Chasing Shadows Page 5

  It was then that Avery noticed the spiral-bound notebook shuffled in between the Dollywood cups and coffee creamer. Beside it sat a small Tupperware dish. Avery didn’t have to strain her eyes to see that the Tupperware contained peach cobbler.

  She chewed slowly, savoring the last bite of sweet-salty bacon as she considered her next words. “What’s the notebook for, Miss Jane?”

  The question was met with an arched, painted-on eyebrow. “I’m…uh…” The older woman coughed and cast a worried glance at Pearl Moody, who covered the notebook with her arm. “Notebook, dear?”

  “Don’t you say another word, Jane,” Mildred snapped. “She thinks you’re the weakest link.” Mildred glared at Avery. “Not that we have anything to hide.”

  “Then why not let Jane speak?”

  “Why? So you can entrap her? You may be family, but I’ve seen enough on Facebook to know that you can’t always trust the pol—”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Grandma.” Avery pushed back from the table. “Why is everything a drama with you? Just admit that you’ve become obsessed with that ridiculous cobbler recipe.”

  Mildred sat up straight in her chair and crossed her arms. “I’ll do nothing of the sort.”

  “You are and you know it.” She frowned at Jane and Pearl. “All of you are. I mean, what is the purpose of this here?” Avery waved a hand toward the Tupperware. “What, are you trying to reverse engineer Loralyn’s peach cobbler?”

  The silence that answered her spoke volumes.

  “That’s what I thought.” Avery shook her head. “What’s next, Grandma? Asking me to take the cobbler down to the station and have it chemically analyzed?”

  “Don’t be—can you do that?”

  “I’m going to work now.” Avery stood, took three steps toward the hallway, and stopped. She turned on her heel and stared down at the women. “This stops now. I mean it, Grandma. I’m putting my foot down.”

  Mildred snorted and mumbled under her breath.

  “What was that?”

  Jane choked down the sip of coffee she’d just taken before elbowing Mildred in the side. She beamed a smile at Avery. “She said you’ve always been a smart lass.”

  “Mmhmm,” Avery grumbled as she headed back to her bedroom.

  Chapter Five

  Cam’s first real vacation was four years after she had graduated from college, and light-years away from anyplace she had ever really wanted to go. She was sure there were worse places to go than Las Vegas in August. The Sahara, maybe, or hell during a heat wave.

  She got out of the shower and, after finally realizing that no matter how many of the thin towels she used to dry her body, she was still going to be damp when she got through, stepped back into the hotel room she was sharing with three other people. She kept trying to try to stem the tide of sweat rolling off her in rivulets, but it was like trying to calm down after someone tells you to, or understanding Euclidian Geometry. It just wasn’t going to happen.

  She finally gave up, decided it prudent to slip on her shower thongs before she put her bare feet on the suspiciously dark green carpet, and then went over to the antique air conditioning unit. It was blasting tepid air into the room, but she stood over it anyway for a minute or two, hoping to cool off enough that she could put on her underwear and have some reasonable expectation that it wouldn’t stick to her.

  It was as she stood there—naked, damp, and irritable—that she realized she’d probably made a huge mistake in allowing herself to be talked into this vacation by her co-worker, Wanda Nowicki. The flaky blonde was more acquaintance than friend, even though they often took lunch together. In fact, when Wanda asked Cam to join her and two other women that worked in the same medical claims department on the four-day vacation, she was already shaking her head and had opened her mouth to say a polite no, when Wanda had pronounced, “I don’t know why I asked. I know you won’t go. You don’t know how to have fun.”

  Cam had stopped in mid-type on her keyboard and turned her attention away from the computer screen that took up most of her desk in the cubicle she shared with Wanda. “What does that mean?”

  “Oh, c’mon Cam,” was Wanda’s reply, swirling a spoon in her coffee. She’d leaned back in her leather-backed office chair before turning to face Cam. “You always turn me down when I ask you to go out on Fridays. And I never see you at any of the clubs, or hear you talk about any guys.”

