“I’ve been working on the room,” she offered to Ruby. “I just wanted to stop by and give you an update. I had to take a few days off for my health but I’ve been making them up and should still make the deadline.”
Ruby smiled sweetly and waved Taryn’s concerns away. “It’s fine. You have you have to take care of you.”
“I’ve enjoyed looking at some of the pictures and posters and things people have left in his room,” Taryn said. She’d actually come there to talk to Ruby about what was going on, but no longer felt comfortable doing so with Lenny’s presence.
“People always did like going there and saying their goodbyes,” Ruby agreed. “Used to be that they’d stock the room with real memorabilia, like a toothbrush he left hind or a letter he’d sent to the motel and stuff, but then people just started stealing them. A little morbid if you ask me.”
“Poor old Parker,” Lenny grunted. “People never will let him go. The guy’s dead. Everyone just needs to move on.”
Ruby stiffened and Taryn instantly felt sorry for her. The implication was clear; Ruby was the one who needed to “move on.” Taryn had heard it all before after Andrew died…
At least he’s in a better place…
God needed another angel…
Now he’ll always be able to watch over you from Heaven…
You need to get out more and find someone new…
He’d want you to be happy…
At least he didn’t suffer…
Only the good die young…
When are you going to get over it…
You need to move on…
The most well-meaning and unhelpful advice came from those who had never lost a partner or anyone real close. At first the platitudes, clichés that made the people who said them feel better for trying to help but offered no real comfort to her, frustrated her. Then they made her angry.
Why was everyone so intent that she “move on”? What did that even mean? Why did it matter to them? It was funny how that advice always came from people she rarely saw–people who almost never came around her. It’s not like she was bugging them with talks of Andrew or running them into the ground with her grief and sadness and yet, there they were, pressing her to “let him go.”
It made her mad enough to want to hold on even more.
“Well, I just stopped in to give you an update,” Taryn said, rising to her feet. She was just ornery enough that the idea of humming Lenny’s big hit “Never Let You Go” ran through her mind but, in the end, she decided that might be a bit much. “It’s been a long day and I need to get home.”
“I’ll walk you out,” Ruby said, also standing. She brushed her hands along the back of her yoga pants, sending dog hair flying. Lenny flinched and wrinkled his nose.
The puppies ran around in circles, worried and confused. Their ladies were leaving. Taryn watched with interest as they avoided Lenny completely. It was true that dogs could sense who didn’t want them or like them. Who might be mean to them.
“Bye,” Taryn waved to Lenny over her shoulder. “It was nice to see you again.”
He muttered something similar and then took another swig from his bottle, emptying it.
“I wanted to talk to you about some things going on at the motel,” Taryn explained as they slowly made their way through the house. “I didn’t feel real comfortable doing it with your friend here.”
Ruby rolled her eyes and patted Taryn on the arm. “Yes, Lenny’s never been a fan of those kinds of things. He’s not much of a believer in anything he can’t see to shoot.”
“Was he a friend to Parker?” Taryn asked.
“Good friends. They were buddies. Lenny took his death hard. He was never quite the same after, although he did quit the hard stuff. Of course, the booze was something else,” Ruby laughed. “I think he’s more beer than blood at this point.”
“I wanted to ask you about Aker,” Taryn said as they neared the front door. “Were he and Parker friends?”
“Not friends so much as a professional relationship,” Ruby replied. “Aker took his job very seriously.”
“Yeah, he does that now, too.”
“I don’t think he was much of a fan. Aker never agreed with the drug usage that all the guys did. He took care of them, but there was a bit of judgment there. Of course, the fact that Parker courted Aker’s ex-wife didn’t win him any favors.”
Taryn paused. “Parker had a thing with Aker’s ex-wife?”
“Well, they weren’t married at the time. Aker was married to Gloria by then. You know how men are, though,” Ruby laughed. “Territorial, just like we are. I thought, when Aker found out, that it would be the end of him and his employment with us. They seemed to work it out, though. Parker didn’t mean anything serious by it. He just got lonely. I think it bothered him that Aker took it personally. He never wanted to hurt anyone.”
Ruby looked down then and narrowed her eyes, her face hardening.
Except you, Taryn thought. He hurt you.
“One more thing. Was Parker a, for lack of better word, hoarder there at the end?”
“Well, not like those people you see on TV–the ones with all the plastic containers of urine and four feet of garbage in all the rooms,” Ruby explained. “But he did have some issues. He was very ill there at the end, sicker than any of us knew. I wish I had known. I wish I’d known as much as I thought I did.”
Taryn looked at the computer screen again and sadly shook her head. Who would be so hateful? Who could possibly hate her that much?
A lot of her clients found her through an online freelancing site for artists. She had a portfolio there and there was even an escrow system available to make payment easier on both parties involved. Former clients could leave reviews, similar to what visitors could find on sites like Yelp and Tripadvisor.
Up until now, Taryn’s reviews had been stellar, her feedback excellent.
Not anymore.
