The Curse of a Single Red Rose (Haunted Hearts Series Book 7) (17 page)

Moreau had focused his flashlight on the dresser where he was searching the drawers. A yellowish circle glowed from the flashlight in Collin’s hand. As his light swept over the room, Elsa viewed the contents with clarity as if an overhead fixture illuminated the nooks and crannies of Delia’s existence. She had wanted more from her life. Adventure and independence. In so many ways, Elsa and Delia were a lot alike.

She slid her hand along the bed covering, found the pillow, and touched something sharp. A sharp jab stung her flesh. She drew back, rubbing the spot of contact. Her gaze shifted to Delia’s pillow, invisible in the darkness. “Shine the light over here.”

Collin shifted his light toward the bed.

Every noise amplified. Elsa’s pulse beat in her ears like kettledrums. Collin’s heavy footsteps rattled the wood floorboards. The scratch of the material in Moreau’s pants twanged her nerves.

Collin’s voice boomed around the room. “What the hell is that doing here?”

The light from Collin’s flashlight intensified as if someone had boosted its power. Elsa jumped to her feet, staring at the perfect single red rose that lay against the bright, unnatural white of the pillowcase. Everything else in the room seemed dead, covered in dust and cobwebs, everything except that damned rose revealed in a circle of light.

Sandwiched between Collin and Moreau, she stood over the bed, gazing at the anomaly, a live rose in a dead room. With all her strength, she suppressed the scream that threatened to hurl out of her mouth. It was, after all, just a rose. Wasn’t it?

****

Out in the hallway, Elsa leaned on Collin with her hand pressed against her chest, hoping eventually her rapid heart rate would slow. Every once in a while, she sucked down a deep breath and released a shudder of apprehension. The rose had gotten to her. Its red petals and sharp thorns had been imbued with all of her fears and uncertainty, not just for that moment but also for the rest of her life.

How could she explain her intense reaction to something so harmless as a flower? Except the flower represented death, the full stop unnatural disruption of the future.

Moreau approached from the other end of the hallway, the glow of his flashlight growing as he came closer. Finally, he stopped in front of her. To her surprise, he reached out and placed a gentle hand on her upper arm. “Are you going to be okay?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Do you want to leave?”

Yes, she did. But no, she didn’t. She pulled away from the wall and shook her head. “Just give me a minute. I need to catch my breath. I can’t believe I freaked out over a rose.”

Collin released a long breath. “I’m pretty freaked out too.”

Moreau released a shuddery sigh. “Nothing in the room appeared as if it had been disturbed since the place was abandoned in 1967. Nothing except the rose. Yeah, that’s freaky.”

Collin rubbed his hand up and down her backbone. “Whoever left it there is playing mind games with us.”

Elsa snorted. “Is Les coming up here every night to put a fresh rose on the pillow in case we might happen to find it? There’s no way he could have possibly known we’d be doing this tonight. That doesn’t… It isn’t… I don’t think so.” She ran out of coherent words just as she was getting to her point.

“Maybe it’s not Les who’s playing with us.” Collin shifted his flashlight to his other hand and rubbed the back of his neck, muttering to himself.

Elsa nudged him. “What’s wrong?”

“Something keeps tickling my neck.”

Moreau laughed, a short derisive burst of amusement. “There are cobwebs all over this place. You probably snagged one.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Sure. That’s probably what it is.” The beam of the flashlight danced erratically as Collin swatted at his neck. “What did you find in the other two rooms?”

“The middle room is full of old housekeeping supplies. The last room is another bedroom. It looks like someone packed up and left in a hurry.”

Collin clawed at his skin yet again as if all eight legs of the spider were tap dancing on his neck. “It was probably the room of someone on staff who lived here when the hurricane hit.”

“There’s a stairwell at the end of the hall.”

A wave of panic swept over Elsa. “It’s not on the blueprints of the hotel.”

“The rooms…the hallway…the hidden stairwell…All of that explains why the blueprints for the second floor didn’t line up with the ones for the third floor.” Collin’s voice rumbled with anxiety.

“I’m going down the stairs.” Moreau headed toward the end of the hall.

Elsa quick-stepped to follow his light. “Hey, wait up.”

Collin’s heavy boot heels thudded on the wood floor behind her.

Moreau slowed, but only for a moment. When she came to the top of the stairs, she stared into darkness as Moreau’s shoulders disappeared ahead of her. No matter what was at the bottom of the stairs, she had to know. The truth she was meant to learn was down the dark, rickety wooden stairs. Every beat of her heart told her so.

