“He says he doesn’t believe in them,” Laurel said.
“What about that letter on the wall?” Meghan asked.
Laurel bit on her lower lip. “He’s a deputy sheriff, and I doubt he’s inclined to assume any mysterious happenings are the result of a ghostly presence. He probably considers anything out of the ordinary to be the result of someone creating mischief. Yet, I wouldn’t want to be him sleeping in the attic room for the next several days.”
She really hoped CJ wouldn’t have any trouble. He appealed to her in so many ways. He’d always been nice and polite to her sisters, which had also made her appreciate him. But he had eyes only for her. Yet, she couldn’t let him get close.
At least, not yet.
Meghan took a chip and crunched into it. “The letter on the wall—it’s got to be a sign from Clarinda, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know. Why wouldn’t it be something more…irregular? If I tried to draw my name on the wall, it wouldn’t be totally straight or with curved lines or perfectly even in width,” Laurel said.
“It looks like it was stenciled on the wall,” Meghan agreed.
“The three of us always try to explain away mystical happenings. To uncover the reality, rather than conclude that what we’ve experienced is supernatural. Even though we believe in things we can’t explain or that others don’t witness. It doesn’t mean that what we see, feel, or hear isn’t valid,” Laurel said.
Ellie was so quiet that Laurel assumed she had a different opinion. “Ellie?”
Ellie looked up at her. “Mom said Aunt Clarinda loved to quilt.”
“So?” Meghan took a bite of another chip.
Laurel swore her sister could eat a whole bag of them at a sitting and never gain an ounce.
Ellie frowned at Laurel. “Neither of you was interested in sewing. But I took it up when I was a kid. Hooking rugs; cross-stitching; embroidery work; making dolls, bunnies, and bears; and I quilted.”
From their puzzled expressions, neither Laurel nor Meghan was following Ellie’s logic.
“In quilting, I used stencils.”
Chapter 4
CJ had just reached his house in the Wolf Pines subdivision, a cozy development where the homes were spaced out on pine-tree-covered, five-acre lots to give everyone privacy and a woodland feeling. A park had also been created to give the wolves a place to really run. That’s what he loved about the wolf developments. The prices of the properties were kept low for lupus garous, but way overpriced for humans to keep them from living there.
It wasn’t that the wolves in the pack didn’t like humans. They just wanted to give their own people the freedom to run in their wolf coats without worrying about their neighbors seeing them or having to erect huge fences to keep their wolfish nature secret. That felt too much like being confined to a zoo, so except for a couple of neighbors two streets over who had fences for their dogs, everyone kept a naturalistic, open setting.
He was entering his one-and-a-half-story, French provincial home when he got a call. “Yeah, Brett?” In the kitchen, CJ pulled out some leftover spaghetti and heated it up in the microwave.
“I have to cover another news story tomorrow afternoon, so I don’t have time to share the information about the hotel with Laurel and her sisters. Since you’re going to be staying with them for a few days, do you want to fill them in on the details?”
“Yeah, sure. I’m actually going back to the hotel tomorrow to help a little more before they open. Ellie and Meghan are leaving early in the morning on some errand that’s taking them out of state. I’m helping to paint because their painters got spooked.”
“Oh. Okay. Well, what if I run by your place and drop this stuff off tonight?”
“That would be great.”
“Have you eaten?”
CJ looked at his warmed-up spaghetti. “Not yet.”
“I’ll drop by Pizza to Go and grab us a meat-lover’s deluxe.”
“Sounds good to me. See you in a few.” CJ put the spaghetti back in the refrigerator. He and Brett were only a couple of minutes apart in age and had always been the closest of the brothers, pairing up against their older brothers when they gave them grief.
While he waited for Brett to arrive with the pizza, CJ packed a bag of clothes for his stay at the hotel. Brett used the spare key that CJ had given him and called out, “Pizza delivery!”
