It was enough. Trey went down, moaning. He tried to hold on to Hollis but ended up sliding to the ground holding on to the man’s leg. Hollis kicked Trey off, and Trey rolled onto his back, his face contorted in agony. Still, when Hollis attempted another kick, Trey made a grab for the man’s foot.
Hollis shook himself free and gave Trey one more kick to the side before returning his attention to me. Trey was pretty much out of it, holding his side and groaning.
I shifted, giving myself more space between me and the edge. Hollis loomed over me, the tire iron held high. He was blurry, and I realized my glasses must have fallen off when he hit me the first time. “You little fucker,” Hollis snarled. “Couldn’t leave well enough alone.”
“
Daaaad!
”
The sound could have been the wind, but I knew it wasn’t. Hollis must have as well, as he paused, the tire iron still ready to slam into my skull.
“
Daaaad!
”
Darryl Hollis turned his head. Standing a few yards away from us was the ghost of his son, Coleman. Coleman wasn’t solid, but you could see him well enough. The long blond hair, the sad green eyes.
“Cole?” Hollis’s voice was uncertain.
“
Don’t do it, Dad
.”
Hollis’s lips quivered. “You’re dead,” he said flatly.
“
Dad, please!
”
Hollis shook his head. “You’re not real. You can’t be.” He turned back to me, murderous rage back in his eyes. “This is all your fault, you little bastard! You’ve got me seeing things!”
He started to bring the tire iron down.
I only half saw what happened, because I had shut my eyes to brace for the blow. I was aware that the wind had picked up, as it whistled in my ears. When I dared to open my eyes just a little, wondering why Hollis hadn’t followed through, I realized it wasn’t the wind I was hearing. Coleman Hollis had vanished, at least his form had. In his place was a fog, a mist. It was this, rushing toward Darryl Hollis, that caused the cacophony.
Hollis didn’t see the ghostly cloud until it was upon him. His eyes opened wide in fear, and he screamed as he stumbled back to get away from the rapidly advancing mist.
And he tumbled over the side of the ravine.
As he disappeared, the spectral fog vanished.
I heard him fall. I heard the thump of his body hitting the ground, but I heard something else as well. A cracking sound. A sickening thud, and I knew even before I peered over the edge that Darryl Hollis’s skull had hit the big rock at the bottom of the ravine.
I twisted so I could see better. He was sprawled out in the mud, and sure enough, his head was lying on the stone. Blood was seeping out of the back of his skull, staining the surrounding area.
With a groan I rolled onto my back. “Trey?” I asked. “Are you okay?”
“Peachy,” he answered. “You?”
“I can’t move my arm. Damn, that guy is—was—strong.”
“What happened? Where is he?”
“He fell over the edge. If he’s not dead, he soon will be.”
“Can’t say I’m horribly upset over that. Guy was fucking insane.”
I wasn’t going to argue the point. I smiled, despite the pain in my shoulder. Here we were, just having escaped being murdered, lying in the mud having a chitchat. “Shouldn’t one of us call the cops?”
Trey fished his phone out of his pocket. After a moment I heard him snort. “No signal.”
I got mine out, but the result was the same. “I guess we’ll have to walk.”
“That should be fun,” Trey said.
Somehow that made us both laugh like idiots.
“MICHAEL, HONEY?”
I was in the kitchen of the Coffee Cafe, preparing some sandwiches. It wasn’t easy going, as I had to do it mostly one-handed, as my right arm was in a sling. The lunch rush was over, but we still had a few customers. I looked up to see Gloria Ramsey speaking through the pass.
“Yeah?” I thought she had some changes the customers had made to their order.
“Deputy Hughes is out here. She’d like to have a word with you. Trey can finish those up.”
Trey overheard and was already gently pushing me out of the way, smacking his hip against mine. “Move,” he said jokingly. “You’re in my way.”
I stuck my tongue out at him and went out to see what Hughes wanted.
It had been days since the police had uncovered the bodies of both Coleman Hollis and Bryan Finn. Finn had actually been buried in an old trunk that Darryl Hollis and Gary Thornton had hauled out to the vacant lot. Gloria had reveled in the gossip as it trickled into the cafe.
