And insulted.”

  I lay the letter from Luther Covington on her desk, and Eliza waves the eight-hundred-dollar check like a flag, just out of Cricket’s reach.

  She nearly chokes on her gum. It goes flying out of her mouth and lands on the floor of the lobby.

  “Yum!” Frank says, picking it up.

  “Where did you get that letter?” she says, her white face getting splotchy with an angry flush. “You stole that out of my mailbox!”

  “You have a lot of explaining to do,” I say. “You’re the ghost.”

  “What? That’s absurd!”