CJ came out of the bedroom and joined his brother in the dining room. Brett had already placed the pizza box on the table and yanked off a couple of paper towels to use as plates. At the end of the table rested a purple-and-yellow polka-dot photo box. It looked suspiciously like one that Lelandi had given her brother-in-law Jake.
“Why does that box look familiar?” CJ asked.
Brett opened the lid, lifted out six large manila envelopes, and placed them at the end of the table. “Lelandi gave it to Jake for his photos last Christmas. But he either takes digital shots or makes them into large canvas pictures for art galleries, so he doesn’t need it. I thought I’d run over there to get copies of photos he had taken of the hotel over the years.” Brett paused, then smiled. “Okay, so yeah, he did have some that weren’t digital. Anyway, he quickly offered the box to carry the photos in. I’m sure it was a way to get rid of it without offending our pack leader.”
CJ smiled.
“I organized the photos by date.”
“I’m sure the ladies will be thrilled to get all the information. After they finish looking at all this stuff, they can give you their thoughts about the hotel for your article. As for the polka-dot box? Not sure they’ll want it either.”
Brett chuckled. “Surely the women will like it better than Jake does. I should have asked. Are the paper towels all right for plates?”
“No sense in using dishes for just the two of us.” CJ grabbed a couple of beers for them.
“Where are you staying in the hotel? I heard it’s already booked, and I know the women didn’t renovate the maids’ quarters yet.”
“Attic room.”
“Did you go up there? Turn on a light and leave it on?”
Wondering what Brett was getting at, CJ took a seat opposite him and grabbed a slice of pizza. “No, I’ve never been up there. Visited the basement though.”
Brett’s eyes rounded. “See anything?”
“Just the paintbrushes and rollers I had to clean.”
“Well, I went over to take some pictures of the hotel all lit up in Christmas lights. I had taken some earlier before the light faded. But the light on in the attic made the hotel look a little spooky. I’ll take more shots tomorrow night before the guests all arrive. I’ll just ask the women to turn on the lights in all the rooms at the front of the hotel.”
CJ finished a slice of pizza and reached for another. “They’re also decorating the backyard tomorrow, so maybe you can get a few shots out there.”
“I will. And some inside the hotel, showing some of the old features and how the lobby looks now.”
“Have you looked at all that stuff?” CJ motioned with his bottle of beer to the envelopes.
“Yeah. Interesting place. What do you think of staying there?”
“Works for me. I just hope we don’t have any real trouble with the ghost busters.”
“You’re a deputy sheriff. Throw them in jail if they do anything illegal.”
“I will. Believe me.”
“So…” Brett finished his beer, sat back on the chair, and raised his brows. “How’s it going with Laurel?”
CJ smiled. “Is it that obvious that she’s the one I’m interested in?”
“Hell, yeah. Since you’ll be over there tomorrow, her sisters will be gone, and no guests will be there yet, you’ll have her all to yourself. Is she warming up to you? She seemed to have fun running with the pack tonight, but she still stuck close to her sisters. It was fun watching them tussle in the snow. They’ve been so subdued that I didn’t think they even knew how to play as wolves or otherwise.”
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“Maybe they’re just getting used to the rest of us. We’ve been so thrilled they’ve joined us that I’m sure it’s been a little much. Then, too, they’ve been under a lot of stress in getting the hotel ready for the grand opening.”
“Agreed. When do you think the backyard will be decorated so that I can take pictures?”
“Tomorrow morning. I’m going to repaint a wall, and then I’ll help Laurel hang the lights or whatever she plans to do there. I’ll tell her that you want to get some pictures of the place with all the lights on.”
“Good deal.” Brett finished the last slice of pizza. “Anything going on over there? Anything…paranormal?”
“Yeah, but I’m sure there’s an explanation for it.” CJ explained about the C on the wall.
“You’re kidding.” Brett sounded like he knew something about it.
“What?”
Brett began emptying the folders on the table. “Here’s a note that Darien’s dad kept from a pack member who was concerned because a letter C appeared after the hotel’s lobby was repainted thirty years ago.”