“A total hack job,” she read aloud to Matt, her voice shaking. “This so-called ‘artist’ wasn’t much better than an elementary school kid with a box of watercolors. I could’ve done better work with crayons. We hired her to paint a building that meant a lot to us and it became obvious that we were overpaying her from the very beginning. No technique, cookie cutter results, and no depth or soul to her work. Avoid at all costs.”
Unable to hold it together any longer, Taryn put her head down and burst into tears. Matt was quiet on the other end of the line, allowing her to cry and get it all out.
“I’m sorry,” he said at last. “I don’t think it’s real, though. It sounds like someone just trying to be mean.”
“Yeah well,” she sniffed, “they succeeded.”
“Your clients love you,” he insisted. “You’ve never worked with anyone who wasn’t happy with your work. This isn’t real.”
“It doesn’t matter, Matt. Potential clients will see this and think it is.”
“You want to call Rob, have him do a little hacking and figure it out? He might be able to trace it…”
Rob was their mutual friend. He lived in Lexington, Kentucky where he ran a store called New Age Gifts and More. The “and more” consisted of electronics he bought cheap, fixed up, and sold for profit. On one side of his store you could find crystal balls, incense, and brightly colored candles. On the other it was DVD players, flat-screens, and refurbished iPads.
“Yeah, can you do that?” she asked. “I’d really like to know who did it. Someone I’ve obviously pissed off.”
Now that she’d had a bit of a cry, she was shaking mad. How dare someone try to sabotage her reputation like that? It was a bully, and Taryn didn’t tolerate bullies.
“Whoever did it can suck my toe,” she hissed.
“Well, they can suck mine too. And my kneecap and heel,” Matt threw in for good measure.
Taryn offered a watery smile over the line but she was reeling from the offensive review. What the hell was wrong with people anyway?
The
woman with the peroxide blonde hair leaned back beside him, her black silk panties and bra shiny in the soft glow of the lamplight. Her hair was mussed, her lipstick smudged, and she puffed heartily at a cigarette.
The man beside her was stretched out on the bed, the lower half of his body covered by the sheets. He had his hands crossed under his head as he appeared to stare at the ceiling fan above.
The look on her face was a smug one, full of pride at what she’d just done. The look on his face was of contempt, as though slightly ashamed of the act.
A mini skirt was draped over the arm of the chair. Red high heels had been kicked off by the door. A shirt was hanging from the doorknob leading into the bathroom. Whatever had occurred there in the room, And Taryn didn’t have to read too much into it to know the answer, had happened quickly. There had been a lot of passion in the act, but now that it was over with there didn’t seem to be much love.
Taryn couldn’t tear her eyes away from the picture on her LCD screen, even though she was clearly peeking in on an intimate act.
“Did you really have to share this one with me, Miss Dixie?”
The LCD screen went black and then abruptly turned back on again, as though Miss Dixie was giving her a slight wink.
“Very funny,” she said drily.
The picture was of Parker, of course, but she didn’t know who the woman was. She’d never seen her before.
Taryn looked back up and studied the room in front of her again. It was odd to think that she was standing in the very place where the woman’s high heels had been kicked off, that her own shoes now took that spot.
“Oh Parker,” she whispered to the room. “What did you do to Ruby? Why did you have to break her heart?”
The silent room lit up like a Christmas tree, both lamps and the overhead light going on at full blast. Taryn suddenly found herself in a spotlight, on display. The ceiling fan began spinning around and around in circles, so fast that the arms were a black blur against the white ceiling. The bathroom door slammed to with a bang; the chair next to her fell over with a crash.
“Parker!” Taryn cried over the din, covering her ears with her hands. “Stop it, Parker! Stop it!”
The room was quiet again, silenced as though someone had pulled the plug on the noise.
The last of the lights faded and went off, leaving Taryn standing there in the dark, alone.
Twenty-Four
The heat was getting to Taryn again. Her tummy gurgled, a sound that threatened to bring up the meager contents she’d ingested for breakfast. She rubbed at it with her free hand, subconsciously attempting to soothe it through touch.
The walls in the room appeared to ripple through the waves of heat, making her feel like she was on a ship being tossed on the waves in a squall, as she suddenly struggled to stand. She collapsed back in the chair behind her as the objects in the room began to swim in her unfocused gaze, making her dizzy.
The only artwork in the motel room that didn’t have anything to do with Parker Brown was a print of a horse grazing in the middle of a field. The field, with its iridescent green grass enclosed by a stone fence, reminded her of something she’d seen in Central Kentucky. The horse was saddled and ready for a ride. It looked straight at Taryn with its mouth full, its soulful eyes penetrating through her layers of clothing until she felt it could see right down to her skin.
Taryn could’ve sworn that only the day before that horse had been emerging from the barn, undressed, and with a foal at its side.
She shook her head and closed her eyes.
Had that painting even been there on her first day? She could no longer remember.
A row of water bottles lined the floor at her feet. She was no longer stopping for lunch breaks; she’d enter the motel room early in the morning, sometimes as early as 7:00 am, and wouldn’t leave until it got dark–not emerging until her hands were cramped and the sun was setting.