  “Well, that doesn’t mean…”

  Wanda had taken a sip of her coffee and shrugged. “Some people are just that way. Old-before-their-time sticks in the mud. It’s okay—I know you can’t help it.”

  “Now, look here…”

  “I’ll just ask Cathy Brumbelow in Accounting. She might want to go.”

  “I never said I wouldn’t go!”

  “But you were about to,” Wanda had said matter-of-factly before spinning her seat back around. She’d placed the coffee cup on her desk and then gone back to work, opening the filing cabinet that separated their two desks.

  Cam had watched Wanda make a show of sifting through the drawer’s contents, feeling a rare bubble of impulsivity rising up in her What the hell, she’d thought, it’s not like I don’t have three hundred hours of vacation built up. And it wasn’t as if she’d had any plans for the weekend. Laura, her on-and-off again girlfriend, was going to be visiting with her family in Seattle until the end of the month.

  “As a matter of fact…I would love to go.”

  “You would?” Wanda had shrieked. Ignoring the quizzical stares of everyone in the office, Wanda had jumped up and given Cam a hug. “We’ll have the best time! Just you wait!”

  Cam was still waiting.

  Sighing, she went over to throw herself on the bed, then—remembering that thing she’d seen on the six o’clock news where they’d held up a black light to show you what was really on hotel bedspreads—jumped up immediately. Cam threw the bedspread on the floor and sat down on the rock-hard mattress, deciding she might as well make the best of it since she’d already spent the money to come here. And staying inside a hotel room for the next four days was not an option.

  She had promised to meet the other girls, who couldn’t wait to start gambling, in front of the Fremont Hotel. From there, Wanda wanted to go find a cheap buffet and maybe take in a show. Cam pulled on a sleeveless dress and slid on a pair of sandals before leaving the room to head down the street to the Fremont.

  Located in the heart of “The Fremont Street Experience”—according to the brochure she’d picked up in the lobby—the Fremont was one of the oldest hotels in the downtown area. Wanda had wanted to meet in front both because she thought it would make a great selfie background and because of the ten dollar, early-bird buffet, which was surprisingly good and even came with a free glass of champagne. One of the other girls Wanda had talked into coming didn’t want her glass, so Cam drank it in the spirit of trying to be a good sport and the afore-mentioned making the best of things. In that same spirit, and undoubtedly because of that second glass of champagne, she was suckered into stopping on the sidewalk outside when a young man wearing a shiny red shirt handed each of them a flyer that read, “Ghost Seekers Wants You!”

  Wanda shrieked in Cam’s ear as she read hers. “Oh my god! It’s Ghost Seekers! You girls watch that on TV, don’t you? It’s like one of my favorite shows!”

  Cam, who had seen the show a few times, nodded.

  “The show is choosing extras for filming tonight,” the man said. “If you’re up for a once-in-a-lifetime experience, the line starts over there.” He pointed to a hodgepodge of people assembled in front of the Fremont marquee.

  Cam felt a jerk on her arm and then Wanda was steering her, along with their two co-workers, to the line that was quickly forming.

  What the hell, Cam thought, joining in behind the others hoping to be chosen to be on the show. This definitely beats sitting around a crappy hotel room.

  A man that Cam recognized as Zack, the ghost show’s young ho
st, appeared in front of the crowd, microphone in hand.

  “We need volunteers to go inside this historic haunted hotel…” He made a sweeping gesture across the street to the Old Nevada Hotel. Cam remembered seeing somewhere that the hotel was scheduled to be torn down the next week to make way for a new luxury hotel-casino.

  “The Old Nevada has seen the last pull of a handle,” Zach was saying, “but before it’s gone forever, the Ghost Seekers crew has obtained special permission to go inside and investigate this extremely haunted hotel.” The crowd of people around Cam made “ohh” and “ahh” sounds at his words. “It’s so large, though, and we have so little time, that we need some help! The three of us,” he said, indicating two other young men armed with huge cameras, “will each take one of the top three floors, where most of the paranormal activity has been reported. We need five more people, one for each of the remaining floors, to volunteer to investigate with us.” He gave a dramatic pause and flashed a smile at the crowd. “Now can I see a show of hands?”