“Thirty years ago. Huh. Well, apparently it disappeared after that. So here’s hoping when I paint over it again, it’ll disappear.”
“That’s what you’ve been painting?”
“Yep. And it’s not going away.”
“Did you try that stain-killer paint?”
“Yep.”
“No blood dripping from it, right?”
CJ chuckled and shook his head.
Brett helped clean up and pulled out his keys. “Okay, I’m out of here. I’ll see you later tomorrow.”
CJ said good night to him, then started reading through all the documents and examining the pictures of the old hotel, which were mostly of the lobby and front of the hotel, some with the owners standing on the covered veranda. He recognized one of the Silvers’ friends from the old days, Jonathon Bowling, who built the hotel in 1871, plus his wife and two daughters. All of them had long ago died, though the lupus garous until fairly recently had extended longevity. That had changed drastically though, according to a lupus garou geneticist, Dr. Aidan Denali. He had come into town and taken blood samples from all the wolves, looking for the reason that their longevity had morphed into a time span more similar to humans.
As to Jonathon Bowling, after he and his family died, the hotel was sold off to three more owners. The last owner before the MacTires was Warren Wernicke, who bought the hotel in 1953. He was a bachelor who never married. At least as far as anyone could tell. He might have lost a mate earlier and never found another, which often occurred among lupus garous.
Owning a hotel as a single entrepreneur was a little unusual. Wernicke’s sister lived in the house with him and managed the hotel for a brief while, according to Darien’s dad’s notes. Then as far as reports could tell, twelve years after he bought the place, Warren Wernicke left one night and never come back. His sister, Charity Wernicke, vanished shortly after that.
A police report filed by Sheridan Silver, CJ’s father, as acting sheriff, said Warren seemed to have run off with a maid. His sister then left because the hotel was in financial ruins.
CJ had to let the sisters see all this, but he really didn’t want to. As unafraid as they seemed, he worried that this might disturb them more, particularly since his father had never located the Wernickes to verify that his suspicions were correct. Still, the sisters had every right to see the information about the hotel. Besides, they could obtain the information themselves anyway.
Looking at everything Brett had gathered about the hotel, CJ realized his brother was the perfect match for his job. He was really good at research, and he’d included old deeds, an auction listing of furniture and other incidentals, and pictures of some of the lovely carved pieces of furniture that were sold off when the hotel closed down after Charity Wernicke disappeared.
After that, no one had the funds or the know-how to run the hotel. Or the desire. He remembered how kids would dare each other to spend a night in the old place, swearing ghosts floated about the hotel, moaning and crying and wreaking all sorts of havoc on anyone dumb enough to stay there.
He noticed a photograph of a hand-pieced quilt with a stenciled letter C right in the center. The letter was the approximate size of the one on the wall. CJ stared at the picture, wondering why Charity had disappeared. And her brother too.
Chapter 5
The next morning, Ellie and Meghan took off before CJ arrived, both warning Laurel not to get too involved with him. And yet, she thought they really didn’t mean it. Not when they gave each other secret smiles. They probably hoped he could convince her to stay.
They had to know her better than that. She was totally focused on getting their hotel up and running. No time to play with a male wolf.
Laurel had to admit she’d thoroughly enjoyed playing in the snow with her sisters last night and taking a long moonlit run across the snowfields with the rest of the pack. She wasn’t ready for any other pack activities, but she would remember last night fondly.
This morning, she hadn’t wanted to check the wall in the hotel’s lobby, afraid of what she’d find. She carried the painting over there, just in case, and sure enough, the C was still as big as day.
She leaned the painting against one of the perpendicular walls so that CJ could paint over the C again.
When she heard knocking at the door, she felt a little thrill of excitement at seeing him again and immediately scolded herself for feeling any such thing. She hurried for the door, paused, put on her more professional face, then unlocked and opened the door. But it wasn’t CJ. Instantly, she became wary. Three men stood on the hotel’s porch, and she suspected they were the ghost busters.
