Haunting at the Hotel Page 18

  “I’m going to try to wake Frank again,” Eliza says. “Why don’t you take a crack at this?”

  I nod. Let’s see what message we’ve intercepted!

  * * *

  IF YOU THINK THE ANSWER IS 40, CLICK HERE.

  IF YOU THINK THE ANSWER IS 15, CLICK HERE.

  OR TO ASK ELIZA FOR A HINT, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  “HELLO, THIS IS the realtor for Reese Winters. She is finally hoping to sell the hotel to your boss. Can you put him on the line to discuss our counteroffer?”

  A quick pause. “Yes, this is Luther Covington.”

  “My name is Carl . . . Carl Ser . . . mano. A realtor for the Sugarcrest Park Lodge. Mrs. Winters wants to make you a counteroffer, but first we have some questions—”

  “Whatever it costs, I’ll take it!” Luther shouts, and he immediately hangs up the phone.

  Uh-oh.

  It takes Luther all of one hour to drive up the hill with a giant bulldozer. He razes the property to the ground, while we’re still in it.

  “What in the world do you think you’re doing?” Reese cries, crawling out of the rubble. “This is millions of dollars in damages!”

  “I am the new owner of the Sugarcrest Park Lodge, and I’ll do what I please with my own property.”

  “You are not!”

  “Am too! A realtor sold it to me.”

  “Who?”

  “Carl . . . Mr. Carl Sermano.”

  All eyes turn to me.

  Millions of dollars in damages.

  Uh-oh.

  CASE CLOSED.

  THE LETTERS ON the inside of the circle on Byron’s briefcase lock are definitely gray. I put them in place, and the briefcase clicks open. I breathe a sigh of relief.

  The printed pages of Byron’s manuscript take up most of the room in the briefcase. It has an awful title: The Ghostly Nightmare on Sugarcrest Mountain, The Hotel of Fear and Sorrow: Check In Now, Check Out Never by Byron Bookbinder. There’s also his computer and his charger, and as much as I would like to take his computer to examine later, I have a feeling that an author would know instantly if their computer was stolen. Like a sixth sense.

  I’m hoping Byron doesn’t have the same type of attachment to his EMF reader, which I put in my pocket. Just to borrow—I’ll return it later. But it may help me find Mom.

  I’m just about to close the briefcase when I see a letter addressed to Byron. With the words FORMAL WARNING on the envelope.

  “Someone’s coming!” Frank says gleefully. “Maybe a ghost!”

  I grab the letter and stuff it in my pocket. Eliza slams the briefcase shut.

  Just in time!

  The door opens, and there’s a figure in shadow. Eliza shrieks.

  Then it steps into the fire den, and I release a breath. It’s no ghost—it’s just Reese. She’s holding a robe around herself and shivering violently. “D-did you hear that? That voice?”

  “The howling?” Eliza says.

  “No—no!” Her eyes are wide. She shakes Eliza by the shoulders. “It was my father. My father’s voice.”

  I was not expecting that. I want to ask Reese more questions, but she’s shaking terribly. Suddenly she has a blank look on her face—she stops trembling. Her mouth goes slack, and somehow that’s even more terrifying than the shaking.

  Is she just in shock, or is she being possessed?

  I grab her hand and lead her to the couch in front of the fire. “Just sit down, Mrs. Winters. It’s okay, we’re here for you.”

  Footsteps thunder, and Harris, Fernando di Cannoli, and Sunny appear in the archway.

  “Sweets?” Harris says, running over to his wife. He touches her face gently, but she still stares blankly ahead, at nothing. “Reese!” He turns to us. “What’s wrong with her?”

  “She’s dead. RIP,” Frank says.

  “No she isn’t!” Eliza says. “She’s just shocked, I think. She says she heard her father.”

  “Her father has been dead for four years,” Harris says.

  My chest feels tight. I know that ghosts means people coming back from the dead, but I’m just not ready for that.

  Harris wraps his arms around his wife. Then he turns to look at Sunny and Fernando.

