The Lodge at Whispering Pines

by Melissa R. L. Simonin

  He got a little teary-eyed himself, and stepped back as Mrs. O’Neill hugged Miles again.

  “Thank you,” she said, her voice choked.

  “I’m very glad to be able to help,” Miles said.

  “Thank you,” she said again, as she hugged me. Then she turned to Doreen. “And it was wonderful meeting you.”

  “You too,” smiled Doreen.

  We walked out with the O’Neills, and they went on their way to the hospital to start the wheels turning so that Violet could be transferred.

  “It’s snowing again,” I said, stating the obvious as Miles opened the back door of our SUV for Doreen, and the front door for me.

  “I’m sure the ski resorts are pleased at that,” said Miles.

  He went around and got into the driver’s side, then started the vehicle. We weren’t inside the coffee shop all that long, so the engine was still hot. Warm air came out of the vents right away. I warmed my hands in front of one.

  “We should go skiing again,” I said. “Remember how fun that was last year?”

  “I do. I remember that very well.”

  “Only this time I’ll be kissing my husband,” I said, remembering a conversation we had there.

  “You do that,” said Miles, as a gagging sound erupted from the backseat. I stifled a laugh, and so did Miles.

  There was silence for a few minutes as we drove back up the mountain toward the Lodge.

  “I’d like to learn to ski,” said Doreen.

  “You should,” I said. “This is ski country, after all.”

  “Can you teach me how?” she asked.

  “Sorry sis, I’ve never skied. I’ve no idea how to do it myself, much less teach anyone else.”

  “Well, Miles knows then. Can you teach me?”

  “Sorry Doreen, I’m no more help to you there than Anika is.”

  Before she could ask why in the world we went skiing since we don’t ski, I said, “Xander and Jenny know how, though. Xander is the new fitness coordinator at the Lodge, so we’ll talk to him about giving you some lessons. Tryon too, I’ll bet he’d like that.”

  “Okay, yeah, that’ll be great,” she said enthusiastically.

  It appeared Xander had been forgiven for repeating what he heard about the hospital.

  “We’ve got three hours before Violet’s typical wake up time,” I said, looking at the clock on the dashboard of our vehicle. “Do you want to take some of that time to focus on your class?”

  “I should,” said Miles. “What will you do?”

  “I don’t know,” I considered that. “Probably listen to Doreen talk about our attempted murder investigation.”

  I was kidding.

  “Yeah, let’s do that!” she said, bouncing in her seat.

  “She’s way more fidgety than I am,” I said to Miles, and he smiled.

  “You two are a lot alike. You do see that, right?”

  “Well… if I go by sight, then no.”

  “Take my word for it then.”

  I caught a glimpse of Doreen’s face in the mirror of the sun visor. Miles’ observation pleased her.

  “I take that as a major compliment,” I said, and her smile grew.

  “As well you should,” said Miles.

  She grinned happily, then turned her attention to the iPad she left in the SUV while we were inside the coffee shop. She was probably looking into the information we gained from Violet’s parents.

  We reached our Lodge. I breathed a sigh of relief when the elevator doors closed behind us. If anyone wanted to chat or inform us of some new crises that needed our attention, they were too late and would just have to wait. Miles needed time to focus on the one class he was keeping, or he’d end up having to drop it too.

  We reached our suite and went inside. Doreen was distracted greeting Chip and Trixie, and in hunting down the cats who did not bother to meet us at the door.

  Miles took time to grab a water bottle out of the refrigerator, then I walked with him to the office.

  “I should be through by eleven o’ clock,” he said. “If you need anything, or Violet wakes up early, let me know.”

  “Okay, I’ll do that,” I said.

  “Let’s order lunch when I’m done, and then we’ll eat while we wait.”

  “That sounds very good. I’ll order it sent here at eleven, how’s that?” I asked.

  “Perfect,” said Miles. He kissed me, then I left so he could get to work, closing the door behind me.