“We’re not open yet,” she said, trying not to growl like she wanted to. She had to remember that she was in the business of welcoming guests, and they would be her guests tomorrow.
“I’m Stanton Wernicke,” the darkest-haired man said, his blue eyes hard. “These are my brothers, Yolan and Vernon. We’re your guests tomorrow, but you might have heard that we have a TV show—”
“Ghost Busters Extraordinaire, yes,” she said. “But we’re not open today.”
“We thought maybe we could look around before everyone arrives. That way we won’t be in everyone’s hair.”
Already Laurel didn’t like Stanton Wernicke. He was pushy and acting as if his business was more important than hers. And that she should welcome the great TV personalities. That would be the day.
“I’m sorry, no. You’d be in my hair, and I’m busy.”
She heard a vehicle park out front, and though she couldn’t see around the three hulking men, she hoped CJ had arrived. If these men wouldn’t take no for an answer, they’d change their mind when they learned CJ was a deputy sheriff.
“We promise we’ll stay out of your way and—”
“I said no. Beyond that, I didn’t know who you were when you booked your reservations. I have no intention of allowing the hotel to be part of your show. Furthermore, you haven’t asked permission to photograph or videotape the hotel for the purpose of sharing with the public.”
“Slight technicality,” Stanton said. “I thought one of my brothers had received permission.” He gave them a condescending look. They gave him the slightest knowing smiles back.
She knew he was lying, and she really didn’t like these men.
“What seems to be the trouble?” CJ asked, coming up behind the men so quietly that she hadn’t even heard him. But his voice wasn’t the least bit quiet. It was darkly baritone and stated he meant business.
Except that he was carrying a purple-and-yellow polka-dot box that ruined the tough-guy image. She hoped he wasn’t bringing her a gift now that her sisters were gone.
“No trouble.” Stanton glanced down at the colorful box, a slight smile appearing on his thin lips, as if he thought CJ was a joke. “We’re staying here tomorrow, and we wanted to get some readings before everyone else a
rrives because we have a TV—”
“Show. We know.” CJ’s dark expression told the men they had no business here. Even so, he waited for Laurel to say if she agreed.
She appreciated CJ’s gesture.
“You may not have permission to film or photograph the hotel or properties while you’re here,” she repeated in front of the deputy sheriff, so that he could share that with Darien and the sheriff in case these men ignored her rules. “I don’t want you disturbing other guests with your paranormal equipment. You’re welcome to come tomorrow and check in after the grand opening like everyone else and to use your rooms. For sleeping. If you aren’t happy with the rules, I will gladly cancel your reservations without penalty.” She folded her arms and managed a small smile. “Sorry. We really need to get some things done. Hectic day before the grand opening tomorrow.”
Stanton looked like a bulldog, and he and his brothers weren’t budging from the porch. He finally said, “All right. But you’re making a mistake.”
She raised a brow. Was he threatening her? CJ took a step toward him, though she wasn’t sure what he was going to do if things got physical, since he was still holding the polka-dot box.
Stanton held his position. “I mean, because we could do a lot of good promo for your hotel.”
She narrowed her eyes. “What? Saying the place is haunted? Or not haunted? I don’t think so.”
“Whichever way works best for you.”
She snorted. “And here I thought you were the real deal.” Not.
Stanton smiled a little. “Believe me, we’re the real deal. But we could slant it one way or the other, whichever way you preferred. No one but us would be the wiser.”
“Tomorrow, gentlemen. Rooms are for overnight guests only. Deputy Sheriff Silver, would you like some breakfast before we get to work?”
The men’s expressions changed subtly from pushy to surprised.
She was glad they hadn’t ignored that revelation.
“Yeah, sure. See you tomorrow at the grand opening.” CJ waited for the men to clear out.
“You think he really is?” Vernon asked the others under his breath. He was blonder than his brothers and a little shorter, but just as muscled and serious.