Earlier, Trey’s mother had filled me in on the “consensus of opinion” from the gossipmongers of Banning. “Apparently,” she said, in that hushed tone people use for the really juicy tittle-tattle, “Bryan Finn was the first victim. Darryl Hollis spied the young man leaving his son’s bedroom late one night and followed him outside. The two got into an argument, and Hollis beat and strangled poor Bryan. Then he got his buddy Thornton to help him bury the body.”
While I was certain something of the sort had taken place, I wasn’t sure Gloria had the facts correct, and I must have shown my skepticism because she assured me she got her “intel” from Betty Schultz, who had heard it from Erin Hughes herself.
“See, Darryl thought that if he got rid of Bryan,” Gloria went on, “there might be a chance for Coleman. I guess Darryl thought he could beat Cole into being straight. Cole became suspicious, though, and Darryl lured his son out into the woods and killed him. Buried him right there, where you found those bones.”
I suppressed a shudder, thinking about that night. I was sure I’d have nightmares about bridges, bones, and storms for months to come. At least in the dreams I’d had so far, Trey had been there to offer comfort and solace.
I also wondered what stories Gloria had spread about that night. So far, from what I heard, Trey and I had been barely alive when we finally crawled across the abandoned bridge. One customer asked me if it was true that Trey had left me barely conscious in the woods while he went back to the road and flagged down a passing car. I assured her that the story was exaggerated.
The truth was considerably less dramatic. In fact, we’d both made it over the bridge, and we
had
tried to get a couple of cars to stop for us, but the drivers had sped off, undoubtedly thinking that it wasn’t in their best interest to pick up two ragged, filthy guys in the early hours of the morning. Trey and I had laughed at the face of one motorist as he increased his speed at the sight of us.
Back on the road, though, we finally had a phone signal and called the sheriff’s department.
I went out to the dining room to find Hughes seated at the table by the front window. She smiled and stood when she saw me.
“You’re looking well,” she said, shaking my hand.
“Better than the last time you saw me, anyway.” Hughes had been one of the deputies who had responded to our call. The other officer had been dubious when we said we had found a body out in the woods, or maybe he just hoped we were wrong. “You guys sure it was a human body? People hunt out here all the time,” he’d said. “Maybe it was the bones of an animal.” Hughes hadn’t doubted us for a moment.
“You got time to sit?” Hughes asked me.
I looked back to the counter, where Gloria nodded. Hughes and I sat.
“I thought someone should bring you up to speed about what we’ve found.” Hughes looked tired, probably from working extra hours. A decades-old double murder wasn’t exactly something the town of Banning dealt with on a regular basis.
“I’ve heard that Gary Thornton confessed his part in the crime,” I said.
Hughes’s cheek twitched. “I really can’t talk about that, although, just between you and me, his lawyer has warned him that he’s said too much already. No, what I wanted to tell you was about Bryan Finn. Or, more accurately, about the box he was buried in.”
“What about it?”
“It was a very old chest, lined with metal. Might be lead. I don’t know. Tin is more likely, I’d say. But Jesenia Maupin stopped me on the street this morning, and she said she had a vision about Finn’s burial.”
I sat forward. I knew better than to dismiss Jesenia’s visions.
“She said that the metal lining of the box must have held Bryan’s spirit there. Inside the trunk. That’s why, according to her, Bryan and Coleman’s spirits couldn’t be together.” Hughes sighed. “Of course none of that goes on any report I’ll be making. I just thought I’d let you know.”
“Thanks for telling me.”
Hughes tilted her head and went for a change of topic. “How’s the arm?”
I wiggled the fingers of my damaged appendage. “Painful. But I guess it was a pretty clean break. The doctor’s putting the cast on tomorrow. He wanted to wait for the swelling to go down. Luckily, he gave me some awesome pain pills.”
“And the new apartment? Settling in okay?”
“It’s fine. Perfect. Still feels a little weird, living on my own. But I think I like it.”
“Well, you’re a Banning resident now. Officially.”
I grinned. “I’m not sure, considering the things that have happened, if that’s a good thing or not.” I spied Trey working back in the kitchen. At least Banning had him going for it. That was enough to keep me in town, if nothing else.
“Jesenia also told me that you and she are going back to the Raven’s Rest later on today. Another séance?”