  The two of them are wearing the weirdest expressions. Like they’re half smiling but trying to hide it. The question is: Are these guilty smiles? Or the smiles of disgruntled employees who are simply happy to see their boss suffer?

  “What did you see and hear?” I ask.

  “And smell and touch?” Eliza adds.

  “And taste!” Frank says, licking Eliza’s pajama sleeve. “Yum. Flannel!”

  She shakes him off.

  “Nothing! I observed nothing!” Fernando says in his fake accent. “I . . . uh . . . wanted to get a start on tomorrow’s breakfast.”

  “At three in the morning?” Eliza says skeptically.

  While Frank says, “Can I have pancakes for breakfast? No wait, waffles! No wait, pizza!”

  I turn to Sunny. “What about you? Did you see anything suspicious?”

  Sunny yawns dramatically. Then she says, “I heard a banging noise and a few howls, same as everyone else.”

  “Where is everybody else?” Harris says, frowning.

  It’s true: it’s a little suspicious that they’re not here. I mean . . . there’s no way Byron, Cricket, and January didn’t hear all the howling and banging, right? Maybe I should search for them.

  Then again, what in the world happened to Mom? Where did she go? And does she need our help?

  * * *

  TO SEARCH FOR THE MISSING SUSPECTS, CLICK HERE.

  TO SEARCH FOR MOM, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  I DECIDE TO ask Fernando about Reese, Harris, and January. He seems too nervous about them, and I can’t let that go. “What do you think of the Winters?”

  “Winter is a very cold and lonely season. Nothing like we have in Italy! Sun and happiness every day in Italy!”

  “No, what do you think of the Winters family?”

  “Oh,” he says.

  And that’s all he says.

  “And?” Eliza prompts. “Any more details?”

  Fernando di Cannoli twists his mustache. “No.”

  Okay, new approach.

  “Have you ever been in trouble with them before?”

  “I . . . I think you should go now,” Fernando says, scooping up our sundae glasses.

  “Hey!” Frank says.

  “You just had snacks and a sundae. You can’t possibly still be hungry,” I say.

  “I don’t have to be hungry to eat ice cream!” Frank says. “I can eat it anytime, anywhere, anywhy, with anywho. I have a stomach, and then I have an ice-cream stomach. TWO STOMACHS.”

  Fernando di Cannoli wipes his forehead with a rag. “Go. I have cooking to do.”

  We leave the kitchen.

  “Well, that was a bust,” I say.

  “Was it?” Eliza says. “He got really weird when we mentioned the Winters family. Almost like he’s hiding something.”

  But what?

  It’s getting late, and I think it’s time we call it a night, but as we pass through the lobby, I see Byron Bookbinder typing away on his typewriter in front of the fireplace, in the room next door. Without really thinking, I drag Eliza and Frank over to him.

  Byron is curled up on the comfy chair he’s claimed as his writing space. He adjusts his half-moon glasses and blinks up at us with tired, beady eyes.

  “We have questions for you, old man,” Frank says. Byron isn’t even that old!

  Byron laughs in surprise. “You do? Well, I admire anyone who is trying to quench their thirst for knowledge. Curiosity is the mark of a good writer.”

  “It’s also the mark of a good detective,” Eliza says. “Which is what we are.”

  Byron nods seriously. “Yes, I suppose that’s true. How can I help you? I am at your service.”

  * * *

  TO ASK BYRON IF HE’S SEEN
THE GHOSTS, CLICK HERE.

  TO ASK BYRON IF HE’S OBSERVED ANY TENSION BETWEEN THE WINTERS AND THE HOTEL STAFF, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  WE CAN’T DITCH January—we have to follow her in.

  “Let’s go!” I shout to Eliza, and we dash down the hall. As we run into the room, the door shuts behind us. It clicks tight. The room is pitch-black, and there are scratching, scuttling noises on the floor. January is choking out, “Help me!” But I can’t do anything without the flashlight.

  I find it. I flick it on. And . . .