Everything went pitch dark for a second. The sensation of falling soon followed. Was she about to pass out? Elsa closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to stall a collapse. When she opened her eyes again, the atmosphere around her seemed murky and surreal. Time seemed to slow as if she were moving in a sea of thick syrup.

Every thud and stomp rang in Elsa’s head as Moreau tested each tread, step and bounce, stop and take a deep breath, step and bounce. The stench of damp and mildew assaulted her sinuses. Moisture clung to her and permeated her shirt. Was it sweat or humidity? She pinched two fingers over her nose with one hand and coiled her fingers around the wooden banister of the stairs with the other. Sharp stabs of pain ripped through her clenched fingers. After a few steps, she released the banister and flexed her hand, grabbed the rail again, and kept moving.

When they finally reached the bottom step, Moreau’s light sprayed over a metal door with no doorknob. He pushed, but it was apparently locked or blocked on the other side. “I don’t think we can go any further without prying the door open.”

“Use this.” Collin passed the crowbar over Elsa’s head to Moreau.

“I didn’t see you pick that up.”

“I thought we might need a weapon.”

Elsa hiccupped a stilted laugh. “I brought my stun gun.”

Moreau spluttered his disapproval. “Stun gun? You know those are—”

“Illegal. Yeah, I know. So arrest me.”

His laughter circled around the stairwell and sent a chill up her spine. Collin placed his hand on her shoulder, and she flinched at the sudden contact.

She sniffed the stale air. A new odor permeated the thick atmosphere. “What’s that smell?”

Collin’s grip on her shoulder tightened. “Smoke.”

The glow from Moreau’s light slid down the door. Elsa’s gaze focused on the crack at the bottom. Puffs of gray, barely visible in the semi-darkness, curled from beneath the metal. An acrid stench crawled up her nose.

Moreau jolted into action. “We gotta get out of here.” He shoved Elsa. “Move or we’re going to get trapped down here.”

The shove caused her to bump into Collin, who stumbled forward and only hesitated a fraction of a second before regaining his balance and scrambling up the stairs. The heavy sounds of feet pounding wood vibrated in the claustrophobic space. Yellowish light jumped and bounced everywhere. With only instinct to guide each placement of her feet, Elsa rushed to keep up with Collin. He reached back to her and curled his hand around her fingers, jerking and tugging her upward behind him.

Halfway up the first flight, Elsa tripped, and Collin lost his grip on her hand.

“Elsa?” His flashlight shifted toward her and blinded her for a second.

“I got her.” Moreau slipped an arm under one armpit and pulled her up, shoving her forward once again.

Collin turned away from them and kept moving. He was already climbing the last flight when Elsa reached the landing mid-way up the stairs. Choking on the thick smoke-filled air and struggling to keep up, her fuzzy mind forgot to demand that her heavy arms and legs cooperate. The already muted light pulsed before her eyes, dimmer and brighter.

Collin reached back for her once again. “Come on, Elsa.”

Moreau pushed her from behind. “Go faster.” Panic laced his anxious voice.

“I’m going as fast as I can.” Every slurred word was punctuated with a gasp for breath. Her body demanded rest, craved sleep. Her eyes drooped for a moment, and she stumbled again, but this time, she managed not to fall.

She coughed and pulled the front of her shirt over her mouth. When she had made it to the top of the stairs, she bent over almost double. Her throat burned from the irritants in the smoke. Her eyes watered.

“We have to keep moving.” Collin pulled her forward until she unbent into an upright position.

She glanced behind her and could see nothing but a wall of thick smoke behind her. Where was the cop? The clank of the crowbar bumping each step echoed through the fog. “Moreau, where are you?”

Collin released her hand and beat on the wall. “Where’s the hole?”

“Collin, he’s not answering.”

“We have to get some fresh air. I can’t look for him if I pass out. Can I?”

She didn’t care for the snarl in his tone. “We can’t just leave him down there.”

“I didn’t say I was going to leave him. What’s wrong with you?” He twisted to face Delia’s room. “There’s a window in there.”

She couldn’t go back into Delia’s room with the rose, but she didn’t want to be left alone in the smoky hallway, so she shoved him hard in the chest. “What do you mean? I’m fine. You’re the one who’s acting like a jerk.”

He shoved her back, and she stumbled into someone shrouded in smoke. A scream broke loose when she realized she’d backed right into Les Wakefield.