“Not exactly. It was Betty Schultz’s idea, actually. She wants to see if the spirit of Coleman Hollis is still in residence, or if he’s gone now. Jesenia’s just going to see what her psychic impressions tell her.”
I was anxious to see what the atmosphere of the inn would be as well. Was Coleman at peace, finally? I hoped so.
“ARE YOU
ready for this?”
Trey sounded chipper, the words offhand and easy, but I knew there was a seriousness behind them. I felt so close to Coleman Hollis. Hell, he’d been literally a part of me! What if all that I’d—we’d—gone through, had all been for nothing? What if Coleman’s spirit was still trapped within the walls of the Raven’s Rest, doomed for eternity to be searching for his lost love?
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I said, sighing.
An early snow had started to fall. Big, fluffy flakes filled the air, and I was reminded of an old Peanuts cartoon, which had Charlie Brown, Lucy, and the gang attempting to catch snowflakes on their tongues. Maybe that would be a better way to spend an evening, out in the open air with Trey and trying to relive childhood glories. Better than a night in a haunted inn, checking on the status of its resident ghosts.
Trey held my hand as we mounted the porch steps of the Raven’s Rest. It was comforting, which he meant, but also natural. Trey was my rock, my anchor. Unlike with Kevin, though, I didn’t feel like Trey defined me. I was a person on my own. With Kevin, my only identity had been Kevin’s boyfriend. That was my existence. My fault as well as Kevin’s, I know, but it had become so toxic. With Trey, I was me. Trey’s boyfriend, yes, but more as well.
That was an empowering thought. Slightly terrifying too, but I could deal with it.
What I wasn’t sure I could deal with was what lay beyond the inn’s front door.
Inside, I was surprised to find that nothing seemed to have changed. I had thought—hoped, even—I would immediately sense that Coleman’s spirit had gone, happy that he’d finally been reunited with Bryan. But standing in the foyer, I couldn’t tell. The atmosphere seemed the same. Lonnie was behind the desk, chatting with some guests. He smiled at us in acknowledgment before returning to the couple obviously checking in.
“Well, if it isn’t Banning’s favorite couple!” Jesenia Maupin emerged from the solarium, wearing a bright blue outfit with lots of frills, her Town Witch button proudly situated over her breast. The couple at the desk turned in puzzlement, but Jesenia ignored them. She swooped over and gave Trey and me a kiss on the cheek in turn. After kissing me, she turned back to Trey and pinched his cheek. “And this one’s so handsome, I could just eat him up!”
Trey blushed, touching his face. “Um… yeah. Thanks.” There were still slight traces from where he’d been scratched that night in the woods. The bruises on his back from being clobbered by Hollis had been nasty-looking, but the damage was actually slight, as the man couldn’t really get a good angle. Trey assured me that they didn’t really hurt, although I’d caught him swallowing some ibuprofen before we’d headed out.
The new guests gathered up their bags and headed for their room. As soon as they were gone, Betty Schultz entered. I had the feeling she’d been in the solarium waiting for them to depart. Probably didn’t want mention of ghosts in the inn to put off new arrivals. She beamed at us as well, and she was holding a copy of the
Banning Herald
. The front page was devoted to the big story, complete with pictures of the places where Coleman and Bryan had been buried, and shots of Hollis, Thornton, Trey, and me.
I’d already seen the paper and cringed at the thought of the photo of me and Trey. It had been taken as we’d left the sheriff’s office, and I hardly thought it was flattering. I thought I looked like death warmed over. Trey, however, looked scruffy and ragged but still somehow managed to be handsome as hell. Or maybe that was just my prejudice showing.
“I should have you autograph this,” Mrs. Schultz said, tucking the paper under her arm. “You’ve certainly given us a boon. We’re almost full up!”
“People wanting to stay in the haunted inn?” Trey asked.
There had been no mention of ghosts in the newspaper, but Jesenia had written a long blog post about our experiences. Word had apparently gotten out.
“Mostly,” Mrs. Schultz admitted. “Some are just staying here because of the notoriety of the murders. I’ve already had two calls from reality TV shows. You know, those true ghost type shows. Something tells me we won’t be having a slow period for quite some time!”
Jesenia touched my arm. “Betty has kept the Ulalume Suite free, though, so that we can check it out.”
“Have you been up there yet?” I asked.