Aker was looking concerned but hadn’t said anything to her. She figured that as long as he saw that she was alive he was content that he could continue collecting his paycheck.
The guitar music that sometimes played started up now, a folksy melody that reminded her of some of the Rolling Stones’ acoustic work. Like always, it came from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
The music no longer frightened Taryn. She was even starting to enjoy it.
When the room stopped swimming, Taryn opened the fourth water bottle and consumed the contents in less than a minute. She’d been cooking the meals Matt emailed her but couldn’t eat more than a few bites at a time. Still, they were providing the nutrients she needed to stay alive.
Her small frame was growing smaller by the day, however. Her stomach was now not just flat but concave; her legs were starting to look like sticks.
Worst of all, she was losing her butt. She’d always been kind of proud of her behind. It was pert and plump and stuck out at a pleasing angle.
Now it was getting as flat as a pancake.
The bed looked cleaner today. In fact, the whole room appeared cleaner. Gone was the animal excrement, stale scent of garbage and decay, and even the buildup of dust and dirt. She wasn’t sure when that had happened.
At some point that afternoon the electricity had decided to work as well. Both lamps in the motel’s room had flickered on, casting an eerie glow over the furniture and walls. The shadows danced before her now, growing tall on the walls and casting themselves across the ceiling before quickly shrinking and plummeting to the floor again.
With each movement, the shadows stretched just a little further across the ceiling, growing closer to closer to where she sat with her easel. Soon, they’d be above her. Taryn shrank from them, wary of their spindly hands that reached outward in every direction, seeking something they never seemed to find. They got worse when she paused in her painting.
A crash from the bathroom and the sound of running water has Taryn getting to her feet and following the noise. The shower curtain rod had fallen, leaving the mildewed fabric in a dirty heap on the floor. She hated that small, cramped room. There was barely enough space to breathe in there. When she had to go to the bathroom she took a break and told Aker, who kept an eye on things while she jumped in her car and made way for the coffee shop a few blocks over.
Aker apparently never had to pee. For some reason, this was not an issue for him.
When Taryn re-entered the bedroom, the first thing she noticed was that the painting of the horse was gone. In its place was a concert poster, advertising a show with Parker’s band opening for The Byrds. The lamps were out again, leaving the room darker but less menacing without the disturbing shadows. The mouse droppings and smell of urine had returned but the room was still blazing hot.
Miss Dixie looked at her from the nightstand. Taryn thought she might have winked.
“What have you done?” she asked her camera, shaking her head. “Was this you?”
When she picked her up, Taryn noticed right away that the camera was on. Her battery was nearly depleted. “Have you been on this whole time?”
Not only had she been on, but she’d taken pictures as well. There were at least half a dozen shots on the SD card that she hadn’t taken. Taryn stood in the middle of room, temporarily forgetting the blistering heat, and flicked through the images.
The room in the picture didn’t look that much different than what it had looked like just a few minutes before–the same mirror hung on the wall, the same generic equine painting was by the closet, the same nightstands with their lights on flanked the bed…
“What am I looking at, old girl,” Taryn said. “I’m having a hard time getting the picture here.”
Getting the picture…
It was then Taryn realized that for most of the afternoon, as Miss Dixie had been “on” and taking her random shots of the room, she’d turned on the past again. Only, this time, Taryn had been in her camera. The room had looked different then because she’d been in the frame.
Tary
n had traveled back in time through her lens.
“Well. That’s different.”
It didn’t explain the walls, or the horse moving in the painting, or a number of other things that were threatening to drive Taryn insane.
“I’m going to have to start carrying a penny around with me I guess,” she said shakily. “Something to bring me back to the present.”
Taryn walked around the room, looking at the same things she’d been staring at for the past week.
She owed Parker nothing. She owed this motel nothing.
Her head was pounding, her stomach gurgled in hunger she couldn’t satisfy, her body was on fire, and the very thing that seemed to want her help was threatening to drive her insane.
And she couldn’t, for the life of her, walk away.
“Really? Fifty-five people? Are you sure that’s right?”
“Taryn, I swear to God I am not exaggerating,” David swore. “And that’s not even counting the ones who had heart attacks, strokes, stuff like that. These are just the murders, the overdoses, the random accidents…”
“So you’re telling me that over the past, I don’t know, seventy years the Black Raven Inn has had more than fifty deaths?”
“Yep.”
“Dang.”
Taryn half-heartedly pushed a buggy down the grocery store aisle, searching for food that would stretch her money the farthest. Pre-packaged food was not created for single people. How could she possibly eat a box of macaroni and cheese by herself when it was meant to feed four? Why were the only single versions of food frozen or microwavable?
“Now, they weren’t all in that same room,” David said.
Taryn stopped in front of a row of soup cans and studied them. She could remember back when chicken noodle and tomato were the main options. Now there was half an aisle dedicated to them. It was all overwhelming.
Black Raven Inn: A Paranormal Mystery (Taryn's Camera Book 6) Page 17
