by Laura Durham
“Don’t you dare,” Kate said, teetering next to me on the path.
I reached out to grip her elbow before she stumbled and gored someone with her skewer. “Let him enjoy himself. We’re on vacation.”
“I’m glad you remembered we aren’t here to work or solve crime,” Richard said. “I worry sometimes that you’ll buy a van and rename us Mystery, Incorporated.”
“Hilarious,” I said. “Where would I park the Mystery Machine in Georgetown?”
We reached a large stone area with a round firepit in the center and wooden rocking chairs surrounding it. The fire was already roaring, and I inhaled the comforting smell of burning wood. Stuart had walked ahead to stake out chairs for us, but so far we were the only people there. Hermès reached the chairs first and jumped up on one.
“It gets busier later in the evening,” Stuart said, pulling a pair of chairs closer to the edge of the stone pit.
Kate lowered herself into a rocking chair and let her heels drop to the ground, while Buster and Mack sat in adjacent chairs and propped their thick legs up on the edge of the firepit.
“It’s perfect just like this,” I said, savoring the fact that we didn’t have to make small talk with strangers as we relaxed by the open fire. I set my skewer on a wooden side table and ripped open my packet of marshmallows.
Richard took a rocking chair between his dog and me. “I thought you were too stuffed to eat another bite.”
“Just because I’m too full to eat them doesn’t mean I don’t want to roast them.” I stabbed a fat, puffy marshmallow onto the pointy end of my skewer. “Come on, who doesn’t love the smell of toasted marshmallows?”
Richard sniffed. “My brownie s’mores on a stick are much less mess if you ask me.”
“Do you have any here? No, you don’t, because we’re on vacation.” I thrust a skewer at him. “So buck up and join in the fun.”
I heard Kate choke back a laugh as I lowered my marshmallow into the fire and watched it begin to sizzle.
“Enjoying your stay, folks?”
I looked behind me to see the resort’s general manager and his assistant walking up the stone pathway toward us. Even though Stuart had gone more casual for our tavern dinner, Mr. Rubin and Mr. Anderson remained in dark suits and ties, looking seriously out of place in the rustic firepit setting.
“Stuart is rolling out the red carpet for us,” Kate said, reaching out and patting the catering director on the leg.
“I’m glad to hear it,” Mr. Rubin said as he smoothed his thin mustache with one finger. “Stuart is one of our best.”
“Is there any way Mack and I could get a tour of your loading dock tomorrow?” Buster asked, coming up to stand next to the general manager.
Mr. Rubin took a step back to take in all of Buster. “I don’t see why not.”
I handed my skewer to Richard and lowered my voice so only he could hear me. “While Buster’s busy with the GM, I’m going to see if the assistant knows anything about the room next to mine.”
“What?” Richard tried to press the skewer back into my hand. “I will take absolutely no part in this ridiculous . . . Annabelle, come back here!”
I’d sidled over to the management team, leaving Richard spluttering and holding my skewer over the fire.
“How long have you been working at Bedford Springs?” I asked the smaller man with pale, thinning hair brushed over his high forehead.
Mr. Anderson jumped a little when he saw me at his side. “Quite a while, actually. I’m a native of the area and started working here in high school as a busboy.”
“So you worked your way up?” I asked, my esteem for the quiet man growing.
He nodded. “It’s taken a while to become assistant manager, but there isn’t any place I’d rather be than right here.”
For a moment I wondered if he had motive to spread the rumors as a way to get his boss out of the way and move up the ranks even further, but I couldn’t imagine him wanting to ruin the hotel he’d worked at for so long. And who was to say the assistant manager wouldn’t be fired along with the general manager if the owners decided to clean house?
“And have you always known about the hauntings?” I asked, ignoring the glares I could feel coming from Richard across the fire pit.
The assistant manager’s eyes widened. “Those are only myths.”
“Is the gentleman in room 217 a myth? What about the room that’s under renovation next to mine?”
