Night of the Living Wed

by Laura Durham

  Kate leaned in to peer through one of the glass doors. “Is this the indoor pool?”

  I took a breath and could detect the faint scent of chlorine. “It smells like a pool.”

  “Let’s check it out.” Fern pushed open one of the French doors and motioned for us to follow him.

  “Now this is a pool.” Kate gazed up at the two-story room surrounding the long, rectangular pool.

  The tall, square columns ringed the room, and balconies overlooked both sides. Lounge chairs and topiaries in white planters surrounded the placid blue water, and double staircases at both ends of the room led to the second level. One end of the room held a balcony with floor-to-ceiling windows, while the other boasted an elevated opera box.

  “I feel like we’ve stepped back in time,” I said, my voice echoing off the walls. I could imagine turn-of-the-century swimmers splashing around while musicians played from the opera box.

  “And we’re the only ones here,” Fern said, twisting his neck to look down the colonnade.

  “I’m sure the rest of the hotel guests are sleeping,” Richard said. “Like we should be.”

  Fern shook his head. “It’s too early to go to bed. Anyway, I’m not the least bit tired.”

  Richard sank down on a padded wooden lounge chair. “Speak for yourself. That dinner is putting me to sleep.”

  Kate tugged at his arm. “Come on. Aren’t you going to go ghost hunting with us?”

  Richard pulled his arm away and settled himself deeper in the lounge chair. “Are you out of your mind? I’m perfectly happy right here.”

  I kicked off my low heels and sat down at the edge of the pool, letting my bare legs dip into the warm water. “I’m with Richard. You two go off and look for ghosts. We’ll be right here relaxing.”

  “Suit yourself.” Kate took Fern’s hand and led him out of the pool room.

  “Finally,” Richard sighed, closing his eyes, “some peace and quiet.”

  “I thought you needed to check on Hermès,” I said.

  Richard draped an arm over his eyes to block the light. “I walked him right before dinner, so he should be fine for a few more minutes.”

  I splashed my feet in the pool and the sound reverberated around me. “You know, this pool is over a hundred years old. Totally renovated, of course.”

  “Someone’s been reading the hotel press packet,” Richard mumbled.

  “The website, actually.”

  “If there is one thing I’ll say about you, Annabelle, you always do your homework.”

  Coming from Richard, I knew this was a compliment. I put my hands behind me and leaned back, gazing up at the high-arched ceiling. I let out a breath, closed my eyes, and relaxed my head so that it fell back. I could feel the stress of the wedding season slipping away as I breathed in and out, hearing nothing but the sounds of my own breath and my feet moving in the water.

  There was something to be said for getting away. I could never feel this relaxed in Washington, even if I didn’t have anything to do. Probably because I always had something to do, some email to return, some contract to mail. But leaving town and leaving my laptop behind meant I could finally take a weekend off without feeling guilty that there was something I should be doing. I would have to write Darla and Debbie another thank-you note for this gift.

  “Not swimming?” A child’s voice snapped me from my thoughts.

  My eyes popped open. A little girl who looked to be about nine or ten stood at the far end of the pool near the stairs leading to the opera box. Richard hadn’t opened his eyes, and I could hear the slow, heavy breath that indicated he was sleeping.

  “Not tonight,” I said in a quiet voice so as not to wake Richard. “My bathing suit is upstairs.”

  “Where did your friends go?” the girl asked.

  I couldn’t see her well from all the way at the end of the room, but I could see that she wore a dark dress. “They went exploring.”

  “Looking for ghosts?” the girl asked.

  “You know about the ghosts?” I asked, wondering if her parents had told her or if she’d heard from other children. Ghost stories were exactly the kind of thing children loved to scare each other with.

  Her shoulders twitched in a shrug. “Everybody knows.”

  Bad news for the management staff, I thought.

  “What’s your name?” the girl asked me.

  “Annabelle. What’s yours?”

  The girl’s singsong laugh bounced off the tile and filled the room. “My name’s Anna. We have almost the same name.”

