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

by Rebecca Patrick-Howard

  Her hands itched to pick up a paintbrush; the feeling was so intense she could all but feel the weight of the brush in her hand. It was almost painful.

  “How long can a person go without sleep?” she texted Matt and then sat up. She’d taken Benadryl and it hadn’t even phased her. Melatonin hadn’t done a thing.

  She just needed to work.

  The canvas, still up in the middle of her living room floor, was ready to go. Taryn staggered to it and, with what was akin to nervous energy, opened her tubes of paint and began mixing. The scene before her was alive with life and color. It was starting to look realistic enough that one might think they could walk right into it.

  Taryn picked up her brush and began dabbing gray onto the patio, swirling it and blending it until she could almost see the individual grains of the gritty cement. She painted the guitar resting on its case, the cheerful fire emerging from its pit, chairs grouped together for a late-afternoon jam session, guitar picks in a Mason jar on a patio table. In the background you could see the freshly-painted doors leading into the rooms off the courtyard, their brass numbers polished and gleaming in the muted sunlight. A few of the doors were cracked open, invitations to join the inhabitants or perhaps a sign that the guest was already outside with everyone else.

  It was a cheerful, laid-back scene and Taryn worked feverishly on it, barely stopping to catch her breath. Gone were the dripping air conditioners, the rubbish, and the desolate landscape of a lonesome place. It was replaced with a scene just about anyone would want to walk into and relax.

  Taryn worked until her hands were swollen, until her tummy rumbled from hunger.

  Had she eaten yesterday? She stopped, brush in midair, and considered. She didn’t think she had.

  Sweat poured down her face, soaking her night shirt. Her underarms smelled. Her curly red hair frizzed and hung down her bang in a tangled mess from lack of brush and washing. Her legs hurt from standing.

  The sunlight on her feet was warm and Taryn turned, surprised. It was already daylight; she’d worked through the night. Glancing at her phone had her startled–it was 9:30 am. She was meant to be at the motel in half an hour.

  Taryn quickly rinsed her brushes and gathered her materials for the day. She didn’t have time to hop in the shower, so using a washcloth she took a “hooker’s bath” and smeared on some chap stick. After giving her jeans from the day before a glance over, she decided they were clean enough and slid them on. A George Strait “Check Yes or No” T-shirt hung limply on her chest, a reminder she’d lost weight, and an old man’s cardigan would keep the chill off.

  She was ready for a new day.

  Fourteen

  “You don’t look well,” Aker said as soon as Taryn stepped out of the car.

  “I didn’t sleep well last night.”

  “It shows,” he replied drily.

  Despite the lack of sleep, Taryn was still wired, almost manic. The urge to continue painting was strong in her. She was being incredibly productive which, while not unusual, was still odd considering how poorly she’d felt only days before.

  “Listen, I’m going to work in the courtyard today,” she said.

  Aker nodded, already heading to the lobby. “Still going to check everything out,” he called over his shoulder.

  “Yeah, yeah. I know the drill.”

  She was finished unloading her car by the time he returned. He was frowning, however, and Taryn paused, her the bag holding her canvas slung over her shoulder. “What’s up?”

  Aker’s face was hard to read behind the stoic expression and big sunglasses but she was fairly good at reading body language; something was clearly wrong.

  “Someone’s been here,” he replied.

  “They mess anything up?”

  Aker shrugged. “Not exactly. They just moved some things around. Nothing looks like it’s missing.”

  Taryn produced a thin smile at the thought. “Yeah, well, it’s not like there was much to take…”

  “I have learned that people will steal just about anything. Give them a chance and they’ll lift a roll of toilet paper,” he muttered.

  “Everything look okay, though?”

  One of the few things that scared her was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Lord knew that had happened to her enough. With the Black Raven Inn, in particular, she was concerned about stumbling upon a drug deal or something else she had no business being at. She’d read the motel’s reviews about it being a hot spot for hookers, dealers, and pimps and even though it was closed old habits died hard. She didn’t want anyone feeling homesick and thinking they needed to return for sentimentality’s sake.

