Black Raven Inn: A Paranormal Mystery (Taryn's Camera Book 6)

by Rebecca Patrick-Howard

  As someone who had held a full-time job since she was sixteen and sometimes worked all day and throughout the night, she’d never had a time like that in her life, a time all to herself. It was wonderful.

  “So what are you up to right now?” David asked at last.

  Taryn leaned back against the wall, relaxed and happy to have someone to chat with after a long day. “Well, guess who my current employer is?”

  He let out a long, slow whistle when she told him Ruby’s name. “Look at you! How’d you swing that?”

  “She was familiar with my work,” Taryn explained. “She found me through a project I worked on with Andrew a long time ago.”

  “Wow, that’s awesome. I am so impressed. My granny was a huge fan. I can remember Ruby Jane being on the Ralph Emery Show when I was a kid. I loved her, I reckon it was that kind of high-pitched squeaky voice of hers, and Granny always let me stay up late when she was a guest.” David laughed. “It was such a big deal back then. I can still remember Granny in her rocker, shucking corn or stringing beans, and me pulling all the cushions off the couch to make a pillow fort with. Ruby’s kind of the soundtrack to my childhood.”

  “Mine too,” Taryn agreed. She was thrilled to have someone to talk about her love of music, and of Ruby, with. “You know, that duet’s album she did just about changed my life. I can remember right after my parents died I was in a real low place and nothing could get me out of that funk. It went on for months. Then one night I put on that CD and fell asleep listening to it. First time I’d slept through the night since their death.”

  “I love the way country music fans form such special relationships with the artists they like. Sometimes I feel like I know the people. I guess that would be creepy to them,” David mused.

  Taryn laughed. “Probably, but I do the same thing. Oh! And guess where I’m working? Black Raven Inn.”

  David was silent for a moment and then, when he replied, his voice was quiet. “You mean the place where…”

  “Yep.”

  “Damn,” he whistled again. “I figured they’d tear that place down. Actually, I guess I thought they had.”

  “Yeah, well, they should. It’s kind of a hellhole,” Taryn agreed. “But it’s also interesting in its own ugly, creepy kind of way.”

  “So how’s that going?”

  “I haven’t really gotten into the meat of the work yet. I’m still taking pictures. It’s been an experience, though. Oh, and I have a bodyguard!”

  “Considering some of the things that have happened to you on the job, I think that’s probably a good idea.” David laughed. “So, don’t leave me hanging. It’s like you’re working for Dolly Parton or Reba McEntire or something. This is huge! I want to bask in your glory and live vicariously through you. What’s she like? Is she pretty in person? Hateful? Funny? Weird? A good friend would spill the beans.”

  “I’ve only met her in person once but I am seeing her again in the morning. She’s very,” Taryn paused, searching for the right description, “I guess the word is elegant. Tall, willowy, looks like she might break if you breathed on her too hard. But she’s also well-spoken and polite. One of those people that you just know is intelligent the moment they start talking. She seems to be into all of these books on different cultures and religions, very well read. Maybe a little reserved.”

  “I like her already. Doesn’t seem like the kind of person who would’ve run around with a bunch of outlaws back in the day?” David laughed.

  “Ha! Not at all. I keep trying to reconcile the idea of the Ruby I’ve met with the Ruby who was a member of the Silver Streak band, with Parker, but it’s hard. Like two totally different people.”

  “I guess we were all different in our younger days. I was a fan of Parker’s,” David said. “I have all three of Silver Streak’s albums and they got me through some tough times. A real shame that he died so young, along with so many others like Joplin and Morrison and Hank Sr. The drugs, man. Some just can’t handle their fame.”

  Taryn nodded her head in agreement, even though he couldn’t see her.

  “Just be careful, okay?” David warned her. “Guard yourself. I’ve heard stories about that place. And even if it’s not haunted, a lot of lonely souls with real problems fell apart within those walls. You don’t know what they left behind and what’s still living there.”