  “We do,” I said. “Sometimes my friends call me Annie.”

  “I wouldn’t mind being called Annie, but no one calls me anything but Anna.” The girl sighed and sounded older than her years.

  “I can call you—” I began, but stopped as Kate and Fern burst through the French doors in the center of the room.

  “Annabelle, Richard,” Kate said as she skidded to a stop before she fell into the pool. “You’re not going to believe what we saw.”

  Richard jerked up in the chair, his eyes flying open. “What? Where? Who died?”

  “Nobody died,” Fern said, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. “Unless you count ghosts, but they’re already dead.”

  Richard flopped back on the lounge chair. “I don’t.”

  “Come on.” Kate grabbed my shoes and handed them to me. “We have to show you.”

  I pulled my feet out of the pool and hoisted myself up. “This had better be good. Richard and I were enjoying some moments of Zen.”

  “Zen Shmen,” Kate said. “We’re talking serious specters.”

  Kate and Fern were both known for being dramatic, so I wasn’t sure if their idea of a serious specter was the same as mine. But I knew if I didn’t humor them I’d never hear the end of it. When I turned to say goodbye to Anna, she had gone. “Okay, show me some ghosts.”

  Chapter 6

  Kate pulled me down a wide hallway with windows draped in pale green curtains along one side. Heavy glass chandeliers shaped like lanterns hung down the center and alternated with the squares of glass panes in the ceiling. Even though it was nighttime, I could easily imagine the light streaming in from the glass portions of the ceiling during the day.

  “You saw the ghosts down here?” I asked, stepping out of my shoes. Even though the heels weren’t high, my feet still hurt after wearing them for a few hours, especially after taking them off. I should have known better than to take off my shoes and expect to put them back on without protest from my feet.

  Fern stopped walking in front of me. “We didn’t exactly see fully formed ghosts.”

  “What a surprise.” Richard sank into one of the cream-colored wing chairs positioned along the wall. “Wake me when the apparitions appear.”

  “Not so fast.” Kate pulled out her phone and began scrolling. “We took pictures of this very hallway just a few minutes ago.”

  Fern looked over her shoulder. “There.” He pointed at her phone screen. “Show them that one.”

  I studied the screen Kate held out to me. Aside from a few round spots on the image, the hallway in the photo looked exactly like the one that faced me. I covered my mouth as I yawned. “I don’t see anything.”

  Kate touched one of the light spots on the screen. “Don’t you see the orbs?”

  “Orbs?” I squinted my eyes at the phone. “Isn’t that dust in the air?”

  “Oh, no.” Fern shook his head. “Orbs in photos are evidence of spirits.”

  Richard stood up. “If we’re chasing dust particles, I’m definitely going to bed.”

  “Orbs,” Fern said, his hands on his hips. “Do you see any dust in this room?”

  Fern was right about the lack of dust. Every surface in the hallway from the polished mahogany side tables against the walls to the glistening glass of the chandeliers was pristine.

  “I’m not saying the orbs aren’t real,” I said. “I’m just too tired to chase them.”

&nb
sp; “Well, I’m saying both,” Richard called over his shoulder as he walked down the hall. “Goodnight, ghost hunters. I will see you all tomorrow at breakfast.”

  “Wait for me.” I scooped up my shoes and ran after him on my toes. I waved to Kate and Fern. “Show me your photos tomorrow.”

  “You don’t actually believe them, do you?” Richard asked as we made our way across the lobby, passing the fireplaces where the logs still burned and hissed and the few remaining guests gathered around them talking over glasses of wine and snifters of brandy.

  I shrugged. “Not really. I’ve never had a personal run-in with a ghost.”

  “Well, I have,” Richard said, “and it wasn’t in the form of a floating dust ball.”

  I put a hand on his arm to stop him as we reached the hall for the indoor pool. “Wait. You’ve seen a ghost before? From the way you talked back there, I thought you were a hardened skeptic.”