His mouth dropped open before he clamped it shut.
“It’s okay.” I put a hand on his arm. “We aren’t going to breathe a word to anyone.”
His shoulders drooped. “As long as you promise—”
“We can’t seem to get enough of each other today, can we?” Brianna’s voice pierced the air and immediately shattered the jovial atmosphere around the firepit.
I looked up and saw her flouncing toward us; her hands were jammed in a brown fur muff with a matching fur hat perched on her head that looked like it had been swiped from the set of Dr. Zhivago. Hermès growled low in his throat.
“Oh, no, honey,” Fern said, giving her outfit the once-over. “That’s a hard no.”
Kerry hurried along behind Brianna, taking two steps for her one. “Brianna said we might find you out here.”
Brianna shot her a look, then regained her haughty expression. “I figured toasting marshmallows was about your speed.”
The marshmallow at the end of the skewer Richard was holding for me burst into flames and fell into the fire, sending up a burst of sparks.
Kerry laughed nervously. “It was fun seeing you at the spa today.”
“Loads,” Kate said, matching Kerry’s bubbly voice so that even I didn’t know if she was serious or playing along.
“I wanted to thank whoever assigned our room.” Brianna gave a sickly sweet smile to the three men around the fire pit who worked for the resort. “It couldn’t have suited our purposes better.”
Stuart’s face darkened, and I noticed Brianna dart a look at Mr. Anderson.
The general manager cleared his throat. “I’m glad you’re pleased with it, Miss Belfry.”
“Miss Belfry?” Fern said, spitting out a bit of marshmallow as he spoke. “Who’s Miss Belfry?”
Brianna twitched her shoulders back and stuck out her fur muff. “I am.”
Kate gave me a look of astonishment, and I shrugged as if to say that I hadn’t known her last name either.
“As in ‘bats in the . . .’?” Richard asked.
Brianna’s nostrils flared. “I’ll have you know that Belfry is a very prestigious surname.” She pressed her lips together then stamped a foot. “Come on, Kerry. Don’t you have a blog post to finish?”
Kerry reluctantly followed as Brianna marched off, and Hermès stopped growling and resumed wagging his tail from his rocking chair perch.
“You know,” Fern said, licking marshmallow off his fingers, “I’m starting to think she doesn’t like us.”
Stuart swore under his breath, then apologized. “It just makes me so angry that someone would want to harm people they don’t even know. We’ve had employees who’ve been working at Bedford for decades. What happens to those people if the hotel goes under?”
I took a deep breath. “Well, we’re not going to let that happen.”
Chapter 13
I unzipped my boots and let them drop to the floor, flopped on my bed, and let out a groan.
“You sound like you’re in pain,” Reese said from the other end of the cell phone.
“I’m telling you, I’m not used to eating like this.” I shifted in bed so that I was sitting propped up on the mountain of fluffy white pillows, one hand holding my phone to my ear.
“You mean eating real food and not just snacks and diet soda on the fly?”
“Hey,” I said. “Have you been talking to Richard?” My best friend was not shy in his critique of my eating habits. It probably didn’t help that he was a caterer and considered my f
ailing to be a personal affront.
“I have gotten a glimpse into your refrigerator,” Reese reminded me. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that you don’t do a lot of cooking from scratch.”
“Because I’m so busy working,” I said. “I’ve had a wedding every weekend except three since June.”
“I know. I’ve been trying to coordinate schedules with you for the past couple of months.”
“It’s not like you’ve got a regular nine-to-five gig either.” I shifted my phone to the other ear. “From what I can tell, a detective’s schedule is even more unpredictable than a wedding planner’s.”
Reese laughed. “Another reason why we’re perfect for each other.”
I felt my cheeks warm.
He cleared his throat. “So tell me, is it nice to have a weekend off?”
“Sort of.” I put my phone on speaker, closed my eyes, and let my head fall back on the soft pillows. “It would be perfect if I didn’t have to deal with this ghost situation.”