  “You think there’s something wrong with the hotel?”

  “I don’t know,” David replied thoughtfully. “Maybe. Sometimes bad places draw in good people and change them. Sometimes people with problems are naturally drawn to the same place, an exchange of energy so to speak. Either way, I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  Taryn shook as she remembered the clerk’s words in the camera store. He’d said nearly the same thing.

  Could a place really be bad without reason?

  Taryn banged her head down on her desk and scrubbed at the back of her neck with her hand. A headache was forming from staring at the laptop screen for so long. A carry-out container of Greek food was growing cold by her keyboard and a reality TV program blasted obscenities a few feet away. (She liked the company.) She’d been staring at her pictures all afternoon, trying to edit them in a way that made them look presentable to her employer.

  “The pressure is on,” she moaned into her arms.

  Taryn could feel Miss Dixie drolly watching her from across the room. She could almost hear her saying, I did my job. Now it’s your turn not to screw it up.

  Sometimes the pictures of her worksite had the place looking better than it did in reality. Through her eyes and Miss Dixie’s lens she could capture the essence of the building while ignoring the neglect and poor condition.

  That was not the case for the Black Raven Inn.

  If anything, her pictures made it look worse. Taryn wouldn’t have thought that was possible and now she cringed at the implication.

  Am I going to be able to make it look good at all, she wondered.

  Not without ample use of her imagination. “I’m gonna have to dig deep in my well of ingenuity to make this happen,” she grumbled.

  She’d taken more than three-hundred photographs in all, so far. The best ones were of the exterior, although she had a few good shots of the lobby. She hadn’t started on the ones of Room #5 yet. She needed some Tylenol and a fresh dose of caffeine before she attacked those.

  Two weeks into the job and she still wasn’t real sure what she was doing or which direction she should go in. First the weather had held her up and then her health. A serious lack of motivation was starting to settle in.

  “I gotta start sketching tomorrow,” she reminded herself as she got up and stretched. It wasn’t doing her any good to sit there and stare at the screen anymore. She was starting to see things that weren’t there.

  Taryn rooted through her refrigerator, searching for a Coke she hoped was stuck somewhere behind the assorted food cartons. Once she started sketching, the job would move along quickly. She’d spend time with the charcoals and then, once satisfied, she’d bring out the oil paints. The Black Raven Inn demanded oils. Watercolors were too whimsical for such a place.

  “A ha!” Upon finding the last Coke she’d hidden from herself, Taryn stood up with glee and held her treasure in the air. “Found you!”

  She needed to make a run to the store. There was no way she could get through the night without more caffeine. She rarely drank, had never smoked, and was only mildly addicted to bad TV. Caffeine was her main vice; she couldn’t live without it.

  Back in the living room she turned the channel to something more subdued and then settled into her office chair again.

  “Let’s start Round Two!” She liked cheering herself on sometimes. When nobody else was around to do it for you, you had to dig the motivation out yourself.

  The first few pictures of Room #5 were unremarkable. The room appeared small, dingy, and cramped. That’s also the way it looked in real life. The fading and curling posters of Parker, w
hich looked even sadder in her photographs than she remembered them looking in reality, were still on the walls and nightstands.

  And then she came to one she’d taken by accident.

  Taryn was about to hang it up for the night when a shot she didn’t remember taking jumped onto the screen and had her leaning in for a closer look. Unbeknownst to her, Taryn’s camera had been jostled to the right when Miss Dixie had gone off. It must have happened when she was trying to leave, when she’d been doubled over in pain.

  Pointing towards the bathroom door, the photo was at an awkward angle–cutting off most of the floor and getting a good piece of the popcorn ceiling. What it did manage to capture in the shot, however, had Taryn shaking.

