Ultimate Supernatural Horror Box Set

Chapter 5

“How bad do you need the money?”

Janey Mays leaned back in her cracked leather chair, a cigarette dangling from her lips. The office was hazy with smoke, and the hotel’s owners had been pushing for a tobacco-free policy, but they’d only bought the overgrown outhouse six months before. Since they lived in Florida and Janey had worked her way up over forty years from laundry maid to manager, she felt more attuned to the hotel’s needs and more qualified to set the ground rules.

“I’m in for a couple of grand,” Violet said, fidgeting on the edge of the metal folding chair.

Janey made sure the employees were uncomfortable in the office. It wasn’t difficult, since the philodendron had long since choked to death and the potted fern was curled and brown. The office was ensconced behind the front desk like a secret catacomb, with no windows and a bare bulb for light. Two rusted filing cabinets were packed with moldering guest registers, and a pile of outdated menus threatened to topple from above them. Janey’s desk bore a computer that barely had enough memory to type a letter, but it cast a sickly green glow on her wrinkled skin, so it was worth keeping around for visual effect.

“A couple of grand,” Janey said. “Barely a felony.”

“Please,” Violet said.

Violet Felkerson was one of the pretty ones. Hospitality hostesses fared better when they were pretty; the guests were more forgiving of cold water, dirty sheets, and overpriced room service when the apologies came from pert, smiling, submissive lips. And Janey enjoyed this part of the job more when they were attractive. They deserved to meet the ugly inside.

“Normally, one strike and you’re out,” Janey said. “This hotel was built on tradition and dedication and honesty, and anybody who doesn’t buy into that has no place at the White Horse.”

Violet’s thick eyelashes descended and fluttered. She was about to cry. Janey had chosen well, because this only worked on those who couldn’t afford to walk away.

“I’ve got a reputation to uphold,” Janey said. “They don’t call me ‘Battle Ax’ for nothing.”

Actually, “Battle Ax” was only one of her nicknames. She’d overheard “Horse’s Ass,” “The Mayflower Madame,” and “The Warden” as well, and no doubt plenty of other, cruder ones had made the rounds over the years.

She drew in smoke and let it tumble out of her mouth and across Violet’s blinking face. “Tell you what. I think we can cover that, move around some money from the maintenance budget. An unexpected leak in the boiler system, maybe. Chad and Stevie will fall for that.”

Violet angled forward even more, hands clasped as if Janey were the ghost of Mother Teresa. Janey jammed her cigarette into her mouth to stifle a chuckle.

“Thank you,” Violet said. “I can replace it in six weeks.”

“You won’t tell anyone?”

Said the spider to the fly.

Violet almost stuttered. “Will you?”

Janey stubbed out her cigarette in the overflowing ashtray, one of the lipstick-stained butts rolling free and bouncing to the floor. “I think we can work something out.”

A few thousand, Violet had said. According to Janey’s reckoning, the actual amount of the embezzlement had been somewhere around four thousand dollars, give or take a few hundred. Janey had noticed because she was constantly calculating how much she could steal for herself. After all, a woman had to rely on her own devices. When looks faded, all you had left was cunning. It was a lesson Violet was still at least two decades away from learning.

Chad and Stevie would never notice the parched till. They’d bought the hotel as an “investment” that was actually a tax loss to offset the millions they were making in Palm Beach condominiums. The one time the couple had actually visited the property, they’d decided to book a room at the Courtyard by Marriott in neighboring Boone rather than sleep under their own leaky roof. So Janey’s accounting was a like a whore’s career in a seaport—tight going in and loose going out.

Violet looked so exuberant that Janey wished she’d played a little longer. But Janey tended to burn them out too fast, and with the hotel’s new billing as “the Blue Ridge Mountain’s most haunted hotel,” the job had been getting harder to fill, despite the recession and the fringe benefit of occasional free drinks at the bar.

“We can stick some extra charges on Wayne Wilson’s bill.” Janey stood, the chair creaking with a metallic brittleness that befit the hotel’s reputation. “A set-up fee here, a maintenance surcharge there. We’re giving him the hotel for the weekend, so he shouldn’t be surprised by a few surprises.”

Janey made a slow, stately trek across the floor, which was difficult because of the travel magazines, electric heater, broken lamp, and mop bucket that created an obstacle course on the floor. She made a ceremony of opening the door, which gave a gratuitous creak. She’d instructed maintenance to quit oiling door hinges. She also added extra mirrors in the hall and reduced the wattage of the light bulbs. All to create atmosphere.

Stroke of genius, marketing the hotel as a ghost hunter’s getaway. Hype your cobwebs. It’s easier than dusting.

“Make sure Mr. Wilson gets what he needs,” Janey said. “He’s talking about making this an annual event.”

“He’s kind of creepy,” Violet said.

“Play along. Act scared. Let him believe what he wants to believe.”

“He asked me if I’d ever had any ‘experiences’ here.”

“A little white lie never hurt anybody,” Janey said, appreciating the irony. She’d busted Violet for embezzling, but here she was promoting dishonesty as simply good business.

As Violet exited in a waft of lavender and apples, Janey smiled, the parchment of her cheeks crinkling. The pleasure was still spreading across her face when the phone rang. Cell phones rarely worked here on the carapace of the Eastern Continental Divide, another advantage to the new marketing angle. The jangling phones and crackling lines added to the mystique.

“Janey, it’s Stevie.”

“Hey, good news. We booked it full for the conference.”

“Good,” Stevie said, though his tone was ambivalent.

“Something wrong?”

“This isn’t easy for me. You know how I much I love the place.”

Janey didn’t fall for it. Instead, her gut tensed in paranoia. “Yes.”

“Chad and I had an offer.”

“An offer? I didn’t even know you were selling—”

“Two mil an acre. Condo project. They’ll knock off a little for the demolition costs, but they want it fast to catch the good interest rates. We couldn’t pass it up, not the way the hotel has been bleeding red ink.”

“How soon?” Janey said, skin tingling, hoping she’d have a good half a year or so to rob the till. Early retirement wasn’t so bad.

“Sunday.”

Sunday? Two days from now.

“I don’t—”

“We’ll be down next week to deal with it. Don’t worry, Janey, you’ll get a nice severance package. Chad and I aren’t monsters.”

“What about the staff?” Janey said, not that she cared. She was buying time to give her racing mind a chance to settle down.

“Don’t say anything so they don’t walk out. Give the ghost hunters their money’s worth. One last hurrah for the old White Horse, eh?”

You can bet your sweet little tush on that one, Stevie.

“Farewell, love.” Stevie hung up.

The hotel was her life, her identity, her playground. She’d imagined keeping her room on the second floor until they wheeled her out in a zippered bag. Janey gripped the dead phone, unable to face the void that loomed in front of her.

“Two days.”

Had she said it aloud?

She had the acute feeling that someone was watching her.

Janey turned. Nothing.

Paranoia.

But that didn’t mean they weren’t watching.

She wondered if they’d overheard.

Two days.