Les spun her around to face him. “Don’t you understand, Celia? Someone has to die.” His eyes glowed with an eerie red light. His face contorted into a mask of anger and hatred.

She’d felt it. The pall of death. Someone had to die. A chill of stone cold fear raced through her. She glanced back at Collin. Why wasn’t he coming to her defense? But Collin had disappeared. She was alone with Les Wakefield.

The screams that poured from her wouldn’t stop no matter how hard she tried to get a grip on her terror. She twisted and turned but couldn’t loosen his grip. Her fingernails dug into his upper arms, and he roared when she ripped his flesh.

Light erupted overhead displacing the shadows in the hallway. Her shrieks of terror evaporated along with the thick cloud of smoke. The fingers coiled around her arms loosened. When her mind cleared, the shocked face hovering near her was Moreau’s. Collin had stepped between them, his arms around her as if he’d had to keep her from attacking the cop.

The heaviness of death dissipated. It was as if nothing had ever happened. Had the entire experience behind the wall been unreal? Was it all her imagination?

No, semicircles of blood right where her fingernails had gouged Moreau’s flesh reddened his shirtsleeves. “I thought… You looked like…”

“What did you see, Elsa?” Collin’s shaky voice revealed the level of his terror.

She glanced toward the stairwell at the end of the hall. “I…I…I…” No words. She had none. Everything she had just experienced stuck in her throat, refusing to dislodge and give her back her words.

A voice calling for Nick grew louder and louder until it was right on them, just on the other side of the wall. A woman with blue-spiked hair stuck her head through the hole that had disappeared a few moments earlier.

Chapter Thirteen

None of it had happened past Elsa standing at the top of the stairs watching Moreau descend into the darkness. She’d freaked out, and Moreau hadn’t made it all the way to the bottom. There had been no smoke, so there had been no fire. It had been an illusion or a hallucination or a dark force playing tricks with her mind.

She wrapped her fingers around the cool glass on the table in front of her. The fire from the drink Collin had shoved under her nose had raced down her throat and warmed her belly. She shivered again. Her experience had frozen her core, and she was still thawing out.

Across from her sat the cop and his girlfriend. Collin sat in the chair next to her, sticking to her side like a sock with static cling. Everything that had happened since the lights came on in the hallway was a total blur. She couldn’t remember very well how she’d gotten to Moreau’s apartment.

Moreau rented the space above someone’s garage in an area that wasn’t all that far from Collin’s house. When she had recovered from her shock, Moreau had assured her that he had taken a circuitous route from the hotel to his place, making sure they weren’t followed. The only thing Elsa remembered about the trip was the bumpy car ride with her head on Collin’s shoulder.

“There really was a rose on the pillowcase?” She’d asked the same question twice already. “That was real?”

Collin nodded his head, worry reflecting in his anxious expression.

Elsa glanced at the couple across the cheap dinette table. A deep frown had creased Moreau’s forehead, and sympathy oozed from Jerilyn’s blue eyes.

“How long was I…” She wasn’t sure what to call the state she’d been in.

“It couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes, but we thought we’d never get you calmed down.” Moreau propped his elbows on the tabletop. “I’m gonna forgive you for attacking me because I don’t think you were yourself.”

That was the problem. Elsa felt she’d been very much herself. It was the men who had acted weird. “So we still don’t know what’s behind the steel door?”

Confusion clouded Moreau’s face. “Steel door?”

Panic swelled in her once again. “There’s a steel door at the bottom of the staircase.”

Moreau glanced toward Collin. The two men stared at each other for a long moment.

Finally, Moreau spoke again. “How do you know that?”

Her pulse raced. She tried hard to push back the agitation that was growing inside her. “We all went down the staircase…”

“Elsa…” Collin pressed his lips together as if he was trying to decide how blunt he could be. “You freaked out, so we never went down the staircase.”

“Yes, we did. There’s a door down there. I saw it with my own eyes.” She glared at first Collin and then Moreau. “You don’t believe me?”

“You must have been seeing things. You started shaking so hard I thought you were going to convulse, and then you ran down the hallway like you were being chased by a… You kept screaming for Les to leave you alone… He wasn’t there.”

Had he been about to say she ran like a ghost was chasing her? That was almost funny.

She didn’t remember screaming anything coherent. “I’m sorry. I thought Les had grabbed me. I really didn’t mean to claw you.” She dared to glance at the blood on Moreau’s shirtsleeves.