  The unmistakable figure of a man stood by the door, leaning against the flimsy wood in a similar way Taryn had later leaned against the wall herself, just inches from where he stood. Most of his facial features were unclear. However, she could still make out the loose-fitting pants, shaggy hair, and long delicate fingers on hands that fell down at his side. His shoulders were slumped as though he carried the weight of the world. From the neck up, however, he was confident. His head was raised and held high and although she couldn’t make out his nose or mouth, it was clear that his piercing eyes were staring straight into her camera.

  Although she had felt nothing of his presence at that time, he’d been all too aware of Taryn’s.

  Eight

  Taryn stood on Ruby Jane’s porch and shifted nervously from one hip to the other, trying desperately to ignore the sharp pain that shot down her leg. In her hands she carried her laptop, as well as a spare memory card with most of the images from the motel.

  Most of them…

  She still wasn’t sure how much she should show Ruby, or how much she should tell her.

  “I wouldn’t show her the picture from the room,” Matt had advised her the night before.

  Taryn had called him around midnight, at odds with herself on how to proceed with the picture. Should she tell Ruby? Show her? Keep it to herself for awhile to see if it happened again? She didn’t know how to proceed.

  “Are you sure? Do you not think that’s something she would want to see?” Taryn worried.

  “Just think about it,” Matt replied. “What if she’s not a believer in these things? What if she thinks you’re trying to pull a prank on her? Or even extort her in some way?”

  Taryn scowled, feeling discouraged. Matt was the main voice of reason in her life and sometimes it was annoying, especially when he was right.

  “But what if she is a believer?” Taryn countered at last.

  “Then something like this might hurt her,” Matt said carefully. “How would you feel if someone took a picture and captured Andrew? Or Stella?”

  Hurt, Taryn answered silently. I’d feel hurt.

  For one thing, she’d never be able to understand why someone other than herself had been able to make contact with her fiancé and grandmother when she couldn’t. (And not from lack of trying, either. It was a hurtful fact that Taryn had been able to make contact with a number people who had passed on, and yet none of them were departed souls who were personal to Taryn.)

  After spending several stressful hours studying the photo and chewing on Matt’s words she ultimately decided not to share the image. Matt was right; Ruby Jane didn’t know her and she was concerned Ruby might think Taryn was trying to extort her or just be funny, and Taryn didn’t want that.

  Now she found herself outside, waiting to be let in.

  “Taryn.” Ruby smiled as she opened the door. “I’ve been anxiously awaiting your visit all morning!”

  Today Ruby was dressed in a flowing peasant skirt with a lightweight sweater that hung loosely on her lithe frame. Her long gray hair was wound up in a loose bun but her flawless complexion with nary a wrinkle and the horn-rimmed glasses made her look decades younger. From a distance, Taryn thought she could have passed for a teenager.

  “Pardon the mess,” Ruby called as she led Taryn into the living room. “I’ve got a benefit with the Humane Society coming up tomorrow and I’m trying to fold brochures and stuff envelopes.”

  Sure enough, the coffee table and surrounding chairs were covered with leaflets. “Just clear yourself off a spot,” Ruby said as she began making room for Taryn’s laptop.

  Taryn grinned, pleased by the fact that the celebrity could be as messy as anyone else she knew.

  “Now I’ve got around two-hundred photographs for you to take a look at,” Taryn warned her as she waited for the computer to boot. “I also brought you your SD card with the images on them as well, so you can keep copies for yourself.”

  Ruby held out her hand to accept the card. When their fingers touched, though, Taryn felt a buzzing sensation and recoiled in surprise.

  “I’m sorry,” Ruby apologized. “I seem to be picking up a lot of static.”

  Taryn studied her curiously, remembering the similar shock she’d received at the motel. It was fall, however, and static was in the air.

  Still…

  For a millisecond when Taryn had looked at Ruby she’d seen not the woman before her in the skirt and bun, but a younger version of her with long wavy hair and a toothy grin.

  “The computer’s ready if you’d like to take a look,” Taryn offered, unable to take her eyes off Ruby.

  Something’s happening, she thought. I’m not sure what it is, but it’s very interesting.