  No one else is in the room with Eliza and me.

  A shiver goes through me. I shine the light around.

  Where could the ghost have gone? Where did it take January?

  In the corner of the room is a coffin. A real one. For humans. And two of the walls are smeared with red . . . something. I’m just praying it’s not blood.

  The floors are creaky, the ceiling is low. Everything about this place screams GET OUT.

  “What do we do now?” I say.

  “We have to think of a way out,” Eliza says.

  Everything happened so fast. And I just don’t understand what happened to January. She was here one second and gone the next.

  “It’s all my fault,” I say.

  “What? Carlos, of course it isn’t!”

  “It is, though. If only I had let January help us yesterday—then maybe we wouldn’t have gotten ourselves into this situation at all. I’ve been making bad calls this whole time—I’ve been letting this ghost get into my head.”

  “It’s okay to be afraid,” Eliza says gently.

  I moan. “I just wanted so badly to impress my mom. Now what’s she going to think?”

  “That you’re doing the best you can.”

  “And what if my best isn’t good enough? You know how much I want to be a detective one day.”

  “One day? Carlos, you’re already a detective. A great one. And if your mom didn’t think so, then she wouldn’t have invited you on this case. She believes in you, and so do Frank and I. So believe in yourself, and nothing—not even fear—can stop you.”

  A minute goes by, or two, or ten. My heart is hammering in my ears, and it’s hard to tell how much time is passing when I feel like the Dead Room is outside of space and time.

  The doorknob jiggles. I grab Eliza’s hand tightly. This is it—the monster-ghost creature is coming for us. I take a deep breath—

  Two people are pushed inside the Dead Room.

  “Mom?”

  “Carlos?”

  “Frank?”

  “FRANK!”

  “What are you doing here?” Eliza says. “And where have you been?”

  “Down at the Super Hotel Express. Luther’s place,” Mom says. “Long story short—we got a fake tip that you two were down at his place. We went down there to get you, discovered immediately that we’d been lured out of the lodge under false pretenses, and battled the elements to get back uphill.”

  “Did the ghost get you too?” Frank asks. “We got chased in.”

  “No, we followed it in.”

  “Voluntarily?” Mom says, somewhere between incredulous and angry.

  “We had to, Mom! It had January in its clutches! But we couldn’t get to her in time—who knows where she is now? We have to save her!”

  Eliza hums. I know that sound. She’s thinking about something. After a moment she lets us into her genius thoughts. “About that,” she says. “If we think our ghost is paranormal, then January could really be anywhere. But if we think our ghost is a human, then they can’t have just vanished into thin air. Which means there must be a way in and a way out of this room, other than the front door—and that other way is where the culprit took January. I wonder if we can find a secret escape by poking around.”

  “I love secrets!” Frank says. “And escapes! And poking!”

  I look around with the flashlight. The room is bare . . . there seem to be only two things to really look at. Which one will get us closer to saving January?

  * * *

  TO LOOK IN THE COFFIN, CLICK HERE.

  TO EXAMINE THE BLOOD MARKS, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  OKAY. THIS IS it. I’m going to go into the Dead Room.

  With all the laughter.

  The crazy, hysterical laughter.

  Are we sure we want to do this?

  Because it’s not too late to turn back now.

  The laughter is getting louder and louder and LOUDER.

  My hand is on the doorknob. . . .

  And then suddenly I’m on my back, looking up at the antler sconces.

  “What happened?”

  Eliza leans over me. “You fainted, Carlos. I think you got so scared you just . . . passed out,” she says.

  “I did?” I cover my face. “What happened to the ghost? Did the laughter stop?”

  “What laughter?” Eliza says.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  But she doesn’t look like she’s kidding. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Carlos. There was laughter earlier, but once we got to the door, there was . . . nothing. You just fainted. Reese called the paramedics. They’re on their way, fighting the snowstorm to get to you. I don’t know what you saw or heard . . . but you’re the only one who did.”

  “No, you heard it too—I know you did!” I say.