There were a few seconds of silence on Reese’s end. “I’m sorry. Did you say ghost situation?”
I let out a breath. “Didn’t I mention the resort is haunted, and my room seems to be next to some new ghost activity or someone who wants me to think there’s some serious ghost activity?”
Now it was Reese’s turn to sigh. “I don’t believe you did.”
“Kate and Fern are thrilled and have spent most of our time here trying to track down the spirits,” I said. “But I’m the one who ended up hearing strange noises coming from the unoccupied room next door.”
“You’re sure it’s not occupied?” Reese asked, and I could hear him switching into detective mode.
“I asked the front desk and the catering director and they both assured me it’s under renovation. I confirmed that when I looked inside through the terrace door.”
“You looked inside another guest room?”
“And I might have lost my hotel card key trying to jimmy the lock so we could take a look inside.”
“You know that’s called breaking and entering?” Reese’s voice rose a few octaves. “And it’s illegal?”
“Of course I know that. But one, it didn’t work, so I didn’t end up breaking and entering, and two, I was only doing it to save my friend’s job.”
“Why am I not surprised? Of course there’s someone you have to save or something you have to solve.”
I opened my eyes and sat back up. “What does that mean?”
“It means that you’re addicted to saving the day and fixing the problems, even when they have nothing to do with you.”
“And you don’t?” I shot back.
“I’m a police detective,” he said. “It’s literally my job description.”
“Well, I’m a wedding planner, and that might as well be my job description. Except for the part about things that have nothing to do with me because that just makes me sound like a busybody.”
“Okay, Annabelle. I hear what you’re saying.” His voice sounded much calmer. “Why do you think breaking into an empty room will save your friend’s job?”
I explained everything to him from the blog posts about the poltergeists to the creepy sounds to the fact that two wedding planners had been given rooms on either side of the supposedly haunted room. When I finished, he didn’t say anything.
“So, what do you think?” I asked.
“I think you’re right.” He didn’t sound pleased to admit this. “Someone is going to a lot of trouble to set things up so the place seems haunted. Someone who benefits from the hotel losing business.”
“That’s what I think, but I don’t know who that would be.”
“The best advice I can give you is to follow the money. Most crime is about love or money, and it doesn’t sound like you’re dealing with a crime of passion.”
“So how do I follow the money?”
“If it were me, I’d get a look at the hotel’s financials. See if anyone has tried to buy the property lately. Find out who would be next in line for the positions if people got fired.”
I looked around the room for a pad of paper. I needed to write these down so I wouldn’t forget. I slid off the bed and went to the desk, pulling open the top drawer and finding a leather folio with several pieces of Bedford Springs stationery inside.
“Anything else?” I asked as I hastily jotted down Reese’s tips.
“Please don’t try to jimmy another lock. At least not until I can show you how it’s actually done.”
I stopped writing. “Are you offering to coach me in the criminal arts, Detective?”
“I’m offering to help you not get caught. And considering how many scrapes you seem to land in, it might be helpful if you had some skills to get you out of them.”
“Well, I think you’re just a bad boy at heart,” I said, surprised that the coquettish words came out of my mouth. I’d clearly been hanging around Kate way too long.
“Maybe I am.” His voice sounded low and husky. “Do you like that?”
I felt my pulse quicken and my mouth become dry, and I couldn’t think of a response. Come on, Annabelle. What would Kate say? “I-I—”
A loud pounding on my door made me jump. “I’m sorry. Someone’s at my door. I’d better go. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”
“Sure thing. Sleep well, Annabelle.”
I cringed at the disappointment in his voice as I disconnected. I wasn’t doing so great at this dating thing. I set my phone on the desk and padded across the room in my bare feet.
“I thought you were kidding,” I said when I opened the door and saw Kate and Fern standing in the hall in their pajamas, carrying pillows and blankets.