  I flopped on the couch and closed my eyes. It wasn’t long before I felt a gray panther-kitty hop on my lap. I scratched behind Night’s ears as I thought about what the O’Neills had to say about Spence.

  Their opinion was vastly different than Xander’s. I’d hold off on forming my own opinion until after speaking with the guy. Unless he had a dark cloud surrounding him. In that case I’d know he was guilty. I think. Did someone have a black cloud if they tried to kill someone and failed? I frowned as I thought that over. I had no experience with that, so I didn’t know. It seemed like the evil that caused a person to attempt to murder would be just as real and stain just as much, whether they succeeded or not.

  That made sense. If I was wrong, I’d know as soon as a cloud-free person said they didn’t try to kill anyone, and the truth told me otherwise.

  I yawned and propped my feet on the coffee table, then managed to get my phone out of my pocket without disturbing Night too severely.

  “Doreen!” I called.

  No answer.

  “Doreen! What do you want for lunch?”

  No response.

  Hm. Either she’s asleep, or in her room listening to headphones.

  I gave that some thought and decided she better not be taking a nap. If she was tired, she’d just have to wait and take a nap when Miles and I did, instead of being bored and making racket or deciding she had something really, really important to tell us that couldn’t wait. That’s what I used to do to my parents. I’d have to apologize to Mom for that, the next time I saw her.

  I pressed the number for Doreen’s phone.

  “What is it?” she answered.

  “Why aren’t you answering me?” I wanted to know.

  There was a couple seconds worth of silence.

  “Uh… I just did.”

  “Fine, you answered your phone. Whatever. What do you want for lunch?”

  “Aren’t we eating kind of early? It’s not even ten o’ clock.”

  “No, I’m ordering in advance. What do you want?”

  “Well… what do they have?”

  “You read the menu yesterday, don’t you remember?”

  “Not really. So what do they have?”

  “Come read the menu why don’t you, I’ve got a cat weighing me down,” I said. “I can’t reach it.”

  “I’m on the phone with Leah, though.”

  “I thought you were on the phone with me,” I said, and smiled at the exasperated sigh I heard in response.

  “She’s on hold, and I’ve got to get back to her, she’s telling me everything that happened yesterday in school.”

  “Fine, just be sure you don’t tell her what happened yesterday, or any minute since!”

  “I won’t, I won’t. Gotta go!”

  I looked at my phone and raised an eyebrow. The kid hung up on me.

  Fine! She was getting chicken strips and macaroni, then. If she didn’t like it… well, she wouldn’t be filling up on ice cream, anyway. Of course neither would I, until Miles removed the force field.

  I called in our room service order, then hung up and sat there on the couch thinking.

  I called Mom. That way she wouldn’t call at an inopportune time later on. Like when Violet woke up.

  “Hi Mom, how’s Grandma?” I asked.

  “Doing really well,” Mom said. “How is everyone there?”

  “Good, Doreen’s on the phone with a friend, and Miles is studying for the class he’s taking.”

  “Class?”

>   “Class. Singular.”

  “He’s not taking a full load this semester?”

  Mom was finding it difficult to grasp this concept. Why wouldn’t she be? Since Miles was majoring in more than one subject, last semester he took the maximum number of credits allowed. That’s what he’d intended to do every semester until we graduated, but things have a habit of changing and adaptation is the key to survival.

  “We hit the ground running when we got here Tuesday morning,” I said. “Within the first couple of hours or so, we lost our head chef, manager, and cleaning crew. A bunch of other staff left too, and didn’t even give notice. They were gone before we arrived.”

  “Oh my goodness, I had no idea!” Mom exclaimed. “So what did you do? What are you going to do?”

  “Miles and I are managing the Lodge ourselves. We called in some friends, and favors, and employees from our other businesses, and managed to keep the doors to the Lodge and the restaurant open. It’s been one thing after another ever since, though. There hasn’t been a minute for Miles to do coursework until now. It’s been a matter of study about business, or save the business we have. Miles isn’t dropping out completely, but realistically, he’ll be stretching himself thin to even do one.”