  “Looks like someone just went through everything in the lobby and in Parker’s old room,” Aker shrugged. “Maybe just a fan. That happens sometimes. It’s like they don’t care he died more than thirty years ago–they still think they’re going to find one of his cigarettes or something.”

  “Do you think that whole thing’s weird?” Taryn asked, setting her tub on the ground. It was getting heavy. “I mean, the people who came here to stay in his room and make little shrines to him? A lot of them weren’t even alive when he died.”

  “I don’t find much of anything strange anymore,” he answered. “I’ve been at this job for a long time. Just look at the number of people who visit Graceland. A lot of them were not around in Elvis’ lifetime but they still pay their money to play look-loo in the Jungle Room, file past his grave in somber silence, and walk through the Lisa Marie.”

  He had her there; Taryn had also visited Graceland and done those exact same things. She hadn’t felt weird about it at the time.

  Still, Parker’s fans actually visited the motel, stayed in a place where a dead body once laid in the parking lot for twenty-four hours without anyone noticing, and slept on the same bed in the same place where their idol accidentally committed suicide. That was more than a little morbid to her.

  “Guess I’ll be going to the courtyard,” she said at last.

  “Give a yell if you see or hear anything that’s not meant to be there,” Aker advised, settling into his chair. He had a new book today, a biography on Patty Hearst.

  “Will do.”

  Taryn let herself in through the side door that would take her straight to the courtyard. It was a little bit of a shock, seeing it in present day after spending all evening and all night seeing it in the past.

  “Do you need something from me?” She’d been working almost nonstop. Ruby wanted her to make contact with Parker’s ghost, but Taryn didn’t know how to do that. She’d never really intentionally tried to see a ghost before, only hoped they came out.

  She didn’t know what she was doing. All she could do was paint.

  “If you’re here, can you give me another sign? I don’t know what to do,” she complained. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  Taryn set her supplies on the ground, put her easel together, and began getting out her paints. She was already starting to get lost in the work again, when something tugged at the ponytail that hung down the middle of her back.

  It wasn’t a physical tug, not like someone was standing behind her, but more like a reflexive jerk that had her straightening to attention and looking around. The tiny hairs on the back of her arm stood straight up as a creepy crawling sensation started at the small of her back and worked its way to the nape of her neck.

  She shivered in the warm morning light and looked around. She was alone of course, but couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching her.

  With the satisfaction that Aker was on the other side of the wall, ready to spring into action, Taryn began a slow walk around the perimeter. He was right, someone had been there; she could feel it. It was the sensation that she got upon entering a small room just seconds after someone else had left it. She could almost still sense their presence, still feel the disrupted molecules and shift in the air.

  Just moments before she’d arrived they’d stood in that very s
pot, the one she was standing in now, and had looked around at all the motel doors the way she was doing. Their feet had been firmly planted in the same ground, they’d breathed in the same pocket of air. Taryn closed her eyes and inhaled–she could almost taste their scent. A combination of musk and something floral, with just the slightest hint of a bitter undertone.

  Miss Dixie was hanging around her neck, a little beat up from Jekyll Island but still working as well as she ever did, and Taryn turned her on now and aimed her at the space before her. Nothing unusual appeared in the shot.

  When she made a 180-degree turn, however, and aimed her camera at the distance between her and Room #5 she startled at the results.

  The motel room was open in her picture where, in present day, it was closed. A puff of smoke from a cigarette, hidden by the wall, lazily emerged from the room. One lone boot tip protruded from the bottom of the doorway, the rest of its owner concealed in the shadows.

  Taryn took a step forward and took another shot, zooming in on the door.

  The photo came back without anything unusual setting it apart from the hundreds of others she’d taken at the motel. The door was closed.

  Still, it had meant something. She knew that.