Moreau placed his hand over hers, a weirdly unsettling move despite the comfort it was surely meant to provide. “I know.”

She straightened her backbone and gulped down the rest of her drink. When she clunked her empty glass onto the table, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “It’s obvious to me that whatever angry presence lives in the hotel doesn’t want me to know what’s behind that door. Now, I want to know what
he’s
hiding more than ever.”

She had to know to keep
his
evil from taking over her life.

“He? He who?” Moreau’s confused frown deepened.

“Collin and I keep calling him
he
, but we don’t know who he is. He’s angry and mean and…evil.”

Moreau’s hand squeezed hers. “You have no idea who he is?”

She shook her head. “I would have guessed Les Wakefield, but now I don’t know.”

Moreau’s girlfriend, Jerilyn, threw jealous darts at her and pried Moreau’s hand from Elsa’s. “He’s not Les Wakefield. Les was nowhere near the hotel tonight.”

Moreau shot his girlfriend an irritated glare, but her hand remained wrapped around her boyfriend’s as if she was protecting him from Elsa.

She didn’t know Jerilyn, and she certainly wasn’t trying to take Moreau away from the blue-haired woman. Jeri needed to settle down. She was acting like a jealous cat. With that kind of attitude going on, how could Elsa believe anything she said?

“How do you know that?” Elsa’s tone was as sharp as she meant it to be. This woman needed to explain herself.

“I just know. Just like I knew I had to go over there tonight and flip the breaker for the servants’ quarters.” Jerilyn’s soft voice cast soothing vibes over Elsa’s fractured nerves despite the green glow in her jealous eyes.

“How could you possibly have known that?” She wasn’t ready to give the woman any credit just because she had a voice that could calm a stormy sea.

Jerilyn hesitated. “Nick and I have a special spiritual connection. I always know when he’s in danger, and I always know what to do.”

Nick Moreau hadn’t been in danger. Elsa had. None of them realized how much danger she had been in. She couldn’t quite form the words to tell them.

Moreau grunted. “Didn’t I tell you she’d probably show up?”

He had, but was that before or after they had gone down the staircase? The evening’s timeline seemed hopelessly tangled, and Elsa was too tired to unravel it. When she and Collin were alone, she’d get him to tell her exactly what had happened, step by freaky step.

If she could have another shot of whisky, she might tell Collin what Celia’s bones had said. He needed to know just in case something permanent happened to her.

The jealousy vanished from Jerilyn’s demeanor. Empathy erupted in her eyes as if she’d just read every one of Elsa’s thoughts and emotions. The woman slid her hand across the table and waited until Elsa nodded her consent.

She wrapped her hand around Elsa’s. “You have a gift, Elsa. You can sense things other people can’t. You can see behind the supernatural veil and catch a glimpse of what goes on there. You may not like it, but the gift is yours. You need to learn to use it wisely. Otherwise, it’s going to drive you crazy and perhaps get you…it might get you killed if you ignore it.”

Oh, but Elsa wasn’t ignoring it.

Moreau gazed at Jerilyn with a tired smile. “Jeri knows what she’s talking about.”

Collin rose from his chair, clearly uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had headed. “I think it’s time for us to go home.” He held out his hand to Elsa.

His stern expression caused her to draw back from his outstretched hand. She wasn’t ready to leave, not yet ready to face reality outside Moreau’s apartment door.

“No. Don’t leave. I want you to stay here.” Moreau surprised her with his authoritative command.

Jerilyn growled her disagreement.

Collin glanced toward her. “I think Elsa should stay at my house for a while. Am I gonna have to call a cab, or are you gonna take us back to Elsa’s car?”

What was wrong with them? Elsa wanted to open her mouth and object. She didn’t need the two of them deciding what was best for her, but she had not energy to argue, so she watched them go back and forth as if she were watching a tennis match.

Moreau took an even firmer tone. “I want you both to stay here. After what you’ve told me about this nut job leaving roses for you, don’t you want to know where Les Wakefield is before you stay at a place where he can find you?”

When had they told Moreau about the roses?

“I’ll go stay with Jerilyn.”

“He stays over at my place half the time anyway.” Jeri giggled, and the sound of her giggles scraped Elsa’s nerves.

She sighed, allowing resignation to sweep over her. Collin’s face told her everything. He didn’t have the energy to object either, not for very long anyway.

Collin hesitated for a long moment. “You got any ibuprofen? My head is killing me.”