  “My goodness, I had no idea,” said Mom, distressed. “If I’d known I would have taken Doreen with us, it’s just—her classes, and not knowing how long we’ll be gone—”

  “Don’t worry about it, Mom,” I said. “Miles and I both understand, and it’s been fine. Doreen seems to be having fun, and it’s fine.”

  “So what happened? Why did everyone leave?” Mom wanted to know.

  “Well… they believed there was a ghost haunting the Lodge.”

  “What! Why on earth would anyone believe that?” Mom laughed.

  “Well… what they saw made them believe it, and people were pretty stressed out when we arrived. We had to do a lot of damage control. But Miles was able to reassure everyone. We didn’t lose any more staff members after the meeting we held.”

  “Well, that doesn’t surprise me. Your Dad has mentioned many times how impressed he is with Miles’ business sense and his ability to lead.”

  “Yeah, he’s amazing,” I said. I love it when people appreciate what a great guy he is.

  “We couldn’t be more impressed with his level of maturity, either.”

  It would certainly impress them how many years he spent gaining that maturity though…

  “Yeah, he’s awesome.”

  “How did he manage to calm the staff, though?”

  “Well… he said if they saw Elizabeth again, to tell her Miles wants to talk to her. That reassured them.”

  Mom laughed.

  “So she has a name! That’s too funny. I don’t suppose she ever showed up for that talk, did she!”

  I chewed my lip and tried to figure out what the truth was. There was no ghost, and the… consciousness, or whatever part of Violet was asleep in our sitting room, wasn’t named Elizabeth. That wasn’t her first name, anyway. But she was who our staff believed to be Elizabeth, the ghost.

  “Honey, are you there?” asked Mom.

  “Yeah, sorry. I got kind of distracted.”

  “That’s understandable considering what you’ve told me.”

  “Yeah, honestly I feel like we’ve been on a runaway train since Tuesday. It’s been one thing after another. John and Annette got married, too.”

  “You’re kidding! I thought their wedding was supposed to be this summer!”

  “It was, but they didn’t want to wait any longer to make that commitment to each other. So they eloped.”

  “Wow, well… I wonder what their parents think. I’m glad you and Miles didn’t do that. It meant a lot to your Dad to walk you down the aisle, and to both of us that we were able to be present at the ceremony. Your grandparents, too.”

  I made a face. Miles was so right about all that. I’m glad I guess, because I’d really be annoyed if we waited a year out of consideration for them, and then they didn’t appreciate it!

  “I’m glad we waited then, Mom. It was great getting to talk to you, but I better go now.”

  “It was great getting to talk to you, honey,” Mom said.

  “We’ve got a lot going on the rest of the day, so if you call, don’t be worried if I don’t get back to you right away.”

  “Understood,” said Mom. “I know how busy you are, and you’ve got a lot on your plate. Don’t forget to take time out for you and Miles, though. Never get so busy that you confuse anything else as being more important than your relationship with each other.”

  “Thanks, Mom. That’s good advice. I won’t forget.”

  “Love you honey.”

  “Love you too, Mom.”

  I pressed the end button on my phone, and managed to get it back in my pocket without dislodging the cat from my lap.

  I thought over our conversation and sort of laughed. If I ever slipped up and said anything about Miles’ past, our history before he supposedly came out of the coma, or anything else about our life I didn’t want her knowing, like his abilities or mine… all I’d have to do, is tell Mom the truth! All of it! She’d have a good laugh, and comment on my creativity and inability to be serious for long.

  I laughed again, because that was the truth.

  Chapter 17

  I felt a hand rest on my shoulder and screamed, hurling my book nearly across the room in the process. Night yowled and took off as if launched from a cannon. Chip jumped up from a sound sleep with a growl and an intense look, as he sought the source of danger.

  “Honey, good grief! What’s that about?” exclaimed Miles.

  “Oh my goodness, you scared me nearly to death!” I said, as I clutched my heart and gasped for breath.