  If Ruby saw or felt anything peculiar then she kept it to herself.

  A door down the hall opened and the creak was a foreign sound, as though another dimension was opening. Moments later Taryn heard footsteps padding towards them. When she looked up, Lenny Parsons was standing before them.

  “Lenny,” Ruby said absently, “this is Taryn. She’s the artist I was telling you about.”

  The man who stood before them was one of the best-selling solo artists of all time. Although he’d once been a part of Silver Streak with Ruby and Parker, after Parker’s death he’d gone out on his own. He was outsold only by Michael Jackson, Garth Brooks, and Elvis. He’d even outsold Madonna.

  And now he was standing within mere inches of Taryn, wearing nothing but a bathrobe and house slippers.

  “Nice to meet you,” he replied casually. He was in his late sixties but still had a youthful looking body. He was also still gorgeously dangerous, with jet black hair, bright blue eyes, and tanned skin.

  Taryn was back to feeling like she might faint.

  “He’s got a show at the Ryman tonight,” Ruby said.

  “A tribute show,” Lenny added. “It will be a little embarrassing.”

  “Oh, you know you’re going to eat it up. I’ll be singing,” she informed Taryn. “And telling everyone how much I love him.”

  “Lies, all lies,” Lenny grinned.

  When he excused himself from the room, Ruby made a face that was difficult to read. “He stays here with me when he comes to town. Says he likes it better than a hotel room. We’ve been friends for almost fifty years. And after what happened to Parker, well…I don’t like my men to get very far from me. I’m a bit like a mother hen in that respect.”

  Taryn understood. Sometimes she felt like she was slowly weaning herself from Matt for the same reason–it hurt too much to worry about someone so much.

  Taryn spent most of the afternoon scrolling through the numerous photos with Ruby, pointing out the ones she liked and planned on using as inspiration for her paintings.

  “Here,” she said, stopping on one she’d taken of the courtyard. “I’m planning on painting it from this angle, because you get a nice view of the expanse of the courtyard without any of the pavement that’s up near the top.”

  Ruby nodded as Taryn pointed. “I like that. Good thinking.”

  They grimaced in unison at the interior shots of the lobby, Ruby wrinkling her aristocratic nose and exhaling. “Not much to look at, is it?”

  “Or smell,” Taryn agreed.

  “It alwa
ys did have its own special brand of perfume.” Ruby grinned. “Even back when we would go there.”

  Taryn desperately wanted to ask why they went there to start with but refrained. She didn’t want to look like she was prying. Parker had lived in California, of course, and would’ve stayed someplace when he visited Nashville but there were so many other choices that would’ve been better.

  Why didn’t he just stay with you? she wanted to ask, but couldn’t.

  When they got to the pictures of Room #5, Taryn slowed down. “And here’s the motel room. I tried to take it from as many angles as possible.”

  Taryn studied Ruby discreetly as she slowly scrolled through each picture, one by one. The other woman’s face remained impassive, but her eyes turned glassy and a red sunburn rash began creeping up her neck. Taryn knew a woman attempting to hide her true emotions when she saw one. Although she was a sensitive person herself, she was good at hiding it in public and saving her own displays of emotion for private moments. She suspected that Ruby, someone in the limelight, had gotten good at doing the same.

  When Ruby reached a shot of the bed, she stopped and brushed a stray strand of silver hair from her face. Her fingers shook, the only outward sign that she was troubled. Taryn, momentarily forgetting that she was sitting next to a celebrity, saw only the woman and reached out her hand.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, gently touching Ruby’s shoulder. It was thin and bony under her fingers, making Ruby feel frail. “Do you want me to put these up so that you can look at them in private?”

  Ruby patted Taryn’s hand, her fingers chilly against Taryn’s own. “You’re sweet,” she said softly. “I’m alright, though. It’s been a long time. I just hadn’t seen the bed in so long.”

  “Is it the same furniture? I mean, as before?”