  Not surprisingly, most of the people in line raised their hands. Cam watched as the Ghost Seeker crew went down the line eliminating a pair of grandmotherly tourists and all those who had children with them. She was not overly surprised to see that a pregnant woman, along with a man who was rather obviously not wrapped too tight—the one who had kept yelling something about the ghost of Frank Sinatra in the penthouse suite—also didn’t make the cut. By the time the production crew was through, there were about twenty people in line.

  At that point, the man in the red shirt came down the line randomly eliminating people. When he got to Cam and Wanda, Wanda motioned him closer and put her hand up to his ear. She whispered something to him that made him look surprised. He glanced over at Cam and then back at Wanda. He gave Wanda a sly smile and a thumbs-up, then yelled down the line at his two buddies. “I got mine!”

  Cam waited for him to walk out of earshot before she took Wanda by the arm and hissed in her ear. “What did you say to him?”

  “Something that got us picked.” She aimed a look of such ferocity at Cam that she took a step backward. “Don’t mess this up for me.” She turned and ran to catch up to the man who had pulled them out of line.

  Joining another group by the cameras, the man in the red shirt, whose name Wanda told her was Corey, winked at Cam and waggled his eyebrows as he helped her line up for the cameras. Cam gripped Wanda’s arm so tightly she made marks. “Tell me what you said to him, damn it.”

  “I simply asked if he liked blow jobs, and that if he picked us—Ow! What did you do that for?” She howled the last part as Cam punched her on the arm.

  “I think I’m about to give these people a ghost to hunt for,” Cam growled. “Why the hell—”

  Before she could continue, Zack, the host of the show, returned with more victims. He turned back to the crowd to thank them for participating and exhorting them to watch for the show coming later that season. By this time, the sun was setting, and the garish lights of the casino marquees began lighting up the scene. As the crowd of spectators slowly drifted away, he motioned for the small group they’d chosen to follow him into the Old Nevada lobby and, once inside, he turned and gave them a toothy smile.

  “We’re going to begin right away,” he said, “if that’s okay with everyone. Each of you will be given a floor to explore. We’re assigning each of you a cameraman, so you won’t actually be completely alone, though you shouldn’t reference him or talk to him unless it’s absolutely necessary while you’re filming. It gives the viewers the illusion you’re all alone, which makes it scarier.” He reached into his pocket and drew out a small, black object that he then held over his head for the group to see. “Also, you’ll have an EVP meter for electronic voice phenomena, an audio recorder, and a flashlight. Remember to call out the time to your audio recorder every twenty minutes or so. This is called ‘tagging’ and will help us later when we review the evidence you pick up.” He grinned at all of them, and Cam could see why he’d managed to get a cable show on TV. He was very charismatic, in a brash, cocksure kind of way.

  “All right, then, let’s saddle up and get to it! Like I said, me and my guys will do the top three floors, and you guys will have the rest.” He went down the line, counting to five and tagging each of them. Cam got the fourth floor. “There’s been activity reported all over the hotel, so hopefully, some of you will pick up some good evidence. Just keep your cool if you see or hear something. Remember you’re on camera. It’s okay to have some fun—in fact, I hope you all do—but let’s keep the cussing to a minimum. Okay, just wait right here while I assign you each a cameraman, and we’ll get to some ghost hunting.”

  It actually took closer to a half-hour to get everyone sorted out, and by that time, it was really dark both inside and outside the casino. The power was off inside the Old Nevada, so everyone began to switch on their flashlights as it grew darker. A scruffy young man with a red beard came up beside Cam.

  “I’m Larry, your cameraman. Are you ready?”

  For the first time, a tiny seed of doubt began to grow in the pit of Cam’s stomach. “As I’ll ever be, I guess,” she said, realizing she’d gone too far to back out now.

  He grinned at her. “Aw, it’s not so bad. Just dark. Keep your flashlight on as you walk through the hall and go in some of the rooms, then turn it off occasionally and do an EVP session. Call out and ask some questions. You watch the show a lot?”