  “Of course,” she says. “Shhhhh . . . just take it easy . . . the paramedics will be here any second. . . .”

  “I don’t need paramedics! I need to catch the ghost.”

  “Shhhhhhh,” Eliza says soothingly. “Calm down . . . that’s it . . .”

  CASE CLOSED.

  “WHAT DO YOU think of your coworkers?” I ask Cricket. “The ones that aren’t part of the Winters family?”

  “What is there to say?” Cricket says. “We don’t really interact. We all have different jobs.”

  “I know,” Eliza says, “but what is your impression of Sunny? We just talked to her.”

  “She’s fine. It takes her a while to warm up to people. . . . I think she’s shy.” Cricket thinks for a second. “I also think she’s unhappy here.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Just the little things she says. I told her that she should look for a new job, but she got mad at me. I don’t know why she’s so attached to this place, but I think she’s been here a super long time, so like, maybe she’s holding on to old, fond memories? Personally, I think everyone should let go of the past and be present in the now.”

  “I’m getting a present now?!” Frank says excitedly. I swear, he only hears every third word of what someone says.

  “So you and Sunny get along?” I say.

  Cricket lowers her voice. “Well, I like her better than Fernando di Cannoli.”

  “Why? What’s wrong with Fernando?” I say.

  She wrinkles her nose. “I don’t want to throw anyone under the bus.”

  “The wheels on the bus go round and round,” Frank sings.

  “What does that mean?” Eliza says.

  “Maybe you should just go talk to him. I’m not one to judge—”

  “Yeah right!” Frank says, and Eliza nudges him.

  “—but I think Fernando is a total phony. I don’t know what his deal is, but he’s a weird guy. Always skulking around. I caught him eavesdropping on conversations . . . more than once. I’m telling you, he’s bad news.”

  * * *

  TO TALK TO FERNANDO, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  WHEN I TILT Cricket’s paper, I can see exactly what Eliza was talking about. There’s a message that can only be read at a certain angle, and the message says: The password is three two seven.

  “That’s why you were zoning out during the conversation!” I say. “I thought it wasn’t like you to lose focus like that.”

  “Well, I saw the message from a good angle, and I saw what it said clearly. I was confused . . . and impressed by how tricky it was. Cricket could hide th
e password in plain sight because anyone looking at the paper straight-on—or even at most angles—would think nothing of it.”

  “Yeah, but if someone reads it at the right angle, then they know her password. That’s stupid of her to keep it out like that.”

  Eliza gestures to the cluttered desk—the papers in messy stacks, the pens without caps, the caps without pens, three empty granola-bar wrappers, and a bunch of paper clips attached like a snake. “It doesn’t really seem like Cricket is all that organized, Carlos.”

  Fair point.

  We open the drawer, and Frank gets on his knees and leans over the drawer. “Let me press the buttons! Please please please! Pretty please with sugar on top!”

  I sigh and hand him the paper, and he types three two seven into the digital pad.

  The lock clicks open, and now we can lift off the top of the drawer. Inside, there are boring-looking slips of paper. My eyes glaze over, but Eliza seems to be interested. Her mouth drops open.

  “What does it say?” Frank says.

  “They’re bank deposit slips,” Eliza says. “Cricket has put a few thousand dollars into her personal bank account, all in the last six weeks.”

  “And is that wrong?” I say.

  “Yes, if you’re the concierge at a boutique hotel like this one! There’s no way Cricket is making this much money. And besides, six weeks ago is when the haunting started.”

  “The haunting begins, and so does Cricket’s sudden flood of cash,” I say. “So is she stealing from the hotel while Reese and Harris are distracted by ghosts?”

  “I don’t know,” Eliza says, “but this is really suspicious.”

  “It’s bananas!” Frank says.

  I nod.

  “No, I mean, it’s bananas!” Frank reaches into the bottom of Cricket’s drawer and pulls out a rotten banana in a sealed plastic baggie. Eliza starts to gag, and I grab it from Frank and put it in the trash can.