The Gravedigger's Brawl (26 page)

Wyatt kept glancing at the lake, wondering why it made him so tense. Fog on the water was anything but unusual, and the lights weren't out of the ordinary either. Every special occasion had colored lights in Fountain Lake. Regardless, Wyatt pulled the dog off the sidewalk that led around the lake and started him across the street, back toward the Fan. When they reached the block that hosted Ash's building, they walked down the opposite side and turned the corner into the alley behind.

Bullseye found himself a patch of grass and continued to wag his little tail as he did his business. None of the grass at the lake had been appropriate. He was a ridiculously happy dog. Wyatt looked around the alley at the bones of the old buildings, not really interested in watching the mutt pee. There were parking spaces behind Ash's building, and a large dumpster. The entrances to the fire escapes were also back here, and it was interesting to see where old windows had been bricked up and new ones had been cut. There were several doors along the ground floor level that led to Wyatt knew not where.

Wyatt was still looking around when he caught a glint of metal on the ground. He frowned and took a step closer, and his heart leapt into his throat when he realized what he was looking at.

He bent down and fought off the dog's excited pawing and licks as he picked up the set of keys. They had a battered fleur-de-lis keychain attached to them, the same one Wyatt had seen on Ash's keys the first night he'd gone home with him. Wyatt dug the key to Ash's building out of his pocket and held it up to one of the three keys on the keychain. It didn't match. He pushed the dog away as it wrapped around him and tried the second key.

It was a perfect match, and Wyatt swallowed against a sudden tightness in his throat. How had Ash's lost keys gotten here?

“You look like you lost something,” someone commented from behind him.

Wyatt whirled around, searching for the source of the voice in the dark crevices of the building. A man stepped away from the shadow of the dumpster and Wyatt's heart raced even as he tried to calm himself.

“No, I uh . . . I found them,” he stuttered as he held up the keys and jangled them. The dog sat down behind him and whined, winding the leash around his ankles.

“Oh, that's good,” the man drawled as he moved into the light. With a rush of relief, Wyatt recognized him as one of Ash's older neighbors. He turned and began strolling down the alley, using a cane to aid his progress. “You have a nice night, now,” he said over his shoulder.

“And you,” Wyatt managed to stutter. He watched the old man, realizing that he was nearly hyperventilating as he stood there. He ran his hand over his face and then opened his eyes again, half expecting the man to be standing right in front of him despite having recognized him. But the shadowed figure turned the corner and continued on into the night, leaving Wyatt alone and very nearly too scared to move.

He glanced down at the keys, found right where Ash had said he'd seen the man in the top hat holding them, and he began to shake. Suddenly all the nonsense about ghosts and hauntings didn't seem like such nonsense after all. Everything he'd been trying to tell himself, the explanations for the sounds, the shadows he'd seen in the corner of his eye, Ash's terrifying experiences.

They were all real.

When Wyatt picked Ash up Monday morning, he waited until after Ash had told him about the competition to mention the keys. Ash had placed tenth overall, which Wyatt found astounding considering his recent head injury and how many entries there were, and he had won almost $10,000 in prize money. Ryan had followed up with a twelfth place finish.

They really were studs of the flairing world.

“You have to make the overhead lights so they blind him, you know? Or he can't do anything,” Ash said as he laid his seat back and closed his eyes. “He gets so easily distracted by low-cut shirts in the audience. Of course, hell, I'm the same way with anything shiny, so I shouldn't be saying anything.”

Wyatt smiled fondly at him. Maybe now wasn't the best time to tell Ash he'd become a believer in the hauntings. Ash was exhausted. And happy. “Do you work tonight?” he asked instead.

“No, bar's still shut down.” Ash sighed. “But we were going to go in and get some shit done since we left Caleb for three days.”

“Caleb's done.”

“What?”

“He got everything done. Noah and I helped a little. There's some finishing touches left and some things to be delivered, but the bar reopened today.”

“You're kidding! That's incredible.”

Wyatt grinned and glanced sideways at Ash. He saw a flash of a face in the window above Ash's head, a dark silhouette that seemed to be staring at him. When he turned his head to look at it more directly, it was gone.

His heart was beating harder and his body had gone cold. He looked again, trying to catch another glimpse, but all he saw were cars passing by and the city of Richmond growing larger as they neared downtown.

“You okay?” Ash asked when he noticed Wyatt looking back and forth between the road and the space over his head.

Wyatt gave the glass one last glance before turning his attention back to the road with a curt nod. “Yeah. Yeah, I'm good.”