  “Uh huh,” she answered in what she hoped to a convincing lie.

  “Well then, you know the drill. Let’s go get started.”

  The elevators weren’t working, so climbing up to the fourth floor was the worst part of things. That and the stuffy, almost claustrophobic stairwell. Seventy years of stale cigarette smoke still stained the air. Cam could hear the others above and below them, but just kept trudging upward, counting floors until they reached the fourth-floor landing. She and Larry peeled off from the crowd then and Larry opened the fire wall door to let her precede him into the hallway.

  Cam’s flashlight dimly illuminated a long hallway, reminiscent of the one in that movie, The Shining. As she played her light down the hall, she half-expected to see two little girls on four-wheelers, evil grins on their pale faces, poised to ride their big wheels down the hall toward her. But there was nothing except for a long-abandoned maid’s cart and some trash scattered here and there on the carpet.

  “Spooky, ain’t it?” Larry said softly. They were alone on the floor, with no reason to keep their voices low, but she answered him in just as low a tone.

  “Yes, it is. Should I call out now, do you think?”

  “Sure. I’m rolling already. We can edit out my voice and anything else we need to.”

  Cam thought about the other shows like this she’d seen on TV. “Hello?” she called out. “Is anybody there?”

  Silence—then Larry poked her on the arm. “You should turn on that audio recorder first.”

  “Oh, yeah,” she answered, thankful for a dark room to cover her blushing cheeks. “Thanks.” She switched it on and asked her question again with the same result. Her EVP meter was dead as a doornail, too.

  “So what will they do if we don’t get any answers or see anything?”

  “Probably just edit you out. We only keep about a quarter of the film we make, anyway. Don’t sweat it.”

  All this trouble to just wind up on the editing room floor? Something about that didn’t set right with Cam, but she was determined to do this and get out of there. She’d always tried to do the right thing, as a matter of fact, her whole life. It was kind of what she was known for. Good ole reliable Cam. Safe, dull, boring…

  “That’s what your friend said.”

  Cam whipped her head around. “What?” she asked, horrified to realize that she’d said that last part aloud.

  “Your friend,” Larry said, motioning with one hand. “The girl you came in with—she said that nothing would happen to you. I heard her tell her came
ra guy. She said, ‘You’re lucky you got me. Cam over there—nothing interesting ever happens to her.’ Then she made a little ‘L’ with her hand and put it on her forehead.” He grinned at Cam and shrugged. “Suits me, though. I like boring. It’s less work for me to do.”

  Clenching her jaw on what she wanted to say—Zack had said no cussing—she turned back around and marched over to the first room in the hallway, throwing open the door. “If anybody’s in here, knock three times like this…” She knocked on the wall beside her. “Don’t be shy. We want to hear you.”

  Making sure Larry didn’t see her moving, she clicked the heel of her sandal against the baseboard three times, then turned to give the cameraman an awestruck look. “Did you hear that?”

  He nodded excitedly. “Yeah. Do that again.”

  Thrilled that he was buying into it, she walked farther into the room. Cam went to stand by the window, keeping the bed between her and Larry. “That was great,” she called out to the “unseen presence” in the room. “But can you do that just one more time for me? If you’re here, please knock again to prove it’s you.”

  She knocked on the headboard of the bed the old “shave and a haircut” knock, five knocks in all, and waited, pausing for dramatic effect. She did it again and this time, she moved her foot surreptitiously to the bedframe and kicked it twice to answer.

  “Oh my God!” she said in an awestruck voice to Larry, and he nodded enthusiastically.

  “You’re doing so great.”

  Cam smiled. Boring, huh? She’d show that blow-jobbing bitch boring.

  To make it all look more believable, she didn’t answer her own knocks on her next few tries, and they proceeded back out of the room and slowly down the hallway, going in every room. Larry seemed jittery and nervous, and she wondered just how suggestible he really was. In the next room she entered, she decided to do an experiment to see. There was a floor lamp next to the window. It was faintly outlined from the light outside on Fremont Street and cast a dark shadow in the corner of the room. She took a step inside and gasped, pointing toward it.