  “It’s not that I don’t believe in ghosts.” He resumed walking, his shoes slapping against the tiled floor. “It’s that I’ve seen one and don’t want to see one again in the near future.”

  I took a second to digest this before following him, my bare feet silent on the cold green tile. “Where did you see a ghost?”

  “Woodrow Wilson House.” Richard rubbed his arms as if he were cold. “Late night during load-out. I was on the second floor making a final pass to be sure we’d cleaned up each room, and as I turned from the doorway of the dining room, there he was. The man himself.”

  “Are you telling me you saw the ghost of President Woodrow Wilson?” I darted a glance at the French doors leading to the pool, but I didn’t see anyone swimming inside.

  Richard nodded and shuddered. “Just for a brief moment, and then he was gone.”

  “You recognized him?” I couldn’t help shuddering a bit myself.

  “From his portraits in the house. After all the events I’ve done there, do you know how many times I’ve looked at those paintings? It was him all right. And he wasn’t happy.”

  “What do you mean?” I heard my own voice drop to a whisper.

  We walked from the tiled hallway to a carpeted stretch with small shops on each side. The stores were closed and dark because it was so late.

  Richard paused in front of a set of elevators and pressed the call button. “I mean that as soon as I saw him, I got the feeling of ice water being poured all over me. I’ve never finished a load-out as fast in my life.”

  “Is that why you don’t like to work there anymore?” I stepped into the elevator as Richard held the doors open for me.

  “You’d feel the same way if you’d seen him.” Richard joined me and pressed the button for the second floor. “Restless, unhappy spirits are not something I want to encounter again in this lifetime. Although with the number of old, historic event venues in Washington, luck isn’t on my side.”

  We stepped off the elevator onto the second floor and walked a few steps down to Richard’s room.

  “And from what Stuart said, luck isn’t on your side here, either,” I said as Richard opened the door to his room and Hermès rushed to greet us, his tiny tail wagging.

  “Any ghost who wakes me up tonight will need to be very loud.” Richard leaned over and kissed my cheek. “Are you all right getting to your room?”

  “It’s only two doors down.” I motioned to the door at the end of the hall. “I’ll be fine. Will you make it through your walk with Hermès?”

  “Of course. He’s a very efficient dog.”

  Of course he was, I thought. I was sure the little dog had adapted to Richard’s exacting schedule and could piddle on command.

  I walked the few feet to my room, inserted the card key in the lock, and looked back to see Richard heading back down the hall with Hermès on a leash. I closed my door, dropped my shoes by the door, and flopped down on the bed. It felt good to be horizontal after a long day of driving and then an indulgently rich dinner. I rolled over and spotted a small plate of dark-chocolate-covered strawberries sitting on my bedside table. A turndown treat courtesy of Stuart, no doubt. Even though I’d been stuffed only moments earlier, I popped one of the oversized sweet strawberries in my mouth as I stood up to change into pajamas.

  I’d brought a nice set of pink flannel pajamas instead of the usual oversized T-shirt I wore at home to sleep. Even though both Richard and Kate were aware of my less-than-stylish nighttime attire, I didn’t feel like another lecture during our weekend away.

  After changing, brushing my teeth, and washing my face, I snuggled down beneath the silky soft duvet and let my head sink into the feather pillow. I reached over and turned off the bedside lamp, then I took a deep breath and soaked in the quiet of the remote resort. No car alarms going off or loud drunk people staggering down the sidewalk as happened often in Georgetown.

  I could feel myself drifting off to sleep when I heard a loud thumping against the wall. I ignored it and hoped that the guests in the room next to mine would quiet down. Another series of thumps shook the far wall and made me sit up. What on earth were those people doing? I fell back on the pillow and placed another one over my head to drown out the noise that had now progressed to moaning and banging.

  Finally, I reached for the hotel phone on the bedside table and dialed the front desk. I gave the gentleman who answered my room number and told him my problem. “Would you mind asking the guests in the room next to mine to keep things down?”