  As Taryn drew nearer to the door, the sensation of the invisible thing crawling up her back returned, this time even stronger. She stopped and turned and found herself facing the little shrine a few feet from the door.

  It was still faded and messy from the elements. The ceramic angel with the vacant eyes was missing a wing; the gazing ball was cracked down the middle. A film had settled over the candles, guitar picks, and stone crosses. Letters were soggy messages and bleached by the sun until they were unreadable.

  In the middle of the mess, however, was a Celtic cross. It stood upright when most everything else had been knocked over from wind and neglect. Its color had been untouched by the sun or rain. It was still a brilliant shade of jade.

  As Taryn knelt down beside the shrine and peered at the fixture, the tiny words scrawled across the bottom caught her attention.

  “’May the sun shine warm upon your face,” she quietly read aloud, the carving blazing brighter with each word of the traditional Irish prayer she read.

  “Until we meet again.” The soft words were whispered gravely in her ear, the seductiveness not lost on her. The hot breath on her neck was sweet and tasted faintly of wine. She could almost feel the touch of lips on her clammy skin, their heat and suppleness spreading a warmth through her body that wasn’t unwelcome. The other body that encircled her was invisible but she could feel both its strength and fragility engulfing her. Closing her eyes, she could see strong hands resting on knees on either side of her–the long, pale fingers gentle and pale. If she leaned back just a little she thought she might feel the heat on her back.

  Taryn wasn’t scared. It occurred to her that she should be, but she wasn’t. In fact, she was a little aroused.

  Seconds later the presence was gone and she was once again alone, just a single woman stooping before a cluttered shrine to a minor star whose light had ceased to shine long before she was born–a name that would almost certainly mean nothing to the newest generation.

  Taryn stood and shivered; without warning, dark clouds had inked out the sun and a breeze was stirring. A Happy Meal box blew past her and danced around the shrine, coming to land next to an empty, cut-out bleach bottle. The juxtaposition of childhood innocence next to what she could only assume to be drug paraphernalia kicked her in the gut.

  She shook her head.

  In a moment of lucidity and break from the manic it became clear to Taryn that she’d need to be careful with this job. It wasn’t like the others she’d had. This one might be dangerous to her in a completely different way.

  As she walked back to her easel, feeling jittery from the nervous energy that built inside her, one thing was for sure, she was certain that she’d been led to the shrine on purpose.

  Someone had been there recently, someone who had left the cross for Parker.

  “Someone with something heavy on their mind,” Taryn whispered aloud.

  The courtyard did not reply.

  On Taryn’s iPod, Emmylou sang about crying a river for a man, a river that was too deep and wide for her to ever swim across.

  Taryn sat in her living room, her phone in hand, and tried to process the news she’d received earlier.

  The phone call had been from her doctor. Well, not from her doctor, but from her doctor’s office. She hadn’t even heard from the physician herself, but from the scheduling clerk.

  Her primary care doctor would no longer be managing her pain. Instead, she’d been referred to a pain management specialist; a doctor whom, upon Taryn’s quick internet research, received scathing reviews with phrases like “wouldn’t send my dog to him” jumping out and not exactly instilling confidence within her.

  “The doctor will get you through the rest of the month,” the scheduling clerk had informed her, “but, after that, you should be in with Dr. Hanan. Is that okay?”

  Is that okay? What was Taryn supposed to say to that?

  No?

  Because no, that was not okay. Her doctor had not mentioned that to Taryn on her last visit, had not warned her in any way that she’d be dropping that aspect of Taryn’s care. This news had come totally out of the blue.

  “I don’t understand,” Taryn had told the clerk in a whisper. “Why is she sending me to someone else?”

  “I’m not sure,” came the clipped reply. “You’ll need to talk to her about it yourself.”

  Taryn, who had the doctor’s cell phone number in cases of emergency, had sent her a text. That was four hours ago. She hadn’t heard anything in return.

  It was silly, of course, but Taryn felt rejected. She felt as though she’d done something wrong and now Dr. Culver didn’t want her.