“And miss having front-row seats to a haunting?” Fern pushed past me and dropped his pillow and blanket on my bed, along with a handful of minature bottles of vodka.
I closed the door after Kate came inside. “Wait a second. Are you two wearing matching pajamas?”
Kate spun in place so I could admire the white flannel button-down set. “Don’t you love the wedding rings all over it?”
I leaned closer to inspect the intertwined diamond ring design that repeated over the fabric. “Isn’t this designed for a newlywed?”
“Or those of us in the wedding world.” Fern held out an unopened set to me. “I got all of us a pair and forgot to pass them out yesterday.”
“Even Buster and Mack?” I asked, finding it nearly impossible to imagine the burly bikers in white flannel.
Fern put a hand to the side of his mouth. “Just between you and me, I had to special order theirs, but, yes. Kate and I just delivered them.”
I wished I’d been there for that. “I guess I’ll go change into my PJs.”
Fern waved me into the bathroom. “Don’t take too long. There’s a Gigolos marathon on Showtime we want to watch.” He held up a petite bottle of Tito’s vodka. “And I brought the nightcaps.”
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if a poltergeist took me in my sleep.
Chapter 14
“Did you hear that?” Kate’s voice shook me out of my sleep.
I’d taken pity on my friends and, instead of relegating them to the floor, had let them sleep in the king-size bed with me. Kate took the middle, which made it easier for her to elbow me like she was doing now.
“Did I hear what?” I sat up and saw the darkened room glowing from the light of the TV. I looked over and spotted Fern sleeping with a pink eye mask that read “Wake Me For Mimosas” and the remote control still clutched in his hand. The volume on the television was turned down low enough for me to hear a loud thumping coming from the room next door.
Kate motioned to the wall separating us from the other room. “Is that what you heard last night?”
I nodded, a chill going through me as the thumping grew louder and was joined by moaning. It was definitely creepier hearing the noises in the dark.
“What should we do?” Kate asked.
I rubbed at my e
yes which were still adjusting to the flickering light of the screen. I reached over and pressed the power button on the remote control, sending the room into total blackness. I heard Kate yelp then slap a hand over her own mouth.
“You’re the one who wanted to catch a ghost,” I whispered. “Here’s your big chance.”
“It doesn’t sound like a friendly ghost. I’m only interested in friendly ghosts.”
“Then I suggest we stay quiet and hope that whoever it is on the other side of that wall, a ghost or a person pretending to be a ghost, gets bored and stops.” I could make out the outline of Kate’s head nodding in agreement with me.
I lay back on the pillows and closed my eyes, but between the mournful wailing and Kate’s rapid-fire breathing, there wasn’t the slightest chance of falling back asleep. Before I could ask Kate if she needed to breathe into a paper bag, the moaning stopped. Then a loud pop broke the silence.
Fern sat bolt upright in bed, his hands groping for air in front of him. “What’s going on? What’s happening?”
“That sounded like a gunshot,” Kate said.
I reached over and clicked on the lamp next to the bed. “I think you’re right.” I heard a door in the hallway slam loudly. “The shooter must be escaping through the hall.”
I kicked the duvet off my legs and ran to the door. I peered out into the hallway, hoping to see our counterfeit ghost. Nothing. The hall was empty. I closed the door and thought for a moment. “We should call the front desk and tell them a gun was fired.”
Kate crawled across the bed and picked up the phone receiver, pressing “0” for the front desk. After she’d reported the gunshot, she hung up. “They’re sending up the manager on duty.”
A firm knock came from the door, and I opened it to find Buster and Mack in their plus-sized wedding ring pajamas.
“Good,” Mack said. “You’re awake. I was afraid you might have slept through it.”
“I told you they wouldn’t sleep through gunfire,” Buster said, his voice even deeper than usual.
Kate came up behind me, tugging Fern along with her as he fumbled with his eye mask. “So that was a gun. I knew it,” she said.