  He tapped away at his keyboard. “I’m sorry, ma’am. There’s no one staying in that room.”

  One final moan came from the unoccupied room as I hung up the phone and burrowed down under the covers, my eyes open.

  Chapter 7

  “You look bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,” I said to Richard as I joined him in the Crystal Room for breakfast the next morning.

  He was the picture of relaxed elegance in his dark brown pants and black button-down shirt as he sat alone at a round table surrounded by six dove-gray armless dining chairs. The light, airy room had multiple crystal chandeliers hanging throughout, and the cream-colored walls were hung with mirrors and black-and-white photos. The black plank floor was the only dark contrast to the white linens and white marble-topped buffet tables.

  The sounds of clinking coffee cups and sizzling omelets roused me from my morning haze. I inhaled the intoxicating aroma of freshly brewed coffee and made-to-order waffles coming from the station I saw set up at the far end of the long room. I planned to take advantage of both the coffee and the omelettes as soon as possible.

  Richard looked me up and down. “You don’t look so hot. Don’t tell me the ghost hunters dragged you out of bed to track down spirits with them.”

  I shook my head as I beckoned a waitress to ask for coffee and orange juice. “No, but it took me forever to fall asleep.”

  Richard speared a strawberry from his bowl of fruit. “Well, I slept like a baby. There’s something to be said for being away from the city.”

  “I’ll second that,” Mack said as he and Buster joined us, the upholstered chairs protesting their weight when they sat down. “I haven’t slept that soundly in years.”

  Buster gave a deep chuckle. “Knowing that we don’t have to wake up to a wedding setup is therapy in and of itself.”

  I noticed that the flower-arranging duo had not gone back to their usual black leather attire. I liked the casual, flannel look they’d adopted for the weekend, but it was disorienting not to hear them coming from the jangling of chains on their clothing.

  “It’s a strange feeling not to be prepping for a wedding on a Saturday morning.” I poured a healthy amount of cream in my coffee, as well as two packets of raw sugar, turning the black beverage a milky brown. I didn’t usually drink coffee unless it came in a bottle with the word Frappuccino written on the side, but desperate times called for desperate measures. “Not that I’m complaining.”

  “I, for one, could get used to this,” Kate said as she slid into one of the last two chairs at t
he table. “Aside from the early breakfast time.”

  “Early?” Richard looked at her over the top of his porcelain coffee cup. “It’s nine o’clock.”

  “We were photographing orbs until after one in the morning.” Fern took the chair next to Kate’s and slid his sunglasses down over his eyes.

  I took a sip of my heavily doctored coffee and winced at the heat. “That’s still earlier than when I fell asleep.”

  Kate reached her arms behind her head to tighten the tie on her green halter dress, reducing her décolleté level from startling to suggestive. “If you were up so late, you should have come out with us.”

  “No, thank you,” I said. “I had plenty of weird activity going on right next door to me.”

  “Oooh la la,” Kate said, taking a drink of coffee the second after the waitress poured her a cup. “Honeymooners?”

  “I thought so, but I called the front desk and they claim no one is staying in the room.”

  Kate let her coffee cup clatter in the saucer as she replaced it. “Are you serious? The room was empty, but you heard noises?” She nudged Fern, who jerked awake. “Do you know what this means?”

  “What?” Fern asked, looking around the table behind his dark glasses.

  Kate slapped the edge of the table. “Annabelle’s suite is next to a haunted room.”

  Richard snorted. “A more likely scenario is the late-night desk clerk made a mistake.”

  Buster looked wide-eyed around the table. “Is it true about the increased ghost activity?”

  “He’s a bit nervous about spirits ever since one of the guys in our bike club started talking in tongues at a prayer meeting.” Mack rubbed Buster’s arm.

  I knew that Buster and Mack attended frequent Bible study meetings with other Harley-riding Christians.

  I patted him on the back. “Don’t worry. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation.”