He dropped back into his seat beside Elsa, and she rubbed his upper arm in sympathy. No doubt, all the stress had gotten to him.

After Moreau had found the painkiller, showed them where the fresh linens were, left them with his cell phone number, and pulled Jerilyn out the door behind them, Elsa glanced at the clock over the kitchen table and groaned. It was already past one in the morning. She turned to Collin, anxious to discuss the night’s events now that they were alone. Surely, their shared experiences were real.

Collin beat her to the question. “So what did you see, Elsa?”

He pulled her onto Moreau’s ratty, plaid sofa and sat next to her with his arm around her. She rested her head in the curve of his shoulder and started her story. “Let me start with my trip to Wakefield.” Before she got to the part about going back to Wakefield Manor and meeting the strange old woman there, she’d fallen asleep in Collin’s arms.

****

The clacking of dry bones rattled on the other side of the wall. Elsa leaned forward and peeked through the hole. To her horror, the long, bony fingers of a skeleton curved around the exposed spinal column of another skeleton, choking as if his neck was still covered in flesh.

She stepped back from the horrible sight, right into another skeleton. His fleshless digits wrapped around her wrists and dragged her to the middle of the room. They spun and twirled in a macabre dance until she thought the dizzying effect would cause her to fall. One at a time, more skeletons joined them in their circling celebration of death.

Round and round they went until she collapsed in a heap on the floor. The skeleton dancers continued their crazy ring of horror around her. Opening and shutting hinged jaws in wordless chatter. She tried to rise from the ground, but her heavy body wouldn’t cooperate.

Helplessness overwhelmed her. A scream brewed in the bottom of her gut, but took its sweet time exiting her mouth. When it finally found its voice, the intensity of her terror nearly ruptured her eardrums. She pressed her palms over her ears, but her hands couldn’t block the sound that generated from inside her.

The dance became more and more frenzied. Her heart pounded harder and harder until she thought it would burst, until she thought her veins would rupture and spill forth her life’s blood. A chill crept through her and froze her. She dared not move for fear of cracking and splintering into a million tiny shards of frozen bone and tissue.

Then the shower began. Rose after dead rose fell on her until a floral blanket covered her, suffocating her with the cloying, overpowering scent of decaying flowers.

The last thing she saw before the final rose fell and blocked her vision was the cruel expression on Les Wakefield’s face.

“Why? Why are you doing this to me?” Her plea for an explanation screamed through her brain.

His non-verbal answer drove a spike of fear into her over-stimulated psyche. “Someone has to die.”

Elsa attempted to pull reality out of the nightmare. “It’s just a dream. It’s just a dream.”

Her eyes flew open. “It’s just a dream.”

Collin’s anxious face came into focus. “Elsa, wake up.” He swept her hair out of her eyes. “It’s just a dream.”

He held her close, so close she could feel his heart beat next to her. His breath warmed the back of her head. Soothing, indecipherable words fell across her fractured psyche. The strength of his arms cocooned her. The trembling lasted for a long while. There was no telling how much time passed before she finally calmed down. She fell into an exhausted sleep lying between Collin and the back of Moreau’s ratty sofa, despite her fear of dreaming about the dance of the skeletons again.

****

“He said someone had to die, and Moreau said his girlfriend said that she’d seen a dead person in the hotel. I don’t think that’s coincidence. Do you?” Elsa stopped to catch her breath and nibble on a piece of jelly toast.

At Elsa’s request, Collin had spread an insane amount of grape jelly on the bread. Who put that much jelly on their toast? The gooey mess dripped off the edge and dribbled onto the plate. He watched as another droplet formed and lengthened until it separated from the bread and splatted onto the plate.

Her grape jelly toast preference was a contrast to her otherwise neat and tidy life. Elsa was very much an everything-has-a-place sort of person. Drippy jelly didn’t seem to go with the personality type.

“Collin? Are you listening?”

“Huh? Oh, sorry.” He slid into the seat opposite her at Moreau’s table. The small table barely fit in Moreau’s tiny kitchen, and Collin had to wiggle a bit to slide the chair under the tabletop. “How can you stand to have that much goop on your toast?”

“You know, Collin, sometimes you’re such a…”

He waved a finger at her. “Don’t even say it.” He propped on the table with his plate of eggs between his elbows. “And I heard what you said. You know I don’t believe in coincidence. I think sometimes things beyond our understanding pull the separate threads of our lives together. That’s not coincidence.”