  Her parents were gone, her grandmother was gone, her fiancé was gone, and now not even her doctor wanted her.

  “But I’ve done everything right,” she insisted to her belongings. “I’ve been a model patient. I always take my medicine on time. I keep a pain journal. I’ve never broken our contract, always let her know when I’m hospitalized, have never asked for an early prescription… The only time I haven’t had any drugs in my system during a test was when I had the flu and kept throwing them up.”

  The inconsiderate room remained silent.

  She loved her doctor, trusted her. She’d been with her since her parents died. Her doctor knew more about her than anyone, outside of Matt.

  When she was twelve, Matt had joined the Science Club. For the first time in probably ever he had friends outside of Taryn–boys who shared interests with him. One day Matt had called her after school, full of exciting news.

  “We’ve decided that after we graduate we’re going to buy a big boat and sail around the world, solving mysteries like the Loch Ness Monster and the Bermuda Triangle,” he’d boasted.

  Taryn, who was just starting to really feel the stirrings of interest for the opposite sex, had felt a tug she didn’t fully understand. She just knew that she had to be on that boat, too.

  “Can I come, too?” She’d asked it with confidence, certain he wouldn’t leave her behind.

  “Sorry,” he’d replied instead. “All the positions have been filled.”

  It was silly, but she’d hung up the phone and cried.

  She remembered that moment now and cried again, although she couldn’t be entirely certain what the tears were for.

  Fifteen

  Matt had told her that a person could only safely go about five days without sleep.

  Taryn was working on her fourth.

  She’d finished the courtyard canvas the night before. It was back at home, safely drying on an easel in the corner of her cramped living room, the past gazing out in harsh judgement at her modern discount warehouse sofa and flea market rocking chair.

  She’d meant to work on the lobby today. She was going to
do it and then the hotel’s exterior, leaving Room #5 for last.

  That had been her plan; the Black Raven Inn had another one in mind.

  Now, Taryn found herself entering the cold, damp motel room again, balancing supplies on her hip with a towel slung over her arm. She needed something to spread onto the chair. No way was her bottom going to not have a protective covering between it and the surface of anything in that room.

  It was a typical late autumn day, a forecast of the winter days to come. The sky was colorless, casting a chalky white film over everything. Muted sunlight was filtered through a thick layer of clouds, doing little to add light or warmth. Taryn wore jeans, thick boot socks, old cowboy boots, a flannel shirt, and a man’s cardigan she’d picked up from Goodwill. (She had a collection of them.) Too physically exhausted to do anything about her matted, oily hair she’d plaited it in a braid that hung down her back and topped it off with a newsboys’ cap.

  She wasn’t sure how she was moving at that point, much less driving. Her whole body felt like it was full of molasses. If she stayed in one spot for very long, she was afraid she’d become rooted to it.

  And yet, her mind wouldn’t stop.

  She’d replayed the whisper and sensation of the man behind at her the shrine over and over in her mind so many times that she’d actually made herself physically ill. She’d worried so much about things she had zero control over (the environment, the stock market, terrorist attacks abroad, the price of gas…) that she’d thrown up not once but three times.

  Taryn could not shut off her brain.

  “Is this house people on Adderall feel? Is this what it’s like to have ADHD?” she asked the room.

  If it knew the answer, it wasn’t talking.

  “What the heck’s the matter with me?” she demanded, wearily removing her collapsible easel from its case and setting it up in front of the chair.

  The room didn’t have an answer for that, either.

  Once she had all her supplies set up, from a bag Taryn removed the two spotlights she’d picked up at Target. Ruby had asked her to send her the bill but Taryn decided that wasn’t necessary. She worked in dark, isolated places a lot. She might need them again. These, she placed on the bureau and one of the nightstands. She plugged them into long, industrial extension cords and ran the cords outside to an outlet in the wall. The building’s power was on–it just didn’t work in that particular room.