“You sure? You look a little . . . pale.” Ash sat his seat up and leaned in close.

Wyatt nodded and tried to give a reassuring smile. He put his hand on Ash's knee. Ash's hand slid over Wyatt's, fingers threading through his. The tips of Ash's fingers were cold. Wyatt squeezed them, trying to warm them.

Maybe he wouldn't tell Ash about the keys just yet. He was obviously a little too close to all this ghost business if he was managing to spook himself now.

He gave that window one more glance. Yeah. Far too close.

The sound of a key in the lock and a door creaking open barely registered with Ash, and it wasn't until Caleb stepped in front of him and made eye contact that Ash forced himself to focus.

“What are you doing here, lad?”

Ash blinked and glanced around the bar. “I don't know.”

Caleb raised an eyebrow and discreetly began to look him over.

“I woke up and I was here.” He realized he was sitting on the bar, legs swinging free, staring listlessly at the newly refinished floor. Music played on the sound system, an odd mixture of hardcore rock and old-world sea shanty.

Caleb met his eyes again in alarm. “You don't know how you got here?”

Ash shook his head. “I don't have my keys,” he whispered. “I don't know how I got in.”

Caleb blinked at him for a moment before he seemed to shake it off. He nodded.

Ash remembered Wyatt driving him home last night. He remembered Wyatt staying the night. He remembered waking up after Wyatt had left for work, and going to take a shower. And then he was here.

“I'm going to call Ryan in. And then I'll call Wyatt and Noah, okay?”

“No,” Ash begged. “Please. He thinks I'm half-crazy already.”

“Ash. You like him, right? He likes you? Something is obviously wrong, so let him help you through this.”

Ash shook his head, staring at the floor again. His eyes were losing focus. The world was beginning to blur into something that didn't matter again. All that mattered was the seductive draw of giving himself over, letting something stronger than him take control.

“I'm calling him.”

Ash didn't protest. He continued to stare at that spot on the floor, unwilling and unable to look away.

The board was meeting to discuss a variety of things. Wyatt had seen everything on the agenda, from his position as curator to what to do about the mice in the attic that had been snacking on General Lee's dinner jacket. There was a news crew coming later that day to observe the unveiling of a one-hundred-year-old newspaper, and Wyatt and Noah were set to supervise that if Wyatt still had his job at that point. Some people had been complaining about strange noises in the Haunted Hall, but they were chalking that up to either overactive imaginations or pranks on the interns.

Wyatt shivered. He was so sick of ghosts, he almost wished he'd just taken his pink slip and walked away.

His phone began to vibrate just as the meeting was starting up. He moved around in his seat, plucking the phone out of his pocket and peering at it, trying to be discreet. Gravedigger's. That was odd, and though Wyatt was a little concerned, he didn't dare answer it while his neck was already on the chopping block.

“So, Dr. Case, what have you got to say for yourself?” Edgar Reth said to start the meeting.

Wyatt wished he had the power to make someone burst into flames with his mind.

Reth's gaze darted around uneasily, then settled back on Wyatt.

There was a knock on the door, loud in the tense silence. Noah poked his head into the room and hissed at Wyatt.

Wyatt turned wide, incredulous eyes on his friend. Noah pointed at the phone.

Wyatt gestured toward the table and the twelve board members who were watching them.

Noah pointed more emphatically, and Wyatt waved him away. Noah ducked out of the room again, and Wyatt turned his attention back to Reth, surprised to find that he was flustered now. What could be going on that would prompt Noah to interrupt this meeting?

“Dr. Case?” Reth demanded. “You're here to defend your job.”

“This is completely out of line,” Emelda said as she crossed one hand over the other on the table in front of her. “The troubles of the museum do not fall solely on Dr. Case's head.”

“He
is
the curator,” Stuart Lincoln said.

She was silent, and the little man sank into his chair as if he'd just realized what he'd done.

“He may be the curator, but the power of decision-making lies with the board, does it not? Therefore it would stand to reason that the responsibility for the museum's current troubles should lie with our director, who maintains the power of final decision-making, and not Dr. Case.”

Wyatt and the other members of the board looked from her to Reth, who had just turned a ghastly shade of gray.

“We are not here to talk about me,” Reth said.

“Perhaps we should be,” one of the other members said, turning his chair toward Reth.

Wyatt sat back, surprised, and watched the ensuing attack like a man on safari watching a pride of lions take down a zebra.