  Doreen flew into the sitting room.

  “What happened! Is it Violet?” She looked anxiously at our transparent guest, who slept on.

  “No, it isn’t Violet,” said Miles, glancing at the book that now lay on the floor. “Your sister likes to read Matthew Davis’ books and scare herself.”

  Doreen stared at me as though she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

  “You’ve got a sort-of ghost in your sitting room, and it’s no big deal to you. You marry a guy that used to be a ghost, even. You talk about seeing that darkness and tracking down murderers as if it’s all in a day’s work. And you get scared reading a book?” Doreen gave me an incredulous look.

  “Yeah, well, you try reading it and then have someone sneak up behind you and grab your shoulder!” I said indignantly.

  “I didn’t sneak, and I didn’t grab,” said Miles, as he sat beside me on the couch, and put his arm around me. “I’ll overlook that extreme exaggeration on your part and make allowances, knowing that once again, reading has left you overwrought.”

  Doreen rolled her eyes, and returned to her room.

  I laughed and swatted at his chest, and he easily caught my hand in his and kissed it.

  “So how was class?” I asked, my heart settling back in my chest where it belonged.

  “It was fine,” Miles said. “I’m caught up, so… that’s a good feeling.”

  “That’s great,” I said. “I ordered lunch, it should be here any minute.”

  “Sounds good, I’m starving.”

  Right on cue, there was a knock at the door. Miles gave me a quick kiss, then went to answer. I followed along, just in case Troy tried dropping the tray again when he saw Violet was still here.

  Troy wasn’t standing on the other side of the door, another one of our bellhops was. The pin on the front of his jacket bore the name Richard. I remembered meeting him during Tuesday’s staff meeting.

  “Oh, man…” Richard’s voice was faint, and his eyes rivaled my sister’s when she first saw Violet, and learned about Miles.

  “Oh, I cannot believe this,” he said, oblivious to everything but our transparent guest.

  “Thank you Richard, go ahead and set the tray th
ere on the table,” said Miles, giving his shoulder a nudge to get him moving.

  “Yeah, okay… I mean, yes sir!” said Richard, coming to his senses a bit.

  He set the tray on the table. His eyes darted back to Violet, then to Miles.

  “What did you—how did you—what are you—” Richard stuttered, undecided over which question to ask first.

  Miles, being compassionate and a good employer, took the time to talk to him.

  “I see you’ve noticed our guest,” said Miles. “This is the girl known by the staff here as Elizabeth. She’s staying with us until we can help her get to where she belongs.”

  Richard looked at Miles with wide eyes as he struggled to form words to match his thoughts.

  “How? How are you able to do this, and you’re not even scared!” He directed that part at me, then looked back at Miles. “Is this what you do, are you like experienced with ghosts or something?”

  Doreen walked out of her bedroom and joined us near the table. She smiled, and gave Miles a look.

  “Yeah, he’s an expert on the paranormal. He’s got lots of experience,” she said.

  Richard’s eyes grew even wider as he stared at Miles in awe. I was ready to smack her! What was she thinking! Miles was amused by something. Did he not hear what she just said?

  Doreen looked at Miles mischievously and added, “He’s watched Ghost Busters like a thousand times.”

  Miles smiled.

  “She’s eleven.”

  Doreen’s jaw dropped. She was clearly aghast. Then she narrowed her eyes, her lips tight, and pointed at Miles. He won this round, but it wasn’t over. Then she tossed her blond curls, and turned her attention to the tray of food on the table.

  As an act of self-preservation I didn’t laugh. This was, after all, a pre-teen we were dealing with. Being amused at her expense could prove fatal.

  “Thanks for delivering lunch,” said Miles, guiding Richard back to the door. He tipped him, then sent him on his way.

  Doreen sat at the table eating a chicken strip, and staring off into the distance. We were being shunned at the moment.

  Miles and I smiled at each other, and by unspoken consent, agreed to leave her entirely alone. We lifted the covers from the remaining